Tears up, often

I want to talk about the teary mama phenomenon... 

When I was pregnant, any kind of parent-offspring related thing would make be feel extremely emotional, often with tears.  Good stuff.  Bad stuff.  Anything that made me think about that parent-child relationship made me struggle to hold back tears.

It got worse once my baby was born.

Hormones, right?  I nursed for almost a year and a half, and I always figured it was all those wonderful hormones, first progesterone and then prolactin and all the other things involved in those pathways.

But you know what, I STILL cry at the drop of a hat.  The other evening my daughter wanted to watch youtube videos of songs from the movie Frozen.  As I watched her watching with such intensity, I teared up.

And then there was that asshole who shot and killed the father of the sick 22 month old in the movie theater in Florida for texting the baby sitter during the movie previews.

I just watched the P&G Thank You, Mom commercial on youtube.  Tears, streaming down my face.

I could go on and on and on, as this is just about a daily occurrence.

I'm not nursing anymore, haven't nursed in about a year and a half.  So my teary-mama thing can't be related to hormones.  I'm totally back to my old self physiologically, EXCEPT for how my brain has changed.  It is so incredibly interesting that millions of years of evolution have resulted in someone's brain actually altering when you become a mama, so much so that I am THAT emotionally connected to my offspring that just thinking about the parent-child relationship of other people (in good and bad scenarios) makes me cry.

Does this happen to all mamas?  It sure seems like it happens to women who adopt too, so I wonder if there is something about caring for a baby intensely that works to reconnect neural networks...  how does that work?  What about daddies?  Does it happen to everyone?  And if so, where does that go when people do really mean things to other people?  I can't help but think of how much hurting someone makes their mama hurt too... 

Inconsequential

I am amazed that academics have time to blog, tweet, all of that social media AND do their jobs well.  Some obviously do, but I am definitely not one of them.

So, I sort-of read blogs and occasionally do a crappy blog post myself.  The result is that this blog doesn't quite capture who I am.  But then again, I'm not sure that documenting myself accurately would really be all that interesting.  I don't know.  Maybe I'll try to change this. 

The other thing about it is that we all change over time.  So what this blog was three years ago reflects my need for a blog 3 years ago, and this blog now reflects the me today, who sort-of needs a blog but mostly needs the outlet of reading other people's blogs and feeling connected to people who have some similarity with an element of my life.

Much of what I talk about is the reproductive side of my life.  But the me of 7 years ago, 4 years ago, 2 years ago, and today, well, we are very different women.  This is a good thing, I think.  Life is an evolution, and I am starting to embrace that more and more as I get older.

The child-issue became overwhelming for me for a while, and it is now the part of my life around which other things happen. I know (hope) that my daughter grows up and lives her own life, which won't really include me on a day-to-day basis.  So, the wanting-a-child stage of my life is now a having-a-child stage, and that will become, if all goes successfully, a having-an-adult-child stage.  And I am pretty sure that other day-to-day things will overwhelm my thoughts then.  I don't really know though; we'll see when we get there.

But all the while, as my mama-life evolves and morphs, I am a scientist and an academic.  THOSE issues are much less in flux.  And when it comes down to it, I am an academic.  I love it.  I hate it.  It is in my blood, and no matter how much I might think about doing something else, I can't look away.  I'm here.  I love the thrill, the passion, the everything (even the things I hate).  The last couple of weeks of time in my office and lab have made me very happy. And last night I caught the edge of an internet storm that I am amazed that I almost missed.  If I were amazing, I would follow twitter, but my god, how do people have time for that???  This reminded me how much I love the world of academics.

The storm?  Henry Gee.  I know Henry Gee.  In Henry Gee's world, I too am inconsequential.  Years ago I got the most ridiculous review of my manuscript, it just made absolutely no sense and clearly indicated that the reviewer didn't know the first freaking thing about my discipline.  But when I very politely outlined this to Gee, I got the response many would expect -- who was I to second guess his and a reviewer's determination that my research was inconsequential and irrelevant? 

So it was with jaw-dropped that I jumped from web site to web site reading about Gee's insulting and gleeful outing of Dr. Isis, calling her inconsequential and saying that Nature was "shaking in its boots" at the thought of her boycotting that journal.  I loved reading all of the brouhaha around it (e.g., here).  I love the bloggers who called Gee out for this, for all the right reasons.

And I loved running across Steven Pinker calling Gee out on his misunderstanding of p-values.

See, if Gee had listened to what I said when that reviewer rejected my research all those years ago, he wouldn't have made the mistake about p-values. It all comes full-circle.

I wish I knew who Dr. Isis is, as she might technically be outed, but not all that much.  THAT is one gutsy woman.  I love her, and we only just met.

I'll try to blog more about my academic life from now on.  I think I'm getting out of my anti-academy funk. 

Let there be research!  (and some academic-y politics too...)

counting

Thanks for all the support on the morning crunch...  While I have not hit anything remotely approaching perfection, I have made a couple of changes that have helped.

1) A teacher at M's school recommended 1,2,3 Magic, as it has specific scenarios in it, and that the approach is similar to how they work with the kids in M's class.  I read it.  While much of it is more for older kids, some of it will definitely work for my almost 3 year old, and works with her personality and our relationship.

She loves being with me, and loves to be held, and while I do love holding her and playing and being no more than 2 feet apart, there are obviously times in life when you need to set your 29 pound child down so that you can get things done.  Because of how we interact, the 1,2,3 Magic approach works wonders for her whining...  here's how it works:  you explain to the child that you will count 1 when they start whining, and that then they get another warning to put an end to the whining.  And that if you have to count to "3", that they then have to spend a few minutes in "time out".  The "time out" is a number of minutes equivalent to their years in age in either their bedroom or some other appropriate spot.  So for M, when she starts whining, I simply say, with no emotion, "M, you are whining, so this is your first warning.  One."  We made it to three ONCE, the very first time I tried it.  I calmly walked her to her room and put my phone timer on 2 minutes.  She stayed in there until the timer went off, and it was like a reset button had been pushed.  Ever since, she responds to "One" with a fairly calm, "but I don't want to go to my room by myself."  And I reply, "you don't have to if you stop whining."  And, she does.  Really.

A couple of times, after she stopped whining with the first count and a few minutes went by, only twice have I needed to say, "are you whining?" to which she stops whining and replies, "no."

This has worked.  At least for now.  And my sanity has improved.  It doesn't even stress me out all that much to have to start the counting thing, as I know that it is likely to get the desired response.  I'm not quite ready to implement any of the other 1,2,3 Magic techniques, as M is a little to young for them and I don't need help with that other stuff yet.  But I think it is a good idea for me to have gotten her into the idea that I can count bad behavior and that she has two chances to fix the situation, and that the consequences aren't yelling, just a time-out.  I like that.  We may move into the motivational techniques at some point, but not quite yet.

2) As for moving in the morning...  it hasn't actually been too bad lately.  I took to heart the advice of trying to get a lot done the night before, and to shift myself emotionally.  One of the pieces of advice I read somewhere suggested setting a "goal" arrival time that is about 30 minutes earlier than when you actually need to be at work.  This way, you will be early some days, and on time when you are running a little late in toddler-dom.  This has helped me stay more calm in the morning.

3) I figured out how to set the automatic timer on my coffee pot.  I can't believe that I never did this before.  It seriously makes me so happy.  Ridiculously so.  I can't explain how nice it is to feel like someone made me a cup of coffee first thing every morning.  It's weird how much better this makes me feel in the morning.  Really.  It's weird, but it has made a huge difference in my outlook for the day.

4) I am finally, finally having a night off tonight.  One of M's teachers is taking her home from school and doing the whole evening routine.

I love my child dearly.  I wanted her SOOOOO much, and every day I stand in awe at this amazing little person who I get the honor of being mama to.  She is perfect.  I am incredibly lucky.  BUT, that said, this shit is hard to do 24/7.

M acts out more when her daddy is home, as she has to compete for attention, but it is really nice to be able to tag-team parenting a bit.  I definitely am the heavy-lifter, or rather, the project PI for M.  But what I find the hardest about single-parenting is that there is no mental break, ever.  Not even 5 minutes when I am at home.  It feels petty, but I can't ever listen to NPR for more than 30 seconds, I can't wash the dishes without 25,000 interruptions of "please play with me!" "please put PJs on my baby doll" "mama!  I'm tuck! Come help me!"  I can't sit down to eat for more than 60 seconds at a time before there is some reason to have to get up.  Pooping in privacy?  Pipe-dream.  I have weakened in my parenting skills so much that M not only sleeps in my bed, but we go to sleep at the same time.  Then I don't have to go through the stress of "putting her to sleep." 

Honestly, these things really aren't a big deal -- I will be able to listen to all the NPR I want when M has grown up and moved out of our home (and I will miss her interruptions terribly!).  I love having a super cute little daughter who loves me and needs me, but every single day for 7 weeks straight without an evening off is about to drive me nuts.  Maybe it's because dh is getting home in a few days, so I know that my pinch-hitter will be here soon and I'm getting antsy.  I don't know.  But it is with ridiculous relief that I look forward to tonight. 

UPDATE:  I just got *the call* from daycare.  I am going to go pick up my sick child...  c'est la vie.

The morning

My daughter is just over 2 months shy of turning 3.  In the whole scheme of things, I think she's a really, really well-behaved and easy kid.  I adore her.


I totally get that kids her age are learning to assert their independence, and that is it important for her to have a sense of some control over her life.

But, I am having a harder and harder time figuring out how to get her to do the things that need to be done to get us out the door in the morning.  And this means that I end up resorting to using a really stern tone of voice and feeling bad about my frustration level.  I let the less important things go, like if she really doesn't want me to brush her hair, ok, but we absolutely have to brush teeth.  And clothes are essential.  I have taken a PJ'd child to daycare, but haven't yet had to resort to taking a naked one.

Do any parents make it out the door in the morning without having at least one moment of very-stern-voice frustration and perhaps putting on shoes a bit less than gentle?  Can you please share some advice? 

After I finally got the two of us in the car and M strapped in her car seat, this morning she was just so quiet and looked so serious.  I couldn't help but feel like she was reacting to my pulling her monkey away from her as she was shaking him in my face incessantly as I was trying to latch her seatbelt.  I didn't raise my voice or even use a really stern tone that time, but I did very quickly jerk the monkey away.  I still feel bad...

Tricks?  Tips?  Anything?

paranoia

My toddler likes to run around naked.

She was talking about poop all day, asking if she'd pooped in her pull-up (when she was naked).

I didn't think anything of it at the time.

But now, hours later,

I am sitting in the living room. 

I smell poop.

I have looked everywhere.

I can't find it.

Did she poop in the living room?

Or is my mind playing tricks on me?