Bathing suit blues

I peeked around the change room corner, took a deep breath and sprinted to the communal showers hoping no one would notice that my bathing suit didn't fit.

No such luck. 

"Oh!" one of Hudson's teachers said, nearly colliding with my wiggly boobs and stomach, both spilling out of my suit. She smiled nervously as if trying to conceal her alarm.

Her lips were saying "you just had a baby," but her eyes were begging to understand why a mother would come to a nursery school swim class looking like a porn star decades passed her prime.

"I'm so sorry," I muttered. "I'm nursing and I don't have another bathing suit right now that will, um, fit this well... I've got a lot of weight to lose."

I fumbled to cover myself with one of Ted's t-shirts but that plan fizzled quickly in the shower (again, nursery school is not the place for a wet t-shirt).

Every Friday Hudson's class goes swimming. Parents are strongly encouraged to come and help out in the pool. I'm on mat leave, how could I NOT go?

Guilt.

The thought of Hudson, stuffed up to his neck in a life jacket and bobbing alone in a pool of giggling parents and tots because I'm too vain to bare my thighs and (enormous) boobs in public, became too much. So, last Thursday night, hours before the morning class, I summoned years of therapy, wrestled down my insecurities a bit and decided to, um, take the plunge.

I made a three part plan:

1) encourage myself to be an adult: this resulted in several Stuart Smalley moments, standing in front of mirrors talking to myself:

"I'm good enough, I'm "thin" enough (lying to yourself is OK if it's for your children) and gosh darnit, no one will look sideways at me anyways!"

Besides, I reasoned, the brown line beneath my belly button looks, um, not THAT bad, and seeing my pancake butt and rippled thighs in the bright white lights of the pool deck will encourage me to hasten my weight loss efforts. 

2) Do not try on the swimsuit or think about the class until seconds before it starts (so I can't rethink my brave decision).

3) Do not look in the mirror once swim suit is on and avoid eye contact with everyone

That's the part of the plan that didn't work so well. 

I smiled pleasantly at Hudson's teacher while nudging my reluctant son into the shower for a pre swim rinse, then wrapped us both in towels. And, unfortunately I caught sight of myself in the mirror. 

A week later I'm still exorcising those demons...

What a parent won't do for her kid!

I'm bracing myself, because I have to go through this all again tomorrow...

 

Hormones to the rescue!

When the officer slid past the window I threw my cellphone onto the seat and, to show I wasn't really breaking the law, grabbed the steering wheel with both hands and started talking into the air.

"Pull to the side," I heard the policeman say.

Crap.

"I'm so sorry," I stammered, rolling down my window. 'It's just habit, the holding my cell phone thing, total habit. Please don't give me a ticket?"

Scarett and I were on our way home from a series of errands, which included dropping Hudson at nursery school and a friend at work around 9:30 this morning. Rain drizzled down my window so I couldn't make out whether the policeman looked at all sympathetic.

"Who's car is this?" he demanded.

Confused, I glanced around at the half eaten pieces of rye bread and banana peels, the coffee cups, pacifiers and crushed paper bags littering the back seat to reassure myself I hadn't stolen something big this morning - a reasonable proposition given my sleep deprivation.

"Um, mine?" I said.

Well, your license plate is expired.

The officer's face was stern, his ticket-writing fingers twitchy and I promised Ted I wouldn't get one more ticket this year (okay, I'm a horrible driver, with a knack for parking illegally too).. or else.

"Oh," I responded, thinking I had to do something and quick. If ever I was going to use that whole new mom thing it was now:

I mustered my best flustered look (it wasn't difficult given my unkempt, un-showered appearance. My hair, wiry and wild was pulled into a lopsided ponytail and I think my giant nursing bra straps were poking through my ratty t-shirt).  

"I. Am. So. Sorry," I whined. "I didn't realize I had an expired license plate. I... I just had a baby, I'm exhausted. I haven't been paying attention to anything but the baby and the not sleeping.... And she's a tiny baby... And I don't sleep..."

"I see the baby," the kind officer said. "Okay, okay, listen, don't talk on your phone again. It's a $190 ticket. And please, please, tell your husband to register the plate. Okay?"

"Okay!" I said - a headache, which had just started its descent to my forehead, halted. "Thank you sir! Thank you!"

As I pulled away I exhaled and tried to think of the lesson I learned from this experience: seem more hormonal next time. 

 

 

My little lion learned a word

Hudson bounded down the steps of a pumpkin-adorned house Halloween night like a kid who, well, just left a candy store. 

Treats in hand, his face flush with the thrill of trick and/or treating, he looked back at the door and opened his mouth as if to say thank you, but instead out came:

"Idiot!"

In the dark and excitement of Halloween no one heard him but Ted.

"Pardon? What did you say?"  my husband asked, stunned, flashing back to two weeks ago when he could have sworn Hudson greeted him by saying: "I want mommy, you're an idiot."

Hudson gleefully repeated the word 10 more times. 

Our cute little son - in glitter makeup with black whiskers and round as a pumpkin because we slid the lion costume over his ski jacket - was taking after his mother and my potty mouth.

Crap.

"This is horrible," my husband says, forehead in his palms. "What if he says that to another kid at school? He'll get in trouble."

Actually, I'll probably get in trouble.

But what am I supposed to do? Stop talking? I'm barely aware of the things I say until they come out of Hudson's small scarlet lips. It's only because of his chatter that I've come to realize I overuse the following phrases:

"what are you talking about?", "seriously?" and "are you kidding me?" 

The bigger problem is... I think it's hilarious when he says them, especially things like "idiot." 

That makes me a horrible parent and bad person, I know, but I can't help myself. I just find him so darned cute.

Besides, is the word "idiot" really that bad? 

 

Here, my potty mouthed lion in a not-so-great picture I snapped before he went trick or treating with his dad ...

 

 

 

Jealousy?

"Your son is trouble!" I e mailed my husband a few days ago while he was at work.

Hudson was playing upstairs with a friend when suddenly everything went quiet. Concerned, I tiptoed to his playroom and there, hiding behind boxes in the back of our office, was Hudson, a grin on his face and bubble wrap in his mouth.

"HUDSON!" I snapped, ripping the wrap out of his teeth. Scenes with paramedics and child protection workers all wagging their fingers played out in my head.  

"We do not eat plastic, sweety," I said, trying to calm my tone. "We only eat FOOD."

Since Scarlett was born my angel-boy has been pushing boundaries. 

Many times we have discussed, cautioned and explained to our two year old the dangers and pitfalls of eating plastic. But to no avail. Shocking.

Again, he stared at me sheepishly.

(I know what you're thinking - who keeps a baby death trap in reach of a toddler's klepto-grasp and why was there bubble wrap in my home? The answer is that we moved houses six days before Scarlett was born and I thought I got rid of all the plastic packaging - evidently I did not.)

At the start, Hudson would say things like "I'm lucky to have a sister," but then, out of the blue, like a bipolar out-patient off his meds, he picked up a cardboard box and whacked her.

Who can blame the poor kid? It's a big adjustment. (add to it a new house and a new school and it's amazing Hudson didn't whack me!)

He's been trying to make heads or tales of the situation.

"Mommy, why did Scarlett pop out of your tummy?" is a question we tackle often. 

"Well," an adept friend told me to say, " we love you so much we decided to have another baby."

"Okay, can you give Scarlett to Daddy please?"

Sure Kiddo. Once I get her off my boob.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Please go to sleep. Please. Please??

 

It's 3 a.m. She's still not sleeping. 

I understand why public health officials tell new moms not to shake their babies.

"Go to sleep! Go to sleep. Seriously kid, why are you awake??"

Scarlett is screaming.

If she wasn't so completely adorable (to me) I would consider throwing her out a window (Funny how nature endears mothers to their children just so that sort of thing does NOT happen).

We've tried everything: shushing, rocking, deep knee bends, nursing, nursing, more nursing, singing, dancing, you name it!

Panic.

My head is falling back and sideways like a narcoleptic bobble toy and I'm overwhelmed by exhaustion. 

"Ted!!!!" I yell at my snoring husband. I pitch Scarlett at his chest when he lifts his head. 

"Take her. I'm finished."

This scenario plays out almost nightly these days. I don't love this part of having a newborn. Definitely not my favourite part. 

LIke all situations I can't seem to resolve easily, I took it shopping (at my favourite store Kol Kid on Queen Street West West, which I'm not allowed to pass by because I'm on mat leave and on a budget and Ted will kill me). 

I bought a sling (and adorable little socklets with bows for my kid who won't sleep)! 

"She won't sleep, huh," the saleslady said as she popped a screeming Scarlett into a sling slung around her neck. Scarlett stopped crying instantly. Her eyelids shut like automatic blinds and she started purring.

SOLD!

Alas, the saleslady had the magic touch and later that night  - last night - I still had a screaming baby. 

Argh. 

My mother warned me (or was it a curse?!) when I had Hudson,who was the best baby who never cried even when he didn't want to sleep:

"You're never going to have another baby like Hudson," she told me over and over. "Just wait - your second will be difficult, like a real baby."

Great. 

Thanks Mom.

 

 

 

Meet Scarlett

Meet Scarlett:

Don't let the angelic smile fool you. Look past the sleepy eyes and full cheeks too. She's a tempest, just like the O'Hara, her namesake. 

At just under 9 pounds, and less than two feet long, she sleeps in 25 minute bursts, night and day and only while held with two hands. Her mother is going bananas. 

When she wakes, that sweet little grin fades from her lips faster than an ice cream melts in hell and she kicks me, then paws at my boobs like a ravenous frat boy.

She poos each time she eats and falls asleep immediately giving me two choices: change her now and wake her or, risk losing the "parent of the year" award that I undoubtedly have coming and leave her to stew in the poo. 

That's most often what I do. Go ahead: judge me. 

She refuses to take a pacifier but needs to suck all the time. My nipples can barely stand the abuse.  

And she's demanding with a prescient knack for finding the worst time to need me: My hands are full of raw noodles and steam is rising from a pot of boiling water; when the three bottles of Gatorade I just drank signal it's time to pee; whenever I try to type a blog post

Dressed in her tiny Mary-Jane socklets she mocks me.

"Ha ha," she thinks to herself, "you'll never get anything done!"

It's true. I don't think I will.

Then she smiles at me with her charming blue eyes. Her perfect lips curl up and there's a cute-as-pie dimple in her right cheek. She snuggles up like a ball bug and rests her tiny head on my shoulder. And I get all gushy and sentimental. 

But not for long because relaxed, she poos. And it seeps through her sleeper onto my pants.

The two photos in this post were shot by the incredible Nicole White of the awesome Tynan Studio photo studio in the Annex. Thanks Nicole!

 

 

Birth: Take 2!

It was almost comical.

"Gimme the goddamn nitrous machine!!" I shrieked at two nurses who couldn't figure out what to do with me as I cried, screamed, threatened legal action and bit my Husband in the arm (he still has marks) while I was having my zillionth pain-killer-free contraction.

"Just effing give it to me."

The nurses - probably new interns forced to work the last long weekend of the summer - shoved a mask in my face and a cord in my hand. 

It was Labour Day (not a joke) around 2:30 in the morning. We'd been at the hospital for almost three hours of my four-hour labour. I was nine centimetres dilated and completely drug free, which was NOT my intention or desire.

My husband Ted and I left the house (after disregarding the advice of a sleepy nurse in triage who told me to stay home) my contractions were four minutes apart. Twenty minutes later as we burst through the doors of Mount Sinai Hospital's birthing unit, they were two minutes apart and felt like some bird with a giant, pointy beak was pecking out my liver. 

Four nurses tried seven, unsuccessful times to get an IV in my hand, turning my arms into pin cushions and making me look like a heroin addict for weeks to come. 

When I begged for nitrous, which no one offered me, it was as a crestfallen preggo who had just been told: the "anesthetist is on his way" to my birthing suite "but has a lot to do before he gets here."

I figured that was code for: he's not coming.

Kill me. 

The nitrous machine blasted a semi-euphoric puff into my orifices, but suddenly it stopped. I sucked in frantically. "It's not helping!! It's not helping!!" I screamed and noticed the cord, which had been plugged in, was detached.

One nurse gave me the look of death. "Get it together lady," she said. 

For a brief second time stood still. If another contraction hadn't occupied all my senses I would have kick-boxed her in the mouth. Obviously, she's never pushed a watermelon through her nostril. 

Labour is painful. I wanted the drugs. Lots of them. And I wanted them immediately. 

Finally, right before I started pushing, I got them. Phew! I should have known my labour would turn out crappy - about 12 hours before Scarlett Winnie decided to enter the world I was on my hands and knees scrubbing a large brown potty training accident out of our new carpet. Figures!

That was six weeks ago. I remember it like it was yesterday. Much respect to all the women who decide to forgo drugs. Me, I'm a wimp!

And now I'm back to blogging. Follow my adventures on mat leave as I figure it out all over again (and undoubtedly complain about everything!)!

Here, me trying to grin and bear it just minutes after arriving at the hospital. My husband figured I'd appreciate these pictures one day... I'll get him back for this!

 

 

 

 

Scratch me?

Am I the only one having an identity crisis?

"I want to be an artist!" I shrieked to a chuckling friend over the phone earlier this week. 

For a little while now I've been battling a manic-type state that takes particular hold of my psyche in the afternoons, after Hudson's second nap and before his bedtime. 

It involves concocting ever-bizarre career plans for myself (think pro paraglider and X Factor Host - ousting Cowell, of course) while I move Huds from the Jumperoo to the exersaucer or cook his tasty dinners.

In other words, I am bored - a familiar state of being for me over the last few months, interrupted briefly by the holiday's distractions and the New Year's eve cheese fondue I'm still fantasizing about.

(Happy New Year moms!)

"I want to paint. And design. And create things," I sighed, while flipping through magazines filled with pages upon pages of people doing interesting things with their lives. 

"I want to dooooo things! What should I do with my life?!"

Motherhood is making me itchy. 

As I write this, Hudson is flailing and squirming in his crib, like a jack russell terrier furiously digging its snout into the couch in some purposeless nesting act before it sleeps. When slumber finally overtakes him I'll have up to an hour for a break - just enough "me" time to get through a few chapters of my book or read news on line or shower and relax or think about dinner and tidy up a bit or have an adult conversation with a friend. 

By the time I decide how I would like to spend my precious few, free moments, they'll be up. 

How is it that while on maternity leave, we seem to have all the time in the world, but no time at all?

A typical day: nurse, feed, wrestle down for a nap, play. Repeat X3. Throw in a couple of these: pack cheerios, tiny pieces of apple, a yogurt, Kraft Singles and "tasty beefs" from last night's dinner into a lunch bag, stuff the Boy into his snowsuit and amble to the car with bags hanging off every available finger, and the day is practically done.

It's quite tiring doing zip all day and it's not as fulfilling as I imagined it might be... 

Don't get me wrong, I feel very lucky to have this year off to bond with Hudson and revel in his small, but man on the moon advances. 

I derive so much joy from how he thrills to watch the bathtub fill with water and how he paws at the sturdy pages of the Very Hungry Caterpillar and how his tiny tushy wiggles mischievously toward the power cords and heating grates in our home and how he tries to stuff the bulbous end of his blue shaker into his mouth until he gags - repeatedly.

But I am also quickly learning about how life without a paying, get-out-of-the-house, gainful, brain-utilizing job, for me, means I can't possibly be a good mother to my child. If I'm not an interesting person, with other-than-mothering topics to discuss nightly, how can I expect my son to want to become one?

It can't be good for Hudson to think his mom lives to watch the Food Network! It can't be good for my sanity to watch it so much!

So there are daydreams. In between changing diapers and stacking blocks for Huds to tear down, my mind has been wandering and every day it lands on a different career.

Ice fisherman was yesterday's desire. But I hate the cold. 

Sand castle builder? 

Guess I better start fantasizing about being a reporter. I return to work around April!

What's the protocol?!

So there I was on my hands and knees exercising my fully developed pincer grasp by trying to pick up tiny pieces of rejected food out of my mother-in-law's dining room carpet.

"Oh screw it," I finally muttered to myself, after I fell on my face while scraping up some potato pancake that got gnashed into the broadloom. "She'll never see this."

We - Huds, Ted and I - were at my MIL's house for a Hanukkah party (T'is the season!) and the Boy was sitting in a rickety metal high chair his dad used as an infant, being his baby-messy self by drooling, spitting and throwing food over the side (he's obviously experimenting with gravity and such). 

At home, when we're alone, I encourage this kind of filthy behaviour (eat with your hands! play with your food! It's all in the interest of encouraging him to become independent). But, when we're out it makes me hot around the neck and a bit nervous - mainly because I don't really know whether to laugh or whip out a portable dust buster.

What's the protocol? 

I've been asking myself this question a lot lately - especially in potentially germy situations.

On a recent play-date, Huds, who has quite the oral fixation, stuffed a pillow and several of his friend Ben's toys into his mouth before I could ask his mom if we could share.

"Oh god, sorry," I said sheepishly, offering to disinfect everything immediately. Should I carry a bottle of Fantastik? 

And what happens when Huds has a runny nose, which is all the time (he got one recently from licking a toy previously licked by a random little boy)?

"Should we take him to the party?" I asked Ted the night before we were to celebrate a friend's birthday. "I don't know," Ted said. "I'm not sure. Is he contagious?"

There are so many instances where I just don't know what's right and in fumbling to cope I've probably come off looking like a dimwit, bad mother, inconsiderate slob, careless illness-spreader.

And the whole H1N1 quasi epidemic has made me socially awkward.

"He's not sick, I swear," is something I say unconsciously now, like a verbal tick if Huds coughs or sneezes in public, which he does often even though he's generally healthy. 

I have a love hate relationship with germs: while I'm anxious about tending to a sick kid, compulsive hand washing around the baby and always steering him clear of sick people and goobery kids is dumb, I think, because he's got to develop an immune system!

Thank heavens I'm not alone - even if I still don't have any of the answers I'm seeking. 

Natasha, another mom, is a kindred spirit. Hudson was sitting in her son's Bumbo eating his "tasty foods" a little while ago when out of his nose came a sound - combination rusty engine starting up and water blowing from the lid of a killer whale. 

"He's not sick, I swear," I said. 

"Well, we are," Natasha said, of she and her two sons, "so, don't worry about it."

Allow me to explain....

My legs felt wobbly and weak.

Hudson's knees were clinging to my hip and his pudgy hands were pawing (painfully, I might add) at my hair. For a moment I thought I might drop him. The path from the parking lot to the Star's newsroom has never seemed so long or so nerve-chafing.  

Before I gave birth I would bound up the stairs at the foot of One Yonge St. like a happy puppy and speedwalk into the newsroom wagging my tail, always eager to get to my desk. I would bark at the editors, lick my colleagues, etc... 

But this time, I wanted to barf and sprint home. 

Anxiety bubbled up my esophagus and threatened to explode all over the newspaper's foyer. 

In my seven months of mat-leave I have avoided my workplace. 

A generalized, but paralyzing fear washes over me whenever I think about my professional life. It stops me from acting on any reporting impulses I might have, such as taking notes, emailing sources and especially writing this blog (sorry!).

So when there are long lags between posts it's because I'm actively battling a demon that's recently popped into my life. A feral creature, it has two heads - predictably they are the working girl and the mom. 

The two are always fighting (maybe because they're both Jewish?). 

Despite my copious fears about still being competent at what I do - I've been itching, scratching and clawing at the walls in desperation to get back to the daily fun and frustrations of my job.  

The working girl hates doing housework. She's tired of wrestling Hudson to sleep twice a day. She's depressed about being out of the loop, beneath the competition and frankly, she needs more structure in her life to be productive at all. That's part of the reason why I still haven't sent out all my well overdue thank you cards... 

This worker chic also knows that in 15 years when Hudson is a teenager, she'll be lost without a life of her own - one devoted to pursuits in addition to raising children. 

But the mom in me kinda likes the relaxed pace of life and the stress free evenings of staying home. Even though she's going a little stir crazy lately she might be able to talk herself into believing she doesn't need to go back to work to be an independent woman....  

This all plays out in the course of our regular routine, when tears fall suddenly while I'm packing away tiny clothes Hudson can no longer fit into or when he refuses the boob in favour of tasty solid foods. 

Or when I realize Fiddler on the Roof is true! Sunrise Sunset, my friends!!

There's a war inside my head and someone's gonna get hurt. 

It was almost my editor. 

Hudson spit up on the floor of his office when I finally pulled myself together and marched inside. A little mess never phased me before, but this was the barf that almost undid me.

"Sorry!" I yelped, dropping the diaper bag over the spit while I fumbled for a cloth.

"Oy! I'm just not cut out to be a ..." I muttered under my breath.

"What?! Dont you dare!" the editor said to me.

"a STAY-AT-HOME mom," I said, completing my sentence once I had wiped the small, white regurgitate off the carpet. "A stay-at-home mom. I'm really looking forward to getting back to work!"