Tonight I did a quick check of the 'ole Facebook, and came across a super cute picture of Edison's old buddies in Indiana. I showed him the picture, as I usually do when new ones come up, and his first reaction to seeing a picture of the three little musketeers was "Where's Edison?" For almost two years, he had become accustomed to seeing himself in pictures with these other children, and didn't understand why he wasn't there now.
My heart broke, and I felt like a terrible mother who had made a terrible mistake by relocating her child. I know this isn't going to be the last time we ever move, but if it feels like this now, what's it going to be like when Daddy finally lands "the" job, and we make a very permanent move while Edison's applying to college, or has his first girlfriend, or really likes his soccer team?
His life hasn't really been destroyed by our returning to the east coast. He's closer to family, and is particularly thrilled to see more of his cousins, but he doesn't have "friends" yet. At this point they're still just "friends" instead of friends, because if I didn't frequently jog his memory of his old buddies, he wouldn't ask about them or realize that they weren't there, or that he wasn't there with them. He knows the names of his old buddies, and some new ones, and his classmates, but he's still just as easily entertained with talking to his baby brother or Skyping with his cousins.
I've been on a bunch of playdates since we moved, to make sure Edison is still learning to socialize properly, but the moms are a lot different than in Bloomington, and I've found that while I miss Edison having companionship, I also miss my mommy friends.
The moms I've met here feed their kids Nutella and apple juice and think that they're meeting all of their child's daily nutritional needs because the Nutella was smeared on high fiber bread. Some of these moms give their child a strict diet of chocolate PediaSure shakes because they just aren't willing to make the effort to teach their son about fruits and vegetables, and the doctor told them it was okay. I've attended a baby "playdate" during which the host mother never put her baby on the floor with the other babies. I've been almost sneered at when someone noticed my kids were in cloth diapers (because it creates too much laundry, of course, because you're not already doing tons of it with two kids in the house anyway). I have turned off the television at someone else's playdate, because I was not attending a watchdate. Even the nurse in my pediatrician's office gave me a very shocked look when she asked how many ounces of juice my child drinks a day, and I told her zero.
I've also met a bunch of women and children who were super nice and down to earth (I even met one, yes one, other mom who breastfeeds), but on the whole, I don't fit in just yet. It still feels like there's something to prove, and that I'm playing catch-up on relationships that are solidly established. It's cliquey, and a little snobby, and it drives me to retreat back into my house to keep my kids at home as a family of hermits. I feel like a crunchy hippie with these moms, because compared to them, I am.
In Bloomington, I most certainly wasn't. It was the norm to give your baby mostly organic food, and to breastfeed (in public, no less!) for as long as you could or wanted to. Bloomington even had a store that was almost entirely dedicated to selling cloth diapers. A store like that would be put out of business here in about five seconds. Bloomington was full of doulas, and prenatal yoga, and a great Parks & Rec system with beautiful, clean parks. The moms were easygoing, friendly, and supportive of each other.
I'll admit it - when Brian was accepted to IU and we decided that we would go, I wasn't necessarily happy about moving to Indiana. Bloomington really is in the middle of nowhere. But...Bloomington is an AWESOME town in the middle of nowhere. You may have to drive 20 miles to get to the next town, but Btown offers so much that you don't really need to leave all that often.
If you know me, you'll know that I am a judgmental person. Not my favorite trait, but whatever, it's there. I was Judgey McJudgersons most of the time I lived in Indiana, but now that I'm gone, I realized that, for the most part, what I had there was fantastic. Great friends both for myself and for my children, and a super positive, natural environment for my kids to grow up in. The grass is always greener, right?
Nina, Justina, and Catherine, I miss you. A lot. And I miss your babies. And so does my baby.
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Monday, February 18, 2013
I Don't Know How You Do It
Tonight I took both kids to the mall by myself, as my husband was down in Philly for a concert. I normally don't leave the house after nap to begin with, but we had stayed home for the entire morning, so I was ready to put on a real bra and breathe something other than diaper air.
Much to my toddler's chagrin, I told him we were going to have to go to that dreaded place that had a kids' play area and a merry go round. How could a kid not love the idea of this? Every single time I ask him if he wants to go, he looks at me like I've just asked him if he would like to eat a giant turd for dinner. Anyway, I convinced him to go by putting his coat and shoes on and putting him in the car. I'm very persuasive.
We got there just in time for baby to need to nurse again, so we hit the play area, specifically designed for children 5 and under, which is always heavily populated with children 5 and over, roughhousing and running around and nearly taking the lives of the toddlers and little ones who actually belong there. Don't you worry, I give the parents of those older children dirty looks the entire time. If you are one of those people with a seven year old running around in there, shame on you. I get it that you may have a younger child who DOES belong in that area, but make your older child sit there on the bench with you, or closely follow the younger child, but don't let your kid run around knocking over babies who've just learned to walk. It drives me and every other mom with a child within the age and height limits nuts, if you haven't noticed.
Back to our journey at hand. I make it through to the play area without ramming into too many people with my giant double stroller, give a few stink eyes to a particular family who had not one, but two older boys running around (seriously?!), and sit down to nurse my baby. This coincidentally took place after I had pulled into the mall with my favorite radio station talking about this very subject - breastfeeding in public, and how people feel about seeing it or doing it. It was hilarious to hear two grown men talking about this, and saying things like Lactation Consultant and "proper latch", and actually yelling at a woman who was "disgusted" by seeing a mom who just whipped one out to feed her baby while shopping at Target.
I'm not going to throw my two cents into the conversation about this. I nurse in public, but I do it with a cover or a blanket, and try to be discreet about it. I may have flashed a boob here or there, or thrown the cover off in frustration after the baby and I are both sweating from the enormous heat bubble that a nursing cover can create, but largely I try to keep it private. I will, however, go mama bear if you look at me funny or even think of asking me to go do that somewhere else. No one around here is going to be having lunch in a bathroom stall, my baby included. Whatever, moms. Do what you want, feel how you feel. I don't care if I see your boob. You're feeding a kid, which is the important part. And as they said on the radio, it's probably the same amount of boob as you'd see on the beach, and at least it's serving a purpose here.
Returning from the sidetrack. I feed the baby while also standing up several times to make sure my toddler doesn't fall off whatever he's trying to climb, and also to protect him from the giant monsters running all around him and threatening to make him teeter off of the pretend pony he's riding. No one cries, no one sweats, and when I ask the eldest if he'd like to leave the play area to go find dinner, he simply says "yes," runs to the cubby where his shoes are, and says "here you go, Mommy," so that I can slip his shoes back on. I look awesome enough that some other mom actually looks at me and says "I don't know how you do it!" I smile at her and, giggling inside, say "I don't know either!"
But I do know. You know how I do it? Caillou. I used to be against television in our house entirely. Before turning two, I think my toddler had watched maybe two hours of television in his entire life. After baby 2 came along, and Daddy got a bunch of jobs that made him disappear for 18 hours at a time, and I became a stay-at-home mom, I gave up. I let the kid watch a show. He picked Caillou. We watched Thomas for a bit, too, but after a few weeks I think he figured out that those trains are creepy weird, and never asked to watch it again. Thomas' voice is really, really annoying anyway.
So Caillou. It's a harmless show, except that Caillou is super whiny and doesn't have any manners when he speaks, and his mom seems to NEVER be paying attention to her kids (there's actually an episode where she tells Caillou to stop playing so loudly because she's trying to read a book). It's still less annoying than Barney, and less trashy than Spongebob, and one of the few wholesome shows for toddlers that isn't very long. These 26 minutes (a day - none on a good day - twice on a bad one) save my life and allow me to be human. I can put the baby down for a nap, take a shower, and start a load of laundry all in one episode of Caillou.
We got to the mall because Caillou let me take a shower, feed the baby, dress the toddler, pack the diaper bag, stuff the stroller into the trunk, all without too much screaming, throwing of food or toys, and demanding this or that. We were all happy once we got into the car. Happy to be out of the house, happy to be together, and happy that we were all alive and generally clean. Mommy being showered, baby being well rested, and toddler being entertained are how we do it, mall lady. And we have silly little Caillou to thank.
Much to my toddler's chagrin, I told him we were going to have to go to that dreaded place that had a kids' play area and a merry go round. How could a kid not love the idea of this? Every single time I ask him if he wants to go, he looks at me like I've just asked him if he would like to eat a giant turd for dinner. Anyway, I convinced him to go by putting his coat and shoes on and putting him in the car. I'm very persuasive.
We got there just in time for baby to need to nurse again, so we hit the play area, specifically designed for children 5 and under, which is always heavily populated with children 5 and over, roughhousing and running around and nearly taking the lives of the toddlers and little ones who actually belong there. Don't you worry, I give the parents of those older children dirty looks the entire time. If you are one of those people with a seven year old running around in there, shame on you. I get it that you may have a younger child who DOES belong in that area, but make your older child sit there on the bench with you, or closely follow the younger child, but don't let your kid run around knocking over babies who've just learned to walk. It drives me and every other mom with a child within the age and height limits nuts, if you haven't noticed.
Back to our journey at hand. I make it through to the play area without ramming into too many people with my giant double stroller, give a few stink eyes to a particular family who had not one, but two older boys running around (seriously?!), and sit down to nurse my baby. This coincidentally took place after I had pulled into the mall with my favorite radio station talking about this very subject - breastfeeding in public, and how people feel about seeing it or doing it. It was hilarious to hear two grown men talking about this, and saying things like Lactation Consultant and "proper latch", and actually yelling at a woman who was "disgusted" by seeing a mom who just whipped one out to feed her baby while shopping at Target.
I'm not going to throw my two cents into the conversation about this. I nurse in public, but I do it with a cover or a blanket, and try to be discreet about it. I may have flashed a boob here or there, or thrown the cover off in frustration after the baby and I are both sweating from the enormous heat bubble that a nursing cover can create, but largely I try to keep it private. I will, however, go mama bear if you look at me funny or even think of asking me to go do that somewhere else. No one around here is going to be having lunch in a bathroom stall, my baby included. Whatever, moms. Do what you want, feel how you feel. I don't care if I see your boob. You're feeding a kid, which is the important part. And as they said on the radio, it's probably the same amount of boob as you'd see on the beach, and at least it's serving a purpose here.
Returning from the sidetrack. I feed the baby while also standing up several times to make sure my toddler doesn't fall off whatever he's trying to climb, and also to protect him from the giant monsters running all around him and threatening to make him teeter off of the pretend pony he's riding. No one cries, no one sweats, and when I ask the eldest if he'd like to leave the play area to go find dinner, he simply says "yes," runs to the cubby where his shoes are, and says "here you go, Mommy," so that I can slip his shoes back on. I look awesome enough that some other mom actually looks at me and says "I don't know how you do it!" I smile at her and, giggling inside, say "I don't know either!"
But I do know. You know how I do it? Caillou. I used to be against television in our house entirely. Before turning two, I think my toddler had watched maybe two hours of television in his entire life. After baby 2 came along, and Daddy got a bunch of jobs that made him disappear for 18 hours at a time, and I became a stay-at-home mom, I gave up. I let the kid watch a show. He picked Caillou. We watched Thomas for a bit, too, but after a few weeks I think he figured out that those trains are creepy weird, and never asked to watch it again. Thomas' voice is really, really annoying anyway.
So Caillou. It's a harmless show, except that Caillou is super whiny and doesn't have any manners when he speaks, and his mom seems to NEVER be paying attention to her kids (there's actually an episode where she tells Caillou to stop playing so loudly because she's trying to read a book). It's still less annoying than Barney, and less trashy than Spongebob, and one of the few wholesome shows for toddlers that isn't very long. These 26 minutes (a day - none on a good day - twice on a bad one) save my life and allow me to be human. I can put the baby down for a nap, take a shower, and start a load of laundry all in one episode of Caillou.
We got to the mall because Caillou let me take a shower, feed the baby, dress the toddler, pack the diaper bag, stuff the stroller into the trunk, all without too much screaming, throwing of food or toys, and demanding this or that. We were all happy once we got into the car. Happy to be out of the house, happy to be together, and happy that we were all alive and generally clean. Mommy being showered, baby being well rested, and toddler being entertained are how we do it, mall lady. And we have silly little Caillou to thank.
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