12

Abraham is 12 months old. Until tomorrow.

Here are 12 things I don’t want to forget about him (inspired by Sandra Boynton’s Little Pookie)

1. He wakes with a smile. Immediately, he wants to look out the window, play with the alarm clock and cordless phone, and, if I’m lucky, snuggle.
2. He likes to feed himself. With a spoon.
3. He likes to screw lids onto jars. Or anything.
4. He loves to dance to music. He plays with his magic cube, plays the tabla, plays xylophones, claps when I sing.
5. He has discovered gravity: he throws things down the stairs, he pours water in the bath, he drops food for the dog.
6. He gets very excited about food. He yelps, flaps his arms, and giggles, reaching for whatever I’m preparing for him. And he eats everything. He cries for raisins, claps for hummus, and loves liver.
7. He has begun throwing tantrums. If he doesn’t get his way, for example, if we have do something terrible like puts coats on before we go outside (because it is winter), he arches back and screams.
8. He loves playing peek-a-boo chase. I go in another room and hide behind a chair or wall. I surprise him and he chases after me. I hide again, surprise, chase. Etc.
9. He knows what he wants and remembers things. We went to the park in early January on a warm day and I let him play on the toddler playground. A week later, we were at the park, swinging, and he turned, reached for the toddler playground, and whine-giggled (which is his way of saying he wants to play over there). And he played in the same way that he did the first time.
10. He still loves nursing. I was so nervous that he wouldn’t. That because I wasn’t making enough for him, he would tire of my low supply and go 100% bottle. But he didn’t.
11. He doesn’t walk yet, but he manages to get around without crawling. He sort of kneel-walks/hops. It is hilarious, especially when he dance-kneel-walks. 
12. He has become brave and very friendly. In a new place, he takes off to explore, looking over his shoulder to make sure I’m watching. And he approaches people, smiles, and waves goodbye. You can’t help but smile to look at him (and I’m not just saying that because I’m his mom). Love my Little Buddy.

Blog Break

Well, it’s been a while.

I didn’t really know what to write. After my aunt died, I felt like any other writing would be trite.

I also feel like I’m on a merry go round, thinking about the same things all the time.

So how about this, to get back into the swing of things. How about a general update of what we have been Doing. Then, maybe next post, we’ll get around to what we have been Being.

Abraham freaking loves to be outside. He reaches and whines (yes, whines at 9 months…what can I do about that?) for the door and giggles when we go outside. He is content to run walk errands all over West Reading in his stroller (taking off his hat and laughing whenever he remembers he is wearing a hat), get carried in the Ergo when I walk with the Mamas, or play at the park. For literally hours.

We celebrated David’s birthday. I bought him a book. We went out for pizza.

Abraham and Nathan helps Daddy open his present

It snows. In October. We were actually in New York, visiting David’s family, that weekend. They lost power in their home around 2pm, so we lit a fire and played Settlers of Catan all night. Grandpa made lasagna in the gas grill.

We didn't even have out winter coats!

And for Halloween, Abraham and I passed out candy on the porch for a little while before bedtime. I wore the Lasagna Suit (that I made for a Young Playwrights’ Festival of yore) and Abraham dressed up as a Chef. That lasted about 3 seconds.

The Chef Prepares...to take off his hat.

I’ve also been working on my play, making dinner, washing diapers and other stinky laundry, teaching a drama club at the Boys and Girls Club, getting ready to teach a drama club at Reading High, and finishing up a yoga class series. And trying to sleep and read for fun. Not to mention yoga and crafts.

More significant reflection coming soon.

The Saddest Day

It is Shabbat, and Yom Kippur. I have taken on Shabbat this year, baking Challah each week and lighting candles with my family, putting work aside for rest. Yom Kippur, which began at sundown, is the holiest and most solemn day of the Jewish year; it is literally the day of atonement, and over the years, I have tried to practice it as a day to really limit my connections to the outside world and focus on my relationship to Judaism and to God.

But tonight, after putting the baby to sleep and sitting here, waiting for David to come home, my heart and my mind are not on Shabbat or Yom Kippur. For the past week and a half, whenever I have a quiet moment, my heart and mind go to my Aunt Jan, who died just before Rosh HaShanah.

Abraham and I flew down to Pensacola to be with my family for her funeral, sitting Shiva (briefly) and for Rosh HaShanah. It was the saddest day I have ever experienced. With her passing, the world lost a kind, funny, generous, loving, inspiring woman.

She lived in Pensacola until I was 10, when she married Robert and moved to the mid-Atlantic to live with him. Rachel and I knew her best of all her nieces and nephews, spending the night with her at her apartment, visiting her at work, helping her set up various fundraisers. She loved work, she loved her family, she loved helping others.

I don’t know how long she had Lupus (no one talked about it to me when I was a child). She has been unwell for a long time. One summer in college, I was working at a theatre in Southern Virginia, and on my days off I would go visit Ga (as we called her, I couldn’t say Jan when I was a tot) and Uncle Robert. Even then she had doctor’s appointments with regularity, but she could drive, get her nails done (red, of course, to match her glasses), and go out for dinner.

She came to Pensacola to meet David when we visited. She came to our wedding in New York. She never had children of her own, and I think Rachel and I consider her a second mother as much as she considers us her own. It was important for her to be there for my special days, no matter how difficult it was for her to get there.

When Abraham was born, she was too sick to come for his bris, which I think broke her heart. I sent her photos as often as I could get to the computer, and answered all her questions about him.

In July she went to the hospital (at first, I wasn’t too worried, for she was always in and out of the hospital), but her doctor said he didn’t think she would be leaving. She moved to a Hospice care home shortly after. Hospice means the end, but she was determined to go home.

In September, David, Rachel, Abraham and I drove down to North Carolina to visit her. We knew it was to say goodbye, and she did too. Her greatest fear, as far as I could tell, was that she would be forgotten. I kept telling her there was no way, but she didn’t have children and wouldn’t have grandchildren. I promised her that Abraham would know who she was (I am so grateful we were able to visit her with him). I promised her I would say Kaddish for her.

She never complained about being in pain, although she was constantly in pain. When I called her on the phone, even a few weeks ago, she was so cheerful and chatty, even though she spent most of her time lying in bed. I am grateful that I was able to see her twice in the past year, once when I drove from PA to FL with mom when I was pregnant last October, and this trip in September. But I am so deeply saddened that I will not see her again. But that sadness is met with relief for her that she is no longer suffering.

Her life makes me question how and why the world works in the way it does. How can we say, as Jews, that G-d is just when someone so good suffers as she does? How can I say, as a yogi, that the seeds of her karma were planted over lifetimes and this time around just really sucked? How can I say as her niece, as someone who loved her, that anything in the universe makes any sense?

She got to hear Abraham say “Ga.” She will not be forgotten.

Up All Night

Oh man.

I love Will Arnett, who I will always think of as GOB from Arrested Development (the funniest show no longer on television).  And I love Maya Rudolph, especially in that movie, Away We Go. And The Blonde Lady is funny too.

They made a TV show about being a parent and working to much. And liking both parenting and working. And being a stay at home parent. And really wanting to go out with your partner and do fun things like drink to much and sing terrible karaoke (ok, David and I wouldn’t do that – we’d eat too many tacos and sing Sacred Harp Music, but you know).

Is it ok that I teared up at the end? I’ll blame it on breastfeeding hormones. This show is not super great, but really hits a nerve.

It reminded me of something a friend from my old congregation told me when I quit my job there. A previous employee, who had recently become a new mother, told him, “Women can have it all, just not at the same time.”

Have you seen the show? What do you think? Can women have it all? What does that even mean “it all”?

Natural

Abraham was recently pictured on Natural Parents’ Network on their Wordless Wednesdays feature about food. After he was pictured and I shared the link with my family and friends, I wondered to myself if I am actually a natural parent. What does that really mean?

There is a long list of what it means to be a natural parent on their website.

I prepared to have a natural birth at a birth center, but I found on my due date that Abraham was breech, so we had a c-section and it wasn’t so bad.

We went around and around about the decision, but we circumsized Abraham because we are Jewish and that heritage is important to us, even though we still wrestle with our choice.

I nurse Abraham and intend to as long as we both are enjoying it, but I also supplement his nursing with formula to keep him on the right weight track.

He sleeps with us, but I’m looking forward to getting would love to get him to sleep on his own so I can have a little space and time back to myself.

I fed him food at 4.5 months old (which is a bit early) but he was full-body-lunging for it. I also give him food that is not organic or local. Local is preferred, but the child loves avocados, which aren’t exactly native to Pennsylvania.

I have 3 different baby carriers, all of which I love to use, but damn, it is nice to push him in a stroller in this hot weather.

We are vaccinating Abraham on a regular schedule. We feel it is our responsibility to him and to our community to ensure that diseases that have died out stay gone.

What is most true is that I hate all of these parenting labels. They are shortcuts, sure, but they are also pegboards. I never have enjoyed being pegged (though I think I’m pretty predictably peg-able…) in any position, especially being a mother.

So that’s it. I’m a mother. I’m a step mother. Those describe my relationships to my kids. That is all. Every choice I make as either is not because I’m a natural parent, a free-range parent, a whatever parent. It is just because I’m a parent and I’m always trying to do the right thing for each of my kids.

Eating is Yoga

So much of Abraham’s life has been so easy. He is adorable, happy, healthy, easy-going…I could go on. And I have found being a mother (not just a step-mother) to be quite easy too. I’m a little sleepy and a little slobbered-on, but I really can’t complain.

I keep rubbing up against his eating. I’ve written before about breast feeding him. I am still breastfeed him, and I intend to as long as he wants to (the WHO recommends 2 years!). We also give him bottles as a supplement, 8 or 10 ounces a day. I hate it. Every time I give him a bottle, I feel like I’m failing as a mother. Because I WANT to nurse him and I CAN’T. Because in 2003, I choose to have a breast reduction. It was badly needed and I don’t actually regret it. I just wish I could have both small boobs and milky boobs.

We went to the pediatrician today and Abraham is still small. Gaining weight and height, but a little too slowly. So more formula for him and solid food.

The food I’m excited about. He wants to eat – he sits on my lap at dinner and lunges toward the tables, reaches for my water glass, and of course puts everything, edible or not, into his mouth. I even shared my banana with him last night – he sort of licked it a while, then tried to suck. He yelped when it was finished.

He yelps when his bottles are finished too. He is hungry (how ironic that he is wearing his Very Hungry Caterpillar outfit today…”but he was still hungry”). He isn’t starving, but he wants more. And it is so hard for me to give it to him. Because every bottle feels like a failure.

I run to him when he cries from a nap, I kiss his tummy to make him laugh, I work so hard to give him a happy and comfortable life. Why can’t I enjoy feeding him a bottle?

David said to me, on our way home from the pediatrician’s office, “it doesn’t seem very yogic to not feed him” and I know it isn’t. It is selfish, it is my ego wrapped up in my identity as a breastfeed-er. I have met most of my mom friends at La Leche League for goodness sake.

I can still be a breastfeed-er and give my child a bottle or 3 to make sure he grows well. He will get the health benefits from breastmilk and breastfeeding and the caloric benefits from formula. I can snuggle him as he drinks his bottle and snap photos when he holds it himself.

How is this practicing yoga, you ask? Yoga is defined several times in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. My favorite sutra (literally thread, a piece of an idea) of late is 1.12: Abhyasa vairagyabhyam tan nirodhah – The mind is stilled by practice and dispassion.

Parenting, like yoga, is a practice. It is done uninterruptedly, with devotion, over a long time (sutra 1.14). My goal as a parent, especially to Abraham (versus the big kids where I am a secondary parent as their step-mom), is to be completely present for him and give him what he needs but then step back and let him fly. Giving him bottles is part of that.

And now I will wipe the tears out of my eyes and get a bottle ready for when he wakes up from his nap (to give him after he nurses of course).

so proud of his hand-to-mouth dexterity

ADDITION: Friends, don’t worry. I may feel like a failure of a mother inside, but I know he will be ok and I will be ok. It is a feeling and only a feeling. I appreciate your kind, private words of encouragement.

The Last Spoon

Vicki: David, I’m going to run the dishwasher. Are you finished? (while I wipe off the table after dinner)

David: Yes. Thanks for cleaning up!

Vicki: (Smooches him and goes about her business.)

—10 minutes passes—

Vicki: (looks up from her business. David has gone out to the grocery store. The previously clean table has a small trail of ice cream droplets and there is a lone spoon in the sink.) Sigh.

At least he is going to bring me cookies from the Grocery Store!

Alone

No one is touching me right now. It is simultaneously wonderful and sad. I miss my guys.

Abraham is sleeping a mere foot away from me. I’m experimenting to see if he will sleep without nursing all night long. So far, so good.

David is sleeping in Philadelphia tonight. So much work to do. I’m so grateful for his effort, because it means I get to be home with Abraham. But I miss him and I wish our home and his office weren’t so far from one another.

I don’t know what to do with myself. I’m not good with free time. I never have been, but now I really suck because I never have any. It is too late to practice yoga, so I suppose I will just rest and breathe. Perhaps read a few longer articles that I can’t concentrate on when Abraham is awake.

Any suggestions?

Oh My Gods

I got to practice yoga. I felt like myself again.

David held the napping baby, and at first I ran around, eating and cleaning up. Then I remembered…me time. I have who-knows-how-long to do whatever-I-want. David, the best husband in the world, can get me food and tidy the kitchen. What can I do for myself that he can’t? YOGA!

I brought my bolster and other props to the living room to be near my guys. I did a short but glorious pranayama practice – I breathed my way back to myself.

Abraham woke up right as I finished, and as I nursed him, I sent a message to my yoga teacher to tell her I was back! Her response:

Tada drastuh svarupe ‘vasthanam
Then (once the mind becomes still) the seer abides in it’s true nature.
-Patanjali, the Yoga Sutras, chapter 1, v.3

Yoga brings me closer to my Self (capital intentional). Being a mother brings me closer to my Self too. My job now is to find a way to practice yoga and motherhood.

Which reminds me of another sutra:

abhyasa vairagyabhyam tan nirodhah

Practice and detachment are the 2 pillars of yoga. I think they might also be pillars of parenthood – work hard, do the best you can, and then let it go.

I keep thinking about this sutra in a big sense – I have not been able to practice in a while due to the birth of my dear child. I have been trying to detach from my own practice – not in the sense of letting go of it altogether but just letting go of the dependency. I’m still Me whether I practice yoga today or this week or this month. At this point, the yoga is in me, waiting patiently.

 

EBF

I am Exclusively Breast Feeding Abraham. This experience is a big deal.

All of my time and thoughts and physical comforts are devoted to his nourishment. What a gift to be able to feed someone else and also what a lot of work.

When I say all of my time, I’m not really exaggerating. He nurses almost constantly. David doesn’t get to hold him as much as he’d like (or I’d like – they need to bond too!), but I get lots of time with the babe.

I went to the Farmer’s Market today with my friend from Childbirth Class. Abraham slept the whole time, but I was worried he’d wake up and cry to eat. I am not quite ready to feed him in such a public place.

My thoughts are almost all focused on my breasts. Not in a sexy way. When I get dressed, I choose my shirt based on its easy access. I have to make sure I’m drinking enough (I’m probably not…) and eating well. I have to keep an assortment of creams nearby to keeping the breasts happy between meals.

I feel like a 24 hour buffet. I love it and wouldn’t trade it for anything, but it is nice when he sleeps and takes a break. My poor nipples; I’m worried they will never be the same.

I was worried I wouldn’t be able to breastfeed at all; in 2003, I had a breast reduction. I had no idea, like other women in the same situation, if I would be able to breastfeed. When I was 22 and uncomfortable, I didn’t care so much about it; I wanted my back pain and the attention on my chest to stop. I always said the reduction was the best decision I ever made. But then I got pregnant and I started to worry that it wasn’t. I read about Breast Feeding after Reduction and tried to prepare for whatever was to come.

I’ve been feeding Abraham since he was born. It isn’t without difficulty, but I don’t want to complain. It turns out this experience is what I wanted most – more than a natural birth. I am amazed at my body’s ability and rehability every day, and I try to remember that when it hurts, when I’m exhausted, when I need a moment to myself.

I have been a huge advocate for breast reductions. I still am. If I had not been able to breastfeed would I still be? If something goes wrong and I have to stop, will I still be? How could I have known then what I would feel like now, what would be important to me? And if I have to stop feeding him, because of my past choices rather than a decision based on our current needs, how will I feel?

I try not to worry and just feel grateful that I have this time. That we have the time together.