She Likes Purple

Perfect post

For those of you who know nothing about the blogging community, this may sound like jibberish, but sometimes it surprises me who is considered a "bigger" or "more popular" blogger. (Of course sometimes it just plain doesn't.) Sure, It's a matter of taste -- when it comes to writing, tastes vary wildly; you still can't convince me Dickens isn't anything but boring garbage, but my eighth grade English teacher disagreed with me pretty strongly -- but, still, there are times when I see someone's Twitter followers number or the amount of regular comments they get, and I think, Huh, I must be missing something. And, sometimes I stumble upon someone who is so ridiculously talented and inspiring and honest, I simply can't believe they're not being offered a respectable salary by anyone with a brain to continue putting their thoughts on the Internet day in and day out.

Elizabeth is in the latter group.

From her post today:

"This was the week you gave your first spanking – quick as lightning, without thought, as glass shattered everywhere and your son headed for the thick of it, and then the instant afterwards, his face crumpled and you saw his dream of you change, right there, right before your eyes, and it made you hate yourself so very much. . . . and that night you sleep curled into a C, wrapped around your son, and you listen for his breathing, and you think as hard as you can that you want so much to take it all back, all the yelling and complaining and declaring 'I have had enough from you!' and it’s all you can feel, all you can think, that you take it all back, as hard as you can."

Confession: When I first had Kyle, I had to stop reading a few blogs. I was having a hard go of it, and I would get even sadder when I'd read about other people's perfect, shiny lives with children who never screamed, who slept all the time, who never forced their moms into the closet to cry. Thankfully, life is pretty sweet again, and I see the shine on a daily basis, but I'm still not inspired much by perfection. 

I not only kept reading Elizabeth during those early weeks, I inhaled her archives and read certain posts over and over. Not because her life isn't bright -- it's blinding, I'd say -- but because she's brave and fearless and real.

Sometimes I don't get a blogger's appeal. Other times, I want everyone I've ever known to click on a certain link, so they too can be changed by a few simple words.

(And her boy really is that adorable; I've met him myself.)

Adorable regression

He was sleeping solidly for a week and then the last two nights he's been up screaming at various points. (1 a.m., 3 a.m., 5 a.m.) Not just regular, don't-want-to-sleep screams, but painful, awful screams. I think maybe he's had a bad dream (is this even possible?), but, regardless, he's pretty damn inconsolable for an hour or so. Then, out of nowhere, he's asleep again, almost immediately back in that heavy breathing, deep baby sleep. Don't know what's going on. (Thoughts?) I hope it's just a bump in the road. That it's just one of those normal, expected one-step-back phases of parenthood/babyhood that reminds me how futile the goal of progress is in this new life of ours. We take things as they come. Regression is almost a definite guarantee.

Another guarantee? That I'll do my best to keep him well-documented. I can't remember every moment, so, thank god, I'll have all these pictures to jog my foggy, mom memory.

 

 

He's starting to reach for everything and anything. It makes meals especially interesting. "No, no, love, you can't have daddy's beer until you're 16 and are sneaking them in the backyard with your girlfriend." He's also started grabbing faces and pulling them towards his open mouth. It's adorable, really, although Molly would whole-heartedly disagree.

Here's Ky and his girlfriend, Payton (my friend Crystal's 10-month old baby girl who is, my god, the same size as Kyle; thankfully she likes her boyfriends strapping and beefcakey). As Crystal captioned this photo, "She can't keep her hands off him!" He's irresistible, I can't disagree.

At the July Fourth BBQ we went to this past Saturday. Kyle took another dip in the pool and was caught grabbing hands with Payton. Who says arranged marriages are a thing of the past!

For those not following the rocking chair series on flickr, here's week twenty-one.

85 toys to choose from, and he'd prefer munching on his hands.

Just try not to love a sleeping baby. It's impossible. For many, many reasons.

Happy Wednesday to you. Wish for us a scream-free night tonight!

Kinder

I've been ridiculously hard on myself since Kyle was born. I've been constantly angry at myself over losing my temper too often, for not cooking regularly, for not losing all the baby weight yet, for not handling my responsibilities better, for not keeping stress at bay. So, I've been doing something a little crazy in order to counter all that internal pressure: I've been taking on more and more and more. It's how I work. The guilt is ridiculous, so I foolishly think I can alleviate it by adding just one more thing to my plate. And before I know it, my head explodes!

Hi, I'm crazy, how are you?

After feeling like a bison for nine months while pregnant, I so wanted to go right back to feeling normal the day I gave birth, both physically and emotionally. I assumed life would be different, but I didn't want to feel different. I wanted to remain, more or less, the person I was before.

I haven't.

I'm not.

I think this is a mixture of many things: lingering hormones, stress, the extra weight, the pressure of being a new mom and what that means for me as a person and as a wife, the plain responsibility of not only raising a child but raising a happy, well-adjusted boy. I just don't think I've handled the pressure as well as I had hoped I would, at least not internally.

Life is really very good, and I always fret about putting out a negative-toned post because I'm not crying in the corner every day! There's a lot of love, a lot of happiness, a lot of laughs! We have a beautiful boy! A new home! Upcoming vacations planned! (Vegas, yo!) But, come on, isn't it OK to just say out loud, I've been too hard on myself, and I'm having a particularly crappy day today, and it's making me all introspective and shit. 

I dream big, and I look for silver linings. I think happiness is a choice, something you make, not something you are lucky enough to stumble upon. I think you wake up each day and make many, many decisions: what to eat, how to treat people, how often to smile, etc. At the end of the day, if you're worn out or exhausted or feeling blue, you can decide to start fresh the next day. Your choices. Your life. It is what you make of it. I believe these things. I believe in working hard and fighting for what matters and trying my best day in and day out. What I don't believe -- or at least don't practice enough of --  is letting myself off the hook when I fall short of who I want to be. When I can't shake the bad mood, when I can't muster a smile for a stranger, when I eat a cupcake instead of a head of broccoli, I can't let it go. I can't shake it. I beat myself up for hours, for days, for years and then I feel guilty for doing that, so I spread myself too thin to make up for it all.

My god. I'm exhausted just writing all that!

I'm sharing because I believe I'm not the only mom/woman/HUMAN who feels this way. The constant up and down of life, with all its pressures and stresses and LACK OF SLEEP and did I mention pressures? Oh, what about stresses?

I'm sharing because I think most women need to take better care of themselves, and not just in the form of girls' nights out or a trip to the spa or sleeping in from time to time or squeezing in a workout that really will make the foggy look bright, but in terms of the way we talk to ourselves, the way we mentally and emotionally treat ourselves. The way we tend to hold grudges with ourselves and keep a nasty account of all the times we've slipped up, fallen short, yelled too loud, drank too much, ate thirds when seconds was really quite enough. We forgive others so often -- at least I do. We see the good, offer the benefit of the doubt, allow the "just having a bad day" excuse to wipe slates clean and clear, but we can't do the same with ourselves. 

What much better lives we'd lead if we could.