I Have A Bee In My Bonnet!

A group of us went out to dinner the other night. The original plan was to eat at my house, but since between us we have four kids, we decided our sanity would fare better in an open environment. (Especially because ever since our house has been listed I've been known to sob heavily over crumbs on the counter.)

Not long after sitting down, the subject of marriage came up. And then we pondered the question "How do husbands really feel when their wives gain weight?".

Which was a mistake. Because I'm here to tell you THERE IS NO WINNING IN THIS ARGUMENT.

The "we just want you to be healthy" angle was used.

The "men can't help what we're attracted to" statement was made.

The "false advertising" phrase may have been thrown around once or twice.

And my favorite, "shouldn't the husband's happiness matter to his wife?"

And it all felt very sad. Because the heart of the matter is this: we just want to be accepted for who we are. Period. And many men are unwilling to do that.

I know you may not want to believe it, but how many women do you know who got married, had babies, gave up careers, raised those babies into adults, gave the best years of their lives both physically and mentally, and then their husband leaves them for his secretary? Personally, I know at least a dozen in my own life.

And what is the excuse? "My wife changed".

Can someone please tell me what the hell is wrong with changing?

(So, she isn't a size 6 anymore? So, she doesn't rub your feet? Boo-hoo. I bet she's a lot of other more important things though if you would just take your head out of your ass and notice.)

I could not boil water when I met my husband (seriously I burned pasta). I didn't pay my bills. I had never done laundry. Had never been a mother. Had never owned my own business. Had never lost a parent. Had never been gravely ill.

And yet, look at me today. I can cook, I own a business, I birthed a child, I survived HELLP, I buried my dad, and ...well, I still don't do laundry. But, you get the point. I also have wrinkles and my ass is slowly becoming jello and I've gained 25 pounds and my skin is starting to sag and I pluck grey hairs every single morning. Yes, I'm still  young and naturally thin, but it's only going to get worse. And while I have momentary rushes of panic and want to quick-fix it, I wouldn't trade the last ten years of life experience to have my 20-year-old skin again.

I am kinder now. I am more compassionate. I am smarter. I'm funnier. I'm more confident. And I'm a much better wife than I was then. Because I'm a more developed person now.

The thought that a husband can completely discount all that - all that progress - because of some sag or fat just blows me away.

Not to mention, how many husbands do you know who haven't changed since they were married? Who couldn't be thinner themselves? Or have more hair? Or be more romantic?

The older I get and the more things I see - loved ones dying before my eyes, disease, war - the angrier I become over this issue. I get angry because I wrestle with my own body image when intellectually I KNOW it shouldn't matter.

Life is too important to worry about how you look living it.

And that is my new mantra. I occasionally work out. I occasionally eat well.  But, over time I've realized that those just aren't my top priorities. And therefore, I will never be the muscular bod that I know my husband, at no fault of his own, would probably prefer. And guess what? I'm finally okay with that.

Because I am a better woman today than that girl Chris married six years ago. And I plan on (gasp) changing even more in the next six years. And while I'm confident my husband will still be happy with who that person is, it saddens me to know that for every man out there who loves his woman for more than her wrapper, there will be an unappreciative jerk who will make a beautiful woman question her value.

So, I'm happy to report that while I'm not sure if I won the argument, I did answer the question for myself. If husbands aren't happy when their wives gain weight, then they can get happy. The End.

Am I wrong?

**By the way, I loved your comments on this post and am working on my Mean Girl story. Be very afraid.

Because Your Brain Is Just Waiting To Explode

Do you want to know what the absolute best part of parenting is? I'll tell you. How you can go from lalala I'm sitting on the couch eating crackers watching Dr. Phil lalala to full-on panic mode convinced your child is about to perish.

One minute you're contemplating wiping those fingerprints off the television and the next your child says "My head hurts". And if you're like me, that OF COURSE means he/she has a brain tumor. What else could it mean?? Even though you may pretend that you're perfectly fine and you're just getting them a Motrin, the whole way to the medicine cabinet you're thinking:

It's just a headache, it's no big deal. Are kids supposed to get headaches? How long has she had a headache? Maybe it's meningitis. Does her neck hurt? Meningitis is better than a tumor. Or is it? Remember that one kid who died from meningitis? Omigod I would prefer a tumor. We would just find the best specialists in the world, it would be okay, children are resilient, they rebound from this stuff all the time. Don't they? I'm sure it's just a headache. What if I'm saying a year from now "And I foolishly thought it was just a headache!"? ...Which it is, of course. Just a headache.

And then you try to just casually ask about every 4.8 seconds "Is your headache gone honey?" and you stroke their hair and think about what a wretched mother you are and why did you yell at them this morning? Look at how sweet and vulnerable they are. You should get some cookies.

And an hour later you've eaten a box of Oreos and grown two new wrinkles and eight grey hairs.

Then they say "my head feels better now mama!". And you smugly think "Of course it does. See, I didn't even overreact." And you have a reprieve. A brief one.

Last year Savannah had a persistent cough. A dry cough. For a month. I know that it was exactly a year ago, because I had myself convinced after a full month of Google that she had heart failure. Why else would the child have "a dry persistent cough" unless "fluid is building up in her lungs"??? Why? My whole body would tense up with every cough. I would hug her and listen to her heart. She would awake in the night with her mother's head on her chest. Chris would sigh and request that I please stop being so creepy.

Then something miraculous happened: The cough disappeared. And I immediately forgot it ever was.

Until last week. When it started again. On the first day of Spring.

Ahhhhhh.

Allergies.

Right.

Okay.

My bad.

Will the anxiety ever end for us? Are we doomed to be whackjobs forever? Because at this rate I will technically be a liquid by the time she becomes a teenager.

The (Out)Caste System

There was always the kid who smelled like pee.

Every class had one. The scruffy kid with the dirty hair and wrinkled clothes who all the other kids would avoid.

There was always the girl who everyone ignored. The girl who sat alone at an empty table at lunch.

In my school it was Joey and Raquel.

Joey sat next to me all through junior high and everyone avoided him. He stunk, he was small, he wore the same clothes every day, he wiped his nose on his shirt.

Raquel had a slightly shifty eye. That was it. She wasn't offensive. She smelled nice. She had nice skin. But, one eye would wander. And when you're a kid, that's all it takes to become a social outcast. Raquel's wandering eye guaranteed her a spot in the bleachers all alone watching the rest of her grade class square dance because no one would ever choose her. Every Friday. For the entire year.

Lately, as I've been mentally preparing for Savannah to start school, I've been thinking about Joey and Raquel. For the first time I've been thinking about their parents. For the first time, I realized they had parents. (I am very quick like that.)

And I wonder how Raquel's mom felt when she would ask Raquel if she'd like to have a friend over and Raquel said she didn't have any. I wonder how Joey's dad felt when he asked his son how he was doing with the girls at school and Joey had to tell his dad that they laughed and pointed.

I wondered if their parents stayed up late at night torn up about their child's social nightmare. I wondered if Raquel's mom held her while she cried. Or if Joey's dad offered to play ball with him, hoping his athletic skills might win the other guys over.

Once you become a parent, you think back on these kids and see them in a whole new light. You feel compassion. And you feel dread. Because that might be your kid.

I won't truly know if I've prepared Savannah socially until I see how she interacts with her teachers, with her peers, with her friends' parents. I see a happy confident little girl here in her living room, but who will she become when the mean girls taunt her? How will she react when the boys tease her about her unibrow? (Which she's doomed to have if my hairy blood is running through her veins.)

Or worse, what if she is the mean girl?

Looking back on high school, you realize that these social outcasts were just kids. Just children. With parents who likely sent them out into the world with high hopes.

And it makes me look at my daughter and think that I don't care whether she's popular or not. I just want her to be kind.

Do you remember who it was in your school? Now that you're a mom, does it affect how you remember them?

Bad News

I'm absolutely sick about this.

I read Elizabeth Edwards' story about her first battle while my father was dying. And I was struck by her positive attitude in the face of this struggle given that she has two babies at home. I think it's for this reason that this latest news feels like a punch in the stomach. That, and the latest picture of her. Compare it to the earlier one further down in the article.

I don't know what else to say...

I'm Listing Heavily To the Left

For the two of you who have emailed me expressing concern that maybe I've become overwhelmed with the whole howwwse thing and all the wriiiiiting I'm doing and the babeee who's growing up, I would like to advise you that I've compiled a list and my life mostly does not suck!

This is awesome news.

Worth the Wait?

Okay, it's time to get really really honest. Cover the kids in kisses and settle them on the couch with a movie. Or give them a few Disney books and ask them to count all the references to death. Or hand them to the nanny, you elitist you!

In other words, they can't be near you or you won't be able to answer this honestly. You'll see their cherubic face or hear their tiny chirping voice or those chubby fingers turning the pages and you will not be able to refrain from shouting in triumph "Behold! My spawn!"...or something.

Anyway, here's the question: Knowing what you know now, would you have kids when you did?

I've mentioned how I was 23 when I got pregnant with Savannah and how given my upbringing I was practically an old maid. And yet...I wonder.

Chris and I had only been married about three months when I expressed to him in the middle of lunch one day my absolute certainty that I was barren. Did I mention I was reading a lot of infertility blogs back then?

Anyway, I insisted that we should go off the pill "immediately" because "it will probably take at least a year because I bet your sperm count is low or slow or I have cysts or adhesions or unexplained infertility. Most likely. I bet".

Chris expressed some hesitation because we lived in a little apartment, hadn't even begun to pay off our wedding which was entirely on credit cards, and our most romantic vacation had been to Las Vegas. Was he right? Yes. Did he win? No.

I was pregnant six weeks later, my imagined infertility cured!

Now, while I was over the moon about being pregnant and all the financial stuff ended up working out delightfully well by the time she was born, there was one thing I failed to take into account.

Hold onto your hats for this revelation: Once you have a baby, you're no longer alone.

I know! I was shocked too!

All the things we loved to do together: hiking, sleeping in, reading the paper, morning sex, finishing conversations, not playing Connect Four. All of it vanished. And we kept saying "Oh, when she's a little older". But, here's another revelation: the older they get, the more THERE they are.

So, as I approach 30 and my husband approaches something in his 40's I can't help but think back to that day in the restaurant, to that conversation between two freshly married and madly in love young people - one pushy, one indulgent - and wonder what was my rush?

Why didn't I give the "couple us" a little more time before we made it a "family us"?

Look at them. They have no idea that they're going to soon be arguing over thorough nipple washing and how best to get explosive newborn diarrhea out of curtains.

Because I Am The First Generation To Say "Hoo-Ha"

I don't mean to shock you, but this having kids thing is hard. The cute little shoes and the sweet head smell are great and all, but then they grow up and ask things like this:

"Mommy, how did I get in your belly?"

Now, you may be assuming that I was immature and inappropriate and responded with something like "don't talk with your mouth full" even though she wasn't eating.

Or giggled "I ate a Savannah sandwich. Har har harrrrr"

Or perhaps yelled the oft overlooked "Children are to be seen and not heard!".

You would be right about all of those. But, when none of my sly avoidance maneuvers worked I finally sat her down at the kitchen table and said "Well, honey. See, daddy put you there.".

"How?" she asked.

And I swear I said this (because I was alone and Chris wasn't home and she caught me off guard and I'm just no good with this parenting thing! I tell ya, I'm not!).

I said "With a special hug".

Savannah thought about this for about two seconds and quickly hopped up saying "No. Nope. I think the doctor put me in you and then daddy helped take me out", while skipping out of the room. Away from her awkward mom and her special hugs.

So, that conversation went about as well as the last time, except less traumatizing. I think she's warming up to it. I really do.

My best friend relayed to me the other day how she and her husband just sat their seven-year-old down and explained in detail how sex works. They used words like "vagina" and "penis" and "erection" and actually explained in clinical terms HOW IT ALL WORKS. And my head exploded. Right there in her office.

I'm supposed to WHAT??? Chris is supposed to WHAT??? At seven years old?!

I remember having The Talk with my mom and it was at night in the car and she was gripping the steering wheel in a fierce 10 and 2 and beads of sweat were forming on her forehead and it was the first time I had ever heard my mom mention sex and she explained things in about two sentences using all the clinical terms and her voice had this weird strained perkiness to it and then she asked if I had any questions and I remember asking one and her answer was "none of your business".

And I swear to God I think I was 13 years old.

And as a matter of fact, she's probably having the same reaction just reading this...and I'm 29.

My gut tells me that my daughter does not need to know about sex until she asks. And then I will piece it out to her on an as needed basis. Because does she really need answers for questions she isn't asking?

I know my friend feels, on the other hand, that knowledge is power and the more her young daughter knows, the less likely she is to be impressed by the slutty girl at school or overwhelmed by the aggressive boy.

I respect this - I do. And I see the value in it. But, I also wonder if too much information too soon can be damaging to their little psyche. This is one issue on which I am truly torn.

So, when did you/will you explain sex to your kids? Is the way you learned about sex affecting your decision? Is there a specific age that you think is best? Is it 30? Tell me it's 30.

And Then There Was Joy

Dear Lena,

You knew we were coming. Now, SHUT UP.

Love,

Kindergarten, Loose Teeth, The Sex Talk, Wrinkles, Time, Change, and Weight Gain

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hey, look! I'm moving on! For the twelvteenth time! For reals!

Last night something magical happened. I'd spent most of the last two days struggling with weepiness (and also bad hair) and then we all went to dinner (for "Salad", which quickly became "Cheese Toast" and also "Cream of Potato Soup").

As we sat down, Savannah said "my tooth hurts". I leaned over and wiggled it and lo and behold....it's loose! My baby's tooth is loose!

<insert silent screams from my brain and much flailing>

It seems like just yesterday I was freezing bagels for her to gnaw her sore little gums on, as that very same tooth came in. And even though Chris and I both got emotional right there by the salad bar, I couldn't help but feel the joy my little girl was experiencing.

Powerful.

Her face was absolutely beaming. And I had one thought "This is it. This is what it's all about".

I sat across from her at the table, watching the sheer joy spread across her face, and I felt such gratitude that I have this confident happy little girl in my life. I caught a glimpse of her years from now in her wedding dress beaming at me just like that as I put on her veil. And I thought 'It will be that same look'. That excitement - that thrill of embarking upon the unknown. Of entering a new era. That's how she's supposed to feel.

And I realized I will cry then too. Because that's what I'm supposed to feel. I will cry at every stage of her growth. I will cry with nostalgia. I will cry with some regret. But, mostly there will be The Joy.

And right there at Souplantation I had an epiphany - surprise! This is not about me! None of this - starting kindergarten, losing teeth - it's not about me! It's all about Savannah. And the greatest gift I can give both of us is to let her joy replace my sadness.

More than just her tooth is loose. Our little bubble I've created is loosening. My little girl is bursting to get out into adolescence. I sense the pace quickening and I am excited for her. I truly truly am.

Now, tell me. Am I supposed to keep all of the teeth? Because that seems sort of gross.

T Minus Five Months

I am overwhelmed.

I have less than five months left with my daughter before she starts full-day kindergarten. In five short months she'll be away from me every day for six hours. It will be like she has a part-time job. It's making my heart hurt and it' s making it hard to write about anything else.

I know what is at the root of this: guilt and fear.

Guilt because an era is ending and I'm forced to look at my progress report as a parent. Over the last five years, how many times have I shooed her away? How many days have I spent hours at a time on the computer? How many opportunities to play and bond with her have I missed out on?

Tears are actually hitting the keyboard as I type this. I'm truly overwhelmed with sadness.

I feel that I have five short months to undo five years of guilt. Five months that I want to be filled with joy and growth and confidence. Five months that I want - that I need - to feel like I have done my absolute best to prepare her to walk into that classroom with her head held high and feel that she is the most loved child there.

I've been reassured that this will be an exciting time for Savannah and I really am trying to see this through her eyes. I'm really trying very hard not to focus on what my sadness will be like on that day.

That day that I let go of her hand and she walks away from me and into society. The day that baby who used to curl herself against me and growl as I nursed her in the night will walk through that doorway with her backpack and her new pencil set with her name on it. And her world will change.

My world will change.

The day I take my beating heart out of my chest and lay it out for the world to treat as they choose.

And the fear? Well, that's an easy one. With all my "one more minute"s and "Mommy needs to finish  this"s and "go play"s over the last few years I fully realize that I will be sitting here at this desk very soon every day without a child to look after.

I will have all the time in the world to write. To talk on the phone. To work. To read a book.

And all I will want to do is press that nursing baby against me.

And my infertility will slice like a knife through me. At that moment. That moment when I realize I rushed it all along and for what?

To be alone.

And my heart will break.

So, excuse me if I'm not myself. I owe it to my daughter to change.

Bringing Texty Back

Awhile ago, I did this and it was so fantastic because I ended up finding some of my favorite books through your recommendations. Lately, I've been feeling dissatisfied with almost every book I've picked up. Maybe it's because I'm used to the varied content I get reading blogs all day. Or maybe it's because there were too many big words and not enough pictures. Whatever the reason, I'm tired of tossing half-finished books aside. I need some good ol' fashioned suggestion-ing (see, I use big words too).

What great book did you just finish? Tell me tell me tell me.

Bonus: You should never pay full price for a book again. I buy all my books from BAMM. Merry March-ness! From me to you.

P.S. Totally appropos to nothing, have you ever wondered whether people really ever throw parties and NO ONE shows up? Wonder no more.