More, mama, more!
It is a little bit sickening that I can write yet another post about turning thirty, but it's my party and I cry if I want, cry if I - nevermind. The thing is, I need to write this down for me.
On the actual day of my birthday, a Sunday, I did not work at the library, instead I came home from church and laid down to read a book in broad daylight! I didn't even make sure x y and z were done and put away. I just threw myself (slowly and laboriously) on the bed and lounged. Then later in the evening my husband prepared filet mignon on the grill and I ate it and then my mom made this birthday cake according to my specifications and it was awesome and of course, I ate it. It's been a long time since I had a birthday cake made for me. You can't really make one for yourself. I ate a lot of cake.
I got a lot of nice gifts and a lot of birthday wishes, most of them via email. It was wonderful to see my inbox fill up with "happy birthdays". I got a lot of unexpected mail. Since I live far away from most people you'd call "best friends" or just people I've known my whole life, it feels extra good to have them remember you.
Still the very best part about my birthday was a trip to New York I had the chance to take with Lincoln, without Veronika and over night! We hadn't spent that much time together since she was born and that's a long time. I was so excited about it I think I was actually scared. It's a little bit of pressure, when you know this is your first and probably only chance in years (because, if you remember, I'm pregnant and two children apparently are more work.. or whatever) and you want to have a good time and what if you don't, then you blew it and it will feel even worse than it actually is, because you know you won't get to do it over anytime soon. OK, so I have a tendency to overly dramatize things, so? Luckily everything turned out just wonderful although it didn't seem like it at the beginning. On Tuesday night I picked up Lincoln from work, having packed everything up beforehand. We were supposed to be at the Village Vanguard at around 8 or 8.30 for the first set of the Brad Mehldau trio. So I drove to Somers, which is almost half way to NYC only to realize I had packed everything except for Lincoln's shirts and jacket. So we had to turn around at 6 pm and drive all the way home again... which made it look impossible to be back in New York on time. I was really mad at myself not so much for forgetting - because these days I am painfully aware I cannot keep it together on a regular basis - but because there was that overly dramatic voice whispering that yes, indeed, things would go bad, just because.
We arrived at Village Vanguard at 9 o'clock sharp, the exact starting time of the show. With the generous help of my generous belly I cleared my way to the beginning of the line to demand entrance based on the reservation we had made (but which are usually given away 15 minutes before the show starts) and I was let in! You don't mess with a pregnant woman, out after 9 o'clock p.m. for the third time since August 2003 and who hasn't been on a date with her husband for over two years. You don't. You step away and let her in and show her her seat. I didn't have to say any of this, but I'm pretty sure they read it in my raised eyebrows and stern demeanor and also in the enormous belly wrapped up all innocently in a pretty red satin camisole. I had the whole speech ready in case they were going to be difficult. I didn't get to say it though. It was a nice speech.
So once that disaster was averted we could relax and enjoy the show. Afterwards we had tapas (!) at a place called Matador. It was delicious, although the tapas seemed heavily Mexican-influenced, but hey, remember that part about not having been on a date in years? Then we stayed at a nice (it really was nice, although given what we paid for it, I was afraid it wasn't going to be) hotel and slept in. Slept in! And after a huge breakfast (huge for me, tiny for my husband, because I am a pig and he is a delicate flower) we walked several hundred miles up 5th Avenue to the Metropolitan Museum to look at the current Van Gogh: The Drawings Exhibition.
I don't know, reading all this makes me laugh, because it all sounds like I habitually frequent jazz clubs, fancy restaurants in the West Village and hang out on 5th Ave on weekends. It also sounds like we planned it all out down to the last little bit and that's not true either. It was just a wonderful 24 hours, where we got to be a couple only. I wish we had the chance more often, but it's not looking that great because it seems there are no babysitters available in Danbury, CT for any possible time slot that I request. You may feel sorry for me now. But not otherwise... because I'm very lucky.
Posted at 08:29 PM on November 29, 2005 | Comments (6)Thirty
It's my birthday on Sunday. Guess how old I am. I have been waiting for some negative sad feelings, since it seems turning 30 does that to people, but so far none have shown up. To the contrary I'm feeling pretty good about it. It sounds a little older than I guess I feel but then when I think about my life and where I am and how far I've come, it sounds just about right. Maybe my lack of sadness comes from not feeling like I've missed out on something or I've not accomplished enough. It's not about patting myself on the back either... rather just being happy where I am.
Out of breath, big and with heartburn
I am only five months pregnant, only five. I predict huge baby and extreme postpartum skin sag. I even had a few people ask me if it was "soon" yet. I can't wait for the "Only one, are you sure?" - comments. Nothing like being the big fat pregnant freakshow. On that note, I give you: The freakshow in autumn splendor.
Let's talk about the born child though, because she is still the dominating factor in my life. I have to say I love the twos although they indeed are terrible in many ways. Veronika can now truly express herself and it's wonderful. It's like having a real child, haha! No, really, the baby stage is cute and all but there is only so much babyness to take in after all the diapering and the feeding. The toddler stage, two and above, is something else. There is communication and it makes all the difference.
What hasn't changed really are my mixed feelings, the simultaneous delight and exasperation I take in watching her be alive. She loves playing in her own world and I love watching and listening. She will repeat phone conversations using the Pampered Chef cheese grater ("Hi Grandma! Hi Veronika, how you doing? Having fun? Playin with trucks? Ok, bye. See you soon.") or explain something to the Pooh stickers on the fridge (mumblemumble - Winnie! Piglet! Come on!!! Sorry Sorry! mumblemumble Pretty much. Pretty much.) She is so absorbed in her play she will pee her pants numerous times on the same day that she also uses the potty in a timely fashion. When Lincoln or I come home from work, she will tell us about all the main events of the day in this excited half-yelling voice (Papa! Noni potty number 2!!!)... it's to die for.
And then there is the toddler dark side. My daughter's slight OCD behavior has escalated. The book she left on the box has to be first page up, she will request to be lifted out of the crib so she can assure that. She needs to be carried up the stairs, no, she wants to do it herself! She needs to exit the car by herself, no not this door, the other door! Before sitting down in her carseat, she needs to name 23 objects surrounding her, each preceding with "Is this? (Window) Is this? (Jacket) etc." She needs to use this clip, NOT the other. "This one, mama!" "No, like THIS, mama!" "No, that one, THAT one!"
I feel my world is laid out with tiny traps, invisible, inside and outside my house. There is a silent network of rules and I am bound to break them and then I will see the world explode and crumble, several times a day in form of a two-year-old girl falling apart in tears and screams. It must be so tough being a toddler. The mood swings willl kill you. I'd venture to say menopause must be a walk in the park compared to it. What is worse for the people witnessing it, is that toddlers are excused from everything, whereas hormonal women are expected to control themselves. I want to throw a tantrum about having to deal with the emotional wreck of a two-year-old on a daily basis. Do you know what toll it takes on one's psyche? After you have closed the door THE WRONG WAY 3 times? Did you even know one could close the door the wrong way so many times? I live with her through her highs and lows, as she moves with ease from one to the other while I am continously reeling from the last meltdown, wondering why the heck the world is still standing and she is now... smiling!
I can handle it all more or less, since the coherent and happy moments are just as numerous as the despairing ones, but after a week or two with no real break, my fuses blow out one after the other and I am a step away from the perpetual abyss every second of the day. Veronika has been a good napper since about 10 months old but now she has discovered that you don't necessarily need to sleep when you are put in bed. So she won't nap and then take her mood swings up a notch for the rest of the day. To my joy.
Last week on one such day I let her get out of bed after not having taken a nap - which means I didn't "nap" either - and decided I wanted to finish that puzzle my sister and I had started while she was visiting. It is the stupidest idea one could have, but I was tired and overwhelmed and I wanted to do something fun dammit, something "I" like to do and not make playdoh dogs or print out maisy coloring pages. I pulled out the puzzle from underneath the bed (1000 pieces... crazy idea, I told you.) and immediately Veronika was there to "help": Mama, puzzle! Biiig puzzle! Is this? A horse? Is this? A tree! A tree, mama!" I tell her about 20 times NOT to touch anything, but who am I kidding. Veronika loves puzzles. Eventually she shows some understanding by repeating back to me: Mama's puzzle! Mama's own puzzle! Then she picks up random pieces and throws them to me: Here you go, mama. Here you go. Here, mama, here! Here you go! I tell her not to touch, completely mad from the uselessness of it all. Meanwhile Digby is intrigued and runs across the puzzle twice. "Here you go mama!" as she rips a few meticulously pieced strips apart, but with the most helpful voice you can imagine. Digby tries to grab one and chew it up. I want to cry. I know I am stupid for trying to do something both of them will surely not be able to ignore, but why, oh why. I just wanted this one little hour of fun...
I've been thinking how as we grow up and especially as adults we are always striving to be perfect, in the sense of reducing the number of mistakes we make and increasing efficiency as much as we can. It's valued in the work place, in relationships, in financial matters... the less mistakes you make, the better your life, the better you are, right? Then you have children and you realize that this approach is completely unproductive. I'm reading these books, which suggest parents need to see the world from the child's perspective to effectively parent them and lead them in the right direction. But in the case of a toddler, this means, you have to completely forget about efficiency and the focus on reducing mistakes. Instead you should consider it all a part of development and the focus should be on building a sane emotional life of your child in the face of all this learning she has to do. I am learning a new rating system and it's not easy, especially since I still have a whole range of tasks in my life that demand efficiency, partly in order to make my toddler's life possible. I am trying hard to be patient with Veronika. She deserves it and I hope I'm not failing her, but oh, it is wearing me down. She has that special ability to persistently and efficiently (!) drive me crazy. The force is with her, obviously.
Posted at 08:23 PM on November 14, 2005 | Comments (1)