Tales of one woman stumbling her way through motherhood.
T-minus 9 hours until Aaron and I pile in the car, with toddler and infant, and begin the drive to Chicago.
6+ hours in a car, half of our house packed into the back, and one hotel room for the four of us, one of which is a toddler who doesn’t like to sleep in the same room as anyone else.
God have mercy on us.
We had a first today. Laura brought her twins over for a playdate, along with McD’s breakfast and coffee. (I love any playdate who brings food and coffee!)
That wasn’t the first. Well, I mean, it was Laura’s first time over here, and hopefully after today it won’t be the last.
No, the first was this: Cordy had her first head wound as a result of a meltdown.
The morning was going really well. Cordy was running around the backyard with Grant and Stella, having a blast picking “flowers” (weeds) and playing with the sand table. But when it was time to come back inside, Cordy had a meltdown because I wouldn’t let her bring a rock inside with her.
Yes, it’s a minor thing, but I have to stand firm with her on things like that, or we’d have a house full of rocks, weeds, and cups of sand dumped on the carpet. And sand is a bitch to get out of carpet.
This meltdown started like any other: the high-pitched whining that turned into sobs, throwing herself down on the floor, screaming, etc. Then she progressed to Stage 2 – rolling around on the floor while pounding her fists into the carpet, screaming continuing.
Stage 3 was next, and this involves hitting her head into the floor or wall. This is expected, and I try to ignore her at this point, since I don’t want to encourage her in this type of behavior. It sounds awful, but she has a thick skull, and she only rarely gives herself a bruise.
So when the meltdown began, I advised Laura to bring the twins into the living room and we’d play while letting Cordy work out her frustration in the dining room by the back door. As we sat down, the first *bang* was heard, and I knew she was hitting her head into the door. I explained to Laura that she does this a lot, and we just ignore her.
The screaming continued, and the *bang*‘s continued. After one particularly loud *bang*, I turned around to check on her, and that’s when I saw it. Blood. Streaming down the right side of her face. Lots. of. blood.
I jumped up and ran over to her, wondering how in the world she managed to bloody herself. Cordy didn’t seem to notice the blood now dripping down onto her shirt as she continued her meltdown chant of “Outside! Outside!” Laura fetched wet paper towels for me, and I began wiping off her face, looking for the source of the blood. It just kept coming, and I started to follow the flow up into her hairline, now stained with a streak of red. I finally found the opening – a half-inch cut about two inches above her temple.
She’s OK – it’s a small cut and not very deep. But it did scare me, and it wasn’t a great way to end our first playdate together. It’s no wonder we don’t get many playdate offers.
I can’t believe she split her head open because I told her to leave a rock outside. Someday I will show this entry to her, like when she’s a teen and thinks she’s so much cooler than her mom. Oh yeah? At least I didn’t give myself a gaping head wound over a rock, genius.
OK, enough moping, and on to something fun. So MochaMom is asking everyone to introduce themselves before BlogHer so we have a little bit of an idea who we’re meeting. But this year she’s asking for a 10 second intro. So who am I?
I am:
– 31
– have a B.A. in History
– starting nursing school in the fall as a career change
– a fan of sci-fi and historical costume drama movies
– somewhat socially awkward
– someone who rarely wears makeup or spends a ton of time on her hair
– fashion challenged (but I did remember to buy my Spanx to hold in the postpartum tummy!)
Time’s up? But there is so much more! Guess you’ll just have to talk with me to find out the secret about that time in the whisky museum in Scotland…
Even though I went to BlogHer last year, I’m literally twitching with nervous excitement this week. There are women I met last year that I am looking forward to seeing again, and there are several I can’t wait to meet for the first time.
A tip for when you meet me: I can get overwhelmed in large crowds, so if you notice my eyes wandering around the crowd while we’re talking, I swear I’m listening. Seriously. I’ve always been a good multi-tasker, and now that I have kids, I’m a professional multi-tasker. So please forgive me if I’m not looking right at you the entire time – I will try to keep all of my senses on one conversation at a time.
The big change for me this year is that I’m bringing the whole family with me. Mira will be in the baby sling with me much of the time (if you’re doing the scavenger hunt, catch me nursing and it’s 15 points!), and Cordy will be in childcare, possibly making an appearance in the evenings. Too bad there’s not a scavenger hunt category for meltdowns, because I’m sure she’d be happy to oblige for you.
Aaron will also be in Chicago, too. Mostly he’ll be on his own, ready to take Mira if I need a break, but he’ll be attending the cocktail parties in the evening. Then we can put him next to Queen of Spain’s Aaron and see if they really are long lost brothers, or if they’re actually clones and the world will fold in on itself.
I did get my business cards in the mail the other day, and they look spiffy. No swag for me to hand out, but if Mira or Cordy act up too much they might get raffled off to some lucky participant.
And finally, Mira has reached a developmental milestone that might charm everyone she sees. She’s now smiling.
I call this one the “coy smile”…
…and this one “the drunken frat boy”. Yeeeaahh! So after the stress of last week, we had a full weekend outdoors where I tried hard to forget about anything involving the word “evaluation”. But it kept coming back at me.
Saturday we spent the day at a picnic with several good friends, many of whom we haven’t seen in months. One couple has a son who had many of the same issues that Cordy does now (he’s two years older), and it was nice to sit and discuss solutions they have come across to help him. At one point my friend remarked that it was like we had twins born two years apart. But her son has made incredible progress in the past two years, giving me a lot of hope that Cordy will, too.
Cordy had a wonderful time running in the large open backyard. She spent most of the time on her own, but she did join the two (older) boys in a quick ball game. Actually, she chased them, shouting “Ball! Cordy kick the ball!” and occasionally they’d stop and let her kick the ball.
Running with the big boys
Future soccer star – just look at that form!
She did have several meltdowns during the day, and she refused to eat much of the food. I think she did have fun, though. We just had to keep her away from the road and from the guys throwing knives in the backyard. By the time we left, she was completely coated in a fine layer of dirt. (She doesn’t mind the feel of dirt. Touching grass will set her off, but not dirt.)
Today, we joined Aaron’s parents to go to Inniswood Gardens to see the Big Bugs exhibit. The park was packed full of families with kids. Cordy did pretty well at first – when we came to the first bug sculpture, we let her out of the stroller to get closer. All was fine until she tripped and fell into the grass. She had a minor tantrum over that, but recovered quickly. However, that was enough to make every stop in the park a struggle. If we stopped, she wanted to run. If we wanted to go, she wanted to stay in one place. Over and over again during our time there, she would throw herself to the ground and cry and scream.
But today I paid a lot more attention to everyone around me. And I noticed that none of the other kids acted like Cordy. No other parents were dealing with the tantrum when telling their child not to touch the sculpture. No one else had to peel their child off the pavement just because they said, “Stop! Don’t run too far ahead of us.”
I also noticed other people staring at Cordy at the park. It was clear some people thought we had no idea how to control our child. I could almost hear their thoughts – What’s wrong with that child? Those parents don’t know how to discipline that kid!
Cordy’s a giant, which makes it even worse. She looks like an older three year old or maybe a four year old (she’s now wearing 4T), so people expect her to behave like one.
All I wanted to see was one hissy fit from someone else’s child. One tantrum, one episode of breath-holding or foot stomping or screaming or hitting or collapsing on the ground. But there were none. Today must have been Perfect Child Day at Inniswood, and we clearly missed the memo and brought our hair-trigger meltdown child mistakenly. I was painfully aware of how different she is while mixing with the other families in the park.
Part of me feels sad for her, because I don’t like to see her unhappy so often. She is a happy child – she can just go from happy to inconsolable faster than a method actor on speed. And I don’t want people to think of her as this screaming monster, which I worry is the image strangers take away after being near her. She is so much more than her tantrums.
And part of me, I’m ashamed to say, feels resentful. Resentful that I have such a difficult child while everyone else got the easy ones. Resentful that we can’t go anywhere and really have a great day, because there will always be at least one major meltdown to cloud the day. There will always be one point when Aaron will turn to me and ask, “Why did we think coming out here was a good idea?”
But then I feel guilty: Cordy doesn’t try to be difficult on purpose. She’s just a little kid! You’re an awful mother to resent your toddler for something she can’t control! She probably wants to fit in with other kids, but can’t. Bitterness to guilt to pity, then back to bitterness – it’s an awful cycle of emotions I’m trapped in. I don’t want to be here anymore.
Last week was a step forward. I’m feeling more at peace with the evaluation process and I’m eagerly awaiting the next step so we can get to work on helping Cordy cope with her issues and get past the frustration. Because instead of a face streaked with tears and scowling, this is the face I want to see more of:
It was July 30, 1975 – 32 years ago next week. My mother was seven months pregnant, due September 29 with her first child. Until this point, the pregnancy had been easy, healthy, uncomplicated. But then she woke up early this morning and knew something was wrong.
She got out of bed, feeling strong cramps in her lower back, and immediately felt something wet. But this wasn’t amniotic fluid – it was blood. She called the hospital and described her symptoms. “How fast can you get here?” they asked. She arrived at the hospital ten minutes later.
The nurses began to give her information about an emergency c-section while they checked to see if she was dilated. Surprisingly, they discovered she was already at ten centimeters, and so the c-section was forgotten as they instructed her to push. Right now. As hard as she could. For the life of her baby.
A rather heavy nurse laid herself on my mother’s abdomen, applying as much pressure as she could to help push the baby out quickly. The doctor ran into the room, instructed her to push harder, and reached in to help pull out this infant. In a short few minutes, the baby, a girl, was violently delivered at 32 weeks.
The baby was rushed by ambulance to Children’s Hospital, just a few blocks away. My mother was then told what had happened. Her placenta had partially detached from her uterus (placental abruption), causing hemorrhaging and reducing the baby’s oxygen supply. The labor team then stitched her episiotomy, cleaned her up, and left her alone as she wondered what the fate of her baby girl was.
Finally, news came. The girl was alive, in the neonatal intensive care unit at Children’s Hospital. She was in serious condition, and they didn’t have any information to give as to her chances of making it. After all, at 32 weeks, she was quite a preemie.
My mother visited her first-born daughter once she was released from the hospital. The tiny girl, weighing just under five pounds, had a head of dark hair. One half of her face was bruised and purple from the forceps. Her little chest worked so hard to breathe. The doctors wouldn’t tell my mother much about the baby’s chances, other than it was serious.
Days went by, and the little girl’s health deteriorated. She was being fed formula, but her little body couldn’t handle it. Her lungs were also struggling to carry oxygen to her. A portion of her intestines, unable to handle digestion at such a young age, began to die, and she was prepped for surgery to remove the dead part of her bowel. However, before the surgery could begin, she went septic, resulting in an eventual massive brain hemorrhage. Less than one week after coming into this world so suddenly, the infant girl just as suddenly left it.
That little girl was my older sister, born eleven months ahead of me. Didn’t know I had a sister? Yeah, well, I don’t talk about her a lot. Her name was Krista Marie. No pictures were ever taken of her, but my mother still has the image of her first daughter’s little face burned into her memory. She is the only one to remember Krista’s face, and it’s clear that her death still weighs heavy on her heart.
Had my sister been born in 2007, she would have had a much greater chance of survival. Advances in preemie care over the past thirty years have been incredible – so incredible that it’s now possible to save babies born at 23 weeks. The formula given to preemies back in the 1970’s would never be given to a preemie today. Advances in medications and technology have improved the outcomes for so many babies today that a 32 week preemie, while still needing special care, isn’t considered as serious as before.
It’s no surprise, then, to know that my family’s favorite charity is March of Dimes. Their work to increase the survival rates of premature infants, while also studying ways to decrease rates of prematurity and birth defects, means so much to us. Knowing that because of them, babies like Krista now have a chance at surviving an early birth and living a normal life makes it easy to select them as our charity of choice.
Have you heard of iBakeSale? It’s a free website that lets you donate to your favorite charities just by shopping through their site. They have links to many popular merchants, like Macy’s, Hallmark, Nordstrom, Netflix, and Lands’ End. You click through via the iBakeSale website, shop like you normally would, and then receive a cash back bonus (usually a percentage of the sale) that will be deposited into your account. iBakeSale will then send your charity a check.
This is probably one of the easiest ways to donate to your favorite cause. After all, you’re helping them out just by doing the shopping you’d normally do! I’m now registered with them, with the March of Dimes as my charity of choice.
I want to encourage everyone to sign up with iBakeSale. You can raise money with me for March of Dimes, or you can choose another cause close to you – even local school district fundraising. To sign up, click here, fill out your name and e-mail address, select your charity, and you’re all set. My group is listed as March of Dimes, Ohio Chapter.
I’ll admit that I was scared when I found out my due date with Cordelia was September 29 – the same as Krista’s due date. But I have two healthy girls who were born at term, and I’m very thankful for that. And if one of them had been born early, I am thankful that organizations like March of Dimes are there to help further research into prematurity and ensure that every infant has a chance at survival. March of Dimes will continue to receive my support – it’s just one way I honor the memory of a sister I never had the chance to know.
This post is part of the Parent Bloggers Network Blog Blast. To read which charities other bloggers are supporting, click here.
Tech geek, wife, mom of two, Disney fanatic, woman with ADD, and a complete domestic zero. I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up, but that's not so bad when you get to keep trying new things, right?
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