What Not to Wear (baby edition)

Sometimes, when nobody else is home, I walk around in my underpants. Not all the time, and not just because, but I do. And you know what? So does Carrie!

So, last night, Caroline ate dinner (like you do) and got food all over herself (like you do) so I took her dirty clothes off. This was about an hour before bath time, so no way was I going to put clean clothes on her for an hour. I've got priorities, and that's not them. Knowing my mother would make some comment about Caroline not being dressed, I put a (really cute) pair of bloomers on her and also a headband, just for fun. And what happens? "Why isn't she wearing any clothes?" It's not like I parade my naked child around in public for fun, y'all. Except I would maybe at the beach, because naked babies at the beach are stinking adorable.

What this all really comes down to is this: I'm pretty sure I lost my ability to dress myself, but my daughter always looks like Clinton and Stacey's lovechild. (Although that's not possible, because Clinton is gayer than Peter Pan in ice skates.)

I used to plan what I was going to wear each day, and lay out my clothes the night before. I wore accessories. Shoes that weren't sneakers. Socks that matched. And now? Carrie is pretty much always wearing something super cute that all matches with jackets, socks, shoes, hats and blankets to match. And me? It's a small miracle everyday that I make it out of my pajamas.

Invest in a good pair of headphones, or forget this business all together.

Self-soothing is a phrase that gets bandied about a lot on parenting blogs, in parenting books and by other parents (most notably mine). It's a phrase I lived my life by, counting down the days until it would be developmentally appropriate to get Carrie started on the track to self-soothing which would grow in time, I thought, into a sense of independence. Right. Here's the thing, y'all: life is full of revision. Your final draft isn't due until the end, all the rest is proofing. I just couldn't do it. Listening to munchkin "cry it out" was the most painful thing I've ever done. I felt like a bad mom, sitting outside the closed bedroom door, just listening to her. Sometimes it was more of a whine, sometimes just a tiny fussy noise, but the screams were the worst. At that point, you're supposed to go in and soothe the child without picking her up. Yeah, bump that.

You know what I learned, dear reader? Instead of teaching her that she can put herself to sleep, I'm teaching her that Mama will comfort her when she cries. And that's just dandy by me. In fact, I like that she wants to snuggle to sleep. I like knowing that being near me is that comforting for her. And I love the way her mouth falls open and her thumb falls out when she's finally asleep.

The way I figure it, independence is super important, for sure. But we're just not there yet. So be it.

Motherhood is a Moving Target

Let me just get something out on the table right now: I hate change and I suck at accepting it. Just to be clear, I don't mean that I struggle with the uncertainty change brings. Let me give you an example: I switched multivitamins once and didn't take them for 2 weeks because I just couldn't handle it. What does this have to do with being a mama? If you have any children, you know the answer to that: everything, duh.

Motherhood is a real moving target. Especially as infants, children develop and grow rapidly - we're talking a new skill set every week or so for the first year of life. Go back and read that again, y'all. I mean, holy shitballs, that is ridiculous. Imagine if you learned a new, life-changingly complex skill every week. I could be Superman by now. Just to put that into perspective for you. If you learned and grew as fast as a baby, there would be comic books about you. Also, you'd be fucking huuuge, but that's beside the point.

Also, you'd have to eat really often to sustain that kind of growth. I'd make it my personal mission to avenge the deaths of my people during the Irish potato famine by dedicating each meal to one of the fallen many. With great power comes great responsibility, people.

Moving on. So, what worked with Carrie last week might not necessarily work this week. And it's not just her place on the developmental spectrum that's dictating this. Everything from what she's looking at to whether or not she's feeling well impact her ability to cope with the crazy shit I'm throwing at her. We'll get into a routine that I can really get behind and a couple of weeks later, everything goes to absolute shit right before my eyes and the end of the night finds me on the bathroom floor with a bag of chocolates and twitch around the eyes.

I like to think that this is great practice, and I'm getting better at dealing with change. But then something happens, like my mom gets us a play yard, and I'm thrown back into this spiral of frustration and self-doubt. It's really challenging, but I really do feel like I'm learning to cope with this kind of emotional upheaval. Then again, I'm staring at this pack and play with hate in my eyes, so I'm probably not there yet.

I don't want a lot for Christmas...just some milk, actually.

So, my munchkin's first Christmas has come and gone I'm pondering what a huge deal we made over it. She'll never remember it. Hell, I'll probably never remember it except for the photos. And, yet, there's that excitement of baby's first Christmas which is inextricably linked with the consumerist perspective that drives the holiday season. I didn't do anything for her this year. I figured we'd take lots of photos of her surrounded by presents, etc and move on. I mean, she won't even care about Christmas until she's about 4. And then my mother went nutso bananas for Carrie's first Christmas:

- monogrammed needlepoint stocking
- enough toys to last until next Christmas
- boutique baby clothes
- books, books, and more books (ok, this one I'm actually totally cool with)

My parents even bought her presents for me to wrap and address from "Santa," because I hadn't gotten her anything. Whoa. She got a new Christmas dress (ok with this one, too, since it was for portraits) and a new Christmas outfit. We spent hours celebrating, eating and opening presents. And, in the midst of it all, what really mattered fell by the wayside.

I didn't get to take her to Christmas Eve service at church. She got way off her routine and didn't eat a whole meal for three days (don't worry, I ate plenty for both of us). She wasn't sleeping well at night or napping much during the day. Basically, it was a nightmare. And now I'm afraid that this is how I'll remember her first Christmas: as the pounding ache in my head on Christmas morning as she screamed in my face out of sheer frustration. Gross.

Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Tomboys

**UPDATE** My mother just bought Caroline a "Say Please Tea Set" designed to teach manners and, apparently, waitressing. Facepalm.

Before Carrie came, I was so excited about all of her tiny pink outfits and the adorable headbands that came with them. I couldn't wait to read her books like "Polite as a Princess" and I was going to tell her everyday that she was beautiful.

And then I realized that I'd been ruled by hormones and I didn't actually want any of that for her. Well, at least not exclusively. Really, what I want is for Caroline to be herself. She might turn out to be super femme and she might also be a tomboy like I was (for a while anyways). But the million ways in which gender roles are reinforced will play a huge part in who she is and, frankly, that pisses me off. Don't get me wrong, I still think she's absolutely beautiful and I'm not just saying this because I'm sick of looking at pink - although I totally am.

It just seems so ridiculous to me that we start indoctrinating our children into gender roles before they can even focus their eyes. Putting aside how ridiculous the gender binary is in general, it's especially useless for babies. Gender is a combination of several factors including sex, social role and gender identity. So, I ask you: how can a tiny human with no physical self-awareness other than that hands are fun have a social role or gender identity?

Also, baby boys clothes are freaking adorable. So it frustrates me when I see something cute that I'd like to buy for Caroline and I debate if it's cute enough to justify me fighting with my mom over it.

I guess what it really comes down to is that I want the best for her. And I'm not gonna lie: sometimes it sucks to be a girl. I mean we can create life and "the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world" and we've got the Girl Scouts and we're completely equal to men and yay feminism. But, still. Sometimes it's hard to remember that you have to be docile to get ahead and not to chew with your mouth open. And it sucks to accept that you'll get paid less than the moron in the next cubicle reading FHM while you're working twice as hard. And it hurts when you realize that girls really can't be anything they want like your favorite childhood book told you. So I'd rather raise her in a world relatively free of those stereotypes and unfair expectations and just let her be her. And the adorable boys' and gender-neutral clothes are just a perk :)

Thanksgiving

I am thankful for surviving Caroline's first illness this week. She and I both had a terrible stomach flu which really knocked us down a peg or two. Plus side? I ate four plates of food today and probably won't weigh more this Sunday than I did last :)

So: a real post is in the works for the next few days. Right now, I'm going to cast off this scarf I'm knitting (broke-ass Christmas, anyone?) and go to bed. Because your child sleeping through the night is even more awesome when compared to the midnight vomiting parties.

Well, drench me in patchouli and call me crunchy granola mom.

Ok, not to obsess over this whole diapering thing, but I need to obsess over this whole diapering thing.

Everyone's asking what Caroline and I want for Christmas this year (let's put aside the fact that I actually celebrate Solstice) and all I can tell them is: "we want cloth diapers!" I mean, sure, Caroline could definitely use other things. But it just kills me to use disposable diapers on her. Every time I change her diaper, I think to myself "this diaper will still be in a landfill when she graduates college." This is seriously breaking my heart. Everybody complains that there won't be any nature left for our children, and disposable diapers are part of that problem. I recycle, I try to re-use and upcycle things. I bring my own tote bags to the grocery store, I only do laundry when it's absolutely necessary, I unplug my cell phone charger when I'm not using it. If I'm doing my part, why do I feel so terrible about using disposables?

Maybe because "disposable diapers are the third largest single consumer item in landfills." Estimates state that disposable diapers can take up to 500 years to decompose fully. That's just ridiculous, people. If the rule of thumb states that there are about 20 years between generations, Caroline's diapers will still be in a landfill 25 generations from now.

And that's not even the half of it! I could save a metric buttload (yes, that's technical term) of money over the course of her diapering life by using cloth. She would potty train earlier. She would have less diaper rash. Plus, her butt would look even cuter than it already does if it were covered in an adorable diaper!

So, if you're reading this and you want to get us a holiday present: put back the toys that take batteries (no, seriously, Karma will get if you make me endure that) and get us the gift of a more sustainable future.