Time for Cool

Except it’s not cool.  Not at all.  How is it that I’m already looking at preschools for Eli?  Not only that, I’m late to the game.  I should have been looking late last year (to be fair, I was in L.A.), and trying to register him in January.  Oops.

Instead, about two weeks ago, it suddenly occurred to me that if we were indeed going to send him to preschool this fall (and we’ve been on the fence about this), that I needed to get on my shit and get this thing done.

The organized, practical part of me kicked in and was like, “Right, I need to get some recommendations, do some research, and go visit some schools.  We’ll go from there.”

The emotional part of me has been freaking out about sending my child off to school, even if it is only four + hours a week.

It’s easy to rationalize not sending him.  He won’t be three until Halloween, so is close to the cut-off point age-wise anyways.  I’m not in any hurry for Eli to be “schooled” in the traditional sense. Why not wait another year?

But, I would be lying to myself if I didn’t acknowledge the fact that I think Eli would love going to school.  I know he would have so much fun and that in and of itself is reason enough for him to go.  It would be good for him for lots of other reasons, too, but knowing it’s something he would enjoy is what is pushing us in this direction.

So, I went to visit a school with him.  I told him the night before we were going to school the next day.  The first thing he said to me the following morning when I entered his room (with a huge smile on his face to boot) was: I go cool?  I go cool?  He was so excited about going to school.

Eli is going through a bit of a shy phase right now, so although he was completely psyched about the playground, sandbox, and toys in the classroom, he was less enthralled with all the kids there, not wanting to get close to their “morning circle.”  Even the flirty grin of a little girl (which was melting my heart) did nothing to encourage him closer.

It cannot be overstated how emotional this entire visit was for me.  It was only that, a visit, and yet already I could envision the first day when I would have to drop him off for real and what a blubbering mess I was going to be, and how would I hold it together for one second if he was a blubbering mess and didn’t want me to go, and…

Several times I had to remind myself simply to breathe.  Calm down. 

This is the first in about 1,113 steps of letting my children go. 

And as resistant as I sometimes want to be in these instances, kicking, screaming and fighting every step of the way, I have to remember that I cannot stop time.  I cannot stop my children from growing up and away.  I know it will break my heart a million times as they take their independent steps, each one taking them further away.  At the same time there are moments of intense pride and an ever-deepening awe as I watch Eli grow into an amazing boy. 

I often compare parenting to being on a rollercoaster.  And while there are certainly ups and downs, the comparison isn’t quite apt because often the ups and downs are occurring at the exact same time (which as far as I know isn’t possible on a rollercoaster, yet).  So I am concurrently excited for Eli to have this new experience and devastated that he won’t be home with us all the time.  I am thrilled to have him spend time with other children and paranoid that he will pick up some horrible tidbits from them.  I am forever curious to see what life will bring next for Eli, and disappointed that I won’t get to share all the new discoveries with him (something I adore doing with him right now). 

I feel like I’m going to miss out on so much of what he’s learning in life. 

I’m going to feel left out.

I don’t know if this gets easier as he gets older or not.  Sometimes I rationalize it by saying, “well, it’s because he’s still so young and impressionable,” that’s why it’s so hard.  Or, it’s important to me that his immediate family be the ones shaping him, helping him to learn his rights and wrongs, his manners, etc. 

Now, for part of the day at least, we’ll be the ones on the sidelines, having to trust that he will be in the care of people that have his best interests in mind, that will lead him down a path I would agree with, that will take care of him.

It’s scary.

I’m eternally grateful that I’ve been able to stay home with my kids so far.  Sure, there are days when I want to go hide in the attic and let them figure it out for awhile.  Generally, I try to burn each moment into memory because those moments are passing by at lightning speed, and now we’ve enrolled our first-born into preschool for the fall. 

Next week, he’ll be graduating from college.  The week after that we’ll be meeting the love of his life.  The week after that?  Grandchildren.  See, this is all going way too fast.

A Need to Pause

Yes, it’s been awhile.  Again.

For lots of reasons, I haven’t been posting.  I’ve had good intentions.  I’ve started four or five posts with fervor and then… nothing. 

Initially I chalked it up to all the usual things, which I won’t bore you with, but if you have any procrastination “skills” I’m sure you could put together a list, too.

However, after some time passed I had to ask myself: Why haven’t I been writing?  What is really going on (beyond the usual BS excuses)?

When I take that quiet moment and ask myself what on the surface appears to be a very basic question, I am quite often bowled over by what rushes forth in the way of response.

I’ve been so bowled over that I haven’t written for some time now.  That in and of itself is quite striking because my usual response to any situation is to write about it.  I may not always share it, but it will undoubtedly be written about.

Lately, though, I’ve been stuck.  My thoughts have not moved down to my fingers and onto the page like they are so normally apt to do. 

In short, I’ve been in a mourning period. 

In mid-February, Sophie stopped breastfeeding altogether.  She was just over ten-months old, a respectable run some might say.  The fact that breastfeeding had been a struggle since she was just shy of four months old makes that ten month run seem downright amazing on some days.  However, on most other days it makes me sad.  When you want something for your child, when what you feel so strongly about is a struggle and cannot be accomplished, well, my tendency is to blame myself.

I know this is foolish.  I know she is fine.  She’s always been fine.  I’m the one who struggles with these things.

Beyond that, and I can only really talk about this in a peripheral sort of way, even now, is the fact that for about seven months I was really, really depressed. 

To feel so depressed in light of all these wonderful things happening in my life, at a time when the dream of finally moving into our first home was realized, a time when I could look at my beautiful and healthy and complete family and say, “we’re home,” was devastating to me.  How could I be depressed?  Why couldn’t I snap out of it?

Well, I didn’t.  Not for a long a time.  And it wasn’t something I could talk about when I was in the throes of it because it only made me feel worse, only made me feel like I should be able to wake up one day and “feel better.” 

Of course it’s not that simple.

I wasn’t prepared for the toll all this would take, either.  With Eli, I had a several-week period of “baby blues,” but between month three and four, when all the breastfeeding and sleeping and colic issues had smoothed out I started to feel somewhat “normal” again, finally felt some semblance of my former self. 

Sophie turned one last Friday.  Although I am finally emerging from a months-long fog of sleep deprivation and depression, I still don’t feel like myself, yet.  The difference now is I can see that I am making progress and this propels me forward, strengthens my attitude on a daily basis.  I know that one day, maybe soon, I will wake up and feel ever closer to… myself. 

It’s a difficult concept to explain to anyone that has never experienced it.

Sophie turning one has been a shock to my system.  Vinny and I were watching videos of her early months the other day, and in some ways it was as though I were seeing Sophie as a baby for the first time.  Truly seeing her.  I marveled over every coo, every little facial expression.

Then I cried.  A lot.

While I know at the end of the day she is fine, we’re all healthy and fine (thank goodness), and that I did the best job I could during her first year, it still pains me greatly that I wasn’t as present for her (and the rest of my family) as I wanted to be. 

Her first year is gone.  Gone.  And I feel like I am just now showing up to the party, just now being as present as I would like to be on a daily basis. 

When it hit me how much I missed, how much of her first year was spent on autopilot in an attempt to just get through the day, well, how can I not feel guilty about that?  I can never get those days back, no matter how much I long for them.  And I do.  So much.

So I’ve had to allow myself some time to be sad, to reflect, to think about what it means to be Milk Machine Mom.  When Sophie stopped breastfeeding I initially thought, “Well, I guess I need to find a new title.  I’m all dried up…”

But I’m not. 

I’m still here.  I’m still giving to my kids all day, every day.  Sure, in the early days I was a literal milk machine to those hungry babes.  But even once the boob juice stops running we are always giving and giving and giving to our children.  It’s what we do. 

And I’m back to it to the extent that I would like to be, finally.  I am grateful for a return of clarity, some occasional long-ish stretches of sleep (after three years of not sleeping through a night my body has needed to re-learn even this seemingly basic task, and it’s been slow going even on the best day), and most of all to a healthier mental state. 

During the worst of it, I had thought about closing up shop and shutting down the blog, but I still have words I would like to share with you all, and the comments and support I’ve gotten from so many of you propel me forward.  I’ve always thought of this space as a community for anyone who cares to join, and still think we always learn the most from each other.  So thank you for helping to create this little corner of the internet with which to share my experiences… I hope to share more with you, soon.