Impressions - Issue No. 10
PARENTING THROUGH OUR RING DOORBELL
You know how football teams, or perhaps all sports teams, review their game footage later in practice to assess their performance? This concludes my knowledge of football and is likely the only time that the sport will be referenced in this newsletter. Similar to Tom Brady (there’s a first time for everything), at the end of the day recently, I’ve been reviewing the videos on our Ring doorbell to see how I’ve done as a parent. I realize the previous sentence has all of the worst overtones of a first-world millennial. But what better way to spend my meager and sacred quiet time than by evaluating my performance with an overly critical lens? Not only is it a surprise to witness my backside in action, it also holds a mirror up to how I did at facilitating some of the most challenging moments of the day: the comings and goings. I would like to file this activity away as something that I do in private, something that I’d rather not tell anyone else about, like looking at Instagram while I walk down stairs (terrible idea), or hiding in the bathroom when I need a five minute break, or trying to squeeze back into this one pair of skinny jeans 372 times without any regard for the miracle machine my changed body is for making my babies to begin with. None of you have asked for an explanation as to why this newsletter is roughly six weeks late, but it feels strangely connected to watching my doorbell videos once my children have finally fallen asleep, despite their persistent and valiant efforts to try to stop sleeping all together. The days have not really felt like mine, they’ve been wrapped up in and focused on my son and daughter. This is not a bad thing, it’s the whirlwind of summer, and it has left little time for anything else. I can both want a break and desperately desire the cadence of this constant time together. And then, in the short portion of the evening that is finally mine, instead of rebooting, I’ve been watching doorbell videos of myself parent, with the same curious surprise as when I hear my voice on a recording and realize that it’s far higher in pitch than I knew it to be.This summer, I have just been in it, constantly and deeply.
When I was sixteen, my best friend and I were laying on a dock on the Boundary Waters in Ely, Minnesota, when it began to rain. “What if we just didn’t move?” I asked. And so, we decided to just lay there and let the rain fall on us, to feel it all, to watch the raindrops’ path from the sky, and remain as present and as still as possible. When we got up, there were these perfect dry silhouettes of our bodies on the dock, our fleeting impressions amidst it all. I love that memory. It was before social media and selfies and Instagram. We just did it because we found some joy in it. We did it because we were too busy discovering the world together to be bothered by rain or our wet clothes or what came next. And while this summer has not felt nearly that peaceful or still, at its best, it’s been an opportunity to just slow down and be in it, big feelings and all. With summer came two weeks of quarantine with COVID, some wonderful summer travels, a much needed girlfriends’ trip, and little time to come up for air (which is what writing is to me these days). With summer came fewer adult conversations and many more sentences like, “Take your butt out of the potty please,” “You have a bloody nose, that means all of your boogies need a break from your finger,” “Let’s tuck your penis down for night-night, so that you don’t pee pee on yourself,” “Please don’t throw your brother off the fireplace,” and “Only jeté around the table, and not with chips in your mouth.” This summer, I tried to just metaphorically lay out in the rain and take it all in, even if it meant, according to our doorbell, coming in as a wet-sopping mess (usually from the Georgia heat and not refreshing rainfall), even if it meant taking a break from some of the things that feed me, even if it meant managing my two constantly hungry humans, who seem determined to join a nudist colony, while they twirl each day away. And thus, this newsletter is late. And, the more I write, the more I realize that perhaps writing is a far healthier processing tactic. So, as the school year begins and our schedules become more regimented, for better or for worse, I will try to reflect more here and less on raw doorbell footage.
MY HUSBAND SLEEPS THROUGH EVERYTHING
- AN ODE TO MY AMYGDALA
I am the worrier in our family. My autocorrect wanted to change that word to “warrior” and while I like that more, what I meant to say is that between my husband and I, I am the one who worries. I am the one who watches for my kids’ chests to rise and fall on the monitor, I am the one who gets nervous when they aren’t holding my hand by the street, I am the one who thinks of them popping out of the swing and landing on their head when their dad is pushing them just a little too high, and I am the one who hears their noises and cries at night, since the moment they were born. I would like to think that this is a healthy amount of anxiety, a “let’s make sure these kids survive” level of anxiety. Recently, I was excited to find some justification for these charming personality traits that came to fruition when I became a mother. And that brings me to the Amygdala, which looks like almond-shaped gray matter inside each hemisphere of the brain and, thanks to our trusty neurons, is involved in how we experience emotions, like fear and anxiety. According to this New York Times article, “A woman’s brain, it seems, may change more quickly and more drastically during pregnancy and the postpartum period than at any other point in her life — including puberty.”According to the Netflix documentary “Babies,” “Much of what happens in a new mother’s amygdala has to do with the hormones flowing to it. The region has a high concentration of receptors for hormones like oxytocin, which surge during pregnancy, childbirth, and nursing.” Oxytocin is often described as the “love hormone”, but it is also integral to uterine contractions and milk let-down for nursing. So, in short, all-things-baby impact the amount of oxytocin flowing to a woman’s amygdala. As the activity in the amygdala grows, this impacts how a new mother behaves and how she takes care of her baby. According to “Babies,” the oxytocin surge at birth activates the amygdala to cause us to feel, among other things, a constant worry about the infant, which causes such superpowers as a mother waking up every time her baby makes a peep at night. Here are the two craziest and coolest parts to me though:
According to the existing research out there now, though it’s ever changing and there isn’t nearly enough of it: the increased activity in the amygdala stays forever; no matter how old your child is, they have permanently made an imprint on your brain and it doesn’t go away.
When researchers looked at the dad’s brain, they found that men absolutely get an oxytocin rush from interacting with their babies too, but there was about a quarter of the activity in the amygdala that they saw in the mother’s brain. Which, I would say is about right, my husband is probably about a quarter as worried as I am on average. However, researchers also looked at 48 male-identifiying gay couples who were living in partnered relationships, had a child through surrogacy, and had the baby from the first day of life. When the father is the primary caregiver, they have amygdala activation just like the mothers. So, this amygdala activation seems to have far less to do with childbirth and far more to do with whether or not you are the primary committed caregiving parent.
So, all of this to say, your parental worrying and anxiety is justified and backed by science.
BATHROOM ENVY
My best friend has a wicker basket full of toilet paper in her bathroom. If this sentence hasn't grabbed your attention, I understand. But, let me explain. It’s the really soft toilet paper, and every time I go into her house, the rolls are seemingly somehow both precariously piled and perfectly balanced, so as to say “we’re just naturally very prepared to address all of your needs” and “we can even make toilet paper look good.” In a glass jar, there are books of matches from trendy restaurants, and the bathroom is always refreshingly cold, as is the toilet paper…or maybe that is just my fantasy of the perfect bathroom. There’s this picture of her husband in front of a fountain, positioned just right so that the fountain looks like a pee stream. And somehow, despite all odds, this bathroom art is fitting and funny without being tacky.
Last week, there was a pervading poop smell wafting from what felt like all the crevices of our first floor bathroom. After washing the bathroom mats and spraying the floor with cleaning solution, I got on my hands and knees to try to find a wayward poop tucked away somewhere. This is a sentence I never anticipated writing. Here’s another one: the other night, my daughter made a human nest out of toilet paper. And then, upon seeing my shock, explained that it was “a mistake she made to cover up her toots.” Discussing illustrious bathroom envy feels like an insufficient ode to one of the most important people in my life, who just yesterday called me to ask for breast pump advice in anticipation of her first baby arriving in October.
She’s always been put together, charming, successful, with an admirable knack for making things fetching and functional. And, who knows, maybe she’ll be one of those people who somehow can keep a couch white and give their kid ketchup. If someone could, it would be her. I know she’s worried about losing this part of herself, the aesthetic-forward, in-control, enough-time-and-energy-and-power-to-always-have-a-basket-full-of-toilet-paper part. I think everyone, to some extent, fears losing their former selves, fears what it will mean for these tiny humans to take over their lives. There’s no reason to warn her of what’s to come, nothing I can say to prepare her. That beautiful afghan that they got married atop of, that is now in the nursery and being used as their “palette inspiration” will likely, and perhaps heartbreakingly, soon be covered in milk and poop and Play-Doh. Or, at the very least, it will be inexplicably and inextricably sticky, like every other soon-to-be surface of their house. I would like to tell her that she’ll find peace with the changes, though I’m not sure that’s true. I’d like to tell her that they’ll be so busy, that the chaos of losing their pre-kid-house won’t bother them, or, at the very least, it will feel temporary, though I’m not sure that’s true. What I know is that friendship, at its best, isn’t about the aesthetic that’s delivered, it’s about the feeling that’s achieved. It was never really about the toilet paper basket. Even if their house becomes a disaster, which will drive her crazy and will be inevitable, even when she’s exhausted and doesn’t recognize herself and knows she can’t do it all, with all of the impending chaos and stickiness, my best friend, with a baby on her hip, will continue to cast her radiance onto the world. In some way, I’d like to think we all do.
SOMETHING THAT
DID WORK
This summer, my daughter dunked her head under water. To some, this might feel adjacent to getting a trophy for participation, sure she did it, but is it praiseworthy? Debatable. But, to those who feel that way, you didn’t get to see her face right after she did it. She, like me, is an approach with apprehension and then be pleasantly surprised kind of girl. This achievement was the first among many that she ticked off her list thanks to a “survival swim” class that she took. Survival swim doesn’t necessitate much explanation. The basic idea is that if your child were to fall into a body of water, they have the basic skill set to survive. Crazy enough, this is something a baby can learn to do before they have even mastered walking. One of my favorite dinner party questions is “what is a recent internet black hole you went down?” And, my most recent answer is “survival swim class videos.” Here’s an example. Watching these babies be dropped into the water and then know how to turn over, float, turn over, paddle, turn over, and rest is nothing short of shocking. The first two days, my daughter begged me to let her just stay in the car, but by the time she was in the water, eagerness would wash over her, and soon that eagerness turned into confidence, and that confidence allowed room for her to learn. Thanks to Manta Swim Academy, my daughter went from not being able to put her eyes underwater to being able to jump into a pool and get half way across it safely and confidently. And while she’s learning new skills all of the time, watching this one develop over the course of two weeks and watching her realize her own potential with pure joy was pretty remarkable.
SOMETHING THAT
DIDN’T WORK
I have found, more now than ever, that watching my children on a monitor can quickly manifest into the makings of a horror film. Similar to the Blair Witch Project, all of the footage appears on the screen slightly contorted and in black and white. Eyes glow like they’re possessed. Sometimes my son is in a crib, and then, within seconds, the same bedeviled tiny creature inexplicably appears atop his changing table. Then he’s by the door with his fingers reaching underneath in heartbreaking desperation before the screen cuts out because the witch got to him, or because he figured out how to disconnect the camera. All of this to say, my son recently learned how to climb out of his crib. Soon after our escape artist got his wings, we traveled to visit some friends and family. During one of the first nights away, we put my son in a pack’n’play in our friend’s “she-shed,” a beautifully constructed detached office with a wall of windows that looks out at the woods. We were sitting out on the deck, between the she-shed and their home, enjoying wine and a reunion with old friends, when my son appeared pressed against the windowed-wall staring at us. It was starkly reminiscent of the classic Scream scene with Drew Barrymore, when open-mouthed “ghost-face” appears at her window while she’s trying to call 911, except instead of a masked-killer, it was an adorably bright-eyed 21-month-old toddler with strikingly white-blonde curly hair. And this is our life now: we spend our evenings watching potential horror movie footage of this exhausted, newly free-range human aimlessly roaming about, hoping that his plotline ends in sleep before we pass out ourselves.
SUSTENANCE SUGGESTIONS
For those of you who don’t know what a dutch baby is, seeing those two words under “sustenance suggestions” might feel a bit mysterious, or perhaps even controversial. However, I assure you that this puffed pancake is an easy breakfast favorite, and when it comes out of the oven, it has a marshmallow-in-the-microwave type of wow-factor. It is light, airy, crunchy, and subtly sweet. Top it with fresh berries when it’s still steaming hot, and it becomes what I would argue is one of my very favorite breakfast dishes. Find the dutch baby recipe I use most often from Joy The Baker here.
