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You Can’t Always Get What You Want

May 12, 2013 By Robin 28 Comments

Disappointment is a shitty feeling. It means you wanted something and didn’t get it, that you let yourself hope and that hope wasn’t fulfilled, that you opened yourself up to possibility and got shut down.

I am disappointed today and it feels petty and first-world-problem-ish.

It started with gratitude for a chance to sleep in and a small boy who put his heart (and hands) on paper. My boys said, “This day is for you” and I felt special and loved. All I had was one simple wish: to have a nice day with my family.

I did my part. I played along when the small boy wanted to lead me downstairs with my eyes closed. I let him make my breakfast even though it took longer and I was afraid he was going to pour milk all over the floor. I listened and responded and hugged and did all the things good mothers are supposed to do. But for the majority of the day he was—to be frank—quite beastly, and I stopped being able to do those things.

Our outing got rained on, which made it not worth what we had paid for it. We had dinner in a place that should have been lovely but was instead simply a spot to get some food in our tummies, taking bites in between admonishments to hold the cup with hands not teeth and to keep feet off the table, before getting back in the car and driving home well after bedtime.

Maybe the small boy was beastly because he was bored or excited or simply because he’s four. There is no way to force him to stop doing the things we ask him not to do, and we can’t duct tape him to the roof of the car.

In any case, I didn’t get my simple wish, and that’s disappointing.

And then there are two pieces I was hoping would be published and (so far) have not been. And a dear friend was left out of something and my heart hurts for her, especially because she gives so much to others.

I want to invite possibility and joy and wonder. I appreciate that beauty when it’s gifted to me, and I’ve had a lot of perfect days lately with sun, friends, food and family. Today just wasn’t one of those days.

But there are bigger problems in the world. I got what was important today – time and love and acknowledgement.

You can’t always get what you want, especially when you have a four-year-old. But I’m trying to remember that I’ve got what I need.

Filed Under: Hard things Tagged With: admissions, expectations

Say What You Need to Say

April 14, 2013 By Robin 30 Comments

I’ve been thinking a lot about resentment lately. I suppose that’s normal when your entry into motherhood is a crying-filled, sleepless smackdown and you subsequently have a second baby who offers you the sort of experience you expected to have when you became a mom. At least it’s normal for me.

“This isn’t the experience with motherhood I wanted you to have,” I remember my mom saying to me one day while I cried on the phone to her when Connor was a baby.

It wasn’t the experience I wanted to have either. It’s not that I thought having a baby should be lullaby perfect, but I didn’t want it to be filled with quite so much despair.

The moment my mom said that to me is a milestone in my motherhood journey. From where I stand now I see that moment like a marker stabbed into the sand on my path, noting what came before and what would follow after. This is how the beginning will always be for you, says the sign next to it. You can’t relive those earlier months and your motherhood picture will always be shaped by this experience. You don’t get to do it again and have it be easier, more fulfilling, more fun.

No, I don’t.

But do I resent Connor?

No, I don’t.

***

I danced with Ethan this morning.

He was full of smiles when I went to get him out of bed to start the day. I fed him and then he played happily in his high chair while I had breakfast. He splashed in the bath, experimenting with what happens when he kicks his feet.

We’ve been working on sleep lately and this morning, not for the first time, he had a nice, long nap. He woke up, pink-cheeked and laughing. I fed him and then thought he might like some play time on the floor, but he didn’t. So we danced.

“Say what you need to say,” sang John Mayer, as I held Ethan around the waist and placed my hand in his small chubby one. He put his nose in the crook of my neck and leaned his cheek against mine. He let me sing and he stuck to me as I swayed, breathing him in.

***

If Ethan had been my first baby, I wouldn’t have spent so much time bouncing a screaming baby. I wouldn’t have logged hours in his room trying to get him to sleep and wondering at what point my sanity would actually break. I wouldn’t have been anxious about doing errands or shopping for groceries in case he had a colossal meltdown in public.

I would have been able to go to play dates without dreading having to go home and deal with him by myself. I would have had more hot meals. I would have had more meals, period. I would have cherished the time and his laugh and those slobbery, open-mouthed kisses without wondering why the lovely baby stuff had to be overshadowed by so very much hard stuff.

That sign in the sand is right. I don’t get a motherhood do-over, though my experience with Ethan has given me a glimpse of what might have been.

With a different baby, my early days of motherhood might have been more peaceful. They might have been more fun. They might even have been diaper-commercial sweet. With a second, very different baby, I can see it now.

***

Do I resent Connor?

No, I don’t.

I don’t resent him, neither the baby he was nor the boy he is now. But do I resent my introduction to motherhood and wish it had been different?

Sometimes. A little bit. I do.

Say what you need to say.

Filed Under: Hard things, Motherhood Tagged With: admissions, expectations, perspective, telling the truth

Grey Skies and Runaway Trains

April 7, 2013 By Robin 25 Comments

It rained yesterday.

We don’t get a lot of rain here. We get snow, which is mostly accompanied by brilliant sunshine, but grey skies are rare. It’s one of the reasons I love living here.

Last week spring made a valiant effort to overtake winter. The sun shone, the temperature rose, and the mounds of snow by the sides of the roads melted. I was living in the sunshine and loving it. But over the last few days the skies have turned grey.

Click for image source

Life is not always sunny, of course. But for me it has been sunny more often than not, and I’ve been able to pause in those catch-your-breath moments and really soak it in. But my ability to see the sun can disappear as quickly as the sun itself.

I don’t function when I don’t get enough sleep, and I’m not getting enough sleep. And I’m losing hope that I will suddenly, miraculously start getting enough. After a long week followed by a couple of rough nights, the rain entered my life yesterday – both literally and metaphorically.

I’ve been here before and I know exactly where this sleep deprivation road leads. And I have no desire to take that path again. I don’t want to feel that way and I don’t want to have to say, Actually, it happened again the second time too.

I want, with every fibre of my being, to be able to push the emergency button and make this runaway train stop. But I’m feeling the desperation an engineer must feel when he knows the train is going to hit something in the tracks. It’s there, it’s in front of me, and the momentum feels like too much right now. It’s bigger than me and I’m not in control of the outcome.

I was hoping today would be better, but instead I woke up to snow. It’s time to hit the brakes.

Wish me luck.

Filed Under: Postpartum depression Tagged With: admissions, call for back-up, meltdown, sleep

Me and Memory Lane

March 6, 2013 By Robin 48 Comments

So remember how I said I was going to read as a focus for March? One of the things I didn’t anticipate was that I’d get so sucked into reading really good stuff that it would make me critical of my own writing. I’ve never been one to write and edit and revise and edit some more; I just hit publish. (Perhaps you’ve noticed.) So now I have posts in draft and I don’t want to publish them until they’re perfect. But what is perfect when it comes to writing? There is no such thing.

Hey, maybe I can publish them and revise them later and the publish them again as an exercise in improving my writing… Yes? No?

I digress.

Luckily Elaine and Heather have saved me for the time being with something fun they’re calling Old School Blogging.

Nice! This I can do. So without any further self-doubting rambling, here’s my response to the meme.

What were you doing 10 years ago?

I was working in human resources at an astrophysical observatory and thinking that perhaps I should have paid more attention in science classes.

What five things are on your to-do list?

I love how this presumes I only have five things on my to-do list. Here are the oldest items:

1. Send my passport renewal in. You know, the one I’ve had sitting around since July of last year (after Passport Canada sent my first application back because they didn’t like the photo. Heck, I didn’t like the photo either but I was willing to have it in my passport for five years).

2. Get the windshield on my car replaced.

3. Get the muffler on my car replaced.

(Anyone want to come and do these things for me? I hate doing car stuff.)

4. Submit the last few address change requests. What? We’ve only lived here for a year. And a bit.

5. Order a birth certificate for Ethan. (Apparently Alberta makes that more difficult to do than BC did. As in we have to actually find the application form online, fill it out and then take it to a registry office in person instead of being handed a form in the hospital and have a snazzy certificate sent to us not long after. I now understand why my birth certificate shows that my birth was registered several months after the fact. I used to think my parents were deciding whether or not to keep me.)

What are five snacks you enjoy?

Green smoothies. (Why was I scared of these for so long?)

Chocolate coconut bite things made by Dole. They’re way too easy a snack, especially when I need something I can eat with one hand.

Toast.

A late-night bowl of cereal.

Cool Ranch Doritos. (But not Coke, because I finally gave it up. Yay me!)

Name some things you would do if you were a millionaire.

Is it sad that a million bucks doesn’t sound like enough to do what I want to do? I would:

Buy a fabulous house.

Buy a summer place somewhere.

Travel a lot.

Donate more to charities.

Put money aside for my kids’ futures.

Name some places you have lived.

I’ve lived:

In a waterfront house with a hot tub by the ocean.

In a building that looks like a castle.

In a house on a street named after a fruit.

In a one-bedroom basement suite with a very cute boy and two cats.

In an old-school university dorm room.

(I know those aren’t technically places, but I haven’t moved all that much so this is more interesting.)

Name some bad habits you have.

Not following directions (see above).

Procrastinating (see above).

Being lax about editing my own work (see above).

Not exercising as much as I ought to.

Spending too much time on Facebook.

Name some jobs you’ve had.

You had to ask, didn’t you?

Ice cream truck driver. (Seriously.)

Telemarketer. (I wish I were kidding.)

Baskin Robbins ice cream scooper. (I’ve lived a glamorous life.)

T-shirt salesperson.

Hotel front desk clerk.

Communications director. (Does that make up for the other stuff?)

That was fun! What are some of your answers to these questions?

Filed Under: Randomness Tagged With: admissions

Living in the Light

February 21, 2013 By Robin 22 Comments

Rich and I had a fight not long after Ethan was born. We had both been sick – him first and then me. I got really sick. And I got pink eye. Twice. And, as is the way with many breastfeeding moms, I was up at night while Rich slept. And, as is the way with many moms who are up in the night while their partners sleep, I was cranky about it because being up so much made it hard to get better. And that’s what caused the fight.

I won’t get into all the picky details, but it was about sleep – the too-little of it I was getting, and my perception that he wasn’t helping me out as much as he could have. And then he pointed out that when he was at home and I was working when Connor was little he never got a sick day either.

“You didn’t ask for help!” I countered.

“I did,” he replied, much more calmly than was probably warranted.

The thing is, I have no recollection of that. I don’t recall him being sick and me going off to work leaving him to fend for himself (and the energetic two-year-old).

I don’t recall a lot of things from that time.

This is one of the things about postpartum depression that — in my experience, anyway — is so hard to deal with. It’s like living in a fog, except that fog leaves those weeks or months completely socked in so that there’s never a clear picture of them, even afterwards. My particular fog was built from my anger — my rage — as if spewed forth from a fog machine I couldn’t turn off.

But it’s not like I don’t remember anything from that timeframe. Just certain things. Often big things. It’s come up in conversation a few times, where someone will be recalling something, and every single time I’ll think, “I have absolutely no recollection of that.” It just doesn’t exist as a page in my memory book. Whether torn out or never properly recorded I don’t know. It’s just not there.

I’m not really sure the point of telling you this, except to say that this time is different.

Now, I know when I’m being a bitch. I know when I’m picking a fight (and sometimes I do it anyway). I know when I’m not doing what I need to do for myself.

It doesn’t always make it easier to do what I need to do, but at least this time I’m living in the light.

***

Speaking of happy things, I’ve heard about three recently that are making the world a better place and I’d like to share them with you:

For the first time, there’s a product dedicated to helping fight postpartum depression. Jammies are the creation of Hélène Laure, a fashion designer whose clothing designs for women have been sold to such specialty stores as Henri Bendel, Bloomingdales, Bergdorf Goodman and Saks Fifth Avenue. Helene wanted to create a new business that gives back, so she designed Jammies with the intention of helping to benefit moms with postpartum depression. For each Jammies Jar sold, Helene’s company, Two Mice, A Bear and A Bunny LLC, will donate 10% of the profit to Postpartum Progress, the national nonprofit that raises awareness of postpartum depression and promotes better support and services for pregnant and new mothers with mental illness.

These onesies are so cute (perfect for gifts). Here’s the description:

“100% pure cotton onesies for boys and girls made from a soft and breezy light gauge cotton Jersey that are are uniquely packaged in a sweet little jam jar. The design is reminiscent of the all-American long john, with its henley tab closing and ribbed cuffs, and a flirty ruffle added to the girls’ style. Mr. Bear, Lily (the bunny) and Cinnamon & Ginger (the identical mouse twins) are the delightfully hand-drawn characters featured on Jammies onesies.”

You can see read more about them (and order them) on the Jammies page on Postpartum Progress.

——

PeaceLove is working to combat the stigma against mental illness. One of the biggest ways they’re helping is through their giveback program: for each PeaceLove tee purchased, they give away a free expressive arts class to a child affected by mental illness. They just launched a tee campaign with the hopes of giving away 100 free expressive art classes (and they’re really close!).

——

February 27 is Pink Shirt Day, an anti-bullying campaign supporting Boys and Girls Clubs/Big Brothers Big Sisters. If you’re in Calgary, you can get an official pink shirt at any London Drugs. (And if you’re not, wear a pink shirt anyway.)

Filed Under: Happy things, Postpartum depression Tagged With: admissions, gratitude, rage