Free-Range Weirdo

There has been a whole bunch of yelling on the Internet this week, ever since Time magazine posted a very provocative cover asking “Are You Mom Enough?”

To that, I say: Fuck you and the horse you rode in on, Time magazine.

Am I “mom enough?” FUCK YEAH I AM MOM ENOUGH.

I’m not a researcher when it comes to Life Things. I trust myself, is what it boils down to. I have instincts and intuition and whatever else you want to call it, but I generally trust myself to make the right decision when it comes to Life Things. Well, I do NOW. 20 years ago, not so much.

But that’s kind of it – I made all the wrong decisions when I was younger. ALL of them. I frequently went against my own instincts and my own hunches and listened to the wrong people about what was best for me. To put it mildly, that did not work well.

So, over the years I learned to trust myself. I’m pretty smart, despite all appearances. I still make mistakes, but I do okay most of the time.

When it came time to think about maybe having a baby, I didn’t do jack shit as far as research goes. I didn’t have time, actually. We went from “maaaybe this isn’t a bad idea” to “oh, look: two lines means positive” in two weeks. I mean that absolutely literally. We had JUST started talking about maybe thinking about perhaps considering pulling the goalie. FIRST TRY! It’s the only time in my whole life I’ve been an over-achiever.

While I was pregnant, I used exactly ONE book as my advice-giver. Freddie had purchased a copy of What To Expect When You’re Expecting and I got SO ANNOYED by the tone in which it is written that I threw it across the room. That book is a piece of shit. Ask me about it sometime – I have a good 5-minute stand-up routine about how awful it is.

Instead, I used The Pregnancy Book, by Dr. Sears. This is, surprisingly, my kind of book. It was clear, no-nonsense advice and information about what was happening inside my body. It reminded me to stop drinking (I did), eat better (if you count buffalo chicken and Ben & Jerry’s Vermonty Python as health food, that is) and take my vitamins (I… failed at that).

Since I was so happy with The Pregnancy Book, I got a copy of The Baby Book and spent a few afternoons reading through it in hopes that SOME of the information would sink in before the monster arrived. It’s being touted as the “Attachment Parenting Bible” and whatnot, which… it is, and it isn’t.

Granted, some of it seemed a little extreme, such as the fairly obnoxious hanmmering home of the point that breastfeeding is the bestest bestest bestest thing ever and don’t even CONSIDER formula unless your boobs literally fall off of your body. It’s been awhile and I have long since passed that book along so the details are a bit fuzzy, but… there is a whole section about how Mrs Dr Sears managed to breast-feed their adopted daughter.

That’s… that’s hardcore, y’all.

I agree that breastfeeding is the absolute best thing you can do for a baby. That’s what boobs are FOR, after all. It’s what my body is designed to do. And holy shit, breastfeeding is the best thing EVER for a Slacker Mom such as myself. No mixing of bottles, heating up bottles, washing and sterilizing bottles! Just whip out Right and stick the kid on it! SLACKER MOM FTW.

The other Big Thing that Dr Sears loves is the co-sleeping. I knew from Day 1 that THAT wasn’t happening. On the surface, you’d think the Slacker Mom would looooove the co-sleeping. That, for me, was not the case. You have to make sure the kid is positioned correctly, either with a co-sleeping dingus that attaches to or rolls right up against your bed, or maybe have a bassinet in your room or… whatever. I knew I wasn’t going to be doing that so I didn’t pay attention. At first, it was because Freddie still had to get up and go to work every day and he is grumpy as fuck if he doesn’t get enough sleep. Having a baby in the room would disrupt ALL of us, not just me. So it was easier all around to put her in her crib in her own room and hook up the baby monitor.

I won’t lie – that arrangement sucked balls, especially the first 6-8 weeks. IT SUCKED MY BALLS because I was recovering from a c-section and found myself having to get up 35 times a night to stick a boob into the gaping maw of the Screamy Thing.

Things improved when I made Freddie buy me a TV for the baby’s room. Conan O’Brien became my late-night boyfriend and I watched my Monty Python collection during the day. It’s not surprising to me that when Jillian first started talking, she had a bit of a British accent.

The third Attachment Parenting Tent Pole is “babywearing.” Now… this is kind of not my thing at all. We had a Baby Bjorn and some other wacky sling thing, and the kid hated both of them to the point that she would punch HERSELF in the face in order to get out of it.

Granted, that kid hated a lot of things. But the babywearing never really worked for me. The c-section fucked up my core strength (and six years down the road, I am FINALLY making progress in that area) and standing for long periods of time with a very active tiny Tae-Bo enthusiast was not on. She didn’t mind being carried around, but the minute we tried to wrap her up in something, she would turn into a cat. Have you ever tried to put a cat in a box? Yeah, that.

Out of the Three Major Biggies in AP, I managed to half-assedly do exactly one of them. And even then, I didn’t quite make it to the 1-year “recommended” mark for breastfeeding, much less the extended breastfeeding that Dr Sears really likes to go on about. I made it to 8.5 months, and then she bit me with her wee chompers and that was pretty much THAT. Do I feel “guilty” because I didn’t reach this arbitrary one-year benchmark? No, not at all. I was ready to have my body back. I wanted to be a ME again, instead of a WE. I was ready to be a person again, not just a food source. Ending our nursing relationship was a conscious choice I made, and I felt fine about it then, and I feel fine about it now.

Unfortunately, because I wasn’t working and had no reason to pump or build up a stash of breastmilk (too much effort for a Slacker Mom), once Jillian stopped nursing, my milk production ended and we did switch her to formula for the rest of that first year. What a pain in my ass THAT was. There is so much out there about correctly cleaning and sanitizing and boiling the water first and all that shit when it comes to formula or YOUR BABY WILL DIE. Um. We live in a fairly advanced society – the warnings are a little over-the-top, are they not? I washed baby bottles in the dishwasher (or by hand, if it was too much work to empty the clean dishes out of the dishwasher first. What? IT HAPPENS), used lukewarm tap water, and mixed up formula that way. I don’t think I ever heated up a bottle, which probably accounts for Jillian’s preference for lukewarm food.

NEWSFLASH: Jillian lived!

My friend Avi posted about how Attachment Parenting is the “lazy mom’s” best friend. I agree with her on most points, except for the cloth diapering thing. Disposable diapers, friends. That is the Slacker Mom’s best friend. Cloth diapers are cute and good for the environment (unless they’re not because of the water used and extra laundry blahblahblah – as with co-sleeping, I knew right away that I wasn’t doing cloth diapers), but the laundry. THE LAUNDRY.

Cloth diaper people claim that it’s not that much more laundry. Maybe it isn’t, but I do not enjoy the laundry. Right now I am looking at three hampers and a basket, all overflowing with clean laundry that needs to be folded and put away. They’ve been sitting there since Thursday and will likely still be there on Monday. Keep in mind that I am a stay-at-home mom with only one child. There is no reason why I can’t get the laundry folded except for the fact that I DO NOT LIKE TO DO IT. I knew this about myself when I was pregnant, so I knew cloth diapers were not for me.

So, back to that Time magazine cover. Pardon my French, but that cover photo is FUCKING RETARDED. Yes, we’re not supposed to use the R-word but it really does fit here. It’s retarded in that it is SLOWING PROGRESS. It’s a step back. It is unnecessarily inflammatory and exists solely to sell a shitty magazine that hasn’t been relevant in years. Whoever came up with the idea for it is a fucking genius, though. When was the last time you looked at or gave a shit about Time magazine?

It’s a slap in the face, honestly. It’s a slap in the face and a big “fuck you” to every mom who is just doing her very best. Moms get shit on from all sides, and this photo does not help. My first reaction to seeing it was dismay. DISMAY. I may have even groaned because ugh, SO UNNECESSARY. I hate it. I hate everything about it. Mostly, I hate it because it exploits something that is basically NORMAL. Extended breastfeeding wasn’t for me, but it’s not weird or gross or abnormal or something to giggle at or whatever the hell reaction people are having to that photo (Jason Good puts the discomfort into very smart words). It makes the job of moms who are DOING THEIR BEST just that much harder. It’s a step back. It’s retarded.

Attachment Parenting isn’t for everyone. In fact, I have huge issues with this need to label one’s parenting style. I mean, what the fuck is that about? It’s a kid. Pay attention to it. Common sense will tell you what you need to know about keeping it alive. Done and done. I’d write a book about it but it really does boil down to “pay attention to your kid and trust your instincts.”

Do women do this? Not as much as one might think. There are scads of books and websites out there chock-full of information about what is “right.” Not necessarily what is “best” but what is RIGHT. BZZZT. Wrong answer. There’s not a lot of “right” and “wrong” when it comes to babies. I mean, there are obvious things, like don’t stick it in the washing machine and feed it occasionally (the common sense stuff), but the breast vs bottle debate (for example)? IS BULLSHIT. Do what is best for your baby. YOUR BABY. Not my baby, not the baby down the street, but YOUR BABY. Done and done, no discussion needed.

See what I did there? No discussion needed. I could end the “mommy wars” with this revolutionary knowledge.

We should have more Slacker Moms. More Lazy Moms. More moms who don’t give a fuck what other people think about their parenting and just get on with it. More moms who pay attention to their kids and become adept at reading the kid’s cues and signals to divine what the baby needs (ooh, ATTACHMENT PARENTING STRIVES FOR THIS VERY GOAL OH MY GOD THE UNIVERSE IS A CIRCLE). We should have more moms who can RELAX and chill the fuck out and hand the baby over to Daddy or whatever you choose to call your co-parent, if you have one.

Now that The Jillian is about to turn six, my parenting challenges have mutated. I’m still as much of a Slacker Mom as ever, and I’m sure I will continue to be. The social requirements of a school-aged kid are my biggest obstacle to really slacking as much as I’d like to. I come in contact with all sorts of different moms with different parenting styles than my own, and while I roll my eyes at some of them (I have a 10-minute stand-up routing about the ones who are fanatical about the hand sanitizer gel, for instance), most of them are doing pretty okay. I always ask “do you hang out on any ‘parenting websites’ or do you read any particular parenting books?” And the answer is generally “I don’t have time for that.”

Exactly. I’m busy enough hanging out with my kid to read about the 400 different ways I’m likely fucking up her life for her. We don’t over-think it. We don’t do much research here. We are Slackers.

I treat the garden like I treat everything else (including thishere blog) – benign neglect.

Works for me. I mean, you should see the rosebush I planted last year. People say roses are super-hard to grow and there is a lot of literature on how to do it, what to spray on them, how to water them, etc. So I planted mine without any real high hopes that it was going to survive my half-assed gardening, much less the driest winter New Jersey has seen in years.

Imagine my surprise when spring rolled around and the rosebush FREAKING EXPLODED with roses. It went insane, it really did. Benign neglect for the win!

Unfortunately, now we have to dig up the azaleas because the rosebush was placed in front of them and it’s not a good look for anyone. Freddie is constantly going on about how it was a mistake to put the roses where they are and I am constantly replying with “I DIDN’T THINK IT WOULD LIVE.”

On the other side of the garden, we have this bush thing that we put in last year. I forget entirely what it’s called, but the leaves are green and white and in the spring the new growth is a pale pink. It’s v. pretty. Again – we planted it, kept up with our half-assed watering (in a drought!) and didn’t really think it would live, MUCH LESS THRIVE. This thing is out of control, basically. I love it.

This weekend will likely see the digging and mulching of the front garden. I want to put in more plants, but I’m not sure the budget will allow that at the moment. I might stick some seeds in and see what happens, though.

It had been too quiet. Usually, if we neglect to let the cat out of the basement (he is banished at night until he is neutered), he will announce his displeasure by rattling the door and banging on the furnace ducts. Yesterday, however, there was none of that.

That’s not terribly unusual – sometimes he finds a spider to eat or a hidey-hole to snooze in. But last night, before bed, I went down to make sure he had food and water and all that and he didn’t come out to greet me.

Uh oh.

Last weekend, we’d gone into the crawlspace because he had been pooping in there and it needed to be cleaned. After cleaning up the poo, I sprayed the area with bleach because EW. I was hoping the eye-searing bleach fumes would keep his crazy ass from going back there, but I was wrong.

I’d cracked the basement windows a tiny bit so the bleach fumes didn’t kill us all, but Carl is apparently STRONG LIKE OX and was able to open one of the windows all the way, enlarge or create a hole in the screen, and escape.

Oh SHIT.

Despite my physical therapist threatening to amputate my legs above the knee for doing this, I crawled up there and all the way back to the window. Sure enough, there was a Carl-sized hole with ginger hairs attached. ACTIVATE FREAKOUT MODE!!

Where was my cat? It was raining out there! Was he okay? Was he still in the backyard? How long had he been gone? Freddie and I went out to the backyard with flashlights to see if we could pick up clues or find our wee cat boy, but to no avail. Freddie then drove around the neighborhood a bit (in the pitch dark rain) but Carl was not sitting on a curb anywhere, waiting for a ride.

FREAKOUT!

How would I explain to Jillian that we lost her best friend? I honestly didn’t think he would escape because those windows are freaking difficult to open and it wasn’t open more than an inch! WHAT A JERK. A strong jerk.

I emailed the neighbors and told them to keep an eye out and to let me know immediately if they found Carl or saw him or anything. Then I put up a quick ad on Craigslist. Then I fretted. And fretted some more. And cried a little bit.

Eventually, I realized there was literally nothing else I could do until morning, so I headed up to bed and fell into a very troubled sleep.

About an hour later, I woke up to hear Freddie say “Is this your cat?” He was standing there HOLDING CARL!!!!!!

Freddie has some kind of freaky superhero hearing (unless I’m speaking to him, then he becomes magically deaf). He heard some cats yowling outside and went out to check. In his boxers. Sure enough, there was Carl trying desperately to get back in the window from which he escaped. There was another cat with him – a black and white kitty I’ve been seeing around the neighborhood. I wonder if that cat would have come inside as well, or if it was a street cat that picked up our Carl and took care of him while he was out in the Big World.

Anyway, Freddie snatched him up and brought him inside. Carl was wet and bedraggled and FILTHY and bleeding from his back paw. We wrapped him in a towel and checked him out as best we could and he is all right. The cut on his back foot wasn’t serious and stopped bleeding overnight, and he is happily purring on top of the clean laundry that I need to fold.

Whew.

People complain about their lives being boring. But look at the alternative: you could be looking for a lost cat so you don’t have to explain to your 5-year-old daughter than her best friend is missing. You could be at the hospital, watching your wife die of cancer. You could be praying that the car will start in the morning so you can get to work.

A boring life is the greatest luxury in the world. I’m glad to have one.

After a few false starts and a whole bunch of yelling about the insurance, I finally started physical therapy for my knee(s). The arthritis is a thing, yes, but the main issue is my lack of core strength, which is no surprise to me at all. I know full well I have a weak core!

I have a series of exercises I’m to do, twice a day in addition to whatever else I would normally do at the gym. I have carte blanche to hit the elliptical as much as I want, which is good news because without that, I don’t really have any cardio options.

I AM STILL NOT ALLOWED TO RUN.

I’m also not allowed to do squats or lunges (the PT said lunges are terrible for you) or anything that will put stress on my knees above and beyond a normal day of doing shit. I am also supposed to pay very close attention to how I stand when I’m just standing around somewhere. I have a terrible tendency to shift my weight to one side which is bad bad bad so I have to focus on keeping my weight square on both feet. IT FEELS SO WEIRD.

So that’s where we are. I am still going to put in my application for the NYC marathon, because I have 6 months to build up to it and even if I walk the whole fucking thing, I should be able to finish it well within the time frame of 8.5 hours. That’ll be fun.

I went to the doctor last Monday to discuss my MRI results. As we figured, it’s arthritis under my patella, which means I have a few options.

Option 1: Physical Therapy. Not what I was hoping (I am notoriously bad at following through on such things), but it’s definitely the most reasonable option at the moment. I will likely start that after next week, which is Jillian’s spring break. I’m to do PT for a month and then head to the doctor again to see what’s happening there.

Option 2: Surgery. While my “fix it now” bones are tickled by this option, it’s not terribly practical, due to the recovery time and all that jazz. Also, if I’m going to do it, I might as well do both knees at once (but that will mean going through the whole x-ray/MRI process on my right knee as well). It’s also fairly expensive, and while insurance will likely pick up quite a bit of it, our insurance sucks ass and it will be quite the fight to get them to pay on time.

Option 3: Honestly, this is where I tuned out a bit because he said “injection” and my brain just refuses to even go there. Apparently, there is a procedure wherein they take some fat from your body and do some voodoo to it and inject it into the knee. Errrrr, um. No. It’s not covered by insurance and isn’t a long-term solution anyway.

So… physical therapy it is! The doctor thinks that some PT to work on getting my leg muscles to do what they’re supposed to do and some weight loss (WORKING ON IT, SHEESH) will help this problem of mine be more manageable. Because it’s not exactly going away.

Sigh.

So here we are at Zero. Starting from scratch, essentially, since I haven’t been allowed to run for nearly four months. It’s daunting, the thought of how much work I will have to do to reach these goals I’ve set for myself. Hell, the amount of work I will need to do to simply get withing SIGHT of the goals is a little overwhelming when I think about it.

I won’t think about it.

I will set tiny goals.

Tiny Goal #1: Go to physical therapy.

Tiny Goal #2: Continue with cardio training on the elliptical and spin bike.

Tiny Goal #3: [depending on PT restrictions] more weight training

Tiny Goal #4: Continue and improve eating habits. I’m not doing too badly at the moment but there is room for improvement.

Tiny Goal #5: End-of-May 5K.

I have finally admitted to myself that my half-assed self-taught knitting technique is not going to work for the Union Jack armwarmers that I so desperately want to make. I think I can rejigger the pattern to make them crocheted, which will be fine, but I will have to do a couple of tests to see.

The problem is that I am just not good at multi-color knitting. Either I am missing something entirely or the Fair Isle technique is just totally beyond me. I’m not sure. I wanted to avoid cutting the various yarns because I am not a fan of the weaving in of the ends. I can never relax because I always think they’re going to unravel eventually, and what if I get 80% of the way through it and mess up to the point where it needs to be frogged? Then I’m left with a billion wee pieces of yarn that I can’t really re-knit.

We’ll have to have a think on that while we experiment with the crochet.

In other news, I am itching for a new project. I have a shitload of random yarn that isn’t earmarked for anything (aside from the Harris yarn, which will be socks… someday [SORRY MOM! PROCRASTINATORS WILL RULE THE WORLD SOMEDAY]), and I’ve had a couple of ideas swirling around the creative neighborhood in my head… I just need to get them on paper and designed and then see what happens.

1. I’d like to make a crocheted/knit purse in the exact style of my kilt purse, which I love as if it were my child. I also have big plans to find a couple of pleated skirts and try to make one on my own but that will require thrift-store trolling and I’m not sure where to start with that. Time is my enemy most days.

2. I’d love to knit something mathy – I found instructions for knitting a hyperbolic plane, which might be fun, and I’ve been throwing around the idea of a fractal afghan but I don’t know if that would be interesting enough visually at the size I’m willing to crochet.

3. I wonder if it’s possible to knit a decent optical illusion. I have played with this concept a little bit by using colors that just… don’t go. The pink and purple I used for Jill’s blanket are lovely on their own, but together… ack! I forget the term for two colors that do that. I have put in an email to My Art Expert and if I explained myself well enough, she will be able to answer that for me.

I think I’m going to acquire a jump-rope.

I cannot find my graph paper.

None of my knitting projects are ever going to be completed, so I might as well start a new one.

I should get my sewing machine out.

I need to play my guitar more.

Also saxophone.

And flute.

And clarinet.

There is a whole tie-dye kit downstairs that needs to be used.

I’d like to paint more.

I wish I had the skills to paint a mural in the hallway.

Coffee.

My next doctor appointment is March 26th. That is when he will say “yep, you have arthritis in both knees. Here’s what we can do about it.”

I really hope he doesn’t say “never run again” because that would mean a serious overhaul of my goals. And then I would be sad. My hope is that there will be a combination of drugs and physical therapy (if needed) and maybe a recommendation of new/different shoes that I can try to help minimize the pain and prevent further damage.

Granted, arthritis is what it is and it’s not going away, exactly, but if I can slow it down, I will be a happy lady.

So. Once that appointment is out of the way, I will put in for the NYC Marathon. There is no way in hell I will be in any kind of shape to RUN the stupid thing this November, but chances are I could walk it fairly successfully. IF I am cleared to start running, then the plan is to go extremely slow and increase time/distance at a ridiculously low rate. Sigh.

Still. I have to fit 140.6 miles into 17 hours. Swimming is coming along and will improve as soon as I get a coach (I KNOW I KNOW I KNOW), and then the only major thing left is to acquire a bike and start riding it. Which means I have to get myself to the bike shop and get measured so I can start shopping and working it into the budget. Even if I end up walking half of the marathon portion (looks likely), I think I can do it. If I can do the swim in under two hours (reasonable), then the bike in 6 or 6.5 (reasonable), I still have about 8-ish hours to drag my ass through a marathon.

Lucky for me, I’ve got time on my side. I have 3 years to go before I turn 40, so even if I don’t do an Ironman in 2013, there is still 2014 open to me. I have time. Better yet, in the fall, The Jillian will be in school full-time so even my “I don’t have enough non-kid time to train” excuse will be gone. That is an almost unheard-of luxury in this day and age and I am determined to take full advantage of it. I will have 7 full hours available to me, 5 days a week. If I don’t use that time for training, then someone needs to come over and smack me upside the head.

I drink a lot of coffee. A LOT. Way more than is considered “normal” or even “healthy” by whatever the standard du jour happens to be.

Thus, I go through A LOT of Brand Name Chemical Coffee “Creamer” Sludge, preferably in the Peppermint Mocha form. The default used to be the French Vanilla “flavor” and I would buy gallons of the Peppermint Mocha during the holidays when it was out. Then I discovered that it’s available ALL YEAR and well, damn. Granted, I have to go to the Other Grocery Store to get it, but that’s a small price to pay for a happy [strike]cup[/strike] pot of coffee.

I am perfectly okay with the amount of coffee I consume. I learned long ago that caffeine doesn’t affect me the same way it affects most people – I don’t get jittery and wired up. If anything, it keeps me on a more even keel than I otherwise might be on. As a migraine sufferer, I’ve found that a couple of days without a pot or three of coffee is a bad, bad thing.

Sure, that’s probably withdrawal, but my own personal experience is that I haven’t had regular migraines in years – coinciding rather nicely with my daily pot o’coffee. Lots of migraine meds contain caffeine, so According To Science, what I’m doing is just fine.

Anyway, given how much coffee I drink, it stands to reason that I go through a proportionate amount of Coffee Sludge. This is why I buy it six bottles at a time. When I run out, BAD THINGS HAPPEN. One thing that bothers me about The Sludge is that there is usually a perfectly respectable amount of it left in the bottle, but, it being Chemicals and Whatever Else, it clings to the bottle and settles in the bottom a little bit.

This will not do. Mama needs her coffee, and there is at least a cup’s worth of sludge hiding out there. So, since I have always been resourceful and am working hard at being thrify (-er), I poured a bit of coffee into the bottle, shook it up, and added the whole mess to my cup.

Not all junkies are stupid and lazy!

Do this.

Go here.

Click this.

Read that.

Listen to this.

Donate to that.

Go here to help there.

Pay attention.

Ignore.

…the list of things about which people want me to care about is very long. The list of things I actually care about is very short.

It gets overwhelming, at times. And while passion is a good thing, the knowledge that not everyone shares it is even better. I have my own things that I care about. That doesn’t mean your things are less important, but they for sure are less important to me. This doesn’t make either of us a bad person.

…

I was thinking today about re-reading both Brave New World and 1984. If I can locate my copies of both books, I might read them concurrently, since they are basically about the exact same thing, examined from different angles. Orwell warned us that the things we despise would eventually do us in, while Huxley’s argument is that the things we embrace will be our eventual downfall.

Huxley is winning his argument, at the moment. I’m inclined to agree with the man, personally. We live in a culture of mass distraction and it’s wrecking us. The US is fighting at least two unwinnable wars against a shadowy, nebulous enemy and we’re about to start a 3rd. Even 50 years ago, there would be rioting in the streets and protests and pushback from the people.

Instead, what makes the news? Stories about some realty-show character getting pregnant. Some celebrity’s kid was seen maybe perhaps wearing lipstick. A singer died in a hotel room. These things get the 24-hour coverage, and while we look the other way, people die.

Interesting.

So, what to care about? Me, I’m gonna take care of my family and my home and maybe plant a garden that I will try to nurture. Then we’ll see.