A while back when I was debating splurging on paying for house cleaning (after I gave birth to our second child) a friend of mine told me that once you have more than one child (she has six) paying for housework is not a splurge: it's a necessity. There's something in Jewish tradition called "shalom bayit", she told me: "peace in the home". She said for the sake of "shalom bayit", once you have more than one child, factor in paying for housecleaning like you would any other bill; it's essential to a happy home, she said.
I assented on the phone, less because I believed her and more because I felt like she'd given me permission for what I still considered a splurge.
Two days ago, my perspective changed. I had, for about three months, outside help to clean our home. It's not very big, just the first floor of a two family in New England. Wood floors, no carpet, easy right? We started at twice a month but as I took stock of our meagre finances, I soon whittled down both the frequency of the cleanings and the price for their infrequent occurrences.
No matter how infrequent their visits, I still looked forward to them, the date of their arrival flashing in my mind as I saw the Cheerios roll under the sofa, or the bed, or the bookcase. And then the day comes and I'm trying to contain my excitement while the mantra "in an hour and a half my house is going to be sparkling clean" plays in my head.
And then they don't show up. (It's not the first time, but when they clean so well and cost so little, you make allowances.)
I call to be told some lame excuse, AGAIN, and this time I'm done hearing it. It's fine, I tell myself, we need to save the money anyway. I'll just clean the floors myself. If two people can clean my house, floor to ceiling, in 90 minutes, then surely I can clean just the floors in an hour...
I put the baby in her crib with some playthings and gated my two year old in his room (he has plenty of toys in there, right?)
Almost as soon as I mix the bucket full and start in on just the kitchen, my two year old is trying to climb over the gate in his doorway. He wants to help. I sigh. Fine. Here's a sponge. I use all natural cleaners so I figure it's fine for him to get his hands in it (see Shaklee link for the most amazing product of the Get Clean line, Basic H2).
Immediately he's scooping up suds and I'm sorry I caved so quickly: but I'm halfway through the kitchen and can't reverse that decision now.
The baby starts to fuss.
I do their room as quickly as I can...my son runs in with his sponge sopping wet...and casually stands with it over his bed. I start to get edgy. "Stop that, don't you see what you're doing, not in your bed." Oy, this was not what I wanted.
The baby starts to whimper.
I get to the playroom (what used to be our dining room) and start in as best I can. I look up and see my son up to his elbows in dirty floor water. "Don't do that, that's dirty water, here, here's the clean water", I show him the other half of the divided bucket and then return to the mop.
The baby is crying.
My son runs in...RUNS in and falls twice on his way on the wet floor so by the time he gets to me he's crying...and sopping wet...and still holding his sponge saturated with Basic H2 cleaner...dripping all over him and the area rug I had just moved out of my way.
The baby is hysterical.
"What are you doing running like that, I told you to stay in your room, it's all wet here...
The baby is screaming.
"Get out of here, get out!" I shout at him.
And in that moment it was over. In that one moment I told myself, I'm done. I looked around. The floors were half done, the kitchen still had sinks full of dishes, and I hadn't even started on cooking my son's lunch. "Shalom bayit", I heard my friend say, "peace in the home". I apologized to my son for my unnecessary outburst and got him into dry clothes. Only then could I pick up the screaming baby and sit down, utterly exhausted, to nurse her. In that moment, sweating and redfaced and pissed off and disappointed in myself, I decided I was going to find reliable, affordable, cleaners, because there are plenty of moments when I can't avoid becoming demon-mommy: cleaning the house doesn't have to be one of them.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Finding Peace with the Term "High Needs" Baby
I always grab one of those "parenting" or "childhood" magazines they have stacked at the pediatrician's office; I figure it's free and bound to have some piece of valuable advice in there somewhere. I picked one up last week when I was there with two sick kids...I just remembered about it and got around to flipping through. I came across an article on the "high needs" baby; I quickly scanned and then I actually turned back to the first page and read word for word. Here was a pediatrician writing about how his fourth child, their first girl, was a completely different baby from his previous laid back, easy-to-please boys. She needed to nurse constantly and needed to be held just as often; she was happy in a carrier/sling but miserable when put down. I felt like I was reading a description of my own new baby. Except now here was a doctor describing his own parenting experience and how he and his wife (after stressing out over what they were doing "wrong") threw out all the rules and the "shoulds" of the parenting books to accommodate her needs; they decided to call her a "high needs" baby instead of a "fussy baby". I reread my recent post of my own "fussy baby" and it turns out he was right: when I think of her as "high need" instead of "fussy" and stop focusing on how much she is "difficult", I feel myself relax...just enough to let my shoulders drop. So as I sit here with my baby asleep in her sling and my left shoulder slightly strained from the weight of her, I just tell myself, "she's a 'high needs' baby", and I'm giving her exactly what she needs.
An Outing...
Many mothers of only children have commented to me something along the lines of amazement at the fact that I leave the house at all with a toddler and a newborn. I too asked this of mothers when I had only my first child; the thought of two was unbelievable. Now I'm closer to the truth: that the fear of spending the whole day in the house with the two children trumps the fear of going out. And so we new moms-of-more-than-one venture out, almost as if our lives depend on it, to {insert here wherever you might go because anywhere is better than your living room} and we shrug off the admiration of others while inside we're cheering because, YES, we DID make it out.
Mornings have been the hardest transition for me since becoming a mother of two. With a baby who invariably nurses 2-3 hours all through the night (note to those unaware: feedings count from start to start so a two hour feeding span actually has an hour or so of down time, and less if you change a diaper in between), I tend to wake feeling slightly hungover, or like someone is sitting on my head. Most mornings (now that we're a few months into the experience) my husband is good enough to deal with my son: diaper change, brush teeth, breakfast...inevitably with that purple dinosaur I can't stand. I know I should wake after the 6ish a.m. feed but I just can't bring myself to get up when I'm so tired and she's finally asleep. So eight o'clock rolls around and I groggily roll out of bed (literally, roll knees, feet out, and propel upright), do a quick wash (thank you, facial wipes), prepare a morning protein shake (in shaker cup...no time for ice and blender), and before you know it the baby wants another feed. Except I'm trying to get the two year old dressed (and he's trying to race his cars), which can take ten minutes on a good day, so the poor baby is screaming her head off like she's been abandoned in a ditch somewhere...and your mind is so apt to wander, you actually let your guilty self believe she feels that horrible and it's you who's gone and done that to her. Maybe you even start crying yourself a little or you snap at the two year old who thinks it's HILARIOUS to pull out his left leg from his pants just as you're getting the right one in, and just as you get the left one back out pops the right.
Mornings gain a sense of urgency when you factor in a toddler schedule. I work backwards: if he naps around 1:30pm and eats lunch around 12:30pm, I need to be out of the house by around 9:30am...anything after 10am is fruitless and the day is a disaster if attempted at all.
Today I sensed that if I didn't get my son out of the house to play with some friends I was going to turn into a demonic version of myself, one where I'd be hoarse by the end of the day and feel horribly depressed at the job I'm doing. Every thing he did from the moment I left my bedroom seemed to be intended for chaos, or at least to press on my last nerve: pulling this wire then that one, driving cars across the stove, squeezing underneath the sofa to reach for a toy until he himself became lodged there, upending his sister's carseat from the sofa (she was not inside).
I started to try to get out of the house around 10am. The baby became hysterical and needed to nurse. Every time I tried to get her into the car seat she'd turn half purple with choking (she's getting over her brother's cold). I called my friend to say I didn't think I would make it, but I heard myself telling her that I knew I wouldn't make it through the day in the house with him. She suggested I drive over for his naptime and he'd fall asleep in the car. Miraculously, I managed to cook him lunch while the baby slept (in her swing, instead of her usual station slung around my neck in her sling) and he "helped"/played.
Lunch finished around 1pm...we left 2:15.
The forty minute drive was good; they both slept and I had my second protein shake of the day. The afternoon disappeared like magic as the boys played (hers are fifteen months apart, roughly seven months each side of my son) and the baby invariably nursed and slept in her sling. Dinner was uneventful (except I had to stand and sway slightly because the baby would cry every time I sat down) and after they all got into pjs and I prepared for the ride home.
It should have been a quiet ride. Everyone was fed, it was dark, and it was bedtime for all.
The baby cried the entire forty minute drive home.
Even when I sang. Even when I put on music and sang. Even when I drove on the highway with only my left hand so my right hand could reach around back to the carseat to hold the side of her head and her flailing hands while my son whined for the car he had dropped under my seat. Even when we were off the highway and the drive down side streets that should take ten minutes took twenty because EVERY single *&^%$#@ traffic light turned red just as the law abiding car in front of me pulled up to it.
I felt like screaming. "@#$%^&*" was echoing in my head. It was all I could do to get home. I rushed her in the house (my husband thankfully was home and got our son and my bags) and took her sweaty little hysterical self out of the car seat; she nursed like a monkey and promptly fell asleep...
...but I'd forgotten to swaddle her. I can't move her once she's asleep unless she's swaddled. So I rush to my room, grab a swaddle (and my trusty sling), rush to swaddle her and get her back to sleep (because of course she woke again hysterical) and again I do my little dance like when you need to pee because if I sit or stop moving she'll cry.
But it's 11pm now and she's been asleep quietly in her sling for about 45 minutes. I am thankful for my two healthy (and sleeping) children, and now I'll turn in for some sleep...until she wakes to nurse in about two hours...
(P.S.: She woke up to nurse before I could even post this...I went to bed around 1am :)
Mornings have been the hardest transition for me since becoming a mother of two. With a baby who invariably nurses 2-3 hours all through the night (note to those unaware: feedings count from start to start so a two hour feeding span actually has an hour or so of down time, and less if you change a diaper in between), I tend to wake feeling slightly hungover, or like someone is sitting on my head. Most mornings (now that we're a few months into the experience) my husband is good enough to deal with my son: diaper change, brush teeth, breakfast...inevitably with that purple dinosaur I can't stand. I know I should wake after the 6ish a.m. feed but I just can't bring myself to get up when I'm so tired and she's finally asleep. So eight o'clock rolls around and I groggily roll out of bed (literally, roll knees, feet out, and propel upright), do a quick wash (thank you, facial wipes), prepare a morning protein shake (in shaker cup...no time for ice and blender), and before you know it the baby wants another feed. Except I'm trying to get the two year old dressed (and he's trying to race his cars), which can take ten minutes on a good day, so the poor baby is screaming her head off like she's been abandoned in a ditch somewhere...and your mind is so apt to wander, you actually let your guilty self believe she feels that horrible and it's you who's gone and done that to her. Maybe you even start crying yourself a little or you snap at the two year old who thinks it's HILARIOUS to pull out his left leg from his pants just as you're getting the right one in, and just as you get the left one back out pops the right.
Mornings gain a sense of urgency when you factor in a toddler schedule. I work backwards: if he naps around 1:30pm and eats lunch around 12:30pm, I need to be out of the house by around 9:30am...anything after 10am is fruitless and the day is a disaster if attempted at all.
Today I sensed that if I didn't get my son out of the house to play with some friends I was going to turn into a demonic version of myself, one where I'd be hoarse by the end of the day and feel horribly depressed at the job I'm doing. Every thing he did from the moment I left my bedroom seemed to be intended for chaos, or at least to press on my last nerve: pulling this wire then that one, driving cars across the stove, squeezing underneath the sofa to reach for a toy until he himself became lodged there, upending his sister's carseat from the sofa (she was not inside).
I started to try to get out of the house around 10am. The baby became hysterical and needed to nurse. Every time I tried to get her into the car seat she'd turn half purple with choking (she's getting over her brother's cold). I called my friend to say I didn't think I would make it, but I heard myself telling her that I knew I wouldn't make it through the day in the house with him. She suggested I drive over for his naptime and he'd fall asleep in the car. Miraculously, I managed to cook him lunch while the baby slept (in her swing, instead of her usual station slung around my neck in her sling) and he "helped"/played.
Lunch finished around 1pm...we left 2:15.
The forty minute drive was good; they both slept and I had my second protein shake of the day. The afternoon disappeared like magic as the boys played (hers are fifteen months apart, roughly seven months each side of my son) and the baby invariably nursed and slept in her sling. Dinner was uneventful (except I had to stand and sway slightly because the baby would cry every time I sat down) and after they all got into pjs and I prepared for the ride home.
It should have been a quiet ride. Everyone was fed, it was dark, and it was bedtime for all.
The baby cried the entire forty minute drive home.
Even when I sang. Even when I put on music and sang. Even when I drove on the highway with only my left hand so my right hand could reach around back to the carseat to hold the side of her head and her flailing hands while my son whined for the car he had dropped under my seat. Even when we were off the highway and the drive down side streets that should take ten minutes took twenty because EVERY single *&^%$#@ traffic light turned red just as the law abiding car in front of me pulled up to it.
I felt like screaming. "@#$%^&*" was echoing in my head. It was all I could do to get home. I rushed her in the house (my husband thankfully was home and got our son and my bags) and took her sweaty little hysterical self out of the car seat; she nursed like a monkey and promptly fell asleep...
...but I'd forgotten to swaddle her. I can't move her once she's asleep unless she's swaddled. So I rush to my room, grab a swaddle (and my trusty sling), rush to swaddle her and get her back to sleep (because of course she woke again hysterical) and again I do my little dance like when you need to pee because if I sit or stop moving she'll cry.
But it's 11pm now and she's been asleep quietly in her sling for about 45 minutes. I am thankful for my two healthy (and sleeping) children, and now I'll turn in for some sleep...until she wakes to nurse in about two hours...
(P.S.: She woke up to nurse before I could even post this...I went to bed around 1am :)
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Fussy Baby
I'm new to this world of blogging and the set up of this page has taken longer than it should. Why? I'm standing over my laptop doing a "dance" like when you need to pee; my three month old is not awake but is still crying in her sling, hanging from nearly around my neck at this point. Every time I sit down she begins to cry, and every time I stand she stops...like a switch on/off...sit/on...stand/off...repeat for an hour and a half. It's nearly 7pm. I think it's time for a glass of wine...
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