That wrinkle

We stayed home, in Switzerland, this Christmas. Although there were times when we were all just kind of bored of each other's personalities and of how little there seemed to be to do in town, I think it was a good decision. To not be traveling pregnant, with sick toddler and husband, internationally, that was a good thing. 

Because I'm not just pregnant, I'm old and pregnant. Yes, yes, 40 is not that old in this day and age, but I feel the pregnancy more this time around. The wheezing from getting to platform 5 at the train station (this requires some 10 extra stairs), doesn't make a person feel young and vibrant. The constantly telling my kid I'm tired and that I can't pick her up, ditto. And then there is the wrinkle.

Now, I take pretty good care of my skin. To start with, something that has nothing to do with my effort, I have "good skin." I rarely have any sort of spots or breaking out. It isn't too oily or too dry. I got lucky in the genetic lottery with my skin. But I also tend to make sure I always have an SPF 15 moisturizer and a hat in summer. Living in Arizona showed me what happens when you don't. I don't aim to tan, ever. And, again with the luck of the draw, I tan more than burn.

Despite all of that, the genetic (or cultural conditioning) lottery has also passed on this thinking-frown. My mom has it, some of my aunts and cousins, too. We knit our brow when we are thinking through something, or a bit confused, or looking far away. Or really anytime our eyes are open. And my daughter has it. Ok, I have no idea whether this is genetic or learned, but I do know that when she was 1 year old, I noticed that frown on my kid in the lightbulb aisle of the hardware store, in contemplation of all the colors and shapes. She wasn't upset. She was thinking. It was adorable.

So, there is this potentially adorable wrinkle that, given 40 years of use, has gotten ingrained between my eyebrows. And, seemingly, it is now frozen in. Personally, I think it just decided to become a wrinkle (one that doesn't go away no matter how much I try the surprised look instead of a frown), the day I turned 40. And for the first time in my life I feel old. The wheezing, the back pain, the broken tooth, all of those help. But you can have times when you don't feel or show those. The wrinkle, it is just there.

"How do I get rid of it?" was one of the first thoughts I had. All 6 feet of unshaven me. Even the leg hair is an option, but this thing, that in some ways marks me as part of my family, and in other ways as a critical, thinking human, both things I think are positive, has me asking for bangs each time I'm getting my hair cut. Even though I'm trying to grow my hair on my head out more, a ponytail will never look quite the same to me again. Not on my face. Ponytails are for younger women.

On rough days that follow sleepless pregnancy mornings, I look in the mirror and think it is odd for someone with this kind of wrinkle to be carrying a child. Somehow, not even all of the life force involved in the creation of a human life is a match for all those make-up ads and airbrushed images in magazines I barely even read anymore. Why is it so hard to look and see something new as acceptable because it comes under the heading of "part of my body and my life, which is good and valuable"?

M and I had a discussion about this while out and about on errands yesterday (thank god the babysitter is in town this holiday season, when neither child nor dog have daycare). More than one of my friends has told me, as she passed a certain age as a woman, she started to feel invisible. No, people didn't trip over her or try to walk through her, but they all said that there were increasing incidents when they would feel ignored - no one asked if they wanted help with something, or held a door for them, as they started to show some sort of age - something that indicated they were leaving reproductive years. Or they were more often overlooked. They were no longer a potential mate, so they didn't count as much. I think there is a part of being female and appreciated that is linked directly to age and looks, and you can ignore it or be unaware of it until you realize it is gone. I'm not saying you get fired or that your friends all leave you. I'm saying that you start to notice some of your value in little interactions with strangers, was your sexual potential. Your youth. And that this is not something men experience in the same way.

I have a favorite excerpt from an article about teaching students about hidden sexism. An alien lands on Earth and notices that, on average, men are holding doors open for women, and not vice versa. This alien asks someone what it is all about and is told that this is done to show respect, that women are special. "Oh, it isn't because they are weak?" "No, we value them, we treasure them." "Ah, I see, so then that must be evident in other parts of your culture - do they also make higher salaries and hold more positions of power as treasured, special humans?" Touche. Seems like an unfair trade.

Anyway, that is me and my wrinkle. Still thinking about what it means to be a woman. (And probably out in its full glory the anytime someone tries to hold open a door for me just because I'm female).

sleeplesses nites

I stop rubbing my daughter’s back and her breathing doesn’t change.  The nose medicine has worked, whether psychologically or physically. She’s asleep again.

5:20am.

I’m not.

My husband patted the bed too many times at 3am, to get the dog up there, and it woke me up. Usually these days, nothing and everything in particular wakes me up. I’m back in the guest room, having vacillated between being mad at him and realizing it could well have happened on its own. Damn dog. What the hell?

Damned cold.

Damned.....well, not damned, but...uncomfortable pregnancy.

I apologize again in my mind to the women I know who wish so much they were pregnant. To myself, 10 months ago, who would have given me a piece of my mind had I complained about the cycle of hunger, heartburn, asthma and now a cold. Back off, I tell her. Just because I really want this and others do too but for random reasons that have nothing to do with anything doesn’t mean I have to ignore that it is hard.

If having no vision without glasses hadn’t meant an early death on the savannah, 20,000 years ago, the birth of my first child might have well meant it. And now it is round two. My body is not made for an easy pregnancy, and maybe neither is my mind.

I watch part of a Lou Reed documentary on TV and it doesn’t manage to put me to sleep. I think about looking up some things that were mentioned in the show but then my internet seems to be down, too, everywhere but my phone. And even that may just be my cellular network getting ready to drop a huge bill in my mailbox.

I eat a banana and wonder how long before I can lay down to try sleeping again without reflux. When was my last herbal anti-runny-nose pill? I don’t want any more medicine at the same time as I just want to drop a few Sudafed Extreme Cold pills down my throat and sleep again. But I’m pregnant, and I’m not going to do that.

Morning gets another 30 minutes closer. But not sleep. I wonder how I’ll feel in an hour, when I no longer have the luxury to pretend I can get another 2 hours sleep. When Monday morning, without daycare, starts. I wonder if I’m getting depressed or just feeling the sleeplessness-induced anxiety that goes away with 2 hours’ more sleep.

Damn dog.

Damn husband.

No one’s fault. Still sucks.

Depression. Is it coming back when the baby arrives? Like some cape tied to my neck, holding me down, keeping me from standing up, always tugging downwards. Tied with some fastener that my hands can’t untie. That only pharmaceuticals can.

I won’t always feel this way - the leap of faith that a depressed person has to keep taking. Because you’ve stopped feeling that way so many times before, each time you felt like it would never change. Ignoring, or even contradicting your gut feeling that this is how it is going to be until the end. Undoing your intuition.

I’m not depressed. I’m just not looking forward to feeling exhausted soon. To wanting to sleep so badly. To wanting to cry, because how can I feel like this about something I want so much. As if one wish that I felt different might bring some tragedy that takes this away from me. It doesn’t mean I don’t want this child. I just want this to be different. I want to sleep. I want to rest. I want to be capable of work. I don’t want to start another child’s life already exhausted. I don’t want this next time to be as hard as the last.

And yet that is what, at least theoretically, I’ve signed up for. I know it could be as hard as last time.

Just some more sleep before that, and maybe I can make better decisions. Maybe I can weather it better. Maybe my family can be shielded from my brain. Maybe this time I will flip everything around and opt for a planned C-section, formula and anti-depressants from the start. I’ll control it better. And find that in trying not to be overly idealistic like last time, I’m just at the other end of the spectrum, still trying to control it all.

Am I hungry? If I don’t eat, will I lie here getting hungrier for the next 30 minutes, losing another chance at sleep, and almost guarantee that I’m a mess in the morning? Or will I fall asleep?

I wish my internet worked.

I wish my body worked, too. And my gratitude.

I guess they don’t.

I guess I’ll have to decide it is okay.

I guess this post will have to wait for me to fix the internet.

(5pm next day. Internet fixed. Sleep fixed (husband let me sleep in an extra two hours in the morning, and happy to report that I didn't lay into him about the dog and managed to just ask about it.). Still sick, but happy to be online. )

1:30am and not learning German

I'm always curious. Why do I wake up like this (once a week it is in this mode) when I'm pregnant. This is one of the conditions my body has duplicated from when I was pregnant with A. This capacity, this tendency, to suddenly be awake (as in, just opened my eyes after closing them for a blink 2 seconds ago) in the middle of the night. Did the baby kick, or am I now waking him up instead? My heart is never pounding, and yet it feels like adrenaline. Or like that time in Boston when I was on Sudafed and had the most productive work and writing experience, so much so that I realized I should probably not take it once the worst of the cold was over, because a person could get used to feeling that alert-but-not-jittery.

I'm not wheezing - it isn't the asthma. I'm not hungry. And I don't think it was a super full bladder. Sorry, but I'm ruling out most likely scenarios. I imagine reading some blog post online someday that talks about this kind of phenomenon and I read it, fascinated (because it will be well written, witty, fun to read), and think "Oh, so THAT's what was going on."

Anyway, here I am. Waiting for some part of this to wear off so I can go back to bed.

While I'm up, I finally decided to write here.

It took me 4 1/2 years to get in the elevator I got in last week. Now, I mean, this is the elevator of my apartment building, and I've been in it many many times, but the ride I took last week was monumental. I had showered and even blown my hair dry. I had a bag full of papers. I had my insurance cards in my wallet.

I was going - get this - across the street to go figure out how to deal with health insurance policies in Switzerland. And maybe get some money back. Not a lot of money, so this special elevator ride (and building up to it, making myself call the company, making sure someone there would speak English, making sure I brought all my papers, organized by "first pregnancy", "back problems", "general problems", etc) was about motivating myself. No, motivating isn't the right word. It was about finally getting to this task, that I've dreaded so much because it involves all the things I'm not good at - new systems of bureaucracy, in a language I have not really learned (definitely not well enough to go learn something novel about forms and regulations), in a country where you're just supposed to know how to do this.

The Swiss don't like to pay for almost any of their health care. Not once they buy their insurance, that is. The pharmacists are always surprised when I pay for something out of pocket, and massage therapists are forever offering to check if their service is covered in my policy. Well, actually, they are forever telling me to call my company and check my policy, which means I'm forever feeling guilty that I find this task so difficult.

Of course, I was expecting the worst of this visit - to be told how remiss I had been, how simple this is, to be met with disbelief at how I'd ignored this and how seven plagues should, in fact, befall me and my family just to teach me a lesson. And really, I hadn't learned German yet? I really should be learning that, you know.

It was like the "perfect greeting card that captures your feelings exactly" of living abroad. Except this greeting card was from the fears and worries section. Now THOSE are cards I might actually buy, Walgreens. "Sorry to hear you're terrified of answering the phone." "Just know I'm with you in spirit when you go back to the fridge and finish that pie. I really wish I was there in person." "Too bad you don't yet know German and can't manage to learn about your health insurance in almost 5 years of living in a country. I'll still be your friend, although I may not always admit it."

Turns out, this time, my worries about how badly it was going to go were way overblown. Doesn't hurt that I'd talked to friends about this. Doesn't hurt that I'd had to organize files the week before for tax purposes (that post will someday be titled "We're moving back to America...because of tax law), doesn't hurt that the company across the street (I see their office from my bedroom window and did confirm for myself that you can't actually see what people in my bedroom are doing) bought our old insurance company, and it sure doesn't hurt that the woman I talked with on the phone was (a) NICE and helpful instead of dismissive, and (b) spoke English and said that anyone I came to talk with could, too. The woman I spoke with in person, who had most definitely not seen me getting dressed for said meeting, was kind, was understanding, did not laugh in my face at how long it had taken me to get there, printed out policy info in English and walked me through the kinds of paper I receive related to medical costs and what to do with each, and did I mention she was nice?

So it was good. Really good. It felt great. I treated myself to forcing M to help me get a Christmas tree 2 days later because I felt that accomplished about it. I will no longer have to hide my secret. And it will make a great story for a cover letter when I apply to be some sort of international student assistant at some university in the US someday.

No one in this room is hungry

Ok, there is no one in this room but me. Insomnia on my part (a mixture of the daily 3am bathroom trip, followed by sneezing and wheezing for about an hour) and snoring on the part of a few other individuals (both furry and not), has resulted in me sleeping in the guestroom for weeks now. And usually my wake-up involves some snacking. Maybe some snacking followed by an antacid.

But in 2 1/2 hours I'm getting a glucose test done, due to my "advanced maternal age", which just means I'm going to be a really hungry, pregnant, 40 year old woman, drinking something like a cup of sugar mixed with a cup of water. Soon. But not soon enough.

I may not be cooking a Thanksgiving feast tomorrow, but pretty much all of America is, and they are all talking about it on Facebook. Which is where I spend a fair amount of insomnia time, on my phone, trying not to sit up and wake my body up more.

There is nothing extreme about my condition. Nothing life threatening. I'm just up every night for 1-2 hours, too tired to read or think all that seriously, wheezing just enough to keep coughing and not quite falling back asleep, or sneezing and blowing my nose. And deciding between trying to fall back asleep hungry or with acid reflux. It is just annoying.

I don't wish it away. I'm happy I'm pregnant.  I've just got more people looking to me to have a coherent thought this time than last time - no toddler, no meetings. So I mess up more often, because there is more to mess up. I snap at my kid when she wakes me up with a container of glitter she wants to play with at 7:30am because I still haven't finished cleaning up from her birthday weekend and I haven't asked her to help much. My husband is lucky if there is one day's worth of clean underwear and two eggs in the fridge. My dog probably wonders whether I even know she's there.

But the point of this post? I'm just trying to do something to pass the time this morning. To get to 8:30am at the doctor's office. The baby kicks. I turn over one more time, readjust the pillow, I cough, I turn and sneeze and reach for a tissue. My stomach gurgles. I wheeze a bit and wonder if I can use my inhaler before the test. Then I hope I fall asleep soon so I'm not feeling exhausted when I hear my daughter's voice as she wakes up. I consider flipping through a magazine, but feel just tired enough not to want to think. The sound of traffic starts to pick up and makes me a bit more anxious about falling asleep before the sky starts getting bright. Tick, tick, tick. I feel vaguely like I could just wake up and start the day but I know the sleep-monster is going to hit in the next hour, so I just keep waiting. Trying.

Somewhere in the future, the me with a new baby is yelling back to just enjoy, to read something just because I can, to store up these early morning hours, or for the love of pete, to do something with them so that there is something I can look back on when I'm exhausted and feeling useless as a new mom. Or bored and exhausted. But that's not the way it works, is it?

I keep waiting.

Happy Thanksgiving, though.

The daughter as engineer

This video of girls making a Rube Goldberg-type course through and around their house is currently making the rounds of Facebook, especially on some very strong women's and moms' feeds. There is a lot of support for the message - that girls can make and build. And that there is now an engineering construction set to empower them, called Goldie Blox.

What has caught me a little off guard is how big the response has been that "finally, something has come on the market to help empower our girls!"

Don't get me wrong - I think the toy is kind of cool - a set of engineering tasks based around a story. It is just that I may have underestimated the amount of support I already give my kid. (I'm hard enough on my own mothering that I get to give myself kuddos, too). Now, maybe she likes to fix and build more than some other girls, but I'm thinking that I just name it more often - as engineering, as fixing, as problem solving. In trying to come up with things to call her other than cute, and learn ways to talk about what she is doing instead of how pretty or cool it is, I find myself often telling her things about her playing.

And my girl of 4 does a lot of engineering. She wants this doll stroller to have that cup on it and that blanket to hang off the dog crate. And, sometimes together with parents and sometimes on her own (I often ask her how she thinks she could do it, encourage her to try again if it doesn't work as planned, acknowledge how frustrating it can be, and am there to help if she asks), it gets hacked. We have lots of scotch, masking and Japanese tape at her disposal. Kid scissors. Laundry clothespins. Paper and pens/pencils/crayons. Legos and these big cardboard blocks.

Last night, after trying to put a baby doll carrier on her baby doll stroller with a velcro strap that was too short, she found another place to fit it, down below the stroller, and continued on her way, beaming, some 12 stuffed animals accommodated in the process. And I told her what a creative engineer she was. Praised her effort.  And then I stood back and smiled with my husband, mostly in awe of this little person who can do so much already.

Just because it is done with a traditionally girls' toy, doesn't mean it isn't engineering. Or problem solving. Our kids are natural problem solvers, and maybe one of the first steps is to identify that for them so they can know it is one of their skills already.

So, in addition to Goldie Blox this holiday, time to start recognizing and naming the multitude of skills our kids show already (compassion, sharing, fixing, persisting, all manner of creating, problem solving, etc.). My daughter may not choose engineering as a career for a multitude of reasons, but it isn't going to be because she doesn't think it is something a girl can do.

What skills and abilities of your child's do you name?

Getting pissed off

Hmm. I should check old post titles - that one sounds kind of familiar. It wouldn't surprise me to find I'd written about anger before. Probably wouldn't surprise you, either.

Anger is such a strange issue. One side of our family hides it, stuffs it down deep inside and lets it out as passive aggression, and the other lets it just explode in your face at the most unexpected of times. And now, as parents, M and I are having to navigate what is appropriate with a child. For us (what does acceptable behavior look like when you're angry) and for A (how much is she allowed to vent and in what ways?).

I'm bumbling through this issue kind of blindly. My first instinct is that anger is bad - I was taught to think that - and so the point is never to get angry. Or, if you have gotten angry, to deny that you were and to say it was sadness or something else. But that's not how life works, so I'm having to redefine how I "do" anger. Don't think I've gotten far - I haven't, really. I'm at the "it is okay for me to be angry" self-affirmation stage, at which point my brain just kind of turns off. Crickets. Silence. I have no idea how to be angry next.

If I'm not okay with A hitting when she's angry, then obviously that's off the table for me, too. I don't actually get that far, but the point is that I'm totally at sea with this and even extreme boundary conditions are helpful. Okay, so no hitting.

Yelling? Also not great. We don't want her to yell, and yet we get to the point where we do it. But I get there every other time I'm furious. (I also tend to put my foot down earlier than M so that I don't actually get as furious in certain situations. Don't worry, in others I'm way more unreasonable than him).

Walking out? Hmm. That one is a tougher call because it feels either like defeat or surrender instead of taking time to cool down. But as I write this and think how would I like it if A walked out and cooled down every time she was angry, I realize I'd be pretty happy with that. So maybe that is a new way to think about that option.

What I'd love to be is the person who can express verbally what I'm angry about in a way that vents it but doesn't (and my kid has just messed up some tape she's playing with at this instant, started making upset sounds, and I'm wondering should I duck lest the tape dispenser come flying my way) hurt the feelings of another person. And in a way that gets it out of my system.

I guess that last part is the other problem I have with my anger. I don't purge it very quickly. If I don't get an apology I have a hard time letting things go.

There is no neat bow to tie up this post and end with some epiphany. Just something I was thinking about. What is anger good for?

Furry, furry, furry

It has now been, what, 5 or 6 months since I stopped shaving my legs (and toes - yes, they, too are a bit fluffy). And it is almost winter, and I soon won't be able to bend down that comfortably anyway, so they're going to stay hairy.

Do I finally think my legs are feminine even with the hair? Nope. Doesn't look feminine to me. Or pretty.

But what I find interesting is that it is the looking feminine that I am less concerned with now. I still wear dresses sometimes, jewelry and makeup, even. But the leg thing doesn't come in to play as often.

Now, this isn't to say that I find hairy legs and a knee-length skirt normal looking. I don't. I just don't pack a razor with me on trips anymore.

I might shave again next summer. And I'm still on the lookout for a well-fitting boy-short swimsuit (Target, the one I got from you had a seam that was 50 shades of wrong). But I'm not going to worry about it as much.

I just look at my legs now, in my pajamas at home, without thinking so much about them. That's been nice.