Denial

My baby girl is going to start preschool in September. In some ways September seems eons away but as time has a habit of doing, it slides by faster than my brain can process the changes. Honestly, didn't I just find out I was pregnant with my third child?

D is my always baby. My last child. She's going to hate that label someday I suppose...until she has her always baby and then she'll understand.

One of my friends has 5 children and commented a few weeks ago about preschool for her fourth child who is 7 months older than D. I was taken completely off guard. There was no way these kids were old enough for preschool next year...but they are. Sigh.

Seeing your kids grow up is bittersweet. I miss the babies and toddlers they once were but love to see the kids they grow into. I suppose this is why I take so many photos. Thank goodness that the digital camera came along when I was pregnant with my first baby because I would definitely be broke by now if I had to buy film and pay processing fees to get all these photos of my kids!

Photographs from the past

I've made a habit in my homes of hanging photographs of family and friends in arrangements on the walls. I've had many different homes in my adulthood, since my daughter was born. Nine, to be exact. So I've had plenty of experience pulling the pictures out and rearranging them in a new space. And my family has changed dramatically over those years. I've been married and divorced and remarried. I've had to subtly change the composition of portraits to reflect this. Like every adult, I've also had to accommodate new nieces and nephews and, in the last year, a new baby in our nuclear family. Suffice it to say, I've pulled out the photographs and the frames and mattes more times than I choose to share, tried to thoughtfully and tastefully put together a collection, and selected locations in the house to hang them together.

The truth is, the last few years have been rough waters for establishing a household. When we got married almost five years ago, my husband and I lived in two different homes in two different states. In the midst of this arrangement, when we finally got it together to have most of our stuff together in his apartment and call that our permanent address, I was commuting over 500 miles to work for a year. During this time, a few, carefully selected photographs, ones of us and my daughter, got put on the wall for a couple years. But the rest of our family pictures got stored in boxes in the basement of his apartment. We moved into our current home 18 months ago, but within a month of moving, we discovered I was pregnant. High risk pregnancy, me working fulltime, finally taking medical leave, and a teenager in her first year of high school...it all led to a stalling of the settling into our new home.

At the end of July, we lost my father-in-law. Three weeks later, our daughter was born. All the while, we were taking photographs of family.

Recently, photographs have come back into my life. I don't mean digital images that I scroll through on my computer screen. I mean real, honest-to-goodness photographs. The kind you hold in your hands. The kind you find in your desk drawer years after you forgot it was even taken. The kind you write on the back of, so you make sure that years after you forgot it was even taken, you remember the whos, whats, whens, wheres, and whys. The kind you carefully frame and place in a coveted spot, so you feel good every time you see it. You get the idea. It clearly had been a void in my life of late and I was craving a physical connection with our loved ones near and far.

It started by getting ready for my daughter's 16th birthday. Her birthday was two months ago, in February. So in December, I decided I would put together a slideshow for her and show it at the party. Since I didn't own a digital camera until she was nine, I found myself on the bedroom floor with photo boxes and albums and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of photographs lying in piles all around. I sorted and organized, and pared down my selections. Finally, after a couple days, I set to scanning all the photographs. 500 in all. When the whole project was done and we showed the collection at her party, I cried through the whole show.

Of course, sorting through the old photos looking for good ones of my oldest daughter didn't stop there. I found photographs from high school and family vacations (both from childhood and from adulthood), snapshots taken while on school field trips and over camping trips with the church youth group, bachelorette parties and wedding parties and tea parties and on and on and on. A photograph of my grandfather's orange trees that he sent to me while I was in middle school. A few of my best friend who moved away, the ones she mailed to me to show me her new hair cut. One a boyfriend took of me on a hiking trip; the expression on my face says it all.

I'll admit, it's a bit overwhelming. That saying, "a picture is worth a thousand words," I've come to have a new appreciation for that. Being confronted with a visual record of the past bombards my memories with the reality of those moments. Our memories can be flawed and sentimental. Photographs tend to shed light on those flaws and bring back to life the actual moments you'd rather forget. In the midst of this, I added the following phrase to my facebook page: "Walking down memory lane and getting in touch with your past is really not all that rewarding as people may think. Live for today, I say." It was a way to remind myself that these memories, this past, it makes me who I am today. It makes our family something unique. Really, the only thing I can take away from the past is a reminder to live every moment in the here and now, because that's all that matters.

So this week I'm off to the craft store to find frames for the last remaining photographs of our family. I'll frame them and place them on the wall in another arrangement, just in time to share with friends when they visit for an afternoon party this Thursday. I'm sure my husband and I will spend some time talking during the party, explaining, "this is my sister-in-law Ana" and "this is a childhood picture of my grandfather" and "this was taken the day my husband moved to the United States." Through it all, I have to keep in mind that this moment, the one in which I am breathing air circling around me, this is the one that matters most.

Expectations: What To Expect...

Way back in the summer of 1993, I found out I was pregnant for the first time, with my oldest daughter. I was 21-years-old and knew nothing about pregnancy or infancy. My oldest sister mailed me her copy of What To Expect When You're Expecting. I was grateful. I read that book cover to cover, letting each word of wisdom, advice, and counseling sink deep into my bones.

One look at the cover told me it was time to grow up.


The woman on that cover says it all. Matronly, solemn, practical, pragmatic. She has no use for fashion or the stresses of the world or a good haircut. All she needs is her blue and mauve artificial flower arrangement, a pair of good, solid, gray flats and a wooden rocking chair in which to sit while she reads.

I could have recoiled and rebelled, refusing to take on the image. I was a typical college student of the 90s, experimenting with my identity through the newly formed grunge movement. Out was tailored and refined and melodic; in was bohemia and retro and cachophony. But this was no time to be watching reruns of the first season of The Real World. I was expecting a baby, and mothers were expected to be, well, mothers.

By the time I reach my last trimester and I was celebrating Christmas with my family in Florida, I was realizing my use for this book was quickly fading. Within six weeks I would no longer be expecting, but I would have an actual baby. My sister was quick on her feet again and gifted me with a copy of What To Expect The First Year.


Grateful for the new primer, I began reading it cover to cover, following the guidelines of how to diaper my new baby, how to dress her, how to bathe her, how to feed her, and on and on and on.

And so my education in parenting continued throughout my daughter's formative years. It wasn't until she was a preschooler that I needed to rely upon information outside of the What To Expect series. At that point, I stored away the books and saved them for the time when I became a parent again.

Fifteen years passed before I successfully carried a pregnancy beyond the first trimester again. I didn't even bother getting out Expecting. Mine was a high risk pregnancy from the get-go, and every question I had (if it was addressed in the book at all) was answered curtly with 'you should check with your doctor.' Somewhere around month 5 of my pregnancy, I realized I should get out The First Year and at least make sure I remembered how to swaddle a baby.

As I reread the book, I found myself in shock. What was this tome of archaic, authoritative, one-sided narrative? Where was the balance? Sure, I knew a lot had changed in 15 years in childbirth and hospital protocol, but the content that was shocking to me went far beyond whether to allow hospital staff to give your baby sugar water. It was the topic of where baby should sleep that startled me.

My husband and I had decided baby should sleep with us in our bedroom. The First Year couldn't have been more against this idea. Sure, it's fine at first when you have a newborn, but later, you better get that kid out of the room. True to What To Expect fashion, the book lists out a "number of serious problems" associated with co-sleeping. Less sleep for parents, less sleep for baby, less lovemaking, and more problems for everyone when the baby has to adjust later. The short solution given was this: get the baby out of your room quickly.

Really? Serious problems? And there's no way to avoid these problems? That's it? No discussion necessary, case closed, end of story?

The book goes on addressing the issue by saying that co-sleeping seems to work fine in other societies, but not this one. "In a society like ours, which stresses the development of independence and the important of privacy, co-sleeping is associated with a wide range of problems." Again with the laundry list: increased likelihood of sleep disorders, dental problems due to too-frequent and unnecessary nighttime feedings, stunting of emotional development, difficulty relating to peers, marital problems, and even behavior issues stemming from lack of boundaries between parents and children.

Is there no room for fostering intimacy between parents and children? Bonding as a couple with the baby? Extending the intimacy that brought the child there in the first place to include intimacy with the actual child? And what's up with valuing independence and privacy as the traits of utmost importance? I mean, sure, you want kids to be confident and individuals, but isn't a sense of family oneness important too?

By the chapter on month six, the book suggests that to reduce nighttime feedings, you go cold turkey and just let the baby cry it out. Oh my. I just couldn't agree with that.

As a parent, I have oftentimes lamented at why I chose to do things the way I did with my older daughter. Why didn't I consider cuddling more with her, why did I push her to achieve and succeed and be independent so much, why did I think that strict obedience was so important at such an early age? Rereading What To Expect The First Year made me realize that some portion of my approach came from following the advice that was given as gospel truth. It never occurred to me that there wasn't only one best way to parent. How you build a family differs with who you are and what you want your family to be like. What works for one family won't work for you. The decisions you make as a parent are an outgrowth of your personality, your partner's, and, to some extent, your children's.

I haven't taken the time to read the updated version of Expecting and The First Year. Maybe the content has changed with the times and is more balanced now. At least the cover art is a little more realistic. (But they still hold on to that quilted background, like quilting is a necessary part of the transformation of woman to mother.)



Regardless of what the authors of What To Expect have decided their advice will be at this point, I think I've learned a more important lesson through my years as a parent. Take every piece of information with a grain of salt.

Pizza and a Movie

A long time ago, more than a decade ago, one of my dearest friends introduced me to Friday Night Pizza and a Movie Night. She had three children at the time, 5 years, 2 years and newborn. Every Friday night their whole family would watch a movie together and enjoy homemade pizza. It was always a kids movie that the children would enjoy. We found out about it because my daughter and I came by one Friday night to visit. My friend welcomed us in, gave my daughter a piece of pizza and a spot on the floor, and pulled me into the kitchen to visit while the children were happily occupied. At the time I thought, I wish our family could have something like this.

Since then, I've divorced my oldest daughter's father, been a single parent, remarried and had a second daughter. It was a few months ago, when I was in my last trimester of pregnancy, that I suggested to my husband we give the idea of Friday Night Pizza and a Movie Night a try in our family. I was on medical leave because my pregnancy had become very stressful to my body. My husband had just returned from South America after losing his father to a sudden death. My teenage daughter had been away for a month with her father and hadn't been home much at all. We were all a bit fatigued, drained, and generally in need of downtime to reconnect. We desperately needed to have some quiet family time.

We started with some movies we had around the house on DVD or recorded on DVR. Freaky Friday (the remake with Lindsey Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis), Men In Black and Beetlejuice. We loved it. It was great to get to laugh together.

The baby was born, the school year started for both my daughter and my husband. Things felt hectic again. So we continued to set aside Friday night for pizza and a movie.

We starting going for some serious films. Lean On Me with Morgan Freeman. I love the opening sequence, seeing the pristine school of the 1960s fade into the inner city graffitied school of 1987. To this day I think the use of the song "Welcome to the Jungle" in that scene is one of the best uses of a musical piece in film. While watching the violence and chaos ensuing at Eastside High in 1987, backed by Axl Rose screaming to cacophonic metal rock, my daughter couldn't take her eyes off the screen. After about half a minute, she said, 'OK, that is SO unrealistic. That would never happen in a high school." It was then that I realized that even though she had spent her entire educational career in Washington, DC and close to Detroit, she had no idea about the reality of inner city schools and neighborhoods.

My husband picked out Rabbit-Proof Fence. It's a 2002 film directed by Phillip Noyce (of Dead Calm and The Saint) depicting the true story of three girls journeying across the Australian Outback back to their home and their mother. The girls are journeying back because they have been forcibly removed by the government, a government who believes that mixed race people, half-aborigine half-white in this case, are members of an unwanted race, nature gone wrong. Such children were removed from their families and trained to be domestic servants -- until 1970. The movie is a bit too subtle for young children and maybe too complex of a topic for them to understand. But for my teenage daughter, it was perfect.

The next movie night was Baby Mama. The following week was my pick, a classic that I adore, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. For both of these flicks, we all laughed out loud through the comedy and antics of the SNL alums.

Aside from the selection of movie itself, our family has benefited so much since starting Friday Night Pizza and a Movie Night. Having a fixed time in the week set aside for family gives us a place to reconnect. Even more important, it's much better than a night out for so many reasons.

• It has a minimal cost, just the price of renting a movie, about $10 tops for a couple frozen pizzas ($15 is we order out, pick it up and use a coupon), and a few more bucks for the sodas bought in bulk and a salad made from scratch. I guess that the top price tag for the whole evening has never been more than $30 and sometimes that includes milkshakes and dessert.
• The night can go on into bedtime without the crankiness of still being out. If someone gets sleepy, they can just snuggle up on the couch with a warm afghan. The worst thing that happens is they doze off and watch the rest of the movie later in the weekend.
• Above all, the best advantage to being at home rather than being out is that we don't have the distraction of being in a crowd, having to interact with strangers, and interacting with the rest of the world. We get enough of all that during the week. By staying at home we get to focus on each other and enjoy each other's company.

For the time being, the planning involved is minimal. We order a pizza for take out or throw a few frozen ones in the microwave. The choice of movie just needs to entertain two adults and a teenager and not have a soundtrack that would upset an infant. As time passes, it may take a little more planning and tolerance. When the infant gets older, we'll have to change the movie selections to ones that are age appropriate for toddlers and preschoolers. Pizza will need to be cut up in small bite-size pieces and accompanied by carrots or some other nutritious side suitable for smaller kids. Eventually, I hope Friday Night Pizza and a Movie Night will become such a fixture in our family life that when friends stop by unexpectedly, we can easily fit them right into our festivities. Fix up a plate of pizza for each child and find a spot on the floor for them while we adults enjoy the end of another week in relaxed conversation.

April showers bring...cloudy skies, really.

I've started and stopped during the composition of this post more times than I can count. If this were my own blog, I would have given up by now and just gone without posting. (Readers of my personal blog will note that there's been a relative paucity in my posting of the last week.) The issue? I'm getting pulled down. I feel like things aren't quite right. And I don't like to post about things like that. What I like is the moment when I realize the clouds are parting and I can see that despite all the apparent trials, things are actually looking up. Speaking of which...

The clouds and the rain. The snow storm over Palm Sunday weekend didn't get me down so much since I figured there would be a break by Easter Sunday. I mean, I believed it couldn't possibly be as bad as last year's Good Friday blizzard. I've got a friend on facebook who lives in the Atlanta area complaining mercilessly about how the cold temperatures are getting him down. Give me a break. But the clouds and rain and cold today? Forecasts of severe rainstorms throughout much of the midwest? I was just starting to believe that we'd seen the last of horrid winter weather and could look forward with a new-found sunny disposition, and then April showers come in and destroy that tiny shimmer of hope.

But I think the weather is just symbolic of other things. For awhile I've been feeling like even though it seems I've just passed something horrid, something glum like a rain storm is always around the corner. I've been feeling uncertain about the future, and unclear about how I fit in. I'm pregnant with my second child now, but the downtime between the first and second has been lengthy -- 15 years. I find myself unsure what crowd I should run with. The moms of teens want to move from parenthood, they're looking forward to life without the constant responsibility of kids. Clearly I'm not relating to that pack. But I'm even less like the new parents, the ones who haven't traversed forward in the journey past even the second trimester ultrasound image. And then there's a nagging question in the back of my mind about how you're supposed to build an integrated family under the circumstances. I keep reading advice columns in magazines and online pregnancy and parenting sites about preparing the firstborn for the birth of a new baby. Pardon me for stating the bleeding obvious, but I don't think my 15-year-old daughter will react to the addition in our family by regressing and wanting a bottle or sleeping in bed with her parents again. Still, I'm sure there's some reaction she'll have and I would just like to have some idea of what I'm supposed to be doing as her mother in this circumstance.

What I find myself realizing is that my feelings are not so much about this particular situation, as it is the feeling of not fitting in. The feeling that my situation is unique and I'm all alone. The feeling of not quite finding my place and feeling comfortable. When I moved from the south to Michigan 10 years ago, I figured the change would be refreshing and finally feel like home. Everything in the midwest seemed familiar. My mother spent in childhood in Ohio before moving with her family to the Florida panhandle. And despite Florida being the stage for my parents meeting, marrying, starting a family, and settling for the long run, both of my sisters migrated back to the midwest for college and afterward. With one sister in Southbend and the other Chicago, southeast Michigan seemed like a perfect place to go and settle down. But when the allure of the new place rubbed off, I realized that there was a lot I was having a difficult time adjusting to. For instance, I was a cultural southerner trying to figure out why others found me shallow or insincere (read: people misread my initial generous friendliness and hospitality to be naive openess or genuine vulnerability). That glitch eventually resolved itself, as well as others, and eventually I came to find Michigan was more like home than any other place. Still, I think the point remains, it never feels good to feel like you're out of place or frequently misunderstood.

Do you ever feel like your situation is unique? Like it would be good to hear from just one other family that was like yours? That's how I feel right now. I want to hear the advice of another parent who can relate to our current situation and say, "No worries, I've been there, here's some tips." Maybe it's a problem your child is having physically or with schoolwork. Or maybe it's something more debilitating to you personally, like financial troubles. Or other family woes, or whatever. What do you do as a parent when you are seeking advice and it seems that no one around you could relate to your situation?

If only Calgon moments really could solve everything...