February Post

Title explanation: Just in case I never post again this month (hey ... give me a break ... it's a short month).

Can I please just start out by bitching a little? And let me preface my bitching with a sidenote about my church attendance. Of late, I have discovered that church really does help me to be a better person and to think about WWJD. Of particular importance has been my reacquaintance with a Jesus quote about how you should not pick out the SPECK in your brother's eye when you have a LOG in your own eye.

See, I am really good at finding specks! Y'all: There are so many fun specks to point out!!! Nevermind the fact that my logs are so big that it's surprising that I can even SEE the specks ...

Recently it has been drawn to my attention that educational multimedia for toddlers -- as in BABY EINSTEIN VIDEOS (aka digital board books) -- are suspected to cause ADD/ADHD when viewed by children under 24 months of age. So of course if you point this out to me 714 times then I will eventually acquiesce and agree not to allow my 17-month old to EVER watch anything so satanic. But allow me to put out there how I really feel about this whole situation:

1. There are SO many other really important issues in the world that should attract our attention (namely, about six million crises in Africa and the growing anti-American/European sentiments of Muslims around the world).
2. There are SO many other really important issues related to raising children ... like the fact that the World Health Organization recommends breastfeeding until AT LEAST 24 months. Research has proven so many benefits of nursing and yet no one is up-at-arms when people wean their kids early or never breastfeed at all. (Seriously y'all: I DON'T CARE ... there's more than one way to be a good mom, I'm just pointing out the double standard). The American Academy of Pediatrics (which recommends nursing exclusively for six months and then supplementally for at least 12 months) has reported that only 21.6 percent of mothers breastfeed past 6 months. Should we blame these Formula Moms for the increase in obesity, asthma, and diabetes that is plaguing our nation?
3. There are so many other important issues in the day-to-day life of parenting than whether or not your toddler watches approximately 15 minutes of a video PER DAY. The first is that allowing a toddler to watch a video might allow you, as a parent, to do something really good for your family, such as cooking a nutritious meal rather than just something else processed. The second is that if you don't show a video, then you have to find something else for this kid to do while you get something -- any number of things, really -- done (Oh, you're bored ... here, hold this steak knife!). The third is that likely the children whose ADD/ADHD is caused by some aspect of their exposure to multimedia are watching countless hours of videos and -- gasp! -- TV! per day rather than your toddler's average of 15 minutes of halfhearted attention.

Sorry, but I needed to vent.

ION ...

I don't have any time to write, but below is something I wrote about six weeks ago, just before I started working five days a week. And it's still dead on, so I've finally decided to be brave and put it out there:

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TITLE: WHY DON'T I KNOW MYSELF BETTER?

Lately this question has become forefront in my mind. You see, I can't seem to stop getting myself into situations which call for a self-proclaimed, "I told you so," afterwards. Not small things like buying saltine crackers after making a New Year's resolution to stop eating so many of them, but BIG things. Life-size things. Case in point: My decision to stay home and be a full-time mom. All my life I have spent saying that I would go INSANE if I stayed home with a kid. And then I got pregnant. And I decided that of course it is RIGHT and TRUE that I should do what's best for him ... like ... staying home despite the fact that I haven't been really happy at it ever, or continuing to breastfeed despite the fact that my left nipple looked like "a piece of ground meat" (you can thank my mother-in-law for that lovely analogy) ... despite the fact that I got mastitis twice and once landed in the hospital because of it ...
despite the fact that I have been feeling the sanity slowly oozing out of me like runny poop from a leaky diaper.

It has taken me nearly 16 months to realize something that everyone who knows me has likely been whispering: SHE WOULD PROBABLY BE HAPPIER WORKING OUTSIDE THE HOME DURING THE DAY WHILE SOMEONE ELSE TAKES CARE OF HER SON. And that, dear reader, can be attributed to my lovely little knack for

P E R F E C T I O N I S M.

Not a small dose of the aforementioned malady, but rather, a deadly one. It has helped that I've been teaching a little at night, but the truth is that I have been afraid to admit how much time I need away from this house. I'm not sure why I'm using the word "afraid," except that now, all of a sudden, I'm going to be working five days a week (admittedly, only for two official student-teacher contact hours), and I'm alternately feeling Completely Guilty and Completely Elated. I'm not feeling guilty about having my son in childcare or not being his sole caretaker; rather, I'm feeling guilty about not recognizing sooner that I could be a better mom if I did this. Note to self: You may be eating these words by the end of this workweek.

Likewise, I'm not feeling elated about having my son in childcare or not being his sole caretaker; rather, I'm feeling elated about finally recognizing and acting on the fact that I think I can be a better mom if I do this. Self: see previous note.

Because, you see, if caring for a child becomes your CAREER ... and you just happen to be a P E R F E C T I O N I S T, then go tell your doctor to write you a prescription for Prozac because you are in for a long, long haul. You can't be perfect at parenting. My students in the Delta used to ask me, "Mih Pay, what are you gon' do when you have some kids of yo' own?" And I would haughtily think, "My children probably won't push me to this point of near-9th-grader abuse." It's so true that our students (and our children) teach us so much more than we can ever hope to teach them.

My dad has been asking me since Goose was born, "When are you gon' start thinkin' of goin' back to work?" And I would haughtily say, "Dad, I do work ... a lot harder than I ever have before." And then I would quote some statistic at him about how much stay-at-home moms are worth (an estimated $70,000 per year on average in the U.S.). Our parents do know us ... even if we don't share very many of their political beliefs. And this is not the first time this has happened. I have done this over and over in my life ... but it's useless to make a list since the past is, well, past.

So in this new year of 2006, I am resolving to NOT BE AFRAID to admit to myself that I am in over my head with certain things. I am resolving to NOT BE AFRAID to admit to other people that I am in over my head with certain things ... such as the fact that I can no longer bring myself to get out of bed, get Goose up, change his diaper while he writhes and screams as if I'm torturing him, fix breakfast for us, hose him off after breakfast, and then pick up an average of 10.5 crushed cheerios off the floor while simultaneously running to and from the living to monitor climbing on furniture, destruction of inkjet printers, swallowing of pieces of plants which may or may not be poisonous. And that's just until about 8:30 a.m. It's just exhausting. And no matter how much I say, "I'm going to do better about getting out of the house once Husband comes home from work. I'm going to make a habit of going to the bookstore or seeing movies or ... or ... or ..." I don't do it until I'm at the point of breaking down out of sheer exhaustion and frustration and then I'm too tired to enjoy it.

So I am starting a new job tomorrow where I leave the house at prime Goose waking hours, work a little, and then come home after having had several cups of coffee and some time to myself. I guess that wouldn't be true if I didn't love what I do, but since I have a nifty little dream job, then it all works out real nice like that . Note to self: Again, see previous note. This forces me to get out of the house and get some time away doing other things (at a time when The Goose is awake, which is key). I am too much of a P E R F E C T I O N I S T to have it any other way ... I convince myself that I CAN do it better next time if I just have lots of patience ... but every single next time leads to a bigger meltdown. I think this is a self revelation beyond any other. I'm just sorry it took me nearly a year and a half to figure that out. And I'm sorry for my Husband and other friends/family members had to deal with me bitching in the meantime.

And I'm sure that after this change I will still have some mental breakdowns and some days of feeling completely unsuccessful at my jobs. But I owe it to Goose to admit that I'm just the kind of person who needs a lot of breaks from him. I'm just the kind of person who needs an outside challenge. Lord knows that it's challenging enough at home with him. But the staying home challenge is one that I haven't made progress with. I haven't gotten better at it at all. Of course I'm not doing that weepy post-partum semi-depression stuff anymore, but I am having weekly battles with myself. Battles where I let my snotty, "You're just not very good at this" voice win.

Tomorrow I will get up and go to work. Husband will take care of Goose from the time he wakes up until the time I get home after lunch. And on the days that Husband can't do this, I will take him to school. And he will still know that I am his mama and that I love him. And I will come home ready to be a mom, having put my perfectionist drive to work in some less-important, less-consequential field where, at the end of the day, if I have tried and tried and sucked and sucked, then I don't feel like the future of the love of my life is at stake. Instead, some poor Asian kid just won't understand the difference between direct and indirect objects.
Maybe now I'll no longer be "The Bitch in the House," I'll be "The Bitch Working Outside the House Part-time During the Hours that Her Goose is Awake." We shall see.

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And now we HAVE seen but have yet to have time to think about it or analyze it closely enough to make heads or tails of it. But there it is, anyway.

Happy February,

Kim