this too shall pass

by

Five for Friday

November is really putting on a show for us: bright blue skies, occasional spits of tiny snowballs, lots of sunshine. Even the sunrises seem more brilliant and showy than normal. I am a fan. Plus, I am eating leftover black bean tacos for breakfast with great relish. (Hmm. Relish is a little confusing in that sentence, considering relish is also a food. But let me assure you that I will never eat relish, with relish or otherwise.) Your comments on my breakfast post were so reassuring and I am intrigued by many of your ideas and bolstered by your reassurances that eating lunch food at 8:15 is perfectly acceptable. (I had leftover chicken vindaloo for breakfast yesterday and it was magnificent.)

Completely deviating from my typical pattern of grumpishness/food talk, here is some HAPPY randomosity. I have somehow restricted it to five bullet points. Don’t worry, I have made each bullet point much more wordy than necessary to make up for how few there are.

  • I forgot to tell you about Halloween! Carla was a witch – a very glittery witch – and we happened to have beautiful clear, cool weather for Halloween. Often it is raining, but not this year! We stayed in our cul-de-sac, and all four of us accompanied Carla on her trick-or-treating sojourn. It was very pleasant to walk around, and I was reminded of just how wonderful our neighborhood is. We have SUCH nice neighbors. Even though we did not end up buying any candy whatsoever because my husband didn’t want to have a bunch of people coming to the door (I tried suggesting the Nicole Method, of mask and tongs, HI NICOLE!, but he wasn’t having it), probably 95% of our neighbors handed out candy. Most of them were sitting on folding chairs behind tables set up in their garages or on their driveways, with big bowls of candy on top. It worked really well and I think it persuaded my husband that there IS a way to hand out candy safely. Our neighbors all know Carla, especially those with dogs, and greeted her with glee. I was so charmed and touched to see how many of them had special treat bags set aside for her, or had full-size candy bars squirreled away for her. A couple of our neighbors even had treat for the adults – beer and little bottles of liquor and beef jerky “for the fathers.” It was such a nice evening, and Carla seemed content to tour our cul-de-sac for an hour and come home. Perfect Halloweening! And then the next morning, as soon as she was off to school, I put away all the Halloween décor. You know I love my bats and my ghosts, but with two extra bodies in the house (I am referring to my in-laws, not to murder victims; am not a murderer) they were starting to feel a bit oppressive. Literally the only person who noticed everything was gone was Carla, but that’s fine. I noticed, and feel that much less crowded.
  • My root canal is over and done with. Aside from a major headache and some lingering jaw soreness, which the endodontist indicated would last for a few days, I feel fine. AND, better yet, I can drink liquid of all temperatures again without pain. Doing the conscious sedation was a good choice for me. I was SO anxious about the root canal that the anesthesiologist kept telling me that he was going as fast he could so that he could calm me down. He was very nice and friendly and very by the book. He made sure to tell me, very clearly, that I could not drive or operate machinery for a day after the procedure; he said he had to tack on the second part after calling to check on a patient, and learning that the patient was outside using a chainsaw to cut down trees. According to my husband, when we left the procedure, I told the anesthesiologist that I was going to go home and use my chainsaw, and the guy was NOT amused. (I also told him that I had asked my husband if I could take a Xanax on the way to the procedure, but that my husband said the conscious sedation would cover that for me; the anesthesiologist was alarmed, and asked me several times to confirm that I had NOT, in fact, taken a Xanax. Not much for joking around, that guy. I’m glad I didn’t take my husband’s advice to tell him I ate an egg McMuffin for breakfast. You aren’t supposed to eat anything after midnight the night before, and I think he would have been distinctly unamused.)

  • As I mentioned, we are having a truly glorious display of fall right now. The trees were late to color, but now I’d say they are at their peak. All these beautiful maples, competing with one another over who can don the most fabulous autumn frock, boasting colors that you rarely see outside of a box of crayons. I have been walking every morning, despite the chill in the air, and I am constantly marveling at the trees and their outrageous plumage. It makes me so happy. I do wish that I could capture just how glorious the colors are, but my iPhone photography skills leave a lot to be desired. Plus, while a suburban tree shining just so in the morning sunlight is truly gorgeous, it is difficult to separate the trees/sunshine from the homes/power lines portion of the image. So you will just have to imagine an especially vivid fall suburbscape all on your own.

  • My in-laws decided to give us a little break and checked into a hotel last night. I think they are coming back here when my sister-in-law leaves, and maybe that is part of why they made the move: to be closer to her. But they positioned their departure as giving us a little break, and it is quite lovely. One of the hard things about having extra people in my house – especially when they are all night owls – is that I feel like I never get to talk to my husband. It’s hard for me to elbow my way through the throng to kiss him hello when he gets home, and forget about having any sort of private conversation before I slink off to bed, by myself, at ten. Last night, my in-laws left at about nine and my husband and I sat on the couch together and he told me all about work and I told him all about a phone call I had with a potential new client and we caught up on all the day-to-day things that we hadn’t really had a chance to share lately. It was SO NICE. Also nice: After our conversation, he wanted to go work on his music and I poured a (possibly too large) glass of wine and curled up on the couch and watched Seinfeld reruns all by myself. Even though I stayed up much too late, I feel partially restored. Maybe once I get back from my walk I will be all the way there.

  • I have been saving the best for last. Yesterday, I scheduled Carla’s Covid vaccine appointments!!!! She gets her first dose next week which means she will be all vaccinated before the new year. I am SO EXCITED. It took awhile for me to get to the excitement stage. I woke up Wednesday to texts from two of my mom friends who told me that Walgreens was scheduling vaccine appointments. I immediately booked Carla a spot, even though I would rather have her go to the pediatrician: she has extreme shot anxiety, and I think being in a familiar location with a familiar person administering the shot would be much better than going to a Walgreens thirty minutes from our house and having a harried stranger do it. But getting the appointment was important and I did it. I was kind of dreading the whole thing: dreading telling Carla she has to get two more shots, dreading the topic coming up around my in-laws (who, in prior conversation, have been opposed to us giving Carla the vaccine; we have purposely avoided the topic since this discovery because a) we don’t want to argue and b) we definitely don’t want Carla to hear and then feel more worried, but it’s possible their views have changed since we last discussed it), dreading the possibility of Carla suffering side effects, dreading the very-rare-but-not-nonexistent possibility of more serious issues resulting from the vaccine, dreading the entire thought of being a parent and making decisions for your child that could alter their futures in potentially negative ways, etc. Then, at 1:57 p.m., I got an email from my pediatrician saying they were scheduling Covid vaccinations. I called IMMEDIATELY. I was on hold for thirty minutes, but instead of getting irritated by the long wait, every minute that passed made me more and more giddy with excitement. Because the only reason they weren’t answering my phone call was because they were fielding so many calls from other parents trying to get vaccinations for their kids! The stupid hold music interspersed with repetitive messages about how important it is to get a colonoscopy and interrupted at intervals with “your call is important to us” started to sound like hope. Hope that Covid will soon be as mundane as the flu, hope that someday soon our kids can play together, indoors, without masks, hope that we can travel with less trepidation, hope that we can worry less, hope that fewer and fewer people will get sick and fewer still will die. I am feeling gleeful again, just typing it out! Upon learning that I’d scheduled her vaccine, Carla’s first reaction was YAY! She was PUMPED! She had so many excited questions: could she have friends over once they are vaccinated, and would they be able to play without masks, and would she be able to maybe have a sleepover with someone, and would she be able to visit her cousin without masks on, and would her school stop requiring mask wearing. A lot of questions I could not answer, but it really reminded me how eager even our adaptable, resilient, go-with-the-flow kids are to return to some sort of pre-Covid connectivity with others. When she realized that the vaccine is a shot, and there could be side effects, she was less pumped. But that’s just a normal anxiety around shots in general. And once I told her that she could choose a treat for afterward – ice cream or a donut were the treats I suggested; she added cake or mini cheesecake to the list – she switched her focus to the all-important task of which treat and when. (I think she landed on mini cheesecake for dose one, ice cream for dose two.) Loose end: Since I’d already made two separate appointments, I discussed the options with Carla: unfamiliar Walgreens on a Friday, so she wouldn’t miss school, vs. her regular pediatrician but during the school week, so if she has side effects she might miss a day of class. She preferred the pediatrician option, so I canceled the Walgreens appointment and I am sure it was snapped up right away by another parent eager to vaccinate their kid. Woo! LET’S GO!

Happy Friday, Internet!

by

Phases

Posting has become harder for me lately. The kinds of things I want to talk about in this space – cooking for my family, planning for the holidays, complaining about ridiculous things – seem so glib and frivolous what with the state of the world. I don’t want to ignore the grief and fear and outrage so many people are feeling so acutely these days. But nor do I want to post about those things; I am fully aware that my existential dread is not worth discussing in depth, and I don’t feel like I have anything substantial to contribute to the existing conversations around All Of This.

When I seek out content online, it is typically to distract me from what’s going on in the world. Yes, I try to stay informed, but I can’t linger too much or I want to crawl into bed and sob forever. Instead, I want to spend my free time reading blog posts about baby names and holiday gift suggestions and how people spend their day and what people are doing with the veggies from their latest CSA and what it’s like to send a child to college. Things that are fun and, sure, sometimes, important, but maybe not important important, you know? (Are you blogging these days? Leave me a link. I want to read your posts.)

So today I am trying to push through the resistance that comes from not wanting to be too cheerful in the face of (another) tragedy and talk about something frivolous and unimportant.

I want to talk about phases.

Carla is at the intersection of several, shall we say, “challenging” phases. The phase where she is four, so she obviously knows MUCH better than me what she should be doing at any given moment which results in me asking her to put on her shoes fifty times and then just putting them on myself because we are already 14 minutes late for school. The phase where she screams when she (perceives she) is Deeply Wronged. (She has NEVER been a tantrum thrower, so this is startling and I am Not A Fan.) The phase where she eats nothing (we have been here before, at least). Mornings are especially fun around my house, is what you should take from all this.

It is so very difficult, when you are in the midst of a phase, to see it as A Phase rather than The Way Things Shall Be Until The Bitter End. I am only looking at these as phases because I was complaining to my friend the other day and she very calmly said, “Gosh, phases always last about two weeks longer than you think they should.” And all of a sudden, I realized that yes! These were phases! They will not last forever! (Also: Two weeks? Hahahahaha, friend.)

Sure, I want to “enjoy every minute” and I certainly am not trying to wish time away. It goes by fast enough. But also sometimes being a parent SUCKS and I wish these phases would end more quickly.

Of course, the trade off is that one phase ends only to usher in a new, perhaps equally challenging phase.

BUT there is a bright side. An annoying bright side, for those of us who are Not At This Particular Stage Yet. But a bright side nonetheless and I am grasping at anything to keep me upright here people. The bright side is that once this phase passes, it will (probably) cease to seem that bad.

This must be biological, right? The way I sometimes think fondly of pregnancy and daydream about being pregnant again. When pregnancy – for me – was not just smiling strangers and baby hiccups and cute maternity clothes. Oh no. It was twenty-five weeks of all-day-every-day morning sickness. And sudden onset crying. And it lasted for FORTY-TWO WEEKS. It was NOT GREAT. Stop rose-coloring those pregnancy glasses, me.

But the same goes for challenging childhood phases! And I know it’s not just me. My mother and mother-in-law have this rosy vision of their own children and how perfect they were. It’s kind of dispiriting – almost insulting – in a way, to have your parent look at your child, shaking her head in utter disbelief, saying, “Boy, I never went through this with my kids! They were perfect!”

Okay, okay. I am exaggerating for effect. When they talk about how perfect their kids were (and you realize “their kids” are me and my husband, right? so perhaps there is a little creative license based on audience going on here), they are not doing it in comparison to how un-perfect Carla is. (Obviously, she IS perfect.) They are not jerks. And my mom even has a story about how she once took me to the doctor and asked him what was wrong with me, because I was driving her so absolutely crazy. But it doesn’t seem like she remembers the specifics of that particular challenging phase, just that it happened.

(And, to be fair, I haven’t yet asked her about the Challenging Teen Years. I am still too close to them to hear her discuss them without dismay and chagrin. So there could be some doozies awaiting me. Let’s get through the early childhood years first, shall we?)

What I’m saying is, it’s one thing to be smack in the middle of a challenging phase and another thing entirely to be looking back at it through the gauzy mist of the past. Perhaps it would be therapeutic to take a good hard look backward at some phases and remember them as they were, rather than as the dewy memories of an idyllic babyhood they have somehow become. And then remind ourselves that those phases ENDED and today’s phases will too.

— The Pumping Phase. Worst. Ever. I produced a lot of extra milk, and the only way to not choke my baby was to pump before feeding her. And then, because she got enough nourishment from just one side, to pump the other side, again, afterward. I spent what felt like most of the day attached either to my child or to that horrific breast pump. It was a Very Challenging Phase but it ended.

— The Spitting Up After Every Meal Phase. Oh. My. Goodness. That was so frustrating. And wet. I’m sure it had to do with all the extra milk. But I still had to feed the child, you know? And she spat up every single time. We got some of those cloth diaper inserts to use as burp rags, and then got a huge pile more, because we went through ten or more a day. And we had to buy huge stacks of pajamas because I’d have to change Carla after every feeding. (Which, if you recall, was every two hours at some point. EGADS.) I lived in tank tops and nursing bras because I could rotate them out every time the spit up landed on me. That phase sucked. But we eventually got through it.

— The Refusal to Sleep on Her Own Phase. Oh, Carla. Until she was… two? Older? (See, how quickly I have forgotten?), Carla would not fall asleep unless my husband or I was holding her or at the very least in the room with her. My husband spent portions of many nights asleep on the floor in front of her crib. Because I could not fall asleep on the floor, I remember singing her endless verses of lullabies and then trying to back very slowly out of the room without her noticing. Very rarely successfully. UGH. That was rough. But it’s over now!

— The Reckless Disregard for Personal Safety Phase. There was a time when Carla had the speed of a cheetah and the caution of those wild squirrels that leap out in front of your car as you drive through your neighborhood. There was one incident where she dashed into a PARKING LOT and I almost died right there, so certain was I that she would be crushed by a car. She used to run pell-mell down the halls of her school, completely oblivious to things like commands and other people and immovable obstacles. There was a memorable heart-stopping few moments at Target when she took off down an aisle and out of my sight. Now, at least, she has some sense that streets and parking lots are dangerous and that she needs to keep me in sight at all times. The phase ended, and I no longer have to carry her everywhere for fear that she will escape and fling herself off a cliff.

— The Putting Everything in Her Mouth Phase. Yuck. I was not a fan. My floors were much cleaner, but still. I am glad this one’s in the rear view.

— The Potty Training Phase. This one is partially my fault, because I got it into my head that she should potty train at age two even though I don’t think she was quite ready. And then it’s partially her daycare’s fault, because the classroom teacher decided she was going to potty train the entire class at the same time (why? WHY????), and then a few weeks later she quit. In any event, I am SO GLAD THIS ONE IS OVER.

— The Postpartum Phase. This really has nothing to do with Carla, but when I look back on it, I wonder if I had some form of PPD or post-partum anxiety. I was so afraid to leave the house. There’s a picture of me and my husband and Carla together in a park when she was twelve days old. It’s super cute, and one of the first of the three of us together. But I don’t really like it because it carries with it all these bad feelings. I remember so clearly how awful that trip was, how afraid I was that something would happen to her, how hyper-aware I was of how soon we’d need to head home so I could pump and feed her, how upset I got when Carla started to cry. It seems as though she and I stayed in the house pretty much the entire time I was on maternity leave, even though she was a summer baby and the weather was (presumably? I don’t remember.) great. I was so fixated on all these potential horrors, constantly worrying that she was sick or there was something wrong with her, so afraid to put her in the car, afraid even to let her spend time alone with my husband or my mom, just in case something happened to me or her at that very moment. I needed to be there. I couldn’t miss out. Add that to the endless pumping/breastfeeding cycle and it wasn’t the happiest time. So very glad that ended.

Of course, there are other phases that I truly miss. Like when Carla was learning to talk, and every day meant a few new words to practice and delight over. Like when she was a snuggly, happy six-month-old who stayed in one spot. Like when she called me Mama.

And there are other phases she’s in the midst of now that I never want to end: The Wakes Up Singing Phase. Or the Phase Where She and Her Friends All Compare Outfits and Jewelry the Second They See Each Other at School (it is ridiculous and adorable). Or the Phase Where She Wants to Help Me in the Kitchen. Or the Voice-Texting Daddy Super Sweet Things Phase. Or the Just Learning How to Read Phase. Or the “I Love You So Much I Never Want to Live Anywhere Without You” Phase.

She is a joy and a delight and I am glad to hold on to the good phases and let the bad ones fade into the detritus of memory.

What are the childhood phases you really miss? The ones that couldn’t have ended soon enough? And the ones you are not looking forward to? (Me, I’m just trying to focus on getting through TODAY. I am not even thinking about the Door Slamming Phase or the Boy-Crazy Phase or the Upsetting Report Card Phase.)