28th February 2009

Normalcy Resumes - Motherhood is a Game of Resourcefulness & Efficiency

Yesterday, Melina went to her first funeral.  I’ve attended few funerals in my life, thankfully, but this funeral was different because I was taking my daughter to a former boyfriend’s grandmother’s funeral.  I dated him in my 20’s for ten years.  We never married, but thought we would at one time.  I was very close to his family during the time we dated.  We’ve stayed in touch over the years.  He’s since married and divorced.  He’s now with another woman.   I had not seen his family in nearly ten years.  So Melina and I travelled out to Newark, Ohio for the funeral. 

I sat with Melina in the back of the church.  I looked at the family that filled several aisles towards the head of the church where the casket lay.  I saw how the three brothers all looked a little older.  I watched one of the granddaughters with her 6-month old daughter.  I remembered how she was just a kid when I was over at my boyfriend’s grandmother’s house for Christmas.  How was it now that she was old enough to be married and have a kid?  It was so wierd to see her bouncing her baby, in her church clothes with white stockings and white shoes.  It reminded me of when I was a kid, and dressing up for church on Sundays.  It reminded me of when Mom had to keep us quiet in church, which was always a bit of a challenge with three kids.  I thought of how time passes - so quickly - thinking of my own childhood, to the time I had with Christopher and his family - and how his cousin now had a young baby. 

Melina was great the entire time she was in church.  I had previously worried about taking her to church, wondering if she’d cry, have a meltdown, or who knows what, perhaps just a way of procrastinating from going to church.  It’s always the first time you take your baby some place new that you are nervous.  However each time, there have been few or no issues and I look back afterwards and wonder why I was so apprehensive.  Each time I experience something new with Melina, I feel like I’m resuming stages of normalcy.  I’m experiencing the first stages of motherhood and loving it.  I am in awe of experiencing life and how others interact with you when you have a child, or perhaps a newborn baby.

Back at the church, while everyone went to the burial site, I remained behind with Melina and looked at the pictures of Marjorie, Christopher’s grandmother, and how she looked in her various life stages as wife, mother, grandmother, and even great-grandmother.  I realized how much Marjorie’s granddaughter looked like her decades ago, when her grandmother was young.  We had lunch with Christopher’s mom and step-mom.  I’ve always felt so at ease with them.  Marian doted on Melina and held her.  She offered to make Melina a quilt and asked what colors I’d like.  I told her anything but pink.  I had enough pink.  Melina fell asleep on Marian’s chest and was entirely at peace in her arms.  I therefore was content, feeling normal, like I could be this mother I had always dreamt about.  People took pictures - and people wanted Melina in the picture with them, increasing my feelings of normalcy, where Melina was included amongst family, even though this wasn’t really my family, but it could have been and once was at one point. 

It seemed odd to be in Newark and not see Grandma Henthorne.  I wondered if everyone would convene for holidays now that Marjorie and Earl were both gone.  They were the mainstay for holidays - she was a good person - a really good person. 

Melina and I left and returned to Columbus.  I was exhausted.  We both napped and then I returned to work, and to catch up on projects left unattended during the day.  Motherhood is a never-ending journey where you learn to be efficient in all walks of life, to fit it all in.  As we take our first steps of this journey together, while it can be a bit challenging at times, and stressful, it is a good journey and one I cannot imagine having missed.  It will all pass so quickly - there are days where I think before I know it she will be walking, riding a tricycle, and then I jump to seeing her in highschool, college and beyond.  Will I get the chance to be a grandmother having started so late in life?  Questions I don’t worry about - but they cross my mind when I see someone else’s life captured in pictures. 

I need to check on my sweet sleeping baby - and capture the quiet moments, and make use of the time I have to catch up on everything else that got left behind during the day, or the week that has so quickly passed us by.

21st February 2009

I want to blog but am too tired to blog 1 reply

I haven’t written in two weeks plus.  My head hurts so bad right now - I had the flu this week - and my daughter is sick.  My daughter turned 3 months this week, well 12 weeks that is.  Despite my screaming headache that hurts all over down to my neck - I do have something to celebrate - and that is the excitement of being a mother.

But I’m simply too tired, too illin to blog - so will come back another day when I feel better.

5th February 2009

Having a Child is Reliving the Best of Your Own Childhood & Perhaps Rewriting 3 replies

the rest of the script that you didn’t like so much, right?

Tonight, I was having a major sugar craving.  In fact, I think I was passing a mere craving after a long day at the office, but it was a productive day.  I have worked at the office half days this week, with the exception of Monday where the office was geographically located at my house.  I worked out with my trainer today.  I was feeling as if I was catching up and accomplishing more than just a thing or two.  Melina seemed to adjust to being at the office today, probably mostly due to the gift my trainer brought me - something divine called a “swing”!  Melina slept for 2 1/2 hours (two separate naps) and gave Mommy plenty of time to get a proposal out the door.  Afterwards, I came home, fed her, cooked and ate my own dinner, and then after putting her to sleep, decided to make cupcakes.

As I was making red velvet cupcakes, determined not to eat all the icing before I served the cupcakes, I was feeling like a genuine Mom.  Moms make cupcakes for their children’s school events, for bake sales, etc.  I’ve never had the desire to bake a cake, or cupcakes, in my adult life.  But tonight, I chose to make a batch of red velvet cupcakes and vanilla icing on top.  As I spread the vanilla icing on top of the cupcakes, I realized this was something I would soon do for my daughter’s bake sales and events.  

When Mom was baking in the kitchen, it was very exciting - who was going to lick the spoon at the end of batch?  But more exciting was to see the themed event that would take place surrounding a birthday cake, and Mom’s decoration of that cake.  As I tried to decorate a cake in my early 20’s, i realized I did not have the same qualities that Mom had in baking a cake.  In fact, bluntly put, I sucked at baking and icing cakes.  My mom’s cakes - they were something out of Martha Stewart before MS really existed.  On top of that, her cakes were real - none of that yucky icing that just looks pretty on a Martha Stewart magazine cover.  My mom’s cakes were made with real buttercream icing, and with real icing florets.  I loved her icing so much, I’d rather have eaten just the icing instead of the cake. 


Freshly made red velvet cupcakes with vanilla icing and red sprinkles

So, as I impatiently slathered my “vanilla flavored Duncan Hines” icing on the warm cupcakes, I thought of my own childhood and how I looked forward to the day that I’d make these cakes for her to take to school, or bake sales, or to share.  And then I began to panic for a few moments, thinking, what if my cakes aren’t really the hit of the party.  Mom better come out here and teach me how to make cakes for Melina.  Or better yet, she could just make them herself for Melina’s birthdays - as we all have our qualities and making cakes does not appear to be in my own personal recipe book.  And then it occurred to me that having a child is perhaps a story in which we try to recreate our own childhood and live it again, taking the best parts and weaving them into our children’s lives so they could enjoy what we enjoyed as children.  We’re just retreating in some small way to relive something so innocent as an iced cupcake.  Our early childhood can be a time of simple joy remembered.


Melina - A Long Time Before Bake Sales
Are Required

For the parts of our childhood that we didn’t enjoy as much, well, we have the option to re-write the script, or perhaps choose to have an understanding that’s different once we encounter that stage of life with our own children.  Regardless, tonight, I reminisced on the good memories of my childhood as I sat there and tried to make iced cupcakes - and realized how badly I needed my own Mom to show me the ropes in the kitchen for baked goods.  Better yet, I could just ask her to make the cake and decorate it please, if you will kindly do so, pretty please, with red sprinkles on top. 

3rd February 2009

Identifying with Dr. Cuddy on House - Balance of the Working Mother

I love my daughter.  I love holding her.  I love watching her.  I love hearing her toot-toot at the funniest times.  I love seeing her grow.  I get excited when she shows me her first smiles, and for the first time responds to hearing her name.  I love producing food for her now - because I can.  I’m not as thrilled about the diaper and wardrobe changes, or my own for that matter, but I can get over that. 


Melina Sacked out at Northstar with Mommy
2/09

I also love my brain and what it does for my clients, despite how egotistical that might sound.   I am thankful for a brain that solves problems and figures things out (that at times no one else can).  My brain earns a little more money than I can as a babysitter, or Mom at home.  I enjoy solving problems - although at times I get frustrated with the problem at hand - or the responsibility that it brings as I try to hand it off to others so I can be a Mom) but it’s what pays the bills around here.  I’m getting to the point where I need part-time help here so I can do more with work.  And thus, comes the challenges of a woman who wants to be a Mom, and is responding to the natural desire to be a Mom, but also must work, or needs to be mentally challenged in some other way than stay at home.

 In the first year, there are so many first discoveries for both of us, simultaneously, that I don’t want to miss them.  You’d think I’d want to get out of this maddeningly disorganized house - whew - who knew so much could pile up and you’d have to get used to looking at things left undone in order to take care of a baby.  Sleep trumps organization, work trumps sleep, eating healthy gets trumped by interruptions and schedule, baby trumps all, and so the list goes on.


Melina Just Beginning to Wake Up

 So, as I have grown to enjoy watching House on Fox, I can identify with Dr. Cuddy (spelling?) as she tries to be a Mom, in addition to doing a job at the hospital that no one else can.   Her house was overly disorganized - she’s embarrassed - yet how I can relate.  She’s trying to do it all.  Be a Mom, clean, work, or a little bit of everything - and yes, on her own.

My job requires a tremendous amount of thinking - in order to solve people’s problems in where few others can.  It’s like House - or Hugh Laurie’s character.  He researches, tests, but in the end - the problem is solved when he thinks of something novel - and realizes the answer is right in front of him, sometimes a rather simple answer that cures the patient.  At times, I have been criticized by a select few people for over-thinking however, that is what I do every day to run a business - constantly thinking out solutions for a million different things - to survive and to thrive on several different levels.

And, that is what’s hard - to hand off to someone else - because very few people have to solve other people’s intricate technical search engine problems all day long - and those of us that do - have to figure out solutions to things that are novel everyday.  There is no one solution for any of these problems.  So, I can at times think as I try to balance clients, account management, employees, vendors, product development, industry changes, colleague networking, new technology updates, along with a diaper and wardrobe change, and adaptation to a baby’s sleep schedule - that I am ready for the babysitter to arrive any moment.  And then, I realize that it’ll be the first time I hand my child over to someone else and trust that they do even half a good as job as me taking care of her.  Or, worse yet, what if they do a better job?  Will I be jealous?  Will my child be okay?  Yea, lots of questions here.

So, I can not procrastinate much longer - I need to find someone who’s certified, registered, comes with great ratings, and that will work four hours a day, three to four days a week, so I can focus on Biz during that time.  However, I also want babysitter and daughter with a hand’s reach and thus, at my office or home, where I am until she gets a little older.  Mathematically, it makes sense - it’s a no-brainer.  But emotionally, it is hard as hell - to entrust your child’s care to another.  As mothers, we naturally want to be with our children that we have birthed from our wombs - we want to be there, to nurture.  I don’t want to miss a moment.  I want to be present in her life.  I want to enjoy, to savor, to love.  She is such a gift to me from God.  I am so lucky - but I also must work to provide for us. 

Tis the challenge of the working Mom - and as I have watched the last few episodes of House - I can truly relate to Dr. Cuddy’s struggle of what it’s like to want to be a Mom, and at the same time, have to work.