Motherhood

The Fear of “What If?”

/ thedairydiaries / Leave a comment

I was the kid who pretended to be “mommy.” I wrote lists of possible names for my distant-future children. I aspired to be a mother while others dreamt of space exploration or royal appointments. I am now immensely fortunate to be living that dream.

I adore my present life season full of sleeplessness and snuggles, tantrums and tea parties, playdates and potty-training. I treasure the countless memories so much that I frequently attempt to recount past events so as not to allow them to fade from my mind.

Because of my love for this harried but beautiful stage, I fear what lies ahead. I worry about the days when my children don’t want me around as they do now, the days when errands can be quick and bathroom trips can be solitary. The days when people don’t look at me and immediately know I am a mom.

Part of me wants to pull back from my present stage, to stop myself from so wholeheartedly adopting the “mom” identity. The drive is fear for the future — an assumed future — and self-preservation. If I allow myself to dive deep into motherhood, how hurt and confused will I be when the tides change? Who will I be when I am not so completely needed or wanted, when my days and nights no longer center on giving of myself in every way?

There is another part of me — the hippy side, the tender side — that tells myself to revel in the fruition of my life dreams. This is but a fleeting moment in life, but it is a fulfilling one. It is what I’ve always wanted. Why not allow myself to experience it fully? Would I not chastise myself in later years for hindering my own experience due to the fear of “what if?”

Lawyers identify as lawyers, musicians identify as musicians. Why, then, should I not identify as a mother? When an individual’s career path shifts, the challenge to find one’s new identity is considered normal. Why would mothers entering new seasons of their career not be expected and afforded the right to experience the same upheaval?

Life is change. We change continuously throughout our existence, sometimes on imperceptible smaller scales and other times in abrupt, quaking shifts.

I must learn to accept the eventual change without allowing fear to rob me of my present. I am a mom. I will always be a mom. Each stage will simply be different. And that’s ok.

Nursing Tank Must-Haves

/ thedairydiaries / 1 Comment

I wear a nursing tank daily. Wear it under a cardigan, blazer, kimono, slouchy top, flowy blouse, tunic, or hoodie. Layer on a scarf or chunky necklace. Tuck it into a maxi or skater skirt. Wear it with jeans or yoga pants. All the while, have easy clip-down nursing access and bra-like support.

My favorite two nursing tanks are:

Bravado Dream Nursing Tank which comes in bra-specific sizes from 34B/C to 40F/G.

Bravado Essential Nursing Tank which comes in bra-specific sizes from 34B/C to 44F/G.

A variety of color options can be found on Amazon. Get one (or more) in every color in your size. I know I did!

Sun, Music & Memories

/ thedairydiaries / Leave a comment

After weeks of rain, the sun peeked through today and allowed us a preview of summer bliss. We attended our much-loved local summer concert series. We danced outside in the evening sun to live music, soaking in the light and memories.

#1 Twirling to the Music

#1 Twirling to the Music

Watching #1 and #2 twirl and run among the other children, I reflected on how last year #1 and #2 were smaller and less coordinated, apple-cheeked 2- and nearly-4-year-olds. How #3 was but a growing expectation in my rounded belly. How at the end of the concert series, #3 was a brand new addition with little infant chicken legs peaking out from the baby carrier.

I recalled how much more challenging things were with a newborn and two preschoolers as I recovered from a c-section, but how much fun we had. I realized how fast the time had spun by, and knew this year would only go faster.

So, I silenced my mind and allowed myself to simply be, to appreciate, to live our present joyful nuttiness. What a beautiful life!

Feeding by Example

/ thedairydiaries / 1 Comment

Feeding others is a focal point of my present life. From nursing #3 to pumping for my “milk baby” (the baby who receives my donated breast milk), from planning weekly dinner menus that are healthy, non-allergenic, and minimally offensive to preparing and cleaning up after those meals, from helping breastfeeding moms navigate nursing troubles to aiding aspiring milk donors find breast milk recipients, my days are food-centric.

My mom was — and still is — one of the first people to set up a dinner train for neighbors in need. I never understood the value of such a practice until my mom became ill when I was a senior in high school. Neighbors, family friends, and acquaintances provided us with hot dinners for weeks. It was a welcome comfort during a trying time.

Now, a mother myself, I hope to model the beauty of the dinner train for my own children. Thinking of and serving others with no expectation of or desire for repayment is a value I hope to instill. So, I lead by example.

Upon hearing a friend is facing challenges, I first ask how I can help. Often, this open-ended question is simply too overwhelming. So, one of the first things I offer is a homemade delivered meal. My goal is not only to remove one thing from the individual’s to-do list when he/she is faced with life obstacles, but to provide a sense of comfort during a time of upheaval. Additionally, having my children witness me planning, shopping for, preparing, and delivering meals to others will — hopefully — make the ritual a norm for them.

Feeding others doesn’t simply fill bellies, it soothes hurting hearts and warms weary souls. From my heart to others’ mouths.

A Day of (Dairy-free) Galactagogues

/ thedairydiaries / Leave a comment

Galactagogues are foods that boost breastmilk production. Some people swear by them, others see no impact. Either way, the foods are generally healthy, filling options.

Here’s an example of what a day full of dairy-free lactogenic foods looks like:

AM Pumping Fuel:

A mug of green tea and an apple help me start the day. (If you want to really amp up the milk supply, you could substitute fenugreek tea for the green tea.)

Green Tea and an Apple

Green Tea and an Apple

Breakfast: 

A big serving of water along side a bowl of quinoa and flax hot cereal, topped with blueberries, a touch of vanilla extract, a drizzle of honey, and a hearty dash of cinnamon is a nice start on days I don’t feel like having my usual smoothie.

Quinoa & Flax Hot Cereal with Water

Quinoa & Flax Hot Cereal with Water

Snack on the Go: 

A Dark Chocolate Chunk KIND bar with water is easy, portable, tasty, filling, and (importantly for me) dairy-free.

Dark Chocolate KIND Bar and Water

Dark Chocolate KIND Bar and Water

Lunch:

Lots of water with roasted portobello mushroom stuffed with a veggie-packed grain salad topped with hummus (Veggie-ful Grain Salad ingredients: dressing- oil from the drained artichoke hearts mixed with balsamic vinegar; salad- raw chopped fennel; raw chopped English cucumber; drained, rinsed, and chopped canned beets; drained and rinsed canned chickpeas sauteed in extra virgin olive oil, tumeric, chili powder, garlic powder, cumin, salt, and pepper; julienned jarred roasted red peppers; drained (oil reserved for dressing) and chopped jarred artichoke hearts; a dollop of olive spread; Wegmans Food You Feel Good About Sunrise Blend (wheat bulgur, buckwheat groats, quinoa flakes, and red rice) prepared according to package instructions with garlic powder, salt, pepper, and a bay leaf in the boiling water)

Roasted Portabello Mushroom Stuffed with Veggie-ful Grain Salad Topped with Hummus

Roasted Portobello Mushroom Stuffed with Veggie-ful Grain Salad Topped with Hummus

PM Pumping Fuel:

A mug of green tea, two pieces of Bark Thins Dark Chocolate Coconut, and water, because everyone deserves a treat.

Bark Thins Dark Chocolate Coconut and Green Tea

Bark Thins Dark Chocolate Coconut and Green Tea

 

Snack:

More water and half a sandwich (extra virgin olive oil, avocado, tomato, salt, pepper, nutrional yeast, and sprouts on one slice of Food for Life Ezekiel 4:9 Sprouted Grain Bread) is a satisfying, healthy snack. Make sure to throw back some water too!

Half of an Avocado-Sprout Sandwich

Half of an Avocado-Sprout Sandwich

Dinner:

Lots of water and smoked chicken with roasted veggie pasta (Roasted Veggie Pasta Recipe: chopped fresh fennel, red onion, zucchini, baby bella mushrooms, tomatoes, carrots, and bell pepper are drizzled with extra virgin olive oil and sprinkled with salt, pepper, basil, and fennel seeds. The veggies are roasted then stirred together with cooked pasta. The mixture is drizzled with extra virgin olive oil and a bit of the startchy pasta water, then seasoned with fresh minced garlic, as well as garlic powder, onion powder, salt, pepper, red pepper flakes, brewers yeast, and nutritional yeast.)

Smoked Chicken with Roasted Veggie Pasta

Smoked Chicken with Roasted Veggie Pasta

“Blue Boobed”

/ thedairydiaries / Leave a comment

Blue boob

/bloo,boob/

Verb: the act of a breastfeeding baby causing breast milk letdown but refusing to consume the triggered milk, resulting in painful breast engorgment.

“The baby started to nurse then got distracted and blue boobed me.”

Being blue boobed by your own baby is like nursing torture. Engorgment anxiety, like hangriness (aka: hunger-induced anger), is real. The discomfort and frustration of having milk letdown just to have it painfully pool, uneaten, leaves you with three choices:

1) Try to convince your baby to nurse. Though this will likely end up failing and milk may very well end up spraying everywhere. So you’ll probably look to options #2 and #3.

2) Go ahead and grab the pump. This is only an option if you’re in a location where pumping is feasible, of course. What would’ve taken your baby 3-5 minutes to extract, will now take 15 minutes — plus pump part washing and drying, as well as milk bagging — to eliminate via the breast pump. Thanks, nursling!

3) Try riding it out. You could ignore the engorgment and anxiety, but this could end up a milky mess. You could also wind up with a nice souvenir, every nursing mom’s favorite: clogged milk ducts.

Oh the joys of breastfeeding. Keep on milking on!

The Loneliness of Motherhood

/ thedairydiaries / Leave a comment

Motherhood is lonely. As moms, there’s always someone clinging to us, following us, needing us, demanding of us. Even when our children are not physically present, their needs are still in the forefront of our minds.

As mothers, we are constantly surrounded by humans — big and small — but rarely do we truly get to connect with them. We are too busy chasing and aiding our little herds to meaningfully socialize. No matter the size of our “village” or quality of our friends, we will have periods during which we feel alone. We are lonely amongst the madness, isolated amidst the crowd.

When we try to converse with others, it’s guaranteed that a majority of our thoughts and sentences will go uncompleted. “Mommy, I need to go potty!” “Mommy he’s not sharing!” “Mommy, watch this!” “Mommy, I’m stuck!” Each intercession permanently derails a line of conversation. Then there are the maternal sensors that ping every few moments interrupting you just as your child licks the floor, crawls towards power cords, attempts to fly, tackles her sibling, or uses a public drinking fountain as his own personal splash pad.

For many of us, social media becomes a form of self-medication. We use it to camouflage the isolation. We like, post, comment, pin, and tweet to feel less alone… to connect. But it falls flat. It’s not the same.

Occasionally some of us can break free and revel in a mom date. We order adult drinks and savor the ability to eat our meal without having to simultaneously referee. We chat and laugh, we feel human again. Then it’s time to go home to the children we adore and miss, despite knowing full well the level of chaos that awaits us.

We arrive home with our emotional tank closer to full. We’re refreshed and replenished from our social outing. This is temporary, and we know it.

Every tantrum, every meltdown, every sleepless night, every departure debacle and bedtime battle drains our emotional tank. Sweet moments and tender cuddles reverse a bit of the loss, but the loneliness is an emotional hemorrhage that will leave us empty if unattended. The sense of isolation will render us shriveled, aggitated, overwhemed, fatigued, and depleted. We cannot pour from an empty cup, but we must.

Motherhood is joyous and stressful, love-drenched and tumultuous, priceless and taxing. It’s a beautiful gift but it’s lonely.

A Mother’s Love

/ thedairydiaries / 1 Comment

I remember the moment I realized how much my mother loved me.

My mom and me

My mom and me

I was a new mom, weeks from being physically healed from delivery. Holding my tiny firstborn in her nursery, I felt that terrifying, beautiful, crippling love swell within me. The maternal adoration that paralyzes you with fear of countless “what ifs”, and makes you want to kiss your baby’s hands and feet millions of times in the futile hope that maybe your touch will convey just how much she is cherished.

Me and #1

#1 and Me

As my heart swelled and my eyes welled amidst the powerful wave of love, everything became clear: “This is how much my mother loves me.” I stopped, slack-jawed. I recounted the fearful times, the happy times, the frustrating times, the mundane. I reflected upon my life through a mother’s eyes, not a child’s. It was as if my eyes were finally open.

#2 and Me

#2 and Me

And so I now tell my own children, “You will never understand how much I love you until you become a parent, yourself.” They look at me and smile, thinking they know how deeply they are loved, but they don’t. They can’t. A mother’s love is beyond logic, beyond reason, beyond measure. The strength, breadth, and purity of a mother’s love is simply unfathomable until you become a mother.

Hubs, #3 and Me

Hubs, #3 and Me

Thank you for loving me, Mom, even when I was unlovable. Thank you for the sleepless nights, tremendous worry, necessary guidance, endless self-imposed guilt, and ecstatic rejoicing. You are a great mom, a strong woman, a doting grandmother, and giving friend. You taught me how to be a mom and that is something I cannot repay.

Mom and Me

Mom and Me

I love you but I know you love me more, because you’re my mother. Happy Mother’s Day!

 

They’re Testes not a Free Pass

/ thedairydiaries / Leave a comment

Men are not incompetent. Women are not innately or universally better caregivers than men. So why do we assume this to be true?

Why, when my husband wrangles our three children — 4.5-years, 3-years, and 10-months — do people react with shock, but it is assumed that I can easily manage the troublesome trio? Do my ovaries offer me a child rearing superpower? Do his testes render him incapable of tending to his own offspring? No.

Hubs takes offense to the notion that he is assumed underqualified to effectively tend to his own offspring. That mindset is one of the reasons I adore him.

“I don’t do diapers.” some men say with a macho sense of superiority, as if their y-chromosome places them above the unsavory portions of caregiving. Apparently, the universe granted these stallions the option of making such a choice, but not women. “I can only handle one child at a time.” Some fathers will claim, even though they sired multiple children. It’s as if these sowers-of-oats don’t realize they’re demeaning themselves out of sheer laziness. Then, there are my favorite set, the myopic brutes who insist that they — the paycheck-earning men — need regular breaks from household humdrum yet their female counterparts neither deserve nor require such respite. To all of these fathers I say: think again.

You spawned the children, you parent the children. What you expect your mate to do in terms of childcare, you must also be willing to undertake.

If you “don’t do diapers”, you are expecting your counterpart to assume a duty you deem lesser, thereby implying she is lesser. Is that really a conversation you feel like having? Grab some baby wipes and clean the baby bum. You’re manly, you can take it.

If your significant other, with whom you share guardianship, is capable of wrangling all of your shared children, buddy, so can you. It may take some trial and error but you’ll learn, exactly as she did.

Everyone needs regular breaks — from work, routine, etc. — and a presence or absence of female anatomy does not negate this requirement. You, dear sir, need just the same (yes, the same) number of breaks as your co-parent. You are not a babysitter any more than she is. You cannot claim to be too overworked or underqualified to allow her a break unless you offer her the same veto power for your respites. This is a partnership.

Even if your significant other is a stay-at-home mom, your bread-winning status does not absolve you from parenting duties. Her lack of financial contribution to the household does not mean her duties are lesser or that you deserve downtime more than she does. You don’t work 24/7 without assistance or a break; neither should she.

Claiming ignorance or incompetence when it comes to caring for your own offspring doesn’t make you more masculine, more attractive, or more powerful. It simply debases you, degrades your partner, and — quite frankly — makes you appear lazy, selfish, misogynistic, antiquated, and inept.

Parenthood is a joint venture. Do your part. End of story.

 

Winesdays

/ thedairydiaries / 2 Comments

I hate Wednesdays.

Every-other Wednesday we all have to get up extra early and be out of the house by the time I usually wake the kids any other day of the week. Every time — every single time — #1 is shocked and horrified by the early start, and battles me all the way through the morning routine. #2 moans and wails, trying to sneak back into bed. #3 decides to take this opportunity to unravel the entire roll of toilet paper, eat unwashed socks in the laundry basket, and tip over shampoo bottles.

Once dressed and brushed for the day, the boys and I drive an hour in traffic to my parents’ while Hubs has a breakfast date with #1 before preschool drop-off. The boys and I enjoy time with extended family (the bright spot in our day), then venture back home where I tell myself the boys will nap… they must nap. I NEED them to nap.

Despite the early start, no one naps. Because of the early start, everyone is an asshole.

Wishing coffee into wine

Pumping during what is SUPPOSED to be naptime and wishing this coffee was wine

To make things even better — because I am a genius — I signed up #1 for ballet after preschool on Wednesdays. She loves ballet… pink, tutus, what’s not to adore? However, an extra-long day paired with having to act like a decent human being in public for that many consecutive hours means meltdown mania from the time her tulle-bedecked tush enters the house until she’s shuffled into bed. Some days she even continues her tirade in her sleep, awaking refreshed and rejuvenated after unknowingly verbally eviscerating me All. Night. Long.

I hate Wednesdays.

Thank God for wine!