Memoirs of an 11-Year Old

When I was 11 I was a trouble-maker. I stole. I stole food. I stole postcards. I stole coins.

In my memory, I stole the food because there was only enough food made at supper for my dad to have seconds, and for my step-brother and I to share a second helping. I was still hungry, so I’d come upstairs at night and make myself a peanut butter sandwich.

I stole postcards in my desire to get my Collector’s badge in Girl Guides. Needless to say my dad pulled me out of Guides because I obviously couldn’t live up to the ideology they were trying to teach little girls.

I stole coins from my dad’s change jar and bought massive amounts of candy with it. And I stole coins from my step-mom’s collection of coins from around the world – because they were cool.

We had just moved in with my step-mom, step-brother and step-sister the year before when my dad and step-mom got married. I didn’t get along with my SM (step-mom for short – gonna get sick of typing it). It wasn’t an issue of her replacing my mom as my mom and dad had been divorced for years, I hadn’t lived with my mom for years, and she had just passed away the year before. It was probably something like I just didn’t want to share my dad, since I’d had him to myself for so long.

I started Grade 7 on a Thursday. A new school, since I was in Junior High now. New school, new people, a whole new routine. I honestly don’t remember what I did that weekend that got me in trouble. Whatever it was, my dad had had enough. He didn’t know how to deal with me anymore. He packed up my stuff, packed me in the car and drove me 3 hours away to my grandma’s house. I lived with her for the next 15 years. It was explained once upon a time that in a few years I would move out and live my own life. My dad would be with my SM forever. He made his choice to be with her and save their relationship by not having me there.

17 years later, I’m still facing the actions of a lost kid and her frustrated parents. When I see my parents now, I still feel like I did when I was 11 and on my way to my grandma’s. I feel like no matter what I do, it’s wrong. I feel like I can never to anything to please my dad, and I can never live up to his expectations. I still feel like a disappointment to him now.

It doesn’t help that my dad and SM are very critical. They have very high expectations of their children. They have sharp tongues and a pressing need to make us learn through their experience. They have done better than most people in life, and they wish that for us kids too.

Combine my 11-year old mentality, and the whip-fast lash of their tongues, and I leave their presence almost every time upset and wondering why I let them get to me. They like to share their advice with us, about absolutely everything we could face in life. But their advice comes across as demands, and ‘this is the way it must be.’

I have been told not to let Penny play with pots and pans, or she they will always be toys to her. I’ve been told not to let her play with her food or it will always be a toy. She’s not allowed to play with phones or remotes either. I’ve been told (before Penny was even born mind you) that I should wean her by 9 months. And I got eye-rolling tonight when I was talking about co-sleeping.

Their advice isn’t limited to my parenting either. We walked through our new house today and received quite a few comments there as well. I commented that it didn’t look like there was alot left to do, that it shouldn’t take the builders another month to finish. My parents started listing off all the stuff left, and how long it takes to install individual pot lights. They act like we should know this information, and you can hear the unspoken question in their tone of ‘are you stupid?’.

Last summer, when I was still pregnant, the conversations with them revolved around Court getting his drivers license so he could drive me to the hospital. Every time we talked to them, every time we saw them, it was brought up and hashed over yet again. My dad would look at me and ask me when Court was getting his license – with him standing right beside me. It was a major point of contention, and the way they hounded us about it upset me every time. Eventually during one visit with them, as soon as they asked about his license I explained that it was a subject that greatly upset me and I’d prefer we didn’t discuss it. You see, I thought I was doing the mature, adult-like thing by saying this. And let me tell you it took ALOT of guts to be able to say it. And needless to say I stormed out in tears because they brought it up again a while later and wouldn’t drop it. In the end, Court never got his license because as soon as he does, our insurance doubles and we can’t afford that.

I don’t know how to deal with this problem. I don’t know how to say to them that we do value their advice. They have more experience than us, they’ve been through things that we’re just starting to experience. They have valuable information to pass along to us. But advice is meant to be taken or ignored, depending on the receivee’s viewpoint. I want the freedom to ignore the advice if that’s what we choose to do. I know we’d be more receptive to what they have to say if they’d just word it differently, if they’d use a less critical tone of voice, if they weren’t oozing condescension. I don’t know how to approach them about this and not have it taken as an attack on them. I don’t know how to diplomatically tell them to *@&% off. Sometimes I feel like telling them if they want to raise a kid so bad, go have their own. And today my grandma said to tell them when we get to be their age we’ll have that much knowledge too. I don’t know how to say what I want to say, and be treated like a mature adult while doing it.

I just know I’m hurt and upset after almost every encounter with my dad or my step-mom. I dread going to see them, but know that I can’t avoid it. It feels poisonous. I don’t want Penny to pick up on those feelings from Court and I, and I’m not sure what to do.

Advice is welcome and solicited, but may be ignored.

Penny’s Not Allowed To Be An Avid Reader

And I’m sure every parent is looking at me in horror with that statement out in the open. Don’t get me wrong, I want Penny to read. I want her to share my love of books and enjoy reading just about anything.

For the record, I have only put down 3 books in my life: Interview with a Vampire – apparently written at a grade 12 level and I’m too stupid for that; Lord of the Rings – tried to start on the 2nd book after watching the 1st movie, should have known better; and Princess of Burundi – ridiculously slow crime novel from Scandinavia or somewhere like that. If I crack it open, I read it.

In grade 5 I had to answer a survey for my new teacher so she could find out more about me. One of the questions was how many books I read in a year, with the options of 0, 1-2, 3-4 or 5+. At that time, I scoffed at the survey. I was reading 5+ in a month! Fortunately for me, my dad works at a book and magazine distribution company and I had pretty much unlimited access to books. I still read alot, spending probably $400-$500 a year at Chapters (I’ve reformed – I have a library card now). Since Penny’s been born though, my book stack is growing and I’m not getting much reading done. I’ve actually only finished one book, and am about 3/4 through a second.

But back to the purpose of this post. I read alot. I read alot now, as an adult, and just as avidly as a teen and as a child. This was not a good thing! I read to the detriment of my social life. I remember my dad throwing me outside and telling me not to come back for X number of hours. I would ride my bike aimlessly around the neighbourhood, maybe go sit on a swing for a few minutes, and go home again. Now all of 32 minutes have passed since I was tossed out, yet I start begging to come inside again. All I wanted to do was read! I would read past my bedtime – aka after I was sent to bed and having a light on would get me caught.

I would read until there was no longer enough light coming in my window to see the words on the pages. Hence the reason I wear glasses now. Oh yeah, and I read for so long that I go cross-eyed and put strain on my eyes. The doctor has told me I need to look up every 15 minutes or so to refocus my eyes.

I remember doing a group book report project in grade 6, where we needed to read the book as a group in class, then do some sort of big report project after. We weren’t supposed to read any of the book at home. I took my book home the first night and read the whole thing. I got in alot of trouble for that. I ended up doing a project on my own, on the book “Where the Red Fern Grows” which, to be honest, was exactly what I wanted.

Are you seeing the trend here? Nicole sits in the corner with her book, and avoids all contact with other human beings, cringing away if one passes too closely. I have trouble making friends now. I am completely comfortable with kids and usually teens. I’m great with older people. But I can’t carry on a conversation with people my age. I can’t walk up to them and say hi and introduce myself. Well, I can’t do any of this in person. Put a computer screen in between, and presto-chango I’m a whole new person!

I can look back now and see that the number of books I read isn’t a good thing. I chose to spend my time with my nose in a book, exploring worlds that aren’t my own. I could get lost for days in worlds of fantasy, particularly on Pern with dragons filling the skies. I could back then, and I still can now, albeit with books that are 3 times as thick and cost much more. Reading that much is not healthy, and needs to be balanced with other equally important parts of life. I didn’t learn this before, and I pay for it now with a few friends instead of many (and not all of them quality friends yet), shyness around my contemporaries, and ultimately that all contributes to low self esteem and depression.

In the last few years I have realized how much my reading affected who I am, and because of that, I don’t want Penny to be an avid reader. I want her to love reading, to be able to lose herself in another world. But I want her to be able to pull herself back and enjoy the world she’s in too.

More Solid Foods Questions

I’d like to do baby-led weaning, or baby-led solids as it’s called sometimes. My doctor at the breastfeeding clinic is all for it, and basically said to feed Penny what we eat, when we eat it.

Baby-led weaning is gaining popularity. To sum it up, when we were children, we started eating solids at 3 months. If you follow the same steps with introducing food, and adjust for the current age of 6 months, our babies should be starting solid foods – not pablum (rice cereal) or pureed foods. Because of the adjustment in age, a 6 month baby now will not eat food they are not ready to. They will not try to swallow if they can’t handle it yet. If a food that they can’t handle yet gets too far towards their throat, they will cough to move it back to the front.

Penny has “eaten” orange pepper, green pepper, onion, cantaloupe, honeydew melon, oranges, banana, pears, potato, cheese, toast, crackers, steak, and ham. Some of these were more welcomed than others. She hates banana and spits it out. She gnawed on a ring of a very strong white onion and didn’t appear to dislike it at all. She loves oranges and tries to suck all the juice out of them. She got mad when I took the ham away. She choked a little on a little sliver of green pepper. She had problems with the texture of mashed potatoes (which I knew from trying to feed the next step up of baby food and her promptly puking from the first mouthful).

It’s a new game to me, and to everyone around me. There’s not alot of information I can turn to. Or if there is, I can’t readily find it. I’m sure we don’t follow exactly how it’s supposed to be done. But isn’t that the fun of parenting? We play it meal by meal. It also depends on when Penny’s awake.

The one thing I’ve chosen not to feed Penny is pablum. It’s bland, dusty cardboard. I’ve been told countless times to feed Penny pablum and she’ll “sleep through the night.” When I started solid foods I tried feeding her pablum. I tried it 3 times a day. She didn’t sleep any better. She still woke 2 or 3 times a night. So ignoring what the “experts” say, I KNOW pablum doesn’t make a baby sleep any better. Yes, pablum has a certain nutritional value to it. But it’s nothing that Penny can’t get from a combination of pureed foods and solid foods.

So this is where I need some advice again. I have asked about being pressured to wean Penny from breastfeeding and was pointed to a ton of resources to help stop that pressure in its tracks. Now do any of you have good resources or advice about solid foods? What can I say when I’m told by people who have more experience than me that I should be feeding Penny pablum because she needs it nutrionally? Any advice is appreciated!

Help with starting solids

Penny has been (almost) exclusively breastfed for the last 6 months. I started dabbling with solids (ie. purées) about a month ago. And we’re still dabbling.

Breastfeeding is the easiest way to feed her! I don’t want to give that up – not the breastfeeding part, the easy part. Now I have to mix pablum, and heat puréed foods. It was so much simpler just to lay down with her on the bed and let her glug away for 20 minutes or so. Plus, it was time for us together. I can’t even read while she nurses – she knows and does nasty things like biting me.

I love breastfeeding her and I’m not going to give that up yet. But mostly, I just don’t know how to feed her solids. It’s one of those things that I don’t just instinctively know, and I haven’t been able to find much information on.

Mmmmm sweet potato!

Yes, at 6 months you should start solids. You should start pablum (rice cereal). You move on to puréed foods like single vegetables (sweet potatoes come to mind). You should progress to lumpy foods next, and small cut up food after that (once they master the pincer). And all of this assumes you’re not going to foray into baby-led solids.

But I don’t know how to integrate solids into our routine. I would really love to find a guide that says for the first week, do this, then add this for the next week. I know everything is going to be guidelines, and you don’t have to follow what doesn’t work for you. But SOME direction would be nice.

Currently, I’m trying to make it part of our routine to feed Penny a breakfast of 1 tbsp of pablum mixed with about a third of a jar of sweet potato purée, plus a few spoonfuls of apples and raspberries for dessert. But on days when she slept through most of the night, she wakes up STARVING. I grab her and latch her on for a quick, easy breakfast. Then we all got sick and I went back to just breastfeeding for ease and hydration. I’m trying to get back to our breakfast routine, but every day is different. One day she gets breakfast and no other solids. One day she doesn’t get breakfast but eats solids 2 other times.

So, ignoring the fact that I am interested in baby-led solids and incorporate that to some degree, does anyone have any information to help me establish a solid food routine for a 6 month old?

Penny eating cucumber - theoretically good for teething with its coolness and anti-puffiness when used on eyes

Never Good Enough

Have you ever had one of those days? One of those days called Mon-day? Or how about Mon-day the 13th? AKA a bad day… (for the record, I don’t believe 13 is an unlucky number, and I don’t think black cats are bad luck – I had 2… at the same time…)

I’m having one of those days. Nothing happened that was particularly bad, or should make me grumpy, but there it is – I am. The phone woke me up, but it was 10:30 so I can’t complain. The optician’s office – where I was going to take Penny to get her glasses adjusted this morning anyway, so I didn’t answer it. Ended up not taking her, but that’s life.

About 10.2 seconds after I got back into bed, the phone rang again. My dad, with information about step-by-step instructions for feeding Penny solid foods. I’ll get into that in another post, since it’s something I want more information on.

The cable/TV/phone provider was scheduled to come between 12 and 5 because my internet connection keeps going up and down. When they checked from their end, they said yup, my modem is shot. Tech came last Friday, replaced some amplifier part and left. It didn’t fix the problem, so we rescheduled for this afternoon. This tech came and basically said he couldn’t do anything because of the thunderstorm we had. They’re going to run a brand new line from the pole out in the alley, separate from our neighbours because we’re in a duplex, but a different department needs to call and schedule that with me.

A couple of times in the last few days I’ve seen people reacting rather quickly and to be honest, a little rudely. Happened again this afternoon. It hasn’t affected me directly, but just watching the exchanges between other people riles me up sometimes. I want to remind people about the immediacy and permanency of everything you say on social networking sites. The old adage comes to mind “Think before you speak.”

But more than all of this, I repeatedly find myself wondering if I’m good enough. Am I a good enough mom and parent, a good enough wife? I recently applied for a job and asked for a certain amount for compensation. And I’ve spent the last 2 days wondering if I’m good enough to make that amount of money. I’m constantly wondering “Am I good enough”, and in my mind, I’m not. Last week I said “You know when you were a JR in HS and think the SRs are so smart and cool? That’s how I feel about some of the moms on here.” I read what these moms have to say, and I feel like I can’t even begin to approach the league they are in. They use language that is well beyond the average grade 6 level. So even when I am interested in something they have to say, I read it and I feel like I understand maybe every 3rd word. I feel like I am playing pretend at being a parent when you put me beside one of them. They just know everything, and I can’t hope to have the knowledge even after 50 years of being a mother.

There’s more too. I realize my family thinks they know everything, and I of course, know nothing. So they give me “advice” and I’m expected to follow it. Like being told months ago that my siblings were only breastfed till they were 9 months because babies shouldn’t be breastfed any longer than that. Well, Penny’s 6 months old. So I’m pretty sure in another 2 or 3 months I’ll start getting pressured to wean. And I don’t want to. I want to be strong enough to stand up to what they say to me, but for some damn reason I feel like I’m not good enough for them if I don’t do what they say. I don’t know why what they think means so much to me, and why I’m always seeking approval from them. But it’s approval I never get, and has left me in tears on many, many occasions. Things like being told I shouldn’t work from home because Penny needs to be socialized so she doesn’t end up anti-social like her parents. Then I go to a play date, and get asked well why would I do that? I’ll be honest. I would really like to spend time with my family, but when we do I feel like I never live up to any of their expectations, and that they have to go out of their way to accommodate us visiting. So rather than willingly spending time with them, I force us to visit so that they can have time with Penny. I put up with the criticism and snide remarks, then go home either fuming or crying.

What else? Right, I’m not a good enough blogger. One of the magazines I read is looking for mommy bloggers to blog for them. I’d love to do that! But seriously? What do I have to say that’s interesting to anyone else? I’m a new mom, but I’m doing the same thing every other mom is right now. I don’t have any particular bits of wisdom to impart (refer to the pretend-mom paragraph above). I’m not a reviewer (I thought MakesMomHappy.com was the greatest blog ever, and then I found out there’s about 672 other review/giveaway blogs out there). But I SO wish that I had something to say that people wanted to listen to. Something that brought people to my blog regularly, and could start discussions, and could make people think.

Oh, and one last thing? Why do I feel like being a breastfeeding mom has to go hand-in-hand with co-sleeping and babywearing and attachment parenting and cloth diapering and eco-consciousness? Can’t you do one without being expected to do all the others?

So yeah, that’s how my day is going. How about yours?

The iTwins’ Birthday Giveaway!

Also going on this month is a massive giveaway contest from @mamajoss and her iTwins for their 1st and 2nd birthdays on August 4th and 6th. Sponsors include: Kelly’s Closet, LegHuggers, GADBaby Diapers, WettGiggles, Bummas, The Sofia Valeria Collection, Picnik.com, Happy Panda, Dittany Baby, Baby Dipper, Ruffle Butts, Skin Free, NEW Purex 3-in1 Laundry Sheets, and Wee See!

The Eco Chic Giveaway!

The Echo Chic is spending 2 whole weeks giving away tons of stuff – Dittany Baby, Eco Label Fundraising, Ergo Baby Carriers, Green Planet Parties, Hand Picked Pumpkin, Homemade Baby Food Recipes, Kids Think Big, Ladybug Diapers, Mommy Necklaces, MommyDoodlesDesign.com, Paper Culture, Piggy Paint, Pure Design Company, TerraCycle, and ToGo Ware are all sponsors! Make sure you check it out!

A Lighter Side of the Recession: Having a Baby in 2009

Welcome Babies of 2009 Carnival Readers! Once you’ve read my story, wander on down to some of the other links at the bottom of my post!

It doesn’t matter what news media you read or listen to – everyone, everywhere is telling you we’re in a recession.

re·ces·sion An extended decline in general business activity, typically two consecutive quarters of falling real gross national product.

People everywhere are losing their jobs, which is especially hard if you’ve just had a baby. My heart goes out to all the parents who have lost jobs recently, but especially those from our prenatal class. Some of them just keep pushing on and make ends meet. Others see it as a great time to get in on the reality tv show trend, like one couple who is a top 5 finalist for the My Rona Home show (CityTV this fall), where they build their own house in a head-to-head competition against another couple. The winners get to keep the house they built, plus all the furniture and accessories in it. The “losers” get to keep the furniture and accessories, and have the option to purchase they house they built. All in all, that’s not a bad deal, I’d say. From what I understand, the participants will be able to get friends to help them, as long as they are not tradespeople. The couple we know are well… not housebuilders by trade, so hopefully getting to watch them build their house is going to be amusing to say the least. Our fingers are crossed for them that they are one of the two couples who get to compete. They deserve the house!

For those who, thankfully, didn’t lose their jobs, times are tough. I’ve heard of normally-annual raises not happening, as well as salary increases being rescinded after the fact. When you’ve just started maternity leave and are bring in 55% of the bacon you used to be, the BLT is looking more like an LT. Then you find out that your amazingly hard-working husband is getting a raise, YAY! It lifts a bit of a load off your shoulders, you can afford the name brand diapers again. Wait… nope. Come February, hubby’s company decides that times are tough for them too and they’re going to take away the aforementioned raise. Oh well, we didn’t have it long enough to enjoy anyway. But speaking of name brands… Whether you have a baby or not (but more often when you have a baby), you do constant battles with name-brand versus generic when stretching your meager dollars out.

When to buy the name-brand:

• Kraft cheese slices
• French’s yellow mustard
• Heinz ketchup
• soft drinks
• baby food (the generic contains almost 10x the sodium in the two I compared)
• electronics (you have a new baby – you really think you can afford new electronics? ha!)
• some people say Oreos – personally I like to store brand cookies, but Chips Ahoy, definitely name-brand!
• Kraft peanut butter
• Kraft Dinner (the generic is edible, but it ain’t no KD)

When to buy the generic brand:

• Q-tips (or whatever the non-branded product is)
• Superstore or Costco diapers (apparently work well, I haven’t personally tried them yet)
• Fruity-O’s (generic Fruit Loops)
• over-the-counter medications (they contain the same amounts of the same ingredients at half the price)
• organics (according to AOL Money & Finance certified organic is certified organic regardless of the brand, so you will pay more than non-organic, but still less than branded organic)
• pasta
• Ichiban noodles (can’t think of the generic product name)

Obviously there will be other products in each category, depending on your preference and experience with them. Just keep in mind with food, check the labels. Quite often, generic brands have high sodium content which is a concern if you’re overweight like me and my husband. Then again, like Chad Skelton says in his recent article “Are Cheerios too high in salt to be healthy baby snack?“, some brand name products are high in salt too. Apparently Cheerios have as much salt as 30 potato chips!

Looking at the generic versus brand-name debate, I think I am going to embark on a weekly test of which is better. I will keep it focused on items bought at the grocery store (which is Safeway in my case – go AIRMILES!). Check back on Monday for my first review – peanut butter!

Money Talks … but all mine ever says is Goodbye!

When you have a baby, you quickly learn that you need to cut costs. But where do you cut, and where do you splurge? In a nod to my health, the environment and my wallet, I walked to the grocery store the other day. Packed up Penny in the mei tai, put the leash on the dog, and walked the 11 blocks. I only bought 2 small bags of items meant for dinner that night (thanks alot, Melodie! I was attempting her Vietnamese Rice Noodle Salad and didn’t have any of the ingredients). While in the store, it started POURING outside. I mean, the heavens let loose and if I’d bought some shampoo, I could have gone out and had a shower in it! The kid was bored and fell asleep – dead weight on my chest, the dog was terrified of the storm, and I was stuck 11 blocks from home. I couldn’t cab it, a la dog. If I started walking, we’d all be soaked. I seriously thought about calling my husband to leave work early, take the bus and come help me get us all home. Then I realized that would just make 4 of us soaked. In the end, another wonderful mother going in offered us a ride home, which we declined. So she lent us a blanket to cover sweet, sleeping, sack-of-potatoes kid. 20 minutes or so later, the storm passed on, we gave back the blanket, and slowly trudged home. Lesson learned: little bit of gas saved, maybe 0.2 ounces of weight lost, and 1 less footstep in our carbon footprint, but next time I’m driving to the store!

My one last attempt at saving money because of having a baby, is a library card. Invest in it! Stop supporting the big-box stores and buying $35 hardcovers that you read once, languish on your bookshelf (or stacked on your floor or dresser or even your couch), then get donated or recycled. Go spend the $13 or whatever it was on a library card. But, and this it a HUGE but, while you are still standing at the library counter, having checked out 6 books on parenting, 4 baby lullaby CDs, a recipe book for the husband, and one fiction novel that mostly likely won’t get read – take out your phone and program your return date in the calendar! If you let those 8 books and 4 CDs sit on your kitchen counter with the intent to return them the next time you head that way, you’ll find yourself with $21.85 worth of overdue fees when you finally make it there.

The biggest money saver at any time, no matter when you have your baby, is to breastfeed. It’s FREE! You can invest in some nursing clothes, but you don’t NEED them. You can invest in a breastpump or rent one (from OneTinySuitcase.ca), but you don’t NEED it. You don’t need bottles. You don’t need to worry about sterilization. You don’t need to carry everything with you when you go out. There’s just you. You and 2 built-in bags of pre-sterilized, customized-for-your-baby milky goodness!

There really are ways to save money when you have a new baby during a recession. The most useful one though, is to not be me.

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• Tatiana: The Highs and the Lows (or, accepting that it ain’t all roses)
• Emma @ Baby Log: 12 Little Things I Want to Remember About My Baby
• Mamie @ The Life I Now Live: I Can Wait
• Inconvenient Body: L’art Pour L’art: It’s Child’s Play
• My Field of Paper Flowers: Babies of 2009 Carnival
• Rebecca @ A Little Bit of Momsense: An Ode to My Sweetie
• Myg @ Wiser Mom: Babies of 2009 Born to a Baby of 1969
• Jinxy @ Jinxyisms: Baby oh baby

Drifting

The last few weeks have been… odd for me. I feel down and a bit depressed.

I’m not getting any work done around the house (not like I did much before, but now I’m not even doing the laundry and that was MY Thursday thing).

I want the elliptical moved out the garage because it was $60 and it doesn’t have an even stride on it. I love ellipticals. I thought great, I can get on there when Penny’s playing, and lose some of my baby weight (still 20 lbs to go). NOT! I want to clean out Penny’s room – she doesn’t use the swing, and now that she’s a rolling machine she doesn’t need the bouncer. There’s excess crap in there that needs to be either moved downstairs or gotten rid of to make it a little girl’s room.

I want the crap cleaned off the kitchen table. I mean, it’s not like we use it, but it has seriously become a catch-all for everything that doesn’t have its own place. Toaster, wine glasses, 3 dish towels, vase of flowers my wonderful husband brought me because he thought I was down, tupperware containers, a bowl set that I want to get rid of, a basket full of bottles and pump parts. Not to mention the box underneath the table with food for the food bank and a bag of old washcloths that I’m getting rid of.

The bathroom needs to be cleaned. Our room needs to be vacuumed. The runner is still sitting on the front step from when I swept. The front garden bed has grass growing into our bedroom window (not literally but it’s about 3 feet tall), the dog can’t find a place to do her thing in the backyard because THAT grass is so tall. I had been making an effort to go through our stuff downstairs and get rid of garbage and junk and repack (neatly) the stuff that we still need to keep. Then I go downstairs yesterday and it looks like someone dropped a bomb in the basement. The lawnmower and weed-whacker are down there (because our landlord has yet to get the previous tenant’s shit out of the garage). My computer is in pieces down there. There’s boxes of crap, there’s rubbermaid buckets of crap. Oh crap, there’s my all-season tires which should be on my car. It’s June and 30 degrees and I have winter tires on still. Then again, it took me until December 10th to get the winter’s put on.

I just look at everything that needs to be done around here and I feel like shutting down. I can’t do it all myself, and I’m not even expected to. Court’s a big help. He’s been doing laundry the last couple of weeks (even though our definitions of “doing laundry” differ). Court cleans the kitchen… it’s his domain, and if I even dare wash one sink of dishes or put clean ones away, he goes into a tailspin thinking he’s not good enough for me and doesn’t do enough around the house for me. He remembered to take the diapers out before the garbagemen came this morning – for which I’m thankful. He does extra work for people on the weekends to make some extra money (which I am oh so good at spending). He’s a great husband! He cooks, he cleans, he treats me like a queen. If he’s getting up, do I need anything. If he’s sitting down with me, do I need anything. Can he get me a drink, do I want my feet rubbed, do I want to change the channel? He’s supportive of everything I do, and everything I could want to do. He’s supportive of me. He loves me and is very vocal (sometimes a little too vocal) about it. And he likes to show me he loves me too. He’s perfect for me, we’re perfect for each other.

So when he asked me last night why it feels like everything he does is wrong, and things don’t feel right between us, I adamantly said no, nothing’s wrong. But something IS wrong. I’m reminded of the movie Juno. “I feel like something has come between us,” she says, with a very pregnant belly in between them as they try to hug. Something has come between us, and her name is Penny. We both love her very much. We both devote our time and energy to her. It hasn’t left much for us, individually or as a couple.

I know we’re not the first parents to be affected by having a baby. By the way, have you noticed that I really hate when people tritely say “You’re not the first woman/parent/mom/couple/person to be go through __________”? I don’t care how many people have gone through it before me. They are not me. They don’t have my life experiences to know how to respond to any given situation the way I need to respond to it.

Anyway, back to drifting apart. I can go to all the parenting websites and read about making sure we have a date night just for us. The articles I read though just seem so impersonal and fact based, and don’t take into account what’s actually happening in different people’s lives. For example, I am exclusively breastfeeding. I have been unable to pump any significant amounts of milk (hence my email to Stacey at OneTinySuitcase.ca to come get the pump I rented). Penny refuses to eat formula (SMART GIRL!), and refuses to drink from a bottle. She doesn’t eat enough solids yet to base a meal solely on that. And she still eats every 2 hours during the day (day being when I get up to when I go to sleep). So tell me, how are we supposed to go out for dinner without her? How are we supposed to go to a movie without her? Penny goes everywhere with me. At this point, I am her supplier of all things food related, and I don’t see that changing overnight.

Maybe that’s what’s bothering me. We’ve been experimenting with solids – some pureed, some solid food like cantaloupe and cucumber. The solids don’t make a full meal for her yet. But maybe I’m depressed by the realization that soon they will be, and I’m mourning the nursing sessions that solid food will replace. I also have no idea how to transition to solids. Sometimes she’ll eat something, then nurse after. Sometimes she’ll eat a full meal of solids, but then that will leave me engorged. Or this is what happens in my mind – we haven’t actually tried yet.

Has anyone gone through this stage (and by that I mean lots of moms have gone through it, but are you willing to talk to me about it) of drifting apart from their significant other? And feeling useless and like you could be doing better as a mom but just don’t know how? What did you do that helped?

I go to playdates (which is bizarre for me because I’m normally an anti-social person). I had post-partum depression (I think I did, the docs did nothing and it did go away, so maybe baby blues). I’ve asked for help and been blown off so I think it’s pointless. I have no faith in our health region – they’ve failed me 3 times now since Penny was born. I had retained products of conception (fancy term for piece of placenta still inside me), that took 5 months to get out. I was depressed and they kept sending me to the emergency room for it, and nothing got done. And my milk supply had decreased and the public health nurses that I saw said “We’ll save you the trip to the breastfeeding clinic. Just feed her whenever’s she’s hungry.” Gee thanks. I never thought of doing that. She had only gained a pound in a month and a half prior to that. I went to the breastfeeding clinic (against the public health nurses’ advice), started domperidone, and Penny has since gained 2 pounds in 3 weeks. So to me, the Calgary Health Region (now Alberta Health Region I believe) equals FAIL in my mind. Why are they making it so hard to ask for help, only to be blown off when you do?

I am now rambling. I think I need to get up and do something. So I will put on a load of laundry before my little princess wakes up hungry. And then I think us girls, Hershey included, will go for a mei tai walk. I need the snuggles.

Contests galore

In the last 2 weeks or so, I’ve started reading a number of mom-blogs. They’ve been funny, and fascinating, and hugely informative. In this stage of my mommy-hood, I’m still learning my style. All of these blogs offer more and more information and even more options for parenting. I’ve now added them all to Google Reader, but I’m sure I’ve missed a couple that I am email subscribed to. These are the blogs that I am regularly following:

• The Bad Grandma
• Barely Knit Together
• Blacktating
• Breastfeeding Moms Unite
• Breastfeeding is Beautiful
• Custom-Made Milk
• Fairy Photo Portraits
• Her Bad Mother
• Jennifer James
• makes mom happy
• Mommy is Rock N’ Roll
• Natural Mom Loves Prada
• One Tiny Suitcase – now with a location in Edmonton too!
• PhD in Parenting
• Relevant Mom
• BabyREADY
• The Truth About Breastfeeding
• A Wet Nurse’s Tale

Every time I turn around, there’s another contest! Elita at Blacktating just had her one-year blogiversary, along with a huge prize giveaway. Annie at PhD in Parenting just finished up her one-year blogiversary giveaway tonight, including a gorgeous sling from Sakura Bloom.

Contests and giveaways that are still open:

• Hop on over to makes mom happy for a ton of giveaways – some even open to Canadians! Some close soon, so get your entries in now!
• Melodie at Breastfeeding Moms Unite is giving away a Simply Breastfeeding DVD by My Baby Experts. Her contest is open until 5:00 pm PST, June 13th/09. There are a number of ways to enter – see the contest page.
• The Feminist Shopper is giving away a bottle of Happy Mama Spray along with a box of either Monthly Comfort Tea (for the postpartum moms) or Morning Wellness Tea (for the moms with buns in the oven.) Contest open for U.S. residents. (Sometimes I hate being Canadian.) Contest closes midnight CST, June 14/09. See the contest page for entering.
• No Time For Flash Cards is giving away a Melissa and Doug puzzle. But this contest ends in 45 minutes.

If I come across any more contests or giveaways, I’ll be sure to post them!