Tag Archives: milestones

She’s not Dead, She’s Sleeping (And Other New Mom Lessons)

I always knew I wanted to be a mother, I just never really thought it would happen as soon as it did. When I graduated from college, my boyfriend and I decided that in a year and a half, when I turned 25, we would start seriously talking about having a baby. Who would have thought that a year and a half later, and ten days before my twenty-fifth birthday, we would welcome our daughter M.

My boyfriend is a little bit older than I am (only sixteen little years), grew up around babies at his mother’s in-home daycare, and helped raise his ex-wife’s daughter (long story). I, on the other hand, am an only child who never babysat an actual baby, but always had an overwhelming maternal instinct and a love of children. When we found out we were expecting, the unwarranted advice started rolling in. People will give you tons of advice when you’re pregnant and a new parent (look, I’m doing it right now, and you’re probably not even pregnant). They mean well, but you will never truly understand what it is like to be a parent until that little bundle of joy comes barreling into your life and changes it forever.

As a new parent, it is almost impossible not to constantly worry. The small foreign creature you brought home from the hospital appears so fragile and delicate and every cough, rash, and change in bowel movement seems like the end of the world. But let me tell you, babies are quite resilient. I remember M’s first diaper rash and thinking it was so horrible that I started Googling images of diaper rashes and immediately concluded that she needed antibiotics and to see the doctor ASAP. I consulted my boyfriend who recommended we put some rash ointment on it and check on it in the morning. I begrudgingly agreed, but if it was still there we were headed straight to the pediatrician! The next morning it was practically gone and I vowed never to Google images of any ailment or disease I self-diagnosed my daughter with. Although, I did slip recently and thought she had hepatitis or aluminum poisoning because her poop was clay colored. The pediatrician did not agree with my diagnosis.

Another thing I found myself worrying about was her growth and milestones, compared to what is considered “normal” for babies her age. Pediatricians tend to freak out if your baby loses too much weight initially and M has always been much smaller than her peers and not-at-all comparable to the giant baby I was. I consulted websites describing the week-by-week progress for infants to research what she should be doing, when she should be doing it, and what to expect her to do next. Heaven forbid she started rolling over a few weeks late or not start solids at the appropriate time! After a while, I forced myself to stop the worrying and had to trust that she was developing at the speed that was right for her. I needed to stop thinking she was dead if her nap went a little longer than usual, and just enjoy the unexpected extra alone time that day.

Alone time. How I miss it. Solitary confinement is vital to one’s sanity when it comes to being a parent. I miss going to the bathroom by myself. Now I have to keep the door open so she can come in and close the door herself (one of her favorite past times) or else she sits outside the door and whines until I come out. My non-parent readers, enjoy your silent potty time while you still have it because soon a little person will want to watch you while you do your business and you will call it “potty training.” (And don’t even get me started on how intimately I know my own child’s butthole.)  Once you become a parent, your life and the world doesn’t revolve around you anymore, it is all about the little one. I treat myself to a monthly massage and try to pawn the baby off on daddy for a girl’s night whenever I can. While taking care of yourself is important, it is mutually beneficial to make time for your partner (especially sexy time). Intimacy after childbirth is another article in itself.

And while we are on the subject of bedroom activities: You never truly realize how important sleep is until you’re not getting it. When M turned four months old, we decided enough was enough, she was going to sleep through the night in her own bed, whether she wanted to or not. We chose to do sleep training, and it was not easy. There are many different approaches and techniques for conducting sleep training, but most fall in to two different strategies: non-crying and cry-it-out.  We chose the latter because sometimes babies just need to cry and learn to get over it. Sleep training is not necessarily the right choice for everyone. I recommend it, but not all parents, doctors, psychologists or babies agree on the best way to go about it or if one should subject their child to it. What I can say is that it took less than a week to get M sleeping through the night, and she goes to bed at roughly eight o’clock and wakes up around seven in the morning. She does have the occasional late night wake up when she’s sick, but those are few and far between.

Being a parent has its challenges, but there are special moments in between that make it all worthwhile; like first words and steps, tickle sessions that make you both roll in laughter, and snuggles that make you not want to ever let go. In the end, it doesn’t matter if she doesn’t crawl until she is ten months old, or that you haven’t had a good night sleep in who knows how long… what matters is that she is a healthy and happy baby who waves and smiles at everyone, loves books, and gives you kisses in the morning.

Photo by Jenny Butler

Photo by Jenny Butler

A Healthier Alternative to the New Year’s Resolution

Happy New Year, everyone. Please allow me to state my unpopular opinion: I consider New Year’s resolutions to be the devil. Yes, I realize that resolving to accomplish certain goals every January can really help people have a positive outlook on their futures and motivate themselves, but: 1) People very rarely have the wherewithal to stick with them (which is the most obvious drawback) and 2) New Year’s resolutions cause you to reflect upon the past year and think of all the shit you did not accomplish. As in, “Oh God, there goes another year and I didn’t change careers / put myself out there in the dating world / lose ten pounds…” You fill in the blank. Woe is you. You messed up this year, huh? But that’s okay, because next year you will do all those things! Right? Right! Except there’s a chance you might not. Because point #1.

But what if, instead of making New Year’s resolutions, we did Past Year’s reflections? I think this method is a healthier, glass-half-full approach to prepare for the next 365 days. Sure, there are some things you wish you could have done this past year, things you really hope you’ll do next year. But why not catalog all the really cool, life-changing things that you did do? It can feel like time is speeding up in all sorts of odd ways as we age, and it’s easy to lose track of the milestones as the year flies by. Reflecting upon the past twelve months reminds me how long a year actually is, and I wind up realizing that I have made progress as a human being.

Ready? Awesome, I’ll start, and I’ll start by being perfectly honest. This past year wasn’t one of my favorites. There were a lot of personal hurdles to confront family-wise, work-wise, self-wise, money-wise, pet-ownership-wise… pretty much all of the wises. But every time an obstacle cropped up, the way I ultimately chose to deal with it was with the pat on the back I gifted myself. I might not have compiled all the Facebook-friendly accolades that usually qualify as “milestones.” This year, mine were quieter and more personal but no less valuable.

Sure, there were a few big moments: I moved in with a significant other. We adopted a rescue dog and showered her with love. I left my Hollywood assistant job and launched my freelancing career, ignoring how much the prospect terrified me. I finished writing my first book. Then I rewrote it. And rewrote it again. (I’m still rewriting it again.) So, yeah, these are big, important things! But the moments in between these big, important things, when life was definitely not throwing me a Get-it-Girl parade, are the moments in which I feel I grew the most. And they’re the moments I think I’m proudest of.

I learned how to enrich my relationship with my family from afar when someone close to me confronted a health crisis. There was a lot of flying back and forth to New York for a few months, and I had to really weigh the pros and cons of my life on the opposite coast. That was scary. So was the realization that the healthy status-quo of your parents is not permanent by any means: it’s something we all know on a very basic level, but it’s different when you really start to know it. I’m not proud of how much I yo-yoed emotionally during that time. But I’m proud of and happy with my decision to stay on the West Coast. By even suggesting that I’d move back East, I was giving my family the impression that the situation we were in might be worse than it actually was. They wanted me to keep on keeping on so that we could establish a new normal. So I did. And they did, too. That was a huge thing to have learned. Life is full of establishing “New Normals” when something doesn’t go as planned.

Another “New Normal” (and yes, I’m sensing a pattern here) that I had to establish was in regard to my dog Sydney—the peanut butter to my jelly, the Hobbes to my Calvin. Sydney underwent major surgery on both her eyes and went completely blind due to glaucoma. I had to teach her how to “see” her world in a new way, and boy… it was tough. For weeks, I couldn’t even get her to walk to the front gate of our apartment complex. But every day I set a goal for the two of us to accomplish, however small, and every day, she achieved that goal with my help. Eventually, “Today, we’ll take five steps to the water bowl” turned into “Today, we’ll run up the stairs for a treat.” And I also finally paid off that enormous vet bill. We definitely have a new normal in our household, but I don’t think I’ve ever learned so much about patience as it relates to adaptability in all living things.

“Patience and Adaptability” could totally be the theme song for my recent career move as well. After several years of working different assistant jobs throughout the entertainment industry, I decided to strike out on my own and start freelancing as a writer. I prepared for it. I gave myself a financial cushion. I pulled together a portfolio that I was proud of. I forced myself to take on projects that I didn’t really think were up my alley, just to see if I could broaden my range. Yes, I was super nervous and had daily panic attacks for a month or so. And yeah, money is tight when you do this. It’s unpredictable. But like I said, patience, adaptability, and establishing a new normal have been my jam for 2013. And I’m happier. I might not be exactly where I want to be career-wise at the moment, but I’ll be damned if I’m not pleased as punch with my decision to go for it.

And what’s that they say about long-term goals? That they’re long-term, right? Patience and discipline pays off, little by little. Before you know it, a year has gone by, and that “little-by-little” has started to look like pretty awesome progress. I think pursuing long-term career goals is a lot like climbing a tree (which 8-year-old Liz was definitely the authority on). You don’t realize how high you’ve climbed ‘till you look down, and by then, it’s usually a lot easier to keep climbing than to try to make your way back to the ground. The only difference is that once you reach the top of your career-goals tree, you won’t be yelling for your dad to come out with the ladder and help you get back down before it gets dark out.

To those of you who are suffocating yourselves with New Year’s resolutions in light of all the things you think you didn’t accomplish in 2013—cut yourself some slack. Reflect upon this past year and take stock of how you changed personally. I feel great after writing this, much better than I would have in February 2014 after realizing that I hadn’t even scratched the surface of whatever my New Year’s resolution was. Even if you had a tough year and you don’t think your milestones actually look like milestones… look closer. Not all progress is heralded by 100 “likes” and a tornado of congratulatory texts.

Move ahead with each passing year, but don’t beat yourself up over goals you were unable to accomplish when life got in the way. If you did your best with the circumstances you were dealt this past year and you know it, then guess what? You just won New Year’s.