The Least I Can Do Not the Least I Can Be

I've been having a weird body week.


The babe is getting his molars right now, and all May long he's been in the throes of serious gum pain and snot production, high temperatures and congestion, sneezes and interrupted sleep. It's been rough on both of us, since I am a co-sleeping, breastfeeding, hippie type mama.
Whenever he cuts new teeth, and especially at night, when he's trying to get some rest, he nurses. He nurses A LOT.
This means, because this is how my body is engineered (and not how many women's bodies work), I lose weight. I am constantly hungry, constantly fatigued; my blood sugar rides a roller coaster of unpredictability, and I funnel every calorie from every morsel of food I consume into my boobs.

This means I have a lot, and I do mean, a lot, of disordered eating thoughts to deal with.

See, the shitty thing about the ED voice, is that it takes a really long time to go away. I expect that mine will stick with me for another ten years, since it took ten years for me to realize I didn't need it.

It tells me to look in the mirror.
It tells me to poke my stomach and compare it to the memories I have of my stomach pre-baby, post-baby, last week, and then compare it to every woman's stomach I have ever seen either in person or on television or the internet. It tells me to see if I can grab an inch or if I suck in my gut can I see my ribs? It tells me to snap a photo (just a quick selfie it hisses) and to use the app on my phone to slide that photo side by side of a pic I took of myself when I was three weeks post partum.
It tells me to compliment myself on this weight loss and to lord it over others who have little tummies, big tummies, round tummies or flat tummies.

It's still a fucker, in case you were wondering.

I've gotten better at separating myself from the ED voice.
I no longer feel guilty when it tells me to feel good because I'm skinnier than Person A.
I know that it is telling me my worth is still dependent on being skinnier than Person A., and when I inevitably gain weight, like a woman, like a human being does, I will no longer be skinnier than Person A. and I will lose value.

I no longer feel guilty when my ED voice is a bitch, because I know it is one thing above all else:

It is a liar.

It lied to me for over a decade, telling me that I had no control over anything in my life, but I could control food and I could control what I looked like and so I might as well be content with that.
It lied to me about what I was worth when I went on vacation and could slip by restricting and lose ten, sometimes fifteen pounds in a week.
It lied to me when I inevitably returned from that vacation and my body demanded I binge to make up for those lost pounds.
It lied to me when I said I wasn't hungry for years, when all I wanted was to eat with the comfort, safety, and ease my peers seemed to do so.
It lied to me when it said that I was unlovable, disgusting, and a failure, because I couldn't even get eating right.

I know it is a liar now, and I call it out on this horse shit.

I will not get on a scale this week.
It will be unhealthy to know exactly how much weight I have lost due to the extra nursing.
I will not spend time examining my body in the mirror and making comparisons of it to anything.
If I look at myself in the mirror it will be to check if I am clean and presentable, to pick the spinach out of my teeth, and to get those eyeliner wings even.

I will not calorie count, meal skip, or restrict "just to see" how much weight I can lose with this extra nutritional deficit.

You know why?

Because it makes me feel horrible.

It all makes me feel just awful, and I mean physically, mentally, emotionally.

Dude, I am ex-hau-sted!

I am up all night long with this teething babe.

If I wake up and I want to put whipped cream on my coffee. I am gonna fucking do it, and enjoy it, because I deserve a treaty cup of coffee after getting through a night like that.

If I wake up and i want a big ass smoothie with three scoops of peanut butter in it, I'm going to make it and drink it and enjoy every sip because I know bananas and peanuts are full of potassium and protein, two nutrients my body is horribly depleted by when the babe nurses.

If I gain ten pounds when I wean the baby, I am going to relax because my clothes will start fitting me better again, I will stop feeling cold all the time, and I will be sleeping through the night and getting the rest that I need rather than being run ragged through the night by my poor little guy.

People tell me all the time:
  "You lost the baby weight so fast!"
"You look better than ever!"
"Motherhood looks good on you!"

And none of it is real. In fact, it's toxic.

 I wonder what people would say if I told them the truth.

I am currently not at a healthy weight.

I am not comfortable being this thin.

It is temporary, and I will be bigger when you see me next. What will you say then?

Anyway, this story might not help anyone...maybe it's just for me.

Or who knows, maybe you've been sick and lost weight without trying, maybe you went through a growth spurt and despite eating everything you could, you've gotten thinner, maybe you've had horrible anxiety or personal trauma that has kept you from eating properly, or maybe you're one of the millions of people who can't afford to eat properly and you had to use your grocery money to pay an outstanding bill.

Regardless, nobody should tell you that your worth is based on your weight, whether it goes up or down, because it will.

We are living creatures and our mass will change over the course of our lifetimes countlessly.
We live in a society that makes us believe we should have control over it and evaluates our worth based on how much control we exert over our forms.

I used to buy into those lies.

Now I recognize them, call them out, and listen to what my body tells me is right for it.

And I can only hope that you do the same. I know it isn't easy, holy shit, sometimes it is the hardest thing I can think of, but it is so worth it, to release yourself from the guilt and just take care of your body. I know I owe my body so much. It's the least I can do.

Not Shit All the Time

Today is the first day in about eleven that the babe hasn't woken up ten times in the night choking on congestion, snot streaming from his nose in two little rivulets, crying because his mouth hurts more than anything else in the whole world.
Today I got up at six fifteen instead of five in the morning.
I made coffee, I made banana waffles and the babe ate them happily instead of taking a few bites and then getting frustrated because eating when you are snotting that much is really no fun.
I got pooped on.
Yup.
Smelled that smelly smell that indicated it was time to change the diaper, and when I picked him up, the diaper exploded like a loaded pinata, except in this case instead of candy it was...NOT CANDY.

And you know what?
I laughed it off.
It's amazing what a full night's sleep will do for you.

Last week, everything felt like the end of the world.
Between the two of us, the snotting, the screaming, the crying, the inability to console the babe or to tell him that it was going to be okay and molars are total bitches, and every day being about forty degrees and pouring rain I began to lose my grip on reality.
I probably cried every single day last week.
Which isn't to say I didn't try my best.
(hello double negatives how are you?)

I did.
I really did.
I made waffles last week too.
I paid bills, went for walks in the rain, took the babe to the library to run off steam, and tried really hard to make the best of things.
But by about three o clock in the afternoon, every day, I'd have had it.
The babe would be so tired and ready for his long afternoon nap, but he would also be so uncomfortable that he couldn't settle down, and I would be holding him, rocking him, nursing him, singing to him, on three hours of sleep myself, feeling terribly guilty that I wanted him to go to sleep just so I could get a break, feeling so frustrated that I couldn't explain that his discomfort would not last forever, and then secretly wondering if, in fact, it did last forever, how long before I killed myself?

Finally something small would push me over the edge, I'd nag my toe, the babe would head butt me so hard I saw stars, or I'd just not be able to take anymore screaming, and I'd put him down in the pack and play and leave the room, sit on the toilet, and cry my heart out.

Nobody tells you that it's okay to do this.

I will tell you.

It is okay to do this.

Your kid won't die just from being left alone in a safe place (crib, pack and play, carseat, etc) while you have a little breakdown. They might cry. They might scream bloody murder because you aren't paying them attention, but they are okay. I promise.
And you need this.
You need to just have a minute to yourself to feel your feelings because so much of our lives as mothers we push our needs to the side. We drink the coffee cold. We eat the leftovers. We take the 90 second shower and we don't wash our hair. We give our ice cream because their fell on the ground. We spend the afternoon fixing everything because if we didn't, the world would surely end.
So we get to take those minutes to cry.
We get to take those minutes to call our own moms and say "I don't know how you did this?"
We get to give the babies to the Daddies when they get home and say, "I'm going for a walk, by myself. I'll be back in forty minutes."
It doesn't make us shitty.
It makes us better mothers.

Mothers Day brunches are fine if you're into that sort of thing. Flowers are nice, and of course all the hugs and kisses and homemade cards are priceless, but we should give ourselves the gift of feeling our emotions, safely, and securely without guilt EVERY DAMN DAY.

Yesterday, I got chocolate. I got to go out with a friend for a cocktail. I got kisses and hugs, and I felt loved and appreciated, but it was this morning when I woke up to a non-screaming, smiling kid who clapped his little hands when i put a waffle down in front of him, that was my gift.
It was reassurance that the hard times really don't last forever, and whatever you have to do to survive them is okay.
As long as everybody is fed, cleaned up, and safely in bed at the end of the night, it does not matter what you had to do to accomplish that, and you should never  feel ashamed if part of getting things done, meant screaming into a pillow while your kid sat safely in his high chair gnawing on a wooden spoon.

Today, I showered poop off myself and shrugged it off.
I never thought I'd say this but I'll take a happy kid who ruins my outfit over a sobbing kid any day.

And that's how I know I am getting better at this motherhood thing.

Toddler Time Out isn't about my kid.

What is the point of giving a toddler a time out?

Will it actually change their behavior?
Teach them that what they did is not okay?

Probably not.
Will it keep me from losing my shit?

Yes.

And today I need that.

People, it has been almost eighteen months since I had my child, and we are still breastfeeding.
It's good for the most part. He gets over colds faster, it's a wonderful way to comfort him when he's teething or scared or sick, and it's helping to fortify and build his little system to defend itself long after our bfing days are behind us.
But my kid is cutting molars, and he's got a cold, and I have a cold, and we are not sleeping, and he is biting me, and the chairs, and the tables, and he's having total freak outs when I stop him from doing things like shredding antique books, or taking actual bites out of the kitchen table.

Everywhere I read that this is all normal toddler development, but I am not dealing very well.

For one thing, I still haven't gotten a period since I got pregnant. Yup. Menses-free for twenty five months now.
But according to the super low bc hormone pills I am taking right now, I should be getting my monthly this week, and maybe it's all psychological, but for the last couple of months, during my would-be shark week, I've had bloating, fatigue, mood swings, and cramping.
No blood.
But everything that usually leads up to it.

This puts me in a really crap place.
I'm anxious (of course) that my body is broken.
I'm also cranky, hungry (seriously, there is not enough food in the entire house to keep me full right now), and because of teething and congestion and the magic of toddler breastfeeding, we are also not fucking sleeping either, so I am ratchet.

Is that how the kids use ratchet?

I don't know.

I feel like I started out this blog to document the highs and the lows, but I don't have time to write anything. I don't have the perspective to document the emotional roller coaster I am on.

I barely have the cognitive ability to know that if I don't put my kid in his pack n' play for ten minutes and ignore him that I stand the very real risk of throwing him out the window.*

So I do.

I put my screaming, crying, miserable child down in the pack n play, by himself, and I ignore him.
I make sure there are no toys with strings, or blocks he can stand on, or bits small enough he can choke on, and I leave him in there while I go the fuck away.
Sometimes I just go to the kitchen and make a cup of tea.
Sometimes I put on headphones, and listen to three songs.
Sometimes I go to the bathroom and I cry my stupid heart out.

Because there's still all this other stuff to do.
There are still classes to plan for, bills to pay, errands to run, meals to prepare, dogs to walk, cat boxes to clean, trash to take out, laundry to do, and everything else imaginable.
And I can't fathom any of it if I don't reset.