Shakira the Labour Fairy

Posted on 2/17/2011 by cheesefairy

When I was in labour with Trombone, at some point I got the song “Hips Don’t Lie” by Shakira in my head. I have no idea why. I am not a Shakira fan, per se; I don’t own any Shakira music. I think I saw the video on MuchMusic the night before I was induced.

I had music planned for labour – I had a bag and a little portable fan and a fresh pair of socks and all the things the Internet told me I needed, oh internet, thanks so much for all your help these many years – but of course my induction was a very special sort of labour where I went from fine! to FUCK YOU! in about 30 minutes. I was not interested in listening to the music I had planned on, nor did I much care if I was wearing socks or whether they were bloody. As I was adamant that I handle the pain without medicine – for the first few hours anyway – I was on the floor, stretching, yoga balling, etc. I didn’t have my doula with me because she was sleeping? At home? And I felt bad because it was early – if intense – labour and I just wanted to do it myself. And the whole time. Shakira.

Part of me managed to be incredibly annoyed that I couldn’t get Shakira and her hips out of my head. But the other part kind of accepted it. It is a rhythmic song, after all, and rhythm is good when you’re giving birth. And also, when birthing, it is easier (sort of) to accept the wisdom of your body rather than waste energy fighting it.

Eventually I had the epidural and I had Trombone and afterward I had flashbacks to labour and not once did I hear Shakira during those flashbacks. She had disappeared from my consciousness. Occasionally, over the years, I would hear the song on the radio and remember it playing on a loop in my head. “That was weirdly random,” I would think. And that was that.

The day before Fresco was born, I had my membranes swept at my doctor’s appointment. I was several days from my due date but we wanted to avoid another induction if possible so we did the sweep. Trombone was at my mom’s house, having a fun day with people who could lift him, so after my appointment I drove myself downtown to have coffee with my old co-workers. Then I headed over to Kitsilano to look for a new baby gift for Trombone from his baby brother. When I got in the car to drive to Kitsilano, the radio started playing That Song, by Shakira. Out of respect, I let the song play rather than jabbing at the radio buttons to find a new station. (Anyway, was it me, or did I feel some cramping?) Not wanting to get too excited, or have the baby in the car, I just ignored it and carried on with my day. But that night, every time I woke up (approximately 17 – 25 times) to pee, adjust my belly, lie very still to listen for more contractions, which were sadly, once again, absent, the soundtrack in my head was, you guessed it. Shakira.

I went into labour the following afternoon. That evening I spent a lovely several hours alone in early labour, putting music on our music player (which we hadn’t had for Trombone’s birth) and reading. I actually tried to block out Shakira, but she was there, low noise in the back of my head. At 3 am we went to the hospital and at 7:17, Fresco was born. (I think it must have been the Shakira remix playing in my head at that point.)

One of my earliest lessons of parenthood: best to take what you’re given and make it work for you. Thanks, Shakira.

In case you have no idea what I’m talking about, here is the song.

Posted in | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

Bedlam Ends, With a Whimper And Some Cake

Posted on 2/13/2011 by cheesefairy

On Friday we went to the big mall to renew SA’s driver’s license. He had the day off for his birthday so we all went together in the afternoon after we ate our first (1st) cake of the weekend.

(Mm, chocolate cake with lemon filling and chocolate frosting and a white icing rocketship and four thousand sprinkles for stars on it. Mm.)

It took about five seconds for him to renew his driver’s license and then we were still in the mall so we asked the children where they wanted to go. They like Toys R Us because of, duh, the toys, but they also like Chapters, the “book” store that has a kids’ toy section at the back.

The mall was giving me the most dreadful mall head and having the same effect on the children (which, combined with recently consumed chocolate cake = I need to go home and drink right now) so I made Trombone choose. Chapters or Toys R Us. We will go to one of those stores and make the appropriate noises about all the things you like and then we will go home.

He chose Toys R Us.
But we had parked near Chapters so we had to walk past it and mourn its so-near-yet-so-farness.

On our way back to the car, (and for a few blocks once we were in the car and heading home) he complained.
“I wanted to go to Chapters.”
“Yes,” I said, “I know.”
“And we didn’t GO to Chapters.”
“I know,” I said.

Teenage sigh.

I didn’t remind him that he had made the decision. I knew he remembered – he is four and a half, after all. Old enough to make a decision and understand the consequences. And still feel regret for having not made a different one. And still feel torn, because there are many things he really wants to do (often more than two) and he still has to choose one.

***

Yesterday was my birthday. I spent the day doing things that are fun, like sleeping in, pretending not to see Trombone making me a SuperMommy cape, watching people write on my facebook wall, eating my mother’s lasagna and drinking wine. A few times, it occurred to me that I had no blog post ready for yesterday. And no ideas for one. (No, I didn’t feel like writing myself a rhyming poem.) And I realized: there is a reason most challenges last a month. A month is long enough to be challenging but not so long that you run out of steam. I am not a daily blogger.

Prompts or no, I for serious do not have a single quality post left in my body right now, let alone three hundred twenty of them to get me to the end of 2011. Plus, when I made the decision to blog every day I was completely delusional and thought that I could also write fiction. Turns out not to be the case. There just are not enough hours in the day right now for that. I have to choose.

The bright side is that because of the daily blogging since December, I have carved out the space to write every day. The habit is entrenched. I just want to write different things, now.

So I’m quitting. Not the blog! Just the every day part. I have proved I can do it…for a while. If I want to achieve my other goal, to publish (other than here), I need to focus my creative energy in a different way.

I will probably regret it. I may already regret it. I regret it. Of course. Who likes a quitter? It sure isn’t the quitter herself!

But if I’m always at Toys R Us, I’ll never see what’s at Chapters.

Posted in | Tagged , , , , , | 24 Comments

The Story of Saint Aardvark the Carpeted

Posted on 2/11/2011 by cheesefairy

He’s tall and neat
well, taller than me
and he only takes four point five
seconds to pee.
I used to sit in pubs and when
he went to the loo I’d grab my pen
I’d barely have time to scribble a note –
the bastard would be back again!

He didn’t want kids but I changed his mind
using cunning, logic, and turpentine
– don’t ask don’t tell, that’s what I say –
now that they’re here, he loves them way -oh- way
more than a lot of people love their kids
he distracts them when they get the fits
he reads them stories for hours on end
he’s a fabulous father, my best friend.

He gets to ride the bus every day
and he listens to podcasts on his way.
He makes computers run like stink,
he also makes beer that we can drink
which is handy because we can’t afford to buy it
given my habit of bonbons and Hyatts.

Thirty-nine years ago he was born,
grew up and traveled West. I’d sworn
never to marry or even to date
boys from Ontario, with their toque-covered pates.
It took a while, but he changed my mind
using cunning, logic and turpentine.

I’ve been staring at his face for sixteen years;
his glasses, his nose, his variations on beards,
his face is pretty cool but his brain is the best, I mean
he’s got stuff crammed in there I’ve *still* not seen.

A geek who speaks
English, a very rare breed
(though not on his blog, but you might have a read)
A man of integrity, who drinks coffee
with speed
He’s wonderful, marvelous, splendid and true,
Happy birthday Saint Aardvark! I sure do love you!

Posted in | Tagged , , , | 8 Comments

Art

Posted on 2/10/2011 by cheesefairy

Babies do so much in their first year, it’s hard not to be constantly amazed by them. They start out all blobby and tiny. Then they roll over. They hold their heads up. They sit up. They babble. They walk. They use spoons. They drink through straws. They jump off things. It feels like it takes forever, but it’s a year! One year is not very long, in the grand scheme of a lifetime, to go from mewling blob to upright monkey.

Then, the second year. Oh how I love the second year. It is all wonder and excitement and the children are easily distracted by a sheet of bubble wrap and they eat everything and you don’t care what or how much and they wear diapers and it doesn’t matter to you yet. They are halfway between baby and child and if I could hold a child in that place, well, I wouldn’t because it would be cruel but I would, sort of. Chubby cheeks AND “miiiik peeeez.” Some great.

The third year is pretty good too; more personality emerges and there is talking and very strange, often amusing behavior. From my kids anyway.

In the fourth and fifth year, though, I have lost track of the achievements and the wonderment somewhat because I am engaged all day in power struggles. I know. Don’t engage in the power struggles. Listen, when I have had a) enough sleep b) enough coffee c) enough exercise, I am good. I don’t engage. But sometimes, I do. I am human.

Trombone’s development of late has been social. He has gone from a shy, retiring sort, quick to tears, to a brash, confident, know it all, who refuses to zip his jacket and when I say “Are you all right,” says “I’m FINE,” in the acid tenor of a person 10 years his senior. As such, though I am thrilled to see him out of his shell with his peers, my own relationship with him is mostly:

– please don’t tease your brother
– please go to the bathroom for the love of god
– eat some couscous
– EAT SOME COUS–
– I don’t care. Eat what you like.
– I love you, goodnight.

It has not seemed, in other words, that there has been much to celebrate, revel in, be wonder-struck by. Understand, yes, in the grand scheme of things, I am still filled with wonder. My children are amazing. I adore them. But on a minute-by-minute basis, more pain, less gain. Lately.

Until one day recently, Trombone started drawing. A couple of weeks ago he drew himself. Then himself as a superhero. Then himself battling the bad guys. It is no coincidence that we have about fifteen comic books out from the library right now.

I have no idea if he is “at his level” or beyond it or below it for drawing. He can make an evil guy look evil and a good guy look good. He can draw telescopes and capes and his brother and planets and he will not stop. I asked him to make a birthday card for SA yesterday and he made five. FIVE.

And everything he draws is a-mazing. If you are a Facebook friend of mine, you have already seen how insanely proud I am of these drawings. I am that parent who can’t stop marveling. Not because I believe him to be the next Warhol, but because it is this piece of his brain that I haven’t seen before. A door has opened and incredible stuff is pouring out. It has re-ignited my wonder and amazement, because look what my kid can do.

I remember clearly from my Wonder Weeks book that whenever a brain opens a door to pour out incredible stuff, it also opens a door on the opposite side that makes incredibly tedious, boundary-pushing stuff pour out. In other words, great leaps in development are directly related to how long it takes us to get our shoes on and leave the house in the morning. (And by ‘us’ I mean ‘them.’) So it is a payoff, of sorts, a little ‘good stuff is happening, keep the faith’ message from my kid’s brain. Thanks, brain. Thanks, kid.

(This is Trombone with his arm around Fresco, as they both battle the [Fresco created] bad guy named Tissue Tissue Box. Trombone added the speech bubble. Within the speech bubble, he is saying his brother’s name, which I anonymized using The Gimp.)

Posted in | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

Loving What I Can, Being Honest About the Rest

Posted on 2/9/2011 by cheesefairy

Fresco has a cold and makes the most wretched snorfling noises when he sleeps. I am letting him doze on my shoulder today because I know he’ll sleep better upright. Problem is, he’s 35 lbs of love on my left shoulder and my right hand is all I’ve got for typing.

So, because I can do it one-handed, I am copy/pasting this email I never sent because it was so whiny. I sent it to myself instead. I wrote it in June, 2008.

Fresco is 8 weeks + 3 days old. Trombone is 2 weeks away from turning 2. I am 34. Right? Let me think a second. Yes. 34.

Finally at home, full time, with two children, this week. Saint Aardvark was home for the first 4 weeks. Then his parents were here for 2 weeks. They left last Wednesday around this time. And We have Been Sick Forever. We had some evil hacking illness. Then Trombone immediately got something else from the playground. He gave that to me and Fresco and SA is down for the count today. It’s been 3 weeks now for me blowing my nose. Tromone is getting better, though. He is almost all better. Fresco seems to be kicking it pretty quick because he’s breastfeeding, I guess. SA will likely recover within 5 days or so. Sure would like all things to be equal so that I could say, All things being equal, I suck at this job and I hate it.

The SAHM gig is fucking rough.

But you know what, even having had 35 minutes to drink coffee and read in peace and quiet makes me feel more likely to be able to tackle the day. Fresco is in a phase right now where he sleeps really well at night, night includes up till about 8 am, but needs attention all day for naps. Trombone seems to sleep until 7:30 – 7:45 if nothing wakes him (ie: the shower at 6:45 or SA clumping down the stairs at 7 on his way to work). I tried getting up early one day last week, to think and write and stuff and it just made the kids get up earlier too. What also helps is having a journal where I was dreadfully, horribly honest, with precious few of those “count my blessings” disclaimers. Opening it up and reading the entries where I was brutally honest about Trombone and how my days felt, when he was a baby, I do feel like the world will right itself eventually.

For the longest time, for example, I was all “I want a bedtime routine!” and that came, it just took till he was about a year old and could really participate in it. But now, yes, we do a bath, we do some stories, he gets into his bed himself (not a crib anymore) and takes a few (sometimes 20) books with him and that’s the last we hear of him for 12 hours. It was not always thus and it will take months again with #2 to get to that place, plus it will be further evolved because we’ll probably want to consolidate their bedtime routines at some point so that we’re not doing everything twice in a two-hour period when that’s all the time we have together and alone.

It is a sad, sorry fact that you can’t go back. When I had Trombone around I regretted not appreciating the alone time I had when I was pregnant. People tell you to appreciate it. You don’t. You spend all your time thinking about labour, thinking about babies, thinking about the future. You should be appreciating the moment.

With the end of my pregnancy this time, I had one lovely friend with two kids tell me to stop fixating on my labour and my upcoming birth, to appreciate this time with Trombone as an only child, to truly drink him in and boy was that advice spot on. We did as much and had as much fun as we could in that month together. And even though I was looking forward to not being pregnant anymore, I also knew the road ahead would be very hard.

Not how hard though. I had no idea how hard, how non-stop, how draining it would be. Something is always touching me. Someone is always awake. It’s 2 to 1 most days and the 2 are not sentient. To carve out even 35 minutes of time alone, not including bathroom breaks, is beyond challenging, well into mensa-level difficult. Start running again? Write more? HAR!

I’m told it gets easier. And since everything else I’ve been told has come true, I am going to believe this, move towards it like a moth to a possibly huge flame that might engulf me but which I am going to trust is only a light bulb. My friends wouldn’t lie to me. I must take it slow, one minute, one precious hour at a time, building weeks and months and loving what I can of it and being honest about the rest.

Happy Wednesday.

Posted in | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments