Obstacles - Issue No. 3
DO UNTO OTHERS - A POOP STORY
With the onset of parenting, I said goodbye to a few attributes of my non-parenting self: the fear of missing out, needing a lot of sleep to function, and the topic of this section: modesty. Yesterday, while I was attempting to take a moment of privacy in the bathroom, my 16-month-old son slammed the door open, pulled far too much toilet paper from the roll and attempted to wipe my butt while I sat there laughing. There were two things at play here: 1. The toilet is a vessel of wonder with its spiraling water of sorcery miraculously making objects disappear. 2. He is mirroring our behavior and how do you conceptually explain to someone who doesn’t yet even know how to say their own name, that’s something I do to you, but you don’t do it to me. My mom and my daughter looked in to see what was going on, we all got a good giggle, and I was reminded once and for all that my privacy is a pastime. The night before, my son was palming fistfuls of rice and stuffing them into his mouth. His nose was running and there was dirt caked under his fingernails. He looked at me fondly and put his hand to my face in his most generous attempt at sharing. I pretended to eat. I even made some silly, exaggerated chomping sounds. He examined me with these, “Look Lady, I wasn’t born yesterday” skeptical eyes and like a little Italian grandmother who wouldn’t be appeased until my mouth was full of what she was serving, he guilted me into eating smashed-snot rice from his hand. This is love.
They are watching us constantly, like little creepy ghosts in a haunted house, there is no room for privacy, they are somehow always with us. A few months ago, after officially weaning my son, I stepped out of the shower and my daughter unexpectedly came out of my closet with my bra on her head like a headband. She looked at my naked body and said, “mommy, your boobs are smaller than mine this morning.” Then she pointed to my c-section scar and said “there’s the pocket that we came from.” My body is reviewed like a roadmap charting the landmarks of other people’s needs. While, I desperately attempt to ensure that my kids see their own bodies as miraculous and beautiful and with a far less critical lens than I use to view my own. Sometimes, I watch my daughter on the monitor after she’s gone to bed, which I realize is invasive in its own right, and she’s nursing and rocking her dolls just as I’ve done to her and her brother: same songs, same motions, our little shadows. In the morning, my son will run around the house with Mardi Gras bead necklaces draped around his neck, a dog-less leash clasped in his hand, he’ll put on my shoes and attempt to slip a hat over his head (a skill he has yet to master), ready to conquer the day. He is doing his very best to put together the puzzle pieces of how to function in this world, they both are, with us as their roadmap, everyday, no matter our mood, no matter what we’re feeling or going through, no matter if we need to poop, no matter if we are clothed or naked, no matter the pressure.
GETTING BOOTED
When I was 17-years-old, my car got booted. This was my first car, Goldie, an ‘89 Acura Legend that first belonged to my dad, then my mom and then my step-dad before becoming mine. Like a first car should be, it had a lot of miles and character and held a great deal of my affection as my literal vehicle for independence. While any car with 180,000 miles and three previous owners would have some notable deficiencies, Goldie’s faulty sunroof was arguably her least illustrious attribute. Any time I made a left turn after a storm, what felt like, buckets of water would be dumped on my head. I remember my angsty-teenage-self running late to school and thinking, I’m either going to show up damp and embarrassed from my leaky left turns because of yesterday’s rainstorm or I’m going to be late because of another attempt at the impossible: trying to get to school while only turning right. Anyway, during lunch one day, Goldie got booted when I parked in a lot and then did the unlawful act of crossing the street for a sandwich. The person who booted me had watched me walk across the street and then put the boot on my car. When I returned, he asked me if I had $75 cash as his chihuahua barked from the passenger’s seat. I’ve never felt so helpless. I explained that I wasn’t sure I had ever even seen $75 cash and then went to an ATM, withdrew my dignity and what felt like my life savings to have the boot removed and be in the exact same situation I had been in when I had arrived, except with $75 less and a subpar sandwich in hand.
I was thinking of that moment a few weeks ago when I took my daughter to the pediatric orthopedist for a limp we had noticed. At first, we weren’t sure if she was just trying out a new walk or actually limping. She’s 3-years-old, seems to fall 338 times each day, and there was no event to note. But, on day three, we decided that it deserved a second opinion. They did x-rays, saw no breaks or fractures, gave us 3.2 seconds of their time, listened to no context or questions, and slapped a boot on it, for which we will pay far too much money. They told us to take the boot off in a week or two and as long as she was limp free, we could assume everything was copacetic. Then, our sweet, hobbling kid had two weeks of hopelessly trying to keep up with her frenetic 3-year-old antics while booted. On day one, when we picked my daughter up from school, she was running around with her normal agile gusto and her boot on her good foot. We were honestly relieved that it was her teacher’s mistake and not ours and then we questioned whether we had just imagined the whole limp to begin with. Now, a few weeks later, she’s not limping and we have no more information or answers. Being forced to slow down, feeling totally helpless and having that, what just happened? feeling, it sticks with you. I’ve found myself encountering those same emotions nearly everyday of motherhood. But, watching my kid confront her own limitations makes me wish that struggle and resilience weren’t so inextricably connected, a part of me just wants her to be able to float.
BEACH ENVY
Last week, while vacationing in Hilton Head, South Carolina, we saw a remarkably put-together family with four kids at the horse stables. They were all blonde, smiling, jarringly congenial, and fully clothed. That’s the whole story. There really isn’t much more to mention but my husband and I were both shook by the encounter. They weren’t arguing with each other, they looked well-rested, no one seemed hungry, no one was palming horse poop or getting their fingers nipped by crotchety ponies. No one was sunburned, their hair was brushed, their clothes unstained, their shoes the same color and on the correct feet. No one was screaming (with endearing enthusiasm) for Woody the Clydesdale to come over and eat carrots. Maybe any family can pull off the Norman Rockwell freeze-frame for a minute. Perhaps before we saw them, their son, like ours, had eaten a fistfull of sand at the beach…again…with the same shock and disgust as the time before. Maybe, otherwise they had only been able to get him to eat hotdogs and cheese all week. Maybe he also would run full speed into the cold ocean every chance he got, falling face-first into a wave, and then shivering profusely while he attempted to do it again. Maybe their daughter would only ride bikes if while riding the bikes they continually pretended to be train engineers fixing broken train cars. Maybe they too hadn’t gotten a full night’s sleep all week because their children had coughs that wouldn’t go away and even when the coughing stopped, they would just be up staring at the monitor to make sure their non-coughing-children were still breathing. Maybe they also fantasized about sleeping till 7:30am, opening the book they brought, finishing a coffee before it got cold, or watching something that wasn’t animated. Maybe their dog also tried to attack every majestic, gigantic bird during their walks. Maybe they had to play dinosaurs 7,235 times each day. Maybe their kid threw a tantrum too when they were told they couldn’t drink their mom’s piña colada. Maybe they also tried to go out to breakfast, almost broke every plate on the table, spent more time walking the premises with their toddler than enjoying their meal, and left with children who were somehow hungrier than when they arrived. Maybe they too were realizing that even with generously involved grandparents accompanying them, vacations with little ones are less about relaxation and more about entertaining these overly-tired-out-of-routine tiny humans in a less-baby-proofed house. Relaxing? No, but still somehow fulfilling. Watching my kids traipse through the sand, hold their arms out like they're flying when the wind picks up, and then giggle at the sheer sight of waves reaching their feet, desiring nothing more than to hold their grandparents’ hands and walk the beach, it doesn’t get much better. With kids, the term “vacation” has been reenvisioned, but somehow, it was still exactly what we needed.
SOMETHING THAT
DID WORK
As a writer, I like to think that there is quite a bit of power in language, that the sheer act of naming something equips us with knowledge and potentially opportunity. Over the past few weeks, our son has begun to say “no,” “oh no,” “uh oh,” and “more” and these words have seemed to just burst open his little world. He can tell us when water spills, when he doesn’t want to eat more waffle, when he’s decided to pick up a handful of dog poop in the backyard. A few weeks after having my son, I remember touching the skin above my naval and feeling this cavernous hole, as if all of the organs and muscles there had just disappeared and beneath the skin there was an abyss of nothingness. I went to the doctor for a postpartum check-up with the usual hypochondriacal fear that I was dying, only to be told that I had Diastasis Recti, a separation of one’s abdominal muscles. This is an incredibly common condition that plagues so many women postpartum, especially after multiple pregnancies, and the lack of general understanding and research on it speaks to the shortcomings of maternal health in general. More to come on that in future newsletters, I’m sure. My point is, knowing that I had Diastasis Recti, allowed me to be proactive with my rehabilitation.
Recently, we learned the term “crossing the midline” from my daughter’s teachers. Prior to our parent-teacher conference, this term meant absolutely nothing to us. In short, “crossing the midline” allows you to move an arm or a leg across the middle of the body to perform a task and ultimately allows for both sides of your body to work together (bilateral integration). If I’ve lost you with this one, I understand, I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t sort of zoned out myself when I first heard about it. But, as it is with many things, until it impacts you personally, it’s easier to tune it out. So, our daughter’s teachers spoke to us about her troubles crossing the midline and all of a sudden we noticed how often she sits “W” instead of “criss-cross applesauce,” how she just can’t seem to catch a ball, and how propelling herself forward on a tricycle seems nearly impossible. My initial reaction was that I’m not sure I’m great at catching a ball either and is riding a tricycle truly the achievement she’ll hang her hat on? But as I began equipping myself with knowledge, it turns out that those are actually pretty important building blocks in coordination and in some ways, I suppose, success. So, we’re learning and trying to help and while our daughter might think we’ve just become ball-throwing-and-catching-enthusiasts, language has once again empowered us.
SOMETHING THAT
DIDN’T WORK
Do you remember that game Never Have I Ever? You’d hold ten fingers up and then someone would say something like, “never have I ever been skinny dipping,” and if you had been skinny dipping, you would lower a finger. The first one who put all their fingers down, lost…or maybe they won…I actually am not sure anyone knew the goal. I do know, few walked away from that game feeling good except perhaps if they had consumed quite a bit of alcohol while playing. Those who were among the first to put all of their fingers down felt singled-out for their spotlighted escapades that now seemed to beg for further explanation and those who were left with fingers up felt like sheltered prudes who had hardly dipped their toe into the potential scandals that they could now showcase to a group of strangers. Needless to say, this sedentary-icebreaker-drinking-game is one filled with unspoken judgment and pressure. That game popped into my head recently when I was thinking of a superfluous solitary game I’ve played with myself for my entire adulthood called, “Never Would I Ever.”
-Never would I ever pull my boob out to nurse in public
-Never would I ever give my kids highly-processed food
-Never would I ever catch my child’s throw-up in my hand so that I wouldn’t have to change their clothes again
-Never would I ever forget to buckle my kid in their carseat before starting a drive
-Never would I ever spend my Saturday night folding an interminable pile of laundry
-Never would I ever forget to drink my morning coffee because I’m too tired and too busy
-Never would I ever think of the bathroom as my ultimate place of solace and retreat
-Never would I ever use my spit to clean my kid’s face, never would I ever find rice on my windowsills and bananas in my shoes
-Never would I ever quit my job to stay at home with my kids.
I’ve charted out my life in never would I evers, set expectations that I thought I would hold, and painted pictures of who I would be and what I would do that just don’t hold up with the test of time and the reality of change. I would be remiss to say that parenthood has allowed me to look at others with no judgment. But, I’m realizing the game never would I ever is steeped in ignorance and misinformation.
SUSTENANCE SUGGESTIONS
Our neighbor made this for us when I had just had our son, and it totally hit the postpartum “give me all of the carbs” spot. Originally found here, it has been a make-ahead-hosting-brunch favorite for us ever since.
