Parenting Revisited

I got up to get kids to seminary for the first time in seven weeks. Matt has shouldered the morning load alone, and has done a great job; but the past year of growing a baby and having a baby has severely compromised our effectiveness as parents. I can't remember the last time we parented with any wisdom and backbone. We're back, however, so those kids had better LOOK OUT!

Honestly, the baby is an excellent excuse, but not altogether responsible for our parenting issues. We've been watching the Cosby Show from the eighties recently, a great entertainment, but also a constant reminder that we stink as parents! I realize that the Huxtables are a fictional family, which allows them to be perfect in ways the rest of us who have actual challenges and adversity cannot attain. Still. Why can't I handle messy rooms and poor grades with wit and serenity, and crack everyone up while I'm about it?

Telling people I have seven children always raises eyebrows, and I'm certain people keep their opinions about our family size mostly to themselves. Once in a while, however, someone lets it all out. The other day a gal responded that having seven kids was great, if I could handle them. I almost laughed right out loud. Who said I could handle seven kids? I wanted to tell her if she knew someone that could handle seven kids, to give her my card; I could use the help.

He likes us!

It is always such a happy day when the baby smiles. Six weeks of ambivalent response to all the TLC is finally richly rewarded with a big smile--he likes us! We think it is because he recognizes his special people and loves us best until he gives those same smiles to a stranger who stops to coo over him. Anyway, it is very cute, and keeps the food and snuggles coming despite our fatigue.

Seminary plus new baby is not easy--the parents have on a number of occasions ignored the alarm and decided an extra hour of sleep was worth the chance that the boys would not pass seminary this year. I seem to remember getting the children up and ready for school myself with other newborns, but am unequal to the task this year. Matt gets everyone up and to school, and I wander downstairs after feeding the baby and showering, just in time for my first daycare child to arrive. He's starting to sleep more at night, however, so the bags under his parents' eyes may soon begin to fade.

These particular smiles are for Sadie, who loves to pick him up, especially if it means delaying homework or chores. Baby smiles always make me think that there is someone in that little body after all, and not just genetic material combined to form his particular tiny shape. It is his first attempt to show us who he is, and we anxiously await the next little clue to his personality.

Back in the thick of things

My parents left today, ending what was two weeks of 'vacation.' Mom did laundry, cleaned my house, and held the baby while Dad took charge of clipping up branches and mowing my lawn. At forty years of age, I find that I still need my parents! I wish I could keep them for a while.

The other side of labor and delivery is a wonderful place, sleepless nights notwithstanding. Beforehand is all anxiety and self-doubt, discomfort and impatience; after is glorious! I've never run a marathon or climbed Mt. Everest (nor will I, either), but I think that feeling of I AM THE WOMAN! when those feats are accomplished is the same as the one I get after managing my own labor pains without any anesthesia. (Please sit down! No really, all that applause is just embarrassing! Autographs will be AFTER the celebration gala.) And besides my ego inflating, there is that tiny, soft little person to love and hold and share with grandmas and aunties. Yes, the view is much better after birth than before.

Happy ending, blessed beginning

Living proof that pregnancies do end, after all!

Losing marbles, such as they are

I used to have a very good brain. I was very proud of it. Now it is only a shadow of its former self, with most of its splendor leached out by seven pregnancies.  In the ninth month of this pregnancy, I have had to dumb down my nightly sudoku puzzle to an easier level, which has been very painful. I found that I had five in a row of the toughest puzzles completely ruined, so I turned back to the previous section in defeat and humiliation. This is only one example--the usual air traffic control job of getting kids to their several activities has befuddled me of late, so Matt has had to be both brains and brawn of this operation. Good thing he's up to the task.

Still waiting and wondering on when this little person is going to show up. Of course, I haven't even reached the due date yet, so I have no business being so antsy. And yet we do get antsy, all of us, for every long second between the 38th week and the time the baby comes. My mother claims that she didn't want the baby to come on time, because she had too much to do to get ready. I don't know that I have complete confidence in her memory on this one (sorry, Mom)--"this is the time that Mommies start to get anxious," as my friend sagely put it to me the other day. The contractions keep coming, and making slow progress (due to a cranky uterus, according to the nurse practitioner).

This nurse practitioner was not my friend today. Besides accusing my uterus of being cranky, she also mentioned that having a baby at forty was practically elderly. I think she was trying to be funny, but I find I didn't laugh. She discovered that there was more cranky about me than she had originally guessed. If my brain had been up to firing off a sharp retort, you can be sure I would have given her one.

Waiting

You'd think I'd know better by now. I do know better--I've resisted all attempts to move the due date closer; when the doctor says, "Could happen any time," I plug my ears and hum "Battle Hymn of the Republic;" when friends tell me they think I'll go early, I change the subject to how they think the Padres will fare this year. Psychologically, I know it is best for me to think that that baby will come two weeks after the due date. And yet, when the pre-contraction contractions kick in, I am the one getting prematurely excited. I think, "Well, maybe," and then just end up grumpily resetting all my psychological defenses.

Meanwhile, life plugs along without worrying about baby's timetable. The 17-year-old pulls an almost all-nighter for a gigantic AP project, waking me up at four, curse him, to tell me his plan. The fifteen-year-old falls dead asleep on the couch for five hours in the afternoon because he is growing like a weed and needs his beauty rest. The thirteen-year-old wrestles at school, bikes home, eats several pounds of food, and dashes off to rugby practice. The ten-year-old makes earrings, since she has no homework, then goes off to basketball, which is only an acceptable way to pass her time if one of her friends is there. The nine-year old and five-year-old, also known as flint and steel, play together happily, much to mother's surprise and delight, before starting their homework.

At least waiting for baby does have a predetermined end, unlike many things we wait for and chew our nails over in life. In two weeks, one way or another, I will be able to tie my own shoes again, walk without a waddle, and switch to my other side in bed without a three point turn.

This is no time to panic!

Actually, two weeks away from the big day, give or take, is the perfect time to panic. This is the time one remembers there is only one way out of the pregnancy, and that is through the valley of the shadow of death. I awoke at 3:30 this morning (to visit the bathroom, of course), but I couldn't get back to sleep for the sense of impending doom. I remember all too well all the sensations of labor and delivery, and spent an hour and a half arguing with myself about whether I could do it again without the epidural. Scratch that, I know I can do it again. The question is, do I want to do it again.

Noah's was the only delivery where I decided that an epidural was the way to go--Macon was an emergency C-section, and the other four were natural, no-drug deliveries. (Since Noah learned this, he tells everyone that I took drugs when I was pregnant with him. That usually raises a few eyebrows.) I didn't particularly like the epidural; it made me feel weepy and needy. I did not mind placidly watching basketball, however, as I waited for transition to be over. That part was okay.

What I want to avoid are those last overpowering waves of transition labor and the leg shaking, back-aching, get-that-kid-out pushing phase. One of my labors, after the baby had finally slipped out into someone's waiting hands, I lay back on the pillow and closed my eyes, and stayed there. Some short while later, another well-meaning someone was ready to give me the baby, and I was so exhausted, I didn't particularly want to hold it! Once I opened my eyes, adrenaline and maternal instinct took over, and I was all about the tiny person I had just delivered. But those few minutes of just let me die are what kept me awake last night, dreading it all.