Category Archives: parenthood

Baby Talk

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I joke that our daughter needs an intervention. Really, the child is obsessed with Baby Signing Time.

Haven’t heard of these DVDs of the oh-so-grating musical score? I hadn’t either, until a few mothers whose blogs I read started raving about them. I know some parents in real life who taught their babies sign language, and I’d read a few articles that talked about its benefits for babies, but I didn’t take really take the plunge with Baby Signing Time until Baby Girl was about 10 months old.

Now, we have a baby who will point at the TV and sign “please,” and if we don’t put it on, she points to the remote as if to say, “Listen, all you need to do turn it on. I’ll take it from here.” Sometimes, I swear she hardly blinks she is so intent on watching. It’s hilarious, but also? It’s a bit much, and from what I’ve read on other blogs, the obsession is fairly universal among the baby set.

To backtrack a bit, we did teach her a couple of the most basic signs at about 6 months—“more,” “all done,” and “cup,” and she caught on pretty quickly. Her sitter knows a ton of signs, and has been great about reinforcing them. But then she started saying a word or two, and then a few more, and our rudimentary signing slipped to the wayside because we were so caught up in hearing her words. And we got a bit lazy about it.

At around 8 months, it really hit me how much of the world she was absorbing, how much babies in general absorb, and just how much was going on in that little mind of hers—she recognized colors, could find hidden toys when asked, etc. Though she was saying a handful of words, I really wanted to find the right way to tap into what else she understood.

“We just need to ask her the right questions,” I said to my pediatrician, marveling at how amazing the experience of watching a little human emerge really is. Perhaps signing was one way for us to do that?

I hesitated at first, not because I wasn’t sure about signing but because I wasn’t wild about the thought of her watching a DVD (yes, we’ve read the American Academy of Pediatrics’ guidelines on infants and television, and we don’t disagree.) But the DVDs are short, and one of us sits and watches and signs along with her, so it’s an interactive thing. (And this explains why I currently have “One shoe, two shoes,” on repeat in my head right now.)

Between what we’ve learned from signing along with her and all the signs her sitter knows and uses, in the past month or so she has really become versatile with her signing. We didn’t realize how much of it translated until she moved past signing things on request. Last week, we said our dogs’ names in passing and she signed “dog.” She will now sign “please” and then indicate what she’s asking for, instead of needing us to ask her to say please after she’s pointed at something. It’s so neat to see her use signs in the appropriate context.

Someone asked me if I was worried signing would stunt her vocabulary development, which is a reasonable question. I’m not, since she says a lot, and since she hears the terms for so many things over and over when she learns the signs for them. In fact, from what I’ve read, signing can enhance vocabulary.

But from a purely day to day perspective, it makes communicating so much easier. She has a way to express the things she can’t yet say, and it’s a blast having meaningful interaction with her where we know she knows what we’re asking. It wasn’t something I set out to do when she was born, but I am happy we stumbled into it. If nothing else, it’s made me really stop and appreciate just how cool it is to witness a baby growing up and learning about his or her world.

Have any of you out there tried signing with your kids? Do you have any insights for those who may have heard about teaching babies to sign but aren’t sure it’s for them?

(And yes, I know this is a chronic illness blog. Stay tuned for some posts of that persuasion soon!)

On Books and Babies, Part 1 (Or, Where I’ve Been)

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So, here’s a funny story.

My second book and my first baby were due on the same day.

The short version?

The former came a little bit early (but oh how she hung in there) and the latter was inevitably delayed, but in the end, they both came when they were ready.

The longer version? Stay tuned.

Because I think I might actually be able to resurface now.

Thanks for waiting for me.

(And let’s not mention the major revisions in store, m’kay?)

Our Children, Our Stories

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So, apparently July happened.

Seriously, how it is that July happened?

But it did, and here we are. And yes, I am still here, despite my unplanned hiatus. And no, there is no major calamity or crisis to report, just life being life and being all kinds of busy and stressful and wonderful and challenging.

At some point in the past couple weeks I read this essay on parenting and writing in the New York Times and between the footnotes, interviews, and word counts and the music classes, swim diapers, and clapping and waving, it stuck.

While a lot of the essay was about the author not wanting her son to hear a reading of her memoir detailing a more colorful time in her life, the part of the essay that resonated with me was the author’s acknowledgment that the people in our lives didn’t necessarily sign up for living with a writer or having their stories out there. That’s something I think about a lot as a nonfiction writer and as a blogger. In fact, I think the more I write, the more tightly I hold their stories against my chest. It is not an easy line to walk—providing enough detail and humanity so the reader is invested without betraying someone else’s privacy.

Naturally I am most cautious when it comes to my daughter. There are so many anecdotes and revelations I think about writing and then wonder if sometime down the road, she will be embarrassed or wish I had refrained, if the line between my story as her mother and her story as her own independent person should be thicker, not more diaphanous. So I write her letters each month and save them in a folder on my desktop, knowing someday I will print them and give them to her and hope I choose my timing well so she doesn’t cringe at the mushiness.

But there are moments that feel appropriate, tiny glimpses of a private life that are meant for public consumption. I can’t believe it has been four months since I wrote a morning snapshot of my sweet girl. I am not one to get too sentimental when one stage ends and another begins because each stage is so much fun and so amazing in its own right, but just like I can’t explain how I blinked and a whole month of the summer has gone by, I don’t know quite how it is that our house doesn’t look as much like a baby lives here anymore.

The bouncy chair she just adored has been stashed away since we were still wearing winter coats. The jumperoo she loved is down the basement because why jump when you can crawl or take teetering, tottering, sideways steps, or swing from one piece of furniture to another? I fear the beloved exersaucer, the scene of so many squeals and pulls and bops! is the next casualty, since the only thing she has used it for since May is something to pull up on and cruise around.

I finally got around to returning the hospital-grade pump, and broke down and cleared out all of the bottles, despite the fact she has used her sippy cup for months. My own little act of denial, I guess. The bottles and the boppy nursing pillow were what gave me pause, and really made me stop and get a little sentimental that she is now 10 months old since they represent such a physical connection to her babyhood. Just tonight as I was weeding through some of her newborn clothes to give to a new baby, a tiny purple Mary Jane sock tumbled out and my breath caught a little at how tiny she once was. (Though so far she has her Mama’s height and can still rock the 6-month clothes…)

It is too good to go this fast.

The baby gates and the sharing entrees with me and the fact that it took twice as long to get through chest PT because she was chasing down the dog, standing next to my therapist trying to pat me, and crawling on my head—all of this points to toddlerhood.

Every stage has been wonderful but even if I could, I would not go back—watching this little person emerge with every wave, every smile, every emphatic shake of her head and every triumphant declaration of “Up!” when she gets up is too good.

(Too good to go this fast.)

On Anniversaries; or, What is Necessary

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Last spring and summer, before things got more complicated, every time I walked by the baby’s room I would stop and enter. I’d walk in and touch something—the side of the crib, a stack of bibs that had been washed and folded, the small pink bunny we bought at the hospital gift shop the day we found out she was a girl. The room gets a ton of sunlight all afternoon, and that’s always how it seemed to me—quiet, peaceful, and full of streaming light.

While an amazing, incredible journey, pregnancy wasn’t always comfortable for me, and I am not talking about all the physical stuff of a high-risk pregnancy. I was awkward in maternity clothing stores, awkward about letting people know I was pregnant (if waiting 16 weeks to tell people beyond the inner sanctum is any indication), awkward even saying the words “I am pregnant.”

It wasn’t because I was waiting for something bad to happen, for that other shoe to drop, or anything like that. It was more that it was hard to believe it was really happening, and if I said it out loud, if it became so very real, I would wake up from the dream. So it was a learning curve, letting go of this safely guarded secret, meshing the real world and all the risks and variables with the dream world.

But her room was different. I know many people, those who have been through infertility and loss and those who haven’t, who wait on decorating and setting up just in case, and I totally get it. I was convinced I’d be that person, too. Instead, there was something comforting about getting it ready early, about the trappings of a baby having a place in our home. (Plus, I had a feeling the third trimester would be…challenging, so I wanted to be prepared).

Her room was my compass, my private act of rebellion and hope. Every time I went in there I smiled, every time I rocked in her glider I felt peace. I needed it to remind me everything would be okay, and to remind me it was not just okay to have hope, it was intrinsic to this whole experience.

Now, I walk into her room and there is a peaceful, sleeping baby or a smiling, wriggling baby read to play. The sunlight streams in just like it did last year and I catch my breath as the two worlds collide, the world of waiting and the world of living, and I exhale.

All of this is on my mind a lot as we near the anniversary of the call that changed so much. Of course I know from firsthand experience that such calls do not just happen at 3am; they happen as you are making dinner quite often, they happen as you’re doing errands, they happen as you are about to have lunch, like this one did. We’ve had lots of calls, but this one I remember in visceral detail.

It was this time last year I learned that it is possible to have your heart literally feel like it will stop beating from fear at the same time it wants to explode into a million pieces with happiness. That grief and sadness and joy and gratitude can co-exist—not easily or gracefully, but they can, and we need them to. Becoming a mother will be forever linked with being my mother’s daughter, and there is a lot to be said for that.

Sometimes, it is hard to believe how much has happened in one year, how much life has changed from last summer to this. It is not just good to be hopeful, but it is a necessary part of being.

Five Things on a Friday

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So, I blinked and weeks have passed since my last post. The usual spin cycle—mothering, writing, being sick, tending to a sick baby—is the culprit but we’re all on the mend and enjoying summer. (The parks! The playgrounds! The beach! So many new things for little eyes and hands to explore…)

(And, somehow, the chapters are slowly coming together. Time is not my friend these days, but such is life, right? There is nothing as clarifying as a deadline, there is nothing as clarifying as a deadline…)

With lots to write but scattered focus, here we go—five things I’m grateful for this Friday.

1.Friends. I know that might sound trite, because really I’m always grateful for my friends, but more specifically, I am grateful for the chance to see my friends. Between a hectic schedule, illness, and in a lot of cases, geography, I don’t get to see a lot of my long-time good friends as often as I’d like. Recently we all coordinated schedules and met up for a quick weekend in Washington, DC, home to our alma mater, Georgetown. Husbands came to help with babies, babies met friends from afar, and it was great. I’ve had to miss the majority of weddings, reunions, trips, and other events over the years because of being sick, and it was so nice to have everything work out this time. (Special thanks to T for being an amazing hostess!)

2.Flying. Again, let me be more specific—I am grateful I was able to fly. It has been years since I’ve been on a plane, between the usual illnesses, plus the high-risk pregnancy and germ lockdown, bed rest and then having a newborn and young infant with some health problems. And while I always come home from a plane trip sick, it was so worth it to get a brief change of pace. (Plus, Baby Girl’s first flight went so well—she smiled away and then slept the entire flight, both ways.)

3. Food. Specifically, feeding Baby Girl food. When she turned six months old, we started solid foods and a sippy cup, expecting both to take awhile to catch on. However, within a couple weeks, she was on to three solid meals a day and using the sippy cup exclusively, save for one bottle at bedtime. She had feeding problems as a newborn, has reflux, and has multiple food allergies and intolerances at this point (hoping she outgrows them all!) so it is amazing to see her enjoy eating so much and thriving. She is small for her age but one look at her chubby cheeks and thighs and it’s clear she is doing great. Everything we’ve tried with her she loves, from chickpeas, spinach, and broccoli pieces to steak, sweet potatoes, and rotisserie chicken (her favorite!) (Next up? Quinoa!) We’ve made all of her food from the start, which is super easy and a lot of fun, and since she’s been feeding herself with her pincer grasp for so long, she can pretty much try anything at this point. If she ends up with long-term food allergies or is celiac, I want her to know so many good foods exist and I don’t ever want her to feel hemmed in by dietary restrictions. While so much can change, for now she is an adventurous and happy eater, and I hope it lasts.

4. Flexibility. I admit, the spring semester kind of chewed me up and spit me out. There were too many major things to juggle, and my body paid the price. I love what I do and really enjoy my students, but I have never been more grateful for the summer break than I am this year. Working on my book full-time and having the flexibility with my daytime hours to do a lot more with my daughter is wonderful. It’s an iteration of the semester: if I am willing to do a lot of work late at night, early in the day, and any spare time, I get to do so much more with my girl—and while the book situation is pretty intense right now, we are having so much fun, and I am really looking forward to the rest of summer and watching her grow and discover new things.

5.Facebook. There are a lot of things I don’t like about FB and I have my personal page fairly limited in terms of access, but there is a lot I find valuable, too. My book page is a good way to connect with readers and have an ongoing conversation, which keeps things dynamic and relevant. I like the power of FB to harness people together for a cause, which is what has it on my bullet list today. My husband’s company, The Well Fed Dog, is supporting dogs/animals displaced by the recent tornadoes in our home state of Massachusetts. For every new FB member who joins/likes the Well Fed Dog Facebook page, we’re donating to the Dakin Valley Humane Society, which suffered significant damage in the storms. So if you’re on FB, click on the page and help the WFD assist these animals in need!

And, because it makes me smile and it’s Friday so why not smile, a recent pic of Baby Girl:

Why I Hate Push Presents

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Parts of this post have been in draft form and swirling around in my brain for months, literally. Sarcastic and quippy wouldn’t cut it. The right jumping off point lest it sound too rant-y or judgmental slipped through my fingers over and over.

And then this: I recently heard about another devastating late-term loss. And it became so clear.

Life, survival, is a blessing, not a guarantee. Motherhood is a privilege.

And besides all the snarky, quippy reasons I absolutely, positively loathe the whole concept of “push presents” this is at the core. The privilege of delivering a live baby? That is the gift, no?

Let me break down my argument a bit. First off, on a semantic level I find the term itself extremely tacky, not to mention offensive. Perhaps I am being contrary me again, but from my perspective, it is exclusionary and implies that only women who have endured childbirth (you know, that process women have gone through since the dawn of humanity, usually without the benefit of pearls or diamonds?) warrant recognition or have sacrificed.

After all, there’s no “You-survived-the-emotional-heart-choke-known as adoption” present, right? Or “your-gestational-carrier-was-successful-in-delivering your child” luxe item?

And as for the mothers who must deliver babies far too soon, or babies who were on time but not okay, I truly have no words because my heart does choke and my stomach coils up involuntarily.

Please don’t misunderstand me. It’s the attitude of expectation that is repugnant to me, not the presents themselves. This isn’t an indictment of people who get gifts for having babies. If someone’s partner or spouse wants to commemorate the miracle of birth with a gift, that’s great—and it’s also none of my business, or my place to judge.

No, it’s when it goes too far, it’s about the build-up around it, the speculation and prolonged discussion over the merits of some gifts over others, and the belief that a woman is “owed” something elaborate for having a baby that can sometimes occur that is problematic.

Again: the ability to conceive a baby, carry a baby past viability and into a safer range, and have both mother and child survive the birth process, that is a gift. And the ability to come home with a baby or child, regardless of what process made that happen, the ability to be a parent and help another human being develop into his or her own person? That is a gift.

And really? We must commercialize our lives so much that even birth has its own subset of recommended gifts? Not surprisingly, I feel much the same way about elaborate Mother’s Day gifts but I am sick of my own soapbox so I will leave you with some comments on Mother’s Day from the infertility trenches. Sprogblogger writes,

“This year, I’m feeling overwhelmed with appreciation – for my own mother and my grandmothers and all of the women who have ‘mothered’ me in one sense or another throughout the years. But do I feel like someone should be appreciating me, and the work I do? Not so much – because I feel like I’m the one who’s been given the gift of being allowed to mother, so wanting a pat on the back for essentially eating a cookie someone handed me just feels like the grossest kind of greediness –the cookie is reward enough, and thank you!”

On Mother’s Day

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I wrote recently about chronic illness and parenting and have an upcoming post on certain expectations and attitudes about parenting, but in light of Mother’s Day I want to post something briefly about motherhood itself.

Mother’s Day is an interesting experience when you want a family and do not or cannot have one. It was never a day to fear or avoid, since it was a day to celebrate our mothers, but it was also a day with the capacity to emphasize all that was not there, too.

And here we are on the other side, seven months into the privilege of parenting this little girl. It’s such a fun stage right now, where new skills develop practically every day: clapping, waving, feeding herself, cruising around, imitating us. (I am partial to the fake cough when she hears me cough, or her chuckle when she fake sneezes.)

As a mother, since last Mother’s Day I went from waiting and worrying to watching our daughter grow before our eyes. As a daughter, I saw a catastrophic medical event happen and watched my own mother make it through.

So this Mother’s Day, I am profoundly grateful to be a mother and a daughter, and to celebrate life.

And will be thinking of and supporting all the people out there still on this journey…

On Being a (Chronically Ill) Mother

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The next installment of the ChronicBabe blog carnival is all about motherhood and chronic illness, and given my recent post on trying to balance work, parenting, and chronic illness, this theme is certainly on my mind these days.

I’m working on a piece about Mother’s Day, infertility, and parenting, (and hey, did you know this week is National Infertility Awareness Week?) but I think it’s important to look specifically at the chronic illness aspect of things, too…and as the daughter of a chronically ill person, a patient myself, and the mother of a child with some health issues, I definitely have fodder.

The biggest thing that living with chronic illness has reinforced in my parenting is this: trusting my instincts. Our instincts. We bought all sorts of books and guides before she was born, but once she arrived, we quickly realized that getting to know her and paying attention to her cues was the best guide of all. We trusted her to let us know what she needed, and trusted our own intuition, too.

As a rare disease patient with a history of missed diagnoses, I have learned to be an advocate—to speak up when information is incorrect, to ask questions even when it is uncomfortable or awkward, to make sure my voice and my knowledge of my body and my symptoms are part of the dialogue.

As a parent, my job is to advocate for my daughter and to always work for what’s in her best interest. From firing her pediatrician when he continued to ignore her worsening symptoms to fine-tuning the balance between keeping her away from sick crowds during the winter season since she was very susceptible and also allowing her to socialize (she’s an outgoing girl!), I have more confidence saying “I know what is right for my kid”—and, more importantly, “I know when something is not right for my kid”—than I might have had I not lived through 30 years of illness.

I also think we are both more risk-tolerant than we might have been otherwise, especially me. She was such a tough little survivor all the way through this long journey of ours, and through her own health problems (which are under nice control these days), that it is easier for me to let go of fears and anxiety. I joke when I say it, but there is a lot of truth to the fact that if she could survive 37 weeks inside this body of mine, she can handle what the outside world throws at her.

It’s so easy to get bogged down in the labels and categories that come along with becoming parents (and I don’t mean Bugaboo versus Uppababy): Are you an attachment parent? A co-sleeper, a CIO-er, an E.A.S.Y. parent? Are you a breast feeding mama? Do you give your baby a pacifier, do you wear your baby, do you swaddle? Are you a working mom, a SAHM mom, or some variation of the two?

Parenting is never as black and white as these choices. They might contribute to the much larger picture of who we are as parents, but they are only as defining or absolute as we allow them to be. At least that’s how I feel, and how I feel about the possible implications of being a chronically ill mother. Or rather, a mother who happens to have chronic illness. Just as illness was never what I wanted to define my relationships or my career, it certainly isn’t what I want as a defining element of my daughter’s life.

And it isn’t.

But some days, making sure that isn’t the case takes more work than others.

There have been days where I have been really sick and run down and couldn’t imagine getting out of bed, but a certain squealing, chuckling little girl needed to eat whether I felt well or not. There have been days, especially earlier on, when trying to be the mother of a breastfed infant with health problems and the daughter of chronically ill parents who had their own needs left me flattened. There have been nights where, after another 18-hour day, staying up most of the night to watch her and hold her upright when she wasn’t feeling well was difficult if I wasn’t feeling well, either. But you do what you need to do in the moment and get through it, like any parent. Her needs come first.

Living with chronic illness already showed me how important it is to ask for help. Admittedly, this is much more difficult with my daughter because I want to be the one to do things for her and with her, but this is perhaps the greatest negotiation of parenting with chronic illness: I can’t be what she needs me to be if I am too sick.

It’s a line I am always balancing, and it took me many months to be able to start to make some of those choices—some days, that means she has to wait while I have my chest PT, some days her father does the morning shift, some days I abandon my word count to get some more rest so that the next day, I can give her all the energy I have.

I’ve come to see that those days where I have to shift things a bit still mean her needs come first—it’s just an alternative way of making sure she has two happy, (relatively) healthy parents who can give her what she deserves.

On Working, Parenting, and Chronic Illness (Part 1)

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This week, my spring semester ends.

And while in many ways it was a great semester (engaged, intellectually curious students, new assignments and experiments in the classroom that worked out well), I am profoundly relieved it is over.

I’ve been wanting to write a series of posts about work, parenting, and chronic illness for awhile now; a recent Boston Globe column on working from home only intensified this.

I knew back in December that finding balance would be my main challenge and while I might be self-aware enough to anticipate this, I wasn’t self-aware enough to actually do something about it in time.

During the academic year, I teach a full-time course load, plus other administrative and professional development projects and meetings. I’m also a writer with an impending deadline for an incredibly research-intensive beast of a book. Both are full-time responsibilities.

Like anything, there are compromises and trade-offs to this type of career path, one that is not a traditional office job. I work from home a couple days a week during the year, and work from home full time during summer months. I’ll discuss the pros and cons of working from home in an upcoming post, but the number one benefit of my current career is that it means more time with my daughter than I could ever have in an office job.

(Plus, the health insurance I provide for my family is awesome. Really and truly.)

After all, after working for almost five years and risking my life to have her, I don’t want to miss a thing. This was the promise I made to her and to myself when I went back to work: when I am with her, she gets all of me. No laptop, no hastily typed work e-mails, no frantic checking of the inbox for replies from editors or interviewees or students. I don’t want to be half-present with her and half-present with the other people in my life who need me.

She deserves more than that—and so do my students, and so does my book and all the people who have given me their time and insights during the writing/research process.

Some days (the best days), I am mainly with her. Other days, like when I am on campus, I make sure the mornings and the later afternoons and early evenings are all about her. Luckily, we have had family who have been able to help with watching her some of the time, and a wonderful caregiver some of the time, and the more flexible nature of my work demands means that most of the time, I spend a lot of time with her and make up what I need to do for work at other times in the day. I know we’re fortunate to have help, and I know not everyone does.

In terms of being with her and watching her grow from a precocious 4-month-old just starting to sit on her own to a chatty, giggly little girl who feeds herself and loves turning the pages of her books, in terms of being an active, engaged participant in her everyday life and routines, I have no regrets. I never felt my work took away from her, or took me too far away from her. In this way, my semester was a success.

But, a full-time workload plus a book plus daily chest PT (and all of the logistics of her health needs and doctor appointments) and everything else means that making up what I need to do was pretty challenging. For a lot of the semester, it meant staying up very, very late and getting up hours before my daughter woke up to get stuff done. It meant working almost every single Friday and Saturday night and during weekend mornings and naptimes. And all of that is clearly worth it, because it means I get to pick her up from her crib when she is all smiley and up from her nap, or take her to all her doctor appointments, or watch her devour her sweet potatoes or gluten-free snacks.

However, a schedule like that is not sustainable, not for healthy people and certainly not for people with chronic illness. (Oh, hey, and it goes against practically everything I’ve written about here and in my book, too.) It’s almost May, and the infection I caught at Christmas is still recycling itself through my lungs and upper respiratory tract and causing problems. By February, I started noticing my lung capacity was limited enough that I had a hard time walking through campus and talking at the same time. By March, my adrenals started acting up and some days, my arms and legs were so heavy and concrete-laden I needed a ride to and from work because I couldn’t get myself from my parking garage to my building on the other side of campus.

I realized a bit late in the game that all of this hard work would be for naught if it meant I was too sick to be what my daughter needs from me. Duh, right? My health affects her. What good are the carefully preserved hours with her if I can’t lift her, or take her places, or play games with her?

I’d like to say I had this huge revelation and made all sorts of drastic changes, but responsibilities are what they are. I did need to prioritize even further, though, and that meant letting go of some expectations of how much research and writing I could do during the semester. I don’t get up well before dawn anymore. I try not to schedule activities on both weekend days. I tell myself regularly (no really, I do—I find I have to repeat it to myself) “all you can do is what you can do” and what I can’t get done I leave behind me when I go to bed at night.

My husband, a fantastic father and a wonderful support system, now has a little more flexibility with his time since starting his own business, and that’s made a huge difference. (Even though he’s pulling very long hours himself, it’s amazing how much more time he has to see her now that he doesn’t have an hour-plus commute on the T every day and can walk to his nearby office.)

In the end, I made it. I made certain decisions that upheld certain priorities and I made it through. We made it. Since I don’t plan on ever having a baby and an enormous book due at the same time again, I do think life will be more manageable from here on in. This semester, my body paid some of the price but that means my daughter and my students did not. The beauty of teaching is that next semester, I can try it all over again and hope to do much better at this whole balance thing.

(And between now and then, I’ll finish that book. There’s nothing as clarifying as a deadline…right?)

I know so many of you out there have done this whole working-parenting-being sick juggling act much longer than I have. Any words of wisdom (or, moments of defeat) to share?

Moments

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I do plan to post something coherent about work, chronic illness, and parenting very soon, but right now, while I am limping across the finish line of the semester, indulge me in some more unstructured thoughts on being a parent.

Time. As I taped my daughter’s Easter picture to the refrigerator this week, I realized a few things: this was the first time my own child’s holiday picture kept her cousins’ pictures company up there; this time last year, we already had three (of many) ultrasound pictures up there to greet us every time we went into the kitchen; it was this week last year that I finally went public about being pregnant. A year ago April 16, I felt my daughter move for the first time, and this year, almost to the day, she cut her first tooth and balanced on her own standing up for a few seconds. It is hard to wrap my head around everything that has changed in this past amazing and challenging year.

Relief. I was back at my (our) hospital for an appointment of my own this week. I’ve done my very best to avoid going back there, having spent far too much time there during the pregnancy. Anyway, it is such a different experience evaluating pulse oximeter results and medications without worrying about the impact of the numbers on a growing baby. Knowing her welfare is no longer tied so wholly and viscerally to my own health is reassuring, yet the relationship between my health and what is best for her is still a regular negotiation: to be the best mother I can be for her, I need to feel as well as I can. (See also: upcoming post on balance….)

Gratitude. “Every morning is kind of like Christmas morning.” We agreed about this the other night. It was almost 1 am and we’d both had a very long week, but none of that mattered, or matters. Knowing there is a wriggling, giggling little girl waiting for us every morning often makes it hard to sleep.

And, in lighter terms…
Humility. I was getting a bit cocky last weekend. In one day, I’d managed the logistics of swimming class, a play date, and a birthday party with nap time and meals (and final papers! And work deadlines! And a nasty, plague-like virus thing, oh my!) and everyone was intact and smiling. Clearly, I was too confident.

As I went to fold up the new stroller and head to our final destination, I could not figure it out. Like, 10 minutes into it, sweating and exasperated, I still couldn’t fold it up. I pulled tabs, I pushed bars, I moved wheels. I may have sworn a few times, and I may have even tried shoving the whole thing in the back still upright. With the guy who was waiting for my spot impervious to my motions to move on, I got more flustered and more inept. Eventually, he got out of his car to help me and he couldn’t do it either, but that didn’t make me feel better because I’d had lessons. Fearing a situation just like this, my husband, who is used to the manifestations of my spatial relations problem, had walked me through it several times. Thankfully, a second passer-by, the mother of twins, hopped out of her car and came to our rescue.

So a good fifteen minutes after I buckled my daughter into her car seat and tried to leave the parking garage, I was ready to go. The only upside is that this time, I hadn’t gotten lost actually getting to my car, which is a routine occurrence in parking garages.

So there’s that.

Let’s hope she gets her spatial abilities from her father….