I (Don't) Wanna Hold Your Hand

I saw something recently that made me insanely, painfully envious. A woman was standing in line at the coffee shop, leisurely ordering her drink, counting out exact change, chatting with the barista...all while her son (who I later learned is almost exactly Westley's age) stood calmly beside her.

You know what happens when I put Westley down? He takes off running. It makes no difference how familiar the location is or how close we are to a busy street. When his feet touch the ground, he's off like a shot.

Zoom!

Not only would Westley never in a million years stand quietly beside me while I pay way too much for a latte, he will also never hold my hand. He just flat-out refuses. "Walk! Walk!" he insists, as we get out of the car. When I tell him he has to hold my hand in the parking lot, he says "no-no" (like I've just suggested that he try chewing on broken glass) and whips his hand away faster than I can easily catch it and tries to run. I think he's trying to give me a heart attack.

If I run with my eyes closed, they really can't see me!

Some parenting rules are negotiable. In bed right at 8:00 PM? Well, not always. No cookies for breakfast? When they're healthy, whole-wheat cookies baked lovingly at home by Daddy, it can't be much worse than eating toast with jelly. But "you must hold Mommy's hand in the parking lot"? Not a rule I'm willing to fudge.

No one's going to die if Westley goes to bed at 8:15, or, God forbid, 8:30. But those cars in the parking lot? They literally weigh a ton. But I can't explain this to my toddler. I can just hold him--tightly--by the wrist, and feel like a bully, and breathe deeply through his screams of "Walk! Walk! Walk!" until we reach our destination. Or I can carry him, which I often do. Because it's just easier.

Decaf, with rice milk, please... Now just hold on a second while I move my kid to the other hip so I can get my wallet.

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Girls Who Are Boys

I take Westley to one of our local toy stores often, just to look around. It's a great not-so-little, family-operated place, and it just happens to be on our way to other errands. I find it difficult to resist stopping there when Westley is in the backseat, calling the store by name and asking to play.

Westley always knows exactly what he wants to play with. While he loves the cars and trains (and anything that makes noise when you press a button), his favorite toy in the store is the Calico Critters dollhouse. He would play with it for hours if I let him. Sometimes I'm tempted to let him, because it's just so much fun to see him having fun.

Getting to watch Westley play is one of the best things about spending most of my time with him, but the toy store makes it especially great. The dollhouse Westley loves like crazy is set up on a little table surrounded by the girliest of girly things: princess wands, fairy wings, sparkly plastic jewelry, ruffle-and-lace-clad baby dolls, flower-covered locking diaries, and pretend make-up. And there's my little son, oblivious to all the gender-specificity around him, just having a blast.

Gender neutrality in children's clothing is often difficult to find; gender neutrality in toys seems like it would be easier to come by. But suddenly, looking around most toy stores, it's clear that even blocks and soccer balls and scooters are being produced in both a "boy" color scheme and a "girl" color scheme.

Westley's favorite color at the moment is pink. His heart broke a little when his pink diaper cover moved so far into the "too small" category that it wouldn't fasten at all anymore. Westley picked out my pants yesterday, based (I'm sure) on the color alone. They were pajama pants and it was the middle of the afternoon, but I put them on for him. I was powerless to when he toddled into the kitchen with arm outstretched, clutching the garment tightly and holding it up for me to take. "Wear!" he instructed me (it sounded more like "way-uh"). And then, pointing to the fabric, "Pink!"

Westley likes a number of "girl" things right now. I don't really think about it: toys are toys, as far as I'm concerned. But I do notice that other little boys aren't hauling baby dolls around the grocery store with them.

Watching Westley play with the dollhouse, surrounded by "girl" toys, I wonder how long it will be before color scheme matters to him. Someday he will understand that many people think certain things aren't supposed to interest him...because he's a boy. And that if he continues to like pink, and baby dolls, and tiny French country furniture after learning what he's "supposed to" prefer, those people will take it to mean that he's wrong, or bad, or less of a boy.

I hope Westley can just continue liking whatever he likes, regardless of what other people think, for the rest of his life.

"Dah-house!" he says, bubbling over with excitement, moving rabbits and kittens in and out of the front door, moving the bathtub into the kitchen, carefully inspecting the dresser with its tiny working drawers...all the things I remember doing with my dollhouse. And then I desperately want to buy it for him, tiny furniture and animals and all--for Christmas, for his birthday, for any occasion where I can justify putting a big, big bow it. Because every kid who wants a dollhouse should totally have one!

And when the woman behind the counter who does gift-wrapping asks me if it's for a girl or a boy, I'll tell her, "It's for a boy. And he'd like the pink, floral paper, please."

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Hollow Weaning

The last time I nursed Westley was Thursday, Halloween Eve Eve. It was only for five minutes, and just on one side. I doubt he even got much milk.

I looked at the clock, and then down at my little dude. "It's night-night time," I told him. "Time to go to Daddy."

Westley popped off, looked up at me with a drooly smile. "Mmm!"

I didn't know it was going to be the last time I nursed him. But the next night, Westley was extremely wound up well past bedtime, and I was anxious to get him to bed so I could start my workout. When he demanded to have another book read, I gave him a choice: book and night-night or nurse and night-night. He chose the book. The night after that, Rob and I were gone at bedtime. And the night after that, it seemed silly to nurse him when I hadn't nursed him in two nights.

So I guess this means I'm really weaning him. Or, rather, I have weaned him, since I don't plan to go back to breastfeeding now.

The thing is, the way I'm getting away with not nursing Westley in the evenings is by not being there. As in, not inside the house. I tell Westley goodnight while he and Rob are reading books, and then I go work out in the garage for a little while.

"How'd he do?" I ask when I've had enough of sweating.

"Fine," Rob says. "He cried for mama and milk, but he was fine once I got him his pacifier and his green blanket."

Huh.

I don't really hear anything else inside my head, because I don't know how I feel about this yet.

I really, truly thought I would never have to wean Westley. Which is not to say that I planned to breastfeed him until he was nine. I just hear often about children weaning themselves at nine months, a year, a year-and-a-half... As Westley's first birthday got close, I was prepared for him to let me know that he wasn't going to take his milk lying down any more. He started drinking more milk from sippy cups, but bedtime was still all about my boobs. Earlier this year, Westley was all-but-weaned (and I was anxious to have him weaned-for-real), but it was that once-before-bed token nursing that hung on. I kept hoping that he would forget about it. Or that he'd say, "No milk anymore. I'm good. See you in the morning, Mom!"

Right.

That is impossible for more than a couple of reasons, the most obvious (to me) of which is that Westley friggin' loves to nurse! Hence the sweet smiling and the yummy noises after he does it. Which completely breaks my heart, because it means that I have to be the one to say, "Nope, that's it. We're done."

Except that instead of saying that, I've been sneaking off to the garage. Like the toddler-weaning coward I am.

Last night, when I asked for the Westley report, Rob said, "Fine. He didn't even ask about mama or milk."

Ouch.

So there it is. It's over. After hating (and then loving) nursing, I'm going to miss it. My breasts haven't wised up to the change yet, which makes missing it particularly easy.

I was sure I would want to throw a party when I finally got to the point of not having to flash my living room every night. But now, thinking, I'm not going to nurse Westley any more, I just feel so...sad.

(And not quite empty.)

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This Two Shall Pass

Westley has been practicing being a two-year-old for months now: saying "no" as often as possible, throwing the occasional temper tantrum, insisting on doing things himself, and otherwise showing his independence from Rob and me. But on Halloween, the eve of his 23rd month, he was in rare form.

Nothing either Rob or I did for him was right, and he let us know it. Loudly. He rejected every suggestion of food, clothing, and entertainment. When left to his own devices, he ran maniacally around the living room, shrieking delightedly for a few minutes before collapsing into the couch, completely miserable.

I'm usually pretty good about taking the philosophical stance on crazy-Westley days. I remind myself that everything with him is temporary. And most of the time, it actually helps me gain some perspective on the situation and not lose my cool entirely, no matter how certain I am that this time, I really, truly am going to go insane.

But Halloween was different. We had plans to spend the afternoon with friends, tickets to an evening event, and demands from far-away family members for lots of pictures of Westley in costume. And when Westley refused to eat anything I offered him, and refused to wear his costume, and refused to have his picture taken, I felt like punching someone.

This day is supposed to be fun, I told myself. But I felt angry and anxious, even after Rob kindly took Westley on a guys-only grocery-shopping adventure.

The day eventually redeemed itself, even though we had to cancel some plans on account of our crazy-child-who-also-went-down-for-an-unbelievably-late-nap. Westley got some fresh, less-crazy energy from spending time with my parents. Rob and I got some fresh, less-stressed energy from not having to fight Westley on whether dinner would be eaten.

"What was up with him today?" I wondered, crossing my fingers that everything would be different when we got up in the morning.

Rob shrugged. "He's two."

"Not even!" I started to imagine a whole year of manic-Halloween-devil-Westley.

"Maybe he'll get it out of his system early," Rob hypothesized.

I just hope this really is as temporary as I try to convince myself it is. Because I don't know how much more Halloween I can take.

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Me, Myself and "We"

From the moment I started thinking about Rob in boyfriend terms, I resisted the word "we." The concept of "we" is fantastic: We are going out; We are getting married; We adopted a kitty. That was all fine. I was wary, however, of statements like "We hated that." Because I didn't want to speak for him. It didn't matter if we were talking about movies and not, say, politics. I don't like to assume I know what someone else is thinking, and I find that statements like "We can all agree that..." are almost always untrue. And even if Rob did dislike the movie exactly as much as I did, I reserve the right to change my mind at any time!

When I got pregnant, it suddenly became imperative that Rob and I speak in "we"s. He and I had to be on the same page--about attempting to have a home birth, about my going back to work, about who was going to sleep when--and if someone changed her mind after we'd come to a conclusion, it wasn't practical (or even possible) to agree to disagree.

The move toward plural personal pronouns became even stronger when our baby became a child who needed rules, which we would have to enforce. It does absolutely no good for me to tell Westley, "Daddy doesn't want you to climb on the coffee table"--even if I don't really have a problem with it.

I find myself very tempted to resort to phrases like "We don't..." when guiding Westley's behavior. For example, "We don't hit the kitty." Except, I think as I listen to myself, he clearly does hit the kitty. It's like ending sentences with "okay?" which drives me absolutely batshit insane when I hear it. Because, of course, the clear answer to that non-question is, in most cases, "No! Not okay!" And yet, it's so tempting to say.

I think I have only "okay?"-ed Westley once. And after I heard myself, I corrected, "Do you understand?" (I think that is what's meant by "okay?" at the end of a statement. It's actually there to ask, "do you understand?" or "did you hear me?" and not, "is that all right?") Unfortunately, I find the draw of "we" much harder to resist. But "we" isn't much better than "okay?" In using it, I'm still asking Westley to go along with a plan he doesn't like--and not saying what I really mean:

"No hitting the kitty! Hitting hurts."

I still kind of suck at saying no, despite being in a position where I'm required to say it all the time. "We" is a convenient way of avoiding the potential harshness of "no," but it's wrong for me to rely on it. As much as I like "we" as a concept for our family--We like to dance; We eat a vegan diet; We don't hit--I can't speak for Westley. I can tell him what to do and what not to do, but I can't tell him how to feel about it.

"No! Not okay!"

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Pictures

Every month I e-mail three pictures of my son to a long list of friends and family members. The promise of filling dozens of inboxes with photographic Westley updates helped Rob and me avoid some holiday gift-shopping last year. Because I didn't own a camera until fairly recently, I'm not used to taking pictures--but I love having them. It occurred to me that the monthly mailings would remind me to actually get out the camera and photograph my kid.

For a while, it worked. I did remember to take the camera out of its goofy little zipper case and actually use it. I had dozens--sometimes hundreds--of cute, fun, silly, sweet Westley photos to choose from every month. Taking pictures felt easy and natural. I got down on the ground with Westley and photographed the world from his eye-line, simultaneously capturing his tininess and the world's vastness. I'd end up with lots of good images and quietly agonize over which three pictures to choose. "Your boy is so cute!" came the replies when I sent out "Westley of the Month" e-mails.

You have no idea, I'd think, reviewing the "rejected" images.

It's the last week of the month, and I'm looking at pictures. But this month, it's a different kind of agonizing I'm doing. Looking through October's photos, I realize I have almost nothing. I think back over the month and I wonder where it went, what happened. Was I there? Was I even awake?

It seems the answer is Not really. I've been so thoroughly submerged in my own murky unconscious lately that I've kind of missed the rest of my life. My tangible life. Several of my October posts are just mental gymnastics routines without much day-to-day stuff mixed in: hypothetical houses, hypothetical pregnancies, what if/then/but. Like I'm trying to fit everyone else inside my head with me. And it's crowded enough in here already.

Thinking, analyzing, and even what if-ing, can be interesting and productive. And they can also stop us from seeing what's really going on around us. Real images fall away as we become overly-invested in imaginary photographs. I stopped taking pictures when all I could notice was the intensity of my own thoughts.

Now I find myself a little heartbroken over losing so much of this month. It's not just about having only a few pictures to share with the people who love Westley but don't get to see him every day. It's about not stopping my stream of consciousness long enough to really notice my child.

That's not the way I want to parent.

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In(fant)sanity

I know this has come up about a zillion times before, but I had dinner on Sunday with friends and their not-quite-six-week-old baby and I'm now completely mentally unstable. All I can think about is having a baby. The inside of my head sounds something like this:

Let's have a baby! (No.) Let's get pregnant again! (Not now.) Really, let's get pregnant as soon as possible. (No, thanks.) It's the perfect time! (Oh, it so isn't.) But...look at the tiny baby! (Stop it.) BABY! (Uh...) Babybabybabybabybaby!

It's making it impossible for me to concentrate on anything other than wanting another child. Never mind that I have a child already, and he's more than I think I can handle on most days! I keep trying to distract the voice in my head by reminding it how little wiggle room we have in terms of time and money, how my health is just barely back in order, how completely terrible-awful-no-good-very-bad Westley's birth and the days that followed were. The voice in my head doesn't care. It's more interested in whether my recent thrift-shop-found dresses will work as maternity tunics.

Yesterday, I found myself sitting down to read Pregnancy, Childbirth and the Newborn. I barely cracked a pregnancy book when I was pregnant. Now, I can't stop looking at them. I went in to the herbal pharmacy searching for a strong, spicy tea to replace the coffee that has crept back into my morning routine, and ended up reading the backs of all the books in the "Pregnancy and Childbirth" section.

Recently, I've been thinking about Westley's birth every single day. I don't set out to do it. But something completely mundane happens--I pass a pregnant woman in the grocery store, for instance--and the memory just bubbles to the surface and I'm back there (freaked out, overwhelmed, in excruciating pain), and oh, God, I want to do it again!

This is how I know I'm completely insane: I remember being pregnant and miserable; I remember being in labor and miserable; I remember having a newborn and being miserable. Misery is what really stands out for me about all that baby-having stuff, but for some reason, that doesn't quell my desire for another baby. Not at all.

Clearly, I need serious help. So, um...help? Please? What do I say to the baby-crazed voice in my head that has no problem with the idea of more stretch marks, twice the diapers, less sleep, and a dramatically smaller savings account? Because I'm out of ideas. In fact, all I can think about is this:

Baby Kaylee: Super-Sweet...and Crazy-Making

All I can say is it's a good thing that my IUD doesn't require any help from me to do its job effectively. Otherwise, it would be a little too easy to, um, "forget" my birth control:

It'll be fine. (I dunno.) Just this once. (Oh, all right...)

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