Yoga Pants

By stacy on January 30, 2007

We have inside clothes and outside clothes. This isn’t about inside-out or rightside-in, but which clothes we wear while we’re inside the house and which clothes we wear when we go out.

In my life as a mom-at-home, I wear a lot of inside clothes. Which means I wear a lot of yoga pants that act as napkins.

Just about the time the napkin phase was ending, I got pregnant with Child #2. Hello, maternity clothes. And then hello to The One Pair of Maternity Pants That Still Fit Me: capri jeans.

Mica was born in October. The end of October. That makes for some pretty cold ankles, girlfriend! So maybe I wore my black yoga pants out — into the outside world! — once or twice toward the end, but only to the grocery store. With my supersized black fleece on top.

No one noticed. But the inexorable erasure of our inside-outside clothes distinction had begun. Which is how I found myself wearing my poop-stained yoga pants to the library and the park yesterday, sleeping in them, and then wearing them to the grocery store today.

So gross!

(Though, let me tell you, the poop stain hardly shows up on black, and it’s near the hem of the pants, and it’s breastmilk poop, people, hardly poop at all! And not wearing my black yoga pants would have meant wearing the only other clean pants that fit me: my gray yoga pants. Gray yoga pants? In public? No. No way.)

I’ve got to hold the line somewhere, which is why I said no when my son wants to wear his sweat pants to the grocery store.

“These aren’t fet pants, Mama. These are yoga pants.”

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Mica Has His Head on Straight

By stacy on January 27, 2007

I don’t know if you noticed, but Mica came out with a distinct head-tilt to the right. No one really knows why. Of course, I thought it was probably something I was doing — like how I carried him in the didymos or something. Then we went to see my good friend Laura, a naturopathic doctor, who gave him craniosacral work. She said that everyone has tendencies and that it was something stronger than how we held him or anything like that. Phew, it lessened my mama-guilt a little bit.

On our third visit to see Laura, he just started arching back, pushing up and off with his feet, and making a smooth curve downward, led by the weight of his head.

Laura said, “That’s a movement they do when they’re being born.”

He did it a few times as he cried. It was really intense for him. Then I thought he needed a break and said maybe he wanted to nurse. Laura held him and asked, “Is that what you want to do? Take a nursing break and try again?” His whole body relaxed. We nursed and tried again.

Over and over, he did the arching as Laura held him gently, with one hand under his head and one under his sacrum. He was crying but focused on what he was doing. Then we saw it — the kink just went away, almost as if it evaporated. I held him in my arms and his head was held straight. He leaned against me, looking tired and satisfied, like he had just given birth.

Giving birth. There was a time, after I went through transition in one incredible contraction and had just called the midwives, that I tried not to push. I thought that maybe I should wait for them to arrive. This baby thought otherwise! It was horrible – emotionally, physically, psychically – to not push. I was panicking and standing on my tippy-toes and saying, “Just get here, just get here, just get here.”

And then it was clear. The baby was about to get here and we needed to embrace that fact. I don’t remember if/what we actually said, but Rom and I realized that we were going to do it on our own… It was like being set free. I climbed on the bed on hands and knees and began humming/singing (or something!) through the pushes. The bag of waters came out, and then broke. I asked Rom what color the water was, though I could see that it had a bit of light meconium. And then I felt the baby’s head coming out in a long sustained contraction, and then I waited for him to turn his shoulders, and then he was out in another push.

So, it was my fault after all! Maybe the not-pushing kinked up Mica and he needed to work that out on his own. Or maybe it was simply how he was situated inside the pelvis. All I know is that I like looking at my little guy straight-on.

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Color Coded

By stacy on January 26, 2007

Orlando and I developed a code word that he can use when he absolutely needs my attention. (Yes, ideally, we wouldn’t need this code word, as my attention would be available to him at all times. Hah! It’s true, kids need a lot of attention, but it’s perverse to think that one adult can give it to them, all day everyday. We are social animals – tribal, in fact. Tribes do not consist of one or two parents. But that’s another post.)

So, the code word. We started it because he was using “bad” behaviors to get my attention, such as peeing in the corner, putting things on top of the baby, unlatching Mica from the breast, unplugging the computer, stepping on my feet, etc. Nice. But a kid can only take so many “just a minute”s before resorting to desperate measures.

“Just a minute while I nurse/change/potty/put down/pick up Mica.”

“Just a minute while I cook this/eat something/have a drink of water/go pee.”

“Just a minute while I make this phone call/send this email/order something online.”

“Just a minute while I sit here, with no one on my body, talking to no one, doing nothing for just this one minute.”

(Notice there is nothing here about cleaning anything.)

I knew that we have been disconnected lately, due to my diminished availability (physically — I wear Mica almost always, and emotionally — I am freakin’ tired!), so it just happened spontaneously. I said, “Boo, I know you want my attention but you don’t have to do these ‘bad’ things to get it. You can just say, ‘Code Red!’ and I will come to you.” So we practiced a few times.

I wish I had thought of something more creative. I mean, “code red,” isn’t that some militaristic or firefighters’ phrase? But it was what came out of my mouth at the time. I made a promise to myself that whenever he uses the code word, I will stop whatever I am doing and come to him. No more “just a minute”s. I walk to him, make eye contact, and tell him, “I see you. I am here.” And then we go from there. I’ve found that the code word also helps me recognize his bad actions before we spiral into a conflict over them. So I will say, “Hey! It seems like you need my attention. It’s not okay to [do those all things you’re doing/about to do]. Let’s try your code word!”

So he runs in the other room (he thinks we need to be in separate rooms for it to work) and yells out, “Code red! Code orange! Code SILVER!!” And I walk my mama-self over there and give my full gaze to my first-born. He’s happy to see me. He smiles and says, “Code Purple!”

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Winking with Both Eyes

By stacy on January 26, 2007

A week or two ago, I started giving Orlando a smile and winking at him. After I had done it a few times, I told him, “You know why I wink at you, don’t you? It’s because I love you. It is wonderful that you are here, alive. It makes me so happy.” Now he knows what it means when I wink, but he still asks me to say it sometimes. We can really feel the love tingling between us. It’s amazing.

The other day he blinked at me in response, and told me, “I wink two eyes with love for you, Mama.”

I have to own up and say that the unconditional “I love you” idea morphed out of Scott Noelle’s “Unreasonable Love” Daily Groove parenting tip. Visit his site, Enjoy Parenting, for an inspiring perspective on this whole parenting thing.

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What are jelly beans made out of?

By stacy on January 19, 2007

That’s easy! Jelly. And beans.

“Hey, Orlando, what do you want for a snack — sweet potato? Apple? Yogurt?”

“M mmmm mmeemeee ma.”

“What?”

Orlando does this thing when he wants to eat something wonderfully sweet. He tells me about it in a barely audible voice, and gets louder each time I ask.

“I want to meee meeee ma.”

“What?” I say, stepping closer to him, with a smile. The excitement builds between us.

“I want to eat some jelly beans.”

I exclaim, “You do?” I didn’t know he knew what jelly beans were. But then I remember — there was a picture of a jar of jelly beans in a book we read at Grammy’s. Nothing but a picture, but kid-intuition has informed him that they must be delicious.

I tell him as gently as I can, “But we don’t have any.”

“Well,” he says as he stands up. “We have jelly. And we have beans.” He’s been thinking about this. “And I can put some jelly on the beans.”

I don’t tell him I think it will be weird. The beans in this case are a black beans and rice dish that we have been eating for lunch this week. With lots of sour cream.

Instead, I say, “Okay. Do you want the beans warmed up?”

“Hm. Yeah, praw-wee.”

So I heat a tablespoon of beans and then put a tiny dollop of jelly next to them and serve them to my son.

“I am going to stir them up!”

“Okay.”

He stirs them up and takes a bite, “Ew,” he says. “It tastes weird.”

I wonder when he’ll discover what the real jelly beans taste like.

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