Cravings and Ravings

As a service to Men The World Over, I am going to attempt to describe what it feels like to be a woman in the early part of the Third Trimester of pregnancy – a joyous, exciting time to be sure, and yes, the beginning of the home stretch.  But it’s also a taxing, difficult time that tries our reserves of mother love for a person we’ve yet to even meet.

What inspired this post?  An offhand comment by a friend of mine – whose wife is also pregnant with #2 – and my own husband’s reactions suggest that you men, you fabulous lovely men without whom we could not be participating in this miraculous process, have No Clue.

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AGGGGH!  In an attempt to stop the food-wasting that seems an inevitable by-product of the Toddler Years, I’ve taken to making half-quesadillas.  It’s one of several strategies, but it was the one that pleased me most, probably because Kyd usually eats about half of a quesadilla before he gets picky.  So it seemed perfect.

Until tonight, when Kyd refused to eat any quesadilla until the other half appeared.

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My husband is busy at work, so he may not tune in to see this.  But I was marching home from the library today, and thinking about how lucky I really am in my choice of a partner.

I’m not the sentimental type, and I’m not a fan of sentimental typing.  So this won’t be the kind of blog post to catalog along with the letters of Napoleon and Josephine.  And that’s just it – I think I’ve got the right person in my life, God willing, until the very end.

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I’ll confess:  my first few months out of the workforce were jarring.  Depressing.  I felt lost, overwhelmed by my responsibilities to home, hearth and the next generation.  

It’s something I still experience on a regular basis – a longer for something to do that is purposeful and intellectually challenging.  

Then there are the shoes and the clothes.  I miss having a reason to put on skirts and jackets and heels and look like a grown-up – a powerful, capable, competent grown-up professional version of my self.

But with the passing of time, I’ve found that there’s much to be said for having free time to attend to household chores.  Here’s my list of ten things that are good about my status as temporary hausfrau:

1. Home repairs are a minor irritation, not a schedule-busting nightmare.  Our front door jammed the other day.  My husband fussed and fumed about how “they” had to come fix it.  It took two phone calls and the better part of a morning, but they did indeed come fix it.  The phone calls didn’t need to be jammed in between meetings, and when the door repairman showed up nearly an hour later than promised, I didn’t have to recalendar my afternoon.  
2. Jimdear and I don’t argue about who is going to do what.  While he occasionally fusses at me that something isn’t done, for the most part, it’s my job and it happens in space and time that he doesn’t see – or have to think about.  Some of our biggest arguments used to be about who, exactly, was going to find a roofer, arrange to meet him and negotiate for the repairs.  Most of the time the answer was simply that we lived with leaky pipes, crumbling steps and disintegrating roof tiles until it was a Crisis That Permitted Time Off from Work.
3. Clean sheets, clean towels, clean clothes.  I’m not a master of the domestic arts, but I’ve figured out how to get the laundry done.  No more dressing ourselves out of the dryer or falling asleep on stinky pillowcases.
4. Dust bunnies, be gone!  While dusting is still the kind of thing that bedevils me – didn’t I just do it? – I’m getting the hang of figuring out how often and with what tools.  Yes, our house still has dust.  But I feel like I’m winning the war without even noticing it – it’s really about learning to be efficient.
5. No more last minute shopping runs.  Whatever it is, we have it.  Okay, that’s not universally true.  I don’t always know, for example, what my husband wants to snack on.  Nor can I anticipate needs of which I am uninformed.  But if I’m aware of it, I take care of it.
6. No more lost objects.  The other night I had to scramble to find our camera.  Something like this has not happened in months.  (I’d stashed it in a bag when I was schlepping toys through the garage because of the broken front door – otherwise, I’d have never not returned it to its proper place.)
7. Food, glorious food.  I’m not the most inventive or skilled chef, but we do eat – home-cooked, reasonably healthy food – most of the time.  That was certainly not something we did when we both worked.
8. Time for family.  We don’t make it to every family gathering.  My (childless) aunt dropped me a note about an event I’d missed and I thought, “Huh?”  Because there was no way a heavily pregnant woman with a toddler in tow could’ve gone – or would’ve enjoyed the gathering.  But we’re going to a family reunion this weekend, an event we’d never have attended if not for the free time that makes traveling on the weekend seem like a treat rather than a chore.
9. Time for neighbors.  We like our neighbors.  We know their names and their kids’ names and their dogs’ names.  We feel like we’re part of the community.  That’s huge.
10. Organization.  This is both the least and the most of it – a feeling that bills are paid, repairs are dealt with, supplies are purchased, our house is a functional, comfortable space free of clutter and craziness.  It means that I can do things, little things – like take digital photos, download them to my laptop, edit them and send them to my in-laws’ digital photo frame – without feeling like I’ve just sacrificed my last ten free minutes.  I know where everything is, and I have the systems set up to do so.

All of this makes me fear returning to the workplace full-time.  I want it, I crave it – I do.  And I will – it’s kind of like knowing that the sun will rise.  But I fear that feeling of being pulled into tiny pieces, and I wonder if Jimdear will pick up any of the slack.  Because it isn’t that we both did these things beforehand – for the most part, they were simply undone or done poorly.

I’m wasting my life away sitting here at home.  But I’m strangely glad that someone is doing it.

Jimdear and I are Not Happy With Each Other.  Some of it is probably just the irritation that comes from bouncing around the same space – inevitably, there are days when your better half seems like The Source of the Problem rather than the Love of Your Life.

But we had a particularly telling disagreement last night.  Jimdear accused me of making rules for rules’ sake.

I’m not sure he’s wrong, but on the heels of Daddy Says Yes, But You Say No, I’m feeling undermined.  The simple truth is that while I love my husband and want him home with us whenever possible, Kyd is far more obedient and docile when it’s just the two of us.  Don’t get me wrong – he’s still playful and spirited, sometimes difficult, occasionally impossible.  But mostly, we understand each other.  I know when to pay attention because he needs me.  He knows not to bother with a lot of extracurricular fussing because I don’t respond.

But Daddy – Daddy who has such a precious little chunk of time with his son – cannot bear to hear crying.

This means, of course, that he hears it far more than I ever do.

Last night’s argument was whether train tracks belong in the living room.  If you saw the compact space that serves as our living/dining/kitchen area, or knew Jimdear and Kyd’s track records for cleaning up toys, well … you’d understand why I’m adamant about keeping them upstairs save for very special occasions.  Wednesday night did not qualify, and so I said no.

Kyd fussed, cried and was calming down – about three minutes of toddler storm – when Daddy walked in the door.

Cue the waterworks.  All of a sudden, Kyd was more hysterical than when I’d first said no.

Despite the sliver of time left before bath and bed, Jimdear quickly responded to the situation and ended by bringing down train tracks.  In fairness, they did return them to their container at evenings’ end – but they left the container in the living room.

Jimdear and I know that we grew up in very different families.  For him, “no” was the default answer.  For me, “sure, whatever,” was the likely response.  And, as parents, we agreed to meet in the middle – I had craved boundaries; he had flailed in his too-tight space.  

But we’d forgotten to allow for the very canny observations of a toddler, a toddler who can sense our weaknesses and knows which parent is likely to respond to which tactics.  I suspect Kyd is playing me when he indulges in a long, rational conversation about why he ought to have his way.  And I can watch him turn on the vulnerable for Daddy’s benefit.

Loving your children is important, but somehow managing to not hate your partner is probably even more essential.  Because even when you think you’re on the same page?  Odds are that those other little hands can flip you forward a chapter before you even notice.

It’s a twist on the Beatles song … you say hello, I say good-bye.  Only it’s coming out of the mouth of my 21st century babe, and Kyd is pouting at me.

While I’m a pretty laid-back parent, I do have Rules.  One of my rules is that my son must get dressed, even if we have no plans for the day.  When you live in a densely-pack just-shy-of-urban place, neighbors knock on your door.  And when you have a mercurial 3 y.o. who will decide that yes, now is when he wants to ride his trike, well … I don’t want to stop and fuss about sartorial considerations.

Apparently, my husband lets our son go outside in his “jammy pants,” a collection of disreputable bottoms that include two-size-two-small sweats with holes at the knees.

Sigh.

Part of me looks at my bright, capable husband and wonders.  He has been known to feed our son nothing but orange juice and peanut butter cookies while I slept in.  (His excuse?  We were out of eggs, and Kyd didn’t want waffles.)  He once sent our child to school in grey shorts and brown sandals.  They’ve been known to watch hours upon hours of sporting events together, my husband never once thinking that it might not be brilliant to let our tot veg in front of the tube.  (I get guilt after an episode of Sesame Street and anxiety after a Pixar flick.)  

But mostly, he’s an extraordinarily committed and involved parent who takes real joy in spending time with his son.  They’ve been close since the second Kyd left my womb for Daddy’s arms while the doctor stitched up my c-section incision.  

And I know precisely why Jimdear says yes when I say no – because he’s not around as often, and he wants, very much wants to say yes.

My husband also grew up in a strict, sometimes joyless, household.  His parents are immigrants.  They were – and remain – alternately charmed, horrified and baffled by American culture.  The fact that their birth country has changed so radically since they’ve left also shakes their ability to steer a clear course.  He’s correcting for a childhood where he heard “no” almost all the time, and didn’t have regular access to doting grandparents and aunts to make up for it.  He’s not lawless, and he can be more fiercely disappointed than I am when our son acts up.

Still, it’s not fun realizing that you’re gonna be the heavy – probably right into the college years.  My own parents were permissive to the point that I craved a boundary or two, and pushed until I got them.  When he’s with me and the Court of Appeals (aka Daddy) is not available, Kyd generally puts away his toys, dresses himself, brushes his own teeth and behaves like a civilized 3-going-on 4 y.o.  Enter Daddy, and all of a sudden, he needs help.  With everything.

So what can I say?  It’s little surprise that we’ve taken on the roles that we have, and I suspect that Kyd thrives with our slightly conflicting, but mostly similar, approaches to daily decision-making.

They’re outside my office window now, waving.  They’ve just been to the corner store.  Wonder what Daddy said yes to this time?

Lucky creature than I am, both of my pregnancies have been planned, more or less as hoped.  With my first, my pregnancy overlapped with a professional phase so demanding and hectic that I barely had time to think about the baby, much less worry.

This time around, I am at leisure to fret.  Over the past seven months, I have been convinced that:

• I am going to miscarry;
• I am going to gain too much weight;
• I am going to test positive for gestational diabetes;
• The ultrasound will suggest Down’s Syndrome;
• My blood work will suggest that I have a life-threatening disease, somehow missed by my thorough physical and gynecological exams in the months before trying to conceive, that will threaten my pregnancy.

And that’s only a partial list.  So far, I’m having a Perfectly Healthy Pregnancy, free of most complications.  The only tiny hiccup was testing positive for Group B strep – trifling if properly diagnosed, potentially life-threatening if overlooked.  But having tested positive, it’s a fairly minor issue to address.

Still, I am plagued by fears that my daughter will be Not Healthy.  Damaged.  She will suffer.  They can’t see it, but it’s there – lurking beneath the surface.  Some flaw, some weakness that I can’t prevent or treat or help.

I get what this is.  When my son came home, I hadn’t a clue how very fragile a newborn seems.  Now that he’s a hale and hearty toddler who bounces off the sidewalks and leaps off benches, it’s hard to imagine protecting a vulnerable little bean again.  And, of course, I’m an optimistic worrywart – sunshine on the outside, class 8 hurricanes brewing beneath the surface.  Unless you know me well, you won’t see a tremor of panic, but oh baby, is it there!  Earlier in my pregnancy, I had nightmares of fleeing invading armies with two small children in tow.  And worse.

The reality of parenting two small people can be overwhelming, and it seems more sane to freak about things medical than those related to widespread global catastrophe.  I know people, after all, who have endured difficult pregnancies and faced uncertain diagnoses with their children.  It’s more real – and more realistic a fear – than rioting in the streets.

I think.

And so while I worry about where we’ll put the crib, whether we’ll have the right number of size newborn onesies, whether to cloth diaper or use slightly-less-dreadful Seventh Generation disposables, I also try to block out the darkest shadows.  But they’re there, ghosting through the corners of my mind, waiting for a quiet moment to strike.