On Growth, Stubbornness, and Working On a Memoir for (something like) Ten Years

Me, shortly after I arrived in China and Tibet in 1999, at Namtso Lake in Tibet.

Sometimes I feel ashamed when people ask if I’m still working on the same book. Yes, for almost a decade now I’ve been working on a memoir, SEARCHING FOR THE HEART RADICAL, with some periods away from it in between. Most of the chapters originated during my time in grad school from 2004-2006, although many of the seeds of those pieces had already been planted during the years I lived and wrote in China from 1999-2002. And in some respects, you might say I’ve been working on this book since the day I was born.

This book has taught me a ton—about the process of writing and about myself. I have grown so much as a writer over these years that I have felt compelled to go back and rewrite most of the pieces, again and again and again. And because it’s a book about discovering myself during my twenties—and I started writing it while still in my twenties—it’s also a book whose deeper meaning has been elusive and unfolding as I’ve grown as a person.

If I could do it all over again, I’m not sure what, if anything, I would do differently. Initially, I wrote almost every chapter as a piece that could stand alone. They came out that way, and this also made it easier to submit stuff to writing group critiques or literary magazines. Eventually though, and perhaps even from the beginning, I knew I was writing a book. I then spent many years stringing the pieces together, agonizing about whether to call it a “collection of essays” or a “memoir”, submitting it to agents and later small presses, getting sick of it, putting it down for months or years at a time, losing faith in it, and then finally dusting it off, sitting down and becoming obsessed with it all over again.

It’s been a labor of love. Of dogged stubbornness. Of moments filled with doubt (this writing is crappy and self-absorbed), and moments filled with pride (this is a great book that will speak to many!). Yet finally, what’s pushed me on is simply the knowledge that, no matter how many people the book ultimately reaches, I must get it out there, share it, find closure, move on.

In retrospect, it would have been a whole lot easier to have conceived of it as a whole memoir from the get-go, and mapped it out as such, not having to later convert all the original stand-alone pieces. But, that’s not the way my process went. I needed the writing practice, and I needed to let it unfold organically, to just let it become what it would become. I never imagined that it would take me almost ten years to finally get to the point where I feel like the book is cohesive and whole, and where I’ve finally accessed the necessary perspective that I needed in order to infuse the book with a more seasoned perspective.

I never was good at having an elevator speech, and maybe this should have been my clue that I still hadn’t honed what it was about, at core. “My book is about my travels between China and America in my twenties,” I’d say (but it’s not a travel book). “My book is about growing up half-Chinese, and searching for my cultural and spiritual identity,” (true, but kind of vague). “My book is about my longing for language, love, and belonging” (closer, but more vague). Fine, then, my book is about me, I’d say, only sort of kidding. It was all of the above. And then some. Which was it? Was it trying to be too many things? Did I need to lose the threads about Buddhism and Tibet, and focus more on the cultural identity theme, about growing up bilingual, then living in China and entering a relationship with a Chinese man?

Now, anyone who’s taken a course in memoir can tell you that memoir is not autobiography. Memoir is not the entire story of your life; memoir is a story from your life. So pick one theme, one particular thread, and tell that story well. Leave out lots of other important stories and details if they don’t serve the one story at hand. Trust that there will be other books in you; that you can tell the other stories elsewhere. Find your focus.

For a while, I feared I was not heeding this basic advice. I feared I was holding on too tightly to wanting to tell ALL of my story--  my coming of age, self-discovery, spiritual-heart-opening, obsession with language and China, longing for intimacy, and searching for home story. But when I tried to cut out the pieces about my obsession with Tibet and my initial spiritual awakening, it still wasn’t working. Now there were gaps in chronology I was trying to disguise, and, moreover, there were gaps in adequately expressing what was really going on inside of me, on the most intimate level.

My readers/editors wanted it to be a cohesive, linear whole, not a collection of linked pieces, because the blueprint of my story was already there. What was missing was a deeper, seasoned thread of reflection to stitch it all together. Don’t get me wrong, there was plenty of “telling” in the manuscript, maybe too much. But this reflection still belonged to each piece alone and didn’t yet do much in the way of making the pieces speak to each other as a whole. And ironically, the book itself is about wanting to feel whole.

Finally, about a year ago (after taking an awesome workshop with Lydia Yuknavitch on finding your core metaphors), I was inspired to break out the dusty manuscript again (after a mostly motherhood-driven, three-year hiatus), and write a new piece/introduction called “Mirror Face.” In this piece, I went back to one of my original metaphors, first unearthed in a piece I wrote in 1997 for my first college creative writing class. It was a piece about vision, mirrors, reflections, identity and self-consciousness. It’s central metaphor began with me, as a child, looking in a mirror and hating the way my two eyes did not match—the way one of my eyes was creaseless, like a Chinese eye, and the other eye had a fold, like a Westerner’s. It was a piece about how I saw and judged myself, and in turn feared others saw and judged me.

There it was. A new beginning to my book. A new beginning that had existed all along, but that for some reason I’d failed to see belonged. And from this new (old) beginning, I suddenly saw the entire book framed anew. It wasn’t that the theme of cultural identity wasn’t already prominent in almost every chapter, but it had never been introduced in quite the same way. Something about sharing my childhood vulnerability and speaking directly to my desire to overcome my early seeds of self-consciousness, was crucial in informing the linear story at  hand about living in China, and my longing to find a spiritual path and to become fluent in Chinese as an adult. Something about that one central metaphor helped me to tie it all together better, and see and love the book anew. And with a new beginning, I was better able to determine which pieces needed to stay or go, and to write a new ending that helped the book come full circle.

So here I am. Still editing the epilogue and waiting to get feedback from my copyeditor/friend, before we start the process of designing, creating and self-publishing the book. Sometimes I still get hit with pangs of, maybe I should try one last time to get a publisher, after all, the book’s a new and improved animal now, but something about time and motherhood has infused my life with a more urgent perspective. I am ready to get this book out in the world NOW. I do not want to wait again for months to hear back from agents, and even if I got one quickly this time, it could take years more for the agent to place the book, if they even could. And then, after that, another couple years before it would come out. That could be another five years of my life! No, thank you. I have other projects on the backburner, including another book I've already started and received funding to work on, and projects that (I hope) will not take me as long to complete as this one.

But you never know. Maybe I am just one of those slow writers who writes long books and takes a long time to understand what she is truly writing. It doesn’t matter. I trust now that these things just have to take their course. You can be as disciplined about your writing and self-imposed deadlines as you want, but you can’t force the process, the timing, or the way in which your book’s core insights choose to be revealed.

Who knows, maybe I had to become a mother first, to shift my life so radically that I could finally see my whole younger searching period with new insight. Maybe it has nothing to do with any given age (e.g. the fact that I’ve been writing about my twenties and now I’m in my late thirties), but more to do with specific changes that happen in a person’s life that suddenly catapult our perspective into a whole new realm.

In any case, I now plan to self-publish. I will proudly join the ranks of the DIY culture, and do everything I can to create a beautiful, professional product and get it into the hands of as many people as I can. Because this book is important to me. And because I believe it is good. And while sometimes the best advice may very well be to let go of something and move on, there are other times when you can’t bear to do this, and you just have to keep trusting that there is more at stake here, something that you need to see all the way through.

Me, before leaving China in 2002, looking out over the monk's quarters at Labarang Monastery in Xiahe, Gansu Province.

On Toddler Ear Infections, Trusting Doctors, and Trusting Your Gut

It’s been a bit of a rough week around here. Nothing unmanageable, just a runny nose that turned into an ear infection. A trip to the doctor’s, some muddied advice about it being up to me whether we “watch and wait” a couple days to see if it gets better on its own before starting antibiotics, or whether we start them right away.

Well, of course, if you leave it up to me, and you tell me about the potentially adverse side effects of antibiotics like allergic reactions and diarrhea, and then I get online and find out that since 2006 the AAP has actually recommended the ‘watch and wait’ approach, since many ear infections do get better on their own, and since a tendency to over-prescribe antibiotics can lead towards increased resistance to antibiotics, then I’m going to choose to wait and see. After all, I’m someone who doesn’t even like to give my child Tylenol too often, especially with all that high fructose corn syrup. You might think this sounds silly, but my child gets itchy and rashy when he has too much processed GMO corn.

Anyway, so I waited on the antibiotics, and meanwhile started giving Cedar Ibuprofen around the clock, and he seemed to be feeling better. But, of course, that was probably because of the Ibuprofen. So how am I supposed to tell if he’s truly getting better if I’m suppressing all the symptoms (fever, fussiness, etc.)? He seemed better and hadn’t been pulling at his ear anymore, but he was still sleeping poorly and he still had a temperature (although it was hard to know if I was getting an accurate reading with a squirmy toddler and the under the arm approach). So two days after going to the doctor, I called the consulting nurse. She took notes on everything I told her, consulted with the doctor, and advised me to wait one more day, then call back. She also made some remark about antibiotics to the effect of, “Well, and you don’t even know if they’ll work for sure. And over-prescribing antibiotics has led to cases of resistance to Merca.” Or something like that. So, okay, let’s wait one more day. I’m all for natural healing if that’s a likely option.

That said, I’m also someone who ultimately errs in favor of Western medicine—especially when something seems bad enough that I want immediate results. So I still drove to the pharmacy that afternoon to pick up the antibiotics just in case things took a decided turn for the worse. I wouldn’t have much time the next day to deal with the pharmacy, and maybe my gut was already telling me that we were going to need them in the end.

On the following day, Friday, Cedar was still following the same pattern of being okay, but increasingly fussy once the Ibuprofen wore off and still sleeping poorly. We were on day three of Ibuprofen, and although Cedar didn’t seem worse, he also didn’t seem better. His temperature had gone down a degree—or so I thought, until I called the consulting nurse one more time, and was reminded that you needed to add a degree to the reading when doing the under the arm approach. Oh, right. I knew that, once upon a time. Cedar has never had a fever before, so I’ve only taken his temperature once since he was a baby!

In any case, I was pretty much thinking we should start antibiotics that night, but like a dutiful patient I was calling one more time as advised. Well, the nurse this time clearly though that I had already waited too long and that I had some irrational fear of antibiotics. “Is there some reason why you don’t want to give it to him?” she asked in a slightly exasperated tone.

“Well, just because of the various side effects that the doctor told me about and that the articles I read online mentioned.”

“Well, I don’t know what to tell you. Is there some specific question you want to ask the doctor?”

“No, I just wanted to call and tell you his symptoms since I was advised to do so by the nurse.”

“Let me see who was on yesterday when you called. Oh… Dr. X.” she said, with a clear note of disdain. “Well, it certainly doesn’t sound like he’s getting better. I’d say you’ve certainly waited long enough. It says here in the notes that you were told to wait 24-48 hours and to start antibiotics if things did not improve or got worse.”

Yes but, I think to myself, it says on my notes from the doctor to wait two or more days. “Yes, well, it’s hard to tell if he’s really getting better or not because we’re suppressing the symptoms with Ibuprofen, but I agree that it seems like time to start. I thought his temperature had gone down, but now I realize it hasn’t. He doesn’t seem worse, though. And I just don’t know how long it typically takes for these things to clear up when you are supposed to wait.”

Anyway, suffice it to say that the nurse I talked to that day was of a different persuasion than the one I talked to the day before. And the doctor I saw? He seemed pretty neutral on the matter, but I trusted that if it had seemed like a bad enough case, he’d have told me to start antibiotics right away.

Some quick research online also revealed that this is a source of debate in the medical community. Recent research that came out in early 2011 shows that toddlers may recover sooner and have less chance of having reoccurring infections when treated right away, so the current AAP advice or the general sentiments amongst doctors may likely swing back towards advocating immediate antibiotic treatment. But other previous studies have also shown that the problem may lie in diagnosis— “Doctors vary in their opinion of what defines an ear infection when looking at the ear drum. The enlightenment in this new research is the use of strict criteria for diagnosis: bulging eardrum, redness on the drum, pain, and an inventory of acute symptoms. The study highlights the essential challenge with ear infections–make a good diagnosis.” says Seattle pediatrician and blogger, Wendy Sue Swanson in this article. 

She goes on to say that parents should thus question the doctor about the nature of what they see in the eardrum to make sure it indeed looks like an infection. “When the pediatrician diagnoses an infection, push them on the appearance of the eardrum. It’s always okay to ask what it looks like! Ask if the eardrum is bulging, if it has pus behind it, or is red in color. It’s okay to ask the pediatrician to clarify and explain the difference between fluid in the ear and an ear infection. In combination with your child’s symptoms, it will be important for making a plan.” But who in reality does this? Or who has the forethought to read such articles before taking their child in to the doctor? Not me. My first response is always: go to the doctor. Second response: question what they say from the comfort of your couch and with Internet access.

It seems that the more you read and learn about your own health or children’s health, the more it teaches you to not blindly trust your doctor’s word or sometimes pithy statements of reassurance. We all want to just be able to trust and get on with it, to not have to play detective and doctor ourselves. And most of the time, this is probably okay if we have good doctors and fairly normal diagnosis. But unfortunately, this is not always the case. I have been given questionable information by my child’s doctor a number of times. And when Cedar was having so many problems with his body rashes and intestinal pain, it was ultimately through seeking out the advice of naturopaths that I was able to find any answers—with clear, tangible results—as opposed to the treat the symptom, not the cause (“We don’t know what the cause is”) approach of the Western pediatric dermatologist I saw.

Like I said, I still err towards Western approaches. I am fully immunizing my child (also after much reading and considerations towards alternate schedules, etc.). But we have also been relatively healthy and not been placed in situations in which your willingness to do your own research, seek second opinions, and make your own decisions might make the difference between life and death. 

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not trying to make it sound like Cedar’s ear infection is THAT big of a deal. But these recent interactions have just brought up for me these thoughts and feelings. And we are approaching 48 hours of Cedar on his antibiotics, and unfortunately, he does not yet seem to be getting better as he should. But again, this is hard to say because, after calling the consulting nurse one more time to see if it was okay, I started giving him some Ibuprofen again to help him in the meantime before the antibiotics take full effect. I guess if he’s not feeling better by tomorrow, I’ll need to bring him back in. Sigh.

The last two nights he’s been sleeping terribly, only seeming to find rest when attached to my boob or lying on top of me, and then waking up in 30, 60, or at most two hour increments. This has meant I have gotten very poor sleep myself. I would not be functioning, much less sitting here writing, if my dear husband did not let me catch up by sleeping in. I slept an extra three hours this morning until eleven, when I was brought a tired toddler to nurse back to sleep for his nap. I had just enough time to put on my robe, drink a cup of tea and have some cereal before said toddler woke up again. I tried to get him to go back down, seeing how tired he still was, but his nose was all stuffy and when he tried to nurse he was uncomfortable, and this—plus who knows what other discomfort—set him into a tizzy of screaming, which turned into a full-blown tantrum that lasted a full 30 minutes.

I usually am able to calm him down from a tantrum within a few minutes. This time, nothing helped. He did not want cuddling or soothing. He did not want to get up and look out the window. He did not want more milk. He did not want to watch Thomas the Train. Instead, he violently flung his body about, banging his head on the bed, and trying to bang it elsewhere—on the wall, even on the bookshelf. I’ve read that head-banging falls within the realm of normal toddler tantrum behavior, but it sure is scary to think of how he could hurt himself if he’d succeeded in hitting his head on the corner of the bookshelf. Finally, after 30 minutes, he decided he would try to have some milk again, and his nose had cleared enough for him to do this, and so we lay there for another half an hour, allowing our heart rates to go down and breathing to return to normal, before he finally decided to get up, a happy and perky little two year old again.

Big sigh. In the meantime, this was supposed to have been my morning to steal away and write, but I finally got out the door at 2:30 p.m. Thank God I was able to get away at all. A week of terrible sleep + worrying about your sick child + long days staying at home with him = one exhausted mama.

I also carry a slight trace of guilt knowing that Cedar might already have been feeling better by now if I’d started him on antibiotics right away, even though I know that I made the best decisions I could given the information I was given. This whole process has just been a reminder to me that you need to take everything any doctor or nurse tells you with a grain of salt, and remember that even though they are the “experts” their personal biases and training can and will slant the advice they give you in distinct ways. During this process, I’ve talked so far to three nurses and one doctor. They each have given me slight, yet still significantly different takes on what I should do. It was only the last nurse I talked to whose voice reached out to me with a tone of mothering compassion, who listened closely to what I told her, and who did not seem like she was scolding me for being “that type of paranoid parent” or whatever the previous nurse had been thinking.

Anyway. I have other things I’d rather be writing about, but I feel all pent up and angsty and sad, so I needed to get this off my chest. Access to the Internet and too much information can sometimes feel like a curse in our modern age where everyone can self-diagnose and prescribe if they wish.  And yet. I also will not apologize for being someone who does not just blindly trust what I am told. I will ask for as second opinion if I feel the need. And a third opinion at that.

But in the end, I always have to come back to trusting my gut—which to me, is not some wild, irrational stab in the dark based on fear-- but rather a decision that is the end result of a process that includes: careful questioning of experts, close observation of my child, as much additional research as I have time for (so, not a ton, mind you), and in the end, choosing the path that feels the safest and most sound.

Sounds easy, right? Right.

Boob Salutations, Co-sleeping with my Toddler, and Trust

“I finally figured out what my breasts are for,” I said to my husband the other night. For feeding my little suckling pig, of course! Sometimes these days the way my son lunges for them and sucks reminds me of a little animal. And no longer will I ever look upon my breasts as some sensual, yet essentially “useless” fleshy, doughy appendage. When my son nurses it is utterly obvious now why they were created—not for my partner’s pleasure, much less for the ogling eyes of men on the street, and not even for my own enjoyment. Breasts, hands down, are for babies.

When Cedar was first born they grew huge, hard, and sometimes clogged with milk. For six months—or more like nine—I wore nursing bras religiously, accepting their less than flattering support for the convenience of being able to whip out the breast at a moment’s request. Eventually, though, I realized that they’d shrunken back down to my pregnancy size and that I could fit back into a couple of my nicer bras. Cedar also wasn’t nursing as much by then, so I could usually just nurse him at home and there’d be no emergency need to feed in public—which exposes more flesh than I’d prefer, especially when not wearing a nursing bra.

It’s been a relief to not have to nurse quite as much in public, simply because it’s a hassle to have to stop what you are doing and find a comfortable, clean place to sit down yet still be discreet. That said, I don’t plan to stop nursing anytime soon. I still love nursing--and as my baby undeniably makes the transition to toddlerhood, I appreciate this ritual that much more.

Nursing has changed since when Cedar was a baby. Long gone are the days when he’d just lie there inert for over an hour sometimes, and gone are the days when he’ll easily fall asleep at the boob. Now, at times, nursing can feel more like an acrobatic sport. We still mostly nurse lying down on the bed, only now Cedar will stick his butt up in the air and nurse in a “downward dog” position. Or, he’ll want both breasts to be out and accessible so he can switch back and forth as he pleases. He’ll let me know this by signing for milk, tugging at my bra, or simply grunting in his all-encompassing language, “Uh.” (Amazingly, I almost always know what “uh” means.) I indulge his requests, as long as he is actually nursing and not say, patting at my other boob, biting, or pinching my other nipple. That’s where I draw the line. Mostly though, his antics amuse me. He can be a goofy kid, and I am more prone to indulge silliness than stifle it.

Cedar nurses the most in the morning when he wakes around 6:30. I am usually still half-asleep, so I’m not sure how long exactly he nurses for, but it feels like a long time—half an hour, sometimes more? On both boobs. Lying down, draped across me, downward dog, moving through all the positions—call it “Boob Salutations.” Then during the day he usually only nurses for five minutes or so at a time, before or after his two naps. Before bedtime, he nurses for another 10-30 minutes depending on whether he’s in the mood to fall asleep that way or not. And although I’ve tried not to nurse him every time he wakes up at night, I’ve recently gone back to just wanting him to fall back asleep as quickly as possible (in order to gain back more of my evening with Matthew or to go back to sleep myself), so that means that I usually nurse for about 5-10 minutes every 2-3 hours throughout the night.

For those who co-sleep, this may not come as a big surprise—a fourteen month old who still wakes and nurses through the night. For others, it probably sounds like hell and you are probably quietly thanking your own wisdom in choosing not to co-sleep. For me, by now, I’ve pretty much accepted this situation. I went through a few periods of “we’ve got to change this night waking problem!” resolve, but Elizabeth Pantley’s ‘”no-cry sleep solution” nipple removal techniques didn’t seem to reduce his waking, and nor did my husband’s intervention (we’ve been having him go to Cedar when he wakes before we’ve gone to bed ourselves, and although this has helped Cedar learn to go to sleep better without me and the boob, it can also take forever and has not helped him wake any less).

I know I would sleep better (duh) if Cedar wasn’t waking so much still, but that said, I am mostly only half-waking when he half-wakes, and unconsciously putting the boob in his mouth for a quick fix before we’re both snoozing quietly again. I know Cedar isn’t hungry. I know that this is now a firmly entrenched habit (or call it ritual if you want it to sound better). I know that it could potentially be broken with “only” a couple weeks (or more) of night weaning torture (especially since we are not planning to stop co-sleeping any day soon), but frankly I’m not ready to put us through that yet.

I am all for doing what’s easiest, as long as it’s still working for us. There were periods when Cedar was waking even more than he is now when I wasn’t so sure it was “working” anymore. But now, it’s been several months with no real complaints from me, aside from the occasional off night. Cedar no longer wakes from gas at night, unless I happen to have been testing eating or feeding him some new food that doesn’t settle well. Mostly now, I think Cedar’s waking now just comes with the territory of co-sleeping.

When Matthew and I were trying to decide whether or not to co-sleep, I read all kinds of literature that proclaimed how mama and baby both sleep better when co-sleeping-- yet I also read things that said they both sleep lighter and wake more. Contradictory? Perhaps. I don’t want to fully debate the merits versus shortcomings of co-sleeping here, but suffice it to say that since we didn’t and don’t plan to switch to a crib, we’ll never really know if Cedar would have slept better that way. Sometimes I think he would, because sometimes me and Matthew’s movements or sounds (when first coming to bed at night, for instance) wake him. Also, even though we have a king-sized bed, sometimes Cedar rolls over virtually on top of me, and then I have to move him and then he stirs, nearly wakes, and so I nurse him quickly so that he won’t wake for real.

And yet, despite all this, I’m still tempted to believe that co-sleeping was the best choice for us all. Not only was it a practical choice since we have a tiny house, but I also can only imagine what it would have been like to have to get up each time he woke during the many hard months when his intestinal issues would cause him to wake crying in pain in the middle of the night, and how long it might have taken for both of us to fall back asleep. And now, even without his gas problems, I can’t really imagine giving up co-sleeping. Ultimately we chose to go this route because we wanted to. And now, I’m as attached to it as Cedar is.

For those who choose to co-sleep, there is undeniably something we love about it, something we grow close to, something that ingrains itself in us over the many months we do it. When you grow used to being so close to the soft breath of your baby upon drifting to sleep, it feels strange and wrong to have him elsewhere. When you grow used to those morning snuggles and nursing sessions and the “wolf pack” feeling of all being in one bed, it seems like it’d be hard to arbitrarily pick an age when the baby is moved into a separate space. Of course, if you didn’t enjoy anything about co-sleeping in the first place, it’d be a no-brainer to boot the baby, for you’d gain back luxurious space to stretch your limbs and freedom to make love or read or whatever else you do for pleasure at night in your bed.

It’s not a black and white issue for me. There are definite pros and cons. I don’t know if we would do it differently if we were to have another one. A part of me says, yes, definitely, we would move that baby into a crib after that initial, intense newborn stage of constant nursing-- by four months perhaps… or maybe six. But then I wonder if I’d really be able to. Perhaps if turns out to be a really hard transition getting Cedar out of our bed and if he goes on to have trouble sleeping alone, I will rethink this strategy. And yet, I’m not really that worried about this transition; beyond the initial getting used to, I think that most kids who co-slept as babies and toddlers end up doing just fine on their own. Mostly, it’s just hard to imagine doing things differently than whatever you and your partner have chosen. We gravitate to what we know. It’s easier to go with the status quo than to tempt the unpredictable results of executing change.

Some might be surprised to learn that even the most stringent sleep-training experts (think Weisblaum and Ferber) now both have sections in their books that allow for co-sleeping as a viable, healthy option. Weisblaum talks about how if a mom chooses to nurse immediately upon demand at night and the baby consequently doesn’t wake all the way, then the baby’s sleep cycles are not disturbed and so there is no “sleep problem.” Along these lines, I feel Cedar is well-rested (except for the occasional off night). And hands down, he’s got a secure attachment to me, to us. Hands down, he’s got a cozy bed.

But what about you, you say? What about my sleep cycles, I say? Well, most days I feel fine. I have plenty of energy, and only drink a couple cups of tea a day—not coffee, but tea! Of course, I’m not required to use my brain that much or sit in meetings or talk to other adults, so it is entirely likely that if I had a different “day job” I might discover that my mental capacity is sub par—but that’s what coffee’s for, right? I go to sleep at 10:30 or 11 most nights and I get up around seven. I get a decent night’s rest, even if you should probably subtract an hour or so for the nightly interruptions of my sleep cycle (even if I am not technically even awake for an hour).

True, I admit I am also excited for the day when Cedar moves to his own bed and when I am not waking (briefly) every two or three hours. But I also know I’ll miss co-sleeping. Just like I’ll miss nursing when Cedar is eventually weaned. I’ll miss that snuggly feeling of fitting inside each other’s bodies. I’ll miss the way he throws his foot on top of my belly and leg, I’ll miss the way he rests a hand on my breast. I’ll miss the perfect way in which we fit together within this act of nourishment.

My body makes the perfect nutrients for you, my little one. Nutrients that have kept you healthy, with only one cold the entire fourteen months of your life, not to mention providing a major source of your daily diet that is free. I don’t have to worry about you not getting enough to eat, because I know you will make up for it when you nurse. And although it has no doubt been challenging to have to restrict my diet because of your sensitivities (I’m still not eating dairy, soy, garlic, onions, citrus, tomatoes, coffee and chocolate—with an occasional exception), I choose this any day over having you wake in pain or get a red itchy rash on your face.

I’ve never considered not nursing you. First of all, there’s no easy solution since you couldn’t even have dairy- or soy-based formulas to supplement. But mostly, breastfeeding just seems like the most natural, bonding act for me. You came into this world with the instinct to root and nurse, and despite all the ways in which you are growing and changing from a little baby into a little boy (oh my!), nursing is this seamless link that we have, this way of connection and love. You’ll have your whole life to be more “independent” and weaned. What’s another year at the breast?

I know plenty of moms who are still nursing and co-sleeping with their toddlers. In our Seattle culture, it is not so strange; even the World Health Organization recommends nursing until at least two. But I know that the older my son gets, the more strange our choices may seem to others—and I admit, I don’t really want to have my son run up to me on the playground for a quick nip. So the older he gets, the more seldom we will nurse, until eventually one of us will decide that it’s time to stop altogether.

Which will come first—weaning from the breast or weaning from co-sleeping? Hard to say. I wouldn’t be surprised if they happen close together. Maybe not at the exact same time, so as to ease the transition. But they are tied together for us. It would be hard to wean while still co-sleeping, though not impossible. And it would similarly be hard to move Cedar to his own bed and simultaneously deny him this great source of comfort he’s known since birth. So we’ll see, keep taking it day by day. Keep making the choices that feel right for us.

At a certain point, I just stopped caring what the books said—whether they were of the mainstream variety or in the attachment parenting vein. I found that all the reading, questioning and plotting based on someone else’s recommendations just made me feel stressed out or guilty about my own choices that diverged from the norm. I found that once I accepted that I was doing things the way I was because they felt right, and not because I could rationalize them into being right, then the arguments for pros and cons dropped away.

I am learning to accept that in parenting there is no “perfect” way to do things. There is only the one winding, messy, and unique path that you and your family carve out for yourself. And this path is based on way too many variables—both the seen and the unseen—to follow any one singular guide but your own.

On Turning One, Developmental Milestones, Being Proactive and Letting Go

Cedar turned one on Friday, and is on the cusp of so much change. He’s been a bit of a “late bloomer” on a lot of fronts—the most obvious one being the fact that he still has not figured out how to crawl. I didn’t worry about it much for many months since I knew that crawling was not an essential milestone and some babies skip it all together and go straight to walking. But as more time went by and I watched my friends’ babies who were the same age scramble across floors and furniture, I began to worry-- just a little. It wasn’t just that he wasn’t crawling, but he wasn’t moving around much—rolling, lunging, or dragging his body in ways that other non-crawlers nevertheless learn to get around. He abhorred tummy time, and within seconds would usually just sink his face into the carpet, complaining. Mostly, he seemed fairly content to just sit there and stretch his body as far as he could for the toys that were within reach--developing an impressive ability to do the splits. You could see him looking at something and calculating whether it was worth going for, and in many cases he’d decide, nope, too far.

Online one day, I ran across a link to a free developmental screening offered by the local nonprofit Parent Trust. Why not? I thought. Even though people like my mom told me not to worry, Cedar would crawl when he was ready, I knew I would feel better if I was being more proactive. I wanted an expert to tell me not to worry, or to suggest exercises I should do with him. I’d tried for months placing tantalizing objects like the remote control or other things he wanted but wasn’t allowed to have just out of his reach, then putting him on his tummy and encouraging him to come get it. This occasionally motivated him sufficiently to inch forward a tiny bit, but almost always ended in cries of frustration.

I’m really glad I went to the screening. We sat on the floor in a room full of toys with a woman for an hour and I answered questions about what Cedar could and couldn’t do, while we observed him play. The screening confirmed what I suspected—Cedar was right on target with everything, with the exception of gross motor skills. It wasn’t so much the actual not crawling that was significant, but more that he figure out how to move his body around and get places and things by himself. Cedar had rolled over more or less “on time,” but he rarely did it. Cedar had also not figured out to sit up from a lying down position. He could hold his weight just fine when I helped him stand on his legs, and he was getting more and more balanced while standing against a couch, but he was still pretty far from being able to scoot himself around by himself while holding on to furniture. He was probably most active when he was pulling himself up onto my body, but he still often favored his tiptoes instead of standing flat-footed.

The woman didn’t raise any alarm bells with me, but she did encourage me to start giving him more tummy time—perhaps more often, but for shorter periods. We needed to see how much of his not crawling had to do with the fact that he didn’t have enough practice and motivation, or, if he still didn’t progress in the next month (he was eleven months when I brought him in), then I might want to look into whether he had weak muscle tone. Also, she encouraged me to give him plenty of opportunities to practice standing, for instance by putting toys on the couch for him to reach for and play with while standing up.  

I’d done this before, but now I was definitely more motivated because I had concrete suggestions, perspective, and accountability to someone whom I trusted and liked. It just was that much more on my radar to make sure Cedar got more than just one token attempt at tummy time a day.

It’s been amazing to watch how much he has now learned and explored in just a few short weeks. I don’t know how much of this had to do with my efforts, and how much coincided with the timing and the fact that he was just ready, but it didn’t take long for him to get more tolerant of hanging out on his tummy (reading to him in that position worked well since he loves books), even if he still was far from crawling. And then one day he figured out how to push himself up back onto his knees and then awkwardly get his legs out from under him back into his favored triangle-leg sitting position. This was huge! Once he practiced this a few more times and mastered it, then being put on his tummy was no longer a big deal since he could easily push himself back up. Granted, this means he is still not increasing his tummy time, but what he has been doing is lunging for things, falling onto his tummy, then sitting back up. Or else he’ll use one leg to scoot himself around on his bottom. I can still get away with plopping him down with some books on the floor and going into the other room for a minute (max), but on the contrary, I am getting more cautious about leaving him in the middle of our king-sized bed for even a few seconds (especially if our cat, Miles, is lying there, for Miles is one “forbidden to grab object” that Cedar will not hesitate to lunge towards). While it’s been kind of nice to have been able to delay worrying about childproofing (especially our bed, which we all sleep on and which we’ll have to change to just a mattress on the floor really soon), this is not something that I have wanted to brag about.

Although Cedar still lags behind many of his peers who mastered crawling long ago and are well on their way to walking, I know that there is a big range in which babies hit their milestones and now that he’s made so much progress in just a few weeks, I feel reaffirmed not to worry. I also know better than to blame myself or worry that I created his lack of motivation to move because I “carry him too much” or bring toys to his side. Surely giving him more tummy time helped, but I also think that the main factor in how kids develop has to do with their innate personalities and bodies. Cedar has never liked to be laid down for long (perhaps partly due to his frequent early discomfort from gas?), and so I’ve held him all the more. Cedar has also always been a watchful baby, content to sit back and take things in as opposed to a baby who impulsively lunges and grabs for things. He loves books and is content to sit there flipping through one after another on his own. He alternates between being quiet and serious, and being loud and talkative. I continue to be astounded by how fast he recognizes new songs and words.

Even though Cedar will probably be a late walker too, I am nevertheless beginning to see the toddler in him emerging. This is both exciting and a bit scary (can you say, hello temper tantrums and stubborn will?). Although he has yet to utter his first words beyond mama and dada (and perhaps a few others I can’t be sure of), I can tell he understands so much more than I realize. I ask, “Do you want to read a story?” and his eyes flash up to the bookshelf by the bed. “How about ‘Mud’?” I’ll say, and he’ll smile and pant and wave his arms excitedly. In response to other questions he’ll answer simply by uttering the all-purpose affirmative syllable, “Na.” I feel like I can now have a call and response conversation with him, and I witness more and more of his distinct little person every day. What happened to my baby? He’s still there. But so now is the vision of a growing, opinionated child.

Case in point: just yesterday I registered him for a toddler co-op preschool starting in the fall. It will only be once a week for a couple hours and I will be there with him (unless it’s one of the alternating where I’ll spend an hour in the ‘parent education’ group), yet still, it is a bit mind boggling to already be signing him up for something called school! It’s exciting to think of all the books, animals, songs, games, train tracks, jungle gyms, circle times, dancing, painting, cooking, and sensory projects to introduce him to in the years to come (hello nascent preschool teacher inside!—yes, I’ve worked part-time in preschools since high school, and I probably still would if they didn’t pay so little). At the same time, I also keep reminding myself to imprint the image of him now, as a baby, in my mind. Imprint, imprint, imprint. For it won’t be long before I’ll look back on pictures of today and say, “Look how little he was!” instead of bemoaning how BIG he’s gotten, and how much carrying him around is killing my back.

Other recent changes for Cedar include finally waving bye bye, finally cutting his first tooth at eleven months, and just in the last week or so—rolling around or outright sitting up as I nurse him to sleep in bed (or when he wakes up later on). Part of this has to do with the fact that we finally stopped swaddling him at eleven months (I asked the popular Seattle nurse and educator Anne Kepler what she thought about us still swaddling, and she said if it was still working for us no reason to stop swaddling before he’s a year or so). The transition went just fine, although I fear the day when he outright protests going to sleep AND we can’t just confine him in a crib and walk away since we don’t use a crib. (Cross that bridge when we get there). For now, I am grateful that he goes to sleep mostly without protest and sleeps pretty well at night (without flailing all over the place) by my side.

I’m supposed to schedule another appointment with the developmental screening lady soon to check in, but I don’t feel a pressing need to now that Cedar’s made so much progress. I think I still will however, because I enjoyed having a knowledgeable and concerned woman to talk to at length about my son’s growth, especially when my visits with Cedar’s doctor at Group Health are so hurried and short.  The screening also helped put on the radar for me other developmental skills to look out for in the coming months and gave me ideas for activities to do with Cedar to help encourage them. Any Washington state resident can schedule one if your child is between the ages of one month and five and a half years.

I do not aspire to be the kind of mother who is obsessed with developmental milestones or to be constantly comparing my child to the children of others, but I admit, it’s hard not to enter the comparison game, especially when I know so many parents of children who were born within a month of Cedar since we were all in the same PEPS group. I suspect we all do it, whether we are aware of it or not. It doesn’t just happen when our children can’t do something that others can. It also happens in the natural bubbles of pride that swell when our child does do something new that seems fairly advanced. But it’s so important to keep all of this developmental milestone and comparison business in perspective. Watch, take notice, celebrate, and talk to others about your concerns. Try not to worry or jump to conclusions, but also be proactive and look into it. I know this can sound contradictory, but for me, I worry more if I try to corral off my worries into a little corner of my mind that I don’t want to look too hard at. I feel better if I investigate my small seeds of concern, and take conscious actions. That way I can know that I’ve done what I can do, which makes the more important and difficult act of letting go that much easier. 

Trust

I am eleven days away from my due date. Babies come early, babies come late; for first-time mothers, babies are often late-- and yet-- it is also true that I could go into labor any day now, any place. I feel my body growing heavier, I’ve been more achy and tired with increasing menstrual cramp-like sensations. There’s less room for my baby to move in there, so when he does move, whole sides of my belly stretch and protrude. He moves, and I immediately feel pressure on my bladder. He moves, and I cannot help but notice-- and wonder, and imagine-- at what point will this movement translate into my first contraction? My water breaking? Sudden cramping or pain? At what point will the realization sink through: this is it. Sweep the floors, make the bed: our baby is to come.

Corresponding to his impending arrival, I’ve been thrust into the “nesting” phase of obsessive-compulsive task- completing and list-making. I’ve gathered all the home birth supplies, including a huge stack of old towels, and tied them in plastic bags now stored under our changing table. Baby diaper service has delivered our first week’s worth of 70 cloth diapers. My husband and I have gone to Costco and stocked up on toilet paper, laundry soap, soy milk, tomato sauce, black beans, pasta, fluids for labor, and much more, to avoid as much shopping as possible in the months to come. We’ve cleaned out the attic and basement, and dropped stuff off at Value Village and the dump to make room for all the baby gear slowly populating odd corners of our house. We decided last weekend to sell our two old station wagons in order to buy a newer car for me to drive the baby in. We’ve chosen our baby’s doctor, written a birth plan, ordered a birthing tub, held two baby showers, written thank you cards, attended classes on labor, newborn care, post-partum planning, and breastfeeding, reorganized our dresser drawers… and the list goes on.

Thankfully, most of the important stuff has been taken care of, and now I’ve moved on to tackling other projects on my list. I am currently scanning and transferring hundreds of old slides of my old friends, Els and Frank, onto my computer; I also have a stack of Els and Frank’s letters I still hope to transcribe; I am making a digital scrapbook of the last two years of me and Matthew’s lives; I am about to start collaging a belly cast my friend Amy helped me to make—and I’d still like to make some other birth art with the watercolors and pencils I bought for this purpose.

I’m trying to strike a balance between staying busy, and slowing down. People say it can be good to stay busy around this time or else you might go crazy with anticipation, especially once you reach your due date. I enjoy these projects, and it would feel great to finish some of them or else who knows when I will return to them. But conversely, and more importantly perhaps, I want to slow down and spend time moving through my days aware of these last quiet moments alone, breathing, anticipating the changes to come.


***


My home is my temple, and may never feel like this more so than when we welcome into it our baby, this new life. I want everything to be clean, to feel open, uncluttered, and relaxing. To be perfect. And yet this is where the paradox comes in: I know that true perfection can only be realized when I let go of caring about all the imperfections. I know that when I go into labor not every last inch of the house will be scoured, all my signs of every day living may still be strewn about, my husband may very well be on the road for his work and hours away from me yet, or that something will be “out of place” or not quite as I imagined, and I’ll just have to breathe and say “holy shit it’s happening,” and go with it. Know that I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. Trust that my body will know what to do. Trust in the awareness training I’ve cultivated for years. Breathe and greet each contraction anew. Be curious about the pain as it evolves and grows stronger. Groan, grunt and dissolve into the wild creature I’ve learned I can be. Let go of my fears and inhibitions. Accept that I am not in control.

I believe that I can do this, that I can give birth without drugs at home, and that I can labor for hours or days if that is what it takes. Yet I also know that I am not a failure if I need to transfer to the hospital. If the pain or fatigue becomes too much for my body to take, or if there are any complications. I trust that they will take care of me there too, and that nothing about this labor is a fight or a show. That it is an experience handed to me from God, a dance, an interplay of what is given and how each moment is received. And while I am not in control of what happens, I know that the connection between my mind and body can play a huge role in how it unfolds.

I’ve carried so much anticipation in these past months, learning and thinking about this day when my baby will be born, what my labor will be like, and who my son will be. Now, it is so strange and overwhelming to know that this day is soon to arrive.

I’ve been in training for what feels like the most important day of my life. I’ve checked things off lists, read scores of books, attended classes, talked to friends, written blog posts, and yet, ultimately, I sense that it is the slow, steady, internal transformation that has been preparing me most of all. It is the sudden brimming of tears, the “holy shit” moments of reckoning, and the deep deep surrender to a trust that I must now embrace.