Parenting and Babies: Baby Talk Blog

I am a woman whose husband travels. If I were without children, then I might welcome the alone time. But, I have two babies - not one, but two - not twins, but close enough. S is in San Francisco on business. I am at home, alone, on business. The week before his trip, I was extremely anxious. I was filled with dread, imagining domestic tragedies - so much dread that I lost sleep over it. I pre-planned every meal. I did an excess of laundry. I stocked up on diapers, healthy snacks, milk, dog food.

Now that I am two days into my week alone, I am finding that I am more capable than I thought. I am truly good at what I do. I do know how to manage my household and I can function without help. As I write this, I realize that I am too tired to stand, and I have not eaten in 8 hours! But, my children are asleep and have been since 6:30 pm. They had a great day with playmates and my undivided attention. I felt strong all day, on top of my game. My 18 month old wanted to give me lip kisses all day long - what more could I ask for?

I will reveal one creative tactic I employed early this morning. I do not recommend this, but it saved me in pinch, when I needed it most. ( I knew that early mornings would be the most difficult time for us with S being gone). This occured pre-coffee, which for me, is a particularly vulnerable time - a time when I am not at my best. I needed to put my 18 month old down for her morning nap. My two and a half year old was wreaking havoc in every room. I suggested (strongly) a bath. He refused ( of course) and continued ripping pictures off walls and books off bookshelves. I suggested ( stupidly) a cup of blueberries to eat while he was in the bathtub.

He loved the idea and helped himself to bath and blueberries! I was delighted and got LC snuggled into her bed with her (mostly) white chenille Little Giraffe blanket. I heard screams of joy and something akin to pain coming from the bathroom as I headed down the hallway. H was smearing blueberries all over the bathroom and putting them into his nose. I will spare the reader the gorey details. No emergency room visits, thank goodness! The bathroom has returned (almost) to its natural, chaotic state.

As I mentioned before, I do not recommend this - even it you are home alone and are in a pinch. I am always up against my learning curve here. There are no maps for this territory which I call at times wilderness. Being the only adult in the house is a little scary, but it is also empowering, enlightening. I can't wait until S comes home on Friday to join me on this crazy path of parenting little ones, of making on the spot decisons, of holding them in the night.

Posted by Cundy at 7:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

Today was cold and rainy - the kind of day that can be a true test for the most patient, creative mommies I know. I am a mother of two small children, babies really. My son, H is two and a half. My daughter LC is seventeen months. They are fifteen months apart, "Irish Twins" someone recently said. A typical day in my life consists of eating, napping, diaper changing, playing, eating, napping, an outing thrown into the mix if we are brave enough to leave the house. My leaving our house usually takes approximately forty five minutes,- gathering snacks, sippy cups (the orange one, not the purple!), shoes, coats, pacifiers, diapers and wipes, cell phone, and H never fails to have a BIG diaper just as I am trying to put him into his car seat. There are days when I feel that it is easier to stay at home.

My taking care of H and LC is the most important, satisfying, difficult, sweet, bitter, juicy, hilarious, crazy making, tender, undertaking of my life. There are many days when I feel I am living in an underground world. I have very few adult conversations, and my tasks are repetitive. What goes on under my roof is a little life, lead by three people, all interacting, loving, bathing, eating, sleeping., reading, crying, .... I am finding that it is necessary to come up for air. It is good to open the front door and look at the winter sky. It is reassuring to see other people, other mothers pushing double strollers, juggling lattes and crumbling muffins, laughing and crying at the same time. I often wonder if other mothers get the subterranean blues.

Anyway, we ventured out into the January rain, fully snacked, freshly diapered, hydrated, pacified. I promised H that we would go to the Fernbank Natural History Museum today, not realizing that it was 4:40 pm and the museum closes at 5pm. We arrived in a excited rush, sippy cups flying and LC squealing. I was tired and very much aware of my mole hole appearance. H had fig newtons smeared on his face and jacket. But we were out!!! We were free!!! We were in a public place where people walked and breathed and said 'hello'! We had twenty minutes to explore. And it was pure gold. We tromped with the dinosaurs, fed the paper mache birds with sock worms, we rode the elevator to the top floor and kissed each other on the lips on the balcony. Driving home, H noticed the dark bark of the winter trees and asked if we "still had winter". He then said that he liked winter and liked getting cozy. L read her book upside down and screamed "rain rain rain" all the way home.

Posted by Cundy at 7:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

I just got home from a rare movie night out with C. We saw Woody Allen's latest, Matchpoint. It doesn't give much away by saying that one of the film's themes is that the world is made up of (often undeserved) winners and losers, the lucky and the luckless.

And that's the part of the film that haunts me: I am married to the woman I've loved for the past 17 years, we have two amazing children, lots of extended family nearby--and I love my work. Plus, I've got a great group of men around me and an uplifting spiritual commuity. No surprise then that I say to myself often, "I'm a lucky man."

On the way home from the movie tonight I told C. that my luck makes me nervous because part of me is waiting for it to change. I don't believe in visioning catastrophe, but stray thoughts creep in sometimes.

So I have a practice--a superstition, almost--that I use to keep my imaginings at bay. The trick is this: every time a hint of doubt appears I meet it with a prayer of gratitude, a hymn of thankfulness, for everything good in my life.

I don't really believe that these expressions of gratitude protect me from the chance of my "luck" failing. But I do believe that cultivating a practice of appreciation creates the proper ground for inviting more luck into my life. What I really mean is that I strongly suspect that my good fortune comes partly from my gratefulness.

Now where all of this really comes in handy is at three in the morning when H or LC wake up upset or frightened and I get out of bed and go to them. Or when they wake at five when I've been up working past midnight. Or when I walk into my study to find my papers strewn about and the walls covered in crayon cave paintings.

The funny thing is that now I laugh about these moments. At the time though it wasn't always humorous. The magic is this: I take these split seconds of irritation and remind myself of how truly lucky I am to have my walls decorated, my papers tossed, my sleep broken.

And feel again--that I am the luckiest of men.

Posted by Scott at 11:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

We live in a small house: two bedrooms, one bath, four people, one dog.

C. and I bought the house before we had children, and the main appeal at the time was that it was in the neighborood we wanted and right next door to my sister. I don't think we thought past the first child, if we even thought that far. It's a great little house, and was still just fine after H. was born. Plus T. and I built a cathedral of a screened porch on the back so it felt more spacious.

But when LC entered the picture, things got tight--fast. She slept in our bedroom for the first three months or so, but once we moved her out we began a juggling process that continues to this day. On a typical night now, we put LC to bed around 5:30 back in our bedroom, then we put H. in his room by 7:00. We are now locked out of our room until we move LC to a co-sleeper in the study around 10:00, at which time we lose access to the front of the house because the living room, dining room, kitchen and study are all connected.

Now, C. goes to bed around 10:00, but I usually stay up working until 11:00 or 12:00, so guess where I am relegated? That's right--the only place left in the house where I can work and not disturb someone is--the bathroom. (Thank goodness for wireless internet.) To give you a proper picture, you should know that this isn't a large bathroom. The sink is right beside the toilet and my knees almost bump the tub as sit down and work on my laptop.

Is this romantic or what? I sometimes think of what a great story it'll make one day: the driven entrepreneur slaving away, banging out sales letters and blogging past midnight while he sits on the toilet seat and his bottom slowly goes numb.

Um, no, it's not romantic. It's painful.

While I'm listing my troubles, I would need to add general sleep deprivation, the constant companion of new parents. Mine is mostly self imposed because I choose to work during the uninterrupted time after everyone is asleep. I read about a fascinating experiment with polyphasic sleep that Steve Pavlina is conducting. He's adopted a freakish way of sleeping only during four or five 20-30 minute naps every day. So basically he gets less than four hours of sleep a day. He's on his 90th or so day of doing this. And it's working.

My hat's off to you, Steve. What entrepreneur doesn't lick his lips at the thought of being able to work 20 hours a day? One interesting thing he writes about is that whatever kind of person you are, in terms of mental and emotional patterns, gets exaggerated with plyphasic sleep. For better and worse. If you are naturally organized, you may become compulsive. If you're disorganized, you'll soon be utterly buried under mounds of unsorted debris.

Hmm--this tile sure could use a good scrubbing...

Posted by Scott at 12:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I could write a book about baby blankets. H and LC's baby blankets are one of those three or four things (right after BooBoo the dog, a few Mary Oliver and Rumi books, and our love letters) to grab if the house ever catches on fire. I shudder at the memory of one two-hour car daytrip with a 12-month-old H when we forgot to bring his blanky. Never again, believe me.

My babies simply NEED these things. They need them to sleep with most of all, but they also need them when they're sad orwhen they just want to get a little cozy. H has a way of wrapping his Little Giraffe blanket around his body and scrunching his shoulders up and down as a way to make a little nest, and one of LC's favorite pleas is for her "bink-ta." I was the same way. I finally gave my blanket up under intense pressure and an irresistible bribe (new bike) at the age of five. It was originally cotton with a silk border, I'm told, but all I remember of it is the silk because that's all that remained after about three years.

So it's partly the bittersweet body-memory of my dear blanky that inspired me to start a business around the Little Giraffe blankets my children love. (They both have the chenille ones with the silk border--blue for H and white for LC.) Our store is www.sleepytimestore.com--and I think it's a great source for baby blankets for gifts or especially for your own children. As I said, we carry a great selection of Little Giraffe blankets and a nice organic cotton baby blanket by Coyuchi, plus lots of other nursery bedding and crib sets. It's good to run a business that carries such a warm reminder of my own childhood. Come visit sometime.

Posted by Scott at 10:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It all started after dinner last Wednesday. C. and I were talking about her grandmother when she said, "Honey, I'd like to go see Gram this weekend. I want to leave Saturday morning and come back on Sunday."

A simple request, seemingly. My wife wants to go see her dear 84-year-old grandmother who lives an hour and a half away. But the slightly nervous tone in her voice was unmistakable. You see, she's only left our children overnight twice in their lives (they're one and two-and-a-half years old, 15 months apart). I was in charge before, but quite honestly, I fled with them both times to her mother's house for help.

So what she was asking was, "Can you handle it by yourself"?

Quick disclaimer because I fear I've painted myself as one of those hapless fathers who can't tell a diaper from a dishrag: I'm a good dad--capable in all the daily tasks. And I love being a dad; nothing gives me greater joy. I love my weekends with them, and I try to make it home from work in time to help out with bedtime.

But--C. is definately the resident expert, and I usually defer to her when it comes to taking care of our babies. Thus the nervousness on her part about leaving them in my care. She trusts me I know, but she also knows that I've never really been tested, so who knows what could happen?

(Sidebar about C.: I'm going to Dublin in late March for business and I asked her to come with me. We met in Europe almost 20 years ago, and we've never been back together, so I thought this would be great, and mostly paid-for, reunion. But she turned me down flat. "I just can't leave H. and LC for that long," she told me. "And I'd be too far away. I couldn't relax." Despite all my attempts at persuasion, she stood her ground. Babies come first for her. Always.)

I don't know what was going through her mind as she asked me if she could go away for the weekend, but I think we both knew it was a test. For me, the question was whether I could put all the many pieces together on my own. For her, it was a whether she could let go.

I've got to say that she only left me a few pieces of advice before she left, nothing at all like the tome she wrote for her mother who came to take care of H. when she went into the hospital to have LC. (I still wish I had saved that priceless testament to her new mommy fanaticism, as my buddy Jim suggested at the time.) In fact her leavetaking was pretty anticlimactic. I moved the two car seats into my Volvo, we said goodbye, and off she went.

The verdict? She and her grandmother had a wonderful time, and she got to do the things she loves to do there that she never has time for when we go with the children (read her grandfather's letters, meditate in the greenhouse, go to the bookstore for Gram, who is a voracious and discerning reader who trusts only C. and a few others for book recommendation, drink coffee slowly at the breakfast table...)

And I did great. H, LC, and I had a ball together, we ate well, they got to sleep on time, and the house was in order when C returned on Sunday.

It was a rite of passage for us both.

Posted by Scott at 4:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Today--January 12th, 2006--a new baby is born. A blog baby that is. My aspiration is that this blog will become a place to talk about our babies and our lives with them, a place to share stories, wisdom, and humor, a place where we turn to connect with the miracle of Creation. So, with a playful pop on the "hiney" as my 2 year old says, let its voice be heard!

Click here for eBay!

Posted by Scott at 5:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)