Post #12: I wish I was tired

Coming into parenthood, I think I had a fairly average idea of what a child would need to learn in the first few years of life. As such, I had a general outline of what this would mean for me, an accompanying list of beginner parenting responsibilities:

1.     Establish a routine that involves baby and family sleeping through the night.

2.     Potty train (this implies teaching the skill of putting a toilet seat down)

3.     Teach the quadratic formula (real number solutions, only because I don’t want to set unrealistic expectations for the little guy!)

So, when Brayden finally started sleeping through the night at about five months of age, I was a proud and relieved mama. I’d figured my baby out! Better late than never! Where were all the “My Baby Sleeps Through the Night” bumper stickers? Happy baby, happy, well-rested, mom. And so it continued for a couple of months. It was GLORIOUS! But as it often happens when you are at the peak of overconfidence, BAM!! a setback. One second you feel like an Olympic speedskater racing around the pond in your double-bladed figure skates. The next, you are on the couch in your long-johns with an ice bag on your head, concussed. (Let’s just say that if Brayden inherits my skating ability, hockey is not in his future.)

So, there I was…feeling great in my role as a mother, practically prepping to write my own parenting book, gathering materials to start teaching Brayden about square roots… when out of the blue, he learned to stand. I thought this would be nothing more than an exciting advancement in his mobility. I was wrong. As I now know, reaching new developmental milestones can come at a price. In this case, as soon as he was standing, he wasn’t sleeping through the night anymore. Little blips in his nighttime sleep had been easily remedied by a small back rub and pacifier replacement before. Suddenly, his wake-ups were all-out stand-offs. Literally.

Brayden has played evil tricks on me before like pooping in a clean diaper immediately upon being re-dressed and holding a sneeze back until he has a mouthful of sweet potatoes to spew on my white shirt. But this reversal in his sleep habits was the evilest trick of all. Being sleep-deprived when he was a newborn wasn’t ideal. But this was far worse. He’d let me get a taste of what it was like to get adequate sleep so that I would remember how wonderful it felt to NOT be exhausted and then BAM!!! he reverted to his former-non-sleeping-through-the-night self.

And so began the treacherous cycle of self-doubt that is an unfortunate side effect of parenting. What did I do wrong? I wondered. In my distress, I turned to google where I found some consolation that I might not be at fault for this change in circumstance. Apparently, according to my extensive online research, 7-10 month olds are in a stage of such rapid social, emotional, and physical development that they simply have trouble sleeping. They have so much going on, that it’s hard for them to settle back down. They go through a “sleep regression”.

Well, that explains it, I thought optimistically. My trusty baby-mama forums and plethora of baby sleep books assured me we should be back to sound sleeping in a couple of weeks. But two weeks quickly turned into two months and there we were. Still. Not. Sleeping. Through. The. Night. Far from it, in fact. Brayden was up almost hourly after midnight, crying. And Kevin and I were right there, wanting to do the same thing. So we started rotating night duties with the early morning shift. Whoever got up through the night could sleep in a little the next day. But it still wasn’t enough sleep. And cumulative sleep loss over several weeks took its toll. We had ventured beyond the realm of tiredness into a dark, sleepless place where the simplest components of a daily routine seemed like impossible feats. Brushing my teeth, changing Brayden’s diaper, or placing a bowl into the dishwasher sapped up whatever energy was miraculously available. When it came to any minutely stressful situation, forget it. I was incapacitated.

Then, a few evenings ago, I had a small headache and so I laid down for “five minutes” just to “rest my eyes”. Well, five minutes of resting my eyes turned into 12 hours of REM-cycle sleeping. (Thank goodness I have an awesome husband!) Awake the next morning, I was tired. But tired was a vast improvement from what I was before. And with a somewhat refreshed mental state, I had the good judgment to acknowledge that this wasn’t working. This was not the type of mother, wife, or human that I want to be!

And so Kevin and I devised a final plan to making our happy-by-day baby just as  happy-by-night. One week. Two college-educated parents vs. one nine-month old baby.  It’s going to be a long week, but if it works, we will have our sanity back! Wish us luck, and I hope that in my next report, I have some good news to share. And I hope that when I share it, I am tired. Tired would be wonderful. 

Post #11: Until Next Time...

I’m always saying that I am blessed with a wonderful family. Kevin’s side, my side, my friends-that-might-as-well-be-family side. From all angles, and by all definitions, my “family”, is incredible. (I am not bragging, I am just stating a fact). Evidence in support of this testimony lies within nearly every post I’ve made to this blog. And, here I present to you even more proof that I am blessed with familial amazingness. Reason #102 that my family rocks: They will come to visit us, wherever we are. The capital of Rhode Island, a college town in New Hampshire, a Cape house in Massachusetts, a commuter town in the center of Connecticut, a small village in northern Italy. And, most recently, a big city in the middle of the United States. We’ve been in Wichita for less than five months, but we’ve already had three sets of visitors. AND, a fourth set will be arriving soon! Thank you, loved ones, for being as mobile as we are. Your visits are a special part of these hockey life adventures.  Memories like these will hold us over until next off-season when we will get to spend tons of quality time with you because we will likely be crashing on your couches! J

Watching some hockey with Nanny & Guy Mor 

Snuggling with Gramma

Hanging out with AunTee

Next up, Barbara and Steve. See you both soon!

Post #10: Second is the Best

One week into the New Year brings me one week into Kevin’s two-week long road trip. No matter where we’ve played, the hockey season always picks up as the Holiday season winds down. We were very fortunate that this year’s day-after-Christmas game was played at home and so Kevin didn’t have to travel on Christmas. But a decently long home stretch meant only one thing… a long away one was just around the corner. Sure enough, as Brayden, Dylan and I rang in the New Year in Wichita, Kevin did the same from a bus somewhere between Texas and Iowa. I’m pretty sure that I got the better deal.

While I would normally be pretty glum about Kevin being gone for half a month, there’s something else on my calendar to occupy my attention. And I’m not talking about just any calendar. I’m talking about one that was crafted for me by the very person whose visit coincides with the clump of pictures seen here:

If you can’t tell who it is that made this beautiful and thoughtful gift, then maybe what’s written on the back of the calendar will give it away:

Only one person is capable of such a capping off such a thoughtful gesture with this! Yes, ladies and gentleman, my sister is coming to Wichita. So, yes, I miss my husband. But the reprieve from having to miss my sister will definitely make the rest of his roadtrip more bearable. Here’s to a week of doing nothing special, but having fun anyway because I’ll be doing nothing special with Theresa. See you in two DAYS Aun-T!

Post #9: Some Infinities

I am at the point in new motherhood where I have started reading for leisure again. What this really means is that Brayden is at the point in his babyhood where he is finally sleeping through the night (most of the time). And so I (sometimes) have enough energy to read before bed!

Now, let me preface the rest of this post by saying it’s not very often that I find myself in the book recommendation business. This is probably because I usually read books that…

1)    I’m embarrassed to admit I like (ex: Hunger Games)

2)    can be turned into the screenplay of a romantic comedy (ex: Something Borrowed or virtually anything by Nicholas Sparks).

But, lo and behold, a quick, somewhat random purchase from the Amazon best-seller list was a book outside of these categories. And it was amazing! So, here I am, recommending it.

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, is an absolutely incredible novel. I’m no book critic, so I’m not quite sure how to describe it without giving everything away. Suffice it to say that it is deep without being difficult to understand, sad without being depressing, romantic without being cheesy, and inspiring without being cliché.  It is a love story of sorts, but also just a beautiful perspective of life (and death). Ultimately, the writing helped me to know the characters personally… and I loved them.

The author provides plenty of:

clever narrative…

“”I had a moral opposition to eating before dawn on the grounds that I was not a nineteenth-century Russian peasant fortifying myself for a day in the fields”

thought-provoking ideas…

“some infinities are bigger than other infinities”

lovely emotion-driven dialogue…

“You are so busy being you that you have no idea how utterly unprecedented you are.”

I guess if I were to select one of the overarching themes it would be, “To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world”. The characters in the story would consider this phrase an embroidery-worthy Encouragement. Regardless, it truly is a beautiful sentiment. One, I believe, that’s worth basing a story on. One worth leaving clean laundry unfolded and dirty dishes unwashed until it’s been read. Enjoy!

Post #8: You Lintlicker!

There are some great words in the English language. There are limitless combinations of ways to say what you need to say. Even many ‘bad’ words, in my opinion, have a time and a place. The thing is, however, you have to be careful in distinguishing the words you should use from the words you should admire from afar, leaving for literary experts to handle. A few that come to mind off my do-not-use list are: asinine, lackadaisical, conundrum. Great words. I know what they mean, but I couldn’t use them effortlessly in a sentence despite years of Shostak vocabulary practice with doing just that. Sometimes, handling a fabulous word incorrectly can make you look pretentious, or, in the case of swear words, downright ridiculous.

When I was teaching, I had strong censors in place on my language. Even with high-schoolers, it’s incredibly important to keep dialogue PG-rated, both to set a good example and to keep your job. The only F-words I used in my daily vocabulary were Factor, Fraction, and Formula. Occasionally on the weekends, in the comfort of my own home, I would let my guard down and let the bad words out. It’s like eating that one piece of chocolate (or two or three) when you are on a diet. You have to give yourself a little bit of freedom to be really successful. Despite my allowance of sorts, a week’s worth of choosing “Shucks!” over “Shit!” usually prevented me from using the latter altogether. In a sense, I forgot how to swear. Not that I ever really knew how…

Kevin will tell you that I am the world’s worst swearer. At least 93% of the time that swear conversationally for emphasis or to demonstrate conviction, I do so unsuccessfully. Then, in times when angry swearing is actually appropriate (if ever), I choke. Kevin has been there to witness this phenomenon twice, fortunately for him and unfortunately for me. In one case, it was in response to an unjustifiably angry bike-rider in Providence who called Kevin a “JACKASS!”*. The second was while confronting the grumpiest, rudest used-car-salesman I’ve ever met. In both cases, I blacked out. In my mind, I was launching an intelligent, profanity-infused verbal assault that highlighted my frustration while effectively putting my opponent in his place. The kind of spoken lashing that would make a person feel embarrassed by the actions that inspired my loaded words. What was actually happening, according to Kevin’s testimony is an entirely different story.  Apparently, I not only neglected to incorporate swears, but I also barely gave the impression that I was angry. I thought I was issuing a counterattack consistent with the dialogue and wit of Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting but it was actually more similar to that of Matt Damon in We Bought a Zoo. Polite, friendly, perhaps even apologetic. “Excuse me, Mister… this is all the result of a big misunderstanding… sorry if you feel that way… blah blah blah”. I refuse to admit that it was THAT bad. I mean, I was frustrated for having been treated with such disrespect. And that’s really all I could come up with?

Me: Come on, Kevin. You’re exaggerating.

Kevin: Ok, maybe you didn’t call him ‘Mister’… it might have been ‘Sir’.

So I’m bad at swearing and worse under the pressure of confrontational situations. But that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped trying. Especially since my hiatus from teaching began three Septembers ago, I catch myself dropping more and more f-bombs into every day speech. “That’s f-ing crazy!”, “Are you f-ing serious?” I’m sorry, English teachers of my past. I know that you taught me other, less offensive ways verbalize astonishment and disbelief. I blame this habit on my husband to whom the f-word is just a multi-functional part of grammar. And he’d probably blame this on hockey. Swearing in a hockey locker room, after all, is far more socially acceptable than swearing in a classroom. Plus, being from Southie, I think everyone expects him to talk like he’s from Southie. Because, let’s face it, everyone from Boston talks like they do in The Departed. And who is Kevin to un-do the stereotype?

So here’s the obvious problem: What sounds almost natural coming from a Boston accented hockey-player does not sound the same coming from a someone like me, a friendly, non-confrontational, math-teaching MOTHER. Brayden will soon be repeating every word I say, and so this has to stop!

Which is why, as part of my New Years’ Resolutions list, I am reverting back to my teacher-appropriate language. And because I am feeling ambitious and I hate procrastinating, I am starting it early. Today. On the eve of the New Year. No more swearing. I obviously don’t want my son to swear at all. But if he ever is going to swear, I want him to swear right. And he clearly isn’t going to learn how to do that from me.

* This man, by the way, is the world’s second worst-swearer in the world for using the word “Jackass!” and thinking it was an offensive word. What I should have said in response was “I’d rather be a Jackass than a Butthead, you Butthead!”

Post #7: Merry Christmas

Two years ago, we were in Italy. As we approached our first Christmas away from our families, my moping put the year's celebrations in jeopardy. I didn't know how to embrace the season without having our loved ones there to share it with. I was homesick and, embarrassing as it is to admit, prone to crying about it.  Fortunately, I snapped out of my pitiful state just in time to save Christmas. I baked cookies, watched Christmas movies, and streamed holiday classics through an internet radio station. We went to mass despite not understanding the language. I even whipped up some homemade cinnamon buns because I couldn’t find any Italian equivalent to Pillsbury.

While our families were thousands of miles and several time zones away, these small pieces of Christmases past helped establish the feeling of my favorite holiday of the year. From there, new elements were integrated into our holiday festivities like a brunch of make-ahead egg strata and an afternoon viewing of It's a Wonderful Life. Blending the old with the new, we have developed what I suppose could be considered our own little Christmas traditions. Traditions that will inevitably grow and change as does our own little family and its location.

This year was perfect proof of that. Having a baby to share in the magic of Christmas gave the holiday an entirely new dynamic. (It also inspired the addition of "family nap" to our holiday's agenda.) While Brayden opened his gifts munched on wrapping paper I couldn't help but be excited for him and simultaneously excited for myself as a parent. Though he doesn’t necessarily understand it yet, this Christmas marked his first of many that will likely be part of countless cherished memories. Small details from these celebrations of faith, love, and happiness will bring with them the feeling of “home”, like they have done for Kevin and I. And, I hope that he values them as much as we do. If he does, he will be able to bring the spirit of Christmas wherever he goes, much like Kevin and I do now.

So, until the day that our December includes the company of our families again, I will be incredibly grateful for Skype. And, I will continue to be thankful that we have so many loved ones worthy of being missed on the holidays (and every day for that matter). Families that have instilled in us the true meaning of the Christmas. We love you all!

Post #6: So it goes

I've heard the expression that "life goes on", but I've never heard that it stays the same. Because it doesn't... not for anyone feeling the aftershock of an event warranting the expression. Trauma changes us in varying degrees depending on how far we are removed from the point of impact. For the friends and families directly connected to the Sandy Hook tragedy, I know this change will be immeasurable. And with the strength of human empathy, I think we will all feel its affects in some capacity. I think we can all imagine, as painful as it is to do so, what that change will look like for those who lost their loved ones. But what will this change look like for for people at the farthest periphery of the tragedy's influence? Parents who have held their children a little closer this past week... Teachers who have had to discuss an incomprehensible reality with their students... Policymakers who have the responsibility to protect everyday citizens.  As with anything else, I think that only time will tell. But, tomorrow, as we all pay tribute in our own ways to the lives lost, I hope we can consider where we want to go from here in how we view the world, live our lives, and value the lives of others. And I hope it's in the direction of love.

In the words of Martin Luther King, Jr.:

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral,
begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.

Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.

Through violence you may murder the liar,
but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth.

Through violence you may murder the hater,
but you do not murder hate.

In fact, violence merely increases hate.
So it goes.

Returning violence for violence multiplies violence,
adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.

May we hold on to the love for those who died. And may they be remembered as stars, casting a glimmer of light through this darkness.