Constant Never-Ceasing Vigilance

 Parenting in a pandemic is relentless.  It's always pretty intense when your children are small, but knowing with certainty there will be no support or relief is. . . wearing.  I'm never terribly receptive to older moms who urge me to "cherish these days" because "they go so fast" and "here's the tip that worked perfectly in my clearly erroneous memory."  But now I'm straight up sour about it.  Because no American parent of past yet living generations has raised feral little monsters during a global pandemic.  And it's a different beast.  The trials are often the same, but the difference is you could plan/forsee/hope for moments of actual relief.  There were babysitters.  Preschool.  Nursery.  Playdates. Indoor playgrounds. Running errands wasn't an act of wanton selfish riskiness.

Here's a little peek into my life.  Some relevant context: My medication has wreaked havoc on my already deeply flawed digestive system and I spend quality time with the commode every day.  Also, I like to shower once a day like a monstrously selfish narcissist.  This can take up to ten minutes if we include a quick hair dry and putting on clothing.  Maybe fifteen if the hedonism gets out of control.  I also sometimes change the laundry or answer the doorbell.  Thus there are instants when my children can be quite certain that they are not being closely observed.  Mayhem ensues.

Yesterday a workman asked me to open my garage door so he could deliver a shower door to be installed later.  In my utter carelessness I obliged and this meant at least 60 seconds I wasn't staring at my child. In this time Patrick left the math assignment we'd been laboring through for twenty minutes to found some mischief to entertain himself on his school iPad.  This is constant.  If I am not staring at his screen during school time, it is not on school.  Period.

I starve my children.  I feed them only three robust meals a day, like some kind of sadist who rejoices in watching deprivation.  So every time I go to the bathroom Fred darts to work.  I'll just make a list of some of the crap that has happened this week when my back was briefly turned:

Drawing on the walls, twice

Drawing on the arm chair

Drawing on two couches (different occasions)

Hiding behind the arm chair to eat chocolate

Hiding behind the arm chair to eat Cheetos

Hiding behind the arm chair to eat a loaf of sandwich bread

Hiding behind the arm chair to eat conversation hearts

Hiding behind the arm chair to eat Circus Animal cookies

Fred biting P hard enough to draw blood

Fred scratching P hard enough to draw blood

P constantly punching F

Boys throwing rubbermaid boxes with books in them down the stairs

Peeing on the floor, removing pee soaked clothes and leaving them in the pool and walking away without informing anyone about this

Pulling all the clothes out of the dresser and piling them on the floor

I just spent quality time rearranging the kitchen so all food is locked behind doors and going through the entire house finding and locking away every writing implement.  Naturally he'll find more, but over time as I confiscate these hopefully the art projects will end and I will have stifled his creative spirit.

The Book of WinCo Chapter 5

 Thou shalt not run thy hand along the bottles of vegetable oil, for this will knock them, yea it will knock them upon the firmament and great shall be the wrath of She Who Must Be Obeyed.

Thou shalt not reach behind thee and lift the shampoo to dash it upon the cilantro, for lo, this shall crush the cilantro ere its time.  Yeah, and the shampoo shall also smash the bread, the bread which thou wast commanded not to smash, for it maketh the sandwiches funny shaped all the week long, even unto the Sabbath.

Thou shalt not open and shut every freezer door thou passest, though they have all the handles of Babylon. For such are unclean.

Thou mayest not select unto thyself any candy thou seest in the bulk section.  Nay, thou must decide upon none save it be that which art approved by thy mother, and thou must fast therefrom until thou has payed the uttermost farthing. For lo, such candy is predicated upon thy obedience to the commandments, and if thou transgressest, she shall eat them before thy face, even thy wailing face, and thou shalt not taste any thereof.

Thou mayest not have a new toothbrush save it be in times of dental famine, for thy mother hath provided unto thee a multitude of toothbrushes already, and canst thou ask more of thy mother? Nay, thou weariest her with thy pleadings and they are as seeds upon a stony ground.

If thou pushest upon the button that advanceth the belt, thou shalt be smitten. Yea, thy mother's all-seeing eye hath perceived thy transgression.  She knoweth thy heart and hath seen thine intent as thou movest ever closer to the forbidden button.  Touch thou not, for thou art not ready for power such as this, and great shall be the destruction of the sandwich bread.  Dost thou remember the weird sandwiches of last week? O then, my son, remember, remember, and touch not.

Thou hast touched the button again.  O how oft would I have showered thee with blessings from the bulk candy bin.  Thy mother's hand is ever ready to pour forth small chocolate balls on he who will but hearken and obey, but thou couldst not.  And lo, thou hast lost thy treat and thy pleadings shall avail thee naught.

Behold, the promised land.  If thou endure well the unloading of the groceries thou shalt delight thyself in fatness, for the pizza overfloweth with sauce and cheese, and thy grandmother standeth ready to bestow upon thee the cookies of butterscotch if thou wilt but observe the small and simple things thou has been asked to do.  Yea, remain thou in thy seat and touch not the gum, for that is thy mother's and it is forbidden unto thee.

Open thou not thy mouth to lie unto thy mother, for she seeth thy jaws and smelleth thy breath and thou hast touched that which was unclean.  Yea, thou has gathered a Mento Gum from the floor and hast partaken.  Remember thou not that thy hair was shorn but two days ago for gum therein? Canst thou not feel the chunk that is yet ensnared? But thou couldst not hearken.  Spit thou thy gum into thy mother's hand and tarry not, for great is her wrath.  Remain thou in thy seat and touch not of thy mother's gum, for it is how she copeth.

Thou hast again partaken of the gum.  Thy repentance was false and thy promises vanity.  Thou shalt lose the gum, and shalt likewise lose the pizza and the cookies,  for such are given only unto the righteous and thou hast procrastinated the day of thy repentance until it is everlastingly too late.  Thou shalt live on cereal and of cookies shalt thou have none.

Conceal thyself not in thy room with the box of Cheezits, for thou knowest it is forbidden, and thy all-seeing mother hath not been fooled.  Great is her wrath.

Draw not upon thy walls, for it is forbidden.  Knowest thou not that this is the home of thy Mother and no unclean thing can dwell with Mom? But thou hast defiled thy room, and hast made upon it graven images and befouled her resting place with idolatry. Though she cleanseth the outward appearance, the stain remaineth on thy soul.

Didst thou again draw upon the wall the moment thy mother hath left the room? Hast thou concealed from her a pen, when pens were gathered unto her? Give ye therefore all thy pens into the storehouse and keep thou not unto thyself, for such shall bear but bitter fruit.  Knowest thou not that thy mother shall give unto you pens at the appointed time? Therefore hide not thy pen but walk in openness and defile not thy wall, for thy mother hath had her fill of motherhood.  

And thus it is.

Amen

How to describe yourself professionally

Years ago (though so few are the entries in this blog it scarcely signifies) I presented my dear readers (all two of you) with a quiz, enabling you to discover whether you are living in 1813 or in a Regency Romance novel.  Today I offer you a new opportunity for self reflection.  If modesty has hitherto forbidden any awareness of your unclad form, I invite you now to indulge in the harlotry of an ungarbed shower followed by a sidelong glance into a mirror.  This may help you ascertaining whether you are heroine material for a steamy romance.

What color would best describe your breast skin tone?

a) Creamy   b) like liquid chocolate    c) mottled because it is cold and in real life "creamy" skin shows veins people.

Key: a) possibly a heroine   b) possibly a heroine, but few people have read your book because the library doesn't stock books by or about non-white women, as this constitutes a "niche" interest.  c) human being

The texture of your breasts is:

a) firm, high mounds.  You describe them as mounds in your inner monologue, or at least your swain clearly does as he overtly leers in a dimly lit garden to which he has lured you.

b) Crusty and defeated

c) scarred and wilted

Key: a) possibly a heroine b) real person, see a doctor immediately  c) real person

If I were to describe my nipples' attitude it would be:

a) pert

b) coy

c) eager

d) present

Key: a-c: heroine d: real person

In a chilly garden with your swain wearing naught but a muslin dress your hussy of a stepmother damped to try to allure men your nipples are:

a) cold

b) thrusting

c) eager

d) impatient

Key: a) you're a real person   b-d) you're a heroine but you should still get that situation checked out as it is only a matter of time before they rebel and make a break for it, and not just from your bodice.

You may not be able to lick your own chest, but your upper arm probably tastes about the same.  What does your skin taste like?

a) honey

b) violets, lavender, roses, and a hint of lemon

c) Dove body wash

d) salty and sweaty

Key: a) You're in a novel, but I'd watch out for bees and ants if I were you.  And bears. b) You're in a novel because your suitor, while busy compromising you to force you into a marriage you have hitherto firmly resisted, still has time to mentally parse the ingredients of your perfume. c) present day.  d) difficult to tell.  You may be in the present day.  You may authentically be in 1813.  Or you may be in a romance novel if, in addition to salty, you also taste indescribably feminine, sweet, delicious, and just a little like jasmine.  Romance novel sweat isn't like regular sweat.  It's attractive.

The truth is that there's no real fun in accurately describing your chest as wizened, hag-like and shriveled by decades of neglect.  But it can also be difficult to properly mine a thesaurus to describe yourself in a sufficiently romantic yet improbable and inscrutable way.  This is where I come in.  Use this helpful guide to create an adequate description of your enbonpoint that you can casually slip into conversation or put on your resume right under your head shot.

Try to make your decision on each category before reading the significance.  I avoided the traditional "birth month" etc. as this is a transparent attempt to steal your identity.

To determine appearance/texture choose from the following: my favorite month is...

January: Succulent

February: Flocculent

March: Buoyant

April: Lustrous

May: Vernal

June: Spry

July: Limpid

August: Heaving

September: Unyielding

October: Conspicuous

November: Mighty

December: Infundibular

To determine attitude choose from the following: My favorite color is

Peach: Impudent

Crimson: Bold

Pink: Impertinent

Mauve: Coy

Orange: Insouciant

Yellow: Languid

Violet: Petulant

Green: Insolent

Aqua: Simpering

Blue: Agile

Purple: Gregarious

Indigo: Audacious

Russet: Impatient

Silver: Assertive

Gold: Intrepid

Bronze: Ambitious

Black : Unrestrained

White: Earnest

To determine flavor select from the following: I love the fashion of the:

1770s (think Hamilton, Marie Antoinette):  You taste like cane sugar and beeswax

1810s (think Pride and Prejudice): You taste like marzipan and horses

1840s (think Jane Eyre): You taste like a rainy day in June

1900s (think A Room With A View): You taste like the salty sand on your tongue after a scandalous plunge into the Aegean sea with your love

1920s (think Great Gatsby): You taste like laughter and plums

1930s (think every breakout of WWII movie): You taste like desire and blackberries

1950s (think young Queen Elizabeth II): You taste like melted butter (unsalted) and daphne blossoms

1960s: You taste like lemon zest and scarcely concealed passion

1980s: You taste like the dewy grass of Sussex, and maple sugar.

There.  That should help you accurately present your décolletage to the world.

Advice to the Youth of Tomorrow

 If I could give one piece of advice to the Youth of Tomorrow it would be this: Find the funniest most well read nerd in your class.  Lock in that friendship now.  Preschool is not too early to start.  The longer you've known this weirdo, the better.  Sell yourself as equally weird and funny and bookish.  It's a two way street.

Now, some might say "okay but the friendships of age 4 aren't likely to last past elementary school." To which I say "fie!"

In high school you will never have a class together.  Stay pals.

One of you will be a theater nerd.  One of you will be a history nerd.  Stay pals.

One of you will go to a private all-women University on the East coast.  One of you will stay at the hometown state school on the west.  Stay pals.

One of you is an atheist who majors in religion.  One of you goes on an LDS mission while being woefully ignorant about the history of Christianity or her own faith.  Stay pals.

One of you marries a hometown boy and stays in the hometown and has kids and a minivan.  One of you is in Cairo for the Arab spring and has a partner with no desire for kids.  Stay pals.

The fruits of this palship, 30 years later, are sweet.  I had a horrible day.  Some lowlights: 

• Fred elbowed me in the eye twice in the space of five minutes.  I was curled in the fetal position on the couch, too depressed to move or parent at the time.  I did not respond graciously and patiently to this.
• I have largely given up on trying to make my child pay attention or participate in online school.  He's ahead of his class in reading and math so honestly who gives a rat's patoot anymore.  Not I.  Unfortunately my lack of oversight enabled my child to send a direct message to his teacher on Zoom that read like an inscrutable but still offensive rap.  My best guess is that he hit the "dictate" button then went back to playing with his brother.  Child 2 says "poopy" pretty much constantly, but the dictation was sure this was offensive so it changed it to "booty."  It also thought it heard "s**t" and so it sent it exactly like that (asterisks) amid all the booty talk.  There was also something about Grandma's bottom and pink jello. There's nothing like your child obscenely harassing his teacher to make you feel like a crappy parent.  I sent an apology and noted that it probably seemed like I'm a lazy parent who doesn't supervise my child but "that's only, like, 70% true."  I keep it real.
• We have workers demolishing a shower.  So in addition to the standard screaming, there's constant pounding. It makes it harder to tell when my children are being destructive.
• I roasted some tomatillos and peppers to make enchilada sauce.  When I took the pan out of the oven the cloud of steam surprised me and it burned the skin all around my eyes.  I collapsed on the floor and cried in pain and ended up calling a nurse line.  I'm fine.  But it hurts.
• I got some oil or something on my fingers from handling serrano peppers and even though I washed very carefully I still managed to get it on my nose and so my nostrils burned and burned no matter what.  Don't touch your face, I know, I know.  Easier said than done.
• I went upstairs to go to the bathroom and when I came back down I slipped and fell down the stairs.  I'm okay, just hurting on my butt and lower back.  I cried some more.  And I peed my pants a little as I fell! How?! I had just peed.  Does my body save just a little bit in case I need to be humiliated right after using the bathroom?

Anyway.  By the end of the day I was in no mood to have the family Valentine's party I had planned and prepared.  Just let me curl up and stare at the wall.  But we did have our party.  And it was wonderfully lovely.  I had saved all my mail for the last week or two hoping that the envelopes had Valentines, and they did.  Chris got me the latest illustrated Harry Potter book.  It's gorgeous.  And I opened a mystery package from my friend.  The friend I wisely locked down back in the late 1980s.  The friend I text almost daily with offensive quotes from the tacky romance novels I read.  The friend who just invited me to join her romance novel book club and the book of the month is BDSM misogyny angsty yuck.  So we hate read and text each other.

And amid my awful day (which is coming on the heels of a severe depressive downturn that has left me bedridden for hours) I got this wonderful, one of a kind, surprising gift:

My favorite gif, one that never fails to make me laugh, is Oprah giving her audience a swarm of bees.  And now I have it on my wall, to make me laugh every single day.  A true labor of love, and the only of it's kind I'm sure -- neither of us like to use existing patterns for things.  Make your own or bust.

And so I repeat my advice:  Befriend the funniest weirdo in your class.  Cool rich kids are all well and good, and I imagine they have rewarding friendships too.  But the weirdos are the ones who offer literary critique of trashy novels and send you hand stitched gifs to make you laugh when the entire world feels like a moldy armpit.

Love you, friend.

Depressed Mom

The last month has been really hard.  It's hard because the weather is lousy, and I've bitten off more than I can chew at work.  C works long hours and comes home exhausted.  And the kids are really, really hard.  Mostly P.  He has to test every boundary, every time.  It's age-appropriate and typical, but exhausting.  They say "pick your battles" but everything is a battle -- using the toilet a few times a day, not spitting and hitting, not sweeping everything off a shelf onto the floor just because you want to.

To top it all off, my depression is worse than usual.  I wake up wanting to cry.  All I want to do is stay in my bed where I feel safe, but I can't do that.  I've spent more time than I should in bed while the kids nap, and as a result have fallen further behind on my work.  I feel like I'm drowning.  I'm irritable and get frustrated and tired of trying to parent.  I've pretty well given up on housework.  Every now and then I'll get up the gumption to clean a room, but it gets trashed immediately so my motivation to do it suffers.  Laundry now functions on a "dirty pile/clean pile" basis.

Here are some things that do not help.  I've tried googling articles on parenting with depression.  They all are about studies that show depressed parents, especially mothers, have a negative effect on everyone else in the family.  That kids with depressed parents are more likely to act out and get hurt and struggle in school.  Great! Now I feel cheered up!  That was so helpful!

At church last week our lesson devolved in to our quarterly discussion of how knowing you're a daughter of God should just make you happy, and if you have gratitude for your blessings then you will be happy, and how incomprehensible it is to be unhappy if you have the blessings of the Gospel. I imagine if your brain works normally those things are valid.  But if you're me, you quietly excuse yourself and go hide in the kitchen and cry because nobody goes in there during church.  So now I'm unhappy, and guilty that I'm unhappy because if I were more righteous then I wouldn't have this problem.  Verrrry helpful.  I'm giving serious thought to setting aside the second hour of church to finding a place to hide in the building and just thinking my own thoughts, or maybe writing in my journal.  It sounds less spiritually damaging than class attendance.

I hate February, and I hate March.  I've been promising myself to just hold out through the end of Winter Term and it'll get better, but the work explosion has convinced me that my overburdenedness will carry right through until next term.  And now I'll go grade, which is what I should have been doing all this time anyway.

Feeding a toddler

The key to feeding a toddler, or at least my toddler, is to not look like you're TRYING to feed him.  This is fatal.  I put out a bowl of his favorite cereal dotted with blueberries.  He picked out the blueberries and gladly ate them.  After all, they are not in season and cost something exorbitant, so it makes sense that they're on his short list of approved breakfast foods.  The cereal he rejected and instead elected to come over a and scream at me while I ate.  I offered him a single blueberry.  He screamed at me and ran off, sobbing.  I finished my breakfast.

After having eaten, I tried a few other tactics to feed the little guy.  I tried pouring dry cereal directly on the table, as he was happy to eat a very stale piece of bread on the floor earlier.  Nothing doing.  More screams.  I held up an orange and looked inquisitive.  He made a gesture (from his supine position of mourning on the floor) that clearly indicated that, if that orange came anywhere near him, he would bat it away with all his force.  I held up a banana.  More wailing, but with a slight hesitation.  I peeled the banana and set it on the table, and sat him down.  Screams as he writhed away from it in despair.

So I gave up.  I left the banana on the table and went and fooled around on my phone on a chair.  Soon a snot encrusted one year old appeared, clutching mushy banana and eating.
"Go to the table Freddy."
"NOH!"
"Sit at the table buddy."
"NOH!"
"Go to the table"
"Grrrrrrrrrr"
I picked him up and placed him in his chair.
More wailing.

Meanwhile, the preschooler is adamantly refusing to get out of bed or leave his room.  I don't really mind this, except I fully intend to shut him in there for several hours this afternoon for quiet time, and so I feel slightly guilty that he is choosing to spend his morning there.

What do SAHMs do all day? Fight pointless battles for the good of the children while they strive to harm themselves.  It's exhausting.

Tips for a guest-ready home

I just read an article about all the things about my home that are grossing out my guests. It included things like dirty bathrooms, hand towels, kitchen cabinets etc. Looking around my actual home, I see some low-hanging fruit that this clearly judgmental author missed in the "disgusting home" category. Shall we take a little tour?

1) DON'T lean your Christmas tree, ugly undecorated side out, against the wall. It makes it look like you can't figure out how to make it straight or decorate properly, like some kind of tribe of slobs!

My rationale: I have done my best to fix it. I have redecorated that monster several times every day. I'm really close to just chucking it on the porch, fully decorated, and reinstalling it on Christmas Eve. If someone in YOUR house were constantly pulling it over and yanking off ornaments, you'd lose your will pretty quickly too.

2) DON'T have a desiccated dead slug on the bathroom floor.

My rationale: I want to wait a respectful amount of time for its slug brethren to claim the body. I never invited that slug in the house to begin with. You can't tell its a slug unless you're really staring at it for awhile, in which case bless you and your digestive troubles.

3) DON'T leave piles of dirty diapers in the middle of the living room floor.

My rationale: Sometimes the screaming demands are too pressing and realistically another filthy diaper will join it soon enough, then I can efficiently take them to the diaper pail on the porch.

4) DON'T have a bucket full of dirty diapers encrusted with feces immediately outside your front door.

My rationale: What, like I'm going to walk out to the bin ten times a day? Not a chance.

5) DON'T have cheerios glued permanently to your dining table with dried milk and a pile of food bits and garbage all over the dining surface.

My rationale: Look. If you want a clean surface to eat off of, sweep your eating area yourself. Or just eat the food on your plate, which IS clean. I cannot keep ahead of the entropy. It gets wiped down once a day and that is that.

6) DON'T have piles of clothes that are designated "clean" or "dirty" rather than being put tidily in drawers.

My rationale: Drawers. Sounds like a neat idea. I do that about once a week. In between we have the "clean and dirty" hamper system. It's efficient, and I don't have to climb the stairs to get children dressed.

7) DON'T have a fence keeping people out of your kitchen so they have to raise their foot to hip level just to go get a drink.

My rationale: I like my home not burned down and my children with all ten fingers. So, the fence. If your hips aren't flexible enough to do the get-to-the-fridge hurdle then I guess that says something about your exercise regimen, but does not reflect on my housekeeping.

Yeah. My house is completely disgusting and sometimes I break down in tears about it. I have found a much better solution to the "I don't want to gross out my guests" quandary. Just don't invite people into your home! If you don't want food poisoning, don't eat here or get a stronger gut. If you don't want to stick to the floor, spray your feet with PAM before coming, or better yet stay home! I can't wait for House Beautiful to come do the photoshoot here.

In which I bear testimony of Prozac

Today a friend talked to me about her reservations about taking medication to cope with mental health issues.  I didn't want to leap at her like a freak and overwhelm her with my enthusiasm, especially since everyone is different and the right answer for me isn't the right answer for everyone.  But on this here blog, I can do whatever I want! Wheeeee!!!!  So here is how I feel about Prozac.

Prozac quite literally saved my life.  When I was pregnant with P, I was hit pretty suddenly and unexpectedly with very severe depression.  I had wanted P and was happy to be having him, so I knew that it wasn't circumstantial.  Nevertheless, I found myself lying on the floor sobbing several times a day.  One day I became completely overwhelmed and I had a conviction that I was going to kill myself.  It was a very calm, collected thing.  I had a to do list -- I needed to fold the laundry, prep some food, and then I would go do it.  I had a method, though I won't go into that.

It freaked me out.  It really scared me how real and how inevitable it felt.  I got in bed, which is my short-term advice for all suicidal people (provided you don't have a handy method in your bedroom). Just get in bed until the feeling passes.  It's nice and soft.  You're not going to up and die from being under the covers and you might feel better.  Don't come out until killing yourself seems like a bad idea.  I told a friend how I had been feeling, and she said I needed to call my doctor right away and not wait for my next appointment.

Of course, being a pleaser, I was hesitant to bother when I had appointments all the time anyway but I called.  To my surprise, the nurse took it very very seriously and I was in within a matter of hours.  I guess having suicidal patients is a red flag.  Who knew.  My doctor was wonderful and kind and affirming.  She hugged me.  She set up an appointment with a therapist as soon as possible.  And she got me a prescription for Prozac, which I started taking immediately.  Very quickly I started to feel better, and that persisted up until my PPD with Fred a few months ago.

I have been struggling with depression my entire adult life and I had come to accept that I was going to have to cope with it for my remaining years on this earth.  I might have a few good months here and there, but it would always come back and I'd have to wade through it as best I could.  Because of recurring suicidal ideation I often thought I might eventually lose my battle with depression.  But I don't feel that way anymore.

In church people sometimes say thoughtless things about how nowadays folks just take pills to be happy when really (insert prayer/scripture study/a better attitude/ obedience to commandments etc.) would make them happy.  I set them straight.  Prozac doesn't make me happy.  Prozac enables me to experience a normal range of emotion and to respond to events in a proportional and appropriate way.  Setbacks bum me out, but they don't make me sob uncontrollably for hours.  I'm able to feel excited, or happy, or enjoy things.

I am happy to report that I'm doing a lot better than I was a month ago.  Things got really desperately bad with depression again.  But I have upped my dosage and seen a therapist and switched to bottle feeding and sleep trained the lil gremlin and I am feeling much more like myself.  My fuse is longer.  I don't lock myself in the bathroom and scream.  I don't cry uncontrollably.

It isn't easy for me to write about all this, because mental illness is deeply stigmatized.  Admitting that, in fact, I have sat on a toilet and screamed doesn't make me feel super proud as a parent or a person.  I know talking about suicidal ideation freaks out my family.  Lying in bed crying feeling afraid to get out isn't on anyone's bucket list. But my brain chemistry isn't my fault.  There are of course non-medical things I can do, and those are important too.  I get outside every day.  I exercise every day.  I make sure to get protein.  I get enough sleep.  But the fact remains that sometimes doing all that stuff is not enough, because my brain is not like typical brains, and my blues are not the same shade as ordinary sad days.

So all I can say is this: if your doctor thinks you should try medication, then it's okay to try it.  There is no shame in getting help and there is a lot of good.  We don't shame diabetics for using insulin.  We don't mock people with broken arms for using a cast.  We don't sneer at cancer patients for using chemo.  Medication isn't a crutch of the weak, it's a rational response to a potentially serious medical issue.

Let us oft speak kind words of our mothers

My motto is "leave no creative writing assignment unfooled with."  As long as it can be rendered absurd, I am in.  This is particularly true when people ask my mom personal questions and she comes to me and asks "what should I say?"  Oh I have got your back mom.  The Relief Society Newsletter has asked you what your favorite flavor jelly bean might be? Obviously your favorite flavor is "blood of my vanquished enemies."  Usually my ideas are unprintable, but we have a good giggle. Secretly I think I could rock it as editor of the Relief Society Newsletter but it might get shut down after one issue.

About a decade ago my mom participated in a creative writing group designed to help people feel more confident in writing their family history.  One of their assignments was to write their own obituary -- they were given license to be humorous.  My mom was happy to do the assignment and she wrote a funny obituary.  I, of course, took things way farther even though I wasn't part of the class and nobody asked me.  This week my mom happened upon our obituary offerings.  It's nice to be prepared in the event of tragedy.  Without further ado, here is a (now somewhat out of date) rough draft of my obsequies for my angel mother.

****
Last Saturday evening, surrounded by her doting eternal family Carolyn G. Diamond was taken by her Guardian Angel to dance with the Saints in the Eternal Gold and Green Ball.  She was 92.

Carolyn was born in a vermin-infested shack in Louisiana where she spent her carefree girlhood.  At 18 she finally realized what joy is by joining the church and she was able to spend the rest of her life testifying to how people in "The World" are categorically incapable of experiencing happiness.

At BYU she was the head Cougarette and won the prestigious Golden Hairspray Can for her expertly coordinated slap the him and turn move.  Unfortunately she did not graduate with her Mrs. and so she was forced to continue to go to school in the hopes of finally being fulfilled as a human being.

She eventually married P. G. and had two precious angels of children, LeVurl and Harmony.  LeVurl became a mill worker and married his high school Princess Shayna.  They have six children, eighteen grandchildren and live in Payson, UT.  Harmony went on to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, which she gave to her mother as a coaster.  Carolyn always made sure to remind her ward every fast Sunday what righteous children she had and and how that reflected well on both her valiance in the pre-existence and her excellence as a Mother, and she was right.

After 40 years of unrelieved marital bliss Carolyn was left a widow.  The city created a museum to honor their homegirl's handicrafts and she spent several years as head curator of her own museum of crocheted doll ball gowns and acrylic doilies.  It was at a demonstration of how to needle-point kleenex box covers that Carolyn met her eternal companion, Neil Diamond.  He crooned "Hellloooo again, Hellooooo" and his soft buttery voice melted Carolyn's heart faster than a cube of margarine on a hot potato.  He asked her to be his Purl of Great Price and they were married for Time and Part of Eternity in the Provo Temple, after he joined the church and became the Seminary Teacher.

Carolyn was renowned for her charitable works and ability to suck her teeth while giving talks in church.  The world has been plunged into universal bereavement by her passing and a dark cloud has settled over the earth that will probably not ever dissipate.  We can take comfort in knowing that this sweet, sweet, Angel of Mercy is definitely absolutely without a shadow of a doubt in the Great Relief Society Presidency in the sky, distributing rainbows and gumdrop kisses to those who passed on with welfare needs.  Mya our hearts always carry a special glimmer for having known this Beacon of Hope.

*****

I'm getting excited about penning this year's Christmas newsletter.

Let's just put that into perspective, shall we?

Things have gotten really rough with breastfeeding.  Gotten? oh, yeah it was horrible from the start.  But it was working, in that my baby was gaining weight.  Three weeks ago I returned to work and so Grandma started feeding Fred frozen Mom milk from a bottle.  He was happy as a clam about the bottle (phew!) but it turned out that the amount my bod pumps and the amount Fred wants are not one and the same.  So we were blowing through my stash really fast and the thought of pumping and pumping to feed the lil glutton was disheartening.  I talked to the lactation consultant and she said that, all things considered, it was just fine if I chose to supplement with formula.  What a huge relief!

Then, tonight, Fred went on strike.  He absolutely refused to nurse and screamed and screamed and screamed.  I get it, nursing takes effort, a bottle much less so (for him anyway).  I was in tears as I warmed him expressed milk and fed it in a bottle.  I'm such a failure! I can't even feed my baby! Do I just go to a bottle now, long before the six month mark the World Health Organization has recommended for our guilt?  Another magical evening spent feeding and crying.

I decided to google "am I a terrible mother for switching to formula,"  a search that has doubtless been run millions of times.  I opened my browser and you know what I saw?  Stories about Donald Trump and Harvey Weinstein.  Oh.  So let's just think about the "am I terrible" question.  I am considering changing from one healthy way of nourishing my child to a different one because our needs as a family have changed.  Both means of feeding a baby are equally likely to produce a happy, healthy, wonderful human being.  Theoretically breast is best.  But it stops being best if I contemplate suicide and cry through feeds and my baby starts screaming and refusing to do it.  What exactly are we accomplishing here?  So yeah.  I'm not a terrible person.  Terrible people are rapists and creeps.  Terrible people threaten war for no reason and deny health care and withhold life saving help out of spite.

I talked to my lactation consultant on the phone, an angel of a human being if ever there was one.  When I asked how I was hurting my baby if I stopped breast feeding she said "let's reframe that.  Let's celebrate that you were able to give your baby ninety days of breast milk, overcoming some really big obstacles."  Yes.  Let's celebrate that!

Fred is three months old.  That means I have now put in a full year of my life of making horrible physical sacrifices so he can be healthy and exist.  I was willing to keep doing this until next July.  But I don't have to, and every minute that passes is making that sound better and better and better.  I am planning to pump/nurse a few times a day still but not fight Captain Shrieky.  Maybe now I can feel more like a person -- go to a movie! Out to dinner! Take a freaking break!  It sounds pretty nice.

Side note to the soon to be born baby who has been promised a backup stash of Palmkey's Best: Count on it still.  It's in the freezer just waiting for you.  Fred won't miss it and you're not to feel fretted about it.

So good at this.

I pulled up the dashboard of this blog and saw that I had an unpublished post titled "This is not going well" -- I'll say.  So I hit publish.  And now I write a little more, because writing makes me feel better, sometimes.

It's been a rough week.  I went back to work this week, and that in itself was fine but it still amps up the ambient stress of my life considerably.  I still feel very disoriented by playing trucks all morning, then dashing to campus to be Professor Me, then hurrying back home to feed and care for fractious little ones again.  I know that it'll get better and I'll get used to it again, but right now I feel very out of kilter.

Pip has been sick.  Nothing serious.  Just enough to make him contrary and stubborn.  Fred is getting better at sleeping all night (well, he gets up to eat.  But he goes to bed reasonably well and what more can I ask really).  But he fights naps with all his strength and will basically only sleep soundly if the house is quiet and I"m rocking him and holding in his binkie.  Obviously morning naps are therefore all but impossible and I spend the entirety of Pip's nap trying desperately to get my baby to sleep enough to compensate for his inappropriate wakefulness the rest of the time.  Oh a tired baby is super fun by the way.   I loooooooove the constant screaming.  Love it.  Every instant of my day is spent in meeting other people's needs.  I don't even shower alone a lot of the time.  I certainly wouldn't dream of peeing alone and if I do I pay for it in destruction.  And yet despite how relentlessly I'm trying to care for my kids, I constantly feel like a failure.  If I'm caring for Pip I'm ignoring Fred's screams.  If I'm caring for Fred then Pip is awfully sad I'm not reading and playing and doing what he needs.  Its a fun game of constant failure.  Meanwhile the house deteriorates to the point of unliveability and we subsist on hot dogs and cereal.

On top of that my D-MER/PPD is just killing me.  A big part of it I'm sure is that I'm unable to do all the self care that would make things better.  See previous paragraph.  I'm doing what I can.  I take my medication.  I go outside everyday.  I walk several miles every day but it still doesn't feel like enough exercise to really cheer me up.

This morning I woke up depressed.  I just couldn't believe it was all starting again and it would be another twelve hours before I had any hope of real relief. Its hard having to leap into action the minute you wake up.  First I feed Fred.  Then I get Pip up who is usually clamoring.  Then I change diapers and get kids dressed and pump milk for the freezer and try to get me dressed too, and then I get Pip breakfast and Fred is starting to get mad I haven't gotten him and oh by the way his morning diarrhea has manifested itself right on time.  Feeding Fred and pumping triggers D-MER and suddenly I'm crushed by feelings of sadness and suicidal ideation.  It goes away when I'm done pumping, but I'm totally drained.  Meanwhile Pip does the usual kiddo thing -- using his spoon as a weapon, fiddling in the  dishwasher, throwing cars.

Fred is now full on screaming to be held.  So I put him in the frontie pack and he's mellow enough that I can do other things, except doing the things with an extra 15 pounds strapped to your chest is awfully difficult.  Pip messes up the dishwasher one to many times and I yell at him and scare both my children.  Now Fred is screaming inconsolably again and I start sobbing because I'm a bad mother and my house is a mess and I can't face it all anymore.  Pip keeps saying "mama sad? mama sad?" but I can't stop crying and I don't know what to do.

My MIL is out of state.  I try calling mom but no answer -- she must be out of the house.  I keep getting the thought "call Amber.  Call Amber."  But it is very hard to call someone and admit that you can't handle what everyone else seems to handle.  Its hard to say "drop everything in your life and come help me survive mine."  But I did.  And she came immediately.  She played with my kids for over an hour so I could just clean my house without being pestered and hassled.  It is amazing what you can do with two free arms.  My house is all clean.  Well, as clean as it needs to be for my peace of mind.  My children got the attention they desperately wanted from someone who wasn't sick of it all.  So thank you Amber.  For meaning it when you said "if you need anything just call."

I packed up my crew to take on the first rain walk of fall.  Pip loved the new yellow boots I bought him and splashed happily in the puddles.  We walked with my mom to the bakery and I bought us all treats.  Pip played in the wet park and sat on the dinosaur that has been there since my childhood.  We came home and Pip announced he wanted a nap and a "time out" (I had to give myself a time out earlier this week and he's been very interested in the idea that you can just declare you need solo time and shut the door.)  So I snuggled him up in his bed for his self imposed me time.

Now Fred is screaming and I must away.  I can do this.  But not without my village.

This is not going well

I really need future me to do a quick "It gets better" PSA for myself.  I know that it will get better, and fairly quickly.  But right now things are not great.  I wake up in the morning and feel completely depressed and unable to face the day.  If my children are awake but not screaming I ignore them until they are actually distressed.  It isn't that long of course -- Fred usually puts in an order for breakfast pretty insistently.  I take my medication and tell myself that suddenly I'll be doing fabulously well.

Every time I feed Fred I feel awful.  Sometimes its just fairly blue and other times it is so bad I can barely function.  I feel like a failure, like I'm an awful mother.  I don't want to feed him and feel cross that he wants to eat.  Sometimes I think about throwing myself down the stairs.  I have to remind myself that my children actually really like me and would be quite sad if I disappeared.  But sometimes I feel like I"m just everyone's meal ticket and maid and errand runner and not a person at all.

I hate having to hitch my happy face on.  It's exhausting.  Sometimes people who know I've been struggling ask if I'm doing better.  Nope.  I'm just trying to go through the motions as enthusiastically and authentically as I can manage.  I'm glad I'm pulling it off so convincingly.

I feel guilty that I didn't have this problem with Patrick in the same degree, even though none of it is my fault nor is it a reflection of feelings for one child or the other.

I often cry at the end of the day because Fred demands attention until after nine, at which point I"m so exhausted I get straight in bed.  Sometimes my little treat is when I wake up in the night and know I still get a few more hours (after feeding) to myself in my own bed with nobody touching me or talking to me or needing me to do stuff.

I am happy for parts of every day, and I am a good mom.  Patrick and I have been playing an awesome new game on my bed (allowing me to lie around as I want to) in which his playmobils colonize my pillows.  I help to make them houses out of bedding and they go in and take naps, and sometimes come out to play tag or hike mommy mountain or engage in other fun playmobil activities.  I bought Pip a balloon that has provided hours of family fun.  I bought hot dogs and so P has had is all time favorite meal (hot dogs and grapes) two nights in a row.  Is it because I can barely function? Maybe.  But he's also thrilled to pieces and that feels good.  Previously I think he thought you could only get hot dogs at the Costco kiosk -- a fancy dining experience.  But no! You can have them at home too!!!  Living the good life.

I'm also good to Fred.  Much as I hate breastfeeding I am chunking that boy up.  He weighed in at 13 pounds which is fairly hefty for a two month old.  I make sure he gets a nice clean fuzzy sleep sack to sleep in.  I let him stay up watching Grantchester with me (okay actually I have to stay up soothing his shrieking)

Because, it turns out, I matter too

Or, why I'm not going to have a large family

Well, I do have a large family in the sense that my babies are hefty.  Phred was 9 lbs 5 oz which is no pixie.  But I'm not going to keep doing this.

I hardly need to hash out why I wouldn't relish another pregnancy -- anyone who knows me or reads this should be well aware that I view pregnancy as some kind of prolonged torture, all the more so because of the pressure to "love" or "treasure" it. What else are we supposed to cherish? Having a newborn because it goes so fast and these moments are so precious etc.

Well, I don't.  I love my baby.  I love his soft fuzzy little head and his snuggles and his weird facial expressions.  But I think about future milestones with glee I don't bother to conceal.  My body has apparently signed up for the "weird and rare and miserable" version of bringing children into this world.  First I vomit for nine months straight.  Now (as I did with P) I have D-MER -- Dysphoric Milk Ejection Reflex.  In more simple terms, producing milk feels emotionally horrible.  I'll leave it to the scienticians to explain the whys and hows, but basically milk letdown is triggered by various hormones swimming around my body.  I experience this horrible wave of depression and sadness that comes out of nowhere.  It subsides, and a few seconds later I can feel milk letdown.

So imagine that many times a day you're living your life (boiling water, combing your hair, having a conversation) and suddenly you feel like you could never be happy again.  The feeling lasts for maybe 30 seconds, and then it goes away just as suddenly.  Then your nipples start stinging.  A few minutes later your baby starts screaming.  It's like the world's worst alarm clock reminding you to feed your child, as if the crying weren't going to tip you off.  Also if you forgot to put in absorbent pads, now your underwear is soaked with sticky milk that will smell terrible tomorrow.  Wheeee!!!!

Perhaps you're thinking "30 seconds -- that's not so bad!" Well, neither is breastfeeding if you're imagining it in complete isolation.  What's twenty minutes in an arm chair? Why the complaining?  Oh, it happens every two hours around the clock for the foreseeable future? You never get a day or even an afternoon (much less a night) off? This is just what your life is going to be for the next year? Cool.  My baby is almost a month old.  Or, one might say, eleven months away from drinking cow milk and me closing up shop, not that anyone is counting.

So yeah, I'm cherishing ever single precious instant of all of this.  Or maybe, just maybe, it's okay not to pretend to love the reproductive aspect of womanhood.  I actually think that I have intrinsic value and that my experience and happiness matters too.  If formula feeding weren't expensive and an even bigger hassle, I'd be there.  In Oregon that is basically like admitting you are willing to feed your children bleach but what can I say, I'm an unnatural and vicious woman.  In the mean time I'm treating my body to what it likes best to make up for the many cruelties children inflict.  I go for long walks with the stroller and put in my earbuds and pretend I'm alone. I periodically say "mmmhmm" in response to my toddler's chatter but mostly I listen to the vulgar swearing and gore of "My Favorite Murder."  I ate most of a batch of cookies this weekend.  I do fragments of workout videos before my children interrupt me because I like how lifting weights makes me feel.  I took a nap today and it was amazingly wonderful.  And I am counting the months until my body is my own again.  I don't really care if it's floppy and scarred and limp in some places and rotund in others.  I'm just looking forward to having it to myself.  I'm going to buy a brand new dress because I won't have to provide access to my chest every few hours.  It's going to be dope.

Birth Plan

At 37 weeks I have officially reached the generalized arrival zone for Moppet #2.  I asked my Dr. for a "definitely done by" date and so this baby will be evicted no later than July 11th, which is less than a month away.  My life as a mobile home is almost over.

Preparing for a baby is an endless list of nitpicky little chores, most of which do not really matter but which somehow seem terribly urgent all the same.  I mean I haven't hung the curtains in the nursery yet, so my baby will probably refuse to spend the night here as a matter of principle.  One of the things I keep putting off is writing a birth plan.  I always wonder just how useful this actually is.  The mommy community acts like this is as important as having insurance and significantly more important than having a crib.  Do medical professionals just read them and laugh? I think I would, especially having seen drafts of them on mommy message threads.

So much about birth and caring for a new baby seems to bring out maternal hubris.  Ooooh I have this plan for how my birth is going to be and it will be wonderful and spiritual and meaningful.  Okay, maybe.  Or maybe your body will writhe in animalistic pain beyond your control and it will all be super gross and kind of awful and either way you get a baby.  Making a plan for something that immediately gets out of hand seems kind of futile to me.  Nevertheless I have bowed to the pressure of my pregnancy app which relentlessly nags about this and written my birth plan.  It has two essential points, which are exactly what I asserted last time with P.

1.  I want an epidural and I want it yesterday
2.  If/when I poop while delivering I want you to lie to my face and say I didn't if I ask.  I don't care how natural or common or unremarkable it is to the L&D team.  Have I pooped in front of strangers? Yes, of course I have, anyone who knows my (former) blog knows that! But I do think there is a big difference between having diarrhea in close proximity to a homeless woman and doing so directly in someone's face.

Maybe just for the thrill of it I should think about my alternative, ideal-situation birth plan.  Here are some elements of that.

1. I'd like to opt out of being the one to give birth at all, actually.  Can Chris and I take turns on this?
2. I would like the room to be set up like a Bachelorette Fantasy Suite -- this means a trail of rose petals, candles everywhere and prurient camera men taking lingering shots of the empty bed.
3. The L&D unit is several floors up.  Any chance of an air show going on we could watch while we wait? Maybe some trained birds, stunt planes and fireworks?
4.  While they're rummaging around my innards could the team also suck out some of the extra plumpness I've acquired? Might as well.
5.  I will, of course, be wearing a hospital gown I brought myself.  The emphasis here is on gown.  Plan on sequins and jewels, and maybe twinkle lights.
6.  I ask that the amniotic fluid be saved and bottled so that I can force my loved ones to toast to my baby with it.  This is part of my belief system.
7.  I demand that everyone keep the baby's sex a secret.  We are planning an elaborate gender reveal party for his/her 14th birthday.

I'm open to further suggestions of course.

Easter. Am I doing this right?

Every year I have noble intentions of really making something special and spiritual out of Easter week.  I basically always fall short.  I was thinking about it this week as I saw friends posting about their meaningful devotionals while I read the world's most boring book about trucks for the 17th time today.  Pip is sick and it's been a bit of a weekend.  And I still barf more days than not it seems.  So we're just kind of slumping along.  As I thought about it though, I think our family is doing a good job of focusing on the message of selfless love, which is really what Easter is all about.  Here are some of the gifts of love from Palmerville.

• I spend time cooking meals for my family even though I end up vomiting them
• Pip let me go for a walk and happily ate crackers without a murmur yesterday.  It's a big deal for me to walk without a tantrum.  Thanks buddy.
• I took Pip for his bath on Friday even though he basically always poops the tub, which means I start vomiting, and I hate it.  But Chris always does it and I gave him a break. Because I love him.
• When Pip pooped the tub I scooped it out.  It takes love to pick up feces.  I got poop under a fingernail.
• So then I started violently gagging.  Chris immediately tore up the stairs hearing what was going on.  That's love.  He finished the job, sterilized the tub, diapered Pip and kept him busy so I could vomit in peace.
• Most of the time Chris gives Pip his bath, and cleans the poop without comment or complaint so I don't have to.  That's love.
• Last night I got up several times to rock a screaming child back to sleep even though I was, in fact, rather tired myself.  That's love.
• This morning Chris remarked that Pip seemed to go back to sleep quickly -- he heard the crying, heard it go quiet, and didn't realize that a certain someone spent an extra fifteen minutes rocking a gloppy child to make that happen.  So that's my love for Chris right there.
• I let Pip nap on me even though my belly is huge and it's not at all comfortable to have a thirty pound snot machine added to the child I already have to haul around to my lap, and nap time is precious me time which I did not get thanks to being a mattress.  But I love him and he needed rest and comfort.
• Chris brought me cookies home from work and has not touched them.  Just for me.  He made a trip to the store to buy sherbet for Pip (at my suggestion, so really for me) -- it has medicinal purposes.  Long day at work, still caring for his family's health.
• Chris let me be the one who went to church and interacted with adults leaving him with the child who said "Mama" at one minute intervals for two hours.
• I came home for the last hour so he could go be an adult.  I dealt with the child who sprawled in only his diaper on the laundry room floor crying piteously for Daddy while he was gone.  Love is always getting to feel like the unwanted parent because you're the one home at the moment.
• Pip begged to go for a walk even though he's clearly too sick to do anything physical.  So I got us all suited up.  Chris put Pip in his boots.  I got out the stroller for when Pip inevitably would lie down on the sidewalk and refuse to move.  All that production.  We made it as far as the mailbox when he declared the walk to be over.  But we do this kind of thing for those we love.
• I've spent a lot more time being consistent about praying to be patient and to be a loving and pleasant parent.  And I sort of think it's working.  Praying for other people is a good way to show selfless love.
• Chris took Pip upstairs so I could make a smoothie without someone whining at me because I felt too sick to eat a proper dinner and only wanted foods that are reasonably pleasant to vomit (yes, I think that way and yes smoothies are about your best bet).
• Chris and I have both spoon-fed our son who apparently feels that lifting food is beyond him in his current extremity.  I cooked Pip a special lunch that he refused to eat.  Chris made him a special dinner that he would only eat with a personal assistant.

So I'm kind of botching religious Easter in a lot of ways.  So far I haven't thought of a good devotional or craft.  I haven't played the right music or read the right scriptures or planned good activities.  I just can't.  I've bought a few jellybeans.  Easter isn't about bunnies.  But it also isn't about devotionals.  Devotionals and object lessons are a means to an end, but they are not the end in itself.  The point is to try to love other people, to draw closer to God, to seek forgiveness, to forgive others, and to try to become like Christ.  Our family's way of doing that seems to involve a lot of faulty sphincters and bodily functions, but we're drawing closer to Christ in our revolting way.

Maybe next year we can do it without all the pooping and vomiting.

Birth Vlogs

I once had the marvelous honor of being my best friend's vaginal cinematographer.  She had asked me to come to the hospital when she had her baby, but warned me that they had strict rules about how many people could be in the room.  I said I'd be happy to sit in the waiting room and just be distantly supportive if that was what she wanted.  She offered to lie and say I was her doula.  As I had no prior experience with child birth in any respect, this seemed to be a stretch (though stretching is part of the doula's métier).  So I packed myself a satchel of books and prepared to enjoy the delights of a hospital waiting room.  To my surprise, I was allowed in the room, an eventuality for which I was not prepared.  My friend had had her epidural and was napping.  I sat in a corner feeling useless yet desiring to be supportive.  Then suddenly it was time to push.  The lights were dim.  My friend said "get the camcorder out of my bag!" I assumed she was kidding.  She was not.  The other non-hospital people present were her husband (useful for encouragement), Bianca (useful for at that point moderate levels of medical knowledge and support) and me (useful, apparently, as a key grip).

I did my best.  We had not discussed this in advance, but do you say no to a friend in need? Also I had never really worked a video recording device before.  I wasn't sure what footage she was hoping for so I did my best to balance tasteful shots of her perineum (is there such a thing?) and views of her beatifically miserable face, while not getting in the way of people who actually needed to accomplish medical things.  My unexpected vantage gave me a front row seat (so to speak) to the miracle of life, and the no less miraculous but much grosser placenta.

The crowning glory of my film career was that in the dark and unfamiliar with the device, I had not actually recorded anything.  I had just stared with uncomfortable fixity at an acreage with which I was not familiar.  It brought us closer as friends, and I have certainly offered to return the favor via FaceTime or Skype.  I am sorry I didn't get the video she wanted, though possibly my footage wasn't what she would have wanted in any case.

This experience has returned to me in the last few weeks as I've found myself watching a new (to me) genre called "birth vlogs."  Apparently cute couples make money by making video diaries of their lives and as with all reality shows, childbirth makes for a blockbuster episode.  I've been watching them to try to get in the mood for parturition.  I figure if I remember feeling excited or weepy or seeing what a newborn looks like this will be helpful to me in an unspecifiable way.  The vlogs differ from my career behind the camera in at least two ways -- there is actual film footage of the event, and the camera is always angled in a tasteful and discreet way to maximize action without revealing from whence the baby emerges.

The thing is, these videos also differ significantly from what I remember childbirth being like.  At the most, these women seem to experience mild discomfort, then they get the epidural and everything is sunshine and rainbows and sometimes they nap and then there's a baby.  I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.  I remember being clenched in pain so bad I couldn't speak, move or effectively communicate in any way except intermittent gasps or gestures before the epidural.  I remember contractions being essentially relentless, coming on top of each other so the possibility of having a cheerful one on one interview with a camera was non-existent.

I remember getting the epidural, but I also remember it not working entirely, and maybe that is why the idea of napping or smiling or talking seems so foreign.  At first it only worked on half my body so the nurses tried to get me on my side so it would drip in that direction. Or something.  I just remember being in too much pain to roll and needing a prying paddle.  I remember round 2 of the epidural working a bit more, but leaving a "hole" the size of a dessert plate where I could still feel everything.  And I remember sitting there trying to survive each contraction that the dessert-plate-hole-from-hell was inflicting on my body.  This does not match with what I've seen on vlogs.  Maybe I looked dainty and sweet and only mildly discomfited by the whole business and that can be my comfort.

A glimpse into our utopia

Motherhood is endlessly fulfilling, as any mom could tell you.  It's also easy to be a nice human being while raising live young and performing basic household tasks! Ha ha ha.  Here's a glimpse into our little piece of heaven on earth.

I have had piles of laundry sitting on the couch and in hampers for several days.  Portions of at least five loads lingered around.  I had sorted and folded into tidy little piles two or three loads, but these had gotten shoved to the end of the couch to make space for sitting and playing and so they were essentially back in their natural state of chaos.  There is little point in trying to fold laundry while Pip is on patrol as he feels strongly about his role as hamper trampler and clothes unsorter.   Of course I could use his nap time but it turns out nap time needed the following activities as well:

• Call insurance to disagree with their decision not to pay for a test my doctor ordered (of course time on hold)
• Call doctor's office to ask for their assistance, transfer to billing and repeat request
• Answer work emails and provide feedback to students preparing to turn in a paper tomorrow
• Exercise on ye olde treadmill
• Lift weights
• Work on a paper cutting (yes I am going to enjoy a hobby for once!)

Sooooo nap time is pretty heavily scheduled.  That left evening when P would plausibly be entertained by his father.  Hahahaha.  Not if Pip hears the clarion call of cloth being folded.  He knows his duty.  After crossly steering him out of the hamper more than once and making several trips up the stairs I finally got the last of it prepped for put away.  First I needed to put the clean sheets back on my bed.  Obviously I'd need a toddler to get on that bed to help the process.  Then I'd need a toddler to repeatedly try to touch a very hot light bulb while I put away my socks -- ultimately resulting in me putting away laundry in the dark because some people cannot be deterred.

As you might imagine, I was in a super duper good mood about my progeny by that point.  I had to pee.  The bathroom door is currently not latching (of course).  So as I try to have 30 seconds to do what must be done, a toddler barges in cackling like a maniac.  He heads straight for the walk in shower, which is still soaking wet from earlier.  Is he in his footie pajamas? Yes he is.  So I lunged off the toilet and grabbed the boy by the scruff of the pajamas and shoved him out the door, cooing in my best motherly dovelike tones "LEAVE ME ALONE DAMMIT!"  Then I sat on the seat abruptly at a weird angle and broke it, and had to hold the door shut with one hand.  Oh and I had pee dripping down my leg so that had to get cleaned and my pajamas changed.  My son was screaming and sobbing in vexation at being excluded from mama's company.  It's moments like this that make me hope to be featured in the Ensign mother's day issue.

After we'd both had some time to recover from the intensity of our mother-son bonding, we snuggled down for stories.   I gathered a large stack of books as a peace offering and read them all while he nestled close.  It was very sweet and lovely.  I read him Caps For Sale twice, because he is very good at doing the monkey part, wagging his finger tauntingly and saying "Tzt tzt tzt!"  When we were done he called for family hug, our little pre-bed ritual of sandwiching together for kisses and good night.  He's learning how to say "I love you."  I tucked him in to bed and gave Bunny and Piddit (Piglet) each a kiss, we said prayers and I turned out the light.  I love him a lot, and he's a great kid, and I love being a mom.

And I put duct tape on the toilet seat because when I sat on it again it pinched my inner thigh and I uttered an obscene word.  I guess on Wednesday we go on a field trip to Jerry's.  I'm really working on not swearing and I feel like I'm getting better, but I also feel like opportunities keep presenting themselves really persuasively. 

But it didn't do anything

I'm still thinking about the backlash over the Women's March, folks. One of the criticisms I've heard quite a bit is that "it didn't do anything."  I think this is a critique that depends heavily on how you're defining "doing something."  Did the March result in Trump resigning in disgrace and Congress joyfully passing a slough of legislation that ended inequality forever? Nope.  So I guess if that's your definition of "doing something" then you're right, it's a failure.  I don't think any of the marchers expected that outcome, though, so perhaps it isn't a fair metric.  I keep mentally framing this in terms of my experience as an LDS missionary, so here goes my thoughts.

I served my mission in Baltimore, Maryland.  For my non-LDS friends, know that you don't get to choose where you go, what areas you're assigned to or who your companions are.  You do get to decide how to spend your days, within a fairly limited framework of working toward your goals of sharing your faith with as many people as possible and teaching interested people about it.  You also get to do some community service.

When you come home from your mission you give a homecoming talk to your ward who supported you emotionally and often financially while you were gone.  You talk about your experiences and share the good parts and everyone marvels that you've become a compassionate adult (hopefully).  Many homecoming talks (and triumphant letters home, and reminiscences etc.) focus heavily on baptisms.  That, after all, is your goal -- to teach people about the Gospel and have them decide they love it and get baptized.  Hooray!

Yeah.  Hooray.  If you serve in South America, where there is a pretty high rate of baptisms, hooray.  However, the people of Maryland already have a church thankyouverymuch.  So here are my statistics.  In 18 months I got to go to one baptism of someone that I had taught.  One.  As far as I know she is no longer actively LDS.  I also taught several people who were later baptized after I left the area.  My online sleuthing has yielded a suspicion that none of them are active either.  I worked with many families/individuals who were LDS but were not active, and after meeting with them extensively they returned to full activity.  Aaaaaand then returned to being inactive, as far as I can tell.  Cool! Great job Sister Gilkey! You're a huge failure and you spent 18 months of your life pouring your heart into something that "didn't do anything."

Aww look at little Sister Gilkey off to share the Gospel on a bike! Incidentally, riding a bike in a long skirt = the worst. When there was no oncoming traffic we'd pedal frantically to build up speed (our skirts hiking up with every pump) then we'd let the hem fall demurely and coast so oncoming traffic couldn't see up the skirt.  Yet another small way being a Sister missionary ain't like being an Elder.

The thing is, baptism is a terrible standard for success because it is entirely dependent on someone else's agency.  I can't force people to listen, to care, to believe, to agree, to change their lives.  I can invite, or persuade, or encourage, but their choices are beyond my control.  I knew that even as a missionary and did my darnedest not be discouraged by the fact that I was routinely reporting zeros for my stats (except for the number of people I tried to talk to.  That number was always high...).

Here are some of the things my mission accomplished:

• I changed.  I became more compassionate and loving.  I met people from different economic, ethnic, religious, racial etc. etc. backgrounds and I loved them and tried to help them.  Those changes in me stuck, even if I didn't get anyone else to change.
• I met people that I love and still communicate with and care about.
• I learned a lot -- about myself, about getting along with others (hello being assigned a stranger you have to be with 24/7! fun!), about the Gospel, about self-sacrifice and being happy with less etc.
• I gained important skills that are still valuable to me today.  I'm not afraid of public speaking.  Talking to strangers doesn't freak me out.  Teaching is very comfortable, even relaxing to me. I feel confident in my competence and ability to take care of myself.  I learned how to pump gas (a skill I have not needed since and have therefore forgotten.  Thanks, Oregon! Okay so that one wasn't that useful)
• Perhaps most importantly from a long-term wide-scope perspective, I had an impact on other people's lives that I cannot measure.  It may be that someone I talked to later joined the church and I never knew.  Maybe I gave invaluable comfort to someone in need.  Maybe I helped inspire a teenager to make better choices, or to go on a mission, or to go to college.  Maybe those kids I volunteered with at the Boys and Girls club did better in school because of the time I spent helping them learn to read.  I can't measure that stuff, and maybe it won't be apparent for decades.

Wherefore, stand ye in Holly Places, and be not moved, until the day of the Lord come;
for behold, it cometh quickly, saith the Lord (Doctrine and Covenants 87:8)
A little missionary joke.

So back to the Women's March.  From a very narrow measurement of effecting immediate legislative upheaval, it did nothing.  But possibly six weeks is not enough time to accurately judge the impact of an action on that scale.  Even without that big picture claim of significance, here are some things we can suggest the march accomplished.

• Many people who had never engaged in any kind of demonstration or political activity besides voting did so for the first time, and not the last time.  Protesting once makes it easier to protest again.
• On that note -- the very next weekend there were many spontaneous demonstrations against the Muslim ban, doubtless with many of the exact same people empowered to give up their leisure time to make a ruckus.  The protest put pressure on the judiciary and the administration to reexamine the order, and it also had a significant international impact of sending the message that not all Americans are Islamophobes.  That's a big deal.
• Legislators are being flooded with emails, calls, postcards etc. from citizens who were never engaged before.  You also see this at town hall meetings which have to move to bigger venues to accommodate crowds who suddenly care about this stuff.
• The March spawned many smaller groups where people are connecting for the first time and sharing their experiences and values with one another, communication that wasn't happening before.

Of course the only thing I can really measure and say for sure are the changes in me, just as with my mission I can really only attest to my own growth.

• I deliberately included my son in making my protest sign, even though he won't remember any of it.  I've started thinking more proactively about how I can including my child(ren) in the political process so they grow up to be good citizens.  
• I've called my representatives in Congress to share my views (and emailed and emailed and emailed).  I make those calls in front of my son.  Then after I hang up I practice key words with him so he has the vocabulary to make those calls.  He's too young to do it, but he isn't too young to start practicing the skills of being a good citizen.
• I went to my first town hall style meeting ever.  It was not easy to haul a toddler to that meeting, and I was definitely in the minority as a young-with-kids person, but we were there.  I had never done that before, but I feel a new responsibility to stay engaged.
• I keep making myself do the hard thing.  Speaking up isn't always easy or comfortable, but it's the right thing to do.  And thanks to the march, I don't feel alone.

In sum: The Women's March very definitely made important changes in our society, many of which we cannot yet measure.  Also, stop measuring your success by things that are beyond your control.  I can't force Congress to conduct an independent investigation into the connection between the election and Russia.  But I can badger the heck out of them.  And I will!

It seems as though the adversary was aware, at a very early period of my life, that I was destined to prove a disturber and an annoyer of his kingdom; else why should the powers of darkness combine against me? Why the opposition and persecution that arose against me, almost in my infancy? (Joseph Smith -- History 1:20)

But it isn't nice.

I've had an odd couple of days.  Yesterday I read a news story in which a former church leader said the following about the Women's March in New York: "We were in a cab, and as I watched those women marching and yelling, and should I say, behaving anything but ladylike and using language that was very unbefitting of daughters of God,” Sister Dalton said. “As I watched all of that take place, my heart just sunk and I thought to myself, ‘What would happen if all those women were marching and calling to the world for a return to virtue?"

I wrote a personal response to this as my Facebook status, and shared it with my usual curated group of friends.  Then a friend of mine asked if she could share my post, so I made it public, which means anyone on facebook can see and comment.  Some of the feedback was positive, even surprising.  One of my former students saw it and reached out, not realizing that I'm LDS (since I'm not supposed to bring that up in class) and sharing that she was raised in the church too.  So that was a neat connection.  Some friends offered thoughtful responses that, if not in total agreement with my views, were at least kind and measured.  And then there were folks who were completely disgusted and outraged and made sure to let me know.

What has been strange for me is seeing the nature of criticism I received.  Here is some of the negative feedback:
-"saddened that you feel the need to speak ill of the leaders of the church in such a public forum" 
-"No wonder the adversary strives, even now, to prevent this from happening! Regardless of who is getting the adversary’s special attention at any given time, he seeks to make all people “miserable like unto himself” (2 Ne. 2:27). Indeed, he seeks “the misery of all mankind” (2 Ne. 2:18). He is undeviating in his purposes and is clever and relentless in his pursuit of them.
He fools people like this and makes them look at situations through foggy eyes. Just because they were fooled into believing this way, it's not how our Heavenly Father looks at this. She's wrong and I disagree 100%.
-"No one saw the values you thought you were representing,
for the pussy hat on your head....
That's how you missed the mark by a mile. 
I'm sure as you marched you explained all the values you learned in YWs with a tasteful sign though, right? This is my point. You may have been among the "hundreds" of LDS women who marched, but there were millions who did not. You are among the minority within the church. Good for you for using you free agency, but don't think for one minute that wearing a vagina on your head made any difference that day.

Along with the criticism Sister Dalton offered, here is a summary then of my misdeeds and those of my sisters in marching:

• unladylike
• unbefitting language
• vulgar
• disagreeing publicly with an authority figure (though I might note I was not actually criticizing that leader in any way -- just voicing a different perspective on an event)
• Being fooled by Satan
• Being in the minority, because millions of LDS women chose not to express themselves by marching
• Wearing a vagina on my head 

I want to say right now that I was not wearing a vagina on my head. 

This hat bears no resemblance to a vagina, other than it has a hole at the bottom which is a critique that could justly be leveled at all hats.  Yes, there is a double entendre meant to taunt our vulgar president, but I don't think you can argue the hat itself looks like genitalia.  My mom made it for me and it is very cozy.  I proudly wear it all the time.

As for the other criticisms -- I have many scrappy friends who entered the fray on my behalf and I am grateful to them.  Of these critiques, only one actually seems like a genuine problem.  If indeed I am misled by Satan and God disapproves of my actions then that is a serious problem.  However, the only way to gain any insight into that is through personal reflection, study and prayer.  The fruits of the Spirit include peace and joy, two feelings that I felt very strongly that day as I stood with other sisters and talked with strangers about our values and concerns. I felt unity, happiness and hope.  Those are not feelings that can be produced by Satan and as a result I am not worried that my actions were the result of diabolical manipulation. I cannot speak for anyone else, only for my own motivations and actions.  I do not believe they were the result of evil.

The other critiques are troubling to me because they suggest a set of priorities and values that do not necessarily lead toward moral courage.  Is obscene language offensive? Yes.  However, many people who do not embrace the same language values that I do nevertheless have important things to say.  It is more important to listen and love despite crude phrasing than to shun a message just because it is delivered in a way you'd never hear in Stake Conference.  Many women were speaking out about their experiences with sexual assault using extremely vulgar terms.  Should we dismiss and ignore them because of how they expressed their pain? Perhaps the very vulgarity is necessary to get people to pay attention to a problem that our society routinely ignores and excuses. To me it seems a bit pharisaical to condemn the march on the grounds that the signs were vulgar.  Which is the greater problem to be fought: the word p**sy on a cardboard sign, or the fact that 1 in 4 women in our society is the victim of sexual assault and we continue to celebrate predators while silencing women? 

The other critique is one I have heard often (usually on the internet, not from my ward) as a result of being an outspoken feminist who is also Mormon.  You are in the minority! Most LDS women don't feel as you do! Millions of people don't act the way you do! 

And? So? Since when is belonging inherently virtuous? Since when is fitting in a desirable end in itself? What about our religion teaches us that Christ wants us above all to always feel comfortable and part of an in crowd?  I don't base my moral calculations on whether they'll help me to blend in to my community and I'm troubled that I so often hear a refrain that suggests I should.

Mormons are used to thinking of themselves as a peculiar people, standing apart from the world.  As it happens, I don't think that my views on refugees, or helping the poor, or standing against racism and misogyny make me out of step with my fellow LDS people.  Certainly nobody in my ward seems to think I'm taking an outrageous stand, indeed many have been openly supportive and encouraging.  But even if every single one of them thought it was wrong for me to be politically active on these issues, it wouldn't change my confidence in speaking out.  I'd love to feel like millions of Mormon women were with me.  But if not, I still have a moral responsibility to act in accordance with my conscience and to stand for truth and righteousness.