Potty Training the Working Mom Way

The title of this blog has been something of a misnomer for about two months now because, while the doctoral studies continue, we haven't been doing many diaper changes lately.  In late September, we set aside a weekend for the three day potty training "boot camp" you can read about in various places online or in books.  Their stories all go like this: you set aside three days for the task.  You don't leave the house, and you don't let your kid wear a diaper or any clothes.  You offer no negative reinforcement at all, but usher the toddler over to the potty as soon as they start to go.  You offer a lot of praise and a treat any time they get something in the potty.  All the stories seem the same: on day one, the child has accidents everywhere.  On day two, the child begins moving toward the potty to go, even if it means they have accidents on the way. And on day three, the child is miraculously trained and has no accidents!  You just let the kid run around naked for another week or two and she never pees on any of her clothing.

These people are full of it.  Just like those women who say that co-sleeping is 100% relaxing and allows them to feel fully rested from the time their child leaves the womb.  Just like those women who claim that after one night of allowing their baby to cry it out, their child slept perfectly for twelve straight hours every night until they went off to college.  If these people are not liars, they must have those ever elusive "easy children" that I've never actually seen in real life.  Thankfully, I have honest friends who've successfully potty trained their kids already, and they encouraged me and laughed with me when I got very frustrated.  Since they're all stay at home moms, though, figuring out how to manage this milestone across the home and day care environments took some extra creativity and flexibility.  In case anyone is interested in our potty training trials, I thought I'd pass along some of the most useful things I figured out over the course of the process in case they help others down the line.

• You'll know when you and your child are ready to attempt this task.  Thankfully, you've already become an expert at politely dismissing unsolicited advice by this point in your child's life. Because if you think your child's ready at 23 months a lot of people will tell you it's "too soon."
• Talk to your day care providers in advance to get a sense of how much they'll be willing to cooperate and support the process.  I was lucky in this regard because Nora's teachers are fantastic.  Her main teacher was super excited for her, proud of her when she showed up in undies after the three days of training at home, has never complained once about having to clean up after an accident, and has even encouraged me about what a great job I'm doing.
• The three day naked boot camp method IS a great way to start.  Here are my additions to the tips you can find elsewhere for how to prepare for these three days:  
• Ask yourself: what clothes will I want to be wearing when I'm getting peed on repeatedly? And then make sure you have a whole stack of those clothes clean.  (For me, this was yoga pants and t-shirts.) 
• Make sure you have plenty of alcohol in the house.  That way, when you survive each day (especially that first one) of being cooped up inside with a peeing machine, you can reward yourself with a little big of liquid relaxation.  And if you need a drink even  before bedtime, I won't judge you.
• Look for little signs of improvement from each day to the next rather than comparing your child's progress to anything you read online.  My friends told me to stick with it as long as I felt like Nora was moving forward instead of rejecting the process.  I'm so glad they did.  They told me that after about a week, I'd be surprised at how far she'd come.  They were right.
• Think about what "treat" will incentivize your child without sabotaging your attempts to feed her a healthy diet.  We settled on fruit snacks because Nora is manipulative.  Once she figured out that she was going to get a treat for going on the potty, she started squirting out one drop at a time and demanding a treat.  
• If you're like me, you might think the way to avoid accidents is to ask your child to pee on the potty really frequently.  This might work for some kids, but I realized on day three that I was asking Nora to do it so much that she was a) getting annoyed with me and b) not really able to feel when she had to go without being told.  I decided she would ultimately learn faster if I wasn't so committed to preventing accidents, and I think that worked out according to my plan.
• When your child goes back to day care, consider using thin underwear under pull-ups.  The people who use the three day method sometimes act like you will fully sabotage your training if your child ever sees a diaper again, and they swear pull ups are evil.  But on the other hand, no matter how supportive your child's teachers are, sanitation concerns prevent them from allowing your kid to pee in puddles all over the classroom.  Our teachers were immediately on board with putting Nora's undies under her pull up, which I figured would keep things sanitary while also making sure Nora could feel the wetness when she had an accident.  Once she stopped having large accidents, they just stopped using the pull ups and switched to the thick undies.
• We like the thick training undies since we never knew when Nora might tinkle a little bit before she realized she was going.  The ones Gerber makes are better than the store brand from Babies-r-Us, which have stretched out an unfortunate amount.  We didn't use the plastic pants that go over these because even with Nora's nice thick thighs, they seemed really gappy.  I figured the pee would just run right down her leg.
• Expect your child's progress at day care to lag behind her progress at home.  Nora stopped having pee accidents in the house after about a week, aside from the occasional rare one.  It took several more weeks before she stopped having regular pee accidents at school.  It took her longer to stop having poop accidents at home, and that improvement has taken longer to take hold at school, too.  
• Think about getting a travel potty.  This is something I would have thought was unnecessary, but Billy's cousin Jacelyn gave us this one for Nora's birthday and it has been really nice to have in the car.  The bags are kind of expensive, but we use them so rarely that the 30 pack I bought will probably last as long as we need them.  The travel potty's real function is to eliminate that underlying anxiety you'll have about traveling in the car with a potty training child-- and since I drive Nora to and from day care every day, this has taken a big weight off my mind.
• While I'm recommending potties, you don't need an expensive or fancy one.  We bought this froggy potty, and then I promptly bought another so we can have one in the living room on the main leve and one in the upstairs bathroom.  (Again: is two necessary? No.  Is it worth the extra $10? For me, definitely-- especially since we saved a lot of money on diapers by potty training early.)

I think that's about it.  We're still using diapers at naptime and overnight, though I think Nora will be ready to do away with those fairly soon.  Like everything else, we figured it would be better to do this one step at a time rather than trying to force it on her all at once.  And aside from those first three days, which nearly drove me crazy because I had unreasonable expectations and because I hate being cooped up in the house, the whole process has been relatively painless.  And like everything else about parenting since Nora was about five months old, the joys of the process have far outweighed the frustrations.  It is so delightful to see how excited she gets about peeing and pooping in the potty.  She likes to please, but really, I think the real effect of the praise is that it makes her feel like going in the potty is something she deserves to take pride in.  I'll wrap this up with a few pictures that prove this point.

This is us posing for a picture to send Dad on the third day of bottomless boot camp.  She wanted to show him the treat she had earned for going in the potty.

And this is her on her birthday, immediately after telling our photographer, Ena, that she had just gone peepee on the potty.

I never get tired of seeing that proud look on her face.  And I never think "You know, I wish I'd changed more diapers today."  So if I can offer one last piece of advice, it's to start the potty training process when you think you're both ready rather than putting it off out of fear about how it will go.  If we hadn't done it fairly early, we'd not only still be changing diapers-- we'd be missing out on all the great comments she makes about it, too.  Like last week, when she shouted from the bathroom, "MOMMY!  Poopies look like broccolis!  But I can't eat em!" or like each morning, when she tells me excitedly "I need undies LIKE YOU!"

Breastfeeding Through the Minefield

Updated 6/21

I have some (okay, a lot of) things I want to say about breastfeeding.  In the original version of this post, I said: "The best way I can think to express them is to borrow the conceptual framework Annette Kolodny uses in her powerful and influential 1980 essay, "Dancing Through the Minefield" because for me, trying to reach one year of exclusively breastfeeding with my daughter felt like I was attempting to navigate a large field that was full of hidden land mines that might detonate at any moment."  But after an interesting conversation on facebook about the undertones of antagonism this framing device might suggest, I've decided to modify it to better articulate what I mean.

Perhaps, rather than suggesting breastfeeding is like navigating a minefield, it is more accurate to say it can feel like traveling a path that already has some obstacles of its own, but which is made much more treacherous by hidden mines that are planted along it.  The mine image still resonates with me because, if one of these mines detonates on you, there is no way to predict how much it will derail your progress.  Depending on how negatively these obstacles and mines impacted you, you might decide to take another path even if you were initially committed to the breastfeeding path.

I want to explain what I know about this breastfeeding path, how I navigated it, and how I try to help other women do the same.  So I am going to do those things here, as directly and as best I can.  I am not going to address the specifics of why breastfeeding is beneficial for mom and baby-- neither in terms of nutrition or nurturing-- because a google search would be more productive toward those ends.  If you are interested in reading this post, please keep in mind that it takes for granted my basic attitudes about breastmilk and baby formula, which are these:  Breastmilk provides babies with precisely the nourishment they need.  Baby formula meets many of a baby's most fundamental nutritional needs, though it does not have all the nutritional benefits of breastmilk.

I believe that the best thing a woman can do to meet her breastfeeding goals is to familiarize herself with the breastfeeding path, its obstacles, and the mines she might encounter along it.  And I believe that people who want to help women reach their breastfeeding goals can best do this by helping them navigate these obstacles.  We can help moms overcome the obstacles, show moms what the mines are and where they are likely to be encountered, help moms to deactivate them, and avoid setting additional mines for moms to navigate around.  Before I elaborate a bit on those beliefs, I want to describe, in as concise a way as possible, what I recognize as some of the obstacles that seem to be inherent to the path as well as what are, in my opinion, the most common among the many land mines one might encounter on this path.

In this framework, it is helpful for me to think of the first three obstacles on the breastfeeding path as precisely that-- obstacles.  This is because they are not actively "set" by anyone, as the mines are, though they may be exacerbated by the mines.  These obstacles are some of the complications of breastfeeding itself, and most of them come at the beginning-- as if a woman has to climb a steep hill immediately upon starting on this path.

Obstacle: The demands breastfeeding puts upon a woman's body
Breastfeeding is physically draining, especially in those first few weeks when the baby is likely to nurse every 1-2 hours (sometimes for an hour or more at a time).  It depletes a woman's body unlike anything else she will ever do-- even more so than pregnancy.  It also requires that she wake up frequently in the night to feed, which interrupts her sleep, further exhausting her physically.  I'd wager to say every mother faces this obstacle, and how much it derails her depends on how much support she has.

Obstacle: The demands breastfeeding puts on a woman's time
Breastfeeding takes a long time.  When Nora was a newborn, I once calculated that I spent over 6 of the 24 hours in one day nursing her.  Even once the child gets older and spends less time nursing, the demands are significant.  Mothers who must rely on pumping breastmilk must also devote considerable time to that endeavor.  Again, I think every mother must grapple with this obstacle, and whether she can overcome it depends on how much freedom and/or flexibility she has with her time.

Obstacle: Breastfeeding complications
There are quite a few "naturally occuring" obstacles to breastfeeding which can affect baby and mom.  These include, but are not limited to: tongue tie, shallow latch, oversupply, undersupply, inverted nipples, nipple soreness, thrush, plugged ducts, mastitis, and milk blisters.  These obstacles are different for every woman, and some of them can pop up at any time.  But in general, how much information the mother has about them when they strike has a large impact on whether she can overcome them.

So that brings us to the mines a woman may encounter along the breastfeeding path, by which I mean social, medical, cultural, and political factors that interfere with a woman's ability to successfully breastfeed her child.  Some of these are set intentionally, and some unintentionally.  Some were set long in the past and some continue to be set today.  But they can all be damaging enough to cause a woman to choose a different path for feeding her child.

Mine: Misconceptions about what to expect from breastfeeding
Partly because Americans have relied heavily on formula in the past, there are many widespread misconceptions about how the breastfeeding relationship should develop and how breastfed infants should behave.  When this mine detonates, women might be told their milk did not come in soon enough, they are not producing enough milk, their child is not getting enough milk, their child is feeding too frequently, their child is not gaining enough weight, and so on, even if none of these things are true, simply because many people do not know what to expect.

Mine: Obstetric Practices
There are many obstetric practices that can help save the lives of women and babies in extreme cases but which also reduce a woman's chances of successfully breastfeeding her child.  These research findings are sometimes controversial, but there have been studies which show that induced labor, the administration of certain medications to the mother during birth, cesarean section, delay in the first opportunity to breastfeed, and separation of mothers and babies in the immediate postpartum period decrease a woman's chances for breastfeeding success.  Not all healthcare providers educate their patients about these risk factors, so many women agree to these procedures in less severe cases with no idea that they might impact their breastfeeding outcomes.  When this mine detonates, it can stack the cards against the mother from the beginning, making it more difficult for her to reach her breastfeeding goals in the long run.

Mine: Patriarchal attitudes about women's bodies
I'm happy to go into more detail on this in individual conversation, but in brief, I will simply say that it serves the goals of male-dominated structures of power to sexualize the female body.  The power of patriarchy is so strong in our country that men and women alike often think that baring the breast for the purpose of nursing is "inappropriate," "weird," "disgusting," "pornographic," etc, even though nursing seems to be the primary biological/evolutionary function of the breast.  When this mine detonates, it can make women feel ashamed about using their bodies to nourish their children in public but also within their own homes.  It can also cause them to stop breastfeeding before they are ready if they are told their child is "too old" to be at the breast.

Mine: The pushing of baby formula
The World Health Organization has established a code that formula manufacturers are supposed to follow, which forbids them from doing anything I would describe as "pushing" formula on women.  But they don't always follow it.  They're trying to sell baby formula, so they find ways to make it seem desirable to women.  There are other ways that formula is pushed on moms, too.  I've read about and spoken to mothers who suggest they have been coaxed against their wishes into giving formula by OBs, pediatricians, administrators of social programs, and family members.  The list goes on.  When this mine detonates, it can inhibit breastfeeding success by upsetting the mother's breastmilk supply, perpetuating misconceptions about breastfeeding, and making women feel like the only way they can properly nourish their child is by providing baby formula.

Mine: The "Breast is Best" Campaign and other attitudes that position mothers in a hierarchy
I would like to believe the "Breast is Best" phrase was supposed to be an easy-to-remember reminder that breastmilk has nutritional advantages baby formula does not.  I can see how that would be useful given that in years past, a lot of women were taught to believe their breastmilk was nutritionally insufficient.  But I think the inclusion of the word "best" in this phrase is highly problematic.  When people to go around saying "breast is best," they erase all the many complexities of the mother/child breastfeeding relationship.  "Breast is best" ignores the situations in which breastfeeding might not be best for the mother, and by implying that breastfeeding is always best, the slogan creates counterproductive competition between mothers.  By positioning women who breastfeed as those who give their children the "best," it implies that women who use formula in any capacity must be inferior as mothers because they are not giving their children the "best."  In my opinion, that's just plain wrong.  When this mine detonates, it alienates would-be breastfeeders from the very women who could help them improve their chances of breastfeeding success.

Mine: Judgemental breastfeeding advocates
Unfortunately, there are a lot of lactation consultants and breastfeeders who engage in active shaming of women who do not exclusively breastfeed and/or do not know as much as they do about breastfeeding.  This upsets me for a lot of reasons, but most fundamentally, it is upsetting because shaming the mothers ignores the fact that they are not responsible for all the mines I've described above.  Further, shaming others is not only wrong; it is also not the way to get anything positive accomplished.  When the shame mine detonates, it can make a woman who needed more help or information about breastfeeding feel like the people who are supposed to help her do not have her best interest at heart.  It can make her feel like she is being persecuted by "lactation nazis" who do not understand her struggles, who judge her as a bad mother based on this single factor, and/or who think they are superior mothers or people just because they were able to breastfeed more successfully.  I imagine the detonation of this mine is painful at the deepest level and can see why it would turn mothers away from the idea of breastfeeding entirely.  If a woman wants to breastfeed but is unable to do it for any variety of reasons, she likely experiences feelings of disappointment, frustration, sadness, guilt, and/or insecurity on her own.  So to have someone add insult to her injury, even when the mom tried her best with the information she had, would give her good reason to never want to speak to a "breastfeeding advocate" again.

Believe it or not, that is the nutshell version of what I have learned and figured out about breastfeeding since 2011.  As you might already realize, part of the reason I have access to all of this information is because my socioeconomic and educational backgrounds afford me privileges that the vast majority of Americans do not have.  Breastfeeding success rates among different demographics in our country demonstrate that, like most types of success in the US, certain people of privilege have a much easier time accessing the most useful information and making use of it.  I am, of course, happy to talk to people in more depth about any of these ideas on an individual basis.  But now that I've outlined some of the most common obstacles and mines women encounter in this path, I want to explain what I did to navigate around them and what I try to do to in helping other women do the same.  My hope, I guess, is that people will take what they can use from my experience to help them reach their own breastfeeding goals and/or help empower other women to meet theirs.

What I did to navigate the path
If you want to breastfeed your child, you increase your chances at success by educating yourself about this path before and after the birth of your child.  (As an introductory overview, I recommend Breastfeeding Made Simple: Seven Natural Laws for Nursing Mothers, and as a web resource, I recommend kellymom.com.) I made clear to family and friends from the start that I intended to exclusively breastfeed.  Continuing to learn about breastfeeding after Nora was born allowed me to maximize the luck that came my way and minimize the effects of the mines that detonated on me.  I accepted that I could not expect healthcare providers to give me good information all the time-- whether they are obstetricians, midwives, lactation consultants, or pediatricians-- and I ignored examples of "advice" I felt were ill-informed.  I found one woman I trust who values me as a person and has breastfed successfully, and leaned on her help and support.  My lifelong friend, Krista, also put me in touch with a whole network of women to answer my questions, which helped a lot.  But I found that having even just one woman who knew what I was up against, who treated me like a woman instead of a milk delivery vessel, and wanted me to succeed had a huge impact on my success.  She helped me learn to navigate the minefield for myself.

What I try to do to help other women navigate the path
In fact, Krista has been such a help to me that I largely follow her model of support when trying to help others reach their breastfeeding goals.  I try to let all my pregnant acquaintances know that I'm happy to share my breastfeeding experience and advice with them, and I hope I don't make them feel like I am pushing it.  When friends and family members reach out to me for more information, I explain what worked for me.  I try to pass along the information that was most useful to me about where to look for proper information and what to expect.  I encourage them to get in touch with me at any time if they're having trouble.  I hope to make clear that when they face these obstacles or any of these various mines detonate on them, and they begin experiencing breastfeeding complications, I will be there to share the information I know, help them find answers to questions I can't answer myself, and point them in the direction of additional help and resources when they need more experienced advice.  I also think it's important to tell them they don't have to follow all the "rules" of proper breastfeeding all the time, and I try to help them figure out which shortcuts might help make breastfeeding more sustainable given their particular struggles.  If you're looking for help with reaching your breastfeeding goals, please let me know.

In every conversation I have about breastfeeding, I try to keep the following things in mind-- because these are the things I wish some people had been more cognizant of when they have discussed it with me.
-Every woman has a right to choose whether to breastfeed, how much to breastfeed, and how long to breastfeed.  While I can encourage what I think are healthy choices by sharing what I know about the advantages of nursing, especially with those people who are closest to me, I do not have a right to try to push my values on anyone else.
-As such, I feel it is my job to help women meet their own breastfeeding goals, not the ones I might set for them.
-Breastfeeding can be very difficult, especially at first.  The more encouragement and support a woman gets, the more likely she is to get over that initial hump and into the zone where it is beneficial and rewarding for everyone involved.
-Mothers are not the ones responsible for any of the obstacles or mines I described above, so they are not to blame for the vast majority of factors that complicate breastfeeding attempts in this country.  I try to make sure they know it's not their fault when trouble arises.
-Practices that empower women help them and their babies.  Practices that disempower women, even if they are done under the auspices of "helping" the child, often end up failing to benefit the child in the end.   The better physical and emotional shape a woman is in, the better off her baby will be.
-Shaming women will not lead to an increase in breastfeeding rates.  It contributes to a mother's feelings of alienation, which decreases her likelihood to breastfeed successfully.
-Everyone experiences these obstacles and the detonation of the breastfeeding mines in different ways.  Only the mother attempting to navigate the path can decide when it would be best for her to choose another path, whether that might mean introducing baby formula or switching to entirely.  I have, instead, an obligation to support the women I know in their efforts to feed their children as best they can.  And sometimes that means reminding a mother that any amount of breastfeeding she is able to do is beneficial to her baby-- whether that is nursing for two sessions, two days, two weeks, two months, or two years.  At other times, it might mean reminding them that there are plenty of other ways to nurture infants.

So there you go.  Everything Liz has wanted to say about breastfeeding, in 3,000 words or less.  I recognize that my form of activism only really works on women who want to breastfeed already.  But I firmly believe that by empowering those women, we will make breastfeeding more appealing to other moms, too.  Learn about the path, the obstacles, and the mines so you can best navigate the journey.  Help other women do the same.  And do your best to avoid setting additional mines that may inhibit their progress.

Nora and Mama

Here is another batch of our professional photos-- this time, me and my girl!

One Art Photography is on facebook and on the web.

Thoughts on Weaning

If you continue breastfeeding after your child begins eating food, a common question you can expect to be asked is "How long are you planning to keep doing that?"  My usual answer was, "Until one of us is ready to stop."  While many lactation advocates indicate that you should keep nursing until your baby self-weans, I feel like the lactating mother's feelings matter, too.  If I could have seen the future, the concrete answer to that question would have been "Until she is 19 months old."  That's right-- Nora is no longer a breastfeeding toddler, and while I am very happy and proud to have provided her with all the advantages of breastmilk, I am also glad to be done nursing her.

In case anyone is curious, I thought I'd explain what the process of weaning was like for us.  I was determined to get to one year of exclusive breastfeeding so we could bypass formula entirely.  As I've mentioned before, this required a LOT of effort on my part once she began full time day care.  I spent the month before building up a freezer stash by pumping every night before bed.  Once she began day care, I was pumping twice during the day for about 15-20 minutes, and then I would pump again for about the same amount of time before I went to bed.  She still nursed like normal on the weekends.

This kept us going until her first birthday, at which point we decided to start mixing in alternate milk.  Since Nora has the dreaded dairy allergy, we first started with almond milk, which is more easily available.  After a few weeks of what seemed like continuous cold symptoms, we switched to coconut milk, and have stuck with that ever since.  Since these milks don't have as much fat as whole milk, we have made sure to supplement those fats in her diet with things like avocado, Earth Balance spread, coconut oil, etc.

We wanted to introduce non-human milk gradually, and I wanted to reduce my supply slowly because I have always had difficulty with hormonal changes.  So I first dropped the nighttime pumping session, and this resulted in mixing about 3oz of breastmilk with 1oz of almond/coconut milk for each bottle.  If Nora noticed any difference, it didn't bother her.  A few weeks later, and a few weeks before my comprehensive exam, I cut back to pumping once mid-day.  At that point the bottles were more like 50/50.  By the time I passed my exam, I was so tired of pumping that one of the ways I celebrated was by giving up pumping entirely.  I did suffer some headaches with each dropped pumping session, and when I stopped pumping altogether, they were noticeably worse, but that only lasted about a week.

From late November through early February, Nora was nursing when she woke up and when she went to bed, and she was drinking coconut milk during the day.  While I was home with her in December and January, we worked on switching her from bottles to sippy cups in preparation for the toddler room at her new day care.  There were only a few times during this period that she asked to breastfeed during the day, but she was usually satisfied by an offer of coconut milk, and if not, we could distract her with something else.  We did suffer a bit of a setback when she was sick in Oregon-- since she was dehydrated, and didn't want to do anything but nurse, I let her nurse whenever she wanted for those few days.  Then she returned to day care and wanted to be nursing literally from the minute I picked her up until the minute I put her down to bed.  That transition was hard on all of us, but thankfully it only lasted a few days.  Once she felt comfortable at school, she no longer needed to nurse during the day, so we were back to nursing at wake-up and bedtime.

In early February I was getting tired of nursing, so I started offering Nora coconut milk in the morning. If she wanted to nurse after she finished the coconut milk I would let her, but that only lasted about a week.  I thought my supply would dry up fairly quickly at that point, but we continued nursing for 10-15 minutes before bed until about two weeks ago.  At that point, we had put her down to bed without nursing a few times here and there, and she didn't have any trouble getting to sleep.  Nursing before bed still seemed to be comforting to her, but I didn't think she needed to do it, and I was ready to be done.  So I just decided which night would be our last, spent that nursing session reflecting on how fortunate we are that weaning happened fairly naturally, and then the next night I just rocked her and put her right to bed.  She hasn't shown any indication that she misses it, and although I do feel a little nostalgic for when she was a baby, and nursing is tied up in those emotions, I am glad to be done.  She has been gleaning nutrients from my body, at varying levels, for over two years.  Although I couldn't be happier about being able to provide those nutrients and their benefits to her, I am proud that we are continuing to foster her developing independence and happy to have my body back to myself.

Since we were changing her bedtime routine slightly, we also ditched the sleep sacks she has been using since she was four months old.  Now she gets tucked in under her very own crib quilt, which I made her.  This was a fun little project for me, and since she's no longer making use of my breastmilk, I like thinking that she's tucked under something else I made with love just for her.  : )

Literary Words of Wisdom: Adrienne Rich

Sometimes it's best to just let the genius speak for herself.  From Adrienne Rich's ground breaking 1976 study, Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution:

"The most important thing one woman can do for another is to illuminate and expand her sense of actual possibilities.  For a mother, this means more than contending with the reductive images of females in children's books, movies, television, the schoolroom.  It means that the mother herself is trying to expand the limits of her life.  To refuse to be a victim: and then to go on from there.

Only when we can wish imaginatively and courageously for ourselves can we wish unfetteredly for our daughters.  But finally, a child is not a wish, nor a product of wishing.  Women's lives-- in all levels of society-- have been lived too long in both depression and fantasy, while our active energies have been trained and absorbed into caring for others.  It is essential, now, to begin breaking that cycle.  Anyone who has read the literature in the obstetrician's waiting-room knows the child-care booklets which, at some point, confess that 'you may get a fit of the blues' and suggest 'having your husband take you to dinner in a French restaurant, or going shopping for a new dress.'  (The fiction that most women have both husbands and money is forever with us.)  But the depressive mother who now and then allows herself a 'vacation' or a 'reward' is merely showing her daughters both that the female condition is depressing, and that there is no real way out.

As daughters we need mothers who want their own freedom and ours.  We need not to be the vessels of another woman's self-denial and frustration.  The quality of the mother's life-- however embattled or unprotected-- is her primary bequest to her daughter, because a woman who can believe in herself, who is a fighter, and who continues to struggle to create livable space around her, is demonstrating to her daughter that these possibilities exist."  (246-247)

So next time I write something like this, please remind me: when all else fails, pick up something by Adrienne Rich.

Remember Down Time?

Nora is sleeping in this morning.  I hope it is not illness related!  I've already gotten up, showered, gotten ready, made my grocery list, eaten breakfast, and packed my lunch.  These things all go so much faster when she is not toddling around at my feet or clamoring for my attention.  I had forgotten about that.

This gives me a chance to sit down with my coffee (which for once is in a real mug, not a travel mug!) to see how far I can get in the blog post I've been milling over in my mind for the past few days before she wakes or I have to wake her.

I can barely remember when I used to have down time.  Graduate school has a way of making you feel like you should treat every minute away from work like it is precious... but because I'm me, it also has a way of making me feel like I can't afford to spare any minute away.  Nonetheless, I did try to make a conscientious effort to take time off once in a while.  These days, my "time off" from school is spent mothering.  And my "time off" from mothering is spent doing school work.  I don't know quite how to find much time for myself in between.  To be fair, I don't need much time to myself.  If I have to split my time between two things, these are the two things I most want to be doing.  But when I put her down to sleep at night, and begin the effort to force myself to get back to work, I am envious of Billy, who gets to spend his evenings watching the Orioles, even though I am reminded every Wednesday, when I work at a desk for a mere five hours, that his work is no joke.

But I also know I cannot sit still to save my life.  In the downtime I do allow myself, I've been working on a quilt for Nora.  Two Mondays ago I gave myself a "me" day, which meant I watched Mad Men guilt free before spending the entire day running errands.  Maybe I am nostalgic for time to sit and "do nothing" not so much because my life doesn't allow me the time to do it, but because "doing nothing" is a state that seems appealing and yet has never really been a part of my life.

I don't know.  But Nora is peeping away on the other side of the wall, so I don't have a chance to think about it any further.  Isn't it nice how happy she wakes up when she sleeps long enough, rather than insisting on waking up just because she can tell there's activity going on in the house?

This blog post was also supposed to include this detail, which I didn't work in: I am thankful for audio books for allowing me to reclaim my commute.  My trip to the library to grade on Monday also yielded me the chance to peruse the books on CD selections, so I'm currently listening to A Hologram for the King by Dave Eggers.  This is a book I never, ever would have had a chance to read otherwise.  If you are ever trying to think of a gift for me, take yourself on over to audible.com.

Aristotle (and Liz) on Happiness

According to the professor whose class I am TAing this semester, Aristotle wrote that "Happiness is full activity aimed at virtue," if we think of virtue as meaning general "goodness" or "righteousness." As he explained to the students, what Aristotle meant is that we are not happiest when we are "having fun"-- we are happiest when we have found something that we willingly devote our whole selves to accomplishing.  This is why, he told them, you feel exhilarated after spending an entire night finishing a project with your classmates, even though it was hard and exhausting.  He said that for a lot of people, they find this place of potential in athletics, or in music.  It is not a "release" from life, like a fun night out drinking with friends-- if you are living your life well, it is life.

Happiness is full activity aimed at virtue.  This is the simple, straightforward phrasing of a concept I have been beating a bush around on this blog for years now.

This is why I did so well on my exam, even though the preparation was hard, and I hated the time it prevented me from spending with my family.  I wasn't nervous about the outcome because I knew I'd given it all I had.

This is why, when I finished the exam, my way of "relaxing" was to start making a quilt.

This is why I stay in grad school at all, frankly.

This is why I love (and miss) distance running.

This is one of the reasons why I was able to give birth to a posterior baby without asking for an epidural.

This is one of the reasons why I survived long days at home with a colicky newborn.

When I was teaching high school, I can remember one point at which I realized most of my freshmen thought it was uncool to "try."  I made each of them write an essay about the thing they worked the hardest towards and actually achieved.  Then they made license plate shaped signs about them, they had to share with the class the story that gave them "license" to operate in my class, and we used them to decorate the walls.  That was one of my best teaching ideas and moments.  Everyone came up with something, and it made a noticeable difference in my classes from that point onward.  It was like, with one activity, we successfully banished from that classroom the mentality that "cool kids don't try."  But I can also remember standing up there at the end and telling them, "What you may not know until you're older, is that it doesn't matter if anyone else thinks what you've accomplished is cool or impressive. Once you know it in your head, and you can feel it in your heart, nobody can take it away from you.  And the people who cheated to get where you got, or even farther?  They don't have what you have."  They were all like, "Awe, Ms. C, enough with the 'life lessons'."  But maybe a few of them carried it with them.

I wish I'd had this phrasing at my disposal then.  Full activity aimed at virtue.  I'm glad I have it now, for when those moments when I need to remind myself.  And for when we need to teach Nora.

The Toddler Room: Effects on Toddler and Mama

Nora loves the toddler room.  Why wouldn't she?  Yesterday when we walked in, one of her friends said "Nono!", rushed over to her, gave her a hug, and then led her by the hand over to the play carpet.  Her "friends" in the toddler classroom are actually her friends.  She gets a snack or a meal every twoish hours.  She blows bubbles, completes art projects, reads books, sings songs, plays outside with toddler-appropriate equipment, and dances to music.  She no longer even considers crying when I leave or when I return.  Mama, that's for babies, I imagine her thinking.  She has even started regularly napping for over one hour on her cot because her teachers had the good sense to place her next to their best sleeper.  Evidently, when she wakes up, looks over and sees that he is still sleeping, she pretends she is, too.

Nora started in the toddler room at 15 months, so she would've had a considerable amount of language development since that time anyway, but we feel like she's had a language explosion.  I couldn't even begin to create a comprehensive list all the words she says regularly with increasingly better clarity.  She is a little parrot, repeating everything we say and every noise she hears.  When Billy clears his throat, she clears hers.  When I lock the car as we walk into the house, she chirps "beep!"  When she pets or kisses Oscar she tells herself "nice, nice" because we are always emphasize using "nice touches" with him.  After we sing about the people on the bus going up and down, she walks around chanting "uppydown, uppydown, uppydown."  When her Uncle Nate is on FaceTime and asks her what's on TV in the background, she says "I dunno!" with perfect inflection, like she means it. This ear for sounds and pitches comes from Billy, I am sure.  He hears background noises that I am completely oblivious to, like when we are watching a sporting event and he gets annoyed by the pep band playing the same songs too much.  "There is a pep band?" is what I am always thinking.

As a working mom, most of the guilt I had about leaving Nora with others during the day has been eradicated by her sheer excitement about being at school.  Now that she is at an age where social interaction is more beneficial for her than my one-on-one doting attention would be, day care is a good place for her to be.  This should be good for me, too, and emotionally it is.  But professionally, I am realizing that guilt is a powerful motivator.  I got so much more done every day when regret about leaving her to complete my exam reading was dripping out of my pores, when the sight of every young child out and about with its mother made me cringe, and when Nora burst into tears nearly every time I arrived to get her at the end of the day.  But Liz, you couldn't have maintained that level of productivity much longer without losing your mind, you might be thinking.  I hear you.  (If you are actually thinking, Liz, operating at that level of productivity has already caused you to lose your mind, I politely decline to hear you.) My hope is that it's just taking me a little bit longer to adjust than it's taking Nora.  Now that she has settled into school, and I have settled into teaching, and I am beginning to settle into my library job, I hope this will lead to me settling into prospectus writing.  This week we are off for Spring Break, so I have made some good progress.  Time will tell, I guess.

Did you catch the part where I mentioned that she dances now? Over the weekend we discovered that she is especially partial to "Jump in Line" by Harry Belafonte.  Whether she likes this because of its beat, its instruments, or its prominence of what she thinks is the word "Nora," who knows.  But since her other main preference is for electronic music and rap songs about thrift shops, we gladly watch her pretend she's a hurricane in all kinds of weather... on repeat.

Welcome, Julian Beck!

One of the posts I'm way behind on publishing is one to welcome my friend Anne-Marie's new baby, Julian Beck!  He was born on February 6 at a healthy 8+ pounds!  I know there are no "awards" given out for childbirth, but if there were, Anne-Marie definitely earned one.  She labored for a really long time while recovering from a broken patella, and since little JB came out in the posterior position, he did not make it easy on her.  We are so happy that mom and baby are healthy, and we're excited to welcome Anne-Marie and Jon into the chaotic and amazing world of parenthood!

I've been lucky enough to visit Anne-Marie and JB a few times since he was born.  I know Anne-Marie and Jon are still in the stage where they feel very overwhelmed by the demands of a newborn, but these few visits confirm my suspicion that they are going to be great parents.  They've been successful at keeping Julian calm whenever I've been around, he seems curious and alert when he's awake, and he is gaining weight like a champ.

Watching such a close friend go through the newborn adjustment period has been an uncanny reminder of what that period was like for me.  Anne-Marie helped me keep my spirits up while I tried to navigate the anxiety I felt as a new mom, so it is nice to be able to offer her encouragement now.  Mostly, I just tell her the things I'd tell myself if I could go back in time:  Everything will be okay.  Nursing will get easier and easier until you actually enjoy it.  The days are so long, but the weeks and months go by so quick.  Enjoy every other minute.  It really does get better once you hit that three month mark.  Don't be so hard on yourself. Leave the house, even if you only go to target.  You will get to sleep again... and so on.  Plus, now that Nora is a full-blown toddler, having another infant to visit and new mom to talk with serves as a welcome reminder of that anxious but amazing first year with Nora that went by all too fast.  Anne-Marie let me hold Julian in the Baby K'tan as we walked around the mall, and as I wrapped him up in a big hug, it took me right back to those days when Nora was an itty bitty thing.   But then I got to go home for a full night's sleep, so it feels like the best of both worlds!

Congratulations again, Anne-Marie and Jon!  I can't wait to see Julian and Nora get to know one another as they grow.

Sisters' Night Out

Last week, Vickie and I went to see Mat Kearney in DC.  I only started listening to his music when Nate used "Hey Mama" as the backing track for the video he made with footage from his first visit to meet Nora, but Vickie has been a fan since high school and has gone to several of his shows.  I saw that he was going to be in town, so I thought it would be the perfect chance for a sisters' night out.  She made reservations for us to eat at Founding Farmers beforehand, and after our drinks arrived, I looked over her shoulder to discover that Mat Kearney was a few tables away!  I told her I was going to go say hello to him, and she first told me I was NOT allowed to do that.  When she said that her meeting him would be like me meeting Andy Roddick, however, my obligation as her older sister trumped anything she might say or do to keep me from bothering him. Obviously it was my responsibility to get a picture of the two of them.  He and his friends (who turned out to be his musicians) didn't have any food, so I just went up to him, explained that we were looking forward to his show, and asked if he would mind taking a picture with my sister.  She was really funny and I could tell she was freaking out a little, but I don't think he noticed.  He was really cool, chatted with us for several minutes, and seemed pleased to have the chance to meet some fans.  He also insisted that I pose in the picture, got his bassist to take it, re-arranged us so he would be in the middle, and requested we take a second picture with flash because it "is more flattering-- trust me."  Obviously I am totally awesome at meeting celebrities and don't make them feel awkward at all (in case you're reading, Andy Roddick.)

(Yes, we are wearing Oregon gear on purpose.  Mat is a fellow Oregon native.  Make fun of us all you want-- he complimented our attire.)

The show was awesome.  We were in the 10th row, right on the side aisle, so we could see and hear everything perfectly.  We had assigned seats and were home around 11, so it didn't even remind me that I am past my partying prime.  I had been listening to all of his CDs on repeat for a few weeks prior, so I knew all the songs, and he played all my favorite ones.  But best of all, it was so much fun to go with Vickie.  It made me realize that one of the things I've missed the most since Nora was born is adult conversation.  I love spending so much time with Nora, and I'm happy that people ask about her constantly because I like talking about her and telling people how she's doing.  But when she's with me, I have to keep at least half of my attention on her at all times, so that limits the types of conversations I can have with my friends and family members. Over the past year, Billy and I have gone on a few dates, but I've spent the rest of my time away from Nora trying to maximize the amount of work I could get done.  Getting the chance to do something with Vickie that she really enjoyed, and having the chance to give the conversation my full attention while we sat and talked, were definitely the best parts of the night (sorry, Mat).

So big thank yous are in order.  For Mat Kearney, who gave us a reason to go out and helped make the night memorable for both of us-- if you ever get the chance to see him live, you should definitely go.   But especially for Billy, who stayed home with Nora so that I could enjoy a completely worry-free night away.  As we headed from dinner to the show, I realized that I hadn't even felt the need to text Billy to make sure Nora had gone to bed okay.  She had, of course.  But this must be some major milestone, right?

Goodbye January// Go Ravens!

I have several blog posts in my mental queue that may never get written because we've had some very frequent but unwelcome visitors in our house during the month of January: germs.  Nothing knocks you completely out of the orbit of your regular routine like a sick baby or a sick mama, and it seemed like neither of us could really get well last month.  Nora recovered from a nasty cold just in time to travel to Oregon, where she caught the stomach virus that was in heavy rotation out there.  She handled it like a champ but passed it on to me just in time to miss our scheduled flight back home.  Billy came down with it literally minutes after arriving back home.  We were all feeling better in time for Nora to return to day care, where she promptly caught the stomach virus that has been going around our area, which featured the added bonus of a nasty fever!  Then she shared this one with me, as well.  As a result, it feels to me like the picture that best sums up our January is this one:

When you feel miserable and can't afford to venture more than 30 steps from your bathroom, it's easy to get caught up in negative thoughts.  I'm certainly guilty of feeling pretty sorry for myself this month, but in the midst of it all, I never lost sight of two things: 1) My dad felt like this for a good percentage of 5 years, and he got up every day and tried again, and 2) I am fortunate to have an excellent safety net that helps my family can recover quickly and fully.  So now that I can eat again, I'm feeling much more optimistic about the world, so I'd like to take a minute to focus on the positive and say how thankful I am for all of the following:
-a chubby baby whose health and attitude recover quickly
-a husband who does everything he can think of to step up, help out, and support us,
-a mom who happily took Nora off my hands for a whole day, took me to the hospital in the middle of the night, and helped get us on the plane,
-a sister, RN who responds to TMI texts with expert advice and offers of help at all hours of the day,
-the excellent health benefits we have through my husband's employer,
-IV fluids, anti-nausea medication, and kind ED staff members,
-in-laws who offer help and wish us speedy recoveries,
-an understanding professor and fellow-TA,
-day care teachers who helped Nora make a fairly smooth transition in the midst of all of it, and
-everyone else who sent me notes of various kinds to wish me well and see if there was anything they could do.

I can't say it enough: we are the luckiest.  As a small token of thanks, I wanted to share a few pictures I've been taking over the course of this week to catalogue Nora's pre-Super Bowl Ravens spirit.

Here's to a Ravens win tonight and a better February!

A few steps forward, a few steps back

Since I have had a lot more time to spend with Nora during winter break, I had a list of goals I wanted to accomplish with her.  We're always working on her age appropriate skills, which are mostly speaking-related at this point.  She's learning up, down, thank you, please, on, and off to varying levels of success.  But I had a list of specific tasks that I hoped to accomplish, too.  Some of these were things we'd been meaning to work on but were too busy to tackle while I prepared for my test, and some were things we needed to do in order to help get Nora ready for the toddler classroom at her new school.  The list of things included:
-helping her learn to use utensils while eating
-transitioning her to one nap a day and pushing it back to as close to 1pm as possible
-finish day weaning and switch from bottles to sippy cups

We were making a lot of progress with these goals.  Her utensil use has been pretty hit or miss, but overall she is making progress and taking an interest in using her spoon and spork.  She was no longer asking to nurse during the day, and though we had to use a soft spout sippy cup as an intermediate step, she had taken to those and was sometimes accepting milk in a regular sippy.  Her nap transition was going the best-- we'd pushed her back from 9am to 11:30, and most days she didn't need a second nap.  We even got rid of the noise machine and the room darkening plastic bags without much trouble.

And then Nora got sick.  Suddenly she's napping at crazy times, nursing during the day since it soothes her and gives her some extra antibodies, and she doesn't have enough of an appetite to make mealtime a lesson.  There's nothing to do but laugh!  Thankfully, I realize that all the work we did before was not for naught because re-learning these skills will be easier for her than learning them the first time.  Bouts of sickness are also times when we can see how much we all benefit from the other skills we worked so hard to help her learn.  For example, Nora's so good at self-soothing that she goes right back to sleep after coughing and sneezing fits, which helps all of us maximize our sleep.

She's feeling much better now, so we'll be back to working on these skills in no time.  It's hard to believe I've been away from campus for almost a month now!  When you're a stay-at-home mom, the days sometimes feel long, but the weeks go by at lightspeed.  Here are some pictures I've taken in the past few weeks that haven't yet been posted to the blog.

We got a little bit of snow right after Christmas, so Nora got to see it falling for the first time.  She had no idea what to make of it but was very interested in her footprints.

She finally grew into the onesie I bought her almost a year ago!  When you grow into a 6-12mo onesie at 15 months, I think you lay special claim to the "Though she be but little" half of this quote from A Midsummer Night's Dream. : )

There is one silver lining about times when she's not feeling well: she gets extra cuddly.  Here she is sitting in bed with Dad while he shows her a keyboard on the iPad.

Nora's family members gave her generous monetary gifts for Christmas, so we bought her this foam chair and put the rest of it away in her savings account.  I didn't anticipate that it would also become Oscar's favorite piece of furniture, but I should've known!

Kiss my sass, Oscar.

 

Her hair is getting so long!  Sometimes she'll leave it in a clip or a ponytail holder, and we're hoping that any day now her bangs will be long enough to tuck behind her ear.

Welcome, Everett James!

My nephew Everett arrived Thursday!  He arrived on his scheduled due date, but not before putting his mom and dad through the childbirth ringer.  As I understand it, he was born about 38 hours after Ashley first started feeling contractions strong enough to keep her awake and about 17 hours after they arrived at the hospital.  You certainly wouldn't know it from this picture his proud papa took of mama and baby moments after the birth!

Everett James weighed 7 lbs 5 oz, is 20 1/2 oz long, and has quite a bit of cute blonde hair.  I have spent the past several days more thankful than ever for camera phone technology, which has allowed me to see for myself through plenty of pictures and two video chat sessions that Everett and his parents are all happy, healthy, and enjoying the chance to get to know one another.  I am so proud of Nate and Ashley for keeping calm throughout her extended labor and trust that this final "test" of pregnancy will serve them well as preparation for being parents of a newborn.  I suspect they needed this lesson less than I did, since they tend to "go with the flow" better than I do, and since Ashley has plenty of experience with littles.  But if they did need a reminder of how to manage stressful circumstances where you feel like everything is out of your control, and all you can do is wait until things change, they got a good one!

Selfishly, I am quite excited to have a new little baby in my life!  Seeing Everett's pictures and hearing about how he's doing gives me a chance to reminisce about when Nora was an itty bitty baby, and it is easy to be nostalgic about that time now that Nora sleeps 12 uninterrupted hours a night, makes nursing a soothing experience, goes down for naps instantly, can stay in the same clothes all day long, and is almost always pleasant and content.  : )  It will be so much fun to see and hear about Everett's development along the way.  I am also very excited to watch my brother continue to embrace being a dad.  It has been fun for me to see how Nate has grown, changed, and come into his own as Ashley's partner.  It's also been a pleasure to find out what a positive influence she is in his life and how they've learned to balance one another out to make such a strong, happy pair.  I can only imagine it will be even more enjoyable to see the ways baby Everett enhances their family and changes their outlooks on life.  Everett is so fortunate to have parents who are so loving and devoted to one another and to him.

I am also excited to find out what it's like to be an aunt.  I perceive my responsibilities to include offering all the support and encouragement I can while also withholding any and all "advice" unless it is specifically solicited.  I have more than one year of round-the-clock on-the-job training, so I know a lot of things now that I wish I'd known when I was in their shoes, but I think the best way for them to figure everything out on their own.  How things work for them and their little guy won't be the same as how things have worked for me, Billy, and Nora.  At the same time, Nate and Ashley, I hope you know you are not in this alone, that I'm more than happy to act as a sounding board for any questions or problems you might have, and we'd love to help if there's anything we can do to make the road easier for you.  I love you guys, and I love your little guy, and I can't wait to see you all in a few weeks!!

And now for the photos.  Here's the first picture I saw, with Nate holding Everett, where I could really make out his face.

When we woke up in the morning, Nate had posted this one of Everett's first bath.  I showed it to Nora after telling her that her cousin had been born while she slept.  She said "HIIIII!" and pointed at Everett's face.  When I asked her, "Do you see the baby?" she started saying "Bayybeee!  Bayyybeee!"

Later that day, we got a chance to video chat with the little guy and his parents.  Everett was even awake!

Mom was at the hospital when Everett was born and got to see him shortly after birth!

And here is a photobomb of other adorable pics!!

The only minor drawback of Everett's arrival is that it's really made me feel like Nora is not a baby anymore.  She's still a little thing, but she walks so well, has so much hair, and has a smile so full of teeth that she definitely seems like she's in a whole different category than her little cousin.  Oh well... time marches on!