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side effects of motherhood

side effects of motherhood

Thoughts on motherhood

January 29, 2013

On the topic of my deep, profound thoughts about motherhood, here are some…

1. Why is it that kids suddenly MUST. PEE. NOW. just 5 minutes after I ask them “do you need to pee” and they say no.

2. The day I change fresh bedsheets is the day they decide to vomit on it.

3. Shouting “MOM WHERE’S MY ______ (*insert lego, transformers, hello kitty toy)” makes it magically appear in front of them.

4. There’s no need to pay full price for kids clothes because a) they always go on sale and b) someone will spill ink, paint and chocolate sauce on it.

5. Peeing straight into the toilet bowl is so much more difficult than clearing level 14-10 of Angry Birds Space and getting all 3 stars.

6. Always keep candy and potato chips on hand because I am not above bribery. I thought I was until I had to go out with 3 kids alone and I discovered that no, I’m not.

7. Every other parent and non-parent will think that they’re better than you at parenting your kid. Punch them in the face.

8. Fact: TV and computer games won’t turn their brains into marshmallows.

9. “One of these days, I will miss waking up at night to feed my screaming baby.” Said no mom ever.

10. Any request prefaced by “I LOVE YOU SO MUCH” and a hug is 5 times as likely to get a “yes”. Us moms are suckers and they know it, we know it, everybody knows it. Just roll with it.

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how i pretend to be a cool mum, side effects of motherhood

Getting my game on

January 23, 2013

truett gaming

Ever since we introduced Truett to Angry Birds, he’s been obsessed with the game. How obsessed? Well, they get 30 minutes of TV/iPad time a day and instead of watching his favorite shows like he used to, he’s been spending it on unlocking new levels on Angry Birds.

I’m actually quite impressed because the kid is seriously good at this. Better than me, in fact. And that’s saying a lot because ahem, I’m pretty good myself.

If you’ve ever played the game, you’ll know that it’s not just randomly launching birds into the stratosphere. There’s strategy and skill involved. You’ve got to quadrate vector angles, calculate bird to pig ratio, account for the planetary orbit (on the Space version), optimize each bird’s special powers and most importantly, think outside the box.

One time, he was stuck at this particular stage and he was all “Mom, I need your help to win this stage.” I took one look at the stage and it was really difficult. Like 4 birds against a gazillion pigs wearing armor and protected by a massive steel structure kind of difficult. Aight, maybe a gazillion is an overstatement but I lost count because there were too many.

But you know how in their heads, we’re supposed to be good at everything? To them, mommy’s super awesome because she can do anything. Count backwards from 100? DONE! Fix a 5,000 piece puzzle? NO PROBLEMO! Make fire with rocks? Never tried but HELL YEAH GIMME THOSE ROCKS.

They’ll figure out soon enough that mommy’s not a superhero but and I wasn’t about to burst that bubble. At least not yet. And if It took clearing an Angry Birds level to do it, I was going to annihilate every single one of those pigs.

So I took over the phone and tried a few different strategies. None of them worked. Those were some resilient pigs.

I spent 15 minutes on it and I was still stuck at the same level. Usually at that point, I’m all like “stupid game” and that’ll be the end of that but my son was counting on me to be awesome so I sent him off to play with his other toys and I went to google “Angry Bird Walkthrough”. Ok, I know respectable gamers don’t do walkthroughs but desperate times and all that.

With my newly armed strategy, I taught Tru how to do it and I could see it in his eyes. “Mommy’s still awesome.”

*Crisis averted for another day

Truth be told, I know better than to pretend to be a superhero so I turned to him and said “Actually mommy doesn’t know everything. But I’m going to at least try to keep up, okay?” He nodded.

“And if you ever need to make fire with rocks, go ask daddy.”

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breastfeeding, lists you should paste on your fridge, not feeling so supermom, side effects of motherhood

Bobbly Bobblehead

November 29, 2012

So Truett and Kirsten both go to preschool in the morning and it’s great because by the time they’re done at noon, they come home with a bunch of new skills, tales of their adventures and little nuggets of academic knowledge they’ve gained that day. Like Tru came home last week and declared that he now knows how to clean his own bottom after pooping. I think he tried to clean the toilet bowl as well because I peered in to find half a roll of toilet paper stuffed into it but on the bright side, I’m sure his bottom was extremely clean after going through that much paper.

But then now that they’re in school, they also come home with other stuff like germs, viruses and bacteria. Lots and lots of them. To be precise, about 50 kids worth of them. Which would be fine if we didn’t have a baby in the house but you see, there’s just one problem. The baby is in the house, yo!

Within the first 3 months of baby Finn’s life, he’s already been ill 4 times. And that’s after factoring in a diet of my super-immunity-building breast milk.

The past 2 nights, baby Finn was fluish again and the virus was causing his sleep pattern to regress. He woke up every 2 hours for a feed and each time, he’d flail and struggle to breathe while latched on with his death grip for almost 40 minutes.

In other words, he was pretty much attached to my boob the entire night. Times two.

In my sleep-deprived stupor, I noticed several things.

1. Lying down is the best position to breastfeed. It is also the single most hated feeding postion for baby Finn. He’s all like “THIS IS NO WAY TO DRINK MY MILK AND I WILL NOT STAND IT.” Instead, he likes to be cradled in my arms while I’m sitting upright because he’s a tyrant and a slavedriver.

2. Falling asleep while breastfeeding is very bad. For boobs. The husband can keep his head perfectly straight while sleeping upright but I unfortunately do not possess that particular ability. Once I doze off, my head rolls around like a bobblehead doll and one time, it rolled to the back, causing my boob to be yanked backwards. Instead of letting go of his grip, baby Finn bit down even harder and let’s just say that the yanking + biting combination = a very effective deterrence to falling asleep.

3. Marathon breastfeeding through the night makes me very hungry. And sitting there in the dark gives me a lot of time to think about food. After the 5am feed, I had the most massive craving for a bacon sandwich so I raided my fridge only to find some milk & cereal. Which was nowhere near as good but when you’re starving at 5am, it’s pretty darn tasty.

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kids in motion, side effects of motherhood

A good boy

October 23, 2012

I’m really enjoying this phase that Truett and Kirsten are in. They’re adorably inquisitive, somewhat self-sufficient and really great company.

But there’s one thing about kids this age: they just do stuff. Sometimes good stuff, sometimes bad stuff, mostly crazy stuff. In other words, they’re uncontrollably compulsive.

Like they go to the beach and start flinging sand all over themselves, even though they’re going to regret it when the sand ends up in their eyes and other body parts that sand should not be in.

Or they see an anthill and feel the need to stick their fingers in it, even though they’ll feel the wrath of a thousand angry ants descending upon their tiny fingers.

Or they’ll compulsively twirl a dangling wire around their fingers, even though that wire is attached to an iron that’s waiting to fall on them.

Which explains why parents of preschoolers are so naggy and prone to episodes of seemingly random outbursts. We have to tell them “don’t do this, don’t do that…STOP POKING THE CAT IN THE EYE and PICK UP YOUR LEGO PIECES and HEY TURN OFF THE TAP I CAN HEAR YOU PLAYING WITH WATER IN THERE” like eleventy-thousand times on any given day.

Last weekend, we were out shopping with the kids and Tru was fiddling with his water bottle while walking when he dropped and broke it. Mildly annoying, but no biggie because clearly he didn’t mean for it to happen. A little later, we got a cup of Coke to share and Tru insisted on holding it while we walked. It was like an accident waiting to happen but he was all “please, please, let me hold it.”

“Ok, fine, just be careful with it.”

We took several steps out of the shop and sure enough, he dropped the cup, spilling the Coke everywhere. Again, it wasn’t a big deal in the scheme of things but just annoying enough to warrant a sharp word.

“Tru, I just told you to be careful. If you can’t hold on to a cup of coke properly, then you won’t be allowed to hold it anymore, understand?”

He nodded quietly.

On the way home in the car, he turned to us and said “I wasn’t a good boy today, right? I did two wrong things. I broke the bottle and spilled the Coke.”

OUCH. That was like a solid hadouken of mommy guilt to the gut.

“Sweetheart, listen to me, YOU ARE A VERY GOOD BOY. It was an accident and we love you no matter what, ok.”

I hope he knows that.

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not feeling so supermom, side effects of motherhood

Today, I’m happy

October 9, 2012

Finn’s been sick again, this time with a stomach bug and all the usual symptoms. Projectile vomiting, diarrhea (of the particularly explosive variety), bloatedness, gas, the whole works.

Twice, he pooped all over my shirt. Once, he vomited into my shirt while I tried to burp him on my chest. It’s like he got all upset with the milk and was aiming it back at my boobs to make a point. Like “here, take it back, this milk isn’t working for me, mom.”

That’s alright though. It’s just vomit.

The really tough part is the stomach discomfort. He would clench his little fists and scream like he was in pain. I tried carrying him and nursing him and distracting him but he’d just cry and cry until he got tired and fell asleep in my arms. Once I put him down, the cycle would start again. This intense exhaustion, it’s like the parenting equivalent of waterboarding and it gets to you. A few days in, I got frustrated with all the screaming and immediately I’d be frustrated at myself for being frustrated at him because he’s just a baby who’s in pain.

But you know what helps?

Looking at this.

Well, not exactly in a basket but looking at him as he’s in my arms and knowing that the worst of it passes after a while. He won’t be this tiny forever. Tomorrow, he’ll wake up and be a little bigger, and then even bigger the morning after that. Soon enough, he won’t want me to hold him when he’s got a stomach flu.

Today, my baby needs me so I’m going to dig deep and activate the crazy mommy part of my brain that’s actually happy to do it.

Sleep can wait a couple more days. Or months.

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Finn, side effects of motherhood

Fun things to do with a newborn

October 3, 2012

Everyone knows that newborns aren’t very much fun. They’re tiny and fragile and frankly, kind of boring.

With Finn, I do my super-enthusiastic baby talk like “HEYYYYYY, HOW’S MOMMA’S HANDSOME LITTLE BOY DOING TODAY?”  and he just stares at me briefly before stifling a yawn. At least when I do that to the bigger kids, they bother to patronize me with a “I’m playing toys, ok bye.”

So after having spent so much time with staring at a tiny baby (there are only so many times I can make googly eyes before losing my mind), I’ve came up with some fun stuff to do. Fun for me, at least.

1. Reenact the head-flopping scene of Marion Cotillard in The Dark Knight Rises. (also known as the worst death ever – ok see 1:55 of this video).

2. Do the kissy-kissy.

This is the only time they’ll let you kiss them for as long as you want – make the most of it. Once they gain mobility, they’ll be off and running after 3 kisses.

3. Make them really tired. Like crazy kind of tired.

Why? Because it’s funny when they’re trying hard not to fall asleep and their eyes start to roll back into their head while you’re like “WAKEY WAKEY SWEETHEART!!” Also, it’s payback for all the nights he kept me up wanting to play.

And as a bonus, if you do this right, they’ll sleep like a baby in the middle of the night.

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breastfeeding, side effects of motherhood

Genie in a bottle

September 21, 2012

I honestly think the first month of a baby’s life is the hardest. For me, that is. The baby is just like “Wheeee, this is fun! I’ve got magical powers that summon big humans just by screaming. I shall now make a scrunchy face to get milk!”

I, on the other hand, get to know what it feels like to be a genie.

No wonder genies are always so sullen all the time. Well, except the one in Disney’s Aladdin. That one is almost annoyingly happy and sings a lot. Then again, everyone’s happy in the Disney universe. Real genies are a lot more sulky, and understandably so.

The first month, there’s the confinement. Even though I’m not fussed about sticking to traditions, the confinement does serve a practical purpose. It’s just so much easier to be at home with the baby where I’ve got all my baby equipment and everything is nice and comfy. On the down side, I’m stuck at home all day in my milk-stained tees and crazy hair and a baby attached to my boob. Not exactly glamorous.

The breastfeeding has improved now that we’ve got a rhythm going. It still hurts though. I was feeding Finn the other day when the husband came into the room and he was like “Why are you twitching?”

“What? No, I’m not.”

“Are you turning into Harry Redknapp? (It’s an Arsenal fan joke – they call him Twitchy)

“My boobs hurt and it’s making my face twitch involuntarily ok happy?”

“I hope it’s not a permanent thing or I’m going to have to call you Twtichy.”

“Just go away.”

I hear the pain goes away after a month or two. Hopefully sooner, so I can stop twitching.

And then there’s the guess-why-I’m-screaming game. With a newborn, you never really know whey they’re crying. You think they’re hungry but after drinking for 5 minutes, they projectile vomit everywhere. It’s like playing Mastermind every time they cry to try and eliminate all the possible reasons. Are they hungry, burpy, poopy, gassy, too cold, too warm, tired, not tired, bored, over-stimulated, under-stimulated…and OMG this list isn’t even exhaustive.

6 more days till he hits the 1-month mark. When we get there, we’re going out to celebrate.

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