Pet Sounds.

Last night's bathtime conversation:

Me: "What sound does a duck make?"

C: "Cack! Cack! Cack!"

Me: "What sound does a lion make?"

C: "Raaaaahhhhhhhhhrrr!"

Me: "What sound does C make?"

Pause.

C: "Nahhhhnnnnneeeeeeeey!"

Touché baby C. Touché. We also would have accepted "Naaaaahhhoooooohhh!!!"

Dr. No

Baby C has entered into quite the "No" phase as of late. I say 'phase' because the potential of this intense need to reject every person, place or thing in his general vicinty lasting forever is too exhausting to consider. Thing is, the word doesn't leave his lips as "No." It's: "Naaaaaaaaahhhhhooh." As in,

Me: "Would you like some milk?"
C: "Naaaaaahhhhooooh."
Me: "Would you like to go outside?"
C: "Naaaahhhhhhoooh." (stomps feet).
Me: "Are you sleepy?"

C: "Naaaahhooooooh!" (arm flapping).

Me: "Do you want to play with your toy? Mummy's cell phone? Daddy's wallet? The dog water?? Anything?"

C: "Nah, nah, nah, nah...Naaaaaahooooooh!!!!" Aaannnd...that about does it. Commence tantrum and the inevitable throwing of all things that are either not screwed to the floor or light enough to catapult (*BABY C SMAAAASSHH!*)

So, we're at a bit of an impass. Among the vast number of things I thought I would just inherit as a maternal talent but somehow missed out on is the ability to competently read my son's wants/needs. He's a hell of a talker - just not in any language I'm proficient at speaking or understanding. I hear "Mama", "Daddy," "Doggy," "Yeah" (which at the moment is only induced at the prospect of a cupcake), "Jacket", "Cat" and the ever popular "Naaaaaahhoooh!" but am apparently lacking the keen ear to appreciate the rest of what he's saying. G and I have picked up on a few other key terms..my personal favorite being an emphatic "NNNaaaahhh-nnnneeeeeeey" which I interpret to mean "IIIIII nnnneeeeeeeed". As in, "Nah-neey a cookie". "Nah-neey you to bugger off so I can unravel the entire toilet paper roll in peace" and "Nah-neey all of my trucks. In one giant pile. Where I can play with them all at once. And Nah-neey you to play with one too (just not my favorite one or nah-neey you to damn well give it back)". Of cousre, C's daycare provider seems to think he's speaking in complete sentences with a Merriam-Webster worthy vocabulary. I'll be standing there listening to C babbling away and she'll say "See? He just said 'Matthew did it'" and I heard "Maboo giggidy". But kudos to him for calling out another kid for something.

To add insult to injury, I'm fairly certain that C delights in messing with me. He'll offer me something, let's say a cracker, and say "Mama" while flashing that spectacular grin - I'll eagerly reach out to receive my cheddar gift only to have him stuff it into his mouth and laugh. This is a recurring game. A game only trumped by C's newest endeavor: making up baby sign language. He's learned to sign "All done" and "Please" with a vengence (and I'm loving that he signs please, which is one hand in a circular motion over the chest, with both hands simultaneously if he really wants something). But lately a few more signs started emerging...that I didn't know. One in particular got me - he reaches out with one hand to show his index finger and with his other hand he grabs the index finger then points away. I spent over an hour googling this sign to figure out what he was SO DESPERATELY trying to tell me over and over and over and over to no avail. G came by, saw C perform his sign, and said "it means 'POOP'".

Me: "It doesn't mean poop. You think everything means poop."

G: "I saw it on that movie with Ben Stiller and Robert DeNiro."

Me: "Seriously? You're basing your opinion on a movie? How dumb is that? Look - it doesn't mean poop. I think it means 'out' or 'go'."

G: "Where'd you get that?"

Me: "Project X."

G: "And what's project X."

Me: Silence.

G: "It's a movie, isn't it?"

Me: Yes.

So, having our competing opinions of poop and out/go, I approached C's daycare provider with the question. She watched carefully as I recreated the sign. "Yeah, I have no idea. That's not a sign." C looked up at us, smiled wide, and walked away. Not a sign. How could it not be a sign? He'd been doing it ALL WEEKEND with emphasis. So, he's either making up his own language or messing with me. I suspect the latter. Either way - I still have little to no idea what he's saying a good portion of the time - which is clearly a frustration for us both. So much so that C's "No" phase is leading it's merry way down the anger path into tantrums.

Upon the onset of a tantrum I follow the handbook and assure him that I understand that he's frustrated, that I'm listening and I'm trying to understand, encourage him to use his words...and increasingly tell him that hitting hurts. I want to to a PBA on "Hitting Hurts". Because it does. And I think the dog would agree with me. We've both received our share of toddler whacks over the last few days (but thank God above that I have managed to avoid the eye poking and butt poking that our poor dog has endured). I suppose it's a lesson in mankind's inherently violent nature (I choose to lean in that direction rather than consider the very early onset of teenage angst). So whenever C belts out his patented "Naaaaahoooooh!" and comes at me with an open palmed slap I gently stop the blow mid smack-down and try to redirect him. Generally within a minute the tantrum has subsided and I get a hug/kiss and the promise of a cheddar bunny cracker (which may or may not actually result in cheddar bunny cracker). My favorite is when he insists on sitting on my lap and snuggling with me, which is a frequent occurence, particularly while enjoying a glass of milk or reading a book. So my heart officially shattered into a zillion fragments when last night we encountered the worst bout of the NNaaaahhoooohh's I'd ever seen - Naaahhhooohh through dinner, Naahoooh through story time, Naaahhoooh through diaper change, lights out and bedtime kisses (which were like trying to wrangle a greased pig). He didn't even want his obnoxious, fratty 'bedtime' truck to sleep with. He wanted to be alone. And so I laid him down in his crib and he rolled over and closed his eyes. I wanted to instill upon him the importance of not going to bed angry and, hey, why not throw in there honoring thy father and thy mother...but was dragged out of his bedroom by G who patted me on the head, handed me a glass of wine and said "Welcome to my world" and held me as I bawled into his shoulder.

I was prepared for C to have a 'Mommy phase', where Daddy was public enemy number 1 (except, of course, when it came to tossing him in the air, tickles and generally doing goofy things to make him laugh...sort of a familial court jester). I was not prepared for the 'I don't like anybody right now phase' which lasted all last night and into this morning. I was near tears this morning as I dropped him at daycare and watched as C scampered off for time with friends without so much as a glance back...and as I skulked towards the door to head to work felt my heart scotch tape itself back together as he reappeared from around the corner and ran over with gusto to give me a big, drooly smooch. A moment later he was gone again - but it was enough to remind me that we aren't always going to understand each other. We aren't always going to communicate effectively. And we definitely aren't always going to see eye to eye...but I will always be his Mama. And he will always. always. always. be my little boy - purveyor of all things "No" and the sweetest kisses on the planet. 

Boys vs. Girls

As a kid I was a bit of a tomboy. I went through a sweat pant phase for most of fourth grade, played with Transformers (*they killed my only Barbie*), got sweaty and muddy on a daily basis and ritualistically rejected showering in favor of time better spent playing sports, catching frogs and playing video games. Ok - maybe that doesn't make me a tomboy. It just makes me gross. The point being that I would sooner have died than have been caught in a dress, with anything pink, with long tendrils of blond hair or accused of being comprised of sugar, spice and/or anything nice. I had no concept of what an accomplishment this was on behalf of my parents until I had my own son. It is friggin' impossible to shelter this child from gender stereotypes or cultural agendas. I've tried. I fail on a daily basis. Even before he was born, a trip to the myriad of baby clothes retail stores yielded all things blue for boys and all things pink for girls. Each of these places is divided down the middle (more or less - girls tend to have more) boys on one side and girls on the other like a grade school dance. On a more granular level, it looks like all things sports and cars and jungle animals on one side and a pink princess explosion on the other.

My child has been offered a vast assortment of different toys to choose from. He always chooses trucks. Let me put that another way: HE. ALWAYS. CHOOSES. TRUCKS. "Truck" was one of his first words. It beat out "Mama." He spends a good portion of each day positioned at the window pointing at trucks and telling us all about them. God help us if a truck goes by the window and he isn't there in time to see it. He can hear those damn things coming from the basement amid the din of the Leaptop computer sing-songing alphabet.

(*Side Note* I constantly feel as though this Leaptop computer is judging me.  When we first input baby C's name the computer processed it and now repeats it back with the inflection of a question at the end. Like, "Really? That's what you named your kid?" I figure it's got no ground for a winning argument - I didn't name him after a food, celebrity, exotic place or super hero. So it can just keep it's lame opinion to itself).

I've asked C's daycare provider if he pays any attention to the "female-centric" type toys. The conversation went something like this:

She looks at me skeptically and asks "You mean, does he play with dolls?"
"Yes. I want to know if he plays with dolls."
She shrugs "Sure, if by 'playing with dolls' you mean using their heads as mallets."

It was at that point that I envisioned my son angling a rifle from a belltower. Or driving a monster truck.

Bottom line: when my child bleeds, he bleeds trucks. We went to ToysRUs last weekend and this child picked out two things: an obnoxious race car recliner and a HUGE ride-in fire engine. I was inclined to get both - the recliner was comfy and he only wanted to push the firetruck, not ride in it, so I figure, hey, free ride! But, sadly, we couldn't convince Dad and so I had to drag toddler in question away from the firetruck, under my arm, in full on meltdown mode, kicking and screaming and hitting that high squeal that makes my brain curl up like a window shade. Suddenly I find myself running - desperately running - what will stop the screaming???! And then it happens, before my curled up brain can even realize my mouth is making sound I'm dashing through ToysRUs screaming "Where's the TRUCK aisle? Don't worry...we'll find the trucks....why are there so many doll aisles?? Where are the trrrruuuuccckkkksss????!" It was about that point (the point where I was racing my son through a ToysRUs looking for trucks with the same desperation and drive that I would have used had a bone been portruding from his leg and I was searching for a tournequit) that it occured to me that I just might be feeding into these gender casts. It wasn't a good feeling.

A worse feeling came over me after the whole ordeal had ended and my son went home with a new talking Tonka truck. Worse still - he insisted on sleeping with the new talking, light up Tonka truck. So, as he shunned his beloved stuffed owl for the first time in months, he lay his little head down to sleep with this truck tucked firmly under his arm and I sat there listening to his monitor...every so often this thing would spout off another catch phrase and it didn't take me long to come to yet another startling conclusion: this truck was a total douche. Over the soft hush of the white noise it'd burst through, leeking bravado and male prowess with gems like "Step aside boys, let a real truck do the job" and "OOOooooohhh yeah, boy!" and "Now THAT's power!". It was whispering male typecast phrases into my son's softly sleeping ear with the subtlety of a jackhammer on a loud speaker. I'm not certain but the longer this thing went on the more my mind started to further construe and translate it's tag lines until I think I heard: "Step aside nancy boy" followed by  "NOOOOOoooooohhhh fat chicks." Pretty sure this truck is a homophobe.

So what now? I realize the grievous error in judgment - what with my hasty grabbing of a Tonka product to alleviate a twenty month's old rage without pre-screening it's commentary. And do not be fooled by this truck annecdote - the vast majority of C's collective toy and book catelogue are gender neutral. A few stuffed toys (ranging from lambs to penguins), a host of Eric Carle, Margaret Wise Brown, Robert Munsch and Sandra Boynton books (and thank you Miss Boynton for starting the now very popular "Beebo" craze in our household), balls, blocks and musical instruments. So, this ToysRUs incident aside, it feels as though this "boy toy" preference is inborn. Do I let him go with his natural instincts (in the same manner my Mom let me go with my hockey preference over ballet despite cracking both front teeth in half?) Do I intervene and try to deplete the vast garage of truck/car toys he seems to be amassing before they turn to GI-Joes and baseball cards? Is this really stemming from a predisposition to boy things or has Elmo snuck some subliminal messages past us both? (He's got to be at fault for something - his voice is like baby crack.) It's a tough call. It's your move, Elmo. Your move.

Out of Body. Back in Twenty Minutes.

In my continuing effort to not subject my family to my anxiety ridden antics I decided this past weekend to give meditation a go. Not that meditation is in any way a last ditch effort - but I figure if I've hit the point where I need guidance mastering the art of multitasking 'closing my eyes' and 'breathing' then I might be in pretty rough shape. So, I kicked my skeptical self to the curb and showed up for class ready to lie in a dark room and try not to make to do lists in my head. As it turns out - I was fairly off the mark when it came to both the practice and experience of meditation. Of course, I maintain that what I derived from the whole thing didn't even hit the right tree with regard to what it's supposed to be like. I didn't see God. I didn't inch any closer to enlightenment. I didn't see any trippy colors, get filled with light or a sense of peace. I wasn't even able to clear my mind long enough to experience any kind of inner silence. What I did experience was a whole host of six year olds in the studio one room over tap dancing their way through Destiny Child's "Survivor". It was so loud it was almost comical - I'm sitting there, cross-legged, eyes closed, palms to knees and index fingers to thumbs, doing my damndest to ingest all the peace and harmony and tranquil awesomeness of this dark room lit by one little tea light and all I can hear is Beyonce belting it out while thirty little girls busted a move next door. While at first funny, after the second go-round of the song I started to get overcome with aggitation. This was my hour. I was not going to waste it. I was going to get my meditate on and aint no softshoeing first grader gonna stop me. So I tried to go with it...amidst the soft tinkling of rainforest noises (heavily muffled by the dance studio speakers) I was all "I'M A SURVIVOR! BRING ON THE MEDITATE!" And then something happened. Despite my best efforts (as I'm pretty sure crazy concentration is a deterrent to meditation) the noises around me started to fall away. Not because I didn't realize they were there - they just somehow grew unimportant and I filed them away somewhere in my subconscious. I was able to recognize the increasing sensation that I was losing feeling from my toes to my hips from sitting there, that my back was achey and that my whole body was basically goading me to lie down and just...kept going. The feelings were there but they weren't. We were asked (and by "we" I mean me and the one other person there...who had been practicing meditating for months) to envision a place in nature where we felt safe, had good memories, and then his voice was gone...

I started to see snapshots of a canopy of trees and my mind said, "Nice going. You've parlayed the rainforest music into a rain forest. You suck at meditation." But the snapshots started to increase in speed, like a flip book of polaroids, until I was moving through this forest. And until I recognized it. I was running - and I was following a girl in a white t-shirt. She was hurdling fallen logs and zipping under tree limbs, looking back at me ever so often just long enough to ensure that I was still there. There was a lot knowing but not knowing things - being aware of things you couldn't possibly know unless you'd done them or seen them before. Like muscle memory. I knew that we were heading away from rather than towards something. I knew that I'd climbed those gnarled tree branches and crossed through that river in rubber rainboots. I knew, while I couldn't see it the denser the tree cover got, that the sun was setting. And I knew the girl was me. Even in the thick of it there was a strange part of me that was conscious of these happenings (like dreaming while awake) and the corn-ball nature of all of this (how will I explain this to G when he asks me how the whole meditation thing went?). Still, I went with it. Because I wasn't controlling the 'dream' - and I was curious to see where it went. I don't know how long I had been 'running' but at some point, both the 'kid' me and the 'now' me stopped. We were standing in the ravine behind the house I'd grown up in (or the house I had spent the most time in as a child - a whopping five years. A winner by far) in a spot I'd nicknamed "the clearing." The whole time I'd been chasing this kid she'd been smiling but now, as I stood in front of her, seemingly towering over her and dressed in my long, black winter work coat she was looking at me with a face full of trepidation. I heard the riff of three long chimes in the distance, growing louder in succession and realized I was supposed to open my eyes now. I stood there looking at her and kind of shrugged, like, "guess I better go"...when she reached out and forcibly took my hand.

"I don't want to go home."

I looked down. I had been running the miles of dirt paths of the ravine I'd known so well as a ten year old and following them further and further from my house. I knew why she'd been running. And the 'kid' me tugged on my wrist and looked at me so earnestly.

"Don't leave me alone."

And so I explained to her what a good home she had. About her husband, a man so devoted to her that he's held her hair while she wretched, held her baby through sleepless nights so she could close her eyes and held her up when she felt as though she couldn't take another step. And about her baby, a boy with such a good heart, and a big laugh, his father's blue eyes and a profound love for his mother. I knelt in the earth opposite myself and took both her hands.

"You are not alone." I paused and realized that the numbness in my legs was again starting to feel palpable. "I will be back for you."

I opened my eyes and immediately started to move my legs about to try to regain feeling and to stamp out the pins and needles. The man who had been leading the meditation was talking with the other girl in the class about her experience when I realized that my face was hot and wet. Unbenknownst to me I'd been crying and still had fat tears sliding down my cheeks. I pushed the wet from my eyes, thanked the Spiritual Leader for his time and left. I spent the entire car ride home trying to ascertain if I took this as a good or bad experience (so that I could relay something to my husband when he prodded me for a reaction once I stepped through the door). To some extent I've been thinking about it in the days since - the whole thing still seems in some way contrived and overly sentimental and I'm sure that it's nothing in the vein of what a true meditative experience is supposed to be like. But still - it was real to me. It happened and it meant something. And it's given me pause to go back. That and the fact that I am clearly not conditioned to sit still and cross legged for an hour. So there's really no telling if I'll go back. I could just chuck it all in favor of a pink tutu, a set of tap shoes and a hell of a lot of Beyonce.

Boo!

As of late it would seem that my resident toddler has been developing a host of new and seemingly foundless fears. In one week he's gone from fearless of all of the world's perils to being frightened of steam, wet hair and ceiling fans. Apparently this appearance of fears is normal - or so says the "What to Expect" brigade. Of course, the term 'normal' has to be the most subjective word in the English lexicon. Is any fear normal? I'm repelled at the sight of a spider. A spider. Doesn't matter if it's a dinner plate sized freakshow or one of those "is it or isn't it an ant?" kinds. I sense its spindly presence and declare a state of emergency. My house is postmarked with shoe prints and bug splatters from my husband who (so bravely) attends to the task of offing them in a manner no different than two sorority sisters of mine who I once watched catapult text books up a staircase during a particularly vicious stand off with a NYC cockroach (those little buggers hiss and are generally pissy). I can't really fault or judge him for his approach - while he's launching foreign objects at the ceiling I'm cowering under covers. Or hiding. Outside the room. Or house. But I digress.

So, like learning to eat with a fork or producing two word sentences, the development of fears at the ripe age of 20 months is a milestone - evidence that the brain is mature enough to flex its imagination muscles and to appreciate that the world is a scary ass place. If fear is an indication of intellectual complexity than I must have the most well formed brain on the planet. Add worry and anxiety to that pile and I'm a frickin' genius. I really have no basis to judge my poor son as I've developed quite the habit of making monsters out of shadows in the dark...but wet hair? Really? This morning I emerged from the bathroom wrapped in a towel to find my son looking at me like I was Medussa. Of course, post-shower and pre-coffee I may just have - so I can't blame him. Last week, though, I put a humidifier on in Blue's room. Not an uncommon practice in his short life due to the petri dish (aka daycare) we all live in. This time, though, he stood there watching the clouds of steam emit and with each successive "puff" grew more and more aggitated until he was shaking and shrieking (this all in the course of roughly 30 seconds). I yanked the cord from the wall and swept him out of his room like we were running from a burning building. Since then he's been wary of everything from smoking chimneys to the dishwasher after the rinse cycle. I've heard that toddler's can fear things like the toilet or the drain for fear that they too will be sucked down and into oblivion if they stood close enough. But what is it about steam? Over the last 48 hours I've found myself dancing through steam, whap-whapping my arms about like a lunatic to prove that it wont eat me up or burn me alive. There are days I curse the giant window that spans the length of our living room so that the entire neighborhood is free to see me flailing about. Most days it must look like I'm trying to escape a raging hoard of bees.

As a parent I want so much to shelter my son from the collective boogeymen of the world. Isn't that part of the job description? It feels like a bit of a defeat that I haven't been able to do that. Somehow there are things that just sneak into the subconscious - like the true, sinister nature of a ceiling fan. Other things will likely have a much more literal and substantive grounding. Things he sees in tv or, worse still, in the real world that will pour the cement to lay the foundation for all of those deep seeded fears. The ones that take up residence and bring chills with every bump in the night.

My bumps in the night are less rooted in vampires and werewolves and more in financial downturn, personal and professional failure, loneliness and loss. I worry that I won't be a good parent or wife. That I will disappoint in my new job. That I will lose the things I care so deeply for that I just cannot envision surviving without. I am tired of my worries. They're exhausting, needling little things. Brain spiders. Brain spiders that creepy crawl around up there that I can't throw shoes at. There are days where its easy enough to mentally dust away the webs and move along. Others...well, other days it's difficult to breathe under the weight of it all. Self imposed worry. Sisaphus rock rolling worry. It's just endless. And therein lies the rub - I find it nearly impossible to distinguish the practical careful parenting me from the neurotic cat hording, twitchy me. I can no more tell real causes for concern from remote whiffs of implausible risk than my son can differentiate a ceiling fan from a giant whirling circle of death.

Thing is, it's just part of who I am - my parents have called me a worry-wart since I was not much older than C. I try to go about life like a normal person - a worry below the surface facade (trying to pull off easy-breezy) while my psychoses peddle like hell-bent duck feet just below the water line. For the most part I feel like I come off pretty well. My husband, of course, disagrees vehemently. I can't blame him - he's put up with me through the worst of it. There was a short period of time there where I conceded to taking anti-anxiety meds (otherwise known as "peel me back from the ledge finger by finger" tablets). That was the worst of things - surrendering to something, anything else that would stop the damn frieght train in my head. Mostly just to keep me from being run over. That period was short lived. For me, the meds were a bandaid for a broken bone. Depression is a tempest. A hideous black storm that I've weathered - and it will always be somewhere out on the horizon, whether I can see it's menacing skyline or not. I've seen the rain since those days ("Hello all-day infant screaming sessions? Yeah, you, the ones who showed up every. single. day. while I tried to figure out the first six months of my son's life? Yeah, it's me, Terrible Mother") but nothing like it was years ago.

Still - it's like living with a seventy pound rabid squirrel on your back. That's perpetually angry. And flesh eating. And constantly berates you with the voice of Gilbert Godfried. Ok, it may not be exactly like that. But it's bad. Some years ago a "friend" taught me the game "Name 10 Candy Bars." It's a darling waste of time that involves pinning someone on their back and tapping their forehead with your forefinger repeatedly, aggressively and with niggling malice all the while imploring them to "Name 10 Candy Bars." It's seemingly a simple task but is more akin to being water-boarded. My worring is like a constant, never ending game of  "Name 10 Candy Bars" - and God help me if by the end of the day I can't dismiss the mounting worries, appease my tapping neuroses and rattle off ten damn candy bars because worry snowballs into anxiety into GOOD LORD THE WORLD IS ENDING. And such was the case with whether Blue was going to be a dwarf (see previous post), or able to take a bottle, nap, crawl, stand, point, wave, clap, walk, speak, not be autistic, not smash out his barely grown in teeth, grow at a medically acceptable rate, not achieve a Guiness world record for number of colds and/or double ear infections and/or rounds of anti-biotics and not die or deform from being immunized (God how I struggled with THAT one). He's not even two yet.

One of my biggest reservations about having children was that I didn't want to pass along my genetic "worry" defect. I think it's too early to declare fear of dish washer vapor a sure sign that my poor son is doomed (though, I have seen him cleary repeat my patented "shake and grimace" - it's a strange thing when you see clear visions of yourself manifest in your child. My parents find this hilarious.) See - here I am, worrying that my son will develop a case of the nervous nellies. The hard truth is that he's going to learn what he sees - if I'm a stress case about everything (which, honestly, I have done everything in my power to my neuroses from this child's conception to avoid exposing him to - zen and I may as well be oil and water) he's going to be too. So what to do...my husband (whose catch phrase by the by is "find a way") just tells me to "find a way". He may as well be telling me to just figure out how to become shark proof as he throws me into the shark infested waters whilst clad in rocks and dumbells...and porterhouses. I want to get better - if not for me then for my poor fan-phobic child. I've tried meds. I've tried therapy. And by "try" I don't mean "dabbled" I really mean the old college try. So I may just have to become one of those meditating, affirmation chanting hippies :) A good friend (ahem, therapist) once told me, in the midst of my great demise, that "[S]ometimes it's ok to just get by." Get by. Essentially - sometimes it's ok to make a mediocre half assed effort if it's between that and insanity. My whole life, prior to that, mediocre was synonymous with failure - so I didn't take it well at the time. But I suppose there are times when 'getting by' is really ok - I'd say it's fair to just 'get by' rather than have a conniption over whether your son was getting another cold, to just go with it during my feared (*surprise, I'm terrified of public speaking*) presentation tomorrow in front of, oh I don't know, ALL OF THE CITY'S LEADERS IN MY FIELD or to just be sometimes. To just be in the moment rather than trying to multi task the moment and all of the thoughts I'm also tripping over. When I ask my husband what he's thinking - you know, when he's got that glazed over look and I anticipate that he must be thinking something profound - he almost always tells me "Nothing." And I believe him. And am filled with jealousy. Now, I love my husband, but I'm not going to give him the credit that he's all Zen Master Zen. He's more Homer Simpson with a thought bubble of a monkey slamming the cymbols. But still - he can just have those quiet, thoughtless moments. When my eyes glaze over and my husband lovingly asks what I'm thinking - you know, when he's fully anticipating that I'll smile and sigh with satisfaction "You...my hero.." - I'm generally amassing a list of things on my to do list ranging from "Get milk" to "What high school will my two year old attend? We're not really in the best school district but we probably won't be able to afford another place for a few years...unless I work my ass off and get a promotion...but if I do that I sacrifice time with my family...but how will we ever fit another child into the house we're in? Am I ready for another child? When are we going to have another child? How will I juggle two children and work?!" and so and and so on.

So, as it would seem, the only thing to fear is my fear itself. I took a risk with my new job and belly flopped out of my comfort zone. Maybe it's about time, after thirty years of being a worry-wart, to try like all get out to bury the hatchet with my various boogeymen and do what it takes to let it all go. To stop manifesting unnecessary storms...stop making rabid monkeys out of molehills. I'm going to be ok. And I'm going to find a way to stop being afraid.

Who's on First?

I've spent the better part of my life trying to make the world stand still. As it turns out, that's no easy feat. Much of the time I find myself swimming upcurrent until I succumb to exhaustion and am pushed downstream, waving and flailing and praying I'm not thrown upon the rocks. I figure that worrying is like feverishly battling against the flow of water - it's a futile attempt at control and a fight you ultimately can't win. And yet there's always something that drives me to turn against the tide and swim like hell. As if swimming will keep me from being forced into the unknown hurdles. Clearly I'm not a 'go with the flow' kind of gal.

Recently my little family and I have found ourselves bumping along under the turbulent currents of change. G got himself a new job working out of the house (which I continue to imagine looks a lot like channel surfing/bon-bon gorging in unwashed sweat pants until I see evidence to the contrary). This is a vast departure from the 'establishment' position he previously had - and while I'm always supportive of his decisions, we're arguably past that point in our lives where "Damning the Man" is still practical. This is where the river starts to pick up a bit.

As it happens I have also been presented with a new career opportunity. A good one. A damn good one. And one that just fell into my lap as if God were saying "sorry I knocked your kid's tooth out, how 'bout I do ya a solid and we'll call it by gones." This is where any rational person would scream "yes" and flee from their current desk leaving only paper clips and post-its in their wake. Of course I, on the other hand, take this as an opportunity to stay awake at night trying to poke holes into everything ("Hello gift horse? Let's take a look at that mouth!") And just like that I've constructed my own crossroad - one road leading to "Career" and the other, it would seem, to "Successful parenthood". I know, in the deep shadowed corners of myself (the ones with all the cobwebs that I keep from everyone else) that I've kept my career on the backburner. On low simmer. In the years since I graduated law school I've been focused on baby more than JD. Well before C was even on the perceptable horizon. That was what I wanted for myself - to be there for my children. To be present in every step of their childhood. To be the sun in their little universes...because I know that time is fleeting. There is a very finite window of time during which I can be that big of a presence in their lives. Where my kisses heal their scrapes and bruises. Where they come to me for comfort. Where I'm the clown. The storyteller. The singer. The chef. The coach. The purveyor of how it is in the world. Because once that time is gone...it's gone. And my role will inevitably be distributed to various others...friends, teachers, teammates, girlfriends and boyfriends. And I honestly don't know what happens, what role I'll be relegated to, once that time comes. And that starts me swimming.

The other road, the Career road, seems to have it's deadlines and due dates too. Other colleagues and friends of mine that are of the same age and same education have managed to make it a lot further than I have in that span of time. They work late hours. Weekends. They wine and dine and mix and mingle. They've been on that road full steam - where I diverged to be at home more. But the longer I do that the less chance there is of ever navigating the path that I was educated to walk. For the most part, I was okay with that. Until, of course, I wasn't.

My father always used to tell me that "you can't get to second with your foot still on first." We had a lot of sports metaphors in our family. I liked that one best, I think. Because I was always reaching for second without wanting to leave the safety of first. I didn't want to take the risk. I didn't trust myself. I couldn't conjure up the confidence to just go for it. And if I couldn't go for it, I couldn't go anywhere. Sadly, the sentiment was applicable to a number of areas of my life. I would stay in relationships long past their expiration date. I would lament graduating from any school or program because it meant transitioning to the scary unknown of the next. I would stay at a position where my potential was limited because I was just so afraid that if I strove for more I could fail. At everything. And, as of late, I've grown tired of being afraid.

Upon resigning from my position I clung to the delusion that people would be cheering me on (*images and sound bites from Chariots of Fire may be applicable*). For whatever reason I really wasn't prepared for the general question to be "So you're going to be a Stay at Home Mom?" Nope. I'm a Kick Ass At Work Mom. Mommy, Esq. Since my announcement I've been collecting skeptical faces like trading cards. Normally this might completely undermine me...but today I choose otherwise. I don't know how I'm going to bridge these two paths...but I'm not exactly foraging through unseen territory here. I am not the first woman to pursue both professional and maternal ambitions. So today I choose both. Today I stop fighting the current and start steering the waters. Bring on the obstacles - I can't see you, but I know you're out there. Today I choose second base.

Nothing but the Tooth

Ever think to yourself that "things couldn't get any worse" only to immediately realize that the universe has jinxed you for such a pessimistically naive notion? Yeah. I did that last week. On the heels of having my child call another woman "Mama" I threw my hands up to the world and thought that we couldn't possibly be teetering on the precipice of anything else that could in any way construe that I'm a terrible mother. Upon hearing that, God gave me a swift kick in the ass. On my third day of voicelessness I succumbed to the need to see a doctor who tapped my glands, chalked it up to bronchitis and prescribed some serious horse pills. Figuring it made sense to swing by the pharmacy before picking up baby C from daycare I spent the next twenty minutes hunkered in line at the neighborhood Walgreens. Whilst in line my phone rang. It was C's daycare - and, in the year he's been there, I've come to realize that whenever I'm the recipient of a call from daycare during the day I should automatically trigger the Mommy panic alarm button and commence headless chicken meltdown. This call was no different.

"Hi there, it's [Daycare]." (You know, the one your child actually calls "Mama").

My inaudible squeaking.

"You may want to get a hold of a local emergency room."

Frantic squeaking.

"So, C was out in the play yard today when he decided to pick up a piece of chalk..."

At this point I was wildly waving my hands, irate at my own inability to speak, and utterly pissed off that she couldn't see my hand signals through the phone. Get to the point Woman!  What's wrong with my son?!

"...and he tripped over his foot and fell right into the pavement. He's bleeding a little bit but he's stopped screaming..."

It's unnerving how quickly, after becoming a mother, I'm able to go from rational human being to psychopath. I'm standing at the pharmacy counter with my arms loaded with kiddie Valentine's items and I'm simultaneously envisioning gory neck wringing (How could you let this happen to my precious baby?!), sobbing in bronchital squeals into the phone while tendering money to the cashier for my antibiotics.

"...I think that he may have chipped his tooth but it's difficult to see how bad the fracture is. You're probably going to want to see an after-hours dentist for this. I think it's ok but if the fracture is bad it might break off while he's sleeping and he could choke on it..."

I proceed to do what any non-hypertensive person would do: sprint out to the car to repeatedly call my husband as though my hair was on fire and he's the only person on the planet with a bucket of water. Unable to reach him (after seventeen or so tries in a three minute period) I unknowingly leave a "frustrated" message on his voicemail. And by frustrated I mean ragingly insane. This would later be played back to me over and over...and over again by my husband as he shakes his head in that it's moments like these when I forget why I married you, you neurotic drama queen kind of way. I may be paraphrasing but I think it sounded something like:

"DAMMIT!! Dammit pick up the phone!" (Sob) "Why?! Whhhyyyyyyy?!" (only, of course, I had no voice so the sounds are coming in staccato squeaks like I have the voice of a fourteen year old boy in the throws of puberty).

When I arrived at Daycare, C seemed fine minus a little chip of tooth missing off his right front tooth. Silly me - I almost completely overreacted to a minor incident. Good thing I kept my composure!  Everything is fine...

Until I get him home, of course, where I hold him under a light to get a good look at that little chip. Hold on, is that blood? I touch the tooth ever so slightly with my pinky finger and the whole damn thing pops back like a garage door. PANIC! PANIC! PANIC! I looked like a trained responder before this moment. Now the situation has become completely bifurcated (Before: Mildy perturbed, Now: Bat*shit*crazy). I return to leaving messages on my husband's phone ("I know I said he was okay but now he isn't! We need an ambulance! We need a doctor now! 911!) as though the tooth is going to fall out and get lodged in my child's heart somehow.

Moments later my husband walks in the door bearing McDonald's. I am starting to draw a bright line between McDonald's, my husband, and serious medical pain as the last time I remember having McDonald's was on the way to the hospital, after my water had broken, on the night C was born. It was 2am and I was standing on the tile floor of a McDonald's under those florescent lights with my pants sopping wet listening to the girl behind the counter ask when I was due and my husband cheerily answer "Right now!" while my first real contraction hit. I am starting to have a Pavlov's dog reaction to McDonald's. I believe every time I see a Big Mac going forward I am going to have a panic attack.

We decide, after a lengthy call with the Emergency Room attendant, that since it would be a good 5-6 hour wait in the triage room before they even paged the on-call Dentist, to let C get some sleep and make an emergency dentist visit first thing in the morning. Up until this point, my son is looking at me like I'm nuts (which, I imagine, I will have to get used to) as he isn't in pain and is just annoyed that I'm not letting him eat any solid foods or gnaw on his sippy cup.

So, at the dentist the next day, we get the news: the tooth needs to come out. At this point I've entertained enough freak out moments that I actually take the news calmly and with dignity (minus a subtle tear or two). C has cracked the darn thing from the bottom to the top straight down the center and there's just no saving it. Who knew that they didn't make false baby teeth? They assured us that the procedure was quick and easy, just a bit of numbing and he'll be right as rain right after. Just down one front tooth.

I think every mother experiences at least one moment, likely a whole lot more, where you look to your child and tell them that you would do anything to take their place to spare them the pain. I said it right then. And God I meant it.

As promised C was in and out in only a few minutes - and we have the first tooth to hand off to the Tooth Fairy, just five or so years early. He hasn't batted an eye about the whole incident since and just looks like a rougher, tougher version of his sweet little self. It sounds stupid to admit it but there was a part of me that needed to grieve the loss of it. Of a tooth of all things. I knew from the look of it the night before that this tooth was coming out and there's a part of me that lamented that he would be different than how I was used to seeing him. But once the doc delivered the news I just sort of sucked it up for the sake of my son - because he had been so tough through the whole ordeal and because there are times when I am able to rise outside of myself and appreciate that I need to be tough, in turn, for him.

It's been over a week since all of this happened and the funny thing is...I haven't been tempted to bemoan our 'poor luck' or to assure myself that nothing worse could happen. Not because I'm afraid of the "wink and snap" jinx from the universe but because I'm damn lucky that I'm as fortunate as I am. That we're as fortunate as we are. I do have a little more perspective now. Because he could've fallen and broken his nose or cracked his head open. Because of a lot of things. So, I derived a little truth from the tooth. And of all things, this admitted pessimist is trying to look on the bright side :)