A Modest Life

I've never really been accused of being a "lady."  While I can't quite remember the first time I let one rip in front of T (something my grandmother claims to have never done in front of my grandfather), I can say with 100% percent confidence that it was long before we were engaged or even living together.  When it comes to UnPlain, what you see is what you get and T knew he was getting a Broad to Lady ratio somewhere in the 80/20 range.

With that said, there have always been some lines drawn in the sand.  Sure, burps, "fuffies" and nose-picking are well-charted territory in our home (and car for that matter), but we have drawn lines in the sand.  The door stays closed for number 2, I shave my legs in private and I do my best to avoid subjecting T to the never-cute task of having to run to the store for tampons.  After all, there's something to be said for even an extraordinarily little bit of mystery.  

There were a few other less-than-ladylike practices that I shielded my wonderful husband from, but then in walked pregnancy, childbirth and now a toddler.  Goodbye modesty, hello feeble attempt at behaving in a manner that's more human than animal.  It was probably sometime around the moment the doctor yelled, "get down here you have to see this!" to my husband who was under implicit instructions to stay above-the-waist that the door on modesty and mystery was slammed shut.  Now, with a one-year-old who possesses a level of curiosity that has lead us to nickname him "Nosy Rosy" not only is that door closed, it is dead-bolted.

Prior to having a child of my own, I lamented right here on Unplain about the conundrum of what the proper protocol for using the bathroom when charged with the care of a toddler is.  Now, as a mother to the most curious little boy of my own, I have the answer and it's not pretty.  I long for the day when I will once again use the bathroom alone, with the door, dare-I-dream-it, closed.  Alas, a little privacy is not mine to be had.  For now, a trip to the bathroom means a frantic attempt to urinate before P can pull all of the toilet paper off of the roll, grab the skeevy toilet bowl brush with his pristine little hands or fight his way to the toilet water before I can get it flushed and covered. 

Perhaps when I'm done having children and they are old enough to be left to their own devices, I might again enjoy the simple pleasure of making a trip to the loo without an audience.  I may even turn back the clock on time and return to the once-fleeting days of when I used to spare T, my family and the guy in the car next to me the wrath of my bodily functions and behave like a lady.  Maybe one day, but probably not, and until then I think I'll enjoy this free pass to burp the alphabet loud and proud to an audience, however unwilling that audience may be.  

Shake What Your Momma Gave You

Every visit to see family and friends brings with it questions and comments about who P looks like.  He has Daddy's ears and smile, Mommy's eyes and round face and he somehow looks just like his cousins too.  A visit to my parents recently prompted my father to say, "That kid is all Reiffe" while a barbecue with T's family, prompted his cousin to proclaim that P looks just like me.

I can't even begin to count how many hours of conversation have revolved around what P looks like, but these days I'm more interested in his personality.  Surprisingly to me, at just 13 months old, it's out in full force and I'm discovering that in addition to having Mommy's eyes, he has Mommy's temper.  And in addition to having Daddy's smile, he has Daddy's flair for the dramatic (ok fine, Mommy has that too).

Today was the kind of day where I got to experience and appreciate P for who he is and who he's becoming at the ripe old age of one.  Today was what I call a "house day".  One of those days where the only things on our schedule are naps, housework, errands and meals.   One of those days where I get to learn a lot about my son.  And today I learned this:  My son wakes up in a bad mood.  My son throws a mean tantrum.  My son thinks burps are really funny.  And so do I - to all three.

After two out of three naps today, P woke up in a foul mood.  Crabby, cranky, whatever you want to call it, he's kind of a "bitch" when he wakes up and for some reason, each and every time I'm perplexed.  "What's the matter, Pookie?" I say over and over.  I incessantly sing The Itsy Bitsy Spider, play Peek-a-Boo and shove stuffed bears and puppies in his face to try to make him smile because I just can't seem to figure out what could possibly be wrong.  All the while he pounds his fists, whines, cries and remains completely disinterested in any of my efforts to make him laugh, smile or simply be even the slightest bit pleasant.

Perhaps if I took a moment to stop and think, I'd remember that I know someone else who is "kind of a bitch" when she wakes up.  Someone named UnPlain.  I also know someone else who despite waking up next to me for the past seven or so years years continues to be perplexed and can't seem to figure out what's wrong.  Someone named T, who incessantly talks to me, asks questions and tries to hug me during the 20-30 minutes between the moment I wake up and the moment I become a human being.  It doesn't stop there.

P's foul mood combined with my annoying efforts to make him feel otherwise generally seems to send him flailing into a full-fledged temper tantrum.  This is another area where I'm somewhat of an expert.  Amongst other things, a door, a wall and a really expensive pair of eyeglasses have fallen victim to my "Italian Attitude" over the years.  Today, I watched as P chose to take his rage out in a similar manner by body slamming Elmo into the ground, giving my arm an unpleasant nip and giving the dinner I so nicely prepared for him multiple five-finger slaps in between cries.

Maybe years of watching T stay annoyingly calm during my most stressful moments are what now keep me annoyingly calm while P does the only things he knows how to do to express his anger.  Whatever the reason, I manage to calmly eat my dinner while P anything but calmly tries to massacre his.    While I don't particularly enjoy watching my 13 month old act like a "total baby" for a full hour, a small part of me is proud of his persistence and stick-to-itiveness.  A very small part.

After he finally calmed down and happily ate the lovely meal that he'd spent the previous 45 minutes violently smushing, P paid his compliments to the chef with a loud, hearty belch.  Always the mature adult, I did what I do anytime someone I know let's it rip; I laughed.  Immediately, P began laughing along with with me and for a few minutes we acted like a couple of twelve year olds burping the alphabet for the first time and cracking up the whole way.

It was in that moment, in between laughs, it became clear to me that regardless of whose physical features his most resemble, he and I are two peas in a pod. All I can say is good luck T.  You're going to need it.

Momma's Boy

Through my entire pregnancy, I waited for that magical moment when my newborn baby would be placed in my arms and I would fall so deeply in that different-kind-of-love that every parent so dramatically tells you about.  You know, the kind of love that you can only understand when you have a child.  Well, I vividly remember the moment P was placed in my arms and while yes, I did love him, no, I didn't fall in the kind of love that every parent in existence had managed to convince me that I would.  And that I should.

Perhaps three hours of pushing, getting punched in the stomach by a nurse and doing the unconceivable in front of my husband took all of the stamina that one needs for falling in love out of me?  Perhaps my face was too unbelievably swollen to see my newborn son clearly enough to fall in "that kind" of love with him?  Perhaps I'm just not that kind of maternal goddess?  Whatever the reason, the truth of the matter was that at five minutes old, I loved my son, but I was not absurdly in love with him.

To my relief, that moment did come about three months later when my high-strung, high-maintenance newborn began showing off his flirtatious personality and ever since, every day, I've fallen more and more in that obnoxious kind of love that only a parent knows for their child (yes, it's true) and these days, I'm pretty sure he feels it too.

I'd be lying if I didn't also admit that early on in my pregnancy I had secretly hoped for a girl.  Mainly, because I longed to one day have the kind of relationship with a daughter that I have with my mother.  The kind of relationship that goes from being 16 and feeling something just shy of hatred for the woman who buys your clothes, cooks your meals and drives you to the mall because she just doesn't understand the complicated, angsty "woman" you are to being 25 and enjoying nothing more than gabbing over a large glass of wine with the woman who understands more than anyone the woman you've become.  So when the doctor unceremoniously announced, "we have a baby boy" I wondered what I would do with trucks, trains and a lifetime with the less affectionate gender.

Well, I quickly figured out what to do with trucks and trains and boy (oh boy) was I wrong about boys being less affectionate.  Now, at one year old, I can barely break free from the clutches of my affectionate little momma's boy.  Every day at about 6pm, we sit on the floor and play while we wait for Daddy to get home.  And every day at about 6pm, while we sit on the floor and play, P will wrap his freakishly strong little arms around my neck and slobber baby kisses all over my face, often trying to shove his baby tongue in my mouth.  We'll be sure to work on that because while affection is a wonderful thing, an Oedipus Complex is not.  But for now he can slobber, hug and kiss as much as he wants.  This has become my favorite part of the day.  Let's put it this way, I enjoy it so much that I even put down my wine glass.

I also now realize that regardless of gender or whether it takes 1 second or 3 months to fall head-over-heels in love with your baby, if you develop a friendship with your kids, they will enjoy that glass of wine with you forever.  Even with the army of boys I'm convinced I will have (happily might I add), I think my chances are pretty good because I come from a long line of mothers whose children enjoy their company.  Or maybe I come from a long line of mothers whose children enjoy wine.  Either way, I look forward to the day my momma's boy spreads his wings and runs off on his own without desperately clinging to my "apron strings" and I'm hopeful that he will turn around and see not only his impossibly young-looking and stylishly dressed mother, but he will also see his friend.

Not On My Watch

I am prewired for guilt.  I'm Italian, I married a Jew, there is absolutely no way around it.  Slap on the cuffs and lock me up Judge - I'm guilty. Or at least that's how I feel.  It's so bad that sometimes I feel guilty about how guilty I feel and wonder, should I be burdening myself even more?

Add on to that the immense guilt factor that is motherhood itself and I'm now officially off the charts.  It's mind-blowing how raising a tiny creature whose needs are generally as simple as feed me, change me, hug me, love me can create a steamroller of wondering "Am I doing the right thing?"  I began feeling guilty yesterday over the concern that P wasn't interacting with other children enough during this, my very first week as a stay at home mom.  Today, I felt guilty that maybe he isn't getting the right type of interaction with other children.  A walk with a friend this morning?  Did he really interact?  Four hours of playtime with my nephew?  But, they're not the same age.  It never ends and I wonder how I will handle the first time he gets hurt.

As you will find with most couples, one parent tends to be more high-strung and one tends to be more laid-back and anyone who knows T and I can deduce who's who in the equation.  For those of you who don't know our dynamic, take the following example.  T won't leave the house in the morning without having checked the weather from three different sources followed by a roundtable family discussion on what the proper attire for that day is accounting for temperature, humidity, wind speed and potential for precipitation.  Way over on the other side of the spectrum, I consider a glance out of my window sufficient to tell me all that I need to know.  I will say that he's never caught in the rain without an umbrella, but on the other hand, a little water never killed anyone, did it?.

Sufficed to say, as parents our MO's differ dramatically.  While T follows closely behind P pushing his walker, with all hands on deck to stave off a possible fall, I stand far off in the distance feeling sure that if even if he does fall he will be fine and he'll learn something from it.  T will say, "Don't eat that Cheerio off the disgusting floor;" while snatching up the offending, tainted food item.  To the contrary, I stand aside and thinking, "What's the big deal?  He's going to get ecoli sometime or another."  Fortunately, we always tend to meet at the proper place in the middle, somewhere between paranoid and ignorant.

However, now that I'm the primary care giver, it's becoming blatantly obvious to me that P's first and hopefully-not-too-major injury is likely to happen on my watch.  At this point, I'm just hoping it doesn't end up being my fault, because frankly, I'm not sure I can handle any additional guilt.

Given how things are going,  I'm guessing that the first trip to the ER for stitches, a broken bone or a welt on the head may very well find me partially, if not fully, responsible.  Yesterday, for example, I crushed my poor, innocent, perfect baby's pinky finger under my big, fat foot.  Perhaps that's a bit dramatic, but I did step on his little finger with my average sized, well-pedicured lady foot.  I stepped on it for a good five to ten seconds before I even realized that the answer to "What's your problem P?" was "You're stepping on my finger Mommy."

I simply wasn't wearing the right pair of shoes for an afternoon trip to Starbucks and so I ventured into my closet to change them.  My budding momma's boy followed right behind me and after putting one adorable sandal on, I put my right foot down and started to put on the left shoe.  As I was doing so, P started to cry.  So I looked down, directly at him and asked, "What's the matter P?"  I watched him for a few seconds as I finished putting on my shoe trying to figure out why he was so suddenly cranky and then it hit me, OMFG.  My eyes landed on my thankfully soft soled shoe that was resting delicately on his teeny, tiny, pinky.  A good portion of my body weight pressed down on the most beautiful, perfect, elegant pinky finger that the earth has ever seen...until that moment.  Convinced I had shattered his tiny bone into a million little pieces, I picked him up off the floor and showered him with an equally large number of kisses.

Thanks to his infant-sized attention span and that it turned out my full weight was not bearing down on his little finger, P was fine and he had forgotten the entire incident within about thirty seconds. I, on the other hand, had not.  Mired in guilt, I began envisioning P, 21 years from now, sitting on a couch in our basement, getting fat on Fritos and Beer, feeling dejected because his Major League Baseball career as a closing pitcher was ruined thanks to a mangled pinky finger, courtesy of Mommy.

Luckily for me as quickly and thickly as I pile the guilt onto myself, I've also managed to learn to forgive myself just as fast.  I think this is an important skill for any parent, especially for an Italian parent, married to a Jewish parent to both of whom guilt is a way of life.  Judging by P's smiles and the fifteen "mommy hugs" per hour that he joyfully doles out, I'm guessing he forgives me too.

Day 1 - Under Pressure

Let me start out by saying, I've come into my new role as a SAHM (stay-at-home-mom) with the expectation that I would be living some sort of hybrid life; a cross between that of Betty Draper (the skinny years) and that of  June Cleaver. A world where home cooked meals meets a 2pm martini break and all the while I stay impeccably fashionable and impossibly thin.  Here's what really happened.

After insisting that I handle all of the baby's needs this morning, I offered to make T breakfast before he headed off to work.  He chuckled and refused my offer, sweetly indicating that I don't need to take on the world on Day 1.  Regardless of T's impetus that I ease into my new role, I decided to start my day by making four new lists (To Do, Groceries, Baby Proofing, Projects) envisioning how quickly I would check each one off and how easily it would all fit into the new schedule I would build (Monday - Housework, Tuesday - Playdate, Wednesday - Errands and so on and so forth).

Mathew headed out to work right around the time that I would normally sneak out the door of P's daycare wishing his teacher's good luck.  Right around the same time that P generally begins to get cranky - and he did.  Playtime?  No.   Some Milk?  No.  Hold Me?  Yes.  Now put me down!

After about an hour of up "Pick Me Up / Put Me Down" and getting approximately 3/4 of a dish rinsed and in the dishwasher, P started rubbing his eyes and I thought, "Woo hoo!  Nap time."  What I didn't anticipate was that I'd listen to P scream for the next 45 minutes while I got myself dressed (and dressed well might I add, because I promised myself I would not let fashion or personal hygiene suffer).  Forty-five minutes of scream, scream, scream, scream, scream.  And then some more screaming.

I found myself a bit confused.  The daily report he would come home from daycare which always reflected "Nap:  9:15am - 10am", not "Scream:  9:15am-10am."  At precisely the same moment that I gave in and picked P up out of his crib, his body went slack and he fell asleep in my arms.  Five minutes later, thinking it was safe to put him down I attempted to gently lay him back in bed for some serious napping.  Instantaneously, he put Vulcan Death Grip around my waist with his legs and began to wail uncontrollably.  Clearly unhappy with my decision to put him down, he seized the moment and relished the opportunity to pee all over me. How on earth did my little evil genius maneuver his baby junk right out of the way of his diaper in an obviously premeditated plan to whiz all over my super cute first-day-as-a-stay-at-home-mommy outfit?  Thanks for the golden shower my darling child.

Game - Set - Match:  P.

The rest of the day went somewhat more smoothly, certainly not great and I realized quickly that I need to reassess my grand plans.  Susie Homemaker, the Rosetta Stone and my DIY projects would have to wait.  Someone else has been raising my son for the last six months, spending 50-60 hours per week with him, getting to know his habits and managing his needs with ease.  Someone else knows him better than I do and cares for him far more gracefully.  Week 1 is no longer for making lists and organizing all the things I will do for the house, our family and myself.  Week 1 is for getting to know P, beyond the weekend, beyond 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes in the evening.  I'm not sure how I lost sight of this while making my lists, but somehow I did.  Perhaps urinating all over my pretty shirt was P's way of reminding me; hopefully I would've figured it out anyway.