Month: January 2018

Time to Own Up: Parenting Fails

Let’s get real, folks. We’re not perfect parents, and we’re far from a perfect family. It ain’t all Caribbean vacations and homemade muffins and Sunday selfies over here, even though maybe it seems that way sometimes.

The truth is, there are a lot of ways in which Sona and I readily acknowledge that we have been less-than-stellar parents. We’ve dropped so many balls at this point that it is nearly impossible to catalogue them.  Sometimes, our parenting fails are unintentional, accidental trip-ups that are the result of an oversight. Most of the time, though, we’ve made the conscious decision to just say, well, “*&#! it.”

As women with full-time careers, lives to juggle, a toddler, and now a baby on the way, it is important for us to admit that we can only take on so much. We all have a limited amount of stuff we can care about, worry about, toil over–and we have have to make decisions about what, in the end, just can’t be on that list. So, while I’m airing our dirty laundry as a way to appease whatever guilt we have and as a way to ease your own, the real point is this: if you don’t allow yourself some parenting fails, you won’t be able to stay sane.

Here are our big ones:

1. Yeah, we have a shelf full of highly-rated parenting books. No, we’ve never read them. I can’t tell you how many parenting books we purchased when Sona was pregnant with Finn. Everything from the ones everyone knows about, like this one, to ones our doctor suggested we have handy.  We probably have at least a dozen. In the end, we didn’t actually read any of them. Sure, we skimmed through them a couple times, but we never read them the way we’d intended when we compulsively exercised our Amazon Prime privileges on a regularly basis. In fact, this one is the only book we actually finished, and it’s just a bougie indulgence for Francophiles (though we did put some of the advice to good use).

2. Tummy time? What tummy time? Despite all the advice from doctors, blogs, and the aforementioned parenting books, we rarely practiced tummy time with Finn in the early days. In fact, it wasn’t until he was like 12 weeks old–and showing no interest in rolling over–that we decided we’d better be a little more deliberate in our attempts to acquaint him with a belly-sided worldview.

3. Finn’s first foods were champagne, parmesan, and proscuitto. That’s not a joke. To say we didn’t start him off with the traditional food choices would be an understatement. I gave that kid everything–and very, very early: vinegar, peanut butter, and even–go ahead, shame me–honey!

4. Take your bottle to college, kid, if you want. We are, generally, terrible enforcers. I think we could spin this by saying that our parenting philosophy is to let Finn lead and self-wean, but the reality is that we’re just lazy, and I, especially, am known for saying, “It’ll happen when he wants it to happen.” That was our approach to letting go of the bottle, which he used regularly until he was around 22 months old.

5. And bring the diapers with you, while you’re at it. This goes for potty-training, too. Finn is nearly 2.5, and we really haven’t actively tried potty training, yet. We ask him whether he’d like to use the potty all of the time. The potty is always there. We bring it out before shower time, and we encourage him to sit on it. But that’s about it. We haven’t done any boot-camp style potty-training, and I’m not sure we plan to. Honestly, I’m just not that worried about it. I worry about him being a kind kid. I worry about whether or not he is happy and intellectually stimulated and healthy. I do not worry about when he is going to start taking a poop in a toilet. I’m sure daycare is frustrated with us about this, as most of the kids in his class are well on their way to being potty-trained, but our pediatrician made the mistake of validating our rather lackadaisical approach and, well, we let that be the validation we needed to put on the brakes, much to the chagrin of his teachers, our parents, and others.

6. Baby proofing? That’s a thing? Okay, we did put a baby gate on the stairs–which has long since been gone–and we do have those plug covers, but that’s it. We never did any other baby proofing: no cabinet locks, no covers on door handles, nothing. Honestly, I think this has really worked to our benefit, as Finn has NEVER tried to mess with anything he shouldn’t mess with, and we have a rather adult-friendly, not kid-friendly home. We attribute this completely to reverse psychology. Since we never had child locks on things, he never saw those things as forbidden, and therefore tempting, points of interest. He just could care less about cabinets and drawers and anything other than his own toys, really.

7. Bribe or die. This is mostly my fault, as Sona is definitely the parent who is more willing to say “no” to Finn than I am. Early on, I kind of decided that I would pick my battles. Generally speaking, Finn is a really good kid. He does what he should do 90% of the time, and he is more mature than I suspect most 2-year-olds to be (but that’s just my mom bias talking, I know). So, I decided that my hard “no” would be saved for times when he was either putting himself in danger, hurting someone else, being unkind, or being intentionally destructive. Beyond that, I’ve let him do his thing, mostly. Because of that, I tend to rely on bribes of suckers or peppermints to get small things done–like get shoes on for daycare or change his diaper when he realllllly don’t want to do it. He gets a bribe once a day or so, and I’m sure we’re doing some long-term psychological damage, but sometimes Momma just needs to get on with it.

8. Our kid can work YouTube better than I can do just about anything. This is the one for which we really do harbor the most legitimate mom guilt. Finn had virtually NO screen time until about 17 months. Since we live in a two-story home, and have no TV upstairs in the main living space, he just was never accustomed to having a TV on. He still doesn’t care very much about the TV, to be honest. But at around 17 months, we started showing him YouTube music videos that were, we thought, totally harmless. He’d dance, we’d all laugh, it was adorable. Or so we thought. Little did we know, seemingly harmless YouTube music videos are a gateway drug in the realest sense, and that began a slippery slope of iPhone–and then iPad–engagement that, in hindsight, I think we should’ve better monitored. Fast forward a year, and Finn has a full-on iPad addiction. He LOVES YouTube, which he calls “Stompy,” because Stompy the Bear is the first music video we ever showed him. (You should look it up and let your kid watch it, but consider yourself warned.) When he’s sick or super cranky, we sometimes give in, and he is on the iPad for an hour or so a day. Most days, though, he only uses it in the morning. He likes to chill in our bed, drink his milk, and watch other kids play with toys on YouTube for 20-30 minutes when he wakes up. After that, the iPad “goes to sleep,” and he usually doesn’t see it again for the rest of the day. But the fact that our 2.5 year old asks for “Pad?” as soon as he wakes up in the morning is, I know, nothing to brag about.

So, here they are, our parenting fails. I’m sure there are many I’ve left of this list–and many more, still, to come. And just to underscore the content of this post, here are a bunch of photos of last Saturday, when Finn and I stayed in bed for half the day–diaper full-to-bursting, drinking chocolate milk, watching bad YouTube videos, and my just being delightfully, willfully, a pretty bad–but also good–momma.

What You Are Really Telling Women When You Pressure Them Not To Announce Their Pregnancies Early

Tomorrow, Sona will be 13 weeks pregnant, which means she’ll have officially entered the 2nd trimester. Our baby, according to the What to Expect app, is the size of a plum. He’s nearing a full 3” long, he weighs about half of an ounce, and he’s starting to look more like an actual fetus and less like a gummy bear every single day. It’s a big milestone.

It’s also, as it happens, the time when most couples would finally feel comfortable sharing the news that they are expecting, as social norms dictate that couples (by which we really mean women) shouldn’t announce their pregnancies until the 1st trimester ends.

Sona and I played by those rules when we were pregnant with Finn, mostly. Of course, we told close friends and family members as soon as we found out, but we didn’t make our pregnancy “Facebook official” until week 13. (And, if you know me at all, you know I was absolutely busting at the seams by that point.)

(This is from our first babymoon, when no one knew that Sona was 2 months pregnant. We’d even written “babymoon” in the sand and edited it out.)

If Sona had her way, I think she might have done the same thing with baby #2, too. We certainly started the process of trying to conceive by keeping mum, and it wasn’t until we’d been actively trying for months that we both reached the point–me before her–that we didn’t mind whether people knew that we were trying to get pregnant. Most of the giddy excitement had worn off, by then, and it was strictly business.  That’s not to say that the prospect of being pregnant again wasn’t exciting. It’s just that the process of getting pregnant had become purely transactional. “Let’s just get this done,” we often thought.

And so, slowly, we started telling  people around us that we’d been trying–and still were. I started blogging about it, giving every excruciating detail.

For the most part, people seemed open to hearing our story. Our friends and family members’ reactions ranged from exuberantly supportive to not-so-secretly shocked and ashamed that we’d be sharing such personal information on the internet. Still, it was our story to tell–or not to–and we were  comfortable fielding questions and concerns.

Our primary audience has always been, as we’ve said numerous times, other same-sex couples similarly trying to conceive, as we so desperately sought that kind of community during the process. (And honestly, for what it is worth, I’m not sure we could have gotten through the process without the online tribe of mostly lesbian couples who have supported us, rooted for us, answered questions for us, and commiserated with us.)

But I’m getting off track, here. What I mean to be talking about is that, while most were okay with our sharing our path to conception, we met a good bit of cynicism when we decided to immediately share that we were, in fact, pregnant. Like 2 hours after we found out. When Sona had been pregnant for approx. 18 days. Weeks before it’s seen as socially acceptable to start spreading the news.

I’ve spent the past 3 months thinking about whether or not we were right to share so soon. Ultimately, we both still feel comfortable with the decision, although there have been several times when Sona has said to me, “Maybe we’ve shared too much. Should we pull back? What if something happens?”

It’s that last question that has had me reeling for months. I’ve been turning that question over and over in my head, thinking about how greatly it informs our social expectations about what is–and what isn’t–acceptable for women to share.

What if something did happen? Does that mean that we, as women, should be isolated in our grief (as we’re already expected to carry so many of our burdens in isolation, already)? Does that mean that, by sharing the news of the pregnancy, we somehow ushered in the bad juju? (Some relatives actually said this to us.) Does that mean we were–you know–asking for it?

I think that, if we’re being honest with ourselves, we have to admit that the social response to those questions is, often, “YES.” Maybe that “yes”  isn’t stated explicitly,  but it is certainly implied.

This is the implication: You, as a woman, are completely responsible–and, thusly, at fault–for what happens to your fetus. If the pregnancy fails, you are somehow to blame. And that failure? It’s shameful. So shameful, in fact, that you shouldn’t tell anyone you are pregnant, just in case you have to later inform them that the pregnancy wasn’t successful. That you weren’t successful. You wouldn’t want anyone to know that, would you?

When we pressure women to wait until the 2nd trimester to share the news of their pregnancy, we are denying them their tribe. We are expecting them to celebrate–and then, sometimes, to suffer–in silence. We are deepening the stigma and the shame that accompanies not only fertility struggles, but also pregnancy losses.

We are asking women to navigate one of the most difficult journeys of their lives in isolation. And we are shaming them for daring not to.

Look, I come from a Jewish family. I’m no stranger to superstition. My grandmother has heart palpitations at the thought of our bringing baby items into the house before the baby is born.

I’ve also known many women who have suffered through failed pregnancies, including someone I really love, who experienced a miscarriage in the past year. The more open Sona and I have been with our own story, the more we’ve been on the receiving end of stories from others. I can’t tell you how many women–our own doctors, UPS workers, waitresses, among them–have come to us and shared their own struggles with fertility and miscarriage. They were hungry to have someone hear them–and to have their own experiences met without judgement.

I’m not saying that all women should be forced to disclose their pregnancies or fertility struggles, of course. What I am saying is that this is a absolutely, unequivocally a choice that women should be able to make on their own, and we should support them in their decision.

Don’t pressure women to keep silent–and don’t pressure them to tell their stories. Use the language. Don’t stigmatize the words. “Infertility” and “miscarriage” are not obscenities. Don’t perpetuate the notion that women’s worth is defined by their ability to–or not to–bare children.

Part of our–albeit lofty–aim with this blog has been to normalize these conversations. It’s perfectly okay if you choose to keep your experience to yourself. Of course it is. But don’t ever let anyone tell you that there is shame in sharing your story–or shame in however that story ends. And let’s be a little more thoughtful about whether we want to continue to normalize women’s silence.

 

 

 

Baby Deux, Part 10: It’s a…

You guys, we’re having another boy!!!!!!!!!

We went ahead and did the full gamut of genetic testing, which also allowed us to find out the sex of the baby a few weeks early that we would have otherwise. Yesterday morning, I got this text from Sona:

We’d been waiting on the email for 10 days. At first, she suggested that we each just open the email–WHILE AT WORK–and text each other about the results. “ARE YOU INSANE?!?” I said. So, instead, we both got home a little earlier, looked at the results together, and then had a little coffee date, wherein we talked baby names for an hour.

This is something I know you’re not supposed to say, and we would’ve been happy either way, of course, but… we really, really, really wanted another boy! So, we are THRILLED.

Life is just funny. Before we had Finn, I was dead-set on having a girl. I was convinced that’s what we were going to have, and I’d already fantasized about everything that went along with mommy-ing a little lady. The day we found out that Finn was a boy, I was SO disappointed.

Now, I couldn’t imagine having it any other way. Not only will having another boy mean that, logistically, life will be a bit easier: we don’t have to buy new stuff, sharing a room makes a little more sense, it ain’t our first rodeo, etc.

But what’s more, for lots of reasons–some that are rational and some that are not–we really wanted another boy for Finn. I think that, if we’re being honest, we have some guilt associated with the internalized homophobia and misogyny that bites at us, reminding us that we’ve brought a son into the world without having a male figure in the house. I’m ashamed to even say this out loud, but it is something we think about. And while most of my brain knows that Finn will be a perfectly happy, well-adjusted child–even more well-adjusted than the children of hetero couples, according to some studies–there is a tiny part of my brain, hidden deep in the darkest place, that sometimes questions, “Will he resent us for not having a father?”

So, we’re pretty happy about the fact that Finn won’t have to feel isolated in a house full of women (as we think that being a sperm donor baby with same-sex biracial parents is likely enough for him to grapple with, already).

But we’re also just really excited to cuddle a little baby boy, again.

Snow Day!

I go back to work, tomorrow, as a new semester begins. It’s time. I love my academic schedule, but I am always ready to go back to work. I’m not the kind of person who does very well with too much time on my hands. I’m never as productive as I plan to be, I spend way too much time in my own head, and, eventually, I end up in a bit of a funk.

When I realized that Finn’s daycare would be closed in honor of MLK Day, today, I was a little bummed. These are the kinds of horrible things that mommies don’t like to say aloud, but the truth is, I kind of needed one last day to myself, and I’ve spent A LOT of time with this kiddo over the past month. Don’t get me wrong: I love him. I do! But, well, I don’t have to explain what I mean to any other parents out there. You get it.

But then, it snowed. And, although it’s been a historically cold winter in Chicago, we actually haven’t had much measurable snow. It was also 25 degrees, which is about 25 degrees warmer than it has been for the past few weeks. So, I bribed Finn with a sucker, which bought me the 20 minutes it took to pile on every piece of snow gear he owns (all of which is leftover from last year and is just a taaaaaaad too small).  He was packed in so tightly that he kept whining, “I can’t reach!” each time he tried, unsuccessfully, to bend over and grab a handful of snow.

And for the first time in weeks, we got outside and explored the neighborhood. Who knew that a couple hours outside with my boy, eating questionably discolored snow, pulling a sled all around the neighborhood, and using the icy slide as a make-shift luge  was exactly what I needed?

It was, as it turns out. It definitely was.

I love the way he marches through the neighborhood like he owns the place.

Our favorite car in the ‘hood.

Someone has a thing for eating snow. City snow.

 

 

 Oh, I love this child of ours.

Welcome, 2018: Let’s Talk Goals

Considering that yesterday, on New Year’s  Day, Sona and I ditched our plans to go to the gym and eat healthfully to instead laze on the couch, take naps, and order takeout, I think it’s pretty safe to assume that we don’t take New Year ‘s resolutions very seriously around here.

Still, with all the craziness of the holidays, I think January provides a good time to reset, re-norm, and reevaluate our plans for the coming year.

(Writing this prompted me to look back through previous blog posts to see whether or not I’d blogged resolutions before. And, to my surprise, I had! Here is my post from 2016. Looking back through it now, it feels good to know that many of those goals were realized. And yet, there are many that we’re still trying to make happen.)

So, while I’ll stop short of calling these “resolutions,” when I take stock of what is to come in 2018, here are some goals–some more lofty than others–that I’d like to be mindful of in the coming months.

    • Yes, workout more. Yes, make healthier choices. Yes, this is cliche. But still, Sona and I have done a really, really bad job committing to any kind of fitness routine since having Finn. As I’ve written about a gazillion times, most days, we’re just trying to keep our heads above water. I’ve struggled with my weight been heavy most of my life. (For what it’s worth, even though that phrasing came to mind first, I don’t really identify with the word “struggle.” I have not, in any way, let my weight be life-defining, but that’s for another post.) So, for me, it’s really about trying to establish a realistic and maintainable routine that makes me feel better, gives me more energy, and helps keep my health in check. For Sona, it’s really more about feeling strong mentally, as she does when she is running routinely.
    • Get Finn out of the crib and onto a potty. Okay, those are actually two steps. But with his turning 3 at the end of this summer, I really hope that before we ring in 2019, he’s  in a “big boy bed” and out of diapers.
    • Be smarter with managing our money. In the past couple of years, we’ve bought a house and enrolled a toddler in a Chicago-priced daycare. Just those two things alone have increased our monthly expenses by about 40%. This year, we also had a lot of  fertility-related expenses, some unexpected home repairs that were necessary, and a bathroom reno. All of that means that we were under a bit more financial stress than typical, and we had to make some sacrifices as a result. We need to get it together, this year.
    • Adventure more. The biggest sacrifice we’ve had to make since buying our home is that we’ve been able to travel much less than we did before. We still managed to get in a few trips in 2017–Washington D.C., California, Tennessee, Italy, Grand Cayman–but Sona and I have a dream for our family’s future that involves a lot of adventuring. I know that, with a new baby on the way and the majority of Sona’s time off eaten up by maternity leave, we likely won’t be able to travel very much in 2018, but I hope we find ways to squeeze in little adventures where and when we can. My soul needs it.
    • Continue to prioritize our marriage. Oy vey. I’ve said a lot about this before, too. Keeping a marriage alive is hard work. Keeping a marriage alive while parenting little ones and maintain two full-time careers is really hard work. Sona and I are really good about developing marriage-maintenance game plans, but we are really awful at sticking to them. I hope we can take more tangible steps to put one another–and our relationship–first: more date nights, more meaningful conversations, less time spent on our (my) iPhone and more time giving attention to one another–more time paying attention.
    • Pay more attention to who and what I love. We recently saw the movie Lady Bird, which is FANTASTIC, and I highly recommend it. There’s a moment in the movie–and I can say this without spoiling anything for you–where the lead character is talking to one of the nuns at her Catholic school.  The lead, Lady Bird, says something like “I don’t know if I love it. I just pay attention.” And the nun replies, “Don’t you think they are the same thing?” That hit me hard. I’m not always the best at paying attention to the right things. That is,  when I feel the most bogged down by life, it’s usually because I’m paying attention to the wrong things. I did a lot of that this year. I paid attention to the little annoyances more than I should have, and in 2018, I want to work on turning my attention towards the people and things that bring me joy. Showing them my love. Focusing on what matters more. Giving 100% of my attention to the areas of my life that I want to nurture.
    • Meet–and really fully enjoy–what will very likely be our last baby. Having a baby that is due towards the last third of the year inevitably means that everything that precedes that due date will just go down in history as “the time spent waiting on the new baby.” Because let’s get real: every single memory from 2015 shrinks under the shadow of our having Finn, and I know that–down the road–2018 will also be remembered, almost entirely, as the year when we grew to a family of four. The first 6 months of Finn’s life were some of the best months of my own. Sure, we were exhausted and stressed and had no idea what we were doing, but I had taken a full semester off of work, and I threw my entire being into mothering that little boy. For those 6 months, I thought of virtually nothing else other than Finn, and it was glorious. Sona remembers that time differently. It was harder on her–harder on her body, at first, and much harder on her emotionally. She looks back on the photos of Finn as a newborn and frequently bemoans how little she remembers of–or let herself enjoy–that time. This time, we want to do it differently. She’s going to take more time off, and we are really hoping that–as hard as we know it will be (and we’re a little scared of that, too)–we can be completely present, focusing on nothing but our little family and slowing down time for as long as we possibly can. We want to pay attention.

 

 

 

Christmas, 2017

It’s the first day of 2018, and I’m going to start it off with a blog post. (You know, hoping that this sets up some sort of consistent blogging trend for the year.)

The days between Christmas and NY always go by in a lazy blur, and that was especially the case this year. It’s been unusually cold in Chicago–the kind of cold we usually on see for a couple of days each winter–and we’ve hardly left the house in the past week. It’s been nice to hunker down, take a lot of naps,  and watch Finn play with all of his Christmas goodies, but we’ve also all been a bit stir crazy.

Still, this is a great holiday season. We crammed in SO. MUCH. STUFF., checking off our entire list of Christmas-y activities: a ride on the Santa train, zoo lights, a couple of visits to Santa, holiday museum visits, Chriskindlmarket (at Wrigley and downtown, this year), drives around neighborhoods with crazy good light shows,  A LOT of baking, and more. So, I guess we earned a week of being homebodies.

Plus, as usually happens once we come off of the adrenaline-induced stupor that is a very busy holiday season, we’re all sick.

But I wanted to share the photos from our Christmas week which was, fingers crossed, our last as a family of three.

I took Finn downtown to visit Chicago’s Best Santa, who he has seen for three years running. He practically jumped into his arms.

For the first time in as long as I can remember, we got SNOW at Christmas! It snowed almost the entire day on Christmas Eve, and, luckily, it was still warm enough to go out and play in it.

Pops and Finn, catching snowflakes with their tongues.

Of course, we had to have hot cocoa as soon as we came in. Pops taught Finn how to say “cheers,” which he thinks you must say with every single gulp.

We’ve gone to the same place for dinner every Christmas Eve for the past ten years–Lawry’s Prime Rib–and it’s probably my favorite meal of the entire year.

Can someone bring me this right now, please?

So far, we’ve had really good luck with Finn at Lawry’s. He’s always on his best behavior, especially if he has a book of stickers to entertain himself.

And for the second year in a row, he got his own GIGANTIC hot fudge sundae. I know he looks very serious in this photo, but he was really just concentrating very hard. He loved it.

We went home, got in our matching PJs, and opened stockings.

We also left cookies for Santa–and carrots for the reindeer. (Or “Sven,” as Finn said.)

On Finn’s first Christmas, Mimi and Pops bought him a copy of ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas and committed to reading it to him before bed every Christmas Eve. That first year was pretty funny, as none of us had realized just how long the book actually was, and baby Finn lost interest pretty quickly. Well, 2 year old Finn wasn’t much better at staying interested. Pops was trying to have a moment, but Finn just kept singing “Wheels on the Bus” over and over again as Pops was reading. We were all laughing hysterically.

After Finn went to bed, Santa’s elves went to work. Luckily, there wasn’t a huge play kitchen (which never gets ANY play, btw) to put together this year.

Santa left Finn a PlayDoh trail leading from his room to the tree, just in case he got side-tracked on the way there.

His Christmas morning reaction was… contained. He was excited on the inside?

As we all suspected, the Thomas roller-coaster was the big hit. He rode it for a good 30 minutes nonstop. We had to create a crashpad with throw pillows to keep him from hitting the wall too hard.

This year, we decided to let Finn explore all of Santa’s gifts, which were unwrapped, and then we stopped to eat brunch. After we ate, we opened the wrapped gifts. It was a much better plan than last year, as Finn had plenty of new toys to occupy his attention while we leisurely munched.

I’d used an iPhone app to “capture a photo of Santa” putting the presents under the tree. Finn was into it.

When we’d put out the presents the night before, we realized that–between my parents and ourselves–we’d bought WAY too much. The plan was to reign it in this year, and we really tried, but we still ended up with at least twice as much as Finn actually needed. Still, I have to say, he played with EVERY SINGLE TOY on Christmas day, taking his time to open one, play with it for 10-15 minutes, and then open another and do it all over again.

He played pretty much all day long. And the next day, too. We napped, ate, watched him, and napped some more. It was a really good holiday, and although I’m usually sad to see Christmas go, I’m ready for what 2018 has in store.