Unsolicited Advice

One of my favorite questions to ask every mother I know is how and when they got their babies to sleep through the night (I promise after this post to quit talking about sleep!). I’ve gotten such a wide variety of answers from mothers’ with different parenting styles and from different generations; everything from filling their tiny bellies up with cereal just before bed or letting them cry-it-out to co-sleeping. It amazes me to think there could be so many effective (and just as many not so effective) solutions to the same problem.

I wish I had it in me to appreciate all of the answers I get to the rest of the questions that I don’t ask. The truth is; when it comes to parenting I’m hypersensitive to unsolicited advice. My knowledge that most people just want to help is overridden by the most important question of all; whether or not I’m a good mother. Truthfully, and without an ounce of arrogance, I believe I am a great mother. I can’t deny, however, questioning whether or not my friends and family feel the same if they continually offer solutions to problems I don’t think Caroline and I are even experiencing. It causes me to second-guess myself and after a while it becomes downright annoying.

As I work on hardening my shell, I will also try and be very cognizant of my own desires to help my new mother friends and offer advice only when it’s asked of me. Perhaps others are not so sensitive and don’t have the habit of over thinking every little thing like I do. But I happen to believe that praising the job they are doing will go miles further than any advice could, solicited or unsolicited. Praise for doing a wonderful job is something every mother doesn’t and can’t get enough of.

Is She Sleeping Through the Night?

This is perhaps the most frequently asked question after “what’s his/her name” when you’re a new parent. After nine months, I can finally answer “yes.” Last night was the very first time Caroline slept the entire night from 6:30 last night until 6:15 this morning. No crying, no nursing, just one long, uninterrupted stretch of sleep.

Did I actually use the word finally? It’s been a goal we’ve been working towards for months, but it is with a slightly heavy heart that I document our success. Am I okay? Am I the same mother who was all gung-ho about “working myself out of a job” and encouraging Caroline to be independent when she was still swaddled up in my arms?

Don’t get me wrong; this is a wonderful milestone. That Caroline can now soothe herself back to sleep if she does wake up in the middle of the night is a positive accomplishment for her. For me, however, I may just need a few days to feel the effects of a good night’s sleep in order to embrace this first step towards independence. It may be no more than ten minutes total that I spend nursing her back to sleep twice a night, but those moments are priceless. Cuddling up with my sleepy girl who makes soft purring-like sounds, gently rocking her as she nurses back to sleep…what on earth could give you more comfort and pleasure than that?

This may have been a one-time occurrence. If it is, I will still encourage my little birdie to fly, regardless of how much I miss her at night. I will just keep reminding myself how nice it might be to look at myself in the mirror again and find the red veins and blue bags are no longer the most prominent characteristics of my eyes…until Caroline gets a baby brother or sister and the sleeping game begins again.

A Few of My Favorite Things

Okay, I admit it; there isn’t a thing about Caroline that I don’t absolutely love. The more she develops and shows her personality to me, the crazier about her I become. At nine months, I am forced to pay close attention to her each day (altering my previous lifestyle in no way) or I’ll miss a new trick, a new tooth or some other wondrous milestone. It’s a great feeling knowing everything is growing as it should and I can’t even describe how amazing it is to watch as she learns and figures out how to do something she’s never done before. I spend my days staring at her every move or listening to her belt out the loudest and longest sound her vocal cords will allow as we cart around town together. My body can never resist the urge to break out into convulsions as I conjure up a laugh that comes straight from the bottom of my belly. In the midst of all this I sometimes remember that Caroline and I aren’t the only two people on the planet and notice we’re attracting quite a few stares. For once I am completely oblivious to how I may be affecting those around me and it is so liberating. If I knew babies were this much fun, I would have given up my hopeless plea for a dog years ago.

Just so I’ll never forget, here is the abridged list of my favorite things Caroline has learned to do in the course of nine months:

1. Chuckle. There is no better sound in the world, though she makes us work for it!
2. Use her voice…and I mean use it! The loudest, longest sounds come out…in the grocery store, at the library, in the middle of my conversation with someone. I admire how outspoken she is!
3. Scrunch up her nose when she smiles
4. Kiss the air
5. Dance (a.k.a. bobbing up and down)
6. Wave…though it is usually to herself
7. Sit up. Finally, after six months she was content playing on the floor by herself (until she quickly learned that she could hold our fingers and stand up)
8. Pinch tiny objects like crumbs to pick them up…though she hasn’t figured out that my freckles don’t come off…and that is a painful lesson for me!
9. Feed herself raisins. Once she gets them to stick onto her thumb, she just pops it in her mouth and slowly takes her thumb away. Sometimes the raisin even stays in there.
10. Blow. She inhales the tiniest breath and purses her lips ever so slightly to let it out
11. Shake the heck out of her stationary saucer. She grabs hold of either side of the top toy bar and once she gets it going there’s no stopping her. If those toys weren’t attached, they’d be launched across the room
12. Unsuction the bowl from her high chair tray. I let her have it as soon as she’s finished with her cereal. The bowl and any cereal particles that remain in it always end up on her head.
13. How could I forget??? “Mama” was her first word at 7.5 months. Of course she learned it at the time we were trying to let her cry herself back to sleep, making it all the more heartbreaking for me. Finally, she says “Dada” too with her tongue out to help her with the d-sound. It’s cute enough to have warranted the wait for Chris in my opinion.

And my favorite thing she has not yet learned is that she is the boss of her thumb. The minute she gets tired, it’s like a magnetic switch is turned and she watches as her thumb so slowly pulls itself towards her mouth. She fights it with every last ounce of energy, but when she turns her head away it only causes the other thumb to join in the game.

These are the simple pleasures that put life into perspective. There is nothing more entertaining, nothing more important, and especially nothing that can make your heart feel like it could just burst right open than watching your baby grow up.

Under The Influence

I remember when starting to write my college essays never being able to come up with what I thought was a good answer for the question “who is the most influential person in your life.” I remember thinking the only way I would get accepted to any school was to come up with an “educated” response by writing about someone who won the Nobel Peace Prize or landed on the moon. While these people may have made wonderful contributions to the world and our society, it would be impossible for them to impact my life the way only my Mom could.

Back then I’m not sure I could have written a compelling 300 word essay on the person who has influenced my life the most because I did not know or understand her the way I do now. I was a teenager consumed in my struggle for independence and the way I saw it, my Mother was only one keeping me from fully attaining it. She had a way with keeping most of her thoughts and decisions about my life an enigma to me, which only added to my frustrations and fueled my rebellious behavior. Since I have become a mother, however, so many aspects of her personality are now clear to me. Suddenly, I “get” her. This is such a turning point in my life, especially since the more I know about her, the more I realize that there is no person on the planet more like me and no one I’d rather be more like in many ways.

If there were only one word I could use to describe my Mother, it would be “giving.” She has given my brothers and I everything she possibly could to ensure our happiness. I know it wasn’t always easy for my parents financially, as my Mom stayed home with us and took care of us full-time until the youngest; yours truly, started kindergarten. They made many sacrifices so that we could play hockey, football, baseball, softball, be a girl scout, figure skate, get braces, and go to college. The list goes on and on. And the term “giving” is certainly not limited to material or financial acts. Watching the way she raised us, my brother’s and I have inevitably absorbed some of my Mother’s best qualities. Through her we have formed our definition of what a parent should be and if I could go back in time I would have taken more notes. Since my Mother was 19, she has totally given herself to her children and I truly believe her love for us is as unconditional as love gets.

I think it is assumed that once a child reaches the age of 18, moves out, goes to college, gets married and starts a family of his/her own, the parents role changes drastically. Images pop into my head of these “empty-nesters” touring the world on a cruise ship or sipping champagne under a palm tree, appearing to enjoy themselves as if they just broke out of prison after a twenty-five year sentence. I agree that parents’ roles change when their children become adults, however, that is not to say my Mother has become a less significant part of my life or that I don’t need her anymore. In fact, I don’t think I have ever needed her or appreciated her more at any other time in my life than the past nine months. As my focus shifts away from me to my own daughter’s happiness, my Mother reminds me that she is still willing to do everything she can for mine. She is always willing to listen, share her motherly wisdom, spend her days off with me, and keep me fed, clothed and my gas tank full. The thing that makes my heart totally melt though, is the way she looks at my daughter. There is no greater confirmation of her love for my brothers and I than the enjoyment my Mother finds in spending time with her grandchildren.

I am inspired by my Mother’s thoughtfulness and the great effort she puts forth to make my life a happy one. I hope that I share her ability to impact my family and friends in such a positive way. And while there are many factors that influence my state of being, I consider my Mother to have had perhaps the most significant impact on just how content I am with my life and all that I have. I count my blessings, including the relationship I have with my Mother and the potential that I may have such a wonderful bond with my own daughter, each and every day.

A Mother's Weakness

I consider myself to have a good deal of inner strength. I’ve proven myself able to remain calm in stressful situations at work. I don’t find the challenge of controlling my own emotions to stay strong for others in difficult times, like death, an impossible one. With Caroline’s birth, however, I developed a major emotional sensitivity and feel as though my stomach could launch itself right out of my throat when I hear of a baby or child being harmed.

Reading a story in my Parenting magazine about a little girl who fell out of a second story window onto pavement was the first time I got the feeling in my stomach (without it having anything to do with Caroline). It didn’t matter that the article prefaced by saying the little girl was perfectly healthy now and had no signs of long-term damage. The visualization of the mother witnessing this out of the corner of her eye and trying to imagine the thoughts that went through her head as she realized it was her daughter who she found unconscious on the pavement seconds later is something I will never be able to discard from my mind. Perhaps it is because I can’t help but imagine myself in every awful situation that I hear/read about now that I am a mother. I can’t help but wonder how I would react in a situation like that and what the toll would be on Caroline and especially on me.

I would like to say it is only true stories like this one that can evoke such anxiety in me, but it’s not true. Movies, commercials, and fictional stories all have the same impact on me whenever a child is harmed in any way. I am not proud to have developed this weakness, nor am I convinced it necessarily helps me to be a better mother. I thank God every day that Caroline has gone through eight and a half months with little more than a case of heat rash. I still have to tell myself that it was okay to let her cry a few minutes at a time while we were testing out ways to get her to fall asleep on her own and that she will probably not need therapy because of it later on in life. But I know that chances are someday she is going to get hurt, whether it be scraping her knee or someone being mean to her, and I worry that my reaction will be one Hollywood couldn’t even compete with. The rational part of me knows that some of life’s lessons require a little pain, and some require a lot more. The pain is normal and inevitable and I feel as though all the challenges I have endured have made me a stronger and more compassionate person. But even with this awareness, I know if there were a way I could shelter Caroline and could take on every burden she will come to face as she grows up, I would do it in a heartbeat. I suppose it’s just another part of a mother’s instinct.