i am your typical firstborn child through and through.
i am an overachiever to the max. i exhibit this behavior in just about everything in my life.
even
looking back early into my childhood i can see these patterns emerge.
i went to a private elementary school where we received "S's" for
satisfactory (instead of A's). i can remember the pang an S- brought me
as it glared at me from that blue report card. and it hurt... it hurt
REAL bad. i mean... i thought i was made of S+ material only.
well... i made sure THAT never happened again.
i'm sure this wasn't the first of many brushes with imperfection... although i know you find that hard to believe.
i
went to a summer camp at our church... probably around 2nd or 3rd
grade. instead of earning A's we worked hard on earning a "small F" or a
"big F", which we would get at an awards ceremony at the end of the two
week camp. (looking back, the adults probably thought it was hilarious
we were busting our tails to earn F's) it was a patch that looked
like it belonged on a letter jacket... and i wanted that big F so bad i
could taste it. there are some of us who just know that we'll never get a varsity jacket and "letter" in something later in life... so i figured this was my one shot at being cool. you earned your f by completing tasks that had been
leveled out by degree of difficulty... most of them involving
athleticism... which, i'm sorry to say, was and is not my forte. i
worked SO hard to earn that big F. i memorized all of my bible verses,
learned as many different sports as i could. it all came down to
landing a front flip on the big trampoline to complete the advanced
skills and clench the big F. but alas, i could not stick that darn front
flip and missed my big F by one stupid point.
i cried.
OHHHH did i cry!
in fact, the director almost gave me a big F because she felt so sorry for me.
but my mom told her "no"
she wanted me to earn it fair and square like all of the other kids.
looking back, i can't believe i cried because i didn't get an F... funny coming from a girl who cried over an S-!
(also... props to my mom for letting me learn a life lesson. i hope i'm that wise with leif.)
as an adult i've continued this strange pattern of perfect dysfunction. when i started running i followed a regimented plan. if i
skipped a day i'd feel like a failure. no joke. i probably was so successful at
losing weight years ago because i am ridiculous about what i control. i
like to have a clean house with everything put away. and by everything i mean the receipt my husband JUST brought home from the gas station. i give him no mercy on his paperwork and putting away skills. in fact, i was just all over him about some empty boxes he set in the living room because they bugged me. even my classroom has
to be just-so... my teammates lovingly tease me and try to get me to
stop staying late in my quest for perfectionism.
and now i'm a mommy... which means a lot of my control and my need to be perfect are intensifying.
and... to make it worse... i'm not in control of most anything anymore... as those of you seasoned mothers might remember when you reflect on your earliest days as a madre.
first of all, as i type, my son is finally sleeping...
rocking away in his swing. instead of doing the laundry list of stuff i
would normally want to get done, i'm sitting in my living room writing
my blog. there are dog toys and lint spread out all over the floor from trooper,
who's taking comfort in his toys because his parents are currently
pre-occupied. there are dishes on the coffee table (a cardinal sin in THIS house), my make-up
bag from my quick application this morning is under said table and
pillows everywhere with piles of miscellaneous objects around... (stupid empty husband boxes).
so.
not.
my.
style.
it's secretly driving me crazy...
but i have other fish to fry!
because what is eating away at me is this unrealistic idea that i think i need to be a perfect mom.
leif
is 3 months old now. i can hardly believe how much he has changed in
such a short amount of time... and i'm so thankful that as time passes, i seem to
be getting the hang of bein' a mama a little more. i mean, i couldn't even get a
dishwasher unloaded during the day a couple of months ago. now i can unload
the dishwasher, take a shower, get my make-up on AND make the bed... on a good day. i might even venture out for an errand or two if i'm feeling really sassy. success is measured in tiny increments around here.
but several weeks ago, when leif was about 6 weeks old, i had one of those days that sets you back. and i don't mean two
steps forward, two steps back... like paula abdul. i mean two steps
forward, five steps back.
i think it's because that particular morning leif woke me up at 3:45 to feed. when i crawled back into bed at
4:30, i just laid there, wide awake. i could not get back to sleep. i
kept thinking about my dr. appointment, how i wish i could go for a run
(i needed to go get some running clothes that i could actually fit into... whatever). OK...
my point being that i never fell back asleep.
my
appointment was good, i was healing up from surgery great... except that i cried.
weight gain is hard... and starting over sucks. i wanted to be
perfect in this aspect too, but i'm not. i mean... didn't all of you mommies out there fit into your size 6 jeans 6 weeks after giving birth? (if you did... don't EVEN tell me or i'll throw up!)
this is all i'm sayin' about weight for now... but as i start to become my more recognizable, less puffy self, i'm sure i'll post more about it.
i came home exhausted and ready to see my little one.
i had left him in the very capable hands of his daddy. (it was also my first time away from leif without feeding him... which was harder than i thought it would be for me). kjaer had some
things he needed to get done that day, so after we had lunch together, he
took off and i was left alone to my laundry list and leif. i had
decided that the laundry list could wait. i was so tired and just
wanted to take a nap with my little man.
p.s. - this is one
of my most favorite things about being a mommy. if you have yet to
experience mommy-hood... just wait. there is nothing better than
napping with your little babe on your chest. i loved that sacred time... and he doesn't do it very often anymore. boy, they grow so fast. anyways... as i set my little guy against my heart, i was mentally patting myself on
the back for letting go of other stuff so that i could take care of
myself.
but leif had other plans.
even
though i had JUST fed him, he started crying because he wanted to eat
again. he was fussy afterwards. then, like an idiot, i took a phone
call from the hospital to answer survey questions. actually, i looked
at my phone to see who was calling and accidentally hit the answer
button... damn it. it was a very stressful 10 minutes... all the while
leif was wailing in the background, inconsolable.
clearly, a nap for mommy wasn't in the cards.
so
when my girlfriend, lindee called and asked if i wanted to go for a
walk... i said "what the heck? a walk might make me feel better"... at
least that's what i thought. but, by the time she got here i was
frazzled. i should have just taken a rain check, because i was in a
sorry state. i started right in with my complaining about leif. then i
grabbed trooper's leash because... well, he's been neglected so i
thought he should walk with us and get out a little pent up energy. i
attempted, like a fool, to walk my dog with leif's stroller solo.
lindee had her own stroller to push and i figured that since trooper is
11 years old... he'd be a champ because he's so mature... right?
ummmm.... no.
we'd be carrying on our conversation (actually, more like my one-sided sob story) and trooper would yank me and the stroller over to the
nearest squirrel, dog behind a fence, suspicious leaf... you know...
whatever he deemed worthy of barking at. this only heightened my
frustration. not only was i an imperfect mother, but i couldn't control
my own dog on a walk. poor lindee. you remember when you were a kid
playing nintendo and you had the crappiest game ever? you'd hit that reset
button... right? and don't say no, because we ALL hit the reset button in the 80's. well, i called lindee a few weeks later to ask if i could hit the reset button...
because on that day, i was a walking disaster.
after lindee left, i reflected on my bad behavior and writhed in
my own embarrassment over my attitude during our walk. kjaer helped me
dig to the nitty gritty of what was bugging me.
first of all... it had been a challenging day.
a few hours of sleep + post partem hormonal emotions = train wreck of a woman.
i could have handled it on a good day with some yawns and mild
complaining. but that wasn't how my day went. and as i watched myself
crumble under the challenges, i lost faith in myself as a mother.
and that's when i was reminded, kindly, by my husband that nobody is perfect
and i seem to think that i should be. when i'm not, i feel out of
control. he stated, rather matter of factly, that he thinks we're doing
an awesome job of being parents. but we are going to have days where
we complain about our kids, even though we love them to pieces.
*gasp* complain about our kids? well i NEVER!
yes you have young mommy... i think we all do. whether it's inside of our heads or out loud to a caring friend.
what i'm learning is, it's OK to feel frustrated with your child, your dog, yourself.
heck... you don't think the Lord himself got frustrated with the
Israelites back in the days of Moses? even GOD gets frustrated. i know
there were several times in my life where God wanted to slap me up side
the head. i can just imagine Him going for a walk with Jesus and the Holy Spirit. I can almost hear Him say to them, "What was up with Monica today?" and Jesus would
reply, "I know... right?" while the Holy Spirit nods heartily in agreement.
where did i catch this perfect mommy-itis? i have no clue. i think it's
a combination of my perfectionism and my perception of other mamma's
that i watch so carefully. after all, i'm one of the last of my girlfriends to become a mama. i've been watching my lovely ladies that i love so dearly do this for years. i think there were the first early few before i was even thinking of kids (let alone marriage)... lynette, cassie, carrie and then those in the years after i became a wife and knew that a family wouldn't be far behind... heather, jill, melissa and lindee. to all of these wonderful girls (and many more of my girlfriends whom have gone unnamed) i have watched you so closely. you gaze at your children so sweetly. you smile so big when you talk about them. sometimes it was easy for a girl like me to fantasize about the joys of motherhood.
you girls just made it look so easy.
and, as i have found out over the past few months, it most definitely isn't.
crazy amazing... yes. but lots of work.
and here's the crux... and it's sort of beautiful in a strange way. those of you that came to see me after i had my own little one... you girls who i've made such "perfect" moms in my brain... when i let out my dirty little secrets of the first few weeks of motherhood... like some of the fears, concerns or messed up thoughts and feelings i was having... each and every one of you nodded and said amen sister. it was like i had joined the club and learned the unspoken secret of being a mother. because you all gathered around me with wide open arms and whispered "you are not alone" into my ears when i was afraid i was the only mother on earth who felt this way.
and then a fellow mama lent me a book by one of my favorite authors that i didn't even KNOW existed... Operating Instructions by Anne Lamott. i spent countless hours feeding leif with one hand and holding that book in the other as she recounted her first year with her little one. i connected with her highs and lows. she writes one night, "it has been a terrible day. i'm afraid i'm going to have to let him go. he's an awful baby. i hate him. he's scum." and then a few pages later, "and also - this is almost too much to handle-when i hold him now, he puts his arm around my neck. it's very casual. he just kind of slings his arm around me, like he's Sam Shepard or something. it makes me woozy."
word anne. word.
the truth is, the good days far outnumber the ones where i thought i sucked. the beginning was tough. when i put on my "mommy" hat those first few weeks, i couldn't see out from under it. it was too big, fell down around my ears and i couldn't hear people (like my husband, friends and family) cheering me on. it seemed all i could do was listen to thoughtless comments said in passing that probably weren't said to mean any harm and follow my "perfect mommy checklist." those days where i couldn't check off the boxes (and there were a LOT of those days in the beginning) i felt like a failure.
but now i've been wearing my hat for a few months... and it mostly stays on top of my head... though there are still a few days where the enormity of it makes it fall over my eyes and ears. but those days are becoming less and less... and i'm so crazy about our son i can hardly see straight. i watch his little hands work together like a worried, little, old man as he contemplates world peace... and i'm amazed that he came from me. such a miracle. some of the happiest moments in my life have have happened in the last three months when i change his diaper. he smiles and kick, kick, kicks his legs. then, he talks to me... "hey mom! i lOVE this! i LOVE you! look at these strange things you call hands! look how fast my legs can move! is that DAD?!? hey dad! look what i'm doing! i LOVE this! i LOVE you!" kick, kick, kick.
w.o.o.z.y.
i see his gummy grin and know to my core that our kid loves us. we're doing a good job. if i can just bring myself to throw that mommy checklist away every day when i crawl out of bed... i will be inoculated against that dangerous strand of perfect mommy-itis.
and then i can enjoy our little miracle as i take
one.
day.
at.
a.
time.
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