Life Lessons from the Motherhood

   Lesson One: Eating your Mother's Day Breakfast

        Okay, lets face it. Breakfast in bed is an awesome gesture, even though you have to spend half an hour shaking the sheets of breadcrumbs afterwards. But if your child is under the age of teenage than you're not getting a gourmet meal. My last meal consisted of a piece of toast piled high with the contents of my fridge on it. Apples, cut with a butter knife. Strawberries, a little bit on the mushy side because they washed those suckers good. And peanut butter, jelly, honey, cinnamon. I'm probably lucky there wasn't ketchup on top.
       They, the small children that allow you to celebrate this holiday called Mother's Day, wake you up after allowing you an extra five minutes of sleep and hand you this plate of food. Then they anxiously wait for you to eat it. Their little faces all grins and smiles and joy.
       And how can you not eat it?
       Simple trick #1:  Nibble on what looks safe to consume. Just don't spit it out when they calmly tell you it's the part that fell on the floor and the dog licked it but they washed it off.
        Simple trick #2: After eating a few bites, keep them talking. Thank them for the lovely gesture, because heck, these little people adore you, take a moment to savor it. But keep them talking. Eventually, they will run off to play and you can safety dispose of the rest of your meal without hurting their feelings.

    Lesson Two: Enjoy your Day of Leisure

         Ahh, wouldn't it be nice to sit back on this holiday, put our feet up and read a book without interruption? I vaguely recall those days. I remember the Mother's Day a couple of weeks before Bean was born, I was huge. Imagine the marshmallow monster on Ghostbusters, yeah, that could have been me.
         My ankles were swollen like balloons, my face was rounded with too much of Ben and Jerry's ice cream (think sixty or seventy pounds of pregnancy weight) and I was experiencing that feeling of being done. I'm ready for my baby, can I have my body back now?
      Hero Hottie took me out to breakfast that morning and the waitress gave me a free dessert, a strawberry shortcake, for Mother's Day. Suddenly, I had been given admittance to this special holiday. Yes, a holiday where I get pampered, and I don't have to do anything.
     Ahh, it was a lovely day dream. Because once you have kids, you realize that there are no more days off for you....EVER. A weekend? What's that? It's just a day that's a bit quieter than the week...MAYBE. But suddenly you're responsible for at least three meals a day...SEVEN DAYS a week. Laundry? You want to take a break from laundry? Not a good idea. Laundry starts to develop into a life form of it's own if left more than a day or two.
    And changing diapers. Yep, those happen on Mother's Day too. Even the really smelly poopy ones that take an hour of clean up time for you and the Baby.
      And when the kids grow old enough to volunteer to take over the chores, so you don't have to do anything. Well, lets just say their standards aren't quite at the same level as yours.
     
    Simple Trick #1: Enjoy the day anyway. You're a Mother and it's awesome to have a day when your children give you cards that are simply decorated with their hand prints. I know, you see plenty of those on the walls and the windows everyday. But when you're older and your Bean is turning into a young woman, than looking back at those tiny hand prints...well, it causes your heart to burst with all sort of emotion.

    Simple Trick #2: Clean the house the day before, plan easy meals, and do something fun with your kids. And if they promise you an uninterrupted bubble bath...DON'T believe them. That just means they hold off for ten minutes instead of five before they're pounding on the door and asking you if you're enjoying your uninterrupted bubble bath.


Lesson Three: Appreciation

    Ahh, it's that moment when you realize, as your four year old and your two year old, hand you a bouquet of dandelions from the yard, with grubby, chubby little fingers and grins that are the sweetness expressions you have ever seen...that being a MOTHER is AWESOME!

    There isn't a job, or a talk, or a book that can prepare you for this task of raising another human being. There should be something though.
    A book that warns you of the effects of sleepless nights because Baby Blueberry is teething. Think sleepwalking at this point.
    A talk given on how to balance the needs of more than one kid. Because one size does not fit all. And once you realize that sayings applies to everything, from the way you discipline, to the way you help with homework, to the activities that they like to do, life will be so much easier.
   Now LOVE, that should be the same. Kiss them and hug them and love them in the same amounts, even when you have a Bean. Who likes to test boundaries and the word NO. OVER AND OVER AGAIN. Because at the end of the day, she still needs a hug and a kiss and a reassurance that no matter what you still love her.

Simple Trick #1: Sometimes a day can be overwhelming. The worst moments of parenting for me were the potty training moments. I didn't do well with potty training. And I'm not even sure why. A lack of patience on my part, hating the power struggles that can occur, frustration over accidents in public places. But I know I don't do well with this task...so with Baby Blueberry I'm going to step back and not worry so much. Obviously, your kid eventually moves from diapers to using the toilet....and then they have entered big kid territory and they have grown that much more.
        So I can't say I will enjoy potty training any more this time than with Bean and Abu, but I won't allow it to frustrate me so bad that I miss all the other great things going on during that stage of development.
     Don't concentrate on the crappy moments in parenting, you'll miss the good stuff.

Simple Trick #2: Appreciate the woman in your life that mothered you. Sometimes this isn't your biological mom but someone that fulfilled that role.
    Now, you can understand why they were always cleaning (think YOU) and why they drank four cups of coffee in the morning (think YOU again) and why you never ask them "What's for dinner and when it is?" unless you were ready to see steam coming from their ears. Now, I understand why. After three meals a day, seven days a week...the question gets old.
    "Food.  You get FOOD. What else do you think I would be feeding you? And if you tell me that the new chicken dish was not food, than you're grounded."

     This week I couldn't decide on a gift for my Mom. So I spoiled her with a week of Mother's Day. The first day was a bouquet of flowers (not dandelions), second day was a caramel roll, third day was candy bars, fourth day was potted plants, today will be a small, cute garden ornament, and tomorrow will be a picture of the grandchildren. Nothing fancy, but just small tokens of appreciation.

    So this motherhood thing isn't easy. It's causes sleep deprivation, loss of patience, bouts of meltdowns that aren't from the kids, boredom from doing endless loads of laundry and cooking thousands of meals, and feelings of inadequacy. 
    But I tell you what....every card with their handprint on it or simple poem written in it, every baby grin, every dandelion bouquet, and every Mother's Day breakfast, is the BEST.
   Every new development, from their first crawls to their first dances, is a reason to celebrate.
   My children bring me endless joy and so tomorrow when they bring me breakfast in bed (I cheated a bit, I bought cinnamon rolls for them to serve) and they hug me and give me their gifts, which are usually handmade and oh, so precious. I will be giving thanks in my heart.
    
   Happy Mother's Day!!!

A Caffeinated Baby in the Land of No Sleep

    I can easily forgive Baby Blueberry for not reading the numerous studies on all the baby websites that say a warm caffeinated breast milk latte isn't going to keep her up at night. After all she can't read yet, so she's not aware of the facts that say she can't consume enough caffeine via my breast milk to get a buzz.
    She should be able to enjoy coffee before bed and expect a nice, restful night of sleep, right? Supposedly, the rumor is, that not enough caffeine enters my breast milk to effect Baby Blueberry, so drink a few cups. After all, I'm a new Mom and up all night long, so I'm going to need the coffee in the morning to survive.

    Alright researchers, this is an easy one. We're going to play a game. Have a dozen Moms drink a few grande latte Starbucks coffee drinks in the afternoon and then nurse their babies before bed. We'll put you in charge of the night time care of caffeinated babies and see if your research shows a little bit more insight.
     Because I have problems with research that report:  Moms who heavily drink caffeinated beverages report frequent night time wakings of their little babies. But than you super smart researchers say something stupid like, 'this wasn't statistically significant. So we can't say if the caffeine was the culprit.'
    Are the coffee shops funding your research?

    I love the one research guy who said, 'the caffeine is just disturbing Mom's sleep patterns, that's why she's waking up so many times at night, it's not disturbing the infant.'
     Really? The coffee is waking me up? Does the coffee cry in the middle of the night until I'm dragged from the little bit of REM sleep I have managed to find in the last two weeks and demand to be fed? Does the coffee stay up, bouncing and jumping and grinning because they're wired?
   Does the coffee wake up every hour with a sad scrunched up face and needs to be cuddled? (That or she's after more caffeine and it's a ploy.)

   In my twenties, when I had Bean and Abu, I wasn't a coffee drinker. So I didn't worry about the effects of caffeine. But this time; in my thirties and with more demands on me; I have fallen in love with a cup (or four cups) in the morning.
   When I was put on modified bed rest with Baby Blueberry, I cut out the coffee. I know that caffeine did not tear my placenta but in my worried, panicked state of mind; I decided I better just stay away from it.
   After her birth, I decided I could follow the advice of doctors and have a cup or two of coffee in the mornings. Since I was so extremely tired most mornings from the demands of my newborn; this was considered a necessity. Almost more important than a shower, but not quite.

      (Little Baby you can play on the bathroom floor and enjoy the white noise of the shower running while I remember what it feels like to have clean hair. )

    The problem though, is that I drink my coffee very slowly. Hero Hottie will drink his in about half an hour and start eyeing my cup if I don't clearly claim my territory.
    
     (To set the scene:We did have a coffee pot. Saved us money and trips to the coffee shop. Then one sad morning, while Hero Hottie was cleaning it; it broke leaving us to make coffee with hot water and a strainer. This arduous method lasted one cup before we decided to buy another pot. Which is actually a funny story and I'll have to share it later this week...But in the mean time we have been stalking the coffee shop in search of heavy doses of caffeine.)
    
      After finishing his  20 ounce coffee, he picks up my measly 12 ounce cup and shakes it.
      "You still have half a cup left. You going to finish it?" He asks, quite casually as if he doesn't care either way. But he's licking his lips and he has that gleam in his eye.
        "Hey, you had your coffee. Leave mine alone." I say, as I grip the coffee shop cup in both hands, baring my teeth and ready to fight.
         He holds up his hands, "Hey, I was just asking. Since you're not done yet."
         I glare at him and continue sipping on my coffee as he he makes another run to the coffee shop.

         And this is where the trouble starts. Right on into the afternoon I'm still sipping on my coffee. I try to finish it earlier but I can't gulp coffee. By evening, just after I have the children in bed and the baby finally to sleep; I quickly crawl into bed and an hour later I'm awoken by small baby wanted to play or practice her crawling.
        Nurse her, convince her it's bedtime and try to sleep.
        Wham. An hour later. She's awake again. Happy and content but AWAKE.
        Of course, it doesn't help that I'm feeding her more coffee with each feeding.
   
        It's vicious cycle. I drink coffee, albeit not even that much; but I drink it too late into the day. By the time it must reach her milk; it's time for bed. Except now, that little bit of caffeine doesn't seem so statistically insignificant because neither one of us get much sleep that night.
        And in the morning that coffee shop looks like an oasis in the desert. But I must resist; it's only a mirage. Coffee will keep small child up, thereby keeping Mom up; thereby causing Mom to appear to be a zombie, stumbling and muttering around the house without any coffee to make her human again.

     Moral of the story: No matter how happily hyper Baby Blueberry gets after her caffeinated breast milk lattes; she does not need it.

    Now I just have to convince Blueberry's Mom that tired, exhausted Mom doesn't need coffee either. Wish me luck. :-)