Oh look! A chicke....hey, here's another post!

I feel trapped in my body today. I've finally caught A and M's head/chest cold. Just in time to wake up to this news about a link between Paracetamol (Tylenol) use in pregnancy and higher incidence of ADHD diagnoses, from mild to extreme. 

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/feb/26/adhd-linked-paracetamol-during-pregnancy-study

Great. Because, see, in my family, this card is really funny:

There are a number of us who are easily distracted, bouncing from one topic to another, sometimes without finishing a sentence. Or two. Or three. Me, included.

So it isn't like we need a little extra push in that direction. And how come it has been so long the story that this drug is "completely safe" during pregnancy? Apparently, this isn't the first time a study has found a link. WTF?

This means that, in addition to rationing out my inhaler today, I'm not taking pain killers. So far, that latter point isn't too big of a deal. Most of the commotion is in my chest and lungs. Being sick when pregnant sucks. You just have to wait it out.

And yet, this state of no (or not enough) medication, whether by choice or access, is common for pregnant women around the world. And if it is by choice, then that makes the pregnancy longer and harder. Just getting through days of feeling bad, in so many ways, is hard work. So I think it is time to acknowledge that we can't ask women to both sacrifice their feeling better AND expect them to act as if pregnancy doesn't change a thing (about how much they can work). You can't have both. You want women able to choose less medication for reflux, depression, asthma, nausea, then be ready to stop holding them to some superwoman standard. I'm talking to other women, here, too. I don't have it in me to hear how much you're getting done during pregnancy. I'm pretty much at the level where I'd like to hear how much you're having to set aside.

Now, just as a side-bar, this doesn't mean I'm not grateful to actually be pregnant. However, just because I've dealt with infertility problems for years and wanted desperately to be pregnant, that doesn't mean that this wishing is somehow built up in me to get me through these times easily. I will be happy to be past this part, this part that was so longed for (as a means to another child), and have a baby in my arms. I'll be exhausted, but happy. But exhausted.

Because sleep, too, is not something a person can stockpile for those sleepless, newborn-baby nights.

Managing my anxiety instead of someone else

I think we must all do it, to a greater or lesser degree. Some interaction stresses us out, because of what someone is saying or doing, because of how it makes us feel or emotions it brings up in us. Next thing you know, you're trying to lessen your anxiety...by yelling at or trying to manage someone else.

The first version is easier to spot. The dog grabs a bread roll from the dining room table, I snap at my kid for spilling her water. Or, more likely, my husband says something that upsets me, I snap at my daughter for spilling her water. The snapping, yelling or anger tends to be directed down the chain of power. Instead of towards the person we're upset with.

The second version is more subtle. And now that I write about it, I think it probably can even be directed back at the person who triggered it, but with a different target that doesn't admit to what the actual problem is. My husband says something about work that upsets me, I later berate him for not taking care of himself. But it can also be directed just away from the self.

Third version - I do (or fail to do) something which makes me scared, worried, disappointed in myself, and I get anxious. And no one wants to feel bad about oneself, so I promptly try to manage away the anxiety...by making someone else's life my target. I try to manage my kid's getting dressed, my spouse's health, my cousin's decisions, because it is easier to preach to another than it is to work on oneself. It is easier to choose for another person the "right choices" than it is to step away from that hidden stash of chocol...I mean choose the "right choices" for myself. It is so easy for me to see what "you just need to do" to get out of your difficulty, and forget that I am unable to get out of mine, and that that is where I should actually be focusing my attention.

Strategizing

There is an extremely defensive, angry little child inside of me right now. Not the baby - my son - he's mostly sleeping (I guess) and kicking and turning. He seems just fine.

It is the other child. The one I used to be, and some days it can feel I still am.

I got an e-mail saying I just didn't seem very interested in an employment position that I've been quite uncertain of how to read correctly. I've made advances, and been told to wait, or been put on hold, or other such things, and have felt that, in fact, it was the other way around.

And my first instinct was to fire back a very aggresive e-mail saying, "What? What parts of (a), (b), and (c) indicated I wasn't interested? And how about you being on holiday or too busy for months? Or this, or that?!" I so want to justify myself. To defend myself.

But for some reason, by some miracle, the adult in me has shown up and calmly said "wait a sec." Make no mistake, the kid is still itching for a fight, but the adult has some good points that I'm trying to let sink in.

(1) This may be the kind of person who accuses others of what they hope happens. Don't want to go to dinner with that friend after all? Oh, just tell them they've seemed distant lately and that you weren't sure they actually wanted to see you. Flip it around on them, so you get off the hook AND they actually take the blame.

(2) The email could also have been about their perception, and not my intentions. I've been quite confused about this opportunity, especially, given I have no official status with them, how much I can step in an take control of a project I've been proposing. I get mixed messages about who is in charge and what they want. But maybe I should have been myself and gone in to talk to higher up people instead of listening to those who told me to wait. Maybe I should have been more pushy than worrying about stepping on toes.

(3) I've actually been wondering what this is all going to look like and if the way things have been handled indicate it isn't the kind of place I want to work, anyway. So, in this case, this is an out for me, if I want one. Or at least a chance to think about how much I want to pursue this.

At the end of the day, I'm approaching possible unemployment and trying to keep my options open. I have no idea what I'll be doing in 6 months, apart from sending 2 kids to 2 schools and hoping that I don't have too much free time after that that is not spent feeling somewhat productive and needed. Everyone needs a bit of that in their lives - to feel needed, valued. And for me, some of that, even just 10 hours a week, needs to be in a job. I'm not a full-time, stay-home mom. It isn't my strength.

So here I sit, thinking about how to distract myself enough not to respond to that email this morning. To wait for afternoon, and to wait to calm down a bit. What do I actually want, if this isn't about defending my honor? Or maybe there is still room to say "wait a sec, that's not really how this has gone, so let's meet again and discuss what we each actually want."

Don't know.

Ribbons, bows, hearts and butterflies

I'm sorting through A's baby clothes, which have been in the basement, getting out the 3-6 month things for the coming baby boy. It is going to be a boy.

As I go through more things, I get more upset. (Surprise, surprise)

I always thought we did a good job of having a mix of clothing for A that wasn't so pink and girly. That was just colorful. But, as I encounter a small bow here, a lace edge there, a ruffle (on the front or on the sleeve), I find myself putting the item to the side to my "give away since this is our last kid and it is a boy" pile.

The pile is growing, and with it my sense of sadness. Why can't a boy wear these items? Why don't I think he can? For the littlest clothes, I find I keep most, but at around 12 months, I have started to cull. And around 24 months, for sure.

24 months? Just 2 years old and somehow there are prescriptions for what boys definitely can not wear. They are very clear in my head. Two. Years.

He won't be talking yet, and yet I'm putting away things as "not for him."

These are for 3-4 year olds. They're out. Glitter, bows, ruffles, hot pink, flowers. Dresses.

For a 3 month old, and yet, I can't bring myself to get past the ruffles on the front. What is going on?

18 months. The brown with pink and blue polka dots don't get to me, it is the ruffled waistline that does. Hmm.

9 months. I decide to keep it. This boy can wear flowers - why are flowers and purples not for boys?

6 months old - again, I decide to keep it. Even though it was originally in the give away pile. What, boys don't like flowers? Do flowers stop the flow of blood to their "man" parts?

A top. The colors are fine, the ruffle, I can't handle.

Light pink, 9 months, I can deal, right? Nope. Lace on the cuffs.

Ok, so at some point I notice my discomfort is somewhat about what we put girls in. Or at least that what is considered feminine is somehow an insult to a male, even if he is just 9 months old. My daughter sure didn't need lace on her legs at that age for any functional reason. And I have never been offended if someone mistook her, in her shorts and t-shirt, for a boy. They usually spoke more normally to her.

Maybe some of my discomfort is in how they might speak to my son if they think he's a girl. "You're so pretty! What a pretty dress!" Kind of demeaning.

Not much less so when that is all that a person can come up with to say to my daughter, either.

In the end, I've kept some hot pinks and some flowers. I've kept, gasp, butterflies. I've kept things with some embellishments on them.

I hope I'm woman enough to let him wear them.

What's your excuse?

A while ago this showed up around the internet:

http://allfacebook.com/maria-kang-whats-your-excuse_b125960

This mom of three who is looking pretty toned. It was supposed to be something motivational, or a challenge I guess, to other mothers to go work out. I found it mildly insulting. Other people found it even more insulting.

It came to mind again, today, as I was reading through a mommy blog, written by someone who sounds like the world's most gentle mom. Her toddler hits her newborn, and she gently asks him if he wants to hold the baby instead of yelling at him. Her 2 1/2 year old is biting while nursing, she finds ways to redirect his behavior. And on and on. I'm in awe. I'm dejected, because that household is never going to be my household. I'm thinking how I would have yelled at the slapping toddler. And how far I have to go to be anywhere close to that grounded.

And then I catch myself. I've let the critics in again, and I'm tired of doing that. Not this time. Because it is just another, perhaps even more insidious for its gentle mask, form of "What's your excuse?" It is another version of "If I can (give birth at home/breastfeed until 3 years old/have perfect abs and three kids/do something really well), why can't you?"

I don't need an excuse. I don't need to be like her or her or, even, her. I can wish I was sometimes, it might give me ideas to implement. But I'm not any of them. I'm me. She can weather any toddler storm with poise, I can get an "A" in General Relativity. She can have abs like that, I can enjoy the hell out of a lot of chocolate and naps. None of us "wins" because it shouldn't be a race. There isn't a limit on awesome or beauty in this world. It isn't conserved in such a way that if one women gets some, another woman can't. I'm not competing.

So, I guess my excuse is, doing what you do wouldn't make me happy. And vice versa. And that is all the excuse any of us needs.

Paying for experience

Well, I did it. I picked both a good enough mountain destination, which wound up being way better than good enough and even than the place I had been planning to go, aaaaand, paying money to play through some tough levels in Candy Crush.

And I went back to enjoying the game and having it help me through those middle-of-the-night moments when my reflux is acting up and I just need to wait it out until I can fall asleep again. I also got better at the game. Something dislodged with the $0.99 and left me much further than I would have been otherwise. Hopefully I'll be able to take this with me somehow on the day I give birth (however it happens) to my son. That sometimes you have to go in the direction you are most dismissive of in order to get further down the road you want to be on. It is okay to compromise, and not to wait to do it until the last possible second when the ship is already sunk.

I'm also still struggling with this in regards to my kid. Who does not like to share. Especially not food. Speaking for our nuclear family, I get it. But I also know how ashamed I feel, in the face of a giving child or family, when I my kid pulls back and tries to hide her food. And I need to be okay with her reaction. I can explain why it is nice to share, and why it is good to share, but I need to let her figure this stuff out on her own. She often actually will share, but later, once the other child's request is over and she doesn't feel pressured. Kind of like me, when she comes up to the countertop where I'm making dinner and grabs for something. I guess neither of us responds well to grabbers, and we often need a moment to adjust. We need to not feel ambushed. Not sure why that is, but also it shouldn't matter so much that I need to stop her by any means I can from reacting the way she does. I need to trust her reaction and trust that she'll finesse it eventually and still have friends left at the end of the day.

Anyway, compromise is the word of the day around here. Not sure I can practice it yet, sure I don't like it, but know I want to try.