Talking until I’m Smurf Blue in the Face (from the Momplex Blog archive)

April 21, 2014February 27, 2023 JennyLeave a comment

I’ve watched a lot of Smurfs episodes over the last six or seven months — first, because I was pregnant, nauseated, and loathe to run around playing tag with my daughter, and now, because I’m constantly trying to come up with ways to keep her somewhat entertained while I nurse and coddle the sleepless, barfing changeling I spawned. We’re talking dozens of episodes, repeatedly. As someone who never got to watch Smurfs when I was a kid, I now want to formally thank my parents for not getting cable. Those topless little blue freaks are smurfing annoying.

Now that Smurfs are a part of my oldest’s obsessions, however, they are also a part of our bedtime ritual. I have to make up a story involving them every time I put her to bed. In fact, I have spent many lunchtimes pretending to be one or another of them, as well. Last year (and sometimes still) it was the Care Bears that permeated everything we did together. We’d be playing with her plastic zoo animals, and she’d hold up a wildebeast and an ostrich and say, “Let’s pretend this one’s Funshine, and this one’s Grumpy Bear.” And everything would just devolve from there.

Mostly, she wanted me to make Grumpy Bear do grumpy things. Though now that the Smurfs have edged out the Care Bears, she typically wants me to make Grouchy Smurf do grouchy things, like give other Smurfs shots. Sometimes I’m even asked to have Grouchy Smurf give Funshine Bear a shot, and it’s just so confusing. It’s like one big psychedelic trip into a four-year-old’s twisted imagination.

But I’ve noticed something about what the Smurfs and the Care Bears have done for us. They’ve given us an alternative means of communicating our deepest fears and grievances. While my daughter flagrantly uses them to play out her paralyzing fear of shots, I admit I have totally whored out Grumpy Bear to help my daughter understand ME. I sometimes make him seem like a beaten-down soul. When Smurfette gives Grumpy Bear a hug, he softens up a little and explains to her what a terrible day he’s had and how he’s just feeling grumpy because he’s so tired and gotten so run down by Funshine Bear’s incessant talking. Most of my snarky subtext goes over her head, and she gains a little empathy for crabby buttheads in the process, so it’s therapeutic for both of us.

I’m surprised these pretend-play games have done what they’ve done for our relationship, because I’ve otherwise concluded that words have almost zero impact on young children. I can tell my daughter that I love her a zillion times a day, and, God, how passionately I do, but my doing so does just about nothing to take the edge off the fact that I have barely spent a quality minute with her on days like today. And similarly, I can speak to my seven-week-old in the most adoring tone you can imagine, but we all know he could really give a shit what garble is coming out of that toothy hole in my face. He just wants it to shape itself into a smile. While I hold him. And hold him. And nurse him. And hold him. I can talk to him sweetly until I’m Smurf blue in the face, but it’s the caress he’s seeking, the nourishment, the human touch. My nearly five-year-old is not all that different.

Originally published 2009 JLF and the Momplex Blog

babies · breastfeeding · general mockery · motherhood

The Season’s Hottest New Accessory: My Kid! (from the Momplex Blog archive)

April 9, 2014February 27, 2023 Jenny2 Comments

At first, I thought that my new baby was kind of cramping my style. I’m literally talking style, because I gained 50 pounds this pregnancy. How does one dress herself when she’s no longer with child and is instead with all the Saltines and root beer she ate over the previous 39 weeks? Not very fashionably, I’ll tell you that. Fortunately, the only way my new baby will stop crying is coiled like a potato bug inside a sling I wear all day long. And seriously, wearing your baby is, like, all the rage these days. I’m super-trendy.

Sadly, my baby likes to be worn in an elasticized black Infantino sling. I don’t mind it so much, but I can tell this sling does not impress the baby-wearing set in our hippie-dippy town. It practically shouts, “I shop at Target and won’t fork out more than $29.95 for my child’s faux womb!” I guess that’s better than the statment I’d make were I sporting an itchy Guatemalan-inspired ring sling in a fabric that doesn’t match anything but Birkenstocks and leg hair. You know, the sort that shouts to the world, “I use all-natural deodorant made from soy and Ralph Nader spittle, and intend to feed my child on demand until he’s 33!”

Did I say that out loud? Sorry. Clearly I’m getting a little tired of the hard-core baby-wearing set. I do actually enjoy being able to get our little potato bug to sleep in the sling. And it’s not terribly inconvenient having him close to me while I take care of people and things that would otherwise be left to mold, cry, or pile up. But frankly, I’m not trying to be part of an anti-establishment parenting faction. I’m not trying to make some sort statement with my sling. It would be more truthful to say my son is making one. He does not want any other sling, damnit. He wants the Infantino.

So, he happens to heavily favor a cheap sling that isn’t popular with the aforementioned cult. Many of whom continue to treat me as if I’m some sort of greenhorn that needs to be guided toward a finer baby-wearing device. (And let me just clarify here that by “finer,” I actually mean a carrier that’s more primitive: The more it emulates something worn in the rice paddies, the better.)

I do own a very nice ring-sling by the way. And I tried on a zillion other baby-wearing devices before buying it. With my first baby, I owned a pouch. And a Maya Wrap. And an expensive-as-all-getout backpack. And various other devices that made her scream at me as though it were foot-binding, not baby-wearing. With my son, however, the ring-sling turned me into a 24-hour convenience mart: Strapping a baby’s face against milk ducts is like setting meat on a lion’s nose and expecting him to take a sleep, ever, instead of eat, constantly.

I’ve found that when I wear my baby in the ring-sling, I tend to attract other baby-wearers. It’s like a secret club. The first rule in Ultimate Baby Wearing Club is definitely NOT like the first rule in Fight Club. It’s the opposite. DO talk about it–constantly, if possible. But wearing my baby in a ring-sling doesn’t mean I want to talk about it. It also doesn’t mean I’m automatically like-minded with the next woman wearing her kid. It doesn’t mean I use hemp diapers or had a placenta-eating ritual after giving birth in a wooden washtub. It doesn’t really mean anything other than my baby likes this thing, and I don’t want him to cry all day, so he wins.

Yesterday at my daughter’s preschool, I decided to introduce myself to a pair of new moms on the playground. Maybe I should have heeded the warning. I mean, one of them was wearing a serious ring-sling, a quilted and perhaps even homemade specimen. (The second rule of Ultimate Baby Wearing Club: the more primitive, the better). She took stock of my Supertarget Supershit Sling, and reminisced about the time she’d tried one on and how awful it was.

“Have you ever tried a Mei Tai or a ring-sling?” she asked. “My son really loves his.”

She was referring to her 14-month-old, who instead of being loosed on the playground with the other children was bound tightly around her hip. (Mama loves her accessories!) I explained that I actually use a ring-sling sometimes but don’t prefer it, because it makes my baby frantically root on me. Her disapproval was almost palpable.

“And there’s something WRONG with that?” she asked, judgement steaming out of her flared noseholes.

Truth is, I’m actually quite fond of nursing, but not while shaving my legs, emptying the garbage, or doing various other things that are part of my decidely non-tribal, modern, industrial existence. So, yeah, lady, the day I decide it’s cool to nurse while eliminating in the loo is the day I expect my family to stage a breastfeeding intervention.

Okay, after I swallowed back the hot puke that came up my throat, I explained that I simply prefer not to nurse him every 15 minutes and that I actually wear him in the Infantino because it’s the one place he’ll sleep. Knowing that so many of the Ring-Sling Rambos and women in the Mei Tai Mafia think a baby’s naps are more of a luxury for mom than a necessity for baby, particularly when compared with the benefits of breastfeeding every 2-3 seconds, I should have expected what came next. What came next was her explaining to me that 50 years from now parents will probably all be doing as she’s doing. She said they’ll disdainfully look back at our generation of parents and shake their heads in disbelief.

I’m sure.

Maybe I should start going topless and strapping my baby to my front-side using braided corn husks. Oh, the skin-to-skin contact! The everlasting breastfeeding-on-demand! The primitive gorgeousness of it! Then, as is my obvious wish, maybe future generations will look back at me as if I were some sort of mother-goddess. Yeah, I’ll show them all.

babies · breastfeeding · mood issues · motherhood

Suck It, La Leche League (from the Momplex Blog archives)

January 1, 2009February 27, 2023 JennyLeave a comment

My breasts are founts of liquid gold. At least La Leche League thinks so, and my baby boy seems convinced. Perhaps that’s why I love breastfeeding. When nothing else is going right with the baby stuff, breastfeeding buoys us. Even if I can’t figure out the source of a given problem, nursing almost always works, so much so that I sometimes feel like a one-trick pony. Hungry? Have a nip! Tired? Latch on! Hurting? Take comfort from one of these! Angry that your arms are shorter than your torso? Suck on this!

And now I might have to wean. I even hate the word: wean. To my ear, it sounds like some sort of conjugate of wimpy + mean. The problem is that I have been struggling with erratic moods. In a single day, mine can go up and down more times than a big booty at a hip-hop party. This is the nature of cyclothymia. Inasmuch as a person can be diagnosed on any sort of mental health matter, I was diagnosed with this disorder (sometimes called “soft bipolar”) about two years ago. It made sense of some really idiotic shit I have done since my early 20s — buying goldfish, for example. But it’s never been quite so drastic in the past as it’s become since my son’s birth.

With my firstborn, I felt so level during most of my pregnancy and for the duration of the time she nursed. Menstruation kept at bay, I sort of rocked steady. But in the months since our son’s birth, I’ve felt like a big puzzle come apart. If only I could put a handful of the pieces back together, the rest would be easier. But so far, I’ve had minimal luck. The psychiatrist listens and says, “Ohhhh. Uh, huh.” The psychologist suggests massage and sensory-deprivation. My own experience tells me earlier bedtimes and better rest, less wine and more exercise, more natural light and less sugar.

Some of these natural fixes are doable, but others, with a baby and a preschooler in the house, are not. Kids are a banquet of sensory input: screaming, crying, repeating your name ad nauseum, asking for snacks every 15 minutes, hurting themselves in the most unlikely ways. I can’t count how many times my daughter has fallen up into things and hurt an earlobe or the crevice between her toes, then proceeded to scream as though she were being attacked by hornets. While her brother can whine endlessly, she can entertain herself for hours repeating the same annoying made-up word. (“Ahhh-pee-YAW!” is her perennial favorite. I have counted, and she has repeated it more than 30 times in a single car ride.) The noise! The input! The lack of sleep!

Medication is not an option, as anti-depressants make me manic. (This is not a spontaneous-trip-to-Vegas Fun Jenny kind of manic either. We’re talking the kind of unfun mania that leads to screaming over mismatched socks, or obsessively yammering for hours at bedtime.) Mood stabilizers — the drug of choice for cyclothymia — are contra-indicated for breastfeeding moms. This is kind of a scary reality for me. What if this depression doesn’t lift on it’s own? What if I get worse before I get better?

Which brings me back to La Leche League. Those crazy, flippin’ nuts. If weaning becomes necessary before my baby or I are really ready for it, I want to make sure I do it as gently as possible. I thought the Milk Mavens over at LLL would be an ideal resource for guidance on that front. Surely there have been other moms who’ve had to wean for medical purposes? When I go to the LLL website, I follow a FAQ link labeled WEANING. I won’t quote it in full or even in part. I’ll just give you the gist:

Thinking about weaning? Let us tell you more about the benefits of breastfeeding! Are you tired from waking to feed at night? Try cosleeping! Feeling strapped down by a breastfeeding baby? Take him out on your date with you! Stressed? Nursing releases relaxing hormones, so do it more often! Having chronic breast infections? Don’t fail your baby over a little ouchie! Older members of your family pressuring you to quit? Poison them, bury the bodies, and nurse your toddler in a sling while you burn the evidence!

Eventually I did stumble across some links to essays and articles written by people who’ve had to wean their childen, rather than let their children wean on their own. But my god, I had to dig. And my god, did it make me feel like I’m looking for help deciding whether to perform an assisted suicide. Thank you, La Leche League! It’s simply poetic, such literal splendor, how much you suck!