My Happiest Baby is the One I Have Had the Least to Do With

When Erez was born back in February, I was a little worried. After the relatively relaxed and blissful week long stay in the hospital, we transitioned home, and he almost immediately started exhibiting colicky behaviors. He would cry for hours on end and there was little I could do to console him. I would walk/bounce him around the house, make soft shush-shush noises in his ears, give him gripe water, gas drops, and whatever else I could find that would possibly offer my boy a little solace.

As it turns out, it was a formula issue. I felt guilty enough for not breast-feeding my baby boy, having breastfed my other two kids. Knowing that formula was giving him serious issues and discomfort KILLED me. Figuring out which formula worked for Erez quickly became my number one priority.

And I DID find a formula that worked for him. Once we made the switch, it was only a matter of two or three days before my unhappy newborn transformed into a happy baby. Since then, Erez has become our HAPPIEST baby. His resting face is “smiley face”. He is always giggling and cooing, and on the rare occasion when he DOES cry, it is always for a very valid reason.

I should be thrilled, right? I mean, my baby boy is AMAZING. He is the kind of baby parents dream of having. He is the Gerber baby, only happier. He seriously has a personality that inspires me, and he is only six months old.

So what’s my issue?

My happiest baby is the one I have had the LEAST to do with.

I went back to work exactly 8 weeks after Erez was born. I felt like I had to. I liked my job, and I didn’t want to lose it. I didn’t want to have to go through a whole new job search to find a job I liked LESS.

So, as a full-time working mom, I see Erez briefly in the mornings and in the evenings, and get to spend a good amount of time with him on the weekends. I cuddle with him in my bed at night. But that is it.

With my first born, my eldest, I worked only part time and pretty much attached her to my hip for the first year of her life. I wore her in slings, held her incessantly, breastfed her on demand. With my second son, I took a year off from work so I could be with him ALWAYS.

It’s not that they were UNhappy babies. But they were not THIS happy. They were never as happy as Erez is, every single day of his life.

I know that babies are born with their own personalities and all, but this happiness situation has caused me to seriously question how much of an effect my attachment parenting had on my other two kids. Maybe it negatively impacted them? I am a huge advocate for breastfeeding, but did breastfeeding make my other kids LESS happy?

I know Erez loves me. He looks for me in a room, he reaches for my hair or my face, he smiles (of course!) from ear to ear when I pick him up at daycare in the afternoon. But I am not the center of Erez’s universe, the way I was for my other two. His life does not depend on me the way theirs did. I am not his food source, his transportation, and his constant playmate the way I was with the others.

Here’s the thing. Right now, I am at a place where I don’t WANT to be totally depended on. I kind of feel overwhelmed with momhood. I occasionally feel the urge to run away from all the responsibilities that come with being a mom. I have seriously been craving “me” time, and have been wanting to rediscover the part of me that is not a mommy, that has been pushed to the backburner over the last six years. So why, when I am craving more independence, do I still wish I was so much more important to my baby and so much more a factor of his happiness?

Like many people, I like to feel needed. I like to feel valued. I like to feel deeply loved. It makes me feel big and great and purposeful.

I truly hope I can experience those feelings with Erez. I hope I can learn to embrace his happiness, not as a sign of what I may have done wrong with my other kids, but what I have done right with all of them. I hope I can see it not as a result of me having less time to love him, but as a result of him feeling loved despite our limited time together. I hope I can take pride in his happiness, rather than using it to question my own value.

I hope I can feel all those things. I’m just not there yet.

10 Day Countdown

It is now ten days until my maternity leave ends and I return to work. Part of me feels ready to be reunited with my desk, with my Google calendar and daily emails and responsibilities and deadlines. The other part of me gets caught up in staring at Erez's face, hoping he will be okay in daycare, and feeling my heart break a little in advance of our separation. I wish things were different, that maternity leave was longer, that I could be present in a more complete way to witness his daily milestones. I ache that I won't be. But I also love my job and don't want to sacrifice it, or make a change in my career, or give up the second paycheck that benefits everyone in our family. It is a shame and wrong that our country isn't better about these things, about giving parents ample time to be with their babies without having to choose between their jobs and their children.

The past seven weeks with Erez has been everything: beautiful, rewarding, exhausting... He is and always will be my miracle baby. When I look at him, I think about my surgery last February. I think about the hard decision I made to give up pieces of my body in order to hopefully up my chances of a prolonged life, of being there for my kids, and how I was strangely rewarded by the universe with a pregnancy, as if I was being told my decision was a wise one for yet another reason. Erez is also proof that my body rallied after a crazy ordeal, and how lucky I am, at forty, to have had yet another healthy and uncomplicated pregnancy. He is my "everything happens for a reason" baby and my "expect the unexpected" baby.

Here is just a little of what I have learned about Erez over the past seven weeks: he is a better sleeper than either of my other children were; he loves to touch and hold fabric; he loves it when I gently touch his forehead; he really dislikes having a poopy diaper; he sleeps with his eyes open sometimes (creepy); he raises his left eyebrow a lot, like he is already highly skeptical of the world; he makes noises all the time - when eating, sleeping, peeing, breathing; he likes when I talk to him in a Minnie Mouse voice; he enjoys looking at lights and curtains; his resting face is that of an 87 year old man, but when he smiles he looks like a baby; he loves snuggles; he hates burping; he seems to notice all the artwork on our walls, and seems to especially like the tree art piece that I made that is hanging above his crib; he hates his car seat and bouncy chair but loves his rock n' play; his one left dimple is possibly the cutest thing in the entire world.

I hope that even when I return to work, I will feel like I have adequate time to notice lots of new things about Erez. I hope I will learn lots of new ways to make him smile and laugh, that I will appreciate his new sounds and movements, and especially that I will have enough time to show him how much I love and adore him, and how grateful I am to be his mommy.

I plan to make the most of these last ten days, and to try and embrace these hours as much as I can, knowing they won't last forever.

A Serious Case of SAHM Envy

I’m just gonna put it out there. Sometimes, I am just OVERWHELMED with Stay At Home Mama envy.

I am sure I’m not alone. I’m sure there are plenty of working mamas out there who would give their right arm to be able to stay home and watch their kids all day, every day. I just didn’t think I would be one of them.

When Em was first born, I told myself I was one of those people who NEEDED to work, just so that my brain would be stimulated by activities other than diaper changing and walks around the park. I thought that if I stayed home with Emmy all day (because apparently I was under the impression that SAHMs just locked themselves in the house and never took their kids anywhere fun or exciting) I would get cabin fever, and would just ache for adult conversation and imposed deadlines and the kind of structure that a workday provides.

In retrospect, I know that I was just trying to convince myself that those were my reasons for needing to work. I should have been honest with myself, and admitted that the real reason I have to work is to help support our family financially. I’ve come to accept this truth. I have come to accept the fact that I am not working because I LOVE to work. I am working because I have student loans that are MY responsibility to pay off, and honestly, if our family were to try and “make it” on my husband’s income alone, it would put A LOT of stress on C’s shoulders. I don’t think that would be fair to him, and I don’t think it would be good for our family dynamic.

So I work, not because I want to, but because I feel I HAVE to.

This past summer, I made a switch in careers to help better accommodate our family life and mommyhood. I found a job that requires a lot less travel and time away from my family than my previous career did, at an academic institute that is generous with vacation days and generally very family-friendly. It’s a GREAT mommy job, and I am much happier than I was at my previous workplace. And yet…

You see, last Friday, due to my husband and mom-in-law’s simultaneous illnesses, I got to play SAHM for a day. It was SUPER fun. In the morning, Em and I goofed around in our pajamas for a while, and took a little walk around the neighborhood. Then I took Em to one of the local playgrounds, where I quickly found myself immersed in a foreign environment. It took me two seconds to realize we were in the Land of the Stay at Home Mommys.

All around me, little pockets of two or three moms chatted away about all things baby and toddler while their kids played in the sandbox and climbed on the jungle gyms. Everybody knew somebody, and their children all knew each other, too. If one woman needed to go to the bathroom, she would simply ask her friend to watch her children for a minute. Snacks were being shared. Play dates were being arranged. Everyone was acting so friendly and so helpful to one another. It seemed so darned blissful.

I really tried NOT to feel lonely. I really tried NOT to feel envious. I tried to just focus on pushing Em in her swing, making funny faces at her, and enjoying our one-on-one time for what it was. But my ears and eyes kept straying, listening for little bits of SAHM conversations, watching SAHMs interact with one another, and absolutely wishing I was one of THEM.

Of course, my wish to be a Stay At Home Mama is not just for the camaraderie of other moms. I long to have the ability to watch Em as she develops each and every day. I want to be there when she utters each new word for the first time. I want to be the one who helps her learn to sing her ABCs. I want to be around when she first learns to hop. I want to be able to watch as she makes new friends with other kids her age on the playground, or in a playgroup setting. I want to eat picnic lunches outside with Em on glorious weather weekdays, and build indoor fortresses with her when it starts randomly thunderstorming on a Thursday afternoon.

My weekends with Em are of course wonderful, but sometimes it seems like they are really just moments, you know? Fabulous little bookends to the rest of the long work week. Spending three uninterrupted days with Em last week made me realize how great it would be to have more than just the weekends with Em. It made me wish I was an every day, all day mama.

I know being a SAHM can be totally exhausting, and I am sure it has plenty of other down sides, too. I know that in my mind I am probably idealizing the experience, and the reality of the SAHM lifestyle is as tough as it is rewarding.

But here I am, sitting at my office desk on a Tuesday morning, wondering what Emmy might be busy doing or saying at daycare, and wishing like crazy that I was with her, at the park, in the Land of the Stay at Home Mamas.

Are you a Stay at Home Mama who wishes she could work? Are you a working mama who wishes she could stay home? Or are you a mama who is perfectly content with your status? I'd love to hear your perspective.

To “Me Time” or To “We Time”? That is The Question.

This weekend, my husband will be going out on Saturday night and Sunday night to socialize with his friends. He will also probably go to the gym for an hour or two at some point on Sunday. Me? I’ll be no more than two feet away from Emmy, for the 60 plus hours that stretch from Friday night to Monday morning.

But don’t read resentment in the tone of that statement. There honestly is none. The fact of the matter is, my husband asked if I wanted to hire a babysitter so I could go with him on Sunday night, and I said no. My husband would also be MORE than happy to watch Em if I wanted to take a break and go join a Zumba class, or take a walk, or just go lie down for an hour or so.

So what’s my issue? It’s simple. I have an acute case of the “working mommy guilt complex”. I just can’t let go of “we time” in order to grab some well-deserved, much-needed “me time”. It’s crazy! I get jealous whenever I overhear other women talking about their plans to get together with their friends for dinner and drinks, or go see a show at one of the local theaters. But if one of my girlfriends calls up and tries to make plans with me, I start stuttering and pacing around, coming up with lame excuses as to why I can’t join in the fun.

This is how my inner conversation goes, every time I consider going out SANS Emmy on the weekend:

Non-mama self: Hey, mama! So, going out to dinner and a movie with the girls sounds like a GREAT TIME, doesn’t it?

Mama self: Yeah, that sounds terrific! Let’s do it!! (Pause)Um… except…

Non-mama self: Oh lord, here we go again…

Mama self: But I only have 60 hours to be with Emmy before I have to go back to work again! I have to make the most of EVERY frikkin' minute!

Non-mama self: By the time the evening rolls around, Em is going to be sleepy and cranky anyways, so you aren’t going to be missing out on much “quality time," you know.

Mama self: But I’ll miss feeding her dinner – it’s so much fun feeding her dinner! And what if she learns to say a new word, like “pasta”, and I’m not there to hear it? I will feel SO bad. Oh, and getting Em into her pajamas while she is screaming bloody murder? That’s always tons of fun. I wouldn’t want to miss that.

Non-mama self: Seriously, don’t you MISS the parts of you that are not defined as “Emmy’s mama”?

Mama-self: Well, yeah, but I get a break from being “mama” 35 hours a week!

Non-mama: That’s called work. That’s hardly a break. You NEED “you time”! If you don’t get “you time”, you will begin to begrudge Emmy for requiring all of your energy. Plus besides, your friends will start to hate you for not hanging out with them.

Mama-self: But I don’t begrudge the time I spend with Emmy. Sure, I’d like to get to the gym, and hang out with the girls, and work on my art projects again, and go on more than a once-a-month date with the hubster. But if I don’t spend the entire weekend with Em, I’m worried that I will get to the office on Monday, and feel like I didn’t get my entire “mama fix” satisfied. I’ll have to go through another FIVE WHOLE DAYS before I get another opportunity for REAL one-on-one time with the little one.

Non-mama self: You’re crazy. I give up. I’ll come back when Emmy is twelve, and SHE doesn’t want to spend any time with YOU. Maybe you will want a social life THEN.

This debate happens ALL THE TIME. Every once in a while, the non-mama part of me will win the argument, and I WILL go to the gym, or on a date with my husband. But most of the time (by quite a wide margin), it’s the mama-self that wins.

What about you? Do you go through this same (or a similar) inner battle of “me time” vs. “we time”? Who wins, your mama-self, or your non-mama self?

And yes, I am totally looking forward to being told I am crazy by all the working mamas who still manage to have a social life and an active gym membership, who feel guilty about nothing.