Disagreements

My hubby and I have been going at it for about a week now. (And not in a good way.) We don't fight much,  but it gets very quiet in the house. I don't want to fight. I don't know how to fight. I get so angry, embarrassed, and frustrated. I can't even get out a complete, coherent sentence. It hurts my heart. It makes me question our relationship. Why should it be so easy to call it quits? There was a blog post today that spoke to me. She said it better than I could.

http://nurshable.com/2013/11/25/the-fight

I hope it speaks to your heart.

Cowboy

Today is my cowboy's death day.  It's been 7 years since we lost him. (That makes him sound like a misplaced toy. And I start to cry thinking about it.) It's so much more than that... he's so much more than that. I have no words to explain this loss has done to me...to my family. It has changed us all.

It's interesting how today creeps in on me now, after 7 years. I always think I'm fine. I keep busy and then I have moments like this where it hits me.

My top 10 favorite things about my cowboy, in no particular order:
1. He was.
2. He was so easy to love.
3. Just by being,  he changed people's lives.
4. He loved strongly. (Horses, Bear, Pa-paw, Grammy, westerns... there's too many things to list)
5. He was mine.
6. All he went through didn't steal his joy.
7. His favorite thing to do when we got home was kick dust in his boots.
8. He loved the color green but not green food.
9. He was fast like a cheetah.
10. Toward the end,  when he was still practically paralyzed on one side of his body, he would crawl through the house to find me just duo he could tell me he loved me. I must've heard it a thousand times.
11. He loved Santa Claus. (Obsessively watched the movies and found him in Ralph's one day.)

I know that's 11. There are so many more. Yes, I'm crying. Yes, I will always miss him this way.

Got milk?

Recently, I've been following lots of breastfeeding and natural parenting advocacy pages on the internet. I'm interested in what they all have to say. I'm astounded at the people who are angry at people who do things differently. Do you seriously need to get angry at me because I don't think we should spank our kids? Do you need to judge because I'm breastfeeding as long as it works for us? I'm off on a tangent now. Yesterday, the hubs and I were in the drive-thru at Taco Bell (totally healthy, I know). The vehicle in front of us had a "Got Milk?" sticker on their window. I was not offended by the slogan. I was offended by the picture next to it. It showed Betty Boop with HUGE boobies. She wasn't nursing. They were just hanging out for the world to see. It was porn star status. (I took a picture for those of you who can't envision it.)

The hubs said something to the effect of..."It's only offensive because of the way society views breasts." I countered with..."It's offensive because they want it to be." It's like the stupid Time magazine cover that started so much drama last year-ish. They weren't presenting a warm, comforting relationship between mother and child.

I've thought about it since last night and it really bothers me that they were sexualizing breasts in reference to breastfeeding. Does that make sense? If they had a little sketch of a woman nursing, with the catch phrase, cute...I may even chuckle. (Btw, I searched the internet. There are no breastfeeding stick figures. I'll have to work on that. Hehe!) I wonder though...how is the world's view of breastfeeding going to change if we are perpetuating the sexualization of breastfeeding?

I don't know why I'm so angry about this. Wait, I do. I didn't want to breastfeed my wild thing. I was modest and I struggled with the fact that breasts were for sexual gratification. I had a hard time separating the two functions in my mind and it bothered me. This window sticker just reinforced that to the world. I may ramble about this again soon because I'm really trying to work it out in my head. What do you think?

The Dirty Car Mommy Club

I look around at all of my friends with little ones around the same age as my wild thing. They all have dirty cars. I'm not talking about trash piled up inside. (That would be gross!) I'm talking about dirt becoming so thick that you can barely see through the windshield.

I'm embarrassed to drive around in my disgusting vehicle. Every time I get in I cringe. Do I have time to wash my car? No. Do I want to take my wild thing (who generally hates car seats) to the car wash while someone else washes it? No. Who has time for this? I'm busy taking care of my wild thing. He's clean, fed, and dressed most of the time.

It's interesting how becoming a mom changes many women. (No, not just the dirty car thing. That may have happened before the baby came along.) I watch my friends who are new moms and it's so interesting to see how they change. Some become more neurotic and panic easily. Strong, knowledgeable women begin to doubt everything they do. Others become softer. I know this last one sounds strange, but their actual personality changes. I've been told that being a mommy has this effect on me. Maybe it's the way that they light up around their baby or have opened themselves up emotionally. I was at a party a few weeks ago, and a girl I know, who has always bee nice, really opened up about her life and struggles with breastfeeding. I was amazed at how different she seemed since having her little one. Not everyone is like me, and does a complete 180 when the baby comes into the picture. I can't really pinpoint it for each and every woman, but I'm always fascinated by the women who change so dramatically when their babies come along.

For me, loving a baby is so easy. How could I not go soft with something so easy to love and so willing to love you back. Scientists talk about the fact that it is their cuteness, as infants, that draws us in and releases insane amounts of hormones. Loving is scary though; changing for my baby is scary. I'm afraid to love him and lose him. This happened with my cowboy and I swore I would never do it again. It hurt too much. Now that I have my wild thing, I can't help it. I'm head over heels and way more crazy than I was with my cowboy.

To all my friends who grow into themselves as they become mothers, really allow yourself to blossom. To all my friends who struggle and second-guess, just love them and trust your instincts. You fascinate me...all of you.

Fall Fever

When I put it that way it sounds like a super cool trend. What I'm really talking about is an actual fever. My wild thing had his sixth monthday yesterday. Yay! He also had his first fever. I wanted to panic and dope him up as soon as I took his temperature. I had to talk myself down from the ledge. Fevers, in the normal range, are no big deal, right? All people get them. There's no need to panic, right? Tell that to a mommy who's had a child with cancer. Every fever is cause for concern.

Now, after losing a child to illness, I'm a freak when it comes to health. Any "little" thing could turn into my worst nightmare. I remember talking to the urgent care doctor one night when Jason had been vomiting and spiked a fever. He rattled off a list if things it could be. He mentioned meningitis, which terrified me since I had been very ill with it (twice) as an infant. All were relatively benign compared to the diagnosis we got a few weeks later. It was a brain tumor, a serious business one. It was just a fever, right? To me, it's never just a fever.

Nevertheless, I talked myself down from the ledge of immediately resorting to meds. A fever is just your body's way of fighting off illness and should (within reason) be allowed to run it's course. (Am I letting my crunchiness show?) We started sponging him with tepid water and nursing as much as possible. It seemed to be working when, several hours in, we checked his temp and it was 102.4. Creeping toward 103 was my cut-off. We gave him acetaminophen.

Throughout the night it stayed highish, but had broken by 8:00 the next morning. I thought all was good, aside from him being a little sleepy. Then I got out of my massage and my wild thing wouldn't look at me or really focus on anything. I had a moment of panic where I thought, "OMG! Did the f***in' fever impact his vision?" I was scared. It took a little bit of trickery on my part, but he finally looked at me and smiled. He was just mad at me for leaving him alone with my hubs for a bit. Little boogie!

It's laugh-worthy now. It wasn't at the time. It makes me think of when my cowboy had his first surgery, I think. He was in ICU and the doctors are crowded around asking a hundred questions. He, all of a sudden, yells, "I can't see." They, of course, freak out and start examining him, since he did just have brain surgery. He was talking about the tv. The plethora of doctors were blocking his view. Sheesh! Kids!

Ailments and Heartache

I am blessed to have a happy, healthy little boy. I say that with a mix of happiness and sadness. I haven't always had this luxury.

What made me think about this is the plight of several of my friends with infants. When your little one is sick or not feeling 100%, it is the worst thing in the world. I wish that their babies didn't have to suffer with rashes or spit up or reflux. I feel for them; I truly do. I look at my wild thing and he is strong and healthy. It is a blessing to have this.

Not everyone does. I know that it can be taken away at any minute. I have had the sick kid and lost the battle we fought with his illness. I never want to throw this in people's faces (well, not anymore) and say, "Yeah, well, my cowboy died. That spit up problem is nothing compared to that." That would earn me the worst friend of the year award. I do, however, realize that when it is your kid, the problem that you are dealing with at the moment is the worst.

Is your baby miserable? Colicky? Suffering from reflux or a milk sensitivity? Does he have a rash? Did he bump his head? Does he have a heart condition or cancer? Is your child dying? Each of those things, when you have to deal with them, is the worst thing for your kid. Because they are suffering and they are yours.

I look at my wild thing and feel bad when he spits up or has teething pain. It hurts my heart to see him suffer.

It hurts my heart to know that his brother, my cowboy, suffered that way times a thousand. The suffering that he experienced, while I stood by, was immeasurable. My cowboy would have taken a scraped knee like a champ because it was nothing in comparison to what he dealt with on a regular basis before he died. Does that change the way I will respond to my wild thing when he scrapes his knee? No way! My heart will hurt for the pain he is enduring because he is my baby.

I hope that the worst thing we have to deal with, as mommies, is scraped knees, colic, an occasional broken bone, and sending them away to college. I hope your heartache never matches my own.

When Did it Become Not Enough?

I want to be someone and accomplish things. I have goals for my life. I allow myself to get all wrapped up in being something. It takes a bad day or emotional week to stop and think about what I'm actually doing. It's these times that I wonder why it isn't enough to be my wild thing's mom. Raising him to be a happy, healthy, well-and-truly-loved child is a significant undertaking. So, why is that not enough? Why do I need to be more than that?

This week has been rough. Work, school, and my wild thing. Work and school have not been going as smoothly as I hoped. At times, I feel like crying because they are taking me away from what I really want to be doing. (I want to be taking care of my wild thing.) I'm even working from home and everyone tells me that it's the perfect job for a mommy. I'm doubting people's assertions about this job. I am technically here with my wild thing, but I'm often not engaged with him. It hurts me to have to keep saying, "Give mommy a few more minutes," as he cries in his bouncy seat. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's traumatic for both of us most of the time. There are moments when I want to throw in the towel.

I think back on the few weeks that I was officially unemployed. I felt like a big loser. Now that I have a job, every day is about what they want from me. Each day more is expected of me, with the impending doom of going full-time in a few months. What happened to my easy part-time job? I tell myself that I need something to motivate me and keep me going. A job has been able to do that for me in the past. It gives me a purpose of sorts, even on the days I don't like it. Now that I'm working and going to school, I realize that the thing that does, and should, keep me going is my wild thing.

Society and family (and the bills in the mailbox) don't make it easy or acceptable to be "just" a mommy. People always want to know what else you do, as if parenting isn't enough.

I could quit school and just be my wild thing's mommy, but I do want more for my life. Being in school allows me to plan that big coming into being event for several years in the future (when my wild thing is older). I "someday" want to be someone who changes the world. That day doesn't need to be today.

The part of the world that needs my influence today is a lot smaller and simpler. He's sleeping next to me snoring softly. When did it become not enough just to be his mommy?