Doing it right: The Best Thing to do

I struggle a lot with knowing what the right thing to do is, and knowing whether I did the right thing after.  It causes me a lot of anxiety, and often stops me from accomplishing anything, in turn leaving me even more frustrated and overwhelmed.  So my new motto for the week is: The best thing to do is Something.

And with that in mind, I did all this right.

1. I emptied my dishwasher and tidied up my kitchen, getting the flat surfaces mostly cleared off.
2. I put on an audiobook and folded two loads of laundry.
3. When my baby insisted on being held, I held her.
4. When my toddler said "No butter jelly" after asking for it, I didn't freak out.  I just put it in a tupperware and got her some yogurt.
5. I wrote in my journal, even though I didn't think I had anything to say.
6. I'm publishing this blog post without stopping to worry if it's deep or meaningful or Important.

Space and quiet

I need more space and quiet in my life.  And the culprits aren't the two small people who like to simultaneously sit on top of me and scream.  They're okay.  They're just doing their jobs.

But there's a lot of other noise.  From social media, from the perpetually turned on TV, from my own anxious ever-busy brain.  I am inundated, I am surrounded.

And the paradox is, the more I am struggling, the louder it's getting in my head, the more I'm starting to feel crushed and suffocated by it all, the more I seek out the noise.

Quiet is scary.  And the noise in my head is the worst one, so maybe I think if there's just enough other noise, I will drown it out.

But I don't.

In a lot of ways it makes sense.  The more lonely I feel, the more helpless I feel, the more overwhelmed I feel, the more I seek out "easy" ways of fulfilling my needs.  "141 characters is all I can handle," I joke.  It's too hard to read a real book, so I read Internet articles.  It's too hard to write something honest and genuine and vulnerable, so I write something witty and snarky.  It's too hard to actually call someone or get out of my house so I sit and refresh Facebook for an hour.

But those things don't satisfy.  They don't mean anything.  They aren't real.

And that's not entirely true either because I have some real and meaningful exchanges on social media.  I've made real friends there.  But it's harder.  And it's rare.  And it's usually not the point.

And when I do have two kids crawling on me, and I haven't slept at night, of COURSE I need help and company and commiseration.  And of COURSE it's hard for me to do the hard stuff.  I can't just say "well, instead of tweeting, I'll write a novel and found a live support group and participate in a fun and engaging activity (okay, it's sad that I can't even come up with one to make this point, right), all before my morning coffee."

There needs to be space for the easy stuff, especially at this point of my life.

But there needs to be space without it too.

My girls

Last night, about 20 minutes after I put the two year old to bed, she started crying.  Not a whimpering, whining, trying to get back downstairs kind of cry, but an actual cry of distress.  Tears even.

I handed off the baby and went back up the stairs, opened her door, and turned on the light.

"Mommy mommy mommy."

"I'm here, honey, what's wrong?"

"Mommy mommy."

"I'm right here, baby.  Are you okay?  Does something hurt?"

"Hurt."

"What hurts?"

She put her hand to her neck.  "Tummy hurts."

"Your ... your throat hurts honey?  Your neck?"

"Neck?"

"That's your neck.  Does your neck hurt?"

"Oh!"  she laughed, her eyes still only halfway open, and lifted up her shirt. "This tummy.   This neck."

"Right.  So does your neck hurt?"

"This tummy.  This neck.  Eyes.  Mouth.  Nose."

"Okay, sweetie, so nothing hurts?"

"Head.  Head shoulders knees toes."

And as she burst into song, I kissed her and said goodnight, gracefully slipping out the door, leaving her still singing in the room behind me.

Sigh.

It's hard to be mad at her when she's so charming and funny.  Or it's hard to be amused and charmed when she's so maddening.  I haven't figured out which yet.

Whether something hurt or not, my sweet big girl didn't sleep very well last night.  She woke up as many times as little sister who, let's face it has much more right to it.  And so the two of us spent the morning in a constant state of being alternately furious with and gushingly attached to each other, while my poor sweet baby spent the morning trying to protect her head from her excessively affectionate sister and staring at us like we were crazy.

Which, as I've said before, fair enough.

I spend a lot of my morning yelling at my toddler, and at least as much time apologizing to her.

When BG goes down for her nap every day, my little one wakes up and looks around.  I'm sure that I'm imagining the relief, that I'm projecting ... right?  I nurse her and I hold her on my shoulder and stare at her face and I apologize to her.  I tell her I'm sorry that I don't pay more attention to her.  Sorry that big sister gets so much of the spotlight, that she's Big in more ways than age and size.  Sorry that mommy is that way too, with All. The. Feelings. All. The. Time.

And she just stares back at me.

I don't know if I'm getting this right.  I don't know how to keep them both happy, how to make sure everyone (including me?) gets what she needs.  I think maybe I can't. And I want this post to end like all of my posts do, with some wise sounding pat answer, like "and maybe that's okay" or "but I'm trying and that's enough."  But I don't know.  I want to do better.  I just don't know if there is really any way to do better.

Doing it right

Someone during the course of my teacher training taught me, and forgive me that I am totally stealing this and I don't remember from who, "We talk about what we value, and we value what we talk about."

I've been thinking about this a lot lately.  We talk so much about our flaws and failures, and then - accidentally or intentionally - about other people's flaws.  I once saw someone confess online to having let her son watch "a whole hour of TV once."  My self-esteem pretty much fell through the floor.  And while we want to help ourselves and each other be better, while we want to be honest about how hard this whole mom thing is, maybe what we're really doing is giving the negative stuff all the power.  

So, I was glad to see my dear friend Jaime start a bloghop about the things we're doing right.  And while you aren't going to see me pinning fancy cake designs or sensory bins or my 5k progress any time soon (you do still know where you are, don't you?), there are a few things I'm getting right.

1. I drank at least 36 ounces of water today.
2. I bundled up BG and went outside to play, even though I didn't want to.
3. I make milk.  'Nuff said.
4. I am writing this blog post with two children in my lap.  Let's call that a great big win, shall we?

Today is okay

Yesterday was DH's first day back at work since my little one was born.  I was nervous and eager and ready to try so hard to do everything right.

We went outside and played in the snow.  We snuggled on the couch, all three of us.  BG and I played with playdough, with princesses, with blocks.  We baked cornbread and emptied the dishwasher together.  I cleaned the bathrooms.  I propped the baby up in the Boppy and folded three loads of laundry.

There were some hard moments, like when the little one woke up and started crying (what?? she cries???) just as I was tucking BG in for her nap, or when BG decided to pull stuff out of the trash while I was nursing, but overall?  I felt like a rockstar.

Today?  Not so much.

The baby decided to power nurse for two hours last night, and again when she woke up this morning.  BG woke up with a nightmare at 5, then slept until 8 (of course waking up in the middle of a nursing session and quickly working herself into a frenzy when I didn't come upstairs).

I was tired.  I was flustered.  I was determined to not set expectations too high.

We did nothing all morning but stay in our pajamas and watch TV until 11:30.

BG asked for a fruit leather for breakfast and I gave it to her.

I put the baby down in the swing, and then on her mat, and then in the swing again because when BG does nothing but watch TV all morning, she gets a little bit difficult to deal with and I need both my hands.

I had to yell at BG for climbing on top of her sister.  For trying to push her in the swing.  For throwing my water glass across the room.

This morning wasn't great, people.  I'm not a genius at this mom of two thing.

It's naptime now.  I tried to sleep, I swear I did.  But really all I wanted to do was lie in bed and stare at the ceiling for a while.  Rest.  Process. Recover.

I'm still tired.  I'm still not a genius at this.  But I'm okay.

And while I'm well aware that it's easy to be okay while both kids are sleeping, and that this afternoon might suck again, I'm kind of okay with that.

The thing I never understood about being kind to myself and giving myself grace is this: it's not that if you're kind to yourself, the day will go well and you'll feel better.  It's that you're kind to yourself even if the day sucks and you feel like crap.  That you recognize that you don't have to fix it, that no permanent damage is being done, and that even if you're not enjoying it, you're safe and whole and not at all broken.

And that's why today's okay.

My (holy crap) birth story

The last two weeks of  my pregnancy  were rough.  I was having contractions that woke me up at night, my pelvis hurt when I waddled walked, and both my body and doctor had me convinced that I would have the baby any minute.   I was uncomfortable, impatient, and anxious about the uncertainty.  Plus, I was worried about finding somewhere to take BG and get to the hospital on time since my first labor was so fast.

Or at least I thought it was.

That Friday, one day before I was 39 weeks, I went to a Christmas party and chased BG around and down the stairs 100 times.  I joked with the other moms about how she was helping me kickstart my labor.  That night, my in-laws got here and jokingly congratulated me on waiting for them to get here.

Hilarious.

At 4 AM, I woke up with contractions again.  Only this time, I had no question as to whether they were real contractions.  I was in a lot of pain, even between contractions, like I was with BG when I got to the hospital at  8 cm.   I needed to go.

Only, first I needed to call my doctor.  Since my water hadn't broken, I would need to give him a reason why I wanted to go to the hospital, so I started timing contractions.  And got on twitter.

I timed about two contractions at 6 minutes apart and decided I had enough evidence (in related news, I think I must be really bad at timing contractions).  I woke up my husband and called the doctor who told me "Well, if you really want to you can start heading over.  They might send you home though."  I was in the car seconds later.

We were out the front door by 5, and at the front door of the hospital by 5:45.

I walked up to the labor and delivery department, clutching the wall as I went, and trying to remember to breathe.  When the secretary told me to have a seat and someone would come get me, I almost cried.

In the triage room, I barely managed to get my gown on before announcing to the nurse "Umm, I'm in a lot of pain."  

"Okay, I'll get the doctor right in to check you.  Actually, I'll go ahead and start your IV first.  Were you planning on getting an epidural?"

"Yes?  ... Oh, I'm feeling pressure."

And then my water broke.  All over the room.  Exploded really.

The nurse ran out of the room and ran back with a terrified looking resident.

The poor scared little thing checked me and practically yelled, "She's complete and plus 2."

My nurse was already strapping monitors on me and doing 3 things at once as she leaned over my bed and calmly said "Let's go have your baby.  Grab all her stuff, dad, we're going to move fast."

When I got to the labor room, the nurses there were ready to go.  They looked at my face and laughed "You look pretty good for being complete.  You look calmer than they do," they said, indicating the triage nurses and residents.

I half smiled.  I mean, what else was I supposed to do?

Bless the heart of the on call doctor who was there a moment later.  "This is why I sleep at the hospital.  You ready to go?"  The very relieved resident quickly left the room.

"Umm, yeah.  I need to push.  Now."

And then people were holding my legs and I was having my baby.  Three contractions later, at 6:30 AM, she was on my stomach (well, right after they suctioned the meconium out of her mouth.  Why do my babies have to poop so much?)

They cleaned her up and took her to the warmer to weigh her.  I think people around me were congratulating me, and saying things like "that's the way to do it" and "good job, mom!" but at that point I was kind of in a daze.

"Congratulations, mama, on a healthy 9 pound 5 ounce baby."

Excuse me, say what?

I turned to my husband.  "By the way," I said, "this was not my birth plan."

My rambly one word post for 2013

I've been making a lot of jokes lately about how the only thing on my life's list this year was going to be "survive."

With a tiny baby in the house, and all the adjustments we all have to do, that seems like enough of a challenge.  And it's enough of an accomplishment for me to be proud.

But that's not what I want this year to be about.

In my gut, I've known for a while that I want more.  I've seen the person who I'm becoming, and even though sometimes I'm afraid of her, I know that this journey I have found myself on is turning me into someone different than I was before, and I like it.

I almost said better right there.  I almost said "being a mom is making me a better person."  But that's not fair.

The woman that I was: the beloved teacher, the diligent student, the snarky teenage girl, she matters.  She was amazing.  I am proud to have been her.

But at the same time, I know that I'm someone else right now, and that the only way to really survive? Is to keep growing and evolving.

This year, I want to be brave.  I want to learn.  I want to play.  I want to give and serve.  But mostly, I want to keep moving forward, and let myself become who I need to be.  I don't have a specific definition of what that means, and I think that's okay.  

This year, I'm not just going to survive the hard stuff.  I'm going to let the hard stuff do what it's supposed to do.  I'm going to grow and change and not be (too) afraid of that.

So my one word for 2013 is Grow.  Little by little, and sometimes in spurts, it's the only way to get somewhere great.