Okay, so it appears that I manage to post to this blog as often as I descale my coffee maker. Now that everyone is gagging a bit thinking about the mineral buildup in my Mr. Coffee, I will confess the obvious: I need to descale and post more often. Why? The short answer is that I am funny and wise. (Guru wise, not smart ass wise.) The longer--and truer--answer is that I have a lot to say. That fact in and of itself isn't news, but the more time I spend on ye olde internet the more it becomes apparent that I have things to say that no one else is saying. In particular, a whole lot of people (most of them moms) have gone mildly bonkers and no one is pointing it out. Also, I have read enough blogs to notice two things: 1) Lots of other people's blogs (so inane! so irrational! so blatantly false!) drive me nuts and I have nowhere to vent about it except to Brian who, let's be honest, at this point pretty much has heard all of my speeches. And 2) nobody knows how to start a story. If I read one more &%%$( parenting blog that starts, "So today I was thinking about. . ." I will throw my under-descaled coffeemaker out the window. (Making it defenestrated rather than descaled.) If you are writing about a certain topic, we assume that you were also thinking about it! Has no one heard of a "hook" or at least "interesting"?
So here are my resolutions, o people of the electronic void. A. I will post once a week. B. I will not worry about who I irritate or piss off. I will be reasoned and civil but I will not worry about the one person I know who might. . .possibly. . .maybe. . .occasionally find reason to take offense at what I say. Motherhood offers a million opportunities to be offended and we all just need to get over it. No one parents in exactly the same way and there is a huge spectrum of behaviors and choices that is normal and acceptable and effective. Very few people take an identical path. Here I will write about my path.
In the spirit of past posts and inspired by my new fiery resolve, I offer you this Big Baby Truism: You have unique problems and no one wants to hear about them.
In the slideshow of baby pictures that is my PowerBook's (old school!) hard drive, I have one photo that is conspicuously missing the smiling mug of my sweet baby boy. Instead, I have captured in frame five empty four-ounce baby food containers, the contents of which comprised my five-month-old's dinner. Yes, in less than twenty minutes he downed a day's-worth of Gerber.
Considering the terrifying variety of syndromes, diseases, delays, and maladies that can befall a child, "eating a lot" is not even a blip on the radar. I can easily imagine moms of premature or sickly babies lining up to trade problems. Trust me, I have never wanted that trade. While I have been awed and slightly scared of Alexander's appetite, I know it doesn't even register as a "problem."
Still, having a voracious baby has a measurable impact on life. For one thing, it is expensive. No matter how you procure the food--buy it, puree it yourself, join Costco--you are buying more of whatever it is you serve your child. Since Alexander ate three times a regular infant's intake in a single day, I spent a wallet-busting few months madly pureeing and skulking the baby food aisle during sales.
Secondly, our lives began to revolve around his eating. We memorably attended a get-together at a friend's house where Alexander ate at least 50% of the chips and queso that was out for the adults. I also fed him the dinner I had packed, foreseeing him far out-eating his allotted portion. After finally cutting him off of the queso, we took our leave. Barely on the highway, Xander was crying for food. We stopped to get him a grilled cheese sandwich since he obviously was not going to manage the forty-minute drive home.
Perhaps most stressfully, I was Alexander's primary food source for six months. A mom who hasn't breastfed can't quite imagine how wonderful and relentless a job it is. I cherished the snuggle time and the bonding and at the very same time wished that once--just once!--someone else could answer his cries so that I could finish my shower/email/meal/sleep cycle. When that crying baby is unnaturally hungry, the burden on mom is even heavier. He never spent less than thirty minutes at the breast. Often, he would eat for forty-five to sixty minutes, take a fifteen minute break, and then start in on a new feeding as though he hadn't eaten in hours. Think about all of the basic tasks you perform in a day--bathing, brushing teeth, using the bathroom, getting dressed, eating meals--and then consider doing them in fifteen minute bursts. For months, I couldn't get out of the shower without hearing Alexander yowling in the next room, indignant that I had taken ten minutes for personal hygiene. I usually spent an average of ten hours a day sitting under the Boppy, feeding him.
If you are reading this and thinking, "Oh, woe is you! Your baby is strong and healthy and hungry!" then you get my point. A healthy, hungry baby is a great "problem" to have. I don't regret my choice to breastfeed Alexander (in fact, I think the nutritional and emotional satisfaction encouraged his hearty eating and fueled his incredible growth) and I feel honored to have played such an intimate role in his survival. I don't begrudge an ounce of milk that I gave him. I know I am lucky to live in a society stable and successful enough that I can feed myself and my baby well.
Because of all of that, I felt I couldn't complain about the very real effects of all that eating. I was exhausted. I was physically worn from producing milk and getting up all night. I was emotionally wrought from constantly wondering if Alexander could ever be satisfied. Why was he so hungry? Was he never actually full? Could it possibly be normal for him to eat so much? I didn't want to complain about my good fortune to have a good eater, but I didn't feel that anyone else really understood that feeding a big baby is not the same as feeding a regular-sized one. Even now, I watch longingly as normal babies nurse for fifteen minutes and then snooze for a few hours. It is a schedule I never experienced. (Alexander would only spare himself thirty minutes at a time for sleeping. He had a tight eating schedule to keep.) As Xander grew and grew and grew and grew and grew, I watched the dishes pile up and clean laundry re-wrinkle in its mound in the bedroom and the dust settle on the mantel (and on me, sitting inert beneath my baby and Boppy) and I wondered what was wrong with me. Other new moms did laundry and cooked dinner and went to the gym and began cutesy new mom hobbies like crocheting and I was sitting amidst chaos. Because Alexander was normal to me, I thought everyone spent as much time feeding their children as I did and I couldn't imagine how they fit in other activities. I felt lazy. I felt like a failure. I felt like an idiot.
Even now, when other moms toss bits of lunch meat and cheese at their kids and call it lunch, I am making Alexander an entire hot turkey and cheese with spinach plus a banana plus a yogurt plus some Goldfish plus a pile of green beans plus some of last night's dinner. . .It take quite a bit of planning and effort. Do I mind? No. Is it a challenge to feed a big baby? Yes, absolutely. Does anyone want to hear about it? I do. If you are feeding your baby who just can't be satisfied because he is committed to outgrowing his clothes every three weeks, you aren't crazy. You aren't lazy or stupid or a failure. You are a mom of a big baby and you have a big job.
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