There is a ton of interest in the Stokke Tripp Trapp high chair, and for good reason. This versatile, attractive and well-made high chair is one of the best baby products on the market. Many parents have questions about the ins and outs of the Stokke Tripp Trapp, and in this post I’ll go over…
In an ideal world, all of our children would love to go to school, love to learn, love to work on their reading comprehension and writing skills, and be effortlessly talented with numbers. As a parent, it’s natural to wonder how to get your child interested in school. In reality, kids sometimes dislike studying. And there…
If you have a young kid, you know the appeal of superheroes. In this gift guide I’ll go over the best Spiderman toys for the superhero fan in your life. Spiderman ranks as one of the all-time classics. Kids today are just as into Spiderman as they were decades ago, so it’s no surprise that…
This weekend it struck me: My daughter, who is just a year old, will never know a world where there hasn’t been a woman in the White House. And until the age of 41, I’ve never known a world where there has. My kids will never live in a country where there hasn’t been a…
Guys, I was sick all weekend. And you know who didn’t care? Nolan. Not one bit. Not. At. All. I know he looks like he feels kind of bad for me in this photo:
Don’t let him fool you. He’s been partying for days even though he knew I could’t keep up, as evidenced here:
Not being able to phone it in, so to speak, is the toughest thing about having a baby so far. The inability to take a day off, and the knowledge that this is now a permanent condition of your life, can be kind of daunting to a new parent. Of course actual paid jobs are demanding and tiring too. I’m not really into the whole “motherhood is the hardest job in the world” thing. Although my friend Courtney did suggest an amazing tagline for this blog, which I’ve taken into consideration:
“Doing the world’s most difficult job and looking sexy doing it.”
The only problem is, I just can’t reasonably claim I have the hardest job in the world because, for me personally, I’ve already had harder jobs (social worker for abused kids? Uh, yeah, that was harder). I know I just have the one kid, and he’s still little, and he’s pretty cool, so my tune may change on this one. But right now I spend a lot of time on leisure activity and social engagements for someone with the world’s hardest job. If, say, surgeons, or the President, made this many coffee dates I would be pretty concerned.
But. The one kicker of motherhood is that you can’t call in sick. Ever. You can’t call in tired, or lazy, or sad either. And when you really need to take a day off, due to actual, bona fide sickness, guaranteed you’re not going to get any slack from your baby, who smells weakness the way dogs smell fear. And make no mistake, your baby will TAKE YOU DOWN.
Case in point, Nolan and I had the following conversation over the weekend:
Me: Nolan, Mama feels really sick and needs to lay down for a little while.
Nolan: Super high-pitched pterodactyl scream.
Me: I’m sorry, baby, it’s just that I have a very sore throat and need to rest.
Nolan: Even higher pitched scream, briefly turning into a silent scream it was so high. Then back to a scream that only dogs can hear. Then back to a scream I could hear, along with our entire neighborhood. Then my ears broke.
Me: Nolie, that scream is a little loud for Mama.
Nolan: Blank stare followed by the sound of shit exploding up the back of his onesie.
So you can see, negotiations didn’t really work out for us. They might work better for you. Eventually I gave up, and conceded that, sick or not, I had a baby to take care of. Fortunately I had some assistance by way of an Exersaucer
Resigned to the fact that as a mom you can’t also be a whining, sick baby yourself, I got up and out, best I could. It’s funny to suddenly realize you are not the one being babied any more, you are the one doing the babying for another. Not funny like “ha ha” funny, more like “I want to stick something in my eye” funny.
Anyway, up and about we were. On Saturday Nolan, Brian, my parents and I went to a college graduation party for my twin cousins, Emily and Andy. Both were very happy to have finished school, but Emily had gotten the idea that their commencement speaker was Beyoncé, only to find it was Governor Deval Patrick. That was something of a letdown, as you might imagine, to the undergrads.
Anyway, here is Nolan, posing with his cousins (wait, they are my cousins, so are they also his cousins? Second cousins? Cousins once removed? This always trips me up). Anyway who cares, they are college grads. They probably know the answer to this, what with their newly minted diplomas and all.
I hope Nolan is someday a college grad. But if he becomes, say, an interpretive dancer or a professional thigh model, I will still support him. I’m flexible that way.
After the graduation party we stopped at the most glorious place on Earth, Salem Willows. Salem Willows is, to the untrained eye, kind of a dumpy arcade strip. Some may call it “America’s White Trash Playground.” But. You have to look a little deeper, or just have been coming here since you were a baby, to appreciate its magnificence. Nowhere in the world can you get better popcorn. The Skeeball arcade is the best around. When we first started dating, Brian and I went to Salem Willows to play skeeball all summer, saving up our tickets until we were able to buy this gem of a frame:
Let me repeat: all summer. That’s how long it took us to get the frame. The Willows doesn’t give shit away. It makes you work for it. One summer, when I was about 10, my cousin Lindsay and I saved up enough tickets to buy some whoopee cushions, and then we camped out in the public bathrooms letting them rip. It was a blast! Times were simpler then. I cannot overstate to you how much I love Salem Willows.
Thanks to Chrissie’s hit post, “The 11 Best and Worst Summer Activities to do with a Baby,” we decided that it was time to let Nolan have his first ice cream cone, and Salem Willows was the obvious choice. Fact: Salem Willows is the home of America’s first ice cream cone, and what’s good enough for America is good enough for Nolan. This outing also had a secondary benefit of introducing Nolan to the dangers of childhood obesity. Win win!
Nolan LOVED his ice cream (strawberry for his maiden voyage, in case you’re wondering), so much so that he gave himself an ice cream headache by crushing it so fast. At one point he grabbed hold of the ice cream itself, rather than the traditional method of holding the cone, and the coldness scared him into tears. But he recovered because he’s just that kind of guy.
On Sunday we celebrated my Mom’s birthday (Nolan gave her the photo below as a gift – it’s his favorite picture of him and his Grandma together).
Grandpa Dan prepared some chicken on a grill that my maternal grandfather, Mike, made years ago out of an old metal kitchen sink and spare engine parts. You might say my grandfather was resourceful. He motorized his creation to rotate shish kebabs because, why not?
In addition to his uncanny ability to invent things that nobody has ever even considered that they may want, he also had the ability to eat whole onions the way normal people eat apples. So there’s that. He was an amazing guy.
My Grandpa Mike and me, circa many years ago when my hair was worse than it is now, but better than when it was a mullet.
We brought it all in for a family cheer to end the party. I think this is how most families end their parties, no?
I have to say, despite feeling like shit all weekend, we had some nice times as a family. Having a baby that doesn’t let you wallow in self-pity is both a blessing and a curse, I suppose. I’m feeling a little better today, thanks for mentally asking, so I believe I can live up to my newly adopted personal mantra.
p.s. Guys, it really is hard to take care of a kid when you’re sick, yes? I hadn’t factored this in when deciding if I wanted to procreate. What have you found to be the toughest thing to get used to now that you’re a parent? If you’re not a parent, please feel free to comment on something totally unrelated that you find surprisingly difficult. This is an inclusive blog.
Two weeks after I went back to work, my baby got croup and a double ear infection at the same time that I had an awful cold. And then he decided that 4:30 am was a much better wakeup time than 6 am. Daddy had to pitch in with some night wakings and early wakings during that time. Being sick and taking care of a baby really is the worst.
I really love that you identified yourself as (Not Cousin) Lindsay. Ha! Yes Nolan has recently decided that 4:30 is his wake up time as well. He’s all “6:00 is for suckers!”. And then he needs a nap at like 7:00 but I’m too awake to go back to bed. It’s awesome.
I find that the list of friends/family who said silly things like “let me know if there’s ever anything I can do to help” or “I’m happy to watch her if you ever need a break” back when she was first born comes in quite handy when you’re sick! It’s perfect: 1) they did actually say it (even if it was a while ago and you both know they didn’t really mean it) and 2) you are sick so you don’t really care that you both know they didn’t mean it. Result: friend shows up at door… you put baby in friend’s hands, ramble off list of random things friend may need to keep baby alive… you retreat to your bedroom, close the door and pray the baby is alive and you’re still friends with the person upstairs after you’ve gotten a little rest 😉
Mer this is a great tactic! Actually, this reminds me of something my dad did recently. I was looking for full-time day care for Nolan, and around that same time my dad bumped into a girl at the supermarket that I was friends with in high school, but who I hadn’t seen in a long time. She said to my dad, “Hey, if Liz ever needs anyone to watch Nolan, I’m happy to do it!” Obviously she meant either on a rare occasion, or more likely didn’t really mean it at all, by my dad remembered this and took it to mean that she “offered to do day care for Nolan! No need to find a day care center, we’re all set!” Ha! Can you imagine if I called her and was all, “So my dad said you’d like to watch Nolan everyday…and YES I will take you up on that!”
LOL that’s awesome… nevermind how weird it is that supermarket girl told your Dad to pass along such a random message (whatever happened to “oh, tell her I said ‘hi’ and ‘congratulations'” then making a mental note to herself to give you a shout-out on facebook or something rather than making your Dad the babysitting offer middle-man?) but I also love your Dad’s translation of her offer… can you please tell her you’ll take her up on it and grab a photo of her reaction? That would be priceless… the color draining from her face as she realizes she went from zero to daycare provider in zero seconds flat!
Ha! I know. Although she was being more the normal one, my dad is the wild card 🙂 She’s known my dad and our family for years, and knew we had a lot going on so was trying to be helpful. But seriously, by no means was she offering full-time day care!
I just want you to know that since giving birth I pee just a little bit everytime I laugh really hard- this blog is TOTALLY worth it 😉
Kristen – First, thanks for reading the blog! Second, if you’d like I can supply you with some adult sized diapers. I feel like it’s the least I can do for your support.
While I am not a parent in the traditional sense, I have mothered 4 cats over the years, and my friends will agree that I tend to mother them (which likely leads to resentment every now and again). What do I find difficult? That the extra pounds do not magically melt away and that the body doesn’t self tone, while I continue to enjoy all the calorie/fat-laced foods that I love. That very desirable men do not simply call, while I make no effort to find them, etc. To get serious for a nanosecond, I bet our grandmothers and great-grandmothers found parenting very difficult, especially without any (repeat any) modern conveniences like AC, disposable diapers, microwaves, pre-packaged baby food, hands-on husbands. But, let them start their own blogs, if they feel the need (they can’t, no computer!), this one is about the modern mother.
Lynda, it’s not fair that the pounds don’t just melt away, especially given all you do for your cats and many friends! I have to say, as one of the people you mother, I have never resented it for a second. Quite the opposite!
As for grandparents and great-grandparents, I think of that often. My granny raised 9 kids. NINE KIDS! That would almost qualify you for a reality show now, and she just did it like “no big deal, I birthed a soccer team.” It’s incredible really.
Another tough part of parenting is when your kids get older and other kids are mean to them on the playground. You’ll want to punch the offender, naturally, but you can’t do that. You’ll get arrested. Plus, you have to set a good example or whatever.
In regards to the staying home, I must say on Tuesdays and Thursdays when I’m home with just the baby and my 4.5 year old is at preschool I think to myself “i could do this forever!!” I’m meeting people for lunch dates, taking walks, and pounding pain au chocolate.
The other days by 10am I’m checking my imaginary Rolodex seeing who I can call to get my ass out of the house and back to work. There’s just so much “you pretend to be a dog/baby/teenager and I’ll be a dog/baby/teenager” and no naps etc. When I used to work I used to stop between appointments and go to CVS by myself and SOMETIMES I would even get my eyebrows done. (Don’t tell JKH!!) Ah, those were the days.
Yeah, my perspective on how sweet this SAHM (see how I used Mom lingo – MINGO! there??) is based on having one baby. I will reevaluate my position as we move forward…
Liz, amazing timing… All of us have had the stomach bug for a week and while I’m still not 100% I came to work today anyway because at least I could sit at my desk quietly for a few minutes and no one would be touching me. It’s just me and my sleeve of saltines and I couldn’t be happier 😉
Ha! Your office is like your personal spa getaway retreat, except without any of the nice spa stuff. But it features the main nice thing which is blessed quiet….So, as we like to say in my family – good enough!
I just want to say that you really hit the nail on the head with this post! Being a mother is not always the hardest job. Many days, I wake up excited just to do even mundane things with my family. But it IS an unending job, and that can be daunting. I liked the funny parts, too, but that really resonated with me.
Thanks Klina! Yes, it’s the relentless nature of it that’s more difficult. On Facebook several moms were weighing in on what they think the hardest thing is – many of them have older kids, and things like “watching your kid get hurt,” and “seeing people be mean to your kid” were high on the list. It’s too early for those things in my family since Nolan is so young, but I do think that while some things will get easier, others will get much harder!
I thought getting mastitis when my C was 5 months old was tough. I was feverish and exhausted with a mile-long shopping list and dozens of cokies to bake. And we didn’t call him an angry elf back then for nothing. Then a few months later, he passed his stomach bug to me, on my birthday, no less.
They make them cute for a reason.
They sure do Erin. Mother Nature is no fool. If kids weren’t so cute there’s no way anyone in their right mind would put up with so much bullshit!