Some people consider themselves a mom at conception, others think that milestone is more likely achieved after the birth of their little bundle of joy. Rounding the bend on Caleb’s 2nd birthday, and the impending birth of #2, I still find myself wondering at what point my actual conversion occurred??? I don’t think my experience can be pinned on either occasion definitively… and generally that thought is the impetus behind all my insecurities about being a mom in the first place.
Before I go any further, this is not one of ‘those’ fishing blogs… Anyone reading may know what I’m talking about… We’ve all seen the status updates or comments where someone makes the statement “I’m not good enough, yada, yada, yada…” and then waits for the comments to come pouring in about how amazing they are. This is not that blog. Having kept Caleb alive for two years, relatively healthy, and thoroughly loved I do feel confident overall that in the grand scheme of things I’m slowly but surely earning my stripes. I was just feeling a little introspective, and wanted to share another layer of the ‘Julie Onion’.
I question the timing of my conversion into motherhood, based on my radically different interpretation of events leading up to and shortly following Caleb’s birth. The prevailing stories center around love at first sight, tears, an immediate and unbreakable bond, etc…
My experience… it felt like there was an alien inside of me for the ~4 months I could feel the little bugger, and before that, it didn’t even really feel real since I didn’t feel any different. I tried the talking to ‘it’ before I know what ‘it’ was, and felt more foolish than maternal. I started to get REALLY concerned about my ‘maternal instincts’, when you hear everyone else having the conversation with the hubs about “if it comes down to me and the baby, save the baby…” and the only thing I kept thinking was “I could do this again, save me, SAVE ME”. The part that made it all super weird to me was, this was planned… I thought for sure when you make the conscience decision to try, all those ‘mommy’ feelings just came naturally. So I waited… When they didn’t come, I resigned myself to the fact that conception wasn’t my tipping point, surely birth will be.
When they put the tiny guy in my arms, I think I may have gone into shock. There is that hormone they talk about, the one that makes you forget a lot surrounding the labor/delivery part so your more inclined to do it again… That is a STRONG hormone! I don’t remember much at all, other than thinking “Holy Shit”… on repeat for probably close to a week straight. I’ll say one thing, I don’t know how you could make it through that first week, (well in reality have children at all) and NOT believe in a higher power… It all just works, somehow, without the instruction manual everyone thinks they need.
As I write about it more, the insight is becoming that much more clear, that while a title transfer occurs at birth the actual conversion to a mom is an ever evolving process… as they grow, so do I.
I just heard a tiny ‘gong’ inside my head, and the voice of Mr. Miyagi from Karate Kid come through saying “Very good, little grasshopper”… By golly, I may have just cracked the eternal code... cause that little nugget of insight applies to my title as wife too… I picked up that handy tag line on August 21st 2004… but continue evolving there as well. Ahhhhh, what a wonderful feeling removing all that pressure trying to be the perfect wife/super mom, etc… from the start. Maybe it’s not the age old battle pitting creation against evolution… we were created to evolve.
Geeze, I need to just start blogging about my random insecurities more often, if this kind of clarity is going to bust its way through as I write. I now feel perfectly at ease knowing my ‘version’ of mom more closely aligns with the host of “Man vs. Wild”, never knowing what obstacles I’ll be presented with or what MacGyver type sick skills I’ll employ to get myself out of the mess, vs. “Super Nanny” to the rescue with her creative solutions for raising perfectly well balanced and adjusted kids…. It’s all about evolution baby!
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Monday, March 15, 2010
"Freaky Friday" Fell on a Sunday
The most peculiar thing happened yesterday. If you’ve ever seen the movie “Freaky Friday”, or at least understand its premise, Parent/Child switching bodies for an undisclosed duration of time, you will understand when I tell you that this actually happened to Caleb and I, for just about an hour Sunday afternoon.
We’ve had a stretch of glorious spring weather here in Austin, and this weekend was no exception. Mid-Seventies, blue sky, sunshine… days don’t come much better than these. Tack on the fact that it’s a weekend, and there is a ‘Kite Festival’ going on downtown Austin, and we’ve got a recipe for success! To accurately portray just HOW excited I was for the possibilities of this day, I can truly say that I wasn’t even THAT disappointed losing my hour of sleep to daylight savings time, because the day couldn’t start fast enough! (I can almost hear the gasps from those that know me well enough… Me… Not caring about losing an hour of sleep?!? I know… Shocking!)
We made it through the formalities of the morning… Church, check… Lunch, check…. Nap, check. It only got better, when, upon waking Caleb from his nap, and explaining that we were going to ride a ‘BUS’, his face truly LIT UP, eyes wide, huge smile, and from that point through the 20 minute drive downtown… All we heard was “Bus, bus, bus, bus…”.
When we arrived at the designated parking garage to catch the shuttle busses to the event, the line wrapped clear around the entire parking garage…. And Kevin wasn’t exactly thrilled with our chosen parking spot, marked tow-away zone, which I assured him was only a Mon-Fri notice. Caleb had SEEN the busses and the excitement had reached fever pitch… I HAD to get him on a BUS! Kevin worked some sense through my single minded focus of getting Caleb on a bus, and explained there are plenty of city busses, we can forgo the festival, catch a city bus, get some ice cream and hit a different park… I was able to concede holding a two year old still in an hour line didn’t seem worth the reward, plan B would work.
We found ourselves a nice parking spot, safely marked as open, and started waiting for our bus. 10 minutes or so passed, as well as two busses heading the opposite direction, and we decided to keep things moving. We’d just walk towards our ice cream destination and with the bus stops spaced about ever 200 yards, we could certainly make it to one if we saw the opportunity approaching. 20 minutes later we had walked the 7 blocks and were ordering our ice cream cones. We enjoyed our delicious treats, and as luck would have it, a city bus pulled up immediately after stepping out of the ice cream parlor…. Perfection!
If I was a betting woman, my money would be on the next moment that triggered the conversion. Logic reared its ugly head, masked as Kevin, and reminded me this was a different bus loop, we didn’t know where it went or how long we’d have to ride it before making the loop…. I watched as my serendipitous opportunity drove off, and developed just a twinge of misplaced resentment that I didn’t get my way…. (hmmmm yes, this sounds very similar to behavior I’ve seen Caleb exhibit a time or two). I’m not proud of this next part, but to finish the story, I have to disclose that the ‘tude, snowballed into a full-fledged tantrum, when we realized we had missed our other bus back and would have to walk the 7 blocks back to the car, NEVER getting to ride a bus. Caleb, during my entire meltdown, never lost his smile or the spring in his step and was far too pre-occupied with the motorcycles now driving by to even care about something as trivial as missing a bus. I got the stern “I can’t believe you’re acting like this” from Kevin and proceeded to sulk for the Car ride home.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, this embarrassing conversion to the terrible two’s was thankfully short lived, and while not an excuse, I feel justified asking for clemency based on previously blogged upon crazy hormones. We managed to salvage the rest of the beautiful day, with a great All-American cook-out with friends, complete with steak, potatoes, corn on the cob, and Strawberry Shortcake to top it off!
My goal for the remaining two months of this pregnancy, maintain a maturity level at least above Caleb’s… Not sure after this last weekend, that setting a goal to ‘act my own age’ is attainable for 2 full months!
We’ve had a stretch of glorious spring weather here in Austin, and this weekend was no exception. Mid-Seventies, blue sky, sunshine… days don’t come much better than these. Tack on the fact that it’s a weekend, and there is a ‘Kite Festival’ going on downtown Austin, and we’ve got a recipe for success! To accurately portray just HOW excited I was for the possibilities of this day, I can truly say that I wasn’t even THAT disappointed losing my hour of sleep to daylight savings time, because the day couldn’t start fast enough! (I can almost hear the gasps from those that know me well enough… Me… Not caring about losing an hour of sleep?!? I know… Shocking!)
We made it through the formalities of the morning… Church, check… Lunch, check…. Nap, check. It only got better, when, upon waking Caleb from his nap, and explaining that we were going to ride a ‘BUS’, his face truly LIT UP, eyes wide, huge smile, and from that point through the 20 minute drive downtown… All we heard was “Bus, bus, bus, bus…”.
When we arrived at the designated parking garage to catch the shuttle busses to the event, the line wrapped clear around the entire parking garage…. And Kevin wasn’t exactly thrilled with our chosen parking spot, marked tow-away zone, which I assured him was only a Mon-Fri notice. Caleb had SEEN the busses and the excitement had reached fever pitch… I HAD to get him on a BUS! Kevin worked some sense through my single minded focus of getting Caleb on a bus, and explained there are plenty of city busses, we can forgo the festival, catch a city bus, get some ice cream and hit a different park… I was able to concede holding a two year old still in an hour line didn’t seem worth the reward, plan B would work.
We found ourselves a nice parking spot, safely marked as open, and started waiting for our bus. 10 minutes or so passed, as well as two busses heading the opposite direction, and we decided to keep things moving. We’d just walk towards our ice cream destination and with the bus stops spaced about ever 200 yards, we could certainly make it to one if we saw the opportunity approaching. 20 minutes later we had walked the 7 blocks and were ordering our ice cream cones. We enjoyed our delicious treats, and as luck would have it, a city bus pulled up immediately after stepping out of the ice cream parlor…. Perfection!
If I was a betting woman, my money would be on the next moment that triggered the conversion. Logic reared its ugly head, masked as Kevin, and reminded me this was a different bus loop, we didn’t know where it went or how long we’d have to ride it before making the loop…. I watched as my serendipitous opportunity drove off, and developed just a twinge of misplaced resentment that I didn’t get my way…. (hmmmm yes, this sounds very similar to behavior I’ve seen Caleb exhibit a time or two). I’m not proud of this next part, but to finish the story, I have to disclose that the ‘tude, snowballed into a full-fledged tantrum, when we realized we had missed our other bus back and would have to walk the 7 blocks back to the car, NEVER getting to ride a bus. Caleb, during my entire meltdown, never lost his smile or the spring in his step and was far too pre-occupied with the motorcycles now driving by to even care about something as trivial as missing a bus. I got the stern “I can’t believe you’re acting like this” from Kevin and proceeded to sulk for the Car ride home.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, this embarrassing conversion to the terrible two’s was thankfully short lived, and while not an excuse, I feel justified asking for clemency based on previously blogged upon crazy hormones. We managed to salvage the rest of the beautiful day, with a great All-American cook-out with friends, complete with steak, potatoes, corn on the cob, and Strawberry Shortcake to top it off!
My goal for the remaining two months of this pregnancy, maintain a maturity level at least above Caleb’s… Not sure after this last weekend, that setting a goal to ‘act my own age’ is attainable for 2 full months!
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
The Little Devil...Confessions of a Neurotic
I’ve recently learned I come from a long line of neurotics. This revelation wasn’t entirely earth shattering, as I always thought something was slightly amiss given the pristine (borderline hospital grade) cleanliness with which my mom kept our house growing up, and the attention to detail she paid when preparing to host a gathering, of ANY size. I didn’t realize this was an inherited gene, until I started seeing the early onset of symptoms shortly after we purchased our own house. I liken this genetic disorder to something close to Alzheimer’s, no not nearly as unfortunate, however as I’ve watched my own symptoms progress I realize they gain momentum with time, it can skip a generation, and as it spreads, its effects are quite debilitating. After following the symptoms back to the source I thought they had originated from, I come to learn my mom traced her roots back to her great grandmother as well… genetic… and pretty sure the clinical world would label OCD.
Don’t get me wrong, my house is NOWHERE near as clean as my mom’s, nor do I, at this point in my self diagnosed disorder, ever aspire to keep it as clean as she does (god bless ya’ mom, but it has to be exhausting!). I’m banking on the fact that if acknowledging the disorder is half the battle for alcoholics, why can’t that same theory apply to me as well. The little conscience ‘shoulder devil’ replies to that statement with, “its only cleaning and good preparation, what’s so wrong with keeping a clean house and throwing a great party”… Damn. Hard argument to fight back against. However, after my most recent little whirling dervish cleaning frenzy, a few co-workers gave me the high eyebrows, tossed in the ‘what would your husband say’, and commented that my ‘condition’ wasn’t conducive to those activities…. When I told them I was standing on a folding chair (now 7 months pregnant) re-screwing a window treatment into the wall on my lunch break so the nursery would ‘look pretty’ when visitors came over after work today. Hindsight being 20/20, the folding chair might have been where I lost them… ya’ think ;)… And true to form, when explaining the adventure to Kevin on the phone shortly after, it came with the ‘Jules….’ and dreaded long pause.
Looking back I clearly see why I HAD to do it on my lunch break… because if Kevin had been home, he would have been wholly opposed to my efforts, however being as busy as he is would have made a comment similar to “Jules, it doesn’t matter, they won’t even notice”. WHAT?!? Doesn’t matter?!? But it MAKES the room, how could someone NOT notice something missing, that CLEARLY makes the room!!! It was this thought, and the tenor in which I had it, that tipped me off…. Maybe there’s a little more neurosis, and a little less logic. I understand how some of you may have missed it, considering it sounds SO logical when written in black and white ;)
So what’s the line to walk? I’m not holding my breath, given the accolades our society heap onto the ‘women that do it all’, that I’ll be finding my own 12 step recovery program at the local elementary school or church…. And no offense to those benefiting from guidance of ‘trained professionals’, but thinking about paying someone to sit in a chair and ask me “Why I think the room has to be perfect”, sounds about as appealing as Chinese water torture. So, for now, I continue making the deal with my ‘little devil’… not wholly convinced that my neurosis is necessarily a BAD thing, but slightly more aware that there ARE occasions or ‘conditions’ I should give a higher precedent to than the perfection I seek in a room or setting.
And the little devil dances, singing ‘cleanliness is next to godliness’…. Sure, toss THAT one in my face!
Don’t get me wrong, my house is NOWHERE near as clean as my mom’s, nor do I, at this point in my self diagnosed disorder, ever aspire to keep it as clean as she does (god bless ya’ mom, but it has to be exhausting!). I’m banking on the fact that if acknowledging the disorder is half the battle for alcoholics, why can’t that same theory apply to me as well. The little conscience ‘shoulder devil’ replies to that statement with, “its only cleaning and good preparation, what’s so wrong with keeping a clean house and throwing a great party”… Damn. Hard argument to fight back against. However, after my most recent little whirling dervish cleaning frenzy, a few co-workers gave me the high eyebrows, tossed in the ‘what would your husband say’, and commented that my ‘condition’ wasn’t conducive to those activities…. When I told them I was standing on a folding chair (now 7 months pregnant) re-screwing a window treatment into the wall on my lunch break so the nursery would ‘look pretty’ when visitors came over after work today. Hindsight being 20/20, the folding chair might have been where I lost them… ya’ think ;)… And true to form, when explaining the adventure to Kevin on the phone shortly after, it came with the ‘Jules….’ and dreaded long pause.
Looking back I clearly see why I HAD to do it on my lunch break… because if Kevin had been home, he would have been wholly opposed to my efforts, however being as busy as he is would have made a comment similar to “Jules, it doesn’t matter, they won’t even notice”. WHAT?!? Doesn’t matter?!? But it MAKES the room, how could someone NOT notice something missing, that CLEARLY makes the room!!! It was this thought, and the tenor in which I had it, that tipped me off…. Maybe there’s a little more neurosis, and a little less logic. I understand how some of you may have missed it, considering it sounds SO logical when written in black and white ;)
So what’s the line to walk? I’m not holding my breath, given the accolades our society heap onto the ‘women that do it all’, that I’ll be finding my own 12 step recovery program at the local elementary school or church…. And no offense to those benefiting from guidance of ‘trained professionals’, but thinking about paying someone to sit in a chair and ask me “Why I think the room has to be perfect”, sounds about as appealing as Chinese water torture. So, for now, I continue making the deal with my ‘little devil’… not wholly convinced that my neurosis is necessarily a BAD thing, but slightly more aware that there ARE occasions or ‘conditions’ I should give a higher precedent to than the perfection I seek in a room or setting.
And the little devil dances, singing ‘cleanliness is next to godliness’…. Sure, toss THAT one in my face!
Monday, March 1, 2010
The Perfect Saturday
“We’re actually going to have a pretty nice little Saturday, we’re um, we’re gonna go to Home Depot. Yeah, buy some wallpaper, maybe get some flooring, stuff like that. Maybe Bed Bath And Beyond, I don’t know. I don’t know if we’ll have enough time.” -Will Ferrell in Old School
Urban Dictionary defines a “Perfect Saturday" as a day when all the teams you hate, lose, and all the teams you love, win.... Seeing as how I’m not a sports aficionado... and though I can agree, a good home makeover does occasionaly make for a fun Saturday... I want to take a stab at creating my own definition. The complication to this task is, I’ve had MANY perfect Saturday’s, and the defining qualities that made them perfect seem to correlate directly to the season of life I was in at the time….
Take Pre-Teen Julie for example…. her definition of a perfect Saturday: packing some awesome treats in a picnic and heading to the beach with the fam and a close bud, where the waves were at perfect pitch for body surfing or an epic battle of king of the hill atop the “White Thing” (aka: A giant square piece of industrial strength Styrofoam, that my sisters and I played with for at least 5 years… no joke). Top off the day with a slumber party, where I didn’t have to wake up early for church the next day, and we've found perfection ;)!
Fast forward to Highschool Julie… again a day at the beach is included, but likely not without driving around for hours with our windows down and the music up, because yeah… we were cool like that… OFCOURSE no parents would be near us, and the motley crew of friends that I had would likely find ourselves all back at someone’s house for the evening, doing absolutely nothing, but somehow loving every minute of it.
The Perfect Saturday at College started with a 3pm kick off, which left the FULL morning/afternoon for tailgating, (without requiring the insane wake-up hour predicated by the Noon kickoffs), the weather would allow for perfect comfort in Jeans and a cute hoodie… MSU would trounce all over UofM… a quick booze snooze would follow the game, and we would celebrate our victory all night long! This type of a Saturday remained perfect, with a few occasional tweaks, all the way up to the point of mom-status… at which point I had to retire the weekend warrior after learning the hard way that you can’t nurse a hang-over with an early rising ankle biter!
I occasionally miss the carefree nature of heading out for the evening on a whim, and being able to sleep off the late night in the morning, or the get-up-‘n go weekends with friends… however after this past Saturday… I’ve come up with a new definition.
The Perfect Saturday as a mom, starts out with Kevin answering the call of duty and taking our little ball of energy out of the house for ‘fun with dad’, leaving it quiet enough to sleep in until I’m ready to rise on my own and stroll down for a leisurely breakfast (flash back to a Saturday morning, Pre-Caleb). It’s followed by a family ‘picnic’ on our patio, and shortly after Caleb going down for a nap sans fuss, allowing me to get ready in peace and quiet. After nap the whole fam heads out for an ‘adventure’, this week’s adventure… turtle hunting in a double kayak along Lake Austin on a beautiful sunny and 70 degree late February afternoon, followed up by watching Caleb discover all sorts of fun things at a local nature trail, and icing on the cake… Dinner out with my boys! Just when I think you can’t improve upon perfection… Caleb’s down for the night without so much as a peep, and Root beer floats and a great movie are waiting with Kevin downstairs! Now THAT my friends, is a perfect Saturday! I can concede that to some of my friends, pre-kid stage, this Saturday doesn’t sound all that exciting… to them, I pose the following question…. Have you ever tried taking a two year old in a KAYAK?!? OK… Exciting may not be the word used to describe it… but it certainly WAS an adventure!
Urban Dictionary defines a “Perfect Saturday" as a day when all the teams you hate, lose, and all the teams you love, win.... Seeing as how I’m not a sports aficionado... and though I can agree, a good home makeover does occasionaly make for a fun Saturday... I want to take a stab at creating my own definition. The complication to this task is, I’ve had MANY perfect Saturday’s, and the defining qualities that made them perfect seem to correlate directly to the season of life I was in at the time….
Take Pre-Teen Julie for example…. her definition of a perfect Saturday: packing some awesome treats in a picnic and heading to the beach with the fam and a close bud, where the waves were at perfect pitch for body surfing or an epic battle of king of the hill atop the “White Thing” (aka: A giant square piece of industrial strength Styrofoam, that my sisters and I played with for at least 5 years… no joke). Top off the day with a slumber party, where I didn’t have to wake up early for church the next day, and we've found perfection ;)!
Fast forward to Highschool Julie… again a day at the beach is included, but likely not without driving around for hours with our windows down and the music up, because yeah… we were cool like that… OFCOURSE no parents would be near us, and the motley crew of friends that I had would likely find ourselves all back at someone’s house for the evening, doing absolutely nothing, but somehow loving every minute of it.
The Perfect Saturday at College started with a 3pm kick off, which left the FULL morning/afternoon for tailgating, (without requiring the insane wake-up hour predicated by the Noon kickoffs), the weather would allow for perfect comfort in Jeans and a cute hoodie… MSU would trounce all over UofM… a quick booze snooze would follow the game, and we would celebrate our victory all night long! This type of a Saturday remained perfect, with a few occasional tweaks, all the way up to the point of mom-status… at which point I had to retire the weekend warrior after learning the hard way that you can’t nurse a hang-over with an early rising ankle biter!
I occasionally miss the carefree nature of heading out for the evening on a whim, and being able to sleep off the late night in the morning, or the get-up-‘n go weekends with friends… however after this past Saturday… I’ve come up with a new definition.
The Perfect Saturday as a mom, starts out with Kevin answering the call of duty and taking our little ball of energy out of the house for ‘fun with dad’, leaving it quiet enough to sleep in until I’m ready to rise on my own and stroll down for a leisurely breakfast (flash back to a Saturday morning, Pre-Caleb). It’s followed by a family ‘picnic’ on our patio, and shortly after Caleb going down for a nap sans fuss, allowing me to get ready in peace and quiet. After nap the whole fam heads out for an ‘adventure’, this week’s adventure… turtle hunting in a double kayak along Lake Austin on a beautiful sunny and 70 degree late February afternoon, followed up by watching Caleb discover all sorts of fun things at a local nature trail, and icing on the cake… Dinner out with my boys! Just when I think you can’t improve upon perfection… Caleb’s down for the night without so much as a peep, and Root beer floats and a great movie are waiting with Kevin downstairs! Now THAT my friends, is a perfect Saturday! I can concede that to some of my friends, pre-kid stage, this Saturday doesn’t sound all that exciting… to them, I pose the following question…. Have you ever tried taking a two year old in a KAYAK?!? OK… Exciting may not be the word used to describe it… but it certainly WAS an adventure!
What’s your definition?
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