Why Don’t They Come with Instructions?

He is looking down at the form of an infant who is making movements that, if made by an adult, would be called a grand mal seizure; arms and legs flailing in the air.  The face has the unmistakable resemblance to the age-old Mr. McGoo – all creases. The mouth is wide open and the noise is as deafening as it is nerve shattering.  He has tried everything he knows of to restore calm, here.  The child has a clean diaper, a full tummy, what more can he do?  He takes the pacifier and tries once more to get baby to latch onto it, but for some unknown reason, this enrages the child all the more.  The noise stops momentarily as the baby begins to turn a deep shade of purple in a suspended scream.

“Oh, for Pete’s sake, why don’t they come with instructions?” he cries in exasperation as he picks up the child and seeks out Mom.  “Here.  He’s turning colors on me.  I think he needs you!”

On the one hand, you feel very sorry for this dad because you, too, have known that helpless feeling of being able unable to comfort the baby.  On the other hand, you are smiling a bit smugly on the inside, because you have figured out how to handle it now.  “There, there, Baby…” you croon as you tuck the baby’s head under your chin and begin what I have fondly termed, “The Mama Bounce”.

It goes like this: Cradle baby against your chest, either horizontally or vertically, and spread your feet about two feet apart.  Now you begin to bounce gently up and down on the balls of your feet.  The slowly begin to transfer your weight back and forth and back and forth between this foot and that.  After you have really gotten the hang of this, you can sing or mumble sweet nothings in the baby’s ear, producing an even  more soothing effect.  Once you’ve mastered that, you can move onto The Advanced Mama Bounce, which involves moving around the house while bouncing, rocking and singing. 

Like magic, in seconds, the baby has gone from shrieking, to whimpering, to snoring peacefully.

“You know,” remarks your chagrined and somewhat dejected husband, “The VCR comes with a handbook that tells you how to program it.  Where are you supposed to learn how to program THAT?” he asks as he gestures toward you and junior. 

 Not being sure if he’s talking about you, the baby, or both of you, it sets you to thinking, “Yes, where DID I learn to do this?”  After all, the children ARE infinitely more complicated that the VCR, which you still can’t program.  Hmm.

Indeed, I recall the panic and the despair mere weeks before I had that first child when my well-meaning sister plunked her newborn into my amateur arms, announcing to all who could hear how natural I looked!  I begged to differ.  Trying to hold a floppy newborn was something akin to balancing several priceless, fragile champagne glasses.  Never mind the fact that I was probably voted least likely to be domestic by everyone who ever knew me!
And yet, somehow, when the nurse handed me my own very small (five and a half pound) bundle of hard earned joy, why, the klutz of weeks past was noticeably absent.  I realized one fine moment that, Gee whiz, the kid is not as fragile as I thought!  How fragile could it be, having just been forcibly pushed head first through a four and a half inch tunnel?

I realize I will be accused of sloppy mothering, but, well, I started out like everyone else, and you’ve just got to go with what works!

My first-born arrived in the heat of an early summer.  The mornings began to dawn hot and humid.  I would don the least amount of clothing that would conceal all the baby fat still left and would then set about to dress the baby. Let’s see… look though all of the adorable baby gifts…aha!  A T-shirt with a snap crotch over a diaper, socks, a one-piece sleeper that says “Champ” on the breast, a receiving blanket, a thermal blanket, a hat...what else?  (What else, indeed!)  By the time we have done the marketing, visited a friend, gone to the bank and the post office and made the trip back home, the child is the picture of hysteria.  But my turn comes when I undress the child to change the diaper and find him covered with spots!

“Mom!” I panic into the phone, “That Baby’s got spots!”

“What’s he wearing, dear?”

I describe the outfit that reads like the entire layette – only to be told that it is probably heat rash! Thus I learned lesson number one: If you’re hot…he’s hot.
But the deeper lesson is that we, as mothers, despite what the experts say, DO have instincts. It’s just that we are too insecure within ourselves to go with them.  And if you look at it closely, it’s no small wonder!

We are given explicit instructions during pregnancy about things lie “Don’t lie flat on your back!” (like this is comfortable?) and “Don’t skydive during pregnancy”. (Aw, shucks!) In the birth classes we are re-taught how to breathe! (Believe me, it’s a tough thing to forget!) When the baby arrives, they give you tomes of literature to take home, explaining everything from how to bathe the baby to how to be intimate with the man whose intimacy made the baby possible!  Honestly, I think these things would come naturally if we weren’t coaxed by those “in- the-know” telling us things such as baby’s bathing is more than just getting the dirt off, (what dirt? How did my baby get dirty?) – and that your marriage is now officially on the rocks, unless you accommodate your husband’s need for attention – (when did he cease to need it in the first place?)

As unsure as I was, I could not keep up with the expert’s recommendations without feeling like a bona-fide failure. So after the fourth child, I decided to scrap the system altogether.

Baby #5 arrived in the comfort of my own bed, in my own bedroom.  After the last birth, dashing to the hospital at 85 mph on snow-covered roads panting jingle-bells, well, I just figured there had to be an easier way! But, alas, I hadn’t a crib set up or anything.  It just seemed the most natural thing in the world to just curl up with him and go to sleep!  And being the procrastinator that I am, I never did get around to setting up the crib.  I confess, he was warm and cuddly after Dad got up and left for work each day, too.  And as far as sleeping through the night went, well, he peeps, I pull him close and everything he needs is right there – and we drift off together.  Simple.

I was not aware that this was an issue until one day someone asked me, “Oh...do you believe in the family bed?”

“Excuse me?” This sounded positively scandalous!

She went on to explain that there were actually entire books dedicated to the subject.  I remember thinking, “Good grief, how many pages could it possibly be?”  In my humble opinion, the “experts” had invaded this common sense realm, too, and have officially made an issue out of something this natural. There were chapters dedicated to the topic of how to decide when it’s time to move Junior to his own bed.  What’s wrong with, “You move around too much…you’re outta here.” I was admonished for taking a lax stand on an important psychological issue.  Oh, my.

I consoled myself by telling myself that I was involved in an experiment, and me and the kids are exhibit A.  Here are some of the findings after just seven kids.

 - The Baby will be born no matter how you breathe.

 
 - When a newborn cries, it’s for one of only a few reasons, and one of them is not to piss you off.

 - Although it seems baby is attached to you at the hip for the first few months, they will fly by so fast, one does well to take advantage of it.

 - Breastfeeding is best, and easily adjusted to if you scrap the books and find another mother instead.  Also infinitely easier.  After 9 kids I’ve yet to employ the proper sterilization of a bottle.

 - If the baby is happy, healthy and growing, forget about solid food.  When he grabs it off you plate and eats it, he’s ready for it.

 - When he grabs the spoon from your hand and uses it to feed himself, (no matter how clumsily), you can assume he is ready to feed himself with a spoon.

 - When he wants to take a sip out of a cup instead of the bottle, he’s ready to lose the bottle. 

- When he takes off his diaper and goes potty in the toilet, he’s potty trained!

 - If the child is normal, you won’t be able to keep him merely crawling. Something bigger than you bids them to rise up and walk!

 Does it all sound too obvious and simple? This could be because it IS! Why do we care what the experts say about the “normal” or “average” baby?  So what if my kids are fully three years old before they drop the bottle and use the toilet?  What is the shame in letting them BE a baby?  What’s the hurry?  The only thing early training ever brought to my home was stress!  We start out with “Natural” Childbirth, and then adopt unnatural child-rearing techniques by the book.  What book?  Whose book? What for?

The only requirement to success here is that you have to BE there, love unconditionally and generously, and watch, and appreciate, and ruminate, and grow with them.

So, as I bounced the Mama Bounce yet again, I realized that these little blessings that enter our lives do, in fact, come with instruction.  They are written out on the tablet of your heart – a new set for each individual child – because they each have their own areas of strengths and weaknesses to be dealt with.  I call them instincts.  Trust them!!  You’ll do just fine!

In The Beginning, there was.....Labor...

                                                  

   Who amongst us mothers has ever pondered the billions of inhabitants of earth and thought, “Every person out there got here the same way…labor and birth,” and not immediately thought, “NO WAY!!”?  This little revelation is real comfort to the woman just about to give birth, but conversely, is anathema to the recently parturient mama. I know…I’ve been there on both sides of the fence.

     You no longer walk.  You waddle.  You no longer bend over to pick things up.  Last month you picked stuff up with your toes, but this month you just kick it under the couch and think, “I’ll get it next month.”  You don’t always answer the phone anymore, because you are not sure if you can resist the temptation to respond to the next person who asks if you are still there with, “Actually, I’m not here.  I had the baby a week ago and am now vacationing in the Bahamas.  Please leave your message at the beep.”

   Then one day while pondering the plate of food you can no longer enjoy, what for the heartburn it will cause only moments after eating it, the thought comes to you:  Labor.  It’s the only way out.  Ouch.  And right then, some dear soul, another mother, calls.  You pick up the phone this time just for the distraction from the disturbing thoughts of “Push!”

   “Honey, I just called to encourage you.  You know you won’t be pregnant forever, and just think, this is how we all got here.  It’s no big deal in the long run, you know? You’ll do just fine.  In fact, just think about it, a week from now you could be holding that new little baby!”  Thank you, Sister!  Somehow you feel a little comforted. A little perspective can be a good thing.

   The big day finally arrives, just as you knew it would.  Actually, it’s reducing day if we want to talk waistline, here. You’ve been warming up for quite some time.  No “false” labor for you, you were just practicing so everything would go smoothly.  You are psyched! This is it!  Happy, happy birthday!

   Well, at least for the first few centimeters. 

   “I’m how many?” you gasp at the attending medical staff.  You mind reels.  Whose idea was this to do this today?  I’ve changed my mind.  Honey, get my bags, we’re going home.  Stop this pressure, please; I’d like to get off.  Oh, my, what did they tell me to do now?  Breathe?  How?  The nurse has just confirmed you are about half way through the dilation process.  You look to your man, the source of your strength, and with a perplexed and stressed look he stammers quietly, “Push?”  Uh-oh.  He doesn’t know what we’re doing here either, does he?

   Now it can get rather scary.  Every time you think you remembered something from that child-birth class, one of those killer contractions happens and you forget it all!  Which is really no big deal, because nobody ever actually stopped breathing during labor because they forgot how.  It’s the same principle as holding your breath until you pass out.  As soon as you do, your body says, “Well, that was stupid,” and starts to breathe again.

   At last, you give in.  No sense fighting this.  It’s coming whether we like it or not.  Outwardly, you are out of it.  But inwardly, you are quite aware of everything. You begin to think how in the world any woman could call this an empowering experience.  “If I were empowered,” you think, “I would stop this whole deal right here and now and tell the kid to forget it!” Now THAT’s empowerment.  But this?  This is the lowest valley of enfeeblement, ladies.  That little bundle of joy inside has got you pinned to the bed and you ain’t goin’ nowhere ‘til they get their way.  (With practice, this does not have to continue into toddler hood.  We should get the upper hand at some point before then…)  You think of how you will stare in disbelief at the people who will visit you tomorrow and they’ll tell you how little this baby is, because right now you’d bet your bottom dollar (no pun intended) that this kid weights in at about 25 pounds.

   Then at last!  The moment of truth comes.  I a rush of water and blood and flesh and bone...its out!  It’s over!  “It’s a ____!”  Fill in the blank with the appropriate gender, and hallelujah!!  You laugh, you cry, as every emotion in your being rushes forward to greet this new life in a tumble that you cannot possibly sort out. 

   After the obligatory cord cutting and congrats and clean up, you look about for your man, who you find has grabbed the phone and is fumbling through the list of numbers to call and spread the news:  “She had the baby!”

   You hear the words, and the smile on your face gives way to a puzzled frown.  If you were in a better position, you would take this opportunity to exercise your wifely privilege of correcting your husband when he has erred.  “No dear,” you’d say.  “You said it all wrong! You simply cannot sum up in just four little words the experience that I have just finished experiencing!  I did more that just, “had the baby!”  I mean, dear, didn’t you see?  Where were you anyway?  I mean, I survived, for starters.  I was quite sure that I was indeed going to die at one point.  But I didn’t.  And then I wanted to get off the bed and run away, but I didn’t do that either.  I was brave and strong!  And then I wanted to scream my guts out, well, I did make a little noise, but I mean you should have heard what I wanted to emit from my being. They call it labor and delivery, and I have just DELIVERED! I mean, I PRODUCED here!  I…I…I…”  And now you find that you are at a total loss to explain just what it is that you did, and did so well, you might add.   All you know is that you did something colossal, monumental, and you want some credit!

   As if this is not enough to induce postpartum depression, now you have to contend with: The Visitors.  (Pause here for dramatic music…)

   You first visitor is the friend who called you to make sure you hadn’t left the planet without letting her know.  Yep, as predicted she tells you the baby is so tiny.  You inwardly beg to differ.  You may agree with her when your rear stops hurting.  And then she hits you with the little fact that once held all the comfort you needed to get through labor and delivery: Everybody was born this way!  Suddenly, you find yourself reciting the phrase that has become your new mantra, “No way!”  Talk about stealing your thunder!  Reducing your personal Herculean feat to an event repeated over billions of times, as if it’s nothing more magnificent than a McDonald’s hamburger! How dare she!  But all you can do is manage a weak smile, accept her well wishes and look very tired. 

   Next come The Folks.  Yours, his, it doesn’t matter, because it’s really the same.  For inevitably, all new grandparents think that the baby in question is nothing less than the best and ultimate in everything and in this you are quite content to agree.  And all is pleasant until…yes, the unsolicited advice.  Oh my!  You had no idea!  As your eyes play the back and forth between them like a tennis ball possessed, you promise to keep the toilet lids closed from now on and to get rid of the dog who will now surely be vicious and hostile and the cat that will try to sleep on the baby’s face and you will never buy yard sale baby items and get locks on all the cupboard doors and put all medicines out of reach. You will sanitize every surface the baby comes in contacts with. You pledge never to shorten the child’s name with a nickname, because of course you agree that this is damaging to the personality and you will send them to the best schools, start a college fund today and will not let them play in unfamiliar sand boxes.  You won’t let that little newborn push you around with demand feeding, and you won’t spoil him by picking him up every time her cries and thank you very much for coming and that nurse was never such a good sight and she is even now telling you that visiting hours are over!

   At last, all is quiet.  It’s just you and the little miracle in your arms.  You look.  You look again.  You can’t seem to look enough.  And you reflect on that experience called labor.  You recall how you swore up and down for the first ten minutes after it was over that you’d never do that again!  And now, suddenly, it doesn’t’ seem all that bad.  No, not that bad at all, in light of the pride and joy that you feel welling up in your chest and throat and threatening to spill out your eyes. And for all the credit you had wanted for your labor, you suddenly realize that there was much more than you at work here.  This was a bona fide, genuine miracle, and you were a very real participant...the leading role in the cast of characters that brought this little life into your arms. And you are humbled, and grateful, and that little baby IS acknowledgment of a labor that was not at all in vain; that this was the beginning of a LIFE – like the beginning of a planet.  I think of it as my “Silent Bang Theory”. The effect will now ripple through your universe, and change YOUR life forever – in ways you have never imagined.  Now you begin your own creative story - "In the beginning...there was Labor..."

On Being A Mom - Introduction for what's to come

                              
   I am writing this at the suggestion of my late father, who, of course, being totally unbiased, believed I had a knack for writing stuff down in a readable fashion.  He didn’t suggest what I should write about; that was a blank that I had to fill in.  My life has afforded me a few experiences that have left me with some blanks to be filled in, (not the least of which is what I want to be when I grow up).

   My life finds me today as the mother of nine children, ranging in age from 12 to 26, five boys and four girls.  Four have ventured out of the nest already, and the years are picking up speed.  The second half of the ‘80’s and the entirety of the 90’s have gone past me in a blur of pregnancy, childbearing, feeding, clothing, educating and loving (among other things) these intense bundles of wonder called children.  If I am not giving away too much about my age, I will go ahead and quote the Grateful Dead, “What a long, strange trip it’s been”! 

   It’s been a wild and crazy ride, a roller coaster of highs and lows for which I couldn’t never have been prepared.  The blessings awesome, the trials insanely difficult at times…all within the incredibly dynamic drama of every day life.    Now I can’t help but wonder if there is anybody else out these who has been thrust into this role of motherhood and needs to be affirmed in what…their…well…, what shall we call it?

   I guess it really can’t be called a role, because a role is something that somebody plays; assumes, steps in, acts or pretends for a time, and then just as easily steps out of to resume their regularly scheduled life.  It’s not a job, because any job that is 24 hours a day for the rest of your life cannot, by human standards, be considered a job.  That’s a sentence, and motherhood is far too wonderful a thing to be called a sentence.  It’s not a season, either, because while I have found that it indeed contains seasons, it is not a season in itself. Actually, it’s more like weather: there is 100% chance of weather today, regardless of the season.  Neither is it a career, for by implication a career is something that one studies for, for years, or at least for a period of preparation before entering into a time of practice or apprenticeship, and finally climbs, scratches and claws (or merely walks) their way to their desired level of experience or income and gracefully retires from at the appropriate age.

    You cannot study for motherhood.  Just ask anyone who’s ever tried.  If you do, you will inevitably find that everything you ever read or heard or believed dissolved with the first cry of your newborn baby, (or for some, with the first bout of morning sickness) and you are “training” every day, learning something new every day and becoming less and less secure in that knowledge at the infant grows and begins to walk and talk and talk back and think and…  And you never retire.  You can’t.  Just ask my mother.

   Mom and Dad raised nine of us, and just as soon as number nine walked out the door, they turned around and counted over 20 grand-children!  That number is now resting at a cool 40, and they tell me that they live up to their billing as GRAND children, because they are part time work with full time benefits!  And it isn’t just the grand children that keep you in this “career” (which we have already determined it is NOT), because the phone will ring, or the doorbell, (depending on how far from the nest they have landed), with all manner of questions from “Why is the baby crying?” to “When can you baby-sit?”, to “Why won’t he talk to me?” to “Did you really let ME drive the car at that age?”.

   And Mom, bless her heart, will give you a very confident, reassuring answer that will have your heart at ease when you hang up the phone!  But I’m not fooled anymore.  I’ve been there when my sisters have called.  After those reassuring words, Mom would hang up the phone, turn to my father and say, “I have no idea how we raised these kids! How did we survive? And how did they?” She’s still learning!

   I actually take great comfort in that.  Or perhaps I’m the only one who has been intimidated by a “expert” with more initials after their name that a third grader can count (and it takes another PhD to interpret same) and either no children, or perhaps 1.6 children, (who grew up to be a psychotherapist and 1/6) and has informed me through book and article that I have irreparably damaged my child’s ego and personality through crimes like not talking to my belly before they were born, by letting them cry, or not letting them cry, depending on the school of thought the expert comes from; by potty training them too soon/too late/too forcefully/too passively (how about at all??). And the list goes on ad infinitum ad nauseum.  Who needs the guilt trip?

   I’d rather take my advice and cues from a mother who has a bunch (or so) of kids who were born, who were loved, who grew, who were eventually potty trained, who laughed and played, who were spanked on occasion, (we’ll talk about that later) because they were not perfect, and who’s honest answer to many of your questions is, “You know, I don’t really know, but somehow we managed.” 

   And I can’t overlook the timeless advice, (I’d rather call is sharing) from mothers whose babies were born, and then left just as quickly.  And whose babies were born less than what we have come to define as “perfect”. And those whose children laughed, played and loved and were disciplined and still ended up in jail.  The true “experts” in my book are the people who have been humbled enough in life’s experience to see the common denominator in us all…we love our children.  We are all trying to do the best we can with what we’ve got.  We are all having successes and failures in varying degrees.

   But times and society have changed.  As I wrote in a song once, “Apron strings are not in vogue”.  This is not the place to theorize as to just how or why things have come to be at this place, but suffice to say we are here.  And there are those of us, (could it be all of us?) who find ourselves with a babe, (or babes…and for some of us more babes) in arms and a head that says, along with our society, “Get a job!” and a heart that says, “I can’t leave home without him/her?”  And no, I’m not addressing the “should I go back to the work force” question.  That isn’t even the point.  I’ve had my day of dogma:  Thou shalt stay home with your children.  Only to be confronted by women who have had no choice, no kidding.  Only to find myself kissing a sleeping baby good-bye in the wee hours of the morning.  Only to find myself leaving a child in the hospital for a business trip I couldn’t cancel. Only to find myself dropping those sleepy little bundles off at daycare, when I became the sole breadwinner for my tribe of nine. As the old Indian Proverb suggest, “Don’t judge a neighbor until you have walked a mile in his moccasins.”  I’m still nursing the blisters.

   What I see/feel/experience with this battle between heart and head is not where a person’s body spends the day working, (for pay or otherwise), but more or less where we find ourselves mentally, emotionally and spiritually at the end of the day.  No, not the feely-goody psychobabble either.  Rather I am referring to the questions that run through an exhausted brain that refer directly to one’s self worth, and whether or not they are just spinning their wheels on life’s merry-go-round.  Is all this really worth it?  Am I really making any meaningful contributions to life on this planet? If the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world, how come I feel so out of control?  If I’m really raising the next generation how come nobody seems to care?  When we hear comments about our pregnant bellies exclaiming that “I’m glad it’s you and not me!” we wonder, is it the physical condition you are referring to? Or the resulting child? When we are praised for our sacrifices on the one hand and then told, “I could/would never want to do what you do!” on the other, what are we to think?

   Well, I’ve done some thinking on this.  And I can’t write from a position of having answers.  But I can write from a position of having questions.  And lots of them.  And I can write about little discoveries I’ve made to beat the system that isn’t helping me find any peace in society’s answers.  And I can write from a day to day existence of caring for the future.  And I can tell about the ways I’ve learned to focus on a day that “worked”, and about how I coped, (or didn’t) with the day’s that didn’t.  And I can tell you a secret to living through it all that will surprise those who know me best: Laugh a little!

   I’m a melancholy, full bore.  But when no one is looking, I laugh. I have to.  Life IS kind of a joke.  The Universe spared no expense to keep us laughing, but we are so busy taking things too seriously.  Some things we HAVE to take seriously, so let’s not waste our “serious” on things that really aren’t.

   Now I must say, that although I possess a somewhat irreverent attitude, I certainly don’t mean to offend anyone, though I am sure that is inevitable.  I am sorry if you fall in with the lot that begs to differ with what are uniquely my thoughts and experiences.  I have noticed, though, that mothers are extremely forgiving and tolerant and rather difficult to offend, especially with the nitty-gritty of daily life.

  I will also clarify from the beginning, in a sort of reverse political correctness, that as a default setting I tend to address Mothers.  I of course understand that for every mother there is some fellow out there who helped achieve that status, and I certainly mean you no disrespect.  But I am a mother, and try though I do, I am not a father. I am on the feminine side of the fence, and so that being where this work originates, I address the Moms.  I confess it’s also to avoid too much,   “Mom-slash-Dad” typing.  And if you happen to be one of the ever-increasing numbers of the “Mr. Mom”s out there…well I know you understand. 

   My hope is to merely be honest about who we are and what we do.  We don’t need a pep talk.  We don’t need a pat on the head.  At least I don’t.  I need a friend in the endeavor.  I think we all do.  And if in reading all of these thoughts and ideas and discoveries on motherhood, you can laugh at least twice and say to yourself, “You too?! I can totally relate to that!” at least once, then this blog will have served its purpose.