out of Kadesh

The short version: I’ve been trying to wean Noah. It’s not going well.

The long version: Holy shit. My kid is more addicted to my titties than an old man with emphysema is to his cigarettes. Weaning Noah from breastfeeding is like taking one step forward and two steps backwards, EVERY SINGLE DAY. Which technically means I’m nursing him more now than I was when I started weaning, and that’s kind of what it feels like some days.

In all seriousness, I’m trying to do this as gently as possible so that no emotional damage and/or breast infection ensues. But there are times when I’m nursing him for the fourth time in the span of one bedtime routine, because he refuses to even let me put him into bed without waking up and crying AS SOON AS HE COMES UNLATCHED, when I think to myself, Dear God, I’ll be breastfeeding this little leech when he’s 25.

I AM JUST SO OVER IT. I have to step back and try to gain some perspective. Worst case scenario: I’ll breastfeed him longer than I intended to and he’ll continue to receive nutrients and antibodies and I’ll continue to bond with my son and burn calories.

Either that, or I’ll end up in a padded cell.

One of my favorite bloggers, Matthew Paul Turner over at Jesus Needs New PR, wrote a post recently and I was sincerely moved by this nugget:

“…how is it possible to seek truth when you’re convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that you already know it by heart? How can truth affect us, change us, make us into creatures that more resemble Christ if our truths aren’t in some ways fluid and capable of seeping into life’s cracks when we need them to?”

I read it to Lance, who raised his eyes and nodded, and said, “Whoa. Truth.”

And I was all, “Yes, exactly.”

And he was all, “I didn’t even mean to do that.”

Over the past year, some of the “truths” I thought I knew about my faith have been ripped away from me like they were sheets on a legal pad, crumpled into a ball and tossed into the trash, only to be picked up again, unfolded, and duct-taped back onto the pad, then ripped away again and torn into shreds, then picked up and taped back together, and on and on it goes.

A good friend of mine thinks ambiguity in faith is healthy; she says she feels like a place of questioning is a good place to be. I had a hard time with that at first, because of Noah. How do I teach my son the difference between right and wrong (or what I used to think was Right and Wrong) when I think everything is a gray area now? But my wise and laid-back husband has, through a series of difficult conversations, made me feel like that level of questioning might be healthier than if we were to attack our innocent child with a list of dos and don’ts, blacks and whites, rights and wrongs.

Maybe when he asks hard questions, it’s perfectly fine to stop pretending like we get it and be honest with ourselves and him and say, “I don’t know, but here’s what I think and why.” There are values on which we base our beliefs, and as long as we can say, “We believe what we do because we know that the Christ-like thing to do in EVERY situation is whatever is loving to other people,” I think we’re going to be ok.

And after reading that profound thought about the nature of truth, I know that’s the good and fair thing to do.

Good gosh a’mighty. The Bubbs is still babbling to himself in there, and it’s almost 10pm. But it doesn’t matter, because he’ll still be awake at 12, 2, 4, 6, and then for the day at 8. And that is how my life goes.

Lance and I were considering curling up on the couch together and watching Arsenic and Old Lace, because there’s this other part of my life called marriage where ideally my husband and I would spend quality time together, but that was like three hours ago and now it’s so late that instead I have to go bury my face in my pillow for my first two hour nap of the night.

A couple of weekends ago I was at an event for the theatre and I ended up talking to some people who have older kids. Once the subject of my son’s abysmal sleep habits came up, these nice parents all had sage advice that I’ve NEVER heard before, no not once not ever: “You just have to let him cry.” Their success stories followed of course, starting with the part where they cried along with their children those first few nights and concluding with the joyous part where they now enjoy 12 hour nights of silent, blissful sleep. Lance and I politely nodded and smiled, saying “Aw,” and “Wow!” in all the right places, but it inevitably ended with the usual shrug and glance at one another, like we were just now considering it for the first time IN 17 MONTHS, and we said something about it not being something we could stomach and we just weren’t into it. And that was that.

No, wait, first I was told with a sad smile and a condescending tone that sometimes I have to do what’s best for the baby and not what’s easiest for me, but then that was that. By the way dude, in case I forgot to tell you, THANKS FOR THAT.

I wonder what it is about parenting that makes us such judgmental dickwads. It must have something to do with how hard it is to raise a child, how frightening and lonely and frustrating and emotional and beautiful it is. You’ve poured everything you have and everything you are into what you believe is the absolute best for your little one, and if someone else is doing it differently then their way HAS to be wrong, by default. Because if their way is right or better than yours, then everything you are doing is only second best at most. So you decide you’re only going to feed your child organic foods that you painstakingly pick out, pay for, and prepare, and when you see someone feeding their toddler McDonald’s you can’t help but look down your nose because you HAVE to believe that what you’re doing is better than that. But the McDonald’s mom is just looking down her nose at you because you’ve been breastfeeding your baby for far too long and what if you give him some kind of weird repressed boobie memories later in life? And she has to believe that stopping breastfeeding at 6 months was best for her baby, because otherwise she DIDN’T do what was best for him, and as a mother she can’t live with that knowledge.

And while we’re on the subject, I think the same might be true for people and their religion.

I don’t know what to do about it, but maybe just acknowledging what it is when it happens, an insecurity within myself and not a problem with another person, is a good first step.

OR maybe the next time someone tells me the best thing I can do for my son is to let him scream himself hoarse with fear, in a dark room, all alone, while I sit on my ass eating bon-bons and not worrying my pretty little head with what my son wants or needs, I should tell them to MIND THEIR OWN FUCKING BUSINESS. And then I’ll turn my wasted brain’s musings into a complaint-ridden blog post for you, dear Reader.

Aren’t you glad you know me?

Noah’s been getting on my ever-lovin’ last nerve. (That’s a southernism, y’all.) I didn’t think he’d ever annoy me. See he’s got those big brown eyes and that dimple and those cheeks that just drip sugar all the time (another southernism for you). People told me it would happen; I was fairly warned that it would happen, yet I didn’t believe. My son? My perfect, sweet, wonderful baby boy? I thought, Maybe your son gets on your nerves because he’s not as awesome as my son. But yes, other mothers, you were right. He has found a way. HE HAS FOUND THE THING.

Our story opens every Sunday or Monday (or Tuesday, when I’m putting it off because I loathe what must be done oh so much). I sit down at my computer with various recipe books surrounding me and I painstakingly put together a menu for the week. I keep in mind things like ease of completion on Lance’s part on the nights I have to work, Lance’s and Noah’s likes and dislikes (and my own of course), variety, healthiness, and tastiness, and I come up with five or six meals that I feel everyone in the family should A) enjoy and B) be able to chew regardless of the state of one’s molars. I also try and incorporate one new dish in to every week. This week, for instance, looks like this.

Monday: Macaroni and cheese with cauliflower and roasted tomatoes, peas
Tuesday: Tempeh tacos, refried beans, guacamole
Wednesday: Black bean and quinoa burgers, baked fries
Thursday (make ahead because I have to work): Pizza margherita, kale
Friday (new recipe): Sun dried tomato, pesto, and roasted red pepper panini, sweet potato chips

I write this out so you will see A) how awesome I am and B) how much effort goes into this. I’m not like Monday: McDonald’s, Tuesday: frozen pizza, Wednesday: Chinese takeout, Thursday: leftovers, Friday: fish sticks and canned corn. You know? I just want you to be proud of me, Reader. That’s all I’m tryin’ to say.

After the menu is planned, I get a little note pad and pen and stare at each menu item until all the needed ingredients come to me. It involves walking back and forth from the pantry to the fridge back to the table to the cookbook to the freezer to the table again to make sure I have certain ingredients and how much, and if I need more. Then I rearrange all the ingredients into a comprehensive list since I so hate grocery shopping. I want all the produce together, all the dairy together, all the baking items together, etc, so I can blow through that hell hole without losing my sanity. I really can’t tell you what happens in the canned food aisle if I have to go down it a second time. BECAUSE NO ONE CAN PROVE THAT WAS ME.

Step whatever this is: The Grocery Store. (DUNH-DUNH-DUNH) Some days, like today, I’m lucky*. I convince Lance that it would be a good idea for us to eat lunch at Whole Foods so I can combine the looming, harrowing task with something I love, like eating. Then Lance can take his computer and work at the cafe while Noah and I do the shopping.

The only other thing about groceries I’ll say is this. Please don’t think I’m complaining because it is our choice to buy food from the local, organic grocer and occasionally Whole Foods and occasionally the Kroger Organic Market (which is one aisle and makes shopping a difficult compromise but at least over quickly). But it is part of the story, so here it is. Buying organic, healthy food is expensive. Like, whoa. Like, thankfully we are able to do it, but it does mean sacrificing in other areas. Just keep this in mind for later. Thank you.

After I have all the groceries I need, I start on dinner. We try to eat between 6:30 and 7 so Noah can go to bed around 8:30. Which means I start cooking around 5:30, or sometimes 5, depending on what I’m making and how long pizza dough needs to rise, etc. Sometimes I even start cooking early in the day, if it requires beans cooking all day or bread baking or something. But on average, 5:30. The kitchen looks crazy by the time I’m finished, but it’s the price I have to pay and I know Lance will clean it up. (Correction: I hope Lance will clean it up. Love you, babe. The dishwasher is empty, by the way. Ready to be filled. Any time anyone around here might want to fill it. Any time, yessir, just any old time. Whenever.)

We set the table and put all the food out and sit down to dinner and help Noah blow on his tiny bites which are on his tiny plate and being speared by his tiny fork in his tiny hand, and he happily eats somewhere in the neighborhood of ONE BITE, and from then on it just goes straight ONTO THE DAMN FLOOR.

And there it is, Reader, the thing with which I do not know how to cope. After every. thing. I. did. to. bring. that. boy. the. food. that. is. currently. being. gobbled. up. by. the. dog. Which would be a compliment coming from anyone WHO DIDN’T LICK HER OWN BUTTHOLE. It is just the most infuriating thing to me. It’s the waste, the money I could be wadding up and flushing down the toilet instead. It’s the time and effort it took me to plan for it and shop for it and cook it. And it’s also the fact that all that nutrition, all the food that needs to be growing his little body, is now down there on the rug and not bringing vitamins to his vital organs. It’s the stereotype of it all, too. You know, the kid covered in spagetti, sauce on the walls, meatballs stuck between his toes, noodles in his hair, noodles all over the mom and dad… it’s that funny little image we’ve all seen. Every parent knows it’s coming when they have kids. They joke about it. Ha! The kid will throw his food. Hilarious. Cute.

BUT IT IS TURNING ME INTO THE SHE-HULK. The stay-at-home, cooking and cleaning, 2011 version of Leave it to Beaver’s mom, friggin’ Hulk. I don’t know what to do about it. He’s too young to know better. To him it’s way more fun to throw food than eat it. I can tell him to stop all night, but it doesn’t mean anything to him. It’s just his developmental phase and I know it will eventually pass but in the meantime, I see a new FLEET of gray hairs popping up at my temple, and my left eye and a vein in my forehead are now permanently engorged and protruding hideously from the rest of my face. I had no idea I would be so utterly annoyed by this seemingly little and certainly normal thing, but for some reason I can’t figure out how to let it go.

Also, does anyone else find it horrifyingly ironic that we go to great lengths to feed our son healthy, nutritious, organic foods that he won’t touch other than to smash with his utensils and hands and that the dog eventually laps up off the floor, yet all day long I’m digging bits of toilet paper and crayon and dried up leaves out of his clenched jaws? WHAT GIVES, KID?

*What I mean is, lucky other than a few moments of blazing un-luckiness. Like A) the moment I completely lost my mind and decided since my hands were full of lettuce and kale I’d just push the cart with my belly, resulting in an out-of-control cart zooming across the produce section with Noah inside looking worried, which then crashed into the potatoes and gave my poor son whiplash and caused him to almost start crying, and I ran over and hugged him and told him I was sorry but I was sort of laughing at the same time, and some guy walked by and said “WHOA, that was a boom” and probably called child protective services on the way out. And B) the moment when Noah dropped his soggy, half-eaten orange slice from the sample bin onto the floor beside the bulk items and I casually walked away after looking around to make sure no one was watching. Oh, and C) the moment Noah coughed and spluttered Rich Aged English Cheddar all across the dairy aisle. And my personal favorite, D) the moment I gave him a bag of black beans to play with while I perused the umpteen varieties of yogurt and he threw it on the floor, it burst open, and black beans went EVERYWHERE, and I just decided, Screw the yogurt, and we ran for it. When we were hiding safely three aisles away I saw a special team of employees with brooms marching over to where the Black Bean-pocolypse had happened, and it was then I decided we’d done enough damage, and we’d better bounce before any other unlucky events took place.

I just said goodbye to my neighbors, who are moving to California tomorrow. Luckily it’s raining, which is perfect weather for such a sad day.

***Let me just pause to say that even though I know this is a day for weeping, if Lucy doesn’t STOP THAT WHINING FROM THE CORNER I WILL WRAP UP HER MUZZLE WITH DUCT TAPE. I keep trying to explain to her that we ALL miss Lance, and that shrill sound she’s making isn’t speeding his return one iota. (What the heck is an iota anyway?)***

The first time I met my neighbor Tracy we were walking the dog down to the bakery, my pregnant belly stuck out in front of me like a backpack facing the wrong way. As I huffed and puffed up the hill, we ran into a young woman with beautiful tattoos, wearing Vans and carrying a sling over her shoulder, a teeny tiny baby tucked inside. She introduced herself as our new neighbor and she introduced the baby as Winston, her three-week old.

Over the past year and a half, Noah and I have grown really close to those two. I have admired Tracy from the beginning, and I have learned so much from her. She inspired me to become a vegetarian again, to share sleep with Noah and not expect him to sleep through the night, to gently raise him in an attachment-parenting kind of way, and to try our best to live all-natural, organic lives. She has given me tips on food, nursing, sleeping, parenting, holistic medicine, where to get a tattoo from a gentle tattoo artist, and she was the first person to tell me about the Patterson House, which is a really neat underground bar that’s built into an old house here in Nashville, and I feel definitely not cool enough to be in there.

But Tracy and Chris are. They’re some of the coolest and nicest people I’ve ever met.

It’s going to be so sad looking across the street at their empty house. And even though I took Noah out shopping and bought myself some new pajamas and him a new toy bus (which it turns out he is frightened of, because if you push the driver’s head it takes off across the floor and that is just not natural), when we got back home to this empty neighborhood I immediately came down from that temporary shopping high.

I hope our friends are happy out in Cali, but I’m going to be bitter about it for a long time. I’m so glad they were in our lives, even for such a short time.

I hope someday we meet again.

1. I tried putting Noah down for a nap. It took two hours.

2. Towards the end, Noah bit me. Fucking hard. On the arm.

3. I made a sound I’ve never heard before, something like “Zzz! ZZz-z–ZZZ!”

4. Scared the shit out of my son.

5. I set him in his crib as gently as I could so I could go scream into a pillow, but I hurt his feelings anyway.

6. I ended up picking him up and holding him close. In other words, I comforted my son because he took a chunk out of my arm.

7. I laid Noah in his crib again after a while, which pissed him off.

8. Noah cried.

9. I cried.

10. I went to whine to Lance, showing him the bite welts on my arm. You know. For extra sympathy.

11. Lance asked why Noah was silent.

12. We snuck into Noah’s room. He was asleep.

13. I cried again.

14. Later, Noah scratched me on the face with his caveman fingernails.

15. I clipped Noah’s fingernails.

16. He loved that. He patiently waited and didn’t move his hand around or make everything insanely difficult AT ALL.

17. Number 16? Yeah, that was a lie.

18. We ordered pizza for dinner. Lance’s half had pepperoni, which makes me want to barf. His half of the box was coated with grease.

19. Noah chewed up several bites of cheesy, bready goodness.

20. Then spit them out.

21. Then threw the green bits on the floor.

22. Then the dog mouthed them, and tasted health.

23. Then spit them back out for me to clean up later.

24. It’s like the dog and the kid are in some kind of conspiracy together. I don’t get it.

25. Noah bit me on the leg.

26. I screamed.

27. Lance took Noah, like, away from the screaming, which hurt his feelings. I hurt his feelings for the second time in one day.

28. Ugh.

29. Noah kissed Lance and me goodnight with a big, slobbery open toddler mouth.

30. It was a great day and I am officially the luckiest mom ever.

This morning, while I was dozing after Lance took Noah to eat some breakfast, I dreamed we moved back to DC and I went back to work. I was talking to my boss, and he was giving me some task that had something to do with newspapers, and it was very involved, and he was trying to explain it all to me. And I was all, uh-huh, yes, I hear you, but the truth is I didn’t have a clue what he was saying. Because I wasn’t listening to him. I was thinking about Noah. I was picturing him walking around some day-care, playing with toys and talking to the day-care workers, and I was fighting back tears because I realized how meaningless my job was. I was missing the only time I have with my little boy – I was wasting it on newspaper articles.

I woke up feeling sad, y’all. I woke up and wanted to hold my baby. So I stumbled into the kitchen and when he saw me, he lit up like I was Christmas morning. He toddled over and lifted his chubby arms over his head (ok, who am I kidding – he lifted his chubby arms and they ALMOST came to the top of his head) and I reached down and picked him up and breathed him in. He smelled like eggs and baby shampoo. I could have eaten him in one bite. And I thought, yes, this is exactly where I want to be.

A friend asked me the other day if I ever get bored staying home with Noah. Is it boring? YES. OMG sometimes it’s soooo boring for real. Like the hundredth time he wants me to make that vroom-vroom car noise with his wooden truck. Or when I’m reading the first four words of The Little Red Hen AGAIN. Or when I’m following him around from room to room, or picking up yet another grape or hunk of soggy bread or cheese after he’s mashed it and thrown it on the floor. Sometimes I long for a work atmosphere, where actual adult human beings inhabit my world and not tiny aliens bent on putting pocket change and lint into their mouths or emptying the contents of their dresser drawers or biting my legs or putting smooshy banana hands in my hair or unrolling every roll of toilet paper in the house. I crave conversations in English instead of the language of whining, whining, whining, shrieking, whining, crying, yelling, whining. I long for neural stimulation in the place of mindlessly stacking wooden blocks or plastic rings so they can be toppled and sent crashing to the floor.

But the thing is, despite all of that, today my tiny alien knows more than he knew yesterday. He knows how to stack those blocks by himself. He can say “mama.” He can tell me that the cow says “moo.” He can point to his nose when I ask him where it is. He can almost RUN when I’m chasing him. He finds the oddest things funny, and he can belly-laugh in appreciation for his sense of humor. He can take that wooden truck from me after I’ve “vroom-vroom”ed it all around the floor and make a “bbb-bbb” sound as he mimics me.

And let’s not even talk about all the times during the day when he stops whatever he’s doing just to come over and put his arms around my neck or crawl up in my lap for a second or turn and grin at me for no reason whatsoever.

And I haven’t had to miss that. I’ve been here for each and every precious, heart-stopping moment of it. You get what I’m puttin’ down, Reader? I feel moments like this morning again and again when I see Noah’s smiling face. I’m exactly where I want to be.

I know there are many women who are unable to stay home with their kids even though they wish they could, and I am one of the lucky few that can. I mean, let’s not make any mistake – it’s hard going without my paycheck. We’ve had to sacrifice and learn to scrimp and since we’ve lived here we’ve managed to bury ourselves under a mountain of debt we’re trying to crawl out of, but still. We’ve got plenty of food to eat and running water and electricity, so we’re truly doing just fine, and I know that would not be the case for a lot of people trying to live on only one income. I recognize how blessed I am that the choice to stay home is mine to make.

And I recognize how much it kicks ass, for serious.

After the heart palpitations from the dream this morning subsided, I remembered something someone recently told me when she learned I stayed home with my son: “You’ll never regret that decision.” I’d never thought of it that way before. If I chose to go back to work, I can see myself looking back in anguish at missing so much of my baby boy’s life. I’d never be at my son’s college graduation wishing I’d spent more time at work. If I look back on these years the way they are, I’ll never be sad I didn’t go back. I’ll always cherish this wonderful, career-killing, boring-ass time, and I mean that with every fiber of my being.

Signing off, y’all – I got another boring day ahead of me tomorrow. (Just kidding.)

6:45-8:30am – Rise and shine! If you’re wondering what woke you, that’s the sound of your baby babbling (on a good day) or whining (on a bad day). Or it might have been the sudden realization that your young one was trying to launch himself off the bed. And if that doesn’t peel your eyelids back, he’ll try hitting you over the head with your own cell phone next. Try not to swear.

For about 15 minutes, pretend that you’re single again, and if you hit the alarm, you can drift back off into peaceful nothingness for just a little bit longer. When the whining starts in earnest, you have to just sit up. It’s the only way to force yourself out of bed, I’ve learned. You just have to DO it. You’ll get the same feeling you have when you’re nauseous after a long night of drinking and you know you should eat a piece of toast to sop up all the leftover vodka but your brain is screaming NO! NO TOAST! But as soon as you force that first bite, you feel a little bit better. When you make your protesting body sit up for a second, you realize you really can do it. The desire for singleness might not go away until after your first cup of coffee, but don’t worry; that’s perfectly normal.

Pick up your toddler and, squinting against the light of day, haul your tired ass into the nursery to change that soaking wet diaper. That poor kid does not want to stay in it for one more second, and can you blame him? There’s like 12 hours worth of piss in that thing. At this point, it weighs more than he does, and it renders him unable to walk without dragging his butt along the floor.

Breakfast time! You’ll feel SO much better after a frozen waffle and a banana, and a steaming mug of hot coffee. Promise. You’ll even be able to watch your son throw scrambled egg and blueberries at the dog without even an eye roll. Just keep drinkin’ that coffee, ma’am.

He signs “all done” (which bears a stunning resemblance to jazz hands) long before you’re finished, and you’re 99% sure he’s only eaten one bite of that egg you cooked him, since the rest of it is on the floor, rapidly being consumed by the dog (whose food you buy at the local holistic pet store for $40 a bag) (but finding the silver lining in any cloud, you think hey, at least you won’t have to sweep this shit up). You put your kid on the floor and wipe up his hands and face and he sees his jungle gym out of the corner of his eye. With a point of his chubby little finger and a demanding “eh!” from his lips, you know your morning will be spent picking him up and putting him back at the top of the slide, then clapping like you’ve never seen any performance as stunning in all your born days as his bum slides that whole foot and a half down to the bottom.

You realize at some point that you have a lot to do today, and you feel a little guilty for making a list in your head while, were you a better person, you’d be fully present as your son slides down the bus slide, giggling, for the 19th time in three minutes. You wonder what it would be like if you could live in the present, constantly aware of your surroundings and what is happening in the moment.

Time to get busy. You put a load of laundry in the wash, you start to vacuum, you pick your toddler up, you let him “help” you push the vacuum around, you put him back down. You clean the kitchen. You realize just on time that your baby, who has been “helping” you load the dishwasher, is reaching for the handle of a gigantic knife. You ask him to “help” you close the dishwasher. You praise him as he does so. You pull down the bread machine and you throw all the ingredients in for whole wheat bread. You give your kid a little of the flour to play in, thinking he will LOVE it. He’s mildly amused for about 20 seconds. He wants to be picked up again. You finish the bread one-handed. One-handed, you put the clothes into the dryer. One-handed, you try and finish loading the dishwasher. Your baby wants down again (he sees that shiny knife). You start the dishwasher.

While you’re holding your toddler, you notice him yawn. You see him rub his eyes. You look at the clock and realize it’s been about three hours, which means it for sure is nap time.

HOORAY! Nap time is wonderful. You gently close the door to his room after gazing lovingly at his sleeping form for a couple of seconds, and you return to the living room. Breathe deeply, girl. That silence is the sound of an hour and a half of whatever YOU want to do. You could take a nap (which sounds amazing, since you damn near rocked yourself to sleep just now), mop the floor, take a shower, sew something, do some yoga, read a book, write a novel, end starvation, build a city. No lie, you are, for the next hour and a half, the queen of the universe. You have to plan wisely. It’s the only break you get today. You think about how you’ll spend it, then decide to watch Hulu while you fold diapers. It’s deliciously decadent, and you sip your leftover morning coffee while you watch The Office.

Lunch time! Baby’s awake, and you have to scrounge for something to eat. Lunch time really sucks, to be perfectly honest. You finished with breakfast, and at some point you’ll have to make dinner, and you feel sorry for yourself as you haul out leftovers, sandwich stuff, salad stuff, and frozen burritos. You’d much rather eat at the Silly Goose or Marche, but you know you shouldn’t spend the money. And if that doesn’t solidify your decision to eat at home, all you need to do is remember the last time you took your food-throwing wild man out to lunch, and you’ll perk right up. You may even start to whistle as you slather a slice bread with some all-natural, refrigerated, HARD AS A ROCK peanut butter. You’ll tear the shit out of that bread, but you’ll still be happy as a clam because today? Today your son will not smear his avocadoed hands all over the innocent patrons at nearby tables.

After lunch (and subsequent clean-up of child and child’s eating area), you have a plethora of opportunities in front of you. Would you like to go out? For a walk? Shopping? Maybe you have a coffee date. Getting the kid out of the house is a good idea, because he gets real bored with those same lame-ass toys he got for Christmas nearly a MONTH ago. He’ll look at you with such disappointment as you set him down in front of his basket of toys that you’ll feel obligated to get him dressed, put his coat on, put his shoes on, and strap him into his car seat (all activities he hates) so that you can take him to Border’s and chase him around for a couple of stimulating hours.

When you come back home, it’s play time. Play time is so awesome. Your son likes to wrestle you to the ground and climb all over you while covering you with drooly kiss-bites. He wants you to read four words out of a dozen books. He wants you to beat up pieces of furniture with his drumsticks. He wants you to zoom his car all over the floor. He wants you to chase him around and around and around the dining room table. (He wants you to hug him for a second when he slams into the corner of the dining room table.) He wants you to ask “Where’s Daddy?” or “Where’s Lucy?” and follow him around from room to room while he peeks inside looking for them. He wants to zombie-walk all over the house, stopping at intervals to dance to whatever Pandora station you’re listening to.

You need to start on dinner. Even though you’re exhausted from your outing with a one-year-old and from the marathon play-session. Your throat is hoarse from growling “I’m gonna GEEET you!” Your knees are sore from crawling all over the floor. Your back is sore from throwing your kid up in the air. Before you can face the kitchen, you need a coffee break. And your kid needs a throw-more-blueberries-on-the-floor-and-do-the-sign-for-more-cheese break.

Dog eats fallen food. Kid signs all-done. Wash kid’s hands and face. You know the drill by now.

So it’s time to start on dinner, and you’re halfway through chopping one pepper when your toddler decides he’s a) tired and b) bored. He doesn’t understand why you aren’t playing with him anymore. He becomes clingier than Saran Wrap. You can do so many things one-handed these days, but chopping vegetables is not one of them. You do everything you can one-handed, then wait for your hubbs to get off work. (Alternately: you stomp into your hubbs’ office and passive-aggressively wonder out loud when the heck he plans to get off work so he can help you out around here, for crying out loud. It’s HIS dinner you’re trying to make. What is this, the 50s or something?)

The hubbs takes the boy and plays with him while you finish making dinner. You drink a glass of wine and talk to your hubbs about his day. Which doesn’t take very long, since he works from home and you pretty much know how his day went already. The hubbs also wants to hear about your day, and you launch into a giggly diatribe about your play-laugh-session, which the hubbs jealously heard from his office while he tried to code so that your family could have money for a house in which to hold long, loud, play-laugh sessions. He tries to recreate the wrestling with your son, who loves the idea of a Round 2, and he slams his huge pumpkin head into your husband’s nose.

Your kid cries, and you rush over to comfort him while your hubbs runs to the bathroom to get some tissue to sop up his own bloody nose.

Dinner time! You tried a new recipe you found on a food blog (at least one new one per week). Your hubbs praises your culinary skill, and your kid eats several bites before he begins throwing it all on the floor for the dog. It’s a hit! You make a mental note to make it a regular meal in your house. Then you promptly forget about it forever, because you made a “mental” note, and you know perfectly well you have no room in there for any notes. Next time? Write it down.

After the cleaning of the kid and the surrounding area, it’s time for some gentle play. Gentle, because if you get him all riled up again, it will be hours before he goes to sleep. You could take a walk if it’s nice outside. You could open several books for him to see. He points to the pictures. You label the objects to which he is pointing. “Hat.” “Pajamas.” “Lynx.” “Piano.” “Weird purple alien-animal thing.”

Bath time is awesome, because your kid LOVES bath time. Bath time means toys which he never gets to see outside of the tub. He splashes around and plays while you wash him off. You and your hubbs’ teamwork allows you to pick your toddler out of the tub and wrap a hooded towel around him without him slipping out of your grasp or making yourself too soaked.

You take him to his room and set him on his changing table (which is also the top of the chest-of-drawers and it’s getting kind of dangerous and you wonder how much longer you’ll be able to use it as a changing-station) and he instantly starts reaching for everything you have sitting up there. The wipes warmer, which he opens. He grabs the wipes, throws them to the floor. Now the touch-lamp. He touches it once, it goes dark in the room. Again, and it’s very dim. Again, and you can see again. You quickly grab a diaper and fasten it to his bum as he touches the lamp again, and the room becomes fairly bright again before *touch* one last time and darkness falls once more. You brush his hair. You rub teething gel on his sore gums. You massage lavender sleep balm into his temples. You laboriously pull his arms and legs into pajamas. Of course, to accomplish this you have to stop him from touching the lamp or throwing the wipes or grabbing the diaper creme or whatever else he’s trying to do, and that makes him mad. This is how you know he will go to sleep easily.

One last story, which you ask him to pick out and which he zombie-carries (walking is hard in his huge nighttime diaper) over to his Daddy. His Daddy picks him up and sets him in his lap, and together they read/violently turn the pages of/point and identify pictures in some story you’ve read a hundred times and could recite in your sleep, like Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar or Sandra Boynton’s The Going to Bed Book.

Your kid reaches out to you, you pick him up off your husband’s lap, and your husband stands up and gives him a goodnight kiss. It’s dark and quiet in the room now, with the soft white noise of the heater and the humidifier filling the air. You rock and nurse and sing and soon he is asleep. You transfer him to his crib and cover him with his blanket. He stirs for a minute and you hold your breath, but then he settles with one arm over his head and one hand in his mouth, and you tiptoe out of the room and close the door.

Breathe the sweet free air, girlfriend. You and your hubbs swap stories about how cute and wonderful your kid is, and after the dishes are cleared away you sit on the couch and pick up your book or watch your Netflix or discuss dessert options, and before you know it it’s 10:00 and you need to get in bed before your toddler wakes up with sore teeth or gas or because he misses you or because he’s thirsty/hungry/being a little shit/take your pick. You don’t mind anymore though, because you love cuddling him at night when the house is quiet and the cat is curled up at your feet. You don’t love waking up with his giant noggin resting on your arm and making it go to sleep, but you shift him around and it’s ok. You keep hearing all these things you “should” do to help him sleep on his own at night, but you have decided that until he is ready, you’re just going to keep doing what you’re doing and trying to maximize the sleep that happens in your own house, because you know in just a couple of hours, it will be morning, and you’ll have to start all over again.

But that’s really ok. Because you love your life. You love being a Stay-at-Home-Mom. And you love that bread you baked yesterday, too, and ooo! That’s what you’ll have for breakfast!

Well, it’s been far too long since I posted something totally inappropriate. Let’s get started here.

Noah has two top teeth. For those of you who have never nursed a baby whose top teeth have just come in, allow me to help you understand what this means. To demonstrate, I’ll need you to fetch two forks. Hold one in each hand, on either side of the nipple of your choice. Now, rapidly bring the forks together.

Ok? Are we all on the same page now? (Helpful tip: you’ll need to stop screaming and wipe the tears from your eyes to continue reading this post.)

I don’t do well with pain, y’all. For some reason it makes me angry. If something hurts me, a rage wells up in my blood like only my neighbor has ever been able to replicate. I’ve been known to throw my hairbrush across the room when I snag a tangle and let out a stream of curses so violent that sailors all across the sea blush involuntarily. It’s definitely a character flaw, especially when one has an 11-month-old. Noah grabs and yanks fistfuls of my hair and flesh on a DAILY basis, and stifling my urge to pound my fist into the nearest wall is almost impossible at times.

The first time Noah bit me, I ripped him off my boob and basketball-dunked him into his crib. As I was storming out of his room, he let out a wail so deafening I was sure I’d hurt him, but I looked back and he was just sitting there in the middle of his bed. Heartbroken. I felt awful, but I still had to walk away for a couple of seconds just to breathe and collect myself while my nipple stopped throbbing.

When I was pregnant, and even when Noah was a newborn, I used to just assume I would wean him around a year. With the top teeth and the biting and the horror stories I heard from moms whose kids reached down their shirts to pinch their nipples while they were in conversation with other people, it only made sense. Also, I’m a total prude. I’m weirded out by the thought that Noah might remember nursing, like, EVER. The last thing a teenage boy wants is to be able to call to mind the memory of his mom’s tits. THINK OF THE THERAPY BILLS, Y’ALL. And despite all the nursing blogs I read and what a huge breast feeding advocate I’ve become, to me my boobs are still pretty, um, sexual. Yes, I know their primary function is the nutrition of my young, just like all mammals. If you want proof of that, watch a nature program and tell me if you see even ONE other female mammal’s mate groping her teets, or someone shooting photos of her breasts for exploitation in consumer-driven magazine ads. Furthermore, I’d love to hear someone talk about how gross or inappropriate it is for a dog or a cow to nurse her young. Out in the middle of all the other dogs and cows. Like, oh my gosh where the other dogs and cows are trying to EAT. WITHOUT A BLANKET TO COVER THOSE THINGS.

BEGIN TITTY TANGENT

What I’m trying to say is, even though I totally agree that the whole reason I have these fun-bags is so that I can make milk to feed to my baby son, they still are, to me and to a certain other male person in this house, well, FUN-bags. If you get my drift. So I’ve always had to really separate the boobs for the purpose of the feeding of the baby with the boobs for the… other…. things. I do not let Noah touch, or play with, or even really LOOK at, my bare chest. The only contact he really has with them is for nursing. And when he pulls off and looks at me and smiles, the boob gets tucked neatly back into its brassiere before he has the chance to explore further. To some nursing mothers this is probably shocking and even silly, but I told you I’m a prude. If I let him play with my boozies, when someone ELSE in this house wanted to play with them, I could definitely not get excited AT ALL. I think my brain would explode with just the sheer weird-gross-ness of it all.

Disclaimer #1: This really is not true for every mom. It’s just MY thing. I’m not in any way commenting on anyone else’s ability to let her kid have ample bosom-time and still have fun with them in the bedroom. I just can’t disconnect that way. Also some moms don’t even like boobs to be part of their bedroom fun, so none of this matters to them anyway. Hopefully their hubbies are butt-men and not boob-men.

Disclaimer #2: I also am in no way commenting on a baby playing with his mom’s boobs. It really is totally innocent. Baby sees boob and thinks food-slash-teddy-bear. Kind of like most people see bacon and want to hold it close to them.

END TITTY TANGENT

Now here I am, at almost one year. Noah’s definitely not ready to stop nursing, seeing as he cannot sleep for more than ten seconds unless he is latched to my breast like a milk leech ALL NIGHT LONG. Nursing still seems to be his primary source of comfort, and I rest easier (figure of speech, y’all) knowing he’s still getting all the nutrition, antibodies, and other health benefits of breast milk on a daily basis. Noah’s never had anything worse than a cold, and I attribute that mostly to breast milk. And if I’m honest, I’m really not ready to wean him yet either. I love knowing I’m burning all those extra calories still, for one selfish thing. I love the closeness of my baby boy, and the way he still needs me so much. But most of all, y’all, I’m lazy. When Noah cries or generally starts acting like a pain in the ass, I know all I have to do is whip out a boob. It’s like a miracle drug. It calms him down when he’s irritable, cheers him up when he’s cranky, gives him energy when he’s tired, and puts him to sleep at bedtime. And again, at 11pm. And again, at 1am. And again, at 2am. You see where I’m going. I just can’t imagine not having that silver bullet. Like the other day, I heard a baby crying in one of my neighbor’s houses. The baby cried and cried and cried, and then just when I thought she was done, she’d start wailing all over again. And I just kept thinking, OMG can you not breastfeed her? I know that sounds so judgmental, and maybe it is, but I just feel like raising a baby is hard, and there is this one awesome gift we mothers have been given, and that is a set of mammary glands. I just don’t understand it when some moms decide not to use them.

Yet here I am, sore-ass nipples with fresh teeth-marks in them, remembering how I used to want to wean at a year and thinking maybe it’d be a good idea. If I weren’t so freakin’ lazy. For real.

So basically I’m trading pain for laziness. I guess I can deal with that for another year. And if you give me any crap about nursing my baby till he’s two, I’ll kick your ass and tell you to read the WHO recommendations. In that order.

There are some really good reasons why I have, of late, abandoned you, Reader. The first is that I’ve been engrossed in this book, The Help. It’s a novel about the civil rights era in the south in the mid-1960s. I just finished it last night at 12:45am and you should know, I do not stay up that late. But that’s how good it was. I think the last time I stayed up past my bedtime to finish a book was when I read The Time Traveler’s Wife, and I was not breastfeeding five bagillion times a night. Anyway, The Help was so intense and moving that I dreamed about it all night and I don’t think I’m ready to talk about it without a handful of tissues, so I’ll move on to the second reason I opened the speeding van door and dropped my blog on the side of the road before zooming away. (Oh, hello, run-on sentence! I missed you.)

Last weekend we were in Savannah, Georgia. Georgia’s the one with that sweet Willie Nelson song about it being on his mind. I’m from Alabama, and we got a song by Lynard Skynard. Dudes wrote the redneckist song I’ve ever heard and it gets played at every ball game, every picnic, every gathering of any kind, to wild cheers and the sound of beer cans popping open. (Ok, I’ll be honest, I love the song too. I can’t help it. It’s in my blood.) Georgia, on the other hand, gets the pretty song because it’s the pretty state. Don’t you just think about southern belles and lilting accents and ripe peaches and long, hot summers with ladies sipping sweet tea on front porches?

Which reminds me. On the drive down there was a wreck that was making traffic stand completely still on I-75. I know it was a wreck because the Hubbs, faster than I could whine, “Awww now what the hell is all this about!” had whipped out his Droid and was looking at the google map of our location, complete with red stop lines and “Traffic Accident” headlines. “Take this next exit,” says my little human GPS, and so I do. And as we’re navigating the detour, we suddenly see a sign that says “Gone with the Wind and Tara Museum.” Who knew! Cool! Um, no we did not go, but wouldn’t that have been a way cooler end to this tangent than this sentence? I admit it, I wasn’t thinking about you, Reader, and what a great story it could have been. Sorry.

Georgia totally deserves its song, by the way. It’s gorgeous. After a grueling 12 hours between here and there (not all driving, but all the stops were Noah’s fault), we finally made it to Savannah. Some of my favorite things: the spanish moss, the old neighborhoods, the architecture, the sprawling downtown, the sandy beaches, the river walk… and the praline pecans.

And my old and dear friend Michael.

Noah had a blast in the ocean, and we bought him a little plastic bucket and shovel for playing in the sand. I developed heart palpitations trying to prevent him from scooping fistfuls of sand and inserting them directly into his open mouth. I also (mostly) resisted the urge to compulsively spread more sunscreen on his thighs every 10 minutes. Relaxing on the beach is not really possible when you’re obsessed with keeping your son’s sunhat securely in place even though the wind thinks it should be on the other side of the beach, I’ve found.

Motherhood.

Some day, my stomach will unclench. I just know it.

The third reason I’ve been away is that my brains are mush. I know, I know, you’ve heard it all before, and wah wah wah, right? So I won’t bore you by telling you the same sad story YET AGAIN.

Ok, I will. My son does not sleep. Nine months is apparently a “sleep regression” stage. Which is funny, because I would have said it wouldn’t matter for our family since he never sleeps anyway, but the bags under my eyes bear witness to my naivety. Last night he was awake every two hours. And that was pretty decent. The part that sucks is that two of those times, he stayed awake. He likes to push on my kidneys with his feet. He likes to practice saying “DADADADADA” as high pitched as he can go. One more notch and only dolphins will be able to hear him. Which will be a welcome relief, because I’m still cleaning dried blood out of my ears from where the eardrums ruptured last night. He likes to roll around and around and around, back to side to front to other side to back again… until Lance and I don’t have any covers on our bodies and Noah is in a blanket cocoon. He likes to pull my hair, but only the hair at the nape of my neck or above my ears, where it’s REALLY sensitive. He likes to grab handfuls of my skin as he tries to horizontally climb up my body. He likes to spit his passy across the room. He likes to perfect the style of his high-five on my back and Lance’s chest.

THAT’S IT KID, YOU’RE IN YOUR OWN CRIB, is what I think to myself, and then I try to put him in there and he starts wailing instantly. So I bring him back in our bed and he repeats that above paragraph. 3am, y’all. It’s witching hour at our house.

One more reason that my blog is on the back burner. Instead of writing yesterday, I built Noah this cardboard playhouse from his new GINORMOUS car seat box. I’m thinking of painting the outside and adding some curtains and a fireplace. I’m not sure who is enjoying it more, him or me…

Hey, everybody, it’s the first day of fall! Things are looking up. I’m off to sniff my pumpkin candle and find some inner peace or whatever.