Stop this blog, I want to get off. Kinda.
There's so much I want to record about my life right now. For posterity. For D. I want him to know that the greatest mother's day present ever was not the orchid corsage, the fancy dinner or the fabulous cake, but hearing him say his second Real Word: On Saturday, I watched with tears in my eyes as he strode around the house shouting "DADA! DADA!" as he looked for Daddymatic.
I want him to know that even though the books I call "list books" (no real story, just pictures of animals/people/objects) drive me kind of crazy, I will continue to read him "Traffic Jamboree" five times a day every day until he decides narrative is no longer for wimps.
I want to tell him that his daddy and I laugh ourselves silly when he plays with his friend Jack's Winne-the-pooh car and it, like most toys, interrupts one sound with the new one whenever a new button is pushed, so when he pushes the Winne-the-pooh theme song button over and over and over and over, all we hear is "Winne the-Winne the-Winne the-Winne the-Winne the-". Also, when Pooh starts his phrase "You are the friendliest kind of friend" or "Oh, look, our band is moving to the music" but is interrupted by the horn, he becomes Road Rage Pooh, sounding something like " You are the HONK HONK HOOOONK" or "Oh, look! HONK HONK HOOOONK."
I want to tell him the awful, cold rainy weather we're having won't last forever, that mama and daddy will stop stressing about absolutely everything eventually, and that it is 85 degrees and sunny in Utah right now.
I want to tell him how Jack's mommy E and I laughed at Jack's daddy when he offered to take Jack to the store so that E could do some shopping, but then insisted E stay around because "I said I'd take him shopping, I didn't say I'd take care of him!" Wha-?
I want to tell him my last post got me thinking even more about Mommy Guilt, which has been a nearly omnipresent condition of my life for so long that I am now convinced each pregnancy test should print out a "free guilt for life" coupon with every positive result. Every decision is tinged with guilt: Should I let him keep his pacifier for now? Will it be bad for his self-esteem later? Bad for his teeth? Or will it shatter him if I take it away now? Should I, for instance, wash his hair even though he hates that or cut it so that it doesn't offend my vanity to see it constantly slicked with yogurt, peanut butter and cheese? Should I, I wonder, discontinue eating my adored junk foods all together and resent having to do so or just sneak them while he's sleeping and pretend to be a good example during his waking hours?
Should I--and now we come to the point of this post, finally--take a sabbatical from the blog world until I figure out better how to balance my time so that I'm not ignoring my child/husband/plethora of crap that comes with picking up one's life and moving it 2000 miles away, and until I uncover why, all of a sudden, blogging tends to make me feel worse rather than better most days? Because I'm discovering that no solution is guilt-free anymore.
I want to keep friends and family up to date on what D's doing and what a trip motherhood is turning out to be. I want to keep up with my new "friends in the computer" and celebrate their accomplishments, mourn their losses and raise my fist in concert with their righteous rage-fueled rants. But I suck at balancing things and figuring things out, and that's something I need to be doing right now. I hope I won't--as I fear--go on a junkie-esque blogging/commenting/picture-posting spree after two weeks off. But I also hope I'll be posting now and then, and I hope I'll be commenting. I just don't know. All I know is that I have a situation that needs a remedy, and I'm casting around for solutions.
In lieu of a real conclusion to this post, I leave you with this, these two most gorgeous reasons for my trying to figure out what's what:
I want him to know that even though the books I call "list books" (no real story, just pictures of animals/people/objects) drive me kind of crazy, I will continue to read him "Traffic Jamboree" five times a day every day until he decides narrative is no longer for wimps.
I want to tell him that his daddy and I laugh ourselves silly when he plays with his friend Jack's Winne-the-pooh car and it, like most toys, interrupts one sound with the new one whenever a new button is pushed, so when he pushes the Winne-the-pooh theme song button over and over and over and over, all we hear is "Winne the-Winne the-Winne the-Winne the-Winne the-". Also, when Pooh starts his phrase "You are the friendliest kind of friend" or "Oh, look, our band is moving to the music" but is interrupted by the horn, he becomes Road Rage Pooh, sounding something like " You are the HONK HONK HOOOONK" or "Oh, look! HONK HONK HOOOONK."
I want to tell him the awful, cold rainy weather we're having won't last forever, that mama and daddy will stop stressing about absolutely everything eventually, and that it is 85 degrees and sunny in Utah right now.
I want to tell him how Jack's mommy E and I laughed at Jack's daddy when he offered to take Jack to the store so that E could do some shopping, but then insisted E stay around because "I said I'd take him shopping, I didn't say I'd take care of him!" Wha-?
I want to tell him my last post got me thinking even more about Mommy Guilt, which has been a nearly omnipresent condition of my life for so long that I am now convinced each pregnancy test should print out a "free guilt for life" coupon with every positive result. Every decision is tinged with guilt: Should I let him keep his pacifier for now? Will it be bad for his self-esteem later? Bad for his teeth? Or will it shatter him if I take it away now? Should I, for instance, wash his hair even though he hates that or cut it so that it doesn't offend my vanity to see it constantly slicked with yogurt, peanut butter and cheese? Should I, I wonder, discontinue eating my adored junk foods all together and resent having to do so or just sneak them while he's sleeping and pretend to be a good example during his waking hours?
Should I--and now we come to the point of this post, finally--take a sabbatical from the blog world until I figure out better how to balance my time so that I'm not ignoring my child/husband/plethora of crap that comes with picking up one's life and moving it 2000 miles away, and until I uncover why, all of a sudden, blogging tends to make me feel worse rather than better most days? Because I'm discovering that no solution is guilt-free anymore.
I want to keep friends and family up to date on what D's doing and what a trip motherhood is turning out to be. I want to keep up with my new "friends in the computer" and celebrate their accomplishments, mourn their losses and raise my fist in concert with their righteous rage-fueled rants. But I suck at balancing things and figuring things out, and that's something I need to be doing right now. I hope I won't--as I fear--go on a junkie-esque blogging/commenting/picture-posting spree after two weeks off. But I also hope I'll be posting now and then, and I hope I'll be commenting. I just don't know. All I know is that I have a situation that needs a remedy, and I'm casting around for solutions.
In lieu of a real conclusion to this post, I leave you with this, these two most gorgeous reasons for my trying to figure out what's what:
posted by the stefanie formerly known as stefanierj at 7:12 PM
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