Life is a Banquet

Selfish Sleep

I've been reading several books/blogs about motherhood & writing lately (trying like heck to get back into a good rhythm) and they all say the same thing: Give up sleep to write. Over, and over, I see mothers admitting (or even bragging) that they get 5 hours of sleep (TOTAL, and not just on bad nights). They spend 12 hours (or more) as a mother, then 5 hours (or more) cleaning & writing.

At the same time, this week several new studies show the negative health effects from lack of sleep. And while these studies bolster my pro-sleep stance, they don't relieve the feelings of jealousy and inadequacy.

I need sleep. I need downtime. I crave sleep. I enjoy sleep. I can't give up sleep.

Perhaps that dooms me as a writer/mother, but I do know that it makes me a better mother. My worst depressive episodes can all be traced to a lack of sleep. When I am constantly in motion, I dance ever closer to the edge of that dark pit, and I'll do whatever it takes to avoid falling in.  So I take naps with  her or read while she naps next to me. I go to bed within an hour or two at the most of when she does. I wake up when she does.

But, I've now gone a YEAR without a major depressive episode. A year. I can't remember a year without a slump. And yes, a big part of it IS medication. Via la pharmaceuticals. But, it's also lifestyle changes, and sticking to the plan I came up before Tavy came.

I'm happier than I've ever been, but I still feel like I'm just being lazy or selfish.  I tell myself, "If you really wanted to write more, you would find ways to cut back on sleep." But, I know I'm not going to do that. Being healthy right now is more important than a clean house, more important than a finished WIP, more important than staying up doing anything.

So I write in bed, on yellow legal pads. I daydream in scenes and plot twists. Titles come and go like fireflies blinking on and off. And I read like crazy when I'm nursing. I try to think like a writer, even though, apparently, I'm not sleeping like one.

Do you voluntarily give up sleep to do something else?

What a difference a month makes

Freak asked me the other day, "So is she really THAT much different from when we went to St. Louis for her six month birthday?"

Um. Yes. Clearly *some* parents have been living under a rock during April.

At six months, she was barely sitting. If she made it a full minute, we assembled a camera crew and audience to commemorate the event. Now, she sits any time she feels like it, and levers herself in and out of sitting position with Olga Korbut like grace. She can do Pilates style sit ups and twists. She can hold  and grab items while sitting, whereas a month ago, this was a challenge for her.

At six months, rolling was still her primary mode of locomotion. She'd roll, roll, roll from one end of the room to another, but there was much angry bleating. She tried creeping, but again with the angry bellowing. Now, she started crawling on her seven month birthday, and there's no contraband too hidden for her to find (and eat). The angry bellowing has been replaced with shrieking. Yes. Shrieking. And chortling and "ah ohhhh ahh oooh" when she finds something she's not supposed to have. She particularly favors paper. At six months it was still all about spoons and kitchen implements. She's much more discerning now, preferring gum wrappers, paperback novels, magazines, and junk mail.

The crawling has brought with it increased body control and sense of space. She'll push away from us when she wants down. At six months, she was still being worn several hours a day. That's really reduced, both because she's ENORMOUS and because she's so eager to be down. She often seems to prefer alternating "up" and "down" time.

At six months, she had her first real food--apples and carrots. She mainly liked to gnaw on the raw variety, but she enjoyed full body painting with the purees too. Very little went down the gullet, but now, she eats a variety of purees, and will open her mouth like a baby bird for her favorites. She mainly prefers to feed herself, with varying results. She'll chase peas, raisins, pasta, bananas, and other soft bits around her high chair, but these don't often make it down the hatch. At six months, we had no high chair. Now, we have two (the family heirloom and IKEA).

At six months, she had no teeth. Lots of teething, but no teeth. Now, she's got three, with more lying in wait. At six months, she could babble, but no real consant sounds. Now she says, "dadadada" when happy and "mamamamamama" when pissed off. Mamamamama is thrilled about this. There's way more laughing and giggling now, but also more indignant squeals when her will is thwarted. Beware the will of Tavy. She knows her name now, only she hears it as "Queen of All I see."

She interacts more with people now. She responds to them, and seeks out their interactions by smiling or babbling at them. At six months, she still hated the car and had a little bit of stranger anexiety. She doesn't have that now. She loves to go out, and while she still hates the car seat, she seems to welcome the actual going-and-doing part. She goes to story time and play group now. At six months, we were mainly there for Mama, but now we're there for her too.

At six months, she was just starting to outgrow the nine month clothing. Now, she's solidly in the twelve month clothing, and  can easily wear most of the 18 month stuff too.  Her torso is really long, so we have to play with different items to get the right fit--long-legged outfits  don't work as well for her. At six months, she was still being swaddled. Then all of a sudden, she started climbing out of the swaddle to sleep on her tummy, and now she sleeps swaddle free, mainly on her side or her stomach. She also set a new earlier bedtime for herself, but she also wakes up more often too.

She's started nursing until *almost* asleep then popping off and slumping the rest of the way to sleep on my chest. At six months, nursing was still her primary source of comfort, but now there are times when it doesn't work, and I'm at a loss. She's advanced in the nursing olympics to tugging at my shirt when she wants to eat, and tries to switch sides herself.

At six months, she was bald as a cue ball. At seven months, she's . . . . . . .still bald as a cue ball. But she has so much more presence now. She has a neck. She seems more and more like a little girl, with a 1000 expressions, and a personality that explodes from the moment she wakes up. At six months, she was still very much a little baby, and now she's T*A*V*Y! But she's still bald, so yep, everything's the same.

Review: Choosing You

Motherhood is intrinsically linked to weight.What was your "pre-pregnancy" weight? How much weight did you gain? How much does the baby weigh? How much weight did she gain (or lose) in the first two weeks? How fast did you discard matern ity clothes? How much does the baby weigh at two months? Have you returned to your pre-pregnancy weight yet? Can you zip your skinny jeans? It seems fitting then that so much of Alexandra Soiseth's memoir, Choosing You, centers around weight.

When Mother Talk asked for reviewers for this book, I clamored, "Me, Me, Me!" because a character in my WIP also contemplates single motherhood by choice, and because I assumed that Soiseth was a member of the infertile sisterhood. I hoped to learn some things that would flesh out my other research into the topic of single motherhood via sperm donation. What I didn't expect was to learn anything about ME. I didn't expect to be absolutely blindsided by my emotional response to this woman.

What sets Choosing You apart is Soiseth's unrelenting honesty, to the point that I don't feel comfortable referring to her by the more distant "Soiseth" and want to call her "Alex." She becomes as real as a friend, more connected to me even than bloggers I've read for five years. The intense connection she inspires is not simply the result of witty personal confessions. So many of the memoirs I've read recently are of the blog-to-book variety: chatty, fun, and full of personality. But, literary, they are not. Parenting memoirs are a hot commodity right now, but they seem to rank somewhere around romance novels in terms of respect and literary acclaim. Choosing You, however, IS literary--extraordinary well-written, beautiful imagery, and nary a cute checklist in sight.

I worry that more mainstream reviewers and readers might take Choosing You's subtitle, "Deciding to Have a Baby on My Own," as an absolute statement of genre: The single-mother memoir. Occupying slightly dustier real estate than the Mommy memoir at a bookstore near you. And that would be a shame. I read a ton of memoir, and this is the first in a long time that I read in a single sitting (with a seven month old no else) and cried over. More than once. This is up there with Sedaris, Didion,Lammont and the other great memorists. There's a reason why she directs the MFA program at Sarah Lawrence.  She crafts a masterful  narrative around all those warts-and-all confessions that ends up revealing some universal truths about all of us.

I fell a little bit in love with her when she described an eating binge moments after resolving to finally loose weight. Oh. My. She can come into my kitchen at anytime. After the birth of her daughter, she stops telling people that she lost 100 pounds because there's no point in it anymore. This is me right now. I'm spending my days in a size I swore I'd never wear again, and I'm not dieting. Not even close. I hide behind the shield of breastfeeding, but she's seven months old now, and plenty of other breastfeeding mothers are many pounds down. I say I'm waiting until I can do low-carb again, but that doesn't excuse the out-of-control portions. I'd like to reach some sort of peace with this, similar to Soiseth's, but in the meantime it helps to know I'm not alone.

This isn't a how-to piece, and her lack of medical knowledge is endearing at times. She's upfront about why she chose the route she did, and why she made some rather not so politically correct choices along the way. I like that she doesn't spend a lot of time justifying her decisions or minimizing their impact. It's also NOT an infertility memoir. Without giving away too much, it's the choices she wrestles with, not the mechanics. If you're at a point in your journey where you can't read anything even that even remotely smacks of, "We wanted a boy in May, so we drank some wine, and Whoops! Here we are!" you might want to pass this by for a little while. If you want to read about the double whammy of single-motherhood-by-choice AND infertility, I suggest you read Calliope or one of her many links.

I hope though that readers on all points of the infertility spectrum can identify with and enjoy this story. One of the neatest things that Soiseth reveals about herself is her uncanny ability to create community. She places herself at the center of overlapping families, socio-economic classes, and martial statuses to form a web of friendships that transcend any one choice, and she does the same thing with this book. For me it was the weight issue, but there's so much meat here that others may find their own ways of identifying with her: absent parents, abuse, bad boyfriends, best friends, moving, writing, and oh yeah, that whole single-mother thing. While it unifies the narrative arc, at times it becomes a mere footnote in a greater journey. I can heartily recommend this book to . . . just about anyone really. This isn't the story of becoming a single mother, it's the story of becoming human. 

Support Post-Partum Depression Legislation

I very rarely post political stuff on here, but I can't not bring up the issue of the Post-Partum Depression legislation currently in Congress. This issue is very near to my heart. I firmly believe that without a prenatal treatment plan, education, access to medication, and support system that my post-partum story would be very different. I was at very high risk for post-partum depression, and I really believe that access to services made the difference. Please support this access for ALL women.

You may have heard the complaints on the internet lately; asking readers to block passage of legislation to help new mothers and their families cope with postpartum depression. The House and Senate both have legislation - H.R. 20 and S. 1375 - that some mistakenly believe is a conspiracy to push new mothers to take medication.

Tell that to the more than 800,000 women who will develop a diagnosable postpartum mood disorder this year! This does not include the 7.5% of women who will develop major depression during pregnancy.

How disappointing! Those who are speaking out against the Melanie Blocker-Stokes Postpartum Depression Research and Care Act obviously know little to nothing about this legislation. Some are even saying that Melanie Stokes, who took her own life after suffering this illness, was simply just sad.

This could not be farther from the truth! Ask her mother, Carol Blocker, who has dedicated her life to the passage of this protective legislation named in honor of her daughter.

This legislation does NOT recommend drugs, require drugs, or endorse drugs.
What it does is:

• Encourage the Department of Health and Human Services to expand the research into the causes of postpartum conditions and find treatments.
• Establish a national public awareness campaign to increase awareness and  knowledge of PPD and psychosis.
• Make grants available for programs that develop and offer essential services to women with PPD.

Even if you have already done so, please take the time to let your representatives in Washington know that you support this vital legislation. Help counter the misinformation they are currently receiving!

Why do you teach?

"What are YOU doing here?" At least once a semester I get hit with this question, and I'm still working on how to answer it. (And, why yes, I do have a life beyond baby. Not that you'd know it from my last seven months worth of blog entries). When I first started teaching two and half years ago, I was slightly, okay VERY, ashamed that I wasn't practicing law. I felt the need to offer grandiose explanations, and proceed as if I was waiting for either a law school tenure track position, a "very good deal" publishing contract, or a bolt of sense to hit my noggin and send me back to practice, post-haste. Mainly the latter.

I wasn't quite sure how to deviate from what my students saw as the golden ring: a degree with an inside track to upper middle class living.  I always ended up almost agreeing with the questioner: WHY  am I here? Why am I earning so little that even Sallie Mae has taken pity on me? Why are Freak and I living month-to-month instead of having an actual savings account? I even went through a brief period where I didn't even mention my law degree. 

And now, I have the perfect excuse: Of course I'm teaching. I have a BABY. (You knew this was going to come back to her sooner or later). There aren't any good part-time legal jobs. I'm CHOOSING to stay at home with her (cue noble sounding music).

But this is a lie. It makes it sound like my return to law is just a preschool application away. And it's not. I LOVE teaching. I love sitting in faculty meetings. I love writing "Professor" on my email signature line. I love an especially great class night way better than I ever loved a trial (none of that nervous sweat in an expensive suit is a great bonus). I love the start of a new semester. I even love the unknown: what will I be teaching next term? What hours?

I still may return to practice, but I think my ideal future is in academia. And somewhere along the line, I've come to love the community college setting. I get students at the cusp of their dream. And, for me right now, the challenge is articulating MY dream well enough that they feel empowered to choose their own path.

Being a lawyer wasn't really for me? Why is that so hard to admit?

Natural Disaster

Natural Disaster: Noun. Def: Occurs when you are writing your latest WIP mainly by hand. You are filling legal pads at a nice clip. You set aside a filled legal pad. You return to find a "natural disaster": *Someone* has set a baby wipe (of dubious orgin) on top of the legal pad. Now there is a white hole with blurry edges in the center of all your lovely words. It bleeds through for nearly a dozen pages.

Natural disaster. Also known as grounds for spousal homicide.

Tavy needs an Mp3

Tavy.drive.my.car
Originally uploaded by wavybrains

Watch this, but with "Little Old Lady from Pasadena" playing in your head. Anyone have that on Mp3? Not that I'm, you know, encouraging file sharing. Just you know, taking a poll. Oh and how hard is it to add sound to a video? Any kind soul want to take pity on me and add music to this for me?

Mama Mia! Who doesn't want to be a star?

"They're paying you to blog about Abba? Seriously"
"No. They're paying me to blog about a singing contest for women. Abba's just a nice bonus."*

The great ladies over at Mother Talk just provided Freak with a nice laugh. Instead of the usual hardcover book arriving by US mail (be still my heart, I stalk the mailman at the merest hint of books in paper mailers), my latest assignment is to tell you all about a contest for the new movie, Mama Mia! When I clicked on the website, the strains of ABBA! And more ABBA! Lots of ABBA! filled our house, and Freak felt the need to retaliate by playing the soundtrack to Big Love on repeat.

It's all fun and games till someone wakes the baby, people.

So not only is this new movie filled with ABBA! And more ABBA! But, it also stars Meryl Streep. I might be able to stomach the ABBA! because she seldom makes bad movies. (Oh wait. There was Death Becomes Her. But that was a looooooooong time ago. I'm pretty sure I've forgiven her for that one). The entertainment value alone of making Freak sit through a Chick Flick that is ALSO filled with ABBA! should be fun. Mama Mia! indeed.

I digress. The contest, the contest. You want to know about the contest? You need to grab your two best girl friends and make your own music video of one of the songs from the movie. Don't worry, there's a big payoff for this. You can win a chance to perform at the movie's premiere. IN LONDON. LONDON. With all sorts of nice perks.

You need to enter quickly though, because Pond's is going to post the top five videos for nationwide voting. Of course, to do this, you need girlfriends. And preferably some sense of rhythm. I'm automatically disqualified as I lack girlfriends who are willing to be in the same time zone where there is any threat of my singing. Even lip singing. I make Cameron Diaz's My Best Friend's Wedding performance look like an American Idol.

But, you beautiful people. Some of you have girlfriends. AND rhythm. AND want a trip to London. RWA ladies, I'm looking at you. I totally want to see a MWVRWA trio. Think of it as research?

Enter! Enter! Enter! Enter!

And as a bonus, let's talk about all time favorite music videos. The ones that have you lip syncing even if you're as hopeless as me.

I'll pay my penance for shilling and admit that I always danced along to the "Kokomo" video.  Yes, John Stamos was one of my first crushes.  I also always wanted to be one of the girls from Bruce Springsteen's videos. Big dork = me.

*$20. They give me the big bucks to reveal my secret love for John Stamos. And Meryl Streep. And oh, okay, Abba too.

Why I love my husband, take 1001

Tavy.crawling.practice.2
Originally uploaded by wavybrains

This is what goes on when I am at work, at night. Work really deserves its own post eventually, but you all probably need a laugh more than you need to hear about the perils of teaching evening classes.

Besides, who wouldn't rather be at crawling practice?

Why I love my husband, take 1001

Tavy.crawling.practice.2
Originally uploaded by wavybrains

This is what goes on when I am at work, at night. Work really deserves its own post eventually, but you all probably need a laugh more than you need to hear about the perils of teaching evening classes.

Besides, who wouldn't rather be at crawling practice?