Racing To Win at Losing AKA:Parenthood

I've mainly been using this blog as a therapist's chaise longue to process through my ED recovery lately, and that's okay.
A large part of my recovery story was and is becoming pregnant and then transforming into a mother (still doing that second part), but there are many transformation occurring within and around us all the time.
For example, my baby, my little squish, has suddenly transformed into a toddler.

I was looking the other way.
At the end of April he was still only just sixteen months. He still had all these little rolls on his arms and legs like the can of biscuits when you first open it. His head was still a little big, and he had very little hair. He slept twice a day and only woke once or twice in the night to nurse a little and then cuddle back down to sleep. He liked books, but couldn't sit still through them, and he played with toys in an abstract way picking them up and putting them down without any kind of idea what they were for. Blocks weren't for stacking so much as knocking over. Toy trucks and trains were for banging on things to make noise, etc.
Then May arrived and blew us apart with a solid five weeks of teething.
Everything went topsy turvy as my kid cut six molars in the course of a month.
Our sleep schedule shot to shit.
He ran fevers, drooled constantly, was congested, sneezing, coughing, and generally miserable. He went back to nursing several time a day to ease the pain, and he didn't play much at all. He couldn't sit still he was so uncomfortable so reading was out. We spent a lot of afternoons plonked in front of the tv watching a movie as he nursed the pain away.
I was happy I could do that much and shoved aside those feelings of guilt that I should be doing more.
Then with the beginning of June the teething ebbed away like the tide.
And strangely, it took with it the last of his babyness, leaving me with a toddler and the feeling that he had become a new animal overnight.

Suddenly he was eating a ton more food, entire hamburgers at dinner time, bagels and cream cheese for breakfast, his own portions of sweet potato and beans.
Along with the newfound appetite, his body and energy were changing. He didn't want to nap twice a day, instead sometimes he'd play through his a.m. naptime, racing around at a breakneck speed, picking up his toys and examining them with new curiosity. He began to bring me books to read aloud, only to squirm out of my lap halfway through and go to chase the cat or run a train around the floor ON ITS WHEELS like you're supposed to!

Out of nowhere he threw tantrums when I picked him up to leave the playground, wriggled out of my arms when I tried to dress him in the morning, and refused to sit down in the tub for his bath.

I felt ambushed by this new, willful child who replaced my dumpling of a boy from only two months earlier. I didn't understand that I needed to discipline him, not just keep him alive, and it blew my mind when one night after chasing him for ten minutes with a t-shirt for him to sleep in, I gave up, and he came over to me with a onesie he picked out himself which he then allowed me to snap onto his body as if to say, "i just wanted to wear this, not the one you chose."

Yet, there were huge new wonderful things about this toddler, he wrapped his arms around the back of my neck and kissed my face then leaned back and smiled at me and my whole heart exploded with love. He clung to my legs when we went to the library and there were new kids he didn't know, and he held out a hand so I could help him anytime he wanted to climb stairs or descend the steps out of our apartment. He petted the dog and giggled hysterically when she licked his face. He chased the cat, and tickled her ears, and I could tell him to be gentle and he would pet her more softly.

Then he hit a kid in the head with a toy train at the library because he didn't want to share, and the next day, he slapped another baby in the face who was trying to climb the same structure as he.

Mortified, I bundled his screaming, squirming self into the stroller and ran away, shouting apologies over my shoulder to the understanding parents, descending into a pit of shame on the walk home.

Now I have these new obstacles to surmount, screen time to police, games to supervise, and lessons to dispense. I feel as though my job as mama, all encompassing love noodle has been pulled out from underneath me and these new responsibilities thrust upon me with no warning.
Perhaps that's the riddle of parenting, just when you catch up to being what your child needs, they shoot ahead of you, and you have race to acclimate to the new thing they need you to be.

Thoreauvian vs Pavlovian

For a really long time I bought into the idea that I could only "earn" food by doing some form of exercise.
At my most disordered times, this manifested in me running or walking for ten miles or more on an empty stomach and then continuing on to my job, which was being a baker (a very physical job that contrary to popular belief left very little time to actually eat anything) work an eight hour shift, and then come home only to be in such a deficit from only eating one meal  the whole day (usually a chunk of bread or a day old muffin) that I would inhale the contents of my fridge and cupboards, only to start the whole fucked up cycle again the next morning.

As I've moved further and further away from those patterns throughout my recovery, I've noticed the voice that screams at me for not doing everything my disorder thinks I should is getting quieter.

The first thing I found difficult this year has been giving up on the dream of getting back into distance running now that the weather is nice.

It's tricky because distance running was a very large part of my disordered routine for a long time, but I still truly love the challenge, and I miss it. I have gone on a few runs this spring, and every time, I feel so good afterward. I know my body would really like the chance to train again, but to do it properly.

Secondly, I do a lot of walking. This we know. It's my main mode of transportation being that I do not drive, and it's also my main form of meditation both before, during, and after my pregnancy.

I have, however, noticed that it is also the activity that I lean on to expend energy (read: burn calories) when I give in to that voice in my head telling me I need to do some kind of penance before I am allowed to eat.

This is why I am very curious, because this week, for the first time in about twenty years, I don't feel like walking.

It's a very strange feeling for me because even my "not walking" still involves me walking distances most people drive like to the corner store, grocery, train station, or post office. I'm lucky, and I live in a pretty town where everything is relatively close, and I can stroll to the library, grab a coffee, and take the baby to the playground on foot with ease.

I've been doing this as much as possible since the weather got good.

I have also been doing at least one three mile "excursion walk" every day for about as long as I can remember. Like since I was thirteen and my parents let me leave the house alone. No joke.

I have walked with ear infections.
I have walked with UTIs.
I have walked after broken hearts, huge fights with my beard, bad news, good news, big meals, no meals, bad storms, rainbows, while pursuing degrees, while growing a human inside my body, while exploring cities and countries I'd never been to before, while pondering the next chapter in a novel or the next journal entry. I have walked hundreds (probably thousands) of miles while on the phone long distance, and it has always felt a certain way:

Necessary.

I'm not kidding.

I walk so much it's officially become part of my identity.

I am recognized by strangers who often ask me what my name is and "are you the girl I see walking everywhere?"

Walking and writing go hand in hand, and I feel quite happy being the "walking girl" wherever I live, but there's been a bit of a heat wave this week, and I didn't feel like walking on Monday when it was 96 degrees, and I didn't feel like walking yesterday, when it was 93 degrees.

Today it is unarguably gorgeous outside.
The temperature is a stunning 71.
The sky is cerulean.
There's a cool breeze, and it's as though the entire world wants to be walked.

But I don't feel like it.


The voices in my head argue, "but then you'll feel better!" "You'll earn an ice cream cone!" "Maybe you'll sort out that scene you're having trouble writing!" "You should call your Dad!"

I dismiss them all.

And it feels revolutionary for the walking girl to put her feet up.

You Will See Me

So I am in recovery from anorexia nervosa and binge eating disorder.

This means every now and again I relapse.

It's funny.

I like to think I've made so much progress, but there are still all these mental and emotional booby traps hiding in my psyche. Sometimes even calling attention to them can cause me to behave irrationally or borrow from my disordered past. Other times there's a relapse on the horizon like the gathering clouds of a storm.

First of all,
I noticed the other day that my blog is described in the about section as being about motherhood, but really this is about self care. The two are completely different things and, in this society, they rarely walk hand in hand.

I am considering rewriting the About section so that people stop reading my blog looking for parenting advice. Let's be honest, I don't really write about parenting right now.
One of the luxuries of keeping a blog with almost no followers at all is I don't feel pressured to create any kind of "interesting content". Clickbait be gone!
This blog exists as a way for me to process one of the biggest-if not the biggest-change my life has ever gone through, which dictated the other biggest change.
I got knocked up ergo I had to confront my eating disorders.
I wanted to have a healthy baby and a healthy me to care for him, so I had to recover. The two were utterly mutual in their exclusivity. There was no skipping one to have the other.

Anyhoo, so I've been slowly integrating more recovery media voices into my social media diet as it were. I started with Kylie from ImmaEatThat, which is a phenomenal blog written by a phenomenal certified dietician. If you want to read a very sensitive, understanding woman's personal perspectives on recovery from restriction, orthorexia, and BED, she is an excellent place to start.
From her I have continued to add people like Isabel Foxen Duke, Alice from Alice Loves Peanut Butter, and many others.

To be fair, I also follow people like Jes AKA The Militant Baker, Erin Unleashes, B. Stereo, and Dori Deere, Brittany Gibbons, Joy the Baker, and Deb from Smitten Kitchen. These women are all in their thirties, they're all living very different lives, and some of them aren't in recovery from an ED, but they're women and they love food, which for me is a revolutionary enough description to merit idolization. They're all women. They all eat. Some of them give TED talks. Some of them have children. Some of them are battling with another physical or mental illness than ED recovery, and some of them are so startlingly wholesome they seem to be right out of a Norman Rockwell painting. Some of them are dancers, some of them are models, some of them are photographers, and a couple of them are currently pregnant and sharing all of the weird body dysmorphic stuff that comes along with that journey.

If you are not following these women, I feel a little bad for you because they are the smiling faces that greet me from my social media platforms. They are wise, witty, gracious, and grateful. They are nervous, honest, foul-mouthed, confident, and cautious. They fear for the world the same way I do, and the mourn the same things I grieve.

They're good sisters, man.

And they keep me in good company during a time when loneliness is a big big enemy to me getting to a place where I can really trust myself again.

Because that's the root of recovery.

Trust.

Somewhere along our youth, we bought into the idea that we couldn't trust our own bodies and minds to do what was best for us.

I don't know when it happened for you, but it happened for me when I was six.
A person I was supposed to trust implicitly hurt me irrevocably.
Instead of addressing my hurt, the situation was made entirely about the person who hurt me and what would happen to him if it was found out that he had done this.

Time has gone by. He is not a bad person. He never hurt another person in that way, and I honestly believe it was because he was out of his mind at the time that the event occurred. I, as a child, was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It was not my fault.

However, that was never explained to me.

The thing that i remember being impressed upon me the most was that I could never tell anybody about what had happened because it would get him in trouble.

When I think back to many many things that I did, that I chose to do, or allowed to be done to me, they all lead back to this moment where the two adults I trusted most in the entire world explaining that whatever I felt, whatever I needed to make sense out of the hurt I felt, the desire I had to talk about it was not as important as a grown man's reputation.
They did not say this, but it was the message all the same.

You and your body are not as important as a man's reputation.

This seed was sown deeply into me, and it is the one that I have the most trouble addressing.
Even now as I write it, I feel so sorry for the little girl I was. How could anyone have told her that?
It feels insane, but even knowing that, as an adult, does not serve to contradict my feelings and reactions of worthlessness in my own life.

I let a lot of people use me as I grew up.
Including myself.
When I began monitoring my body, one of the bi-products of the decreased nutrition was a plunge in my hormone levels, and without my hormones, I found my emotions more stable. I didn't get as worked up about things as I always had. I could be betrayed, and it didn't faze me.
My eating disorder helped me to manage this horrible certainty that
"Everybody else's feelings matter except mine."
"Everybody else's body is worth protecting except mine."
"I will not stand for anyone treating people I love a certain way, but if I am treated that way, I deserve it."

When my body finally broke the mold of anorexia and the pendulum swung really hard in the other direction, I viewed it as my control being dismantled. I viewed it as my failure as a human.

But it wasn't.
It was actually my body saying loudly, "I DO MATTER. I WILL NOT ALLOW YOU TO SUFFOCATE ME QUIETLY. I WILL TAKE UP SPACE AND I WILL MATTER. I AM NOT GOING TO BE INVISIBLE ANYMORE."

All of this to bring me to today...


Today I binged.

I know physically why, but I couldn't put my finger on psychologically what triggered it, but I think I get it now.

I've been feeling invisible lately.

I've had a lot of friends make plans with me only to break them.
I've had a lot of plans with friends that I've had to break because of the baby's teething and instead of checking back with me to reschedule, those friends with whom I broke the plans have not been in touch.
I'm sending out my writing and not hearing any replies.
I'm trying to get people to sign up for a class I am teaching, and I'm not getting enough students.

I feel like nothing I do matters.

I feel like I don't even need to be seen.

I feel overlooked, uncounted, and un-missed.

And moreover, I feel powerless to counter these feelings.
 So my body reacted by filling itself up, by fighting back in the only way that has ever got me to slow down and pay attention.

If I hadn't binged today, I wouldn't have asked these questions. I wouldn't have followed the thread of my disorder all the way back to its painful origins. I wouldn't have reminded myself that when I am at my worst, I feel invisible and of no consequence because that was the overwhelming feeling I took away from the worst experience of my childhood.

If I didn't do those things, I wouldn't have realized that i need something I am not getting right now.
I need recognition.
I need to be seen.

I can attend to those needs now.

For the first time in my life, I think I'm grateful for a binge.

I'm grateful that my recover thus far has taught me to be curious instead of judgmental in the aftermath.

Here I am.
And You will see me.

The Hardest to Break

My last rule.


My final rule to shake from the ghost of eating disordered past is the most difficult one.
It is the one that I have the most emotional investment in, and the one that has the deepest hooks in my soul.

We all have one of these, and this is mine.

Breakfast.


I never eat it.



I think back to when I was a kid, getting ready for school in the morning was a blitzkrieg affair.
I hurtled through the shower, getting dressed, packing my homework and books into my backpack, and then downstairs to the kitchen, where every morning, without fail, I took down one of the china bowls, dumped in a pile of cereal, poured on the milk and sat down to eat.

This was the time I was at my healthiest relationship with food. I never purposefully skipped meals. I had never understood how girls who sat at lunch could nibble at a yoghurt and then go the rest of the day without eating. It blew my mind. I was always hungry. When I got up in the morning, my stomach often growled, and I raced through my morning routine to get to that cereal, and even though I was in a rush, I always enjoyed the cereal because I liked eating. There was no emotion attached to the act other than nourishment and pleasure.

When I was finished, I rinsed the bowl and ran out the door. Sometimes I didn't rinse the bowl. Sometimes, I was running late, and I nuked a bagel in the microwave and ate it on the school bus. Sometimes I had a spare five minutes, and I'd treat myself to scrambled eggs. I liked them with loads of black pepper.

I was always hungry when lunch time rolled around. I never thought twice about my breakfast. It was just part of my day.

Sigh.

I think back to that girl I was, and I feel so sad that she's in for such a rough time. I was always proud of how wholesome and normal I was compared to the numerous girls in my high school who did have eating disorders, or who were cutters, or who got knocked up at sixteen and got abortions or dropped out to raise kids.

My eating disorder got its hooks in me when I was older. This is probably why it ran away with me the way it did.

I learned to restrict.
I cut calories. I lost weight.
I tightened and obsessed and got smaller and smaller until people started to take notice.

Even then, I ate breakfast.
It was a cautiously measured and recorded 300 calories, and I didn't eat again until dinner, but I ate breakfast.

The one exception was on those rare occasions when I would binge.
Back then a binge was barely anything.

It would be after dinner
(which I ate at five in the evening every day and never allowed myself to eat again afterward).

Sometimes I was so hungry at night my whole body shook. I would curl around the hollow of my stomach that ached like an empty tomb. I would writhe in agony, counting minutes until the sunrise, when I was allowed to get out of bed, do my sit ups, and then go eat my breakfast.

Only, every so often, I couldn't make it.

I'd eat a bag of microwave popcorn with a handful of chocolate chips thrown in, or a stack of rice cakes slathered with peanut butter.
My stomach was so shrunken and shriveled at that point that those quantities made me feel overfull.
I would feel ashamed, and I would punish myself by skipping breakfast the following day.

If I could add the calories from my binge to the calories from the following day, divide them, and still come up with two numbers under a thousand, then I could relax.

This was how fucking insane I was.

When the pendulum finally swung in the other direction, boy did it swing hard.
It felt like all the will power I had ever had in my life was used up, and I had no self control around food.

Still.
I always started every day with good intentions.
After binges, I never ate breakfast.
Oftentimes it was because I was still painfully full from the night before.

After so long restricting and counting calories, I would restrict all day, eat a "diet dinner" and then at nine o clock at night, I would put away amazing quantities of food. My parents were constantly wondering where the gallons of ice cream they bought disappeared to, loaves of bread, and jars of peanut butter.

Still, every day, I rededicated myself by skipping breakfast.

It was all a giant cycle.

Diet mindset and disordered eating research shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that this kind of restriction around food always results in a binge later. We cultivate a starvation mindset, and our bodies respond in kind blasting through our resolve and crushing our concept of will power in favor of survival.
After almost two years of being so restrictive around food, my body took back control. I ate everything I could get my hands on because it was so scared I would starve it again.
Instead of lying awake at night waiting until I could eat, I was lying awake berating myself for eating. I didn't remember how it felt to sleep unless I was so full I could barely breathe, nauseous and saturated in guilt. I fell asleep every night vowing the next day would be different and then doing the exact same thing, over and over and not understanding that the only way I would ever stop feeling crazy about eating was if I stopped vilifying the act itself.

It took me years, ten years in fact. I am finally, after spending almost half my life losing my mind fighting my body, I gave in. I started eating when I was hungry. I started stopping when I was full.

And here's the thing,
I did manage to eat breakfast once or twice in that time.
There were a couple of times while I was pregnant that I made oatmeal and bananas and ate them while my morning sickness told me "Do this, or I'll kill you."
There have even been a few times on holidays that I've munched a piece of toast with a large mug of tea.

But in my day to day, I keep pushing it.
I keep pushing it to nine...ten...or as of late 11am.

It's the earliest I can force myself to eat.

And it's going really poorly.

Perhaps with the baby's increased nursing, the extra walks to put him down for naps, and some stress, the days run away with me, and before I can think straight sometimes it's noon or one o clock before I've eaten, and then...I kind of binge.

It's nothing compared to where I was at before, but I can feel my feet slipping on that slope of excuses.

I deserve better.

I worked too hard. I still work too hard.

I cannot fall back into such a horrible void. I deserve to be comfortable.

I woke up with a grumbling stomach this morning, and I ignored it.
I fought it.

I shut it up with coffee.
I shut if up with errands and baby and running around.

Then it was eleven, and I was so hungry I was dizzy.

I knew the signs.

I knew I was going to binge, and there are precautions I take now so that I don't hurt myself the way I used to.

I make a smoothie with a shitload of fruits and veggies.
I eat some nuts and drink a big glass of water.

Then I take a break.

I force myself to sit with what I have eaten for at least an hour, so I know that if I am still hungry I can and will feed myself.

Anyway, they're still rules. They're still food rules. But they're in place to rescue me now instead of doom me. They're there to protect me and my baby.

And I know I probably need to eradicate them...

But that's going to have to start with the root of the problem.

And that problem is breakfast.

One little change, like all the others, that will eventually help me to get back to that little girl who listened to her body because she hadn't learned how not to yet.

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.