Birthing Beautiful Ideas

I took the kids (M – four years old and A – twenty months old) to their first wake yesterday.

The viewing was held in honor of my Great-Aunt Gin (Virginia), who died last Monday at the enviable age of eighty-seven.  And I think that the experience was a tremendously valuable one for the boys.

Admittedly, I had some initial reservations about taking them to the viewing (and to the funeral, which we ended up missing anyway after the boys came down with colds).  I was worried that some of their age-appropriate behavior (and liveliness) would be inappropriate for a place of mourning.  I was worried that that they would be bored and/or overwhelmed and/or scared.  I was worried that one of M’s great questions about death and dying would unintentionally offend someone nearby.  (Case in point: In the middle of the viewing, he very audibly asked me “why we were saying ‘goodbye’ to Aunt Gin when she was dead and couldn’t hear us anyway.”  Ah, the endearingly blunt questions of a preschooler.)

But all of my worries were minor and fleeting compared with my desire to allow M and A to live in their world and to be a part of that world and its life and death rituals.

I don’t want to obscure birth, life, death, and tragedy for them.

And that’s why Tim and I do our best to answer their questions honestly and age-appropriately, and we’re careful to let on when we just don’t know the answers to some of their questions.  We think they’ll be better for it, even if (or because) they’ll spend their childhood knowing that people, pets, and flowers die, that earthquakes and floods and wars happen, that mommies and daddies and their babies won’t be together forever on this planet.

One of the questions that M recently (and heart-piercingly) asked me was what would happen if he died and he got lost and couldn’t find me.

If he died.  If he got lost.  If he couldn’t find me.

Thoughts I try not to think about, thoughts I try every day with every fiber of my being never to allow to be a reality.

I answered him with hesitation and with uncertainty and with a response that was more a hope than a firm and unwavering belief.

I told him that we’d all be able to find each other if one of us died.

I didn’t elaborate, didn’t explain whether I thought we’d be souls or spirits or angels or organic material melding back into the earth where our loved ones roamed and lived and, some day, died.

He didn’t need or want those explanations.  He just wanted to feel secure, to know that death didn’t mean “getting lost” from his family and the ones he loves.  And me?  As his mother, I couldn’t and cannot bear to think otherwise.

And I thought of M’s question at Aunt Gin’s wake.

As I toted him and his brother around the funeral home, weaving in and out of the cousins and aunts and uncles and distant relatives, through generations borne of the woman lying in the casket in front of us, I also thought a lot about Aunt Gin’s mother–my great-grandmother.

I thought about this woman whom I had never met yet, who had died years before I was born.

I thought about all of the people in the room who would not even have existed if it weren’t for her and the children she birthed.

I thought about how she had given birth to all eight of her children (Aunt Gin and my own grandfather included) at home.

I thought about how she said goodbye to four of those children before she died: Betty Lou, who died of a mysterious ailment when she was a toddler; Rita Mae, who died after eating poison berries when she was four; Bobby, who was killed in the Korean War when he was nineteen; and Jimmy, who died in a boating accident in his forties.

I wondered how her heart could possibly bear so much loss.

I wondered what she wondered about the babies she lost (and they were all her babies, whether they were four or forty when they died).  Where they were.  If they were.  If they could find her.  If she could find them again.

And I thought that if I could fashion my own version of the afterlife, I’d want to make certain that death for my great-grandmother meant finding all those lost babies again.  That my Aunt Gin’s death, and that her sister Joanne’s death before her, reunited them with their mother, and with those others lost before them.

That they’d find each other, wherever they were.

That we’d all find each other again, and that none of us would ever get lost.

Some days, the kids really kick my ass.

I mean sledge-hammers over the head, sucker-punches to the gut, I-will-melt your-brain-into-Gruyere-and-neuron-fondue ass-kicking.

All you parents out there have those days, right?

Right.

Today’s ass-kicking was a byproduct of teething (the work of the devil, I tell you) and potty-training (the work of a choir of SAINTS).

Mixing those two is kind of like mixing bleach and ammonia.  EXCEPT THEY’RE MORE TOXIC!!!

Seriously dudes and dudettes, I think I actually ended up sporting a Jack-Nicholson-from-The-Shining-esque grin on my face today after trying for two fa-reakin’ hours to get my two overtired kids down for two too-much needed naps.

Whining reached all-time highs, meltdowns reached all-time emotional lows, and ways of expressing frustration or sadness or exhaustion reached exasperating levels of weirdness.

(Yeah, if I haven’t mentioned it before, A likes to LICK things–like carpet, walls, toys, etc.–when he is upset.  It’s bizarre.)

And I was all like, “WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO OPEN UP MY SKULL SO THAT YOU CAN DIP SOURDOUGH IN MY BRAIN-MELT, MY LOVELIES?”

So by 5:45 p.m., when the proverbial fondue was bubbling out of my eyeballs, I started crying.  I just sat down on the couch and sobbed, and when M (four-years-old) asked me what was wrong, I just said that “sometimes it’s really, really hard to be a mommy.”

And both kids lumbered up on the couch next to me, M covering my legs with a blanket, A wiping away my tears, and I was all like, “SERIOUSLY?!  All I had to do was bring out the WATERWORKS to get you kids to calm down?!”

(Don’t worry, I didn’t diminish the moment by saying those words out loud.  I kept ‘em deep inside the mushy, squishy contents of my skull.)

This past weekend, Tim and I finally had the opportunity to watch Away We Go.

(Yes, I realize that the cobwebs have already begun collecting on the movie and its many reviews.  It’s just that babysitters and movies–and yes, I’ll admit, vats of popcorn loaded with liquid-that-sorta-resembles-butter–are really damn expensive.  Or at least they’re more expensive than Netflix and a bowl of Orville Redenbacher after the kids have gone to bed.  So anything that I have to say about a movie has to be dated at least a couple of months.)

Anyway.

While I thought that the film was cute–a few moving and/or hysterical moments here, a scattered script there, and all sorts of questions about how the hell two ostensibly poor and expectant parents could afford a cross-country trip to find the perfect place to raise their children–I was more than disturbed by the pot shots the film seemed to take at extended breastfeeding, baby-wearing, co-sleeping, doulas, midwives, and even SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR!

(If you didn’t already know, I’m a pro-breastfeeding, babywearing doula who’s writing her dissertation on Simone de Beauvoir’s ethics.  Talk about uncanny!)

Don’t get me wrong–I know that the screenwriters and Sam Mendes (the film’s director) were attempting to satirize a specific (and stereotyped) version of motherhood and parenting through Maggie Gyllenhaal’s character.  And it is quite likely that there are  real parents who, like MG’s character, shame others for their reasonable parenting decisions (like pushing their children in strollers), who elevate co-sleeping and baby-wearing to the point of bizarro fetishes, and who maintain an oblivious-to-privilege, holier-than-thou stance about all of their own parenting choices.  (Did I get that right, people-who-have-seen-the-movie?)

But what the film seemed to do was place all of the MG character’s practices (i.e. extended breastfeeding, baby-wearing, doula-hiring, etc.) all within the provenance of THE CRAZIES* and their CRAZY birthing, child-rearing, and philosophical ideas.  (*Yep, I realize that’s an ableist term, but I think that’s exactly the sort of term that Vendela Vida and Dave Eggers must have had in mind when they wrote MG’s character.)

What’s more, it seemed that this character’s CRAZIEST decision was that she refused to push her children in a stroller.  SHE WORE THEM IN A WRAP OR SLING INSTEAD!!!

(Okay, I’ll admit.  It was pretty silly and weird that she wouldn’t even allow a stroller into her house.)

Even though MG’s performance was even downright hilarious (as was the moment where John Krasinski’s character put one of her kids in a stroller and pushed him around the dining room, much to the kid’s enjoyment), I wish that the film had portrayed her decision to “baby-wear” (among other things) as not so…well, crazy.

BECAUSE BABY-WEARING A REALLY PRACTICAL THING TO DO.

And you don’t have to make the decision to do so because of a new-agey philosophy about parenting and the bond between children and their caregivers.

You don’t have to fit any particular type (or stereotype) of parenthood to enjoy a sling or a wrap.

I would even go so far as to say that you shouldn’t make the decision to use a sling or a wrap because you like to exoticize other cultures who use slings and/or wraps.

(And I think it should be clear to everyone that the choice to “baby-wear” does not rule out the choice to also use a stroller.  HA!)

But there are some practical reasons for using slings and wraps–reasons that have nothing to do with “NOT WANTING TO PUSH YOUR CHILDREN AWAY FROM YOU” and nothing to do with embodying the utter silliness of the character in Away We Go.

BABY-WEARING IS ALSO FOR:

NEW PARENTS WHO LIKE TO EAT AT A TABLE–PERHAPS EVEN WITH THE REST OF THEIR FAMILY!

• Baby-wearing can make family dinners at the dinner-table possible during those first few trying newborn weeks.  In my experience, those squirmy, squishy bundles of joy do not like to be anywhere but someone’s arms for very long stretches of time.  Snuggle a newborn up in a sling, and you can have a semi-hands-free (and possibly no-crying-baby) dinner.

NEW PARENTS WHO LIKE TO DO THINGS SUCH AS WALKING AROUND THE HOUSE AND GETTING A SNACK WITHOUT WORRYING THAT A BABY IS ABOUT TO SCREAM BLOODY MURDER AND WITHOUT HOLDING SAID BABY IN ONE ARM WHILE THEY TRY VALIANTLY YET AWKWARDLY TO MAKE A SANDWICH

• A’s sling is what made caring for a newborn and a toddler possible for me during those first few weeks after he was born. My particular toddler (M) wanted a snack or a hug or a diaper change or a book read to him just about every thirteen seconds.  And I (a mom breastfeeding a newborn) wanted something to eat or drink just about every fourteen seconds.  And A (my newborn) liked to be snuggled every second.  Carrying him in a sling made him content (and even sleepy), and it gave me the mobility to walk around the house and perform nearly 90% of the tasks that I was used to performing.  You know.  Tasks like eating.  Getting things down off of shelves.  Handing my other kid a snack.  Even sending emails.  All without worrying about putting the baby down and risking unleashing a banshee upon the house.

A (two months old) enjoys berry-picking from the comfort of his sling.

MOMS WHO WANT TO BREASTFEED “HANDS-FREE”

• I’ll be the first to admit that I never developed the coordination or the sling-savviness to nurse my baby while walking around with him in a sling.  Maybe I had the wrong sling or wrap.  Maybe my kids just preferred other nursing positions.  Or maybe I’m just really, really uncoordinated.  But lots of other mothers have great success with nursing-while-baby-wearing.  Check out their demonstrations and their tips for breastfeeding and baby-wearing.

PARENTS WHO WOULD LIKE TO GO TO PUBLIC PLACES (ESPECIALLY TWO+ STORY BUILDINGS) WITHOUT HAVING TO WORRY ABOUT WHERE THE NEAREST ELEVATOR IS SO THAT THEY CAN HAUL THEIR STROLLER UP ONE OR TWO OR TEN MORE FLOORS

• This was a big issue for me because M (my older child) has a really intense fear of elevators.  So when we’d go to the university or to a museum or even to a mall, we generally tried to take the stairs or an escalator.  This was not possible with a stroller.  (And yes, I found it super-annoying to have to go to that creepy place in the back of JC Penney’s to ride the rickety elevator just so that I could get the stroller I was pushing up one level in the mall.  Yep, I’m a spoiled brat, and no, I was never under the impression that malls were the most accessibility-friendly places on the planet.)  In any case, wearing A in a sling or wrap or even front-pack carrier helped me to navigate public places with so much more ease than if I were pushing him in a stroller.  And that’s because baby-wearing is escalator and stairway friendly.  Hell, it’s even HIKING friendly!  In fact, when A was just 11 months old (and M was 3 1/2), we took the kids on a one-and-a-half mile hike through Glen Helen in Yellow Springs, OH.  Obviously, with an almost-toddler who wasn’t even taking his first steps yet, this would have been nearly impossible without a sling.  And besides being a practical way to hike with a small child, the toddler-toting part of the hike was quite fun.

"Slingin' it" on a 1.5 mile hike

So at the very least, even if you and your family decide that slings or wraps are “not for you,” please know that they aren’t just for self-righteous, pretentious parental caricatures.  They’re for practical parents “too”!

(Oh!  There are also reported psychological and health benefits to sling- and wrap-use–even MORE of a practical impetus to try out baby-wearing!)

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

Tips on choosing and using a baby-wearing product:

The sling pictured above is an adjustable fleece pouch-sling from Kangaroo Korner.  We had borrowed friends’ ring slings in the past, and we also had tried out a Baby Bjorn, but we found the most “baby-wearing success” in our family with the pouch sling.  (Kangaroo Korner has great resource for comparing different types of baby-wearing products based on a child’s age, the parents’ sizes, the climate they live in, etc.)

Admittedly, slings and wraps can be expensive, and most families (like ours) cannot afford to buy lots of different types of slings just to “try them out” and “see if they will work.”

Borrowing slings or wraps from friends can be a great (and inexpensive) way to test out baby-wearing products and find which one(s) work best for your family.  Many people (who are way craftier than I am) also sew their own slings, which is far less expensive than purchasing one.  There are quite a few online resources (such as this one) which offer instructions for creating your own sling or wrap.

Finally, please make sure to read and follow the manufacturer’s instructions before using any baby-wearing product.

Once upon a time, there was a little kid who would eat most anything put on his plate.  Anything.

Black bean chili?  Curried chickpeas and tomatoes?  Berry medley?  Couscous with steamed carrots, broccoli, and spinach?

Bring it, baby, this kid liked good food.

Once upon a time, this kid also had a mother who had the really stupid idea that kids were only picky because their parents didn’t offer them enough of a variety of foods.

Ha.

Haaaaa haa.

Yeah, she was a first-time parent with all sorts of first-time-parent lofty (and misguided) ideas, so cut her some slack.

(I’ll stop talking about my hypothetical, third-person self…now.)

I don’t know where it all started, but somewhere along the line, M (who is now four years old) gave up on veggies.  Just…gave up.  Refused to eat them.  Refused to allow a single one of them (with the exception of plain steamed broccoli) to even grace his plate.  Thought they were the devil.  That they tasted like dog poo.  And all that anti-veggie jazz.

Without turning mealtime into an all-and-out battle (’cause I don’t happen to think that’s a healthy way to prepare a person for a lifetime of eating), Tim and I did try the occasional “bribe.”  (Here, kiddie, kiddie, here’s a cookie for just three bites of that spinach!)

We tried “reasoning.”  (Yes.  We tried reasoning with the kid who can fire back with this.)

We even tried pureeing roasted yellow peppers and/or carrots and “hiding” them in the melted cheese of his quesadillas and grilled cheese.  (Funny thing, those veggies.  Kids can actually taste them.)

(As an aside, I should mention that M’s diet still includes some healthy foods.  The kid can eat his weight in channa masala, black beans and rice, and blueberries.  And while he enjoys the occasional chicken nugget, he’s not going to “turn into one,” as the saying goes.  But I have this strange fascination with making sure that my kids get their veggies, even if they get lots of vitamins and minerals through their daily multivitamin.  I dunno, perhaps I’m weird that way.)

In any case, when bribery, reasoning, and hiding didn’t work, I resorted to the bottom of the barrel: trickery.

One morning, I peeled a sweet potato, sliced it into 1/4 inch circular slices, set them out on a cookie tray coated with cooking spray, drizzled some olive oil over them, sprinkled some brown sugar on the tops, and baked them for 15-25 minutes at 400F.

And that was the morning that M thought he had died and gone to heaven when he got to eat a dozen cookies for breakfast.

And I laughed all the way to the vitamin A bank.

Sometimes we even put sprinkles on top of the "cookies!"

A few days ago, M asked me what the word ‘damage’ meant.

Now, M’s an inquisitive four-year-old who loves books and who wants to know the meanings of the words in those books, so I thought nothing of his request.  I offered up some synonyms (like ‘harm’ and ‘hurt’) and gave a few examples (like that awning at the Easton Town Center doing damage to our car) and then sent him off with a new member of his vocabulary.

And then I heard him use the word.

It was after A (nineteen months) had knocked down one of M’s recent  block creations.  And upon seeing his blocks crumble to bits, M exclaimed, ”Oh, DAMAGE, A!  My tower!”

Yep.  The exact same intonation that I use when I say the word “damnit.”

It certainly wasn’t one of my proudest parenting moments.  Obviously, I had said a big bad word in front of my kid (perhaps on numerous occasions), and he was now repeating it (or at least he was repeating what he thought I had said).

But I also don’t think it was a moment of absolute parenting failure either.  I mean, M and I still had a talk about how grown-ups sometimes say “angry words” when they are upset, and these words aren’t always nice words, so we grown-ups should be more careful about using “angry words” and should try to use other words instead when we’re upset, words like ‘thunderbugs’, which up until the DAMAGE was done had been M’s favorite exclamatory word.

Was that all clear?

In any case, I do believe that this was only a minor transgression on my part, and no transgression at all on M’s part.  We’ll live and learn, and Mommy will try harder not to mutter “damnit” under her breath when her toddler dumps his lunch off of the high chair for the gazillionth time, and M will resort back to saying “thunderbugs” when the world throws him a curveball.

But so often, I find that people think that parents have REALLY FUC…I mean REALLY MESSED UP when their kids say bad words.  As if these words represent the worst possible smelling shi…I mean poop that has ever spewed from a person’s mouth.

I think back to when I was a kid, and it always seemed that BAD WORDS would get you in REALLY BIG trouble.  Like, they were the WORST words.  The absolute WORST.

Let one of those words slide on the playground, and you got to go and “stand on the wall” (which back in elementary school meant standing next to the school building and facing the bricks for half-and-hour, not that I would know anything about that).

Let ‘em slide at home, and you got sent straight to your room.

Let ‘em slide in the classroom, and you got sent to the principal’s office.

Parents would be notified (and perhaps judged), punishments would be meted out, and stern voices would be raised.

There always seems to have been such moral outrage over those instances where kids (unwittingly) repeat the bad words the adults in their lives may have said, even when these words get uttered in pretty benign (i.e. no name-calling, no ill will, etc.) circumstances.  BECAUSE THEY ARE THE WORST WORDS.

Except they aren’t.

I don’t believe I’m alone in thinking that the REAL WORST WORDS that kids can use–that anyone can use–are the mean words: the taunting and teasing and bullying words, the words that spew forth shitstorms of cruelty to other people. 

And I don’t want my kids to be mistaken about this.

I don’t want them to use “bad words,” but I also want them to see my fiercest word-related moral outrage appear over mean words–not curse words.

Because making fun of the way another kid throws a ball?

Calling another person “fat” or “stupid” or “smelly”?

Resorting to name-calling or general mean-words when things don’t go their way?

Damnit, that’s where the real damage is done.

On my 29th birthday, I posted a list of 29(+) accomplishments I hoped to tackle before turning thirty.

Within hours of creating that post, I was able to cross one of those accomplishments off of my list.

I took the kids on more sled rides than I did last year.

(If only all of my to-do lists could be met with so little procrastination and so much fun.)

Last Thursday marked the second day that I took the kids sledding this year, which means that I have already taken them sledding more than I did last year.

And I think they enjoyed it.

tandem sledding

In fact, I think they enjoyed their afternoon of being pulled around on the sled by Mom even more than they enjoyed the mega-watered down hot cocoa that I offered to them after our fun-yet-frigid adventure.

(Yes, I gave a nineteen-month-old watered down hot cocoa.  Oh the humanity!  And it wasn’t even organic!)

And I think we’ll do it again.  (Well, maybe not the hot cocoa.  I think that stuff was laced with PCP.  Or at least that’s the effect it had on my kids.)

Because welcoming the snow with the joy of a child is so much better than whining about it, right?

For the most part, I am the family cook.

It’s a job that I took on well before the kids were born, back when Tim and I were first divvying up house chores.

And it’s a job that I enjoy, though I won’t deny the fact that it has become more difficult since my children were born.  For besides the obvious fact that parenting simply takes up a whole lot of time that once could have been devoted to leisurely and/or hours-long meal preparation, my kids (at ages four and nineteen months) have developed discriminating palates and sensitive digestive tracts that prevent me from preparing whatever the hell I want to each night.

Put more simply, I think I face a lot of the meal-prep difficulties that many family cooks face.

For example: three of M’s favorite foods are black beans, blueberries, and blackberries, yet the three foods that often give A the worst diaper rash are black beans, blueberries, and blackberries.

Or then there’s the fact that the only vegetable that M will eat (when it’s not “hiding” in a soup or a smoothie) is broccoli, while the only vegetable that A won’t eat is (you guessed it) broccoli.

And then there are those days where A despises pasta even though (or perhaps because?) he ate three helpings of it the day before, or those days where M wants nothing, and I mean nothing, other than peanut butter sandwiches.

There is one meal, however, that pleases all four regular diners at our table. 

It’s almost embarrassingly simple, but it’s also healthful and filling. 

Black beans and rice.

black beans and rice night

Yep.  Black beans and rice.

Steamed rice + a can of black beans.

Does it get more simple than that?

It’s a meal I can throw together in minutes, yet it doesn’t contain any food that has been shaped into a nugget or deep-fried into oblivion.

I chop an avocado here, slice an onion and a tomato there, shred some cheese and/or some chicken, set out some salsa and perhaps some spices (and reserve some plain rice and veggies for our black-bean sensitive child) and I have a meal that is surprisingly nutritious, especially considering that one of its main ingredients comes from a can.

And the fact that it takes mere minutes to prepare and is a relatively healthy way to feed myself and my family?

That’s something that makes this family cook pretty darn pleased.

In the past few days, two recent conversations have gotten my mind venturing beyond Christmas and house-guests and struggling to get two overtired and overexcited children to bed when all they really, really want to do is take one more hit of the Christmas Spirit and ride out the high until way-past-bedtime o’clock.

One was a real-life discussion with a real-life friend, and the other was an online discussion over at The Feminist Breeder’s blog.  And both discussions (like many great ones elsewhere) revolved at least in part around kids, toys, gender, and feminism.

I’ve probably mentioned a couple (hundred) times that I have two kids–M (4) and A (19 months).  They are biologically male, or, as I like to abbreviate, boys.  (They also have full names, but I’m sort of protective of their identities because when you write about riding crops, vaginal birth, inverted nipples, and funny stories involving hernias, you get some REALLY WEIRD PEOPLE searching for REALLY WEIRD THINGS to get to your blog.)

In any case, for the most part I’ve tried not to assume much of anything about my kids based on the simple fact that they arrived on the planet with male sex parts. 

I’ve tried not to assume that they are inherently “more aggressive” than their female playmates.

I’ve tried not to assume that they are hard-wired to like playing with dump trucks and cars and to dislike playing with dolls and toy kitchens. 

And I’ve tried not to assume that their particular ways of playing are specifically boy ways of playing.

These efforts aren’t simply a matter of trying to practice feminist parenting.  For in addition to wanting my parenting to be informed by my feminist values, I also want the decisions I make as my kids’ mother to be informed by my very real respect for my children.

For just as I “listened” to my children’s needs when they were infants–when they needed to nurse, when they needed to cuddle, when they needed to sleep, etc.–I’m trying to listen to their interests and unique personalities as they grow older.  And part of that effort involves making a conscious effort to “de-gender” their interests and ways of playing.

My four-year-old son, for instance, has an enormous verbal strength and loves to arrange and organize and “make up movies and plays” with his toys.  Sometimes he’s setting up an array of pirates in his pirate ship, other times he’s talking about his love of ocean animals, and still other times he’s “making up movies” about fairies and unicorns. 

My 19-month-old son, on the other hand, tends to favor more physical play that involves building and constructing and using tools.  Sometimes he’s playing with the plastic hammer and drill at the kids’ workbench, other times he’s pretending to use a vacuum cleaner or a broom, and still other times he’s playing with my make-up brushes. 

As I see it, M and A’s general interests and ways of playing seem devoid of any gender-stereotypical significance.  Sure, the objects they play with are often associated with “girls’ toys” or “boys’ toys.”  The objects represent socially constructed gender roles and they illuminate the various socially constructed gender cues that send little boys (and their parents) down the TRUCKS AND WAR GAMES aisle and little girls (and their parents) down the VOMIT-OF-PINK-PRINCESSES-AND-PONIES aisle at the toy store.

But as I see with my own kids, a boy who loves arranging and organizing can do so with pirates and fairies, and a boy who loves playing with tools can do so with a toy hammer and with his mom’s make-up brushes.

My own boys have ways of playing that they like and prefer, and I try to give them the space and freedom to explore these ways of playing with lots of different objects, whether or not they are traditionally associated with “boys’ toys”

And allowing them to be themselves in this way is one of the best things I can do to respect who they are and what they like.

Four-thirty in the afternoon.

Our company is expected to arrive at six.

Puzzle pieces unpuzzled across the living room floor.  Teeny-tiny toys leaving teeny-tiny trails on chairs and tables and stairs.  Homemade sauce simmering precariously close to a boiling burn on the stove.

Yowling boys and ringing timers and dinging doorbells.

Thirty minutes until the dough is ready, two days until Christmas, and one hour until Daddy comes home.

Then come one and then two and then three and then all seventeen pillows and cushions hurtling off of the couch and loveseat.

And then one and then two boys rolling off the couch onto the massive pile.

Yelping and hollering and simmering and ringing and dinging and yowling and hurtling.

I ready my stern voice.   I put on my serious face.  I consider for a moment sending one or both kids to their rooms so that I can undertake a massive clean-up before the first guest arrives.

And then I’m five again, and it’s Christmastime, and Mom is cooking dinner, and my sisters and I are yowling and yelping and hurtling cushions off of the couch, and we’re jumping and rolling and giggling and feeling that pure joy and glee that appear only in childhood.

The sort of memory that makes you transportable and light and warm.

It’s the same joy and glee I see now on my boys’ faces.

And so I let them be.

Because their glee, the ephemeral joy of being little, is so much better than a clean home.

I am honored and excited to have a guest post up today at Fresh Cracked Pepper.  Perhaps not surprisingly, I managed to turn Jen’s (FCP’s author) request for a post on a favorite muffin recipe into a reflection on the first few weeks after M was born.  But I promise, there is a post about muffins–recipe included–buried somewhere in my story!

raisin bran muffins, ready for baking

If you go to Fresh Cracked Pepper to read the post–and you should, not just to see my mother’s recipe for raisin bran muffins but also to delve into Jen’s delectable recipes and equally delectable writing–you’ll see that I describe how Tim’s mother and my mother cared for us as made our foray into parenthood.

They cooked for us, they cleaned for us, and they held our colicky baby so that we could get a solid hour or two’s worth of sleep.

They gave us advice, praise, and encouragement, which were all especially helpful to us as Tim changed all of M’s diapers and studied for his law school finals and as I struggled to recover from a c-section, to breastfeed, and to grade 75 student papers all before my son turned three weeks old.

What Tim and I didn’t know at the time–because we had never even heard of the term at the time–was that our mothers were serving a role similar to that of a postpartum doula.

Postpartum doulas are trained to offer support to parents in the weeks following a baby’s birth.  They can help teach parents how to bathe an infant or how to take a rectal temperature; they can do light housework and prepare meals for a family; and they can offer nonjudgmental support, encouragement, and, when necessary, referrals to the appropriate health professionals.

So just as a birth doula is trained to “mother the mother” during labor, a postpartum doula is trained to “mother the family” during the newborn weeks.

In fact, the very role of postpartum doulas helps to point out that newborns aren’t the only people who need attentive and loving parenting–new parents need (and deserve) attentive and loving “parenting” as well!

This can come not only from a postpartum doula but also from a friend who delivers meals to the house, a neighbor who volunteers to do a few loads of laundry, or, if you’re lucky like Tim and I were, a knowledgeable and loving parent who can pass their wisdom and skills down to you.

And just as every woman deserves the type and level of labor support that she desires, every family deserves the type and level of postpartum support that they desire.

If you are interested in hiring a postpartum doula, you can start your search with DONA International and/or Doula Match.