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Pondering Parenting Paradoxes

• I love love love to hold my daughter. But the second someone offers to hold her, I am pleased to hand her over and have my hands free.

• Breastfeeding is supposed to be 'natural'. But if it was so natural, why did I need instructions from La Leche League, other moms, books, photographs, websites, and printed hospital fact sheets? If it weren't for all the supplementary material, I would not have known how to breastfeed my baby while keeping my breasts healthy and comfortable.
  
• Bringing a new baby into the family is a joyous time but postpartum hormones and sleep deprivation conspire together to set the stage for postpartum depression.
• Babies are born with reflexes, intuition and their own brand of wisdom. Yet they don't have basic physiological skills or knowledge. For example, my baby does not know how to fall asleep. And her own bowel movements frighten her. (I guess you could say that her bowel movements scare the shit outta her.) As a mother, my job is to soothe my baby to sleep and monitor her crying cues so that I can distinguish between a "poo freak out cry" and her other cries (tired, bored, hungry, etc.)
• My baby can sleep through the white noise of a busy cafe, but the moment I ball up my empty take out bag, she wakes up from the quiet crinkly noise. How can she pick out the paper bag noise from the crash of the ice machine, cell phone rings, chatter, slamming doors, espresso machine, and more?
• When my daughter is napping and I have the opportunity to do other things, I sometimes use the time to look at photos of her. This paradox especially confuses me. If I want to look at my baby, I may as well put the photos away and go stare at her while she naps. At least then I would be looking at the real thing instead of a virtual 2D image of her.
  
• The conventional wisdom implies that parents forget the agony of childbirth and the chaos and craziness of the newborn days so that they won't be discouraged from having more children. During my postpartum recovery I talked to many different moms and I discovered that if I asked them specific questions about their own childbirth experience and their life with a newborn they all remembered very clearly and in great detail exactly what they went through. There was not a single mom who I questioned who 'forgot' or 'couldn't remember' what it felt like as they recovered from pregnancy and childbirth while taking on the challenges of breastfeeding and child care.
• We live in a time where (some) fathers are happily willing to take on 50% of the parenting responsibilities. But even if dads are eager and able, the mother-baby bond is so intense that a 50/50 division is unattainable (if you are in a family that has achieved 50/50, tell me how you achieved this!)
• I love my daughter exactly the way she is and wouldn't change a thing about her, but I covet the fantasy presented by a few other babies I have seen who sleep all the time and are easily portable, allowing their smug parents to go about their lives as if the kid wasn't even there.
• My husband doesn't care for clothes and fashion and he can't (or won't) shop for himself, but when it comes to dressing the baby he is a fantastic fashionista.
• A baby's cry is the most irritating sound on earth, but instead of running away from the sound, we run towards it.
  

My Baby Is...

My baby girl is almost 8 weeks old. Here's a snapshot of what she is like.

My baby is clumsy. She is always scratching her face, despite my 5-star-spa-manicure skills. She also pokes her own eyes out. Both of these uncoordinated movements result in bouts of crying, but luckily, they can be easily soothed.

My baby is thermonuclear. She is a space heater that keeps me cozy and warm on these long winter nights. Even when she is stripped down to her diaper she is a ball of heat, radiating warmth and energy. She reminds me of mitochondria (so what if I am a geek?).

My baby is an actor. She uses her fists to act grown up:

• Sometimes she's on the phone (holds fist by ear)
• Sometimes she's in a gang (holds fists with fingers sticking out in a gang symbol)
• Sometimes she's riding a motorcycle (holds fists in front of her as if twisting gears)
• Sometimes she's fencing in a duel (holds one fist at hip, the other stretched out to the opposite side)
• Sometimes she's Mr. Burns from the Simpsons (twiddles fingers in her lap)

My baby is a bird. She chirps, clucks, squawks, screeches, screams and trumpets. Someday she will fly.

My baby is a model. She was photographed at 11 days and her portrait hangs in the lobby of the Birth Center. My baby makes me proud.

My baby is a perpetual motion machine. Swing her, rock her, bounce her, walk her, blah blah blah, all day long and she still wants more.

My baby is cute and sweet. I don't have to explain this one, I am her Mom, and I say that she is cute and sweet, so there!

My baby is patient and forgiving. She doesn't cry when Dad puts her clothes on backward. She doesn't complain when Mom brushes her hair in funny swirls. And she doesn't startle when the dog pokes its wet nose into her personal space. She accepts it all and moves on.

My baby is growing healthy and strong.

My baby is present in my arms. When I am with her, I don't dwell on the past. Although I often worry about the future. But just then, she cries, and brings me back to the present moment.

My baby is my meditation. And we are in love.

What Can I Say?

What can I say? I had a baby on Dec. 31st, 2009 and everything changed. I am in love.

Like all first time Moms, I have been staring, watching, observing, obsessing and searching for cues that might give me insight into who my daughter is. I am always asking, "What does she need? Who is she?" I realized after two weeks of newborn care that it will take me a lifetime to learn who my daughter is and I may never fundamentally understand what she needs.

What else can I say? I've learned very quickly that my genome science/project management skills are pretty useless right now and I don't have the baby-care skills to really care for my daughter in the way she needs. For example, she cried for the entire afternoon and I was unable to soothe her. But, the bottom line is that she is growing healthy and strong and that is all I pray for every day.

What else can I say? I'm thankful for the wisdom of all my girlfriends who had kids before me. They have a way of telling me their stories without dumping advice, guilt and judgment on me. And they're funny about it, which soothes my soul on my most anxious days.

What else can I say? I love my daughter in a way that is deep and profound. I smile every time I pick her up. We are in love.

Cute Kimono

One advantage of being an unemployed deadbeat is that you get to finally work on the projects that you have been meaning to do. Here are some photos from my most recently finished work of country-cuteness. The baby kimono pictured here is from a pattern I found in Mason Dixon Knitting. It was a charming mini-project that was satisfying to knit because as I completed ach row, the shape of the kimono became more obvious. I added the little button instead of tying the kimono with a ribbon and feel smug and pleased with my country kitsch. What's not to love about squirrels with fishing rods?

Newborn Hat

Newborn Hat
Originally uploaded by nanodudek

I used to knit baby blankets for my pregnant girlfriends, but I just can't keep up with all the babies anymore, so I had to scale back my production to little projects like baby hats. I find hats much more satisfying because I can finish them quickly, but they induce a little bit of anxiety because it is hard to construct by hand a garment that fits well. A little mistake on a little hat amplifies into a giant lump, pucker, or eyesore. But I think the little candy print hat turned out ok.

Other projects in my knitting pipeline include a newborn baby kimono from the book Mason Dixon knitting and a self-designed shawl which I started, hated, and haven't had the guts to rip apart and start over.

Home Buying: Lessons Learned

I spent the last month viewing homes, talking to lenders, and reading home buyer guides and have come to a few broad generalizations about purchasing a home.

• For the first few houses, you enjoy the process because you are looking at cosmetic features. But by the third house you realize you need to focus on the structural and design elements of the house, otherwise you may end up living in a carnival fun house infested with termites.
• Nearly every single house has a major flaw. The flaw will fall into one or more of the following categories:
• water damage, leaks
  
• mold
• cracks (in the sidewalks, foundation, walls, ceilings, etc.)
  
• termites (and other pests)
• bad location (our favorite house was under our budget but next to the only freeway in Blacksburg, so we had to dump it from our wish list)
  
• ancient interiors (original 1971 carpeting throughout the entire house)
• nutty architectural design (for example, the dishwasher is located 7 feet away from the kitchen sink)
• the seller designed a specialty feature for their own pleasure, but you don't need it (for example a swimming pool, two stove tops or a heavy marble water sculpture)
• If a house has a basement, it had a flood or leak at some point in its history
• Leaks and floods lead to mold
• During tours, you spend a lot of time looking at the ceiling for leaks and cracks
• Sellers place area rugs on top of carpeting to hide stains
• College students abuse their rental properties 10 times worse than I remember from my own college days
• Americans have really cut back on their smoking. We didn't see a single property owned by smokers
  
• Pets go happy loco when random visitors enter the house in the middle of the work day
• The home buying process is expensive and overwhelming because you have to work with at least seven different people. Personalities we have worked with both directly and indirectly include the sellers, the selling real estate agent, our buying agent, our mortgage lender, the property surveyor, the home inspector, and the attorney. I have worked on genome projects that involved fewer people.
  

The last and most important lesson I learned was that if a house didn't stroke my ego, I couldn't bring myself to even consider it. You know how everyone tells you that "when you find your dream house, you just know."? Well, it turns out that the reason "you just know" is because your ego leaps up and stands at attention. Your ego is awakened by meeting something-a house- it recognizes as itself.

Don't be fooled into thinking you are any different. Your ego house will echo back to you the ideas and themes which you believe to be true about yourself. It will be spacious and bright (or maybe sweet and cozy). Your ego house will be colorful and whimsical (or reliably neutral). It will be surrounded by rolling hills with grazing horses (or by fun and young college students). Whatever it is, the house that makes you throw down your life's savings and commit to a thirty year loan will feed your ego, strengthen your identity and reaffirm your concept of self.

In my case, the interior of my ego house is a 1990s era Miami-vice themed tri-level. The Miami-vice theme is the first thing that I am going to redecorate. I consider my interior scheme to look like the set on Oprah when she does A-list celebrity interviews with multiple actors crowded onto the two couches, if that makes any sense.

The backyard of my ego house is a Jefferson Natural Forest inspired child's playland. There are more than a dozen mature pine trees in the backyard with a tinkling tiny koi pond. I plan on changing very little in the backyard, except for hanging up a hammock between the trees. I never pictured myself as an owner of trees, especially not the owner of a micro-forest, and I think that appealed to my ego more than anything.

I am still embedded in the home buying process and not sure where this path will lead, but I am excited and hopeful that if not this house, then the next house will be my dream house. Wish me luck. Feel free to share your dream house/ego house features in the comments section.