Yesterday, I was not doing ok

a break from regular programming to bring you a little bit of parenting reality

Normally, I spend weeks writing each of these newsletters. I write from a place of optimistic cynicism. I believe things are often very bad, and I always try to improve them. I take this approach in my life, in politics, in regards to how I deal with the climate crisis.

But I don’t have a sunny ending for what I want to share with you today, because a lot of what it means to have kids is not sunny. I think I realized what it is like recently, to love your child. It is to care just as much about their needs as you do about your own needs (if not more). I mean that literally. You care about what they’ve eaten and how much and if they’ve pooped and what color it was and whether they are feeling love and acceptance. These worries can make you ignore the same needs in yourself. I have gone whole nights without peeing, not because I didn’t need to pee, but because I was so caught up in the up-and-down work of caring for small kids that I just didn’t take the few minutes to go to the bathroom.

Much of this is not only decidedly not fun, it is exhausting and boring and frustrating. But then, too, causing your kids pleasure brings you even more pleasure. (The simple act of sharing chocolate is my favorite way to do this.) It’s as though you’re their emotional halo, radiating out in vibrant color whatever it is you perceive them to be experiencing. Their hurt is your hurt, their joy your joy. This is why parenthood can be miserable ecstasy (that actually isn’t a contradiction in terms) and why I so admire people who know they don’t want it and actually choose not to do it. And why I look up to those few people I know who have done it really, really well.

We care about the things our kids experience because our kids need us to care about these things. We care because our kids need. Period. You see it from birth. Your baby, once outside of you or the person who carried them, will starve if you don’t pick them up and feed them. They will develop horrible rashes if you don’t change their diapers often enough. They collect cheese lines in their roll crevices (at least mine do) where breastmilk has dribbled and curdled. You have to bathe them. Every little thing is dependent on you. For me, that includes teaching (and learning) emotional regulation—giving my kids (and myself) tools to express emotions.

For my fiery three-and-a-half-year-old, it is often a struggle when something happens that goes against what they predicted. Sometimes they’ll be sobbing about me having to breastfeed their baby sibling first and will choke out “That’s — not — how — I — expected,” between cries.

For my 4-month-old baby, things are simpler, but I don’t expect that to last long.

For me, I often feel on my good days that I have it figured out (and will even preach a little to my long-suffering spouse). On the bad days, like yesterday, I wonder if I’ll ever get it.

It isn’t that any one thing goes horribly wrong. It’s that lots of small things aren’t great, and they add up throughout the day, peaking just as my patience and energy are crashing.

It often starts with not sleeping well or just not sleeping, and yesterday was no exception. I bounced between two beds most of the night, nursing and comforting, and a couple of times made the mistake (or had the foresight; we’ll see) of opening my dissertation note in my phone to write some garbled notes that I know would have been lost forever otherwise. That blue light really does make it harder to fall asleep. Or back to sleep, in my case.

Then, despite an ok beginning, as soon as my spouse left to lead his Saturday volunteer group, and I had to feed the baby (breastfeeding is largely an immobilizing activity, though I have nursed and walked through Costco), my toddler took on that toddler look of gleeful rebellion and smiled every time I said “no” and continued doing whatever it was I had very much wanted them to stop. This is the worst while nursing a tired baby who, once they fall asleep, should have the right to stay asleep.

Put this all on repeat and add in some spilled food, loads of dishes, work to be done still from the “workweek,” laundry growing very crumpled in the pile to be folded, and you have my day. And, if you’ve been following this newsletter for a while, you also know we’ve been trying to handle grief, unexpected travel, adjusting to the change in our family configuration, and more the last few months.

Around four o’clock yesterday afternoon, I was getting ready to make dinner—a big pot of all the vegetables about to go bad after our week of stomach flu (and little cooking). I currently have nipple issues again (back-to-back covid and flu will do that, messing up the kids’ latches and my attentiveness). But my older kid was begging to nurse. At that point in the day I had already spent a couple of hours nursing.

I just wanted to make dinner without anyone touching me.

But often I find myself making the decision that will keep the greatest amount of peace rather than the one that will keep my peace. So I sat on the couch, tried not to grit my teeth as they latched onto my welt of a nipple, and breathed through the five minutes I allowed them attached to my body. (Please don’t ask why we haven’t weaned - this is not as simple a decision as it seems to be from outside our situation.)

Afterward, I knew I should make dinner. David had both kids outside making a pinecone bird feeder. It was a good opportunity to make the meal (mostly) uninterrupted. We all were hungry.

But I had to get out of the house. I grabbed a handful of markers and one of the small sketchbooks I’m trying to finish up before the new year. Shoes on, I headed outside, using the only doorway out of our apartment. I had to get past the kids. Predictably, my older child clung to my leg and begged me not to go.

My spouse was able to distract them though, and I got away. Given the build up of the day, even though I still heard screaming (though I learned later that I’d only been imagining it), I kept walking away. Taking deep breaths. Knowing it would be short, but that if I didn’t take some space, I would truly lose it. Lose me.

When I’m outside alone, I feel like Emerson’s “transparent eyeball,” seeing all, being nothing. It is bliss. I notice the shapes of leaves and trees and rocks and birds’ tail feathers. This time of year, if I’m out around five o’clock, I witness the rapid changing of the light, and the colors it reveals and then banishes. The sycamores planted in the middle of our apartment complex go from a range of bright oranges and sienna to blue-black outlines in less than twenty minutes. I delight in both forms.

As soon as I get farther than a quarter mile, if both kids are at home, I start to feel the pull to head back, knowing that someone, undoubtedly, has begun to express their need for me. Going out isn’t a solution to the problems of the day. Because the little accretions of hardship aren’t problems in the sense of being solvable. They are just hard things, mostly small hard things. Getting out is just a temporary release before returning to the storm.

Walking back toward our apartment door, I could hear my youngest crying, and started to jog. Within five minutes, I had them sleeping and fed in bed.

I spent all spare moments yesterday - though I should have been studying, at least a little - drawing and swatching and painting. Trying to make myself feel less overwhelm, less anxiety, less pulled down by the many-tendriled exhaustion of 21 weeks without much sleep.

It didn’t work. At least in the sense of making these emotions fade. They all lasted and I still feel them this morning, as I write. Sometimes this is just how it goes.

Wishing you rest, care, and encouragement—

S

P.S. I am taking a break from writing the newsletter. See you in January.