toddlerspit

 What is this feeling?  This crybaby, mushy-mushy, cranky feeling?  Or is it feelings, plural?  Many, many feelings all at once?  That I am having?  Am I losing my mind? 

I am.

One minute I am packing away Addie’s baby pictures (you know, in preparation for the move that is, what, five months away) and crying my eyes out.  I am watching videos of her rolling around on the floor sticking her feet in her mouth and spitting up and learning to walk and I am speechlessly in love and angry that time is passing so quickly.  That my babies’ baby-ishness is leaving, leaving.  That I will never again live this moment with these precious people, that my life is literally speeding past me.  My God, I’m living in the moment as much as I can, and still these minutes pass through my hands like so much running water.

The next minute, I am wishing Nolie would stop crying, wishing, wishing that she would grow up and be a little easier to take care of.  Wishing that Addie would be quiet, that I could read more than five pages in a row, get through a whole yoga workout without being interrupted, that I had more me time.  ME!  Wishing the kids were in school, were easier, were less demanding. 

I’ve written about this before, I know.  But I’m not sure you can understand the pendulum upon which I ride, legs astride, hair whipping in the wind as I speed toward bliss, then am thrust backward toward utter frustration, unless you are on a pendulum of your own.

Some friends are considering having children.  A few have asked me to weigh in on the decision, others haven’t.  But what do I say?  What could I say?  I don’t know if you should have children.  If I say yes, will you remember me at the times when your lives are utterly enriched, enhanced, made fuller than you could ever have imagined by the presence of these little people?  Or will you remember me when you’re cleaning toddler poo off your new couch, when your babysitter is sick and you can’t go into work again, when you’re fighting with your loved one because you’re both exhausted and haven’t seen each other, really seen each other in what feels like a lifetime?  What are you willing to sacrifice?  Because that’s what a lot of it is.  There is a whole lot of giving up that goes on.  There are rewards–inexplicable rewards, but the price is also dear. 

Of course, nobody is going to make the decision based on what I say.  It’s too personal a decision for that.  Most people just want confirmation of what they already know to be true:  either that they are going to do it, or aren’t.

I know that for us the math has worked out.  We are both better, happier people because of our kids.  Having kids made us work on our marriage and ourselves in positive ways.  These babies are utterly extraordinary people to whom we are deeply bound.  They are also exhausting and maddening.  But the “fulfillment” side of the scale has certainly outweighed the “What the hell have we done?” side of the scale.

Still, I’m well aware that this equation (Lord, am I mixing metaphors) does not work out to the same answer for others.  Eric and I were laughing the other day that we didn’t even have to discuss having kids.  We just always knew we wanted to be parents.  We were lucky enough to meet and get married, and then, well, I just stopped taking the pills.  I think we had a five minute conversation about it.  “How about tonight, honey?”  Sounds good to me.

I don’t mean to minimize the gravity of the decision.  There are situations where more planning is required either because of the mechanics of the thing or the health of the parents or the mental, social, political, and economic hurdles.  Still, there is a sense in which you just do it, decide to have kids.  Because how do you figure out whether kids are right for you?  You can’t know until you know, and then it’s too late, either way.  And even if it is right–if the scales tip in your favor–it won’t be right all of the time.  Because having kids is hard.  A huge, terrifying risk.  Even now that we have them, it’s terrifying.  What if one gets sick, or hurt?  Or turns out to be a jerk?  It’s awful.

And also the best thing ever. 

Boy, have I been off center this week.  I don’t know if it was the holiday, or my hormones, or the doozy of a fight (argument? misunderstanding?  No–fight!) that Eric and I had at the beginning of the week, but I have been weepy and tired all week.  Addie’s been going around singing, to the tune of “I’m a Little Teapot”:

I can’t seem to get this out of my head, turning it over and over in my mind.  It makes me laugh to hear Addie croon, “I’m a little turkey.”  Because she is.  But then, I wonder, how strange that she’s learning this song in preschool.  I mean, here’s Ted, a cute singing turkey, who is then freaking out and running for his life.  I go over this again and again, cycling between amusement and despair.  Over this silly little song.  This sort of obsessive thinking about something trivial usually signals a bout of depression is about to hit.  And, sure enough, this week has left me feeling doused and kooky.

Is it hormones?  My hair has been falling out in small fistfuls.  I remember this happening after I had Addie, too.  Your hair gets crazy-thick during pregnancy and then about four months after the baby is born it skedaddles by the handful.  And I’m getting a bunch of zits, craving panfuls of brownies, and having a whole lot of difficult concentrating.  Next will be the bacne and the water retention.  Then the period comes back.  Which I will be oh-so-grateful to see.  Because–even though my kids are the most amazing thing to ever happen to me, other than Eric–the thought of another pregnancy right now makes me want to jump into the Grand Canyon.  Which has necessitated a bunch of other discussions around here regarding what’s to be done to make sure I don’t get pregnant again.  EVER.  You get the picture.

Just writing all this down is bringing everything into focus.  Of course it’s hormones!  Here: 

We got a Christmas tree today, and Eric put it up and I decorated it while Addie was napping.  When she woke up we all came downstairs, speaking in hushed tones about the surprise, and when she saw it, totally awed by its presence in our living room, I just started bawling.  Like, over-the-top bawling.

Eric videotaped the whole thing–Addie caressing each ornament and whispering in the smallest magic voice, “It’s Christmas!  It’s Christmas!  Mama, is it Christmas?” and me in the background, weeping.  Then running to cram a brownie into my mouth.  Then weeping some more. 

Somehow, her utter awe at that moment felt like the biggest success of my life, as if everything I have ever done led up to that moment.  Every choice I’ve ever made somehow culminated in this most beautiful child having a moment full of magic and excitement and awe in front of a tree I had decorated with ornaments from my childhood.

Ten minutes later, I was yelling at her not to break the ornaments, of course, while also trying to cram a boob into screaming Nolie’s mouth.  Because, though it was a magical moment, and I don’t want to take away from that, it was also saturated with the return of my non-pregnancy, non-postpartum hormones.  These little chemicals have colored all of my interactions this week, and they have made me into an unreliable kookfest of joy and irritation all rolled into one brightly colored Christmas ball.  That may be breaking a little.

Example 1:  There is STILL blood in my urine (there has been since I first got pregnant with Nolie, almost a year ago), which means another round of trips to a kidney specialist, and more probes in uncomfortable places, no doubt.  I find this out on Wednesday and of course leap to the conclusion that I am dying, and have to take to my bed and cry for an hour, like some Victorian hysteric.  I decide I’m just not going to worry about it until a doctor friend of mine–who calls herself a “minimizer” when it comes to other people’s symptoms–tells me I need to have it checked out.  More hysterical crying.

Example 2:  We go to drive around neighborhoods in Golden on Thursday morning because we’re finally getting serious about moving.  The whole thing freaks me out so much that I come home and pack up half the house.  Because discomfort = must act!  Now!  Even though we probably won’t list for another five months.  Manic, manic.

Example 3:  And then, after two very lovely Thanksgiving dinners at different friends’ houses, I drink too much and get boisterous and obnoxious at my friends’ party, which I always regret the next day (no need to bring up a certain Thanksgiving at a certain family member’s house a few years back, at which I may have drunk too much and shared too much information about my wild-ass college years with my in-laws, to the horror of my husband.  I still cringe.  I still blush.)

Maybe it sounds like I’m trying to shirk personal responsibility.  Maybe I am.  But maybe I’m also a little crazy right now as the chemicals flow back into (or out of?  I don’t understand the biology) my body.  This would probably be a good time to have some patience with myself.  I hope others will, too.