Motherhood Archives - Page 23 of 28 -

Confessions of a Prenatal Class Graduate

June 11, 2011 by Farewell Stranger ·

I confess: Looking back, I think the prenatal class we took was pretty dumb.

It was one night a week for four weeks (or was it six?) and aside from completely freaking me out about having a c-section (which I ended up having, so I suppose I’m glad I knew ahead of time they strap your arms down) I’m not sure it was very useful.

Image courtesy sweetpeascloth.com

One activity involved planning what we would do in a day with a newborn. The idea was to help parents-to-be understand how much work it is to have a newborn and how hard it is to get anything else done. The class was split – moms on one side, dads/partners on the other. It became a bit of a joke – how often do you have to feed them? How much sleep is reasonable to expect? How many beers can I drink between diaper changes? But of course none of us knew what was reasonable or what to expect. You can’t know until you’re doing it. So overall, not helpful.

Another exercise involved how partners can support moms in late pregnancy and labour. Are some of these things designed to make pregnant women seem totally hormonally messed up? One of the questions was: “What do you do if mom decides she needs to totally overhaul the baby’s room a week before her due date?” Because, you know, you’ve done all that painting and decorating and setting up furniture so it would be insane to change it all because her pregnant self doesn’t like it.

Related aside: Of course my husband, champion that he is, responded, “Say yes,” to this question. I, on the other hand, was much more rational, and wrote, “Look at the room and your options”. And then about, oh, two weeks before Connor was born, I had a total panic that the room wasn’t good enough and bought a bunch of decals that went with his bedding. I thought my artistic husband would freak out – “decals?!” – but he totally went for it and we put them up. Crisis averted.

In any case, thinking about this exercise now it occurs to me that, while I’m sure it’s helpful to understand how you can support your partner while she’s in labour, the prenatal class didn’t focus nearly enough on the actual reality of what happens next.

Looking at our responses to the labour support questions, I think a lot of the strategies involved could actually be applied to supporting a new mom right after birth, and it might have been helpful to mention that.

It doesn’t really matter what the actual questions were (translation: I can’t remember), but here’s what we answered (my answers / Rich’s answers):

sit down & have a drink / distract her
watch a movie or TV / run a bath and light candles
look at the room and the options / say “yes”
sit down / remind her of what she’s learned
call midwife or go for a walk / go for a walk
encourage & give positive feedback / give her a back or foot rub
encourage her, give a back rub / say “yes”
encourage her, hold her hand / encourage her
distract her / practice breathing
get her to sit down and breathe / get her to sit down

Don’t you think these apply to all the ~~totally overwhelming and hard~~ joyful things that happen after you bring your baby home? And coming from the point of view of someone who dealt with PPD, I know I would have been a lot better off if I’d done more of these things.

Do you think it’s too late to ask for a back rub?

Filed Under: Motherhood · Tagged With: expectations, rants

Thoughts from the Road(Trip)

June 9, 2011 by Farewell Stranger ·

We pulled into our driveway last night and could hear our dog – having spent the past week waiting to see if we’d ever come back – barking madly. Upon opening the door, he came storming out. He jumped. He licked. He ran circles around us.

We’re home.

The trip – despite some moments of going crazy – was great. A few observations:

Spending seven full days with a toddler when you haven’t done that often – in fact, ever – is…what’s the word? Challenging? Exhausting? Enlightening? Crazy-making? Endearing? Yes.
I might, possibly, need to plan a little bit more alone time on future trips.
Toddlers who are pretty tied to a routine at home do surprisingly well on road trips.
Next time, I need to remember to bring bath toys. (Thanks again, Paige, for kitting us out for the trip home.)
When you tell your three-year-old boy you’re going to a play date and he’s quite concerned about whether there will be diggers there, and then you arrive to find that there are, in fact, diggers to play with, the look on his face is priceless.
It turns out three-year-old boys quickly forget about diggers when there’s a selection of fire trucks to play with.
A two-day drive with a toddler is actually not so bad when he can watch shows on the iPhone once the toys and games you brought get boring.
The second day is especially quiet when the toddler is sick, spent the whole previous night throwing up, and then sleeps most of the way home. (Poor little monkey.)
My family – those who were there and those who weren’t – are truly one of my biggest blessings.
There’s a reason we seem to go there every year. It’s becoming even more about the people, though I will always find a piece of my soul in the place.

Filed Under: Motherhood · Tagged With: family, favourite activities, living life, love

Helicopter Improvisation

June 4, 2011 by Farewell Stranger ·

We’re on a little road trip to visit family and see my middle sister walk across the stage to get her degree. [Potential burglars, beware: our house is still occupied and the dog is there too. He might look cute but he thinks he’s fierce, and that’s about all it would take for him to take you down. Seriously.]

Anyway… We split the trip into two days, because we’re travelling with a toddler and we’re smart like that. Along the way, we spent a night in a hotel. During the whole drive, Connor was so excited about having a bath in the hotel. So when we got there and it was time for a bath, we excitedly ventured into the bathroom and he promptly jumped into the bathtub.

We turned the water on. The tub filled up, ready for some splashy fun.

And then he asked the question.

“Do we have any bath toys?”

We didn’t. We have pretty much everything else we’ll need, but we didn’t think to bring bath toys. We did this same trip last year and I don’t recall a need for bath toys, so it didn’t occur to me to bring them.

Normally this would be a moment of panic for me. Anxiety would set in. It had been a long drive and I wasn’t prepared for a meltdown about the lack of bath toys.

But wait! A moment of mama brilliance. Surely in the travel box of toys we’d brought there would be something that could go in the bath. And there was.

Between a small, blue helicopter (that doubles as a submarine, as it turns out) and a shower cap that worked nicely as a fishing net, we had a pretty darn good hotel-room bath.

Confession: I’m not always this brilliant. Only sometimes. 😉

Filed Under: Happy things, Motherhood · Tagged With: travel

Pride In the Name of Love

May 28, 2011 by Farewell Stranger ·

I haven’t written about day-to-day Connor stuff here much, but today I’m going to take a moment for some mama pride. I’ve always been proud of my little guy for so many things, but this week I’m just bursting. Each thing is little – and for some families totally unremarkable – but they’re so meaningful to us. Put together I’m just over-the-top in love with him all over again.

He seems to have nailed the potty training thing. He’s been really good for a while, but no more pull-ups during the day and he’s not even really having accidents. Even doing well when we’re out!
He’s been so good with manners. Again, he’s always been pretty good at this but hearing the unprompted pleases and thank yous in that little voice – for even the littlest things – is so awesome.
He’s been listening better. This is pretty big for us. He’s not perfect (what toddler is?) but in the last week we’ve had more cooperation and less all-out meltdown in response to requests to do or not do or to clean up something. (Big thanks to Yael Saar for her wisdom from Ithaca – it helped!) Maybe part of this is me – I’m calmer this week, and he might be responding to that too.
And the big one – on Thursday night he slept in his bed by himself! He had one wake-up at 11, came downstairs and slept on the couch for a while with Daddy, who was watching TV. When Rich took him back upstairs, Connor said, “You’re taking me upstairs? Oh, thank you, Daddy.” And then he stayed in his bed. All night! He came into our room just before 7 on Friday morning and we woke to a little voice announcing, “I had a really good sleep.” There was much rejoicing and then he said, “I did it! Yay, Connor!” Love it. Not only did he do it, but he understands that this is the goal and he was proud of himself for doing it. (Of course I was awake on and off after about 4 am wondering if he was okay, but still…) No repeat performance last night, but I’ll take whatever progress I can get.

I just love this kid.

Filed Under: Motherhood · Tagged With: family, gratitude, love, moments, sleep

Comforter

May 24, 2011 by Farewell Stranger ·

“I don’t want to sleep in my new bed!”

“Why not, honey?”

“It’s too old.”

He has a thing about things being too “old”. When we converted his crib into a toddler bed it was “too old” even though it was clearly a new set-up with new bedding. “Old” just means “I don’t want it.”

“It’s not too old!”

My excited voice.

“It’s brand new and you have new bedding just for you and everything! You even helped daddy build it!”

It’s actually the double bed from our guest room with a frame bought at a second hand store, but he doesn’t make the connection past wondering where that bed went.

“No it’s not. It’s old.”

He has such a sad face. Such a sad voice.

I know what he’s feeling. He wants to be close to mama and daddy. He’s not comfortable with this.

But it’s time he learned to sleep in his own bed.

Each night at bedtime, one of us will climb into his new bed, read stories, and get him settled for sleep. We lie with him until he’s asleep, a necessary step at this point.

When he’s asleep, we sneak out.

I’ve looked back at him as I walk out – he does look like a small boy in a big bed. I get this overwhelming rush of love because he’s my baby. But it’s time. Besides, he’s an octopus and everyone will sleep better if the octopus sleeps in his own bed.

Inevitably, sometime before midnight (and often much earlier) he will get up. Come to us.

“I want to sleep in your bed.”

For months we alternated – one night with dad in our bed, one night with me in the guest room. We needed the sleep.

For the last few weeks we’ve been sleeping as a family. We’ve loved having him – I’ve woken in the night and watched my boys sleep and have felt so blessed – but even in a king bed it’s sometimes too much with him in there. He sleeps like a baby monkey clinging to his mother. (And I happen to be that mother.)

That night, I escorted him back to bed. Lay down with him until he slept again, then started planning my escape. But there’s no leaving. In the middle of the night his mama-presence radar is on high alert.

He woke and I resigned myself to sleeping with him.

This is what we’ll do for now – alternate sleeping with him in his new “old” bed so he gets used to it.

He was restless that night, rolling and turning, sitting up and lying down again, trying to find the right position.

Restless child = wakeful mama.

Some time just before 5 am, he woke. Sat up and looked at me.

“I want a cuddle.”