Motherhood is Hard

"Insanity is hereditary - you get it from your children." - Sam Levenson

I've been getting overwhelmed lately. Take this morning, for instance: within 20 minutes of waking up, my baby wants to be held, my son wants to play barn (can you play barn? can you play barn? can you play barn? I hear this 387 times a day), and my daughter wants to go for a walk. I don't know what to do. I say to Vernon, crying (because I'm overwhelmed and I've been crying a little bit lately). I'm tired of being wanted all the time.

Vernon doesn't understand how I feel. He can't. He doesn't have the right chromosomes.

He doesn't understand how hard it is to have my baby cry simply because I walk out of a room. Or to have her cry when I walk into a room because she then realizes that she is not with me and she wants to be. Or how it's hard to read books to the older kids, like I used to do, because baby Peace grabs them and tries to eat them. Or how it sucks that Peace likes to have my boob in her mouth half the night when all I want to do is roll over to a more comfortable position.

This is why going to playgroup is like therapy... because my mom friends GET this. They listen. They understand.

Vernon tries to fix things. (And yes, I've read Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, so I know how terribly cliched and gender-specific our behaviors are, so nobody needs to remind me.) But I don't want anything fixed. I just want to say things just to SAY them, because then that helps me not to THINK about them anymore. It's a release. (Kind of like writing in this blog, right?)

I want to say: Sometimes, I don't like being around my kids. This doesn't mean that I need a solution, like putting the older kids in school, or getting a babysitter for the baby. All it means is that, Sometimes, I don't like being around my kids.

I value early bedtimes for our kids. Vernon doesn't get this either. He keeps pushing for later bedtimes now that the weather has gotten nicer. He doesn't understand that having later bedtimes turns me into a crazy person. I need that time at night to NOT have to think about my kids. To recharge. To reload. To replenish. Don't you understand how much I need this? He doesn't get it.

I'm not bashing Vernon. I'm trying not to. I love him. We're working on this (because this is not the first day of this stress... Peace is clingy, I'm short-tempered... it's been going on for a little while).

I have ideas. 1) I'd like to go for a walk, by myself, at least 3-5 times a week. 2) I'd like to get out, by myself, for a couple hours once every week or so. (I did this last weekend. When I went to Sears. Why I didn't choose an activity I actually enjoy, I don't know. Shopping is not my thing. I'll think of something better next time.)

I don't like having to ask permission to take a shower. Is it alright if I take a shower now? Are you going to be around? It feels weird. Vernon and I do not have the type of relationship where I need to ask permission to do anything, yet here I am asking permission to take a shower.

I guess that's all.

"Motherhood brings as much joy as ever, but it still brings boredom, exhaustion, and sorrow, too. Nothing else ever will make you as happy or as sad, as proud or as tired, for nothing is quite as hard as helping a person develop his own individuality - especially while you struggle to keep your own." - Marguerite Kelly and Ella Parsons

The Benefits of Being an Older Mom

I am 40 years old and I have 4 kids. My youngest is 20 months old. Here is why it is easier being an older mom to my toddler:

1) I don't give a fudge anymore.

When I first became a mom 14 years ago, everything was a big deal. All of the infinitesimal stages she passed through seemed endless and all-important. Gradually, through the years and through the kids, things started to matter less and less. A stage of unpleasantness (teething, separation anxiety, never going on the potty) doesn't seem unending. I can recognize that it's fleeting. I can see that now. I have the perspective of time on my side.

I've never given much of a fudge about the little things, like making sure her clothes were always clean or if she was drawing on herself with marker, but I give even less of a fudge about that kind of stuff now. Again, perspective.

2) I grew my own babysitter.

As I mentioned before, the secret to easier mothering involves having children 12 years apart. That's all there is to it. You grow your own babysitter, and that makes things soooo much easier.

3) Time moves faster.

Here is my theory on time: The older you get, the faster it moves. Here is why I think that is. Take a look at these graphs here. This first one is what one year of my life looks like:

It is only 1/40th of my life.

Now, take a look at what a year in the life of a 10 year old looks like:

It is a whopping 1/10th of his life.

See how much more space a year takes up on his graph than on mine? That's how much longer it feels too, as it's happening. That's my theory.

Now that I'm 40, time is whizzing along faster than I've ever imagined. Therefore, the life of the young toddler is whizzing along faster than I've ever imagined. Therefore, it doesn't seem all-encompassing and dragging like it did when I was 26.

3) Our life is settled.

We have settled into a routine. A life. A family. What used to seem self-important and dogmatic (We brew our own Kombucha! We make our own toothpaste!) has become just a part of The Way We Do Things, without all the pomp and ego behind it. Traditions. Seasons. The flow of life. We've got it all down. Our home is a lovable, well-oiled machine. The toddler fits right into it.

4) I know how to ask for help.

I'm not afraid to ask for help anymore. I know when I'll probably need it (as I can now see the signs approaching well in advance) and I know how to ask for it when I do. I know how to balance my needs with those of others in the family, and I'm not afraid of asking for help in obtaining that balance, when I need it. I didn't know how to do this before, and I didn't know how much I needed to either.

5) I don't need to learn how to be a parent.

I've been doing this motherhood thing for 14 years, and it's all old hat by now. Not just for me, but for my husband too. He's good at it. Like with any vocation, we're both much better at this now than when we started.


The one thing that I do struggle with is the fact that there are not a lot of other 40 year old moms of toddlers around. The moms who do have toddler-aged kids are younger. Awhile ago, I had planned on integrating myself with a set of younger moms from my church, so that my toddler would have friends to play with, but that didn't last long. I already have friends (albeit, ones that I don't see much of anymore), and it turns out that I didn't really feel like making new ones. Too much effort.

Plus, I am not in the same stage of life as those young moms. The women who I am at the same stage of life have bigger kids and have moved on from toddler related activities and playgroups.

I have struggled with this a lot. I am between two worlds and not sure how to fit in with either.

Here is a quote from a book that I am reading, called Bonjour Kale, about a young woman who moved from New York to Paris:

Maybe it was time for something different, a new challenge. I couldn't hold on to the present. Yes, things in my life were fantastic, but those things could also change. People and situations evolve. I didn't know it at the time, but everyone else would move on as well; I just happened to be the first one to do it. I had to accept that the summer of rooftop gimlets and all that it meant to me couldn't last forever.

I'm not the one moving on, but I have to accept that things have changed and that my "summer of rooftop gimlets" is also over.

For most people, it probably takes 3 months to settle into a new way of life. For me, (and I'm not kidding about this), it takes me almost 10 times as long. But I am almost there. And I will adjust. But it is hard.

There's this book called The Ten-Year Napwhich nicely shows the life of four at-home mothers, staying home for ten years, and then getting back into "regular" life again. At the end of the book, one of the moms looks into a cafe where she used to go with her friends, and saw their table being occupied by new group of younger moms. (That makes me a little sad every time I think about it.)

So, there you go: you take the good, you take the bad, and there you have... motherhood at 40.

Blog Therapy and Cats

I've actually felt so much better since I wrote that Motherhood is Hard post on Monday. That just goes to show that this blog IS therapy.

No more cat pictures please.

The Secret to Easier Mothering

Let me tell you the secret to having an easy time mothering, dear readers. Here is what you need to do:

1) Have a baby.
2) Have another baby 12 years later.

That's all there is to it. You can have a couple of babies in between, of course (as I have done), but those two steps are the key elements. The reason for this is because the baby in Step 1 can help take care of the the baby in Step 2.

I bet you all didn't realize how easy that was. Just two steps.

Seriously, unless you have experienced this for yourself, you have no idea.

Of course, you don't want to take advantage of Step 1 Baby. And you don't, because it turns out that Step 1 Baby enjoys and wants to be of help to Step 2 Baby. It doesn't take much time either. Just 5-10 minutes of help can make a difference between sanity and insanity in the life of a mother.

Mothering could get pretty hard some times. If you've been a reader of this blog in the past, you saw times when I wasn't enjoying it very much. But, I'm telling you now, I have found the secret. This two step system is the way to go. One. Two. There. You're done. You're welcome.

Not only does this system help with times at home, but it also helps you get out of the house more. You can go on dates again! You grew your own babysitter!

This is also working with the second born child as well. On nights when the oldest is not available, we can now leave Step 2 Baby with one of the other kids we had! It's amazing. And he likes doing it too. It makes him feel responsible and it brings out the nurturing side of him, which is sweet. (He also likes the fact that I let him watch a movie when we go out, so he is more than happy to see us go.)

So, enjoy this Amazing Two Part System that I have laid out for you, my dear readers. It makes life easy. It makes mothering easy. It is the secret, the Holy Grail, to motherhood. I have found it and I cannot keep it to myself anymore.

Implement as you see fit. Individual results may vary.

I Got My Period Back

I got my period back the other day. (And, no, it doesn't bother me that I'm writing about this on here because I have already crossed THAT LINE many, many times already, dear readers. See previous posts from the inception of this blog until present.)

Getting my period back is my body's way of telling me that it is ready to have a baby again (if I want that, which I don't... I'm just saying). This is the soonest that I have gotten my cycle back after birth, and I was not expecting it. With Ocean, it lasted until 14 months. With Ezra, it was 22 months.

It is my body's way of telling me that Peace is nursing less and not needing me *as much*. It is a sign that her babyhood is ending.

Peace is almost a year old. Pretty soon, Peace will be walking. She is getting close. And I suppose I will eventually have to put shoes on her feet for the first time in her life, and that makes me sad too. So many changes. She is growing up, and I'm kind of sad about this because I feel like I've missed out on her babyhood. It all went by so fast, and I was in such a state of distraction and disarray most of the time that I didn't even notice or appreciate the majority of it.

I feel like I've screwed up on this motherhood thing a bit for the better part of Peace's life. This has been a hard year (for whatever reasons... the postpartum stuff, the relational stuff, whatever), and I have done more yelling and been more stressed out at my kids than I care to admit to.

Peace isn't even *the hard one* anymore. It's the other two... the yelling at each other, the fighting with each other. I recognize that they are a reflection of me (especially Ocean, the way she talks and the words she uses sound like they could be coming out of my mouth, and it is disturbing to be faced with that), but I don't know how to change myself so that they will reflect a better version of who I am. If I could just do that, everything would be better. Instead, it is a vicious cycle and continues as it is.

I feel like I could be doing better. I feel like I should be doing better. I feel like Peace deserves that.

I'm sorry. This is probably just the menstrual blood talking. I'll go now.