parenthood Archives - pnw mountain mommy

A Scoop of Decaf

April 8, 2020

I recently learned an approach to writing that was new to me. My instructor told me that when I sit down to write, I should empty my head. Seems simple, right? It’s not. It’s not because I have a thousand ideas every day. It’s not because I have things that happen in my life and I think: I have GOT to write about that. Now THAT is something people will love.

To be fair, sometimes I do write out all the things in my head, but those pieces rarely make it onto the blog. A lot of those things are just needing to be said, to get them out of my head, into the universe, unburdening me of their attention seeking.

When I sit down to write now, I release the pressure of expectation and I sit at my laptop, looking out at my cherry tree. I light a pile of christmas lights that sit tangled and pretty to one side of my desk. I put on some writing music (typically a wordless film score) and I sit. I sit and I start typing. A lot of times it starts with the way the light is filtering through the petals or the smell of my coffee. I start there and see where it takes me. Sometimes it doesn’t take me anywhere of profound interest, but it always takes me somewhere I enjoy being. I just let myself see what comes.

This morning I feel jittery. I typically try to mix in a little decaf with my morning brew so it doesn’t get me too wound up. I’m sensitive to coffee. I love it, and with two little kids I need it, but it can make me rapid and distracted. I guess there wasn’t enough decaf this morning, or maybe I didn’t eat enough eggs with toast. The great mystery of April 8th. I’m sure this is riveting…

The jitters are not just in my coffee, the jitters are in the air. I see the jitters in neighbors when we cross the street to avoid being too close. I see the jitters in the way we check the media, eyes half-lidded, as if that might shield us from the worst of the statistics while still giving us the knowledge we need to stay connected.

Rapid heart beats, distraction, an excess of unproductive energy. This is the state of our world, and of our quarantine. I feel it when I miss my parents and my friends. I feel it when I see the refund from the airbnb that was supposed to be our home base for a hike-filled girls trip in Sedona.

It’s not just the coffee…

As we move forward in this new temporary normal, some things begin to fall into place: This constant vigilance is tempered with the routine of the moment. We get up, we eat breakfast, we play with toy bikes, we play in the yard, we watch shows, we go through our day. Activities, rest, snacks, tantrums, repeat. All very humdrum, all very normal.

So that’s our scoop of decaf.

As we continue to move through the day and play and clean and laugh, we help take the edge off. It’s not a large space, our house and our yard. But, when you’re three and seven months, there’s plenty to touch and pick and prod and bike over. As this pandemic stretches on, and as we continue to shelter-in-place, a tempered brew is being poured. It tastes the same, smells the same, exists in the same universe. But it slows me down instead of winds me up.

Sending Love from on top of the hill,

Sleep, Sleep, Selected Poems

April 7, 2020

I have a stack of books next to me. Two different sleep training methods and one collection of Mary Oliver poems. The two sleep training books are out because it’s time to sleep train Bay.

There are as many approaches to sleep training as there are opinions about it. To be fair, we’ve already tried to sleep train the Bay Leaf, but it was traumatic. She cried, and choke-cried, and banshee screamed for six hours even with our many checks and shushes and holds. And that was using the gentlest method I found among our archives… So, we’ve been dragging our feet picking it back up again.

It didn’t help having a global pandemic sweep through. Suddenly things felt more fragile, more temporary. I wanted to give my children everything—love, attention, closeness, security, physical availability. The instinctual reaction to the unknown is to pull inward, grab those closest to me, and refuse to let go until the danger has passed.

The danger has not passed. The danger may not pass for months. It’s here and it’s dictating our current existence. So, we’ve continued to press our children close.

But, there’s something that scratches at the back of my mind. On mornings where I feel thin, or evenings where I feel brittle, the scratch turns its nagging drags into long, deep cuts. This painful reminder is for physical space. With everything going on in the world, the children and I are spending most of our days in the house or on the patio. We are all smooshed together while the pandemic plays out and most days it’s a relief. Having us all be together and safe and healthy and cared for, fills me with profound gratitude.

Of course, I worry about Ben, out in the world, possibly exposed to the virus. But, we know he’s out there doing what he needs to do to support our family in this era of crippled restaurants. He’s doing everything he can to keep the businesses going and keep us as financially stable as we can be.

When he’s home, the Cub and him are riding bikes together, playing on the ramps he built, generally soaking in one another’s company. The Bay Leaf spends time with her dad but eventually is only mollified by mom.

She is very attached to me.

I mean that in an emotional and physical way.

She is attached to me unlike the Cub ever was. This is new territory.

Particularly at night, she cannot abide Ben. It can only be me. She doesn’t transfer, she only wants the warm comfort of mom curled around her pudgy little body. Protecting her little heart and soft skin. And I love her babyness, her sweet puffs of breath, her search for my breast and my warmth. I love having her with me because I know this is the end of our babies. And I was never needed in this way with the Cub. It makes me feel special and necessary.

But the scratch-scratch of self-preservation continues. I need to have some physical autonomy for extended sanity in a world that is keeping us all home and smooshed. We need to sleep train Bay so that Ben and I can spend time with each other in the evenings. We need to sleep train Bay so I can write. If we can get her sleeping at night, naps might be longer and a writing practice can be carved out for more than twenty minutes at a time.

Speaking of twenty minutes, we’re at minute thirty-two and so you can see I’ve got a tag-a-long.

So, I’ll look at these books, we’ll try again. It’ll be hard and awful, but it’ll be necessary for all of us. I’m not looking forward to it, but I know it’s the best thing we can do for her, for me, for all of us.

Oh, and I included the Mary Oliver because sleep training is the fucking worst and she is the fucking best, so… a little poetry helps the pill go down.

Sending love from on top of the hill,

Writing Instead of Eating

April 6, 2020

It has been a year since I’ve written in this space.

A lot of things happen in a year.

Time, for one thing, has disintegrated into the stratosphere. Now there are two children instead of one. Two children who require constant observation. Except for now, right now, the baby is asleep and the toddler has been given my phone to play games for the duration of Bay’s nap. The typical nap duration for this particular baby is about twenty minutes on a good day, so, this writing will be short.

I’m writing instead of eating. I haven’t eaten anything yet today. I did have coffee (the most important part of my morning) and I did feed both of my children. Somehow, my own basic human needs got pushed to the side. I’m not hungry first thing in the morning because I’m busy. Both Ben and I are busy. He’s up with the Cub, I’m up with the Bay Leaf. Whichever one of us is up first makes oatmeal with blueberries for the toddler and coffee for us. Somewhere in the middle of that there’s changing diapers and the cub’s favorite show and feeding Marmot and making sure Marmot has his meds and then Ben has to head to work and here we go!

So, I’m writing instead of eating. I’ll eat when the baby wakes up. I’ll make myself something quick and easy for lunch while simultaneously spreading peanut butter and jelly on whole wheat for the Cub. I’ll dish up some veggie/fruit puree for the Bay Leaf to smear all over herself. That will be lunch. It will be a chaotic affair with laughter and messes and push back and impromptu dance parties. It will be, another lunch in quarantine.

I’m writing instead of eating because I haven’t written in a few weeks. I took a class, a writing class, with a bunch of very talented writers online for a few months. It was amazing. I wrote every single day. I wrote in ways I had never written before. One thing I learned was to come to my writing with nothing on my mind. Start typing whatever pops up and then go with it, follow it through the thickets and into the dark corners or the open spaces where the light pours through. Go in and keep burrowing until you tell your truth, whether it be mundane or earth shattering.

So, I’m doing that. I’m sitting here, listening to my stomach growl and writing my truth. Writing is one of my basic needs, and though it isn’t feeding my stomach, it is feeding my soul; trite but true. I’m going to let my son look at my phone for twenty minutes so that I can feed my soul. I’m sure a few parenting blogs out there would be scandalized.

Twenty minutes is not enough time to get into the vastness of the current climate. This shelter in place, this pandemic, this unease. There’s a heap of anxiety surrounding our lack of information. I have a sneaking suspicion that all of us will know people infected with this virus (I know two, and I may have been three), we may even know people who die. This is a time that will define a generation.

But there are bright moments. There are little corners I can sweep up and let the light in. As tiring as it is to have no break from my kids, I love my kids. Being together has been an eye opener on how much fun we have as a family. It’s not perfect. There’s screen time guys, and sometimes, a lot of it. But there’s also building little bmx tracks for toy bikes, there’s singing songs and making mac n cheese. There’s bouncing babies who giggle and running toddlers who can twirl and do a two-step.

I have been stepping up in a way I didn’t realize I could, until I had to. I’m crushing this constant parenting expectation without escape. I thought a week in I would be muttering to myself and eyeing my beer fridge (we have a beverage fridge full of beer, because, pandemic priorities) by nine a.m. Turns out? By nine a.m. I am elbow-deep in cardboard ramps and makeshift foam pits. By nine-thirty I’ve done two silly dance contests and paparazzi-ed my baby.

It’s not that bad, in fact… it’s pretty good.

I’m worried about my loved ones, may parents, my extended family.

But, with what we’ve been given? I’m pretty content in this moment, sitting at this computer, not eating, but typing. Giving myself the space for creative nourishment.

That being said, twenty minutes are up.

Time to grab a baby, feed my stomach, my toddler, and maybe try to wash a dish.

Sending love from on top of the hill,

A Baby Goes Camping for the First Time*

November 3, 2017

Camping with a baby is not easy. There’s a lot of calculated risk in deciding to bring your little one away from his home, his routine, his sleeping arrangement…

As a couple of parents attempting to navigate our way through the dicey, and frankly unpleasant sea of sleep training, we were not immune to the possible horrors we might be facing: Our tiny, otherwise happy infant could decide that the time to feel his first twinge of teething pain was at 4:00 a.m. He could be inconsolable and one of us would end up walking in the woods with a head lamp trying to keep Little Bear asleep, keep enough distance between us and the campground to maintain the peace, and generally keep ourselves from getting eaten by a cougar.

We also had a limited supply of diapers (not that I wouldn’t jerry rig some diapers out of maple leaves and sap) and I had a sneaking suspicion that someone in that campground was a psychopath and was probably plotting to steal my baby. I told Big Radish that the single guy the next campsite over was clearly a homicidal murderer. My husband pointed out that the “homicidal murderer” had a wife and toddler who were currently out of sight.

Despite this potential dread, or perhaps, despite my internal dialogue of potential dread, we not only survived camping, we owned camping.

I am a firm believer that if something is important to you as a person and as a parent, it is paramount that you share it with your child. You want your kid to know you, right? Then take them where you want to be, let them see what you’re passionate about, teach them what makes their parents happy. You know what makes me happy? Being outside.

I’m a backpacker by upbringing, and car camping has never held much appeal for me. I prefer to be away from people so I can hear the birds, smell the fresh air, and soak in some well-earned solitude. However, Big Radish is an experienced car camper and has shown me how fun and convenient if can be. If you’re going to car camp, Big Radish is the man you want to car camp with. Marrying a chef has a lot of perks, and one of them is what we eat while camping; just scratching the surface includes duck, grilled peaches, aged balsamic, and char-dusted grilled corn.

No watery, limp hot dogs for us! I assume that’s what most people eat when car camping… and no judgements. When backpacking, you end up eating freeze-dried and rehydrated mushy concoctions that all generally taste like teriyaki slop. Though, when you’ve been hiking up a mountain all day with a huge pack on your back, teriyaki slop is delicious.

We arrived to our campsite in the early evening, having to leave after Big Radish got off work. By the time we got there, we were scrambling to put up the tent, build a fire, get dinner going, and put Little Bear to bed. While I nursed, and changed the baby, Big Radish started coaxing a bed of coals into existence and pulled out the cast iron. We wouldn’t be able to eat until after Little Bear went to bed (assuming he would) so we pulled out the aluminum foil to ensure if the food got done before the baby went down, we wouldn’t be eating cold meat.

Sleep training is all about putting your baby down ‘sleepy but awake’ in an effort to teach them how to soothe themselves to sleep. When you’re camping, may I suggest, you change that particular mantra to ‘nurse them into a drunken coma’. Don’t beat yourself up, you’re doing what you have to do and the rest of the campground will thank you. Every single time Little Bear woke up; my boob went straight into his mouth until he passed back out again.

It’s survival. And I’m going to be upfront about this, parents. You are not going to have restful nights. Between a dog laying on top of our legs, a baby wedged in my sleeping bag, and two adults trying to share a confined space… well… we weren’t exactly communing comfortably with nature.

But! In the time between putting Little Bear to sleep in the tent and the time we went to bed, Big Radish and I got some awesome alone time snacking on steak and watching the fire while we sipped some wine. I’m not going to pretend that one of us wasn’t checking on the baby every six minutes to make sure he hadn’t somehow rolled himself into a corner and smooshed his airways closed. Despite the new parent fears, we all made it through the night with copious nursing and a lot of awkward “sleeping” positions.

It can be done, parents! It can! At any age, really. It just depends on your willingness to go with the flow and know that things won’t always go according to plan. We managed a six-mile hike and two full nights in the tent with a seven-month-old. Was it easy? Not always. Was it fun? Hell yes. Would I recommend it? Absolutely!

You’re not really sleeping now anyway, right?

*I’ve been meaning to write this for a while, but general parenthood got in the way. We were camping in June of 2017. Although most of what I wrote can be applied to any camping experience, November requires a lot more forethought about weather and warmth. You can camp whenever you like, just remember that preparation is key. Make sure you have the full measure of what fall camping is like, particularly in the Pacific Northwest where November can become an extremely snowy month in the mountains.