Monotony and the self.

Just write something, she said. I believe in you, Mama.

But what is there to write when day in and day out is monotony? Granted, the most meaningful monotony of my entire existence, but monotony just the same.

This is my first post in 2012, since November to be clear, and it is, so far, worthless. How do you write about each day when each day looks exactly the same as the last? How do you write about the feelings when the feelings never change, a veritable roller-coaster in grey. Things are sunny, things are dark but ultimately they are all the same. Get up. Milk. Breakfast. Milk. Playtime. Milk. Groceries. Milk. Lunch. Milk. Nap-time. Milk Milk Milk. Clean clean clean. Cook cook cook.

Is he walking yet? Is he talking yet? Is he a super-star rock n' roll basketball hero yet?

I remember when I used to be creative, but not vividly. I remember it like I remember looking at a powerful photograph, not as though I was really there. I remember when I used to feel that my art meant something. To me, mostly, and maybe to other people, too.

What is a blog for, is it for me? A space to be honest about who I am to a world of people who only wish to tear me down silently behind their computer screens? Or is it a space for me to harp about the parenting choices I make, subsequently making other people question their own monotonous existence? If it is meant to be a space to connect, how do I feel so disconnected? Compared to everyone else at all times.


The other day I realised something again, but for the first time. We are nothing, all of us. We are specs of nothing on the grand scheme of nothingness. This is very freeing, as it means I can do anything I want, I can make any choice I'd like to make. I have only me, I can only control myself. No one else is working to make me happy. No one.

I have begun to consciously choose selfishness. But only when the little one is sleeping.

He was refusing to breastfeed. What was I to do?

My baby refused to breastfeed at four months old. Was he trying to wean? 

I love breastfeeding my baby. Now that we have been doing this dance for over ten months, I can look back on our steps and see the areas where we lost our footing. Where we had become off-beat. How I was steadfast and determined, I simply didn't see any other choice and so I dug my heels in, turned up the music, and kept dancing, even if I didn't know what the dance was supposed to look like.

There have been moments where I was exhausted, confused, raggedly looking into the eyes of my friends and desperately pleading for a moment of sanity thinking - "Am I doing this right? Is this really how it is supposed to go?" Not knowing that when it comes to breastfeeding - and babies in general - there really isn't a "supposed to" about it.

When Desmond was four months old he woke up. That is, he realized he could see the world and couldn't tear his eyes away from it for one moment, not one. He only wanted to be held high enough to see over our shoulders, or facing away so that he could look look look at everything.

q u i e t n e s s

This made breastfeeding very hard. Friends would come to visit us and he would squawk, hungry like a tiny bird. I would gently bring him to my breast and he would hungrily root and latch. And then immediately become angry and arch his back away. Partly? This was a learned behaviour from the reflux. But mostly he did not want to look away from the world. He did not understand that snuggling into my breast meant he would no longer be hungry.

This was more than just a baby bobbing his head into the breast. More than just a baby pushing and pinching the breast. Those actions are signs of hunger often misinterpreted.

This was a baby, my baby, full on refusing to take the breast and suck or feed. This was a nursing strike. At a very young age.

I didn't know at the time but we were going through was something many women go through. At my LLL meeting, mothers saw him squawk in hunger, mothers saw him angry and refusing to be turned into the breast, angry at the suggestion that... maybe he'd like to eat? They offered their sympathy, they offered to help any way they could. Their eyes told me - "It's going to get better." As I packed up a finally full, finally sleeping baby to drive home in wintery darkness, Leaders would put a hand on my shoulder and thank me for being determined, for coming to the meetings. "Keep coming," they'd say.

Obviously I was petrified to leave my house to go anywhere else. How could I go to the grocery store? How could I go to the bank or the mall? My baby would become hungry, but what it took to feed him was at least a 15 minute ordeal that involved a lot of crying, a lot of that very screamy baby screaming that we call Code Red around here. And I was unable to juggle the two of us in any discreet kind of way. I couldn't very well plop myself down in the pickle aisle with my breast out and struggle with my screaming baby for 15 minutes. I wish that I could have, but people today wouldn't understand. Because What would people say? They would say breastfeeding is only okay if it is discreet. Right? We tell mothers No!

Not if a she needs to sit down on the ground and pull down her v-neck and leave it that way and THEN somehow finagle the L O U D E S T infant into quietness just so that she can get some fucking groceries, god dammit. No, not the mothers who really need it, not the mothers who are struggling. They can't be discreet so they are NOT OKAY IN PUBLIC.

There were only two things that I knew for sure in those days:

1. A four month old baby is not trying to wean. A four month old baby has no concept of those things. 
2.  A baby can't be distracted if it is already sleeping. 

And so we became very good at putting the baby to sleep without the breast at all. We wore Baby D and walked until he slept. We held him in our arms and danced around the livingroom until he slept. We held him to our chests and bounced gently on the exercise ball, humming and shushing, humming and shushing. Until he slept. And he would cry. But then he would sleep.

He sleeps.

Once his lungs were quiet and his eyes were closed, I could bring him to my chest and he would latch and he would suck and he would eat and eat and eat. And he would sleep. And I would visualize and take deep breaths, anything anything to get that letdown to come as fast as I could. Rushing rivers, gates opening, waterfalls of milks. Breathing deeply, my hand on his tiny head, celebrating; my baby is q u i e t.

We had cracked the secret code. And so all day I would feed him after he fell asleep. If he would fuss during a nap, I would lay beside him and let him eat. I would feed him again as he woke up. He started eating more over the course of the night to make up for the days. I didn't mind. Babies need to eat, and I wanted to feed him. I would breastfeed him anyway that we could make it work.

Every day it became easier until at one point - it stopped. He started making the connection and the dance became so much smoother, we were more than comfortable taking time-outs from the world to nurse. And then it was just gone. I can still remember the first day that he was happy and excited to breastfeed every. time. And I'm so grateful that I powered through that rough patch, that nursing strike, to emerge on the other side.

Now? Six months later I am even happier. This dance couldn't be any easier.

#23. This Moment: Sick little Snugglebug

My sick little Snugglebug

 {this moment}

A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savour, and remember.

If you're inspired to do the same

leave your link in the comments 

then go to Soule Mama and do the same.

My Brilliant High-Maintenance Baby

I have a confession.

I think I might have a high maintenance baby. As I write this, he is attempting to take a nap because he is exhausted. Every 20 minutes he cries like he has seen the boogeyman and needs me to come to him and gently pick him up so that he can calmly fall back asleep in my arms. I lay him down, he sleeps peacefully, and 20 minutes later we begin again.

Play with me!

If we are having an in-house day, he needs me nearby at all times. He likes to look up into my face and make sure everything is hunky-dory. He wants me to read to him. He wants me to play with him. He wants me to sing to him, change his diaper, sit him up, lay him down, put him in the Jump-mo-tron, take him out, carry him around, nurse him, toss him around, bounce him, nurse him while bouncing him, and GOD FORBID if I try to sneak out of the room while he naps. He knows. It's as if he can smell that I've left.

Does all of this make my baby difficult? No! All of this makes my superfluous life difficult! Blogging is difficult, cleaning is difficult, keeping my etsy store fully stocked is difficult, showering is difficult, having a quiet cup of afternoon tea is really difficult.

But I refuse to think about the time I spend with Baby D as difficult. I'll admit that I have felt overwhelmed. I have felt completely burried by his needs and his heartwrenching little cries. I had to make a choice and the choice seemed clear:

If I can't change this situation, then I am going to change my outlook. 

No longer do I "suffer" through naptime, I relish in our quiet bedtime moments. No longer is Desmond feeling "fussy" he is particular and dependent - he needs one of us to help him feel alright. No longer do I worry about my dusty furniture, uncooked dinners, unfolded laundry. I cheerfully spend my days on the floor where he wants me, singing made-up songs about him and his farts and his toes and how much I love him. I joyfully wear him around the neighbourhood to keep him entertained. I happily stay home in the evenings, missing most of the adult fun my friends are having, just to splash around in the bath, give him a baby massage, and cuddle him to sleep at night.

People ask me if he is a "Good Baby" and I still say yes. Of course he is a good baby, all babies are inherently good. If you want to know my heavily biased mom-pinion, he is more than just good. He is spectacular and brilliant and so emotionally connected. And I'm choosing to enjoy every damn second of his baby brilliance.



Tell me I'm not alone. Do you have a brilliantly high maintenance baby?

We Hope for More Good Days.

It's easy to post about the good days. The giggles. The smiles. The day he said Mamama for the first time. The day he sat up unassisted for a good chunk of the afternoon.

It's worthwhile to post about the inner dialogue. The struggle to connect with other women. The desire to stay neutral yet supportive when all moms are doing their very best.

It is so difficult to post about the hard days. The hard nights. The hard weeks on end. It would be so lovely to paint motherhood with this lovely brush, a scene where one woman has it all together and nothing ever goes wrong.

But it isn't like that in my household. We have hard days. We have especially hard nights. We have weeks without sleep and hours that stretch on and on like molasses in the sun. Sticky and tar black, inescapable.

Couch Cuddling on a hard day.

I could blame teething; the rivers of drool and rashy red cheeks tell me to expect baby teeth any time now. I could blame his sensitive tummy; one slip up in my elimination diet and he explodes into painful little sobs. He goes back and forth between wrenching around in pain and then stiffening harder than steel, all while breaking my heart with his little baby cries. I want him to know I would fix it if I could. I would rather feel it ten times worse than he ever has just to guarantee that he never will again.

The good days, oh we float! We are like clouds, we drift over the day in a haze of love, marvel at the sunshine and rain happiness on the people around us. We laugh and tickle, we strut around unconsiously bragging about our love bubble.

But the bad days, we close the curtains. We try anything. We try everything. But mostly we rock and cuddle. We dance and we bounce. We sing quiet songs and say "Shh shh shh, baby, I know. I know."

And we hope for more good days.