On good babies

So, umm, in case I didn't mention it?  I had a baby last week.

I can't begin to explain all the ways this time is different.  But the most noticeable way is how different my baby is.

Little sister is calm.  And quiet. (Who knew they made them quiet?)  She doesn't care who's holding her, doesn't mind being put down.  At night, she sleeps in her bassinet and only wakes up to eat.  She only cries when she's hungry, and when she is awake and not nursing, she is calm and alert - although to me her expression always says "what's with you crazy people?"  Which?  Fair enough.

She is pleasant and agreeable, and in every way an easy baby.

But please don't call her a good baby, or I'll want to scream.

Because as much as I'm enjoying the quiet, as much of a relief it is not to be pacing the floor all night with an(other) inconsolable child, as great as she is to be around, when you call her a good baby, all I hear is that BG wasn't.

And that's so not fair.

Never once, whatever we went through together, did I think my sweet eldest girl was a bad baby.

And I worry too about my little one, being in the shadow of her charming, demanding, endearing, crazy-making big sister.  Is it really in her best interest to be so calm?  On Christmas Eve I forgot where she was, while I was nursing her.

The truth is I am absolutely crazy about both of my girls, and all  I want is for them both to be happy and loved.  And if it is possible to have a "good" baby, well then I have two.

How am I supposed to do this?

In 3 months I'm going to be a mom of two.  I feel like I haven't even gotten the hang of one yet.

In my head, I know that's not fair.  My sweet, precious big girl is doing great.  She is developmentally right on track, she is kind, she is funny.  I know that I must be getting it right, that I am not failing her, that we are doing just fine.

But that's not how it feels in my heart.

Almost every day lately, I feel overwhelmed.  I feel like I can't handle her.  Everything seems Big and Important.  Everything is a crisis.

We watch a lot of TV.  A really lot.  We still take swim lessons, we still go to playgroups, we still read books.  But I don't know how to play with her.  When I'm alone with her and there's nothing planned to do, I panic a little.  I don't know how to possibly fill the time.  I lose my patience quickly.  I cry more than I'd like to.

And in the back of my head, there's always a voice that says, "If you can't even handle this, how are you ever going to survive with two?"

When there are two small people I don't know what to do with.  When I haven't had any sleep and still have to chase BG around and stop her from scaling everything.  When the three of us are stuck in the house all winter staring at each other, and I'm the one who's expected to know what to do.

People say that once you have two, you should expect to be in survival mode for a while.  But I kind of feel like I'm already in survival mode, so where do I go from here?

When no one's clapping

When BG had just turned one, we managed to teach her to hold up one finger. When we would ask her either "How old are you?" or "Are you one?" She would hold up one finger and say "DA!" with a huge smile on her face.

I remember telling one of my friends, "I'm almost certain she doesn't know what it means, but she knows that when she does it we cheer, so she does it. It's like I'm teaching her to do tricks, i.e., this is the secrete to education."

He laughed and said, "Well, isn't that the way it is all through life? You work hard for the grades, and then for the girl, and then for the job and the raise?"

I smiled and said, "Well yeah, so how do you know you've done a good job if no one claps?" And I thought about it for a second. "Actually. That's the secret to education."

The secret to education, and I suppose to parenting, is to eventually make yourself irrelevant. To teach them how to learn, to self-monitor, to evaluate. To make it so they don't need the clapping to know when they've done the right thing.

I win at teaching. Maybe I even win at parenting. But I don't so much win at life.

I still need the clapping. Actually, I need it a lot.

But I always got the A's. The awards. I never interviewed for a job I didn't get. I won teacher of the year. I have thank you letters from students that take my breath away.

When I was in high school, my friends threw me a party to thank me for taking care of them and helping them with their problems. That doesn't even sound real.

It's normal to need to feel appreciated and respected. It's human. It's healthy. And maybe I'm not getting enough of that these days. But, at some point, I need to learn to do it without the clapping.

I take criticism way too hard, and I take rejections way too personally. I don't know that I'm doing a good job unless someone is handing me a prize. I measure my worth as a human being on things like my blog stats and my twitter mentions. I beg for approval and stroking.

I hate that about myself.

(Yes. I hate my own low self esteem. No, that's probably not even the most counter-productive thought I've had today.)

I want to be the kind of person who can separate her own worth from other people's opinions of her. I want to care about and try to address other people's needs, but not be owned by them. I want to take pride in things I do, even when no one notices them. I want to believe that I am good and smart and have value, that I matter.

I don't know how to do that.

And then the pancakes stuck (or, how I learned to stop worrying and love the pancakes)

So, I've been struggling again lately with a lot of anxiety. My thoughts race and I can't concentrate and I start to feel helpless.

It's frustrating because I feel like I can't focus and so can't do the kind of meaningful work I'd like to do. It's disappointing because I thought I was past this and don't want to feel like this again. It's scary because I can't control it and I worry that it's just going to be like this forever.

I spent the past 2 days trying to do everything right. I slept. I ate. I exercised. I went out. Yesterday, I met someone for coffee, did an exercise video, cleaned my bathroom, went for a walk with the baby, danced, played, ate salad for lunch, took my vitamins and fish oil, distracted myself with crossword puzzles and massive quantities of Sporcle. I read and did every anxiety tip I could find, and at the end of the day I just felt angry. And tired. And my butt hurt.

This morning, I decided to give myself grace. I stayed in my pajamas. And I made pancakes.

Except I forgot to grease the griddle and the pancakes stuck. Behold the string of irrational thoughts.

• "This is so unfair. Why do these things always happen to me? Nothing ever goes right."
  
• "I'm such an idiot. I can't believe I forgot to grease that. I always do stuff like that."
  
• (Watch how the irrational thoughts come the target of the irrational thoughts. "Oh my gosh, I'm so whiny. And irrational. The pancakes are just stuck. Everything in my life is so good, I can't believe I'm complaining about this."
  
• (For my next trick, I will beat myself up for beating myself up.)"Oh my gosh, it's no wonder I'm depressed and anxious. I keep trashing myself. I'm such an idiot."
  
  

Pause
Or. The pancakes stuck. I have to scrape them off. They aren't pretty. They still taste okay. It's frustrating that I have to clean this all off the pan now. Of course it is.

Let's eat pancakes.