Mary Makes Babies

Counting Our Blessings

I feel like it says a lot that even three years after giving birth, I still look at this sweet little human and can hardly believe that he is here, that he is mine, that I'm his mama. The fact that there is a tiny baby growing in my belly (and growing as expected) is even more surreal. I love them both so much that it hardly seems possible, and with the world spinning the way that it is, I'm left with a feeling that this happiness could be snatched up at any moment. It's not a healthy kind of fear, but it's deep, and even after years of parenthood it never seems to disappear.

The subject of school has been coming up a lot lately. Many of his friends, including his closest cousin, are reaching kindergarten age and here in Austin my parent-friends are scrambling to choose which school to send their kids and where. As for me, I've avoided thinking about the topic for pretty much his whole life, but I know that luxury won't last forever. After that day in Connecticut I wondered how I would ever be able to put my child on a school bus and wave goodbye. The truth is, I still don't know.

Every year since Sandy Hook the number of mass shootings has gone up and up. While not all of them take place in schools, way too many do. Legislation to curb the violence is beginning to feel like a pipe dream - as is any practical solution. Meanwhile, the center of my universe continues to hurtle toward the age where getting onto a school bus should be perfectly normal.

So much of me wants to swallow my fear, go the practical route, and send him to Pre-K next year, but when the time comes, I don't know that I will be able to. Home school is not a great option for a household with two full-time working parents, but I honestly doubt my ability to get past this fear. The worst part of it is knowing that while it may sound extreme, crazy even, it's entirely based on reality. No amount of therapy or self-affirmation can bring me to terms with the risk of my child being shot to death. There's just nothing worth that risk.

I don't even have to explain how infuriating and mind-boggling it is that this is even an issue. We don't live in a war-zone, so why do I have to be afraid of sending my child to school? It's thoughts like these that get me thinking about leaving this place - not just Texas, but the entire country. I think about what people go through to save their children from war, violence, or extreme poverty. I think of the risks they take trekking across continents or braving oceans in tiny rafts. I think of all that and the cost and paperwork involved in emigrating to Canada seems like a joke.

I'd like to think that I am as brave as the mothers carting their children out of Syria, but am I? Would I have the grit to do whatever it takes to keep my children safe and give them the best chance at a good life? Or am I just going to sit here and accept the rising number of school shootings every year, the unaffordable cost of health care, the seemingly never-ending attack on women's rights? What kind of future are these two kids headed for in this country?

I'm grateful to have a little more time to stall on my school decision. We don't have to do Pre-K if we don't want to, so really I could keep dragging my feet until he turns five. In the meantime I'll just keep basking in his existence. I'll keep counting his toes and sniffing his neck. I'll keep kissing his soft little cheeks and belly-laughing over his jokes. I'll try my best to notice as many of his little sister's kicks and wiggles as I can, being careful not to waste a single precious minute of what could very well be my last pregnancy. 

I'll hold on tight to my kids, and I'll cry every time I open up Facebook. I'll keep hoping for and voting for legislation that could make curb the rising tide of violence, and I'll keep sending my piddly little donations to the people who are better at making those things happen than me. Sooner or later I'll have to decide what's next. But for now, I'm grateful to be able to keep them close.

Enough is Enough

Trigger warning: graphic violence

On a chilly December morning, many years ago, I was driving down a familiar main road between Bethel and Newtown Connecticut when the radio changed abruptly from the usual news and chit-chat to a disturbing announcement.

Gunshots had been reported at Sandy Hook Elementary. The sweet little school was located across the street from the first house I'd lived in after leaving my parents' home. I'd lived there for years, first with my sister, and later with my boyfriend - later to become my husband.

Sandy Hook was a friendly, quiet town with loads of trees and a pretty river running through the miniature downtown section. I had never been overly fond of Connecticut, but I genuinely enjoyed living in Sandy Hook. It is one of those places that manages to feel quaint and rural despite being just outside New York City.

Anyway, when I first heard the news I dismissed it. Bomb threats and supposed gun fire had been reported many times over my life in Connecticut, but had never amounted to anything. I figured some jerk was playing a prank.

But the news didn't drop the story, and as my car crept further into town I began to hear the sirens, and see the police cars and ambulances flying in from all directions. By the time I got onto I-84 (I was on my way to work in Oxford) the highway was swarmed with responders and emergency vehicles. It became clear that this threat was real, and I began to feel sick to my stomach, hoping that no-one would be hurt.

Shortly after arriving to the office, a business heavily staffed with folks from Newtown and the surrounding area, casualties had been confirmed. As we collectively attempted to process the idea that someone had been murdered at an elementary school we were bombarded with news that would change all of us - forever.

Kids had been killed. Lots of them. Innocent little children, children of people that we knew - our neighbors, our friends, had been murdered in cold blood, on a day that was just like any other day.

Rumors were spreading like wildfire that morning, and for one or two terrifying hours we believed that a second shooter was on route to Bethel, the town where my nephews and best friend's kids went to school. Roads were being barricaded in anticipation of attack. 

Everyone seemed to be searching for their people, hoping against hope that their family and friends' kids were OK. All in all, my immediate people were fine, but several close friends were not so lucky.

Driving through the town a few days later was surreal. Getting on a plane and coming back to Austin to celebrate Christmas was surreal. I felt detached from reality in general, like I was living in a fog, walking in a dream that I would hopefully wake from eventually. 

I couldn't speak about it. I couldn't hear about it. I couldn't handle being reminded that I lived in a world where something like that REALLY happened - where it happened to people I knew, in a place that I'd lived.

When the conspiracy theories started to come out I almost lost it all together. When someone we love dies, the first thing we do is try to honor their memory, right? I can't think of anything more cruel than suggesting that someone's lost child didn't even exist. That the great tragedy of their loss didn't ever happen. 

I thought that I had lost faith in the world on December 14, but in hindsight, the day I saw that first Facebook post from Sandy Hook "Truthers" really did it. How can we hope to heal a country divided by such an extreme and horrific lack of empathy? How can something as tragic as the murder of children not change a single thing?

They say that every time you lose someone you lose everyone - all over again. Every time I wake up to news of another mass murder my heart goes right back to Sandy Hook. Suddenly I'm sitting on my front porch watching yellow school buses pull out of the driveway, and hearing the excited babbling of happy kids through open windows. 

I'm standing on a train platform in Switzerland trying to decide whether to eat my chocolate croissant now or save it for the plane ride home. I'm looking up at the sound of screaming and squealing brakes. I'm staring down the track trying to figure out what's happening when my brain suddenly connects the dots, and recognizes the chunks of meat and tattered clothing as a human being.

I'm staring out the window of a bus in Beijing, breathless as we slowly pass an empty pair of shoes and a puddle of blood.

I'm in the passenger seat as we creep down the highway, past flaming cars and an ejected engine block - past a severed limb, laying bloody on the asphalt. 

I'm at home, in my parent's house just an hour outside of NYC, waking to the sound of harried speech where there should be classic rock n roll. I'm blinking my eyes awake as I try to make sense of what I'm hearing. A plane crash. Manhattan. The Trade Center. My Mom calls down the stairs for me to please wake up. She's trying to find my Dad. It's going to be a very long day.

I'm hearing the news of a school friend whose parents are both dead - a murder suicide that she was forced to witness in her own bedroom.

I'm comforting yet another friend who has been raped, who has been beaten, who has been manipulated into thinking that something cruel and twisted was actually love.

I'm back in Bethel on December 14, listening to my sweet nephew tell me about the police officers who visited his school today. I'm taking him and his brother to the movies, like we'd planned, because no-one is ready to explain what happened to him yet. We sit in a dark movie theater and I'm scared to death the entire time that someone will be coming in to kill us.

I'm sick to my heart, holding a newborn in my arms and wondering how I will ever keep him safe in a world full of cruelty. I'm trying to remember the time before - when I lived in a world where this kind of thing was sad, but happened to other people - in other places.

The selfish part of me wishes I could go back there, but the rest is glad I can't. The rest of me is fed up. The rest of me wants to grab the people who still think they can ignore this problem and shake them silly. This is never going to stop if we don't make it stop.

Will you help me make it stop?

Because Silence is Violence

I never know what to say when the world lets it's crazy out and everything seems awful. But I know I should say SOMETHING. Ignoring hate, accepting bigotry as business as usual, or burying my head in the sand and trying to wish the bad stuff away makes me feel like an enabler. I might not know how to fix it, but I know that it's wrong, and I know that the least I can do is say so.

 

So, this is me saying so. In case you didn't know, the kind of hate and ignorance that generates a day like today is so wrong I can't even wrap my head around it. It makes my stomach hurt. It ignites my flight response - as if there were anywhere safe from the dark side of humanity.

 

It makes me afraid for the future, and so very sad about the past. I regret never realizing how much power these people held, for ever thinking I understood what it was like to live in a different shade of skin without experiencing it myself, and for taking for granted that the world was moving forward, not backward.

 

That's all. I'm feeling sick and sad and more than a little overwhelmed.

 

The fact that there are people out there who would love to see people I love hurt, tossed out, or at the very least, put in their place, sickens me.

 

But instead of getting sad, I should be getting angry. I should be getting louder. I should be letting my mama bear out to help knock down every social injustice that comes within reach of my paws.

 

We can do better.

"My I.Q." Ani Difranco

when I was four years old
they tried to test my I.Q.
they showed me a picture
of 3 oranges and a pear
they said,
which one is different?
it does not belong
they taught me different is wrong

but when I was 13 years old
I woke up one morning
thighs covered in blood
like a war
like a warning
that I live in a breakable takeable body
an ever-increasingly valuable body
that a woman had come in the night to replace me
deface me

see,
my body is borrowed
yeah, I got it on loan
for the time in between my mom and some maggots
I don't need anyone to hold me
I can hold my own
I got highways for stretchmarks
see where I've grown

I sing sometimes
like my life is at stake
'cause you're only as loud
as the noises you make
I'm learning to laugh as hard
as I can listen
'cause silence
is violence

in women and poor people
if more people were screaming then I could relax
but a good brain ain't diddley
if you don't have the facts

we live in a breakable takeable world
an ever available possible world
and we can make music
like we can make do
genius is in a back beat
backseat to nothing if you're dancing
especially something stupid
like I.Q.

for every lie I unlearn
I learn something new
I sing sometimes for the war that I fight
'cause every tool is a weapon -
if you hold it right.

That Time I Went on Vacation All by Myself (Part One)

I love blog conferences. There's something magical about connecting with people who do what you do, who share your passion for writing, creating, and over-sharing. Bloggers are my people, and as a work from home mama I often feel starved for connection and cooperative work. 

Earlier this year I pitched a couple of different sessions to Blogher 17. I've spoken at two Blogher Food conferences in the past - so I figured I would have a fairly good chance of getting on the agenda. While I didn't end up getting invited to speak, Blogher did hook me up with a free ticket to attend as a conference goer. I was thrilled. A whole weekend of bloggy goodness with zero obligations beyond just showing up. What a treat!

There was just one catch - the conference was being held in Orlando. With a little one at home, no daycare, and a husband working retail hours, it isn't easy to leave it all behind. I worried that such a trip would be frivolous - that spending money on airfare and hotel accommodations was a selfish thing to do.

But then, a week or so later, I had a moment. I've been suffering from some pretty intense mommy and wife burnout lately. I love my family, but being the person with which the buck always ALWAYS stops is kind of exhausting. Like most mothers, my own needs often fall by the wayside. Between work, baby, and husband, there simply isn't enough time or energy to care for myself properly on a regular basis. All of those little sacrifices eventually add up, and I'd been in the negative for way too long.

"Screw it.", I said, and bought myself some plane tickets. 

When I informed my husband that I'd booked the trip I wasn't too surprised (but was still a little disappointed) that his reaction wasn't super supportive. I longed to hear him say "Don't worry. We've got this. We'll be just fine." Instead, he asked me if I could change the flights and come back earlier.

Yup, it was definitely time to get away.

On top of this being my first trip away since CC was a baby (around two years ago) it would also mark the end of our breastfeeding relationship. I had never expected to force weaning with my little one, but for many reasons (which I shall share another time) that's exactly what was about to happen. For the month leading up to my trip I managed to worm our way down to only one nursing session a day. By the time I get home, my lactation will have stopped. It's the end of an era, and I don't know whether I will ever get to nurse a baby again. Yeah, big feelings.

I shipped out on Wednesday afternoon, and by the time I made my way to my hotel, all of the local restaurants had closed. I ended up eating cheese crackers and an ice cream sandwich for dinner. The meal wasn't exactly satisfying, but the solitude sure was.

I woke up the next morning and wandered down to the lobby to work for a bit while my roommate slept in. I opened my email to a comment on an older baby blog post. After responding, I read the original blog post, then the next, and the next, until I had re-read everything that has happened since we lost our baby in January.

As I sat there in the chair I realized that I'd hardly had a moment in the past three years to stop and feel anything - never mind process. I was alone with my thoughts (truly alone) for the first time since all of this pregnancy loss stuff started almost TWO years ago. 

Guys, it's a lot. It's huge. It wasn't until I was finally allowed a moment to really breath - to calm my mind and release the myriad of responsibilities that hang around my neck every day that I really realized just how distracted I have been. My son lifts me up every day. He makes me smile and forces me to go on living every day because I HAVE to. The love I have for him is like a raft that keeps me floating above the pain and devastation lingering below. 

While I am beyond grateful for this little life preserver, I can see now how important it is for me to occasionally shirk the flotation device and let myself sink.

That morning, I closed my eyes and descended into the chair, down onto the carpet, and deep beneath the floor of the hotel lobby. My heart fell further - into the layers of sediment and soil, through the crust, and burnt up in the fiery core. 

Part of me burned to ashes, smoldering in embers before finally sighing a breath of relief - finality.

Later that day, while sitting in a huge room surrounded by women and allies, I was asked to set an intention for the weekend. As a group, we closed our eyes, breathed in unison, and silently mouthed our intentions to ourselves.

Mine was simple. It was time to get my self back.

To be continued...

American Family History

This post may seem a little off-topic, but the way our world seems to be changing lately weighs heavy on me - especially as a mother. I wrote the following story in an email to legislators regarding Trump's travel ban and a local bill designed to strip our city's sanctuary status. The words and feelings felt too big to keep to myself, so I'm sharing them here. If you know your own family's American history I would love for you to share it with me too.

According to family legend, my mother's grandfather made his way into this country through the forests of Maine after his ship from Sweden landed in Canada. My own grandfather's generation was the first of the family to be born in the United States, and from them a sprawling clan of descendants followed. My father's grandfather was also a child of immigrants - Scottish highlanders to be exact. He lived on a small family farm in Alabama before striking out on his own and making his way to New York to become a restaurateur.

Those restaurants were staffed by both American citizens and a vibrant mix of immigrants from all over the world, including a head chef from China. Throughout my own restaurant career I worked with and befriended countless people who might be described as migrants or illegal aliens. Some of my oldest friends, most brilliant teachers, and respected co-workers fall under that category.

My husband worked as a landscaper and carpenter throughout our twenties, and has many friends and co-workers of his own that he remembers with affection and respect. I feel grateful to have had the experience of working side by side with people from very different backgrounds than my own. Their stories were all very different, but each one left me in awe of their bravery. Can you imagine leaving the only world you have ever known in search of something better?

In 2009 my husband and I sold everything we owned and moved to Beijing, China to give him a shot at pursuing his musical career. When that didn't work out, and his band-mates left the country, we tried to make the best of things and forge a new life overseas. We were pretty much broke and we didn't speak the language. We lived in an illegal dwelling. I worked under the table. There was even a point when we had to use bribes to stay safe.

While our struggles pale in comparison to someone who has migrated from necessity (fleeing poverty or violence, for instance) I feel like that experience gave me a unique point of view. When I encounter someone who can not speak English, I remember how frustrating it was to live in a place where no one seemed to understand me - even when I spoke their language. When I hear about people living or working illegally I remember doing what I HAD to do to keep going in a challenging time.

I look at my child and I hope that I would have the courage to flee my home if he were in danger.

America was, and still is, a nation of travelers, refugees, and immigrants. Our lives are all touched by people who fit these descriptions, and so many of us are only separated from our immigrant history by a handful of generations. I believe that we turn our backs on these people at the cost of our soul.

In a land of abundance we are closing our doors. It's sad. It's wrong, and it's most definitely un-American.

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Sharing Isn't Always Judging: How to Survive the Opinions of Other Parents

Generally speaking, I'm not one for self-doubt in the face of adversity. For the most part I've always just done my own thing regardless of what my friends or the rest of the world thought. At times it was lonely to be such a weirdo, but I was born a dedicated outsider, so making my own way came naturally. (As I got older I was able to make friends with other wackos. Turns out the world is full of us.)

Sufficed to say, I'm used to disagreeing with people when it comes to living life. I don't have a history of letting that get under my skin. Instead I tend to let them do it their way while I do it mine, and the world spins madly on, oblivious to the fact that I decided to wear a tie and suspenders at six years old instead of a pink frilly dress, or that I shaved by head on a whim one afternoon after quitting high school. Really, my personal philosophies, lifestyle choices, and private inclinations are just that - private. As in, nobody elses business and certainly nobody elses decision.

So it struck me by surprise just how incredibly sensitive I became shortly after having CC. At first I chalked it up to hormones. But the baby blues came and went and still I felt so shakey, so insecure, so unlike myself and my usual approach to life. And every time I spent time with other parents it only got worse. I found myself listening to their stories about raising kids and feeling uncertain about my own choices and methods. I felt worried that I was doing it all wrong. I felt scared that they would think I was doing it all wrong. I felt scrutinized and judged and naked.

On top of all that awkward social interaction with real live people there was the internet to contend with. (Which I've spent a whole lot of time on since becoming a curious/frantic/desperate mother.) People on the internet are just plain mean. Those folks aren't just over-sharing or accidentally making people feel bad with their perfect-sounding lives. They are actively shaming and bullying eachother over everything from breastfeeding to sleep training styles. If you want to give a new mom and anxiety attack just leave her internet browser open to a mommy forum. For real, it's crazy.

And it was flipping me out. 

But then a friend of mine came over with her big cute pregnant belly and I found myself rattling on about inane details of my life with CC - how I fed him, how I bathed him, how I played with him and talked to him. I wasn't trying to pressure her into doing things my way with her own kid. I just had this urge to share - kind of like I share here on my blog. Except once I had a real live human person in my clutches it was so much more intense. Before I knew it I was share-vomiting all over her. Blah blah blah blah. Listen to me talk about my kid. Blah blah.

So it hit me - maybe all these times I'm feeling judged by other parents they are really just giving in to their own urge to share. Maybe like when I listen to people talk about other topics relevant to my own life, I could listen without taking every word personally. Perhaps it was up to me how I decided to take it.

It's sort of like the other parent's stories or advice or whatever are just a bunch of raw potatoes. Eating potato raw isn't very pleasant so I need to make it into something else before I can ingest it. I have the choice of making myself a plate of I can't believe her pompous ass mashed potatoes, or a basket of wow, her choices are different than mine would be but that's totally OK french fries. 

So maybe us parents should all stop shaming and feeling shamed, and instead enjoy some tasty white starches. Unless of course, you're paleo, then I guess you'd be taking my sharing starch and quietly slipping it into the rubbish bin. Actually, come to think of it, that's not a bad strategy for dealing with unsolicited advice either.

Parenting Definitions: Foof

Did you have cutesy names for your bodily functions? I'd forgotten that I had until my Dad asked CC if he made a foof. 

 

Foof! It's all coming back to me now. The word "fart" was vulgur, and we got scolded for using it, but "foof" was A-Ok. 

 

We also called breasts "pidgies", butts were "bottoms" and anything in the bikini area (boys or girls) was a "pee pee". 

 

I have no idea where the word "pidgies" came from but I do know that my sister Heather and I thought they were hilarious. I remember us finding a pair of anemones in one of my Dad's oceanography books that was provocatively shaped. "Sea pidgies!", we screamed and then collapsed into a pile of giggles. (BTW provocatively shaped sea creatures are definitely still funny.) 

 

Guys, can you believe I actually found the sea pidgie picture in a book at my parents' house? Confirmed. Still funny.

 

Did you have cutesy words for things as a kid? Does your own kid use them too or do they have their own? 

With Their Youth and Their Judgement

Baby finally falls asleep after two hours of resistance. Right on que the doorbell rings and the dog begins to bark madly.

I open the door to find a girl dressed like a hipster Ellie Satler standing there with a clipboard.

"HI! I'm -"

"Look, I'm really sorry but I just put my baby down and the dog is barking and going to wake him up so you have to go."

While attempting to stick her entire head in my door so I can't close it she says, "But we're the ones who fought to get BPA out of baby bottles and sippy cups so really -"

Look of death.

"You really have to go."

"Should I come back later?"

"No. There will still be a baby and a dog here later."

She looks at me with like I'm eating fried baby seal eyes while driving a Hummer on my way to vote against women's rights.

This interaction really burned my britches. I wanted to tell her I already give money to help the environment. I've rallyed. I've marched. I recycle. I eat local food. I drive an electric car. I wash my hair with vinegar. I'm doing my part, dammit. Don't judge me you little twerp. Just because I don't have any time or money to give you today doesn't make me a facist.

One day, many years from now. May Hipster Ellie Satler lay her own baby down in his crib just to be interrupted by an unexpected 19-year old asking for money to fight a cause she's already dedicated plenty of her own life toward. Let's see how she likes it.