Finding the Heart of the Story

Over a year ago, I received a small grant from 4Culture, a King County organization, to work on a writing project about an old friend and neighbor of mine—and the story of how I inherited his cabin. On Sunday, November 21, from 2:30 – 4:30 p.m., at the Northeast Branch of the Seattle Public Library, I will read excerpts from this project, discuss its evolution, and offer a free writing workshop to those who would like to stay on and participate.

I’ve written on this blog about Els, Frank, and the cabin before in posts titled The Gift and Love Letters, but here I will give you the gist of the story. I grew up in the house next door to Frank and Els until I was ten, when my family moved a mile to the north. Frank was a sailor, a merchant marine, a loner, an avid fan of literature, and a generous soul. Els was a writer, a philosopher, a baker, a painter, a community activist, and a lover of children. Their marriage was not always the happiest, especially since Frank was often at sea for half the year, but together they lived in a small cabin on a wooded double lot in Northeast Seattle for over forty years. They never had children of their own.

Els died in 1999, and Frank died in 2006. That spring I would learn that he had left me their house. We had become good friends over the years, but Frank had never hinted that he was considering leaving me such a huge gift. Over the next couple years I would proceed to clean and sort through decades worth of treasures that Els and Frank had collected at sea, along with boxes full of letters that they’d exchanged during their many years apart. In 2008, my husband and I were finally able to move into the cabin, and since then I have continued to sift through Els and Frank’s vast collection of slides, log books, letters, and artifacts left behind, absorbing countless intimate details from their lives.

When I applied for the grant from 4Culture, I imagined that the heart of the story would be focused on the process of inheriting their cabin and things; the strained dealings with Frank’s relatives; and the legacy and weight of the possessions that we each collect and pass on. But as I’ve continued to dig deeper into the artifacts and letters. I’ve begun to realize that what I once thought was the heart of the story is perhaps only the back story, and that the true trajectory of this story is still being lived out as my husband and I and our seven-month-old son begin to imprint our own roots in this cabin, and as I continue to read Els and Frank’s letters which prompt me to reflect on the myriad dimensions of these things that we call family, home, work, longing, and purpose.

I devoted much time during my pregnancy to this project, especially to reading the letters. Now, the time has come for me to present to the public what I have accomplished during the year and a half that has passed since receiving the grant, and to thank 4Culture for the role that they have played in helping me giving birth to this book-in-progress.

I invite you to join me on Sunday, November 21, from 2:30 - 4:30 p.m., at the Northeast Branch of the Seattle Public Library, where I will first give a reading, and then, around 3:30 p.m., offer an informal writing workshop for those who would like to stay and write. I will offer prompts for you to free-write from—focusing on the themes of our loved ones, homes, and possessions—as well as an open space for us to share.

Holding Still

Recently, I’ve started holding my son for at least one of his naps. It started as an attempt to get him to sleep longer. Cedar had started waking up from his naps after as little as fifteen minutes, and then he wouldn’t go back down. After this happened enough times, I decided that it was worth it to me to just hold him, even if that  meant I couldn’t bustle about and attend to all the chores on my list.  Restful daytime naps are crucial for babies (and moms), especially since they affect how well babies sleep at night.

Holding Cedar in my arms, I can usually get at least an hour out of him since babies sleep best in warm, womb-like, contained spaces. Often, he’ll still wake up after the first thirty-minute sleep cycle, but after he opens his eyes and sees that I’m still with him, I can quickly jiggle him back to sleep. First, I’ll swaddle him, then bounce him on the ball, and once he is asleep, sink slowly back into our big, soft orange recliner, his head nestled in the crook of my left arm. I’ve learned to get everything ready before I start this routine—I make a cup of tea, get a snack, my journal, book, phone, a glass of water, my date book, and anything else I might want, and place these all on the table next to the chair. Sometimes Cedar will sleep for as long as two hours in my arms, and for these formally unheard of napping marathons, I am ready.

When he was a newborn, I spent a lot of time wearing Cedar in a wrap as he slept. But I also heeded the advice from others that if I wanted my baby to learn to nap by himself, I should practice putting him down. In fact, it could come as a relief to do so, since a newborn is otherwise glued to your breast practically every waking moment. Because of this, there was a part of me that’d come to associate now holding my baby as he slept as somehow “a step backwards” from the original goal of getting him used to sleeping alone. But, thankfully, this was only a small part of me, and the greater part of me has been able to remember this ritual for how precious it is.

One of my Facebook friends, someone I barely know, wrote to me after I gave birth that she has often wished she could hold her grown son again, just once, as a baby. Even though many have remarked on how quickly this time goes, her comment stuck with me-- her desire to remember her son as the newborn that he once was—that all of us once were. Now, each day, I am reminded to pause again, even in the midst of my exhaustion, to pause and stare at my son’s face as he breathes, and to take deep breaths myself as I center myself in one place.

I also love how our new napping ritual creates the space for me to journal more or read. These are activities that I used to do all the time, that felt as essential to me as food and water, but that mostly eluded me in the months following giving birth. Now, Cedar’s weight in my arms is like my anchor.  If I wasn’t holding him while he napped, I’d still be flitting around doing dishes or answering emails for half an hour, and before I’d know it, he’d be awake again. But while holding Cedar, I must give up the desire to be “productive,” and instead, take this time to nurture myself. Now, when it often seems like I have given up so much of my former life and routines, I have reclaimed this one sweet, reflective pocket of time. This time that is essential. This time that holds me still.

Sleeping With My Baby

Sleep has not been great lately. Cedar has been back to waking every hour or two, nursing for ten minutes or so, then going back to sleep before eventually, inevitably, the pitter-patter of his kicking feet, the squirming of his slowly-breaking-free-of-his-swaddle body, the twisting/turning of his head (we call it the Stevie Wonder—“doing the Stevie”), or else just his soft insistent eh-eh-eh cries alerts me that yes, indeed, he’s waking again, and I’d better roll over and feed him or else he’ll just get louder and keep me up longer.

Ah, sleep. Ask virtually any new parent and they will tell you how we are obsessed with it. How much sleep we and our babies are getting, whether they are sleeping through the night, how long they nap and when and how often, how to get them to nap and sleep longer and fall asleep on their own, and when we can expect things to change…and change again.

Cedar was a “good” sleeper the first two or three months, only waking once in the middle of the night. Then, everything changed, progressively getting worse until we arrived at the awful waking-every-hour stage, which catapulted me from doing fine, even great, into sleep-deprived and on the edge. A lot of his waking I attributed to gas. I went on an elimination diet, his gas got better and his sleep did too-- for a while. But now, I don’t know what to attribute these recent days of frequent waking to. Gas might still be a culprit, especially since I’m now reintroducing foods and finding out what he’s sensitive to. But night waking might also just be his habit or mode of operation now, too. I can’t say for sure.

When sleep initially improved from Cedar waking every hour or two, to every two to three hours—I was thrilled. I could live with this. I could get through my day without feeling so exhausted that I was leaving burners on or forgetting to buckle seatbelts. And more than this, I had enough energy again to actually do things like read and write.  Waking every two to three hours still is not great, of course, and I was reminded of this when talking to friends whose babies were sleeping through the night. But at least I was imbued with a new sense of hope-- things were getting better. Once we were through with this diet, if things didn’t continue to improve then I could employ some kind of sleep training techniques. Everything comes and goes in phases. We had just survived a hard one, and were moving into an easier one. Hurray!

For the most part, I still feel this way, despite the last few days of bad sleep. I still feel hopeful that Cedar’s gas and allergies getting better, and conversely, his sleep is improving, as is my ability to take on more. For a while, I felt we were catapulted back into “survival mode”—that is, just focusing on trying to feed ourselves and nap during the day to make up for the bad nights. Everything else had to wait. “Survival mode” is what most of us were doing during the first month or so after childbirth. Ideally, we should be well beyond that by now, but sometimes, I guess, you regress.

I remember that first month like a dream. The long nights of waking and feeding for hours at a time. How toasty we kept our bedroom at night to keep Cedar warm enough without having to use a lot of blankets, and with the door shut to make sure our cat stayed out. In fact, for the first two months I slept in my bathrobe so that I would not have to pull any covers up around my upper body. That way, I felt safe sleeping close to Cedar in our bed. I wanted him to be able to hear his mama’s breathing while he slept, to feel safe in this new environment outside the womb, to trust that he was taken care of and all his needs would be met.

From the beginning, I couldn’t imagine putting him in a bassinet or anywhere else that was removed from me at night. My husband and I had anticipated sleeping with him, buying a king-sized bed before he was born so that we’d have plenty of room as he grew bigger. Partly, the decision was practical—we only have one tiny bedroom, so there was no logical place for a crib. But mostly, it was based on the reading I did, the people I talked to, and my own intuition that told me I wanted to sleep with my baby. I was relieved that when at the hospital the nurses, too, seemed to think that this was the logical place for a newborn to stay day and night—next to his mother—and that no one tried to warn me that I would suffocate him if I didn’t put him in the bassinet.

I cherish the memory of those first nights sleeping next to Cedar. How tiny his body was then, how fragile and new. How quickly he took to my breast, instinctively knowing how to root, and then feed. We practiced side-lying feeding then, because I’d had a cesarean and thus could not sit up to feed him, and ever since then this has been our preferred position. It’s so easy and relaxing to lie down and feed, although in the beginning he needed help getting in the right position for a proper latch. Now, it’s old hat of course, and that boy can find my nipple in the thick of his sleep from a mile away.

Although many people I know choose to sleep with their babies (and some planned for this, whereas others fell into it to their own surprise), as a whole, it is still somewhat frowned upon in American culture where giving your baby his own crib and room—sometimes from the very first day—is the norm. People have all kinds of fears about parents smothering their baby with their bodies or with the covers, and although such tragedies have happened, they have usually been a result of an irresponsible parent’s negligence—such as going to bed drunk—versus the actions of a cautious, aware parent. The research I did showed me that bed sharing with your baby was safe, when done right. In fact, some studies showed it to be even safer than using a crib with regards to reducing instances of SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome), because mother and baby are so attuned to each other’s breathing. (Of course, you can find the opposing statements as well.) But in any case, it’s a personal choice that can be safe, and many more parents do it than you’d think, either because they like it, or because they find that they and their baby sleep better that way.

I love sleeping with Cedar. In the beginning when he was smaller, I admit I was a little paranoid about it, but then I was more paranoid about everything. Now, I still mostly sleep facing him so as to stay more attuned to where he is. But I never worry about rolling over onto him, because my body is so aware of his presence. My senses have been in hyper-alert mode ever since giving birth, attuned to his slightest motions and cries, and this alertness does not turn off at night.

But sometimes, I do wonder if I’d be sleeping better if he wasn’t in our bed. At night, I wake to his movements and noises even when he is not fully awake himself, and it is hard to just lie there and listen to his half-asleep rooting or crying when I know that a quick “nip” of the boob will bring him back to deep slumber. So I feed him, and we go back to sleep quickly, and now, I’m afraid this has become his expectation—again and again and again.

This has then led me to also wonder: if he were in a crib in his own room, would he really be “waking every hour or two,” or is he not actually even waking half the time, and would he learn to go back to sleep on his own easier if he did not smell, sense, and know that I am right there by his side? As much as I still love having Cedar in our bed now, will I one day regret not transferring him to a crib while he was still young enough to not more actively protest? When Cedar is, say, a year old, will my mama friends all have babies who have been soundly sleeping through the night in their cribs for months, whereas I’m still struggling with the same night waking patterns? I can’t help but wonder.

I’ve told myself that if it gets bad enough, that I would consider taking extreme measures and trying out a crib. But the problem is, I don’t want to. For one, it’s not practical; it would mean putting a crib in the living room and either having to tiptoe around in dim lighting once he goes down, or putting him down in our bed and transferring him to the crib when we are ready to go to bed, which sounds like more trouble than it’s worth. And secondly, I believe the literature that says that bed-sharing can help foster wonderfully secure children who are just as independent, if not more so, than their crib-sleeping peers. But mostly, I would miss having him in our bed. I would feel terrible casting him out of it prematurely. And I’m not sure I have the conviction or resolve to put us through a trying transitional period, for uncertain, and possibly worse, results. If it went badly at first, I’d be tempted to pronounce right away that it wasn’t going to work.

I know I would feel similarly about the Ferber approach to letting your baby “cry it out.” (Putting your baby down awake, then going in to soothe and calm him when he cries, but not picking him up or feeding him, and over time gradually increasing the amount of time that you wait before going in). I have a low threshold for hearing and letting my baby cry without responding right away, and I’ve heard that it can sometimes takes weeks of long bouts of crying for this approach to “work.” Some think that your baby can lose his trust in you. I cannot say if this is so, and I do not want to judge people who go the Ferber route because I know what sleep deprivation feels like. I think the “cry it out” approach can work for some babies and parents, but not for all. I seriously doubt it would work for us. I would give the methods in Elizabeth Pantley’s “The No Cry Sleep Solution” an in-depth try first. If those didn’t work, I ultimately wouldn’t rule out some modified version of Ferber. I am resistant to the idea of it, but I’m also trying to keep an open mind.

In Pantley’s book, she asks readers to, before embarking on her sleep training tactics, first honestly ask themselves whether they deep down, really feel the need to change their baby’s sleep habits, or whether their desire to implement change stems more from other people or society’s messages about how their baby “should” be sleeping. Are your baby’s habits truly something you need to change, or is it actually manageable and okay for you? I think this is a great question to consider. When Cedar reached the waking every hour or two cycle for weeks on end, this is when I felt it was really unmanageable for me; this is when I got so tired and spacey that I felt depressed and incapable of doing anything but just get by. But when he is “only” waking every two to three hours (which he is now, again, since I started writing this post a few days ago), this is manageable, especially since I know how much worse it can be. True, I would LOVE for him to sleep for even longer stretches, but for me it still would not yet be worth employing a method of sleep training that I have an inner resistance to.

For me, sleeping with Cedar right now is worth the doubts and questions I have about whether we could be sleeping better if he were in a crib. Why? First of all, simply because it feels right to have him in there with us. It felt right in the beginning, and it continues to. I love waking up in the morning and seeing his eyes staring at me, then seeing him break into a smile as I smile. I love then unswaddling him, and cuddling or playing with him quietly in bed as our family of three slowly transitions into wakefulness. I love the ease of lying down next to him to nurse him to sleep, without then having to risk waking him up with any transitions of putting him down. And I love the sense of belonging we are creating as a family. He belongs with us, we are one-- day and night, no separation.

We sleep together like a “wolf pack”-- and here, I borrow a friend’s analogy. She was one of several I talked to about co-sleeping before we decided to go this route, and I remember her saying that what really cemented the decision for her was when she read how humans are the only animals that don’t sleep with their babies. I found this fascinating. Yes. Why don’t we? Well, in some cultures they do. But I think in our culture we have become so focused on what is convenient and how to encourage babies to be more “independent” so that they needn’t intrude as much on our busy lives. I don’t mean to say this in a judging or incriminating way towards those who don’t co-sleep, because I know that: a.) this is the accepted way we do things in the U.S., so most people don’t think twice about it, and b.) we all need our sleep, especially if you need to get up and go to work to support your family, and some people simply can’t or don’t believe they could sleep well with their babies. And c.) Sleeping with your baby can intrude on your sex life and private time with your partner, and for some, it is essential to keep the bed to them and their partner alone, or else they need some breathing space away from their baby at the end of the day.

I admit, there are times when having Cedar in the middle of the bed interferes with my ability to be intimate with my husband, although we can play footsie and maybe cuddle in the morning if I’ve moved Cedar in the middle of the night to the side (I usually move him a few times so as to rotate which side I feed from). And, yes, this arrangement could get old. I’m not sure when exactly we will transfer him to his own bed, and when the time comes, I don’t expect it to be easy. I’m also a bit concerned that Matthew will be ready to move him before I am, especially since he is not the one benefiting from the convenience of easy night feedings, and also since, in some ways, he misses the access to my body more than I miss his. At the end of a long day carrying, nursing and being attached to Cedar, my body is often spent when it comes to being touched and able to give. It needs time to itself. I hear this is common amongst new moms, but often hard for husbands to understand. Plus, as long as we are breastfeeding we’ve got maternal hormones surging through us still, which, frankly speaking, decrease the sex drive. And this is all I will say for now on this topic!

In any case, ask any new parent, and I think it’s safe to say we are a bit obsessed with sleep. There’s a theory going around that our generation of parents are so focused on sleep, in part because babies are sleeping worse these days because they are sleeping on their backs-- research has found this to be safest, though some believe babies actually sleep better and longer on their tummies. Maybe there’s some truth to this, but what about the theory that perhaps we just expect more these days, expect more productivity out of our lives and selves, and thus less interference from our babies? We want life to, as much as possible, go on as usual, after the few months (if that) of maternity leave we are allotted. And because we aren’t given enough paid maternity (in Sweden they get 480 days!), then we have to make certain sacrifices that lead to more distance from our babies, like putting our children in daycare or through, arguably, traumatic sleep training. Again, I am not judging parents who make those decisions, whether they do so happily or because they have no other choice. I’m just saying, sleep is a sensitive and hot topic these days, more loaded then you might imagine.

How many of us parents haven’t felt at some point that if our baby isn’t sleeping well—or as well as the Jones’-- that this is somehow partially “our fault”? And how many of us haven’t secretly swelled with pride at some point when our baby was sleeping well, feeling that she must be so well-adjusted and taken care of that she naturally sleeps well, too?  Of course, we don’t speak these judgments out loud, but we feel them on some level. I know I did when Cedar was a “good” sleeper; I secretly patted myself on the back for choosing to co-sleep, and felt bad for those who were getting in and out of bed to go to the nursery each night to feed. And now, of course, I quietly wonder if I am not at least partially to blame for Cedar’s current poor sleep habits. 

In any case, I remind myself that, as so many have said before me, these days will pass quickly and everything will continue to change. I can put forth my best effort-- going on elimination diets, charting my food intake and his sleep patterns, and reading books on “healthy sleep habits”-- but ultimately, maybe my baby is just gonna do what he’s gonna do. And one of these days, when he’s older—whether “older” means two or twenty-two—I’m going to look back and long for these sweet days when he was still small enough to nestle into the crook of my arm, and when I would slide under the sheets at the end of each long day, stretch out, and just watch for a few moments my son’s sleeping face, breathing quietly and peacefully, ushering in the stillness of the night. 

Getting Ready to Fly

Tomorrow we fly to San Diego for my cousin’s wedding. It will be our first time flying with Cedar, first time introducing Cedar to the extended family (on my mom’s side), and most importantly, first time introducing him to my ninety-year-old grandma, assuming she makes it to the wedding. She hasn’t been doing too well lately, so I really hope she can. It will be a short, intense trip with two days of traveling and one day of wedding activities in between. My guess is that we will check into the hotel on Saturday, rest, then find the local equivalent of Whole Foods and stock up on things I can eat since I doubt I’ll be able to eat anything at most restaurants. Maybe, if all goes well, we’ll then be able to bring that food to the beach for a nice picnic dinner next to the ocean waves. And, if that is too ambitious, then we’ll go back to the hotel room, put Cedar down, and breathe a sigh of exhaustion and relief that we made it through the day.

I’ve been anxious to test a few foods before we leave so that I have a few more choices while on the road. So far, I’ve tested fish, almonds, and eggs, and so far, Cedar hasn’t had any obvious reactions. He may have had a little bit more gas than before, but I can’t be sure whether it’s from the food or not. It’s a relief to know that I can at least eat a little bit of these important protein sources, but I haven’t ruled out the possibility that he may have some small sensitivities to these things, which could still result in a major gas bout if combined with other things he’s sensitive to. If many of the foods I test end up with such ambiguous results, it’s going to mean many more months of careful experimentation with combinations and amounts. It’d be nice to emerge from this diet with some clear answers for all of the effort I am putting in, but any way about it, I am probably committed to being a very cautious eater for as long as I am breastfeeding.

I feel like all I talk about these days is me and Cedar’s diet, but that’s what’s been at the center of my awareness, so it is what it is. Each day I must plan ahead and make sure I have enough protein and vegetables stocked to prepare a quick meal in the little bits of time that I have. And some days, the time or energy for this forethought escapes me, and then I end up ravenous, which combined with my usual tiredness is a recipe for an easily overwhelmed and not very happy mama.

We’ve been doing this for a month now, and I’m getting hungry. I broke down and scrambled myself three eggs with basil the other day—testing eggs—even though I technically should have waited one more day since my last test before testing anything new. But I couldn’t take it. I was ravenous, and sick and tired of salad, quinoa, and cold cuts. Sad to say, I’m even sick of avocados. I’ve also been tempted to test coffee on many an occasion, but thus far have decided that it’s more important that I add some of the foods back in before the coffee, so as to improve my diet.

The last thing I want to do is to eat something before we get on the plane that could upset Cedar’s tummy, and have a crying, gassy baby to contend with. Ditto for eating something while at the wedding and for the flight on the way home. I’ve emailed with the bride who has graciously provided me with the wedding menu and together we’ve guessed at things I can probably safely eat. It’s going to be a Korean and Chinese feast, and sadly, I won’t be able to eat most of it, seeing that most things will have garlic, onions, or soy sauce in them, amongst other off-limits ingredients. The only things I will probably be able to eat is the roast beef, salad, rice, and some rice and fruit-based desserts. But that’s better than just rice, which is what I was thinking before I decided to trouble the bride with my huge list of forbidden foods.

But enough about food. Right now, I am just happy that my husband has over a week off from work, and if we return exhausted from our trip (likely), at least we have almost a week still to rest, go out in nature, and enjoy each other’s company. We’re going to a concert at Town Hall next Tuesday (Mark Kocelek from Sun Kil Moon), Cedar’s gas is still way better than before, and he’s been sleeping a bit better too—only waking every two or three hours at night versus every one or two. I’m feeling hopeful. Maybe now that his gas is better, his body is slowly readjusting to his old habits of being a good sleeper. And even if he never returns to his old ways, I’ve recently re-read sections of “The No-Cry Sleep Solution” by Elizabeth Pantley, and I feel more motivated now to tackle the sleep problem from different angles once life continues to get a little bit easier.

Of course, most every day I’m still tired, and every so often I’ll catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror and notice the circles under my eyes. I stopped in at 7-11 last weekend to grab a bottle of wine before Matthew and I went on a rare date, and was surprised that I was not carded. I’ve always been carded, no doubt due to my round, youthful-looking Asian face. But not recently. Perhaps having a child has finally pushed my face over the edge into maturity. And that’s okay. Everything else has changed in my life. I don’t mind finally looking my age.

Speaking of me and Matthew’s date. We had had two hours, including drive time, to go have a picnic at Carkeek Park. When we got there, the lot near the beach was full. We decided we didn’t want to sit amidst lots of people anyway, so we parked near the grassy fields and lay down a blanket in the closest sunny, semi-private patch we saw. It didn’t matter that the spot we chose was facing the parking lot, and far from the most picturesque areas of the park. What mattered was that we maximize our time together just by lying there on a blanket and enjoying a bottle of wine out of a brown bag and with two plastic cups, some snacks, and no baby. I draped my arm across Matthew’s body, and we both breathed deep sighs of relief at being together, alone, connecting and checking in with our feelings. We never made it to the beach, but it didn’t matter.

We are each other’s anchors, we mustn’t forget. And this new life is many things-- a huge joy, a definite trial, a blessing and a supreme challenge. Yes, we are gearing up for our weekend trip with a slight sense of trepidation, but if overall it goes well, then we’ll be able to congratulate each other and share in the satisfaction that we did it, and we did it together. And if it is, more or less, utter hell? Then the same. We will have done it, and done it together.

Progress!

For the last three weeks, I’ve been on an elimination diet to try to get to the root of Cedar’s gas and allergy issues. No dairy, soy, gluten, corn, fish, beans, tomatoes, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, peppers, radishes, kale, turnips, brussell sprouts, coffee, sulfites, garlic, onions, nuts, spicy foods, shellfish, citrus or eggs. So what am I eating, you may ask? Meat, rice products, other vegetables (namely spinach, chard, carrots, potatoes, beets, squash, and cucumbers), fruits, coconut products, quinoa, and millet. With the exception of a few days stint, I have not cut out caffeine completely; I did cut out coffee, which is supposedly the worst, but I’m holding out on that precious cup of tea in the morning, especially since I’ve been so tired lately, and also since I don’t think it’s a major culprit of Cedar’s gas (wishful thinking?). I also have held out on my evening glass of wine, though I’m mostly drinking wine with no added sulfites, since sulfites could possibly be an issue, but I doubt it. So, there you have it, caffeine and alcohol are my hold outs. Hey, I’ve never been a health fiend. I value my emotional stability, and, in these days of self-deprivation on many fronts, tea and wine are a couple of my dearest friends.

Actually, it hasn’t been as hard as it might sound. And it’s been that much easier for me to take on, because I’m doing this not just for myself, but mostly for my baby. True, it is virtually impossible for me to eat anything served in a restaurant, but these days I mostly stay at home anyway, and nor do I have much time to cook, so as long as I keep the fridge stocked with things I can eat, most days I don’t feel that deprived. Breakfast a bowl of rice cereal, and maybe some fruit or turkey sausage, minimally processed. Lunch is often a salad with rice or quinoa, chicken, lots of vegetables, and oil and balsamic. Dinner might be the same, or else maybe some other meat and roasted yams and potatoes. Treats are avocados, salt and vinegar potato chips, coconut ice cream, fruit, and gin and tonics, without the lime. It’s ironic how these days I view a little bit of alcohol as “better” for me and Cedar than, say, broccoli, especially when for the last year I’ve completely avoided alcohol or had very little of it. But when it comes down to varying opinions about how much and when exactly a glass of alcohol gets transmitted through breast milk, versus seeing an immediate correlation between eating a food and then watching your baby cry, arch his back, and struggle in pain some 4-24 hours later, um, I’ll take the gin and tonic. Right now rewarding myself with little treats is often what gets me through a tough day.

The good news is, Cedar’s gas has been mostly absent recently! He still has an occasional squirmy, gassy uncomfortable moment easily attribute to gas, but this seems much more like what one might consider normal, baby gas, gas that passes fairly quickly without a prolonged acrobatic routine of putting him in various positions, massaging his tummy, nursing him, and bouncing him on a ball for hours. And so, by this token, the diet has already been a success.

Cedar’s rash, unfortunately, still has not gone away, except with the help of some topical steroids, which I only wanted to use for a very short period in order to get his itchy, bumpy, red infected cheeks under control. They look way better now, but I know this is only treating the symptom and not the cause. He used to only break out with a rash when I ate dairy; that was the first food that I figured out for sure he was allergic to. But now I’m not sure what this new prolonged rash has been about. I’m wondering now if he doesn’t also have some allergies to environmental stuff, like our cat, or dust, or the detergent we use. So, for now, I’ve washed all our blankets and clothes in a more natural detergent, and will keep looking into other factors if it continues to be a problem. I sure hope we don’t have to get rid of our cat.

Now comes an exciting, yet also potentially new hard stage: adding foods back in. One at a time, with some days spaced in between, testing each forbidden food to see what kind of reaction he has. I’ve been deliberating lately which foods to test first, and which foods I may not want to test at all. I know for sure I’m not testing dairy. I’m also not testing cabbage. And beans and garlic may not be worth it either, based on past reactions.

But back then, before I was on this diet, I never could tell for sure what he was reacting to. And the naturopath I visited taught me that sometimes one can have a small reaction to a lot of different things, and the compounded result is still bad news. So, who knows, maybe on one of those nights I thought Cedar was reacting to the beans, it was actually the little bit of garlic, onions, beans, and kale, all together. After I figure out what he’s allergic to I can experiment with whether eating tiny amounts are tolerable to his system.

I’m eager to test coffee and sulfites, so I can go back to my unrestricted hedonistic ways. I’m also eager to test gluten, soy, and corn, since these things are found and so often hidden in SO many foods. I’m excited to test tomatoes, so that I can hopefully enjoy the crop that we’ll have coming in soon. And fish, nuts, eggs, and citrus, too, since these are all foods I regularly enjoy. It would suck if Cedar was allergic to fish, since my husband is an avid fly fisherman and our freezer is stocked with salmon and steelhead. But the truth is, I’d prefer to give up fish to gluten or soy or caffeine.

Hopefully, we’ll discover a few key culprits, and not that Cedar is allergic to almost everything on the list. But even if he is, at least then I’ll know how to help him live more comfortably, and how to avoid his bouts of pain, which can be so hard on mama’s tender heart and sleep-deprived nerves. And most likely, he will outgrow most of these allergies by the time he’s a toddler. Babies are such sensitive beings.

The bad news is, Cedar’s nighttime sleep patterns have not yet improved. I’d attributed his frequent night waking of the last couple months mostly to gas, but now I’m not so sure. Was it originally due to gas, yet now has just become a newly ingrained bad habit? Or is it more due to the fact that he sleeps so close to me in bed, or that he doesn’t yet know how to go back to sleep on his own? These are questions that can only be solved through more experimentation and trial and error, and experimenting with a whole new sleeping routine is more than I can tackle right now. I think I’ll wait until I’m done reintroducing foods (and potentially revisiting some bad, gassy nights) before I take on any new challenges. One thing at a time.

For now, I’m just so very grateful that we have seen progress, and that all this food deprivation and visits to doctors have not been for nothing. In fact, it’s already been so worth it to now have a happier baby. And the unintentional side effect is that I’m eating healthier and I’m more aware of what I’m putting into my body than ever before.

A Different Kind of Tired

I was talking to my husband the other day about how tiring it is to care for a baby, but how it’s a different kind of tired than going out into the world to work each day. Anticipation of another day with my baby doesn’t keep me up at night with worry, or make me nervous in the same way that I might be if I am about to teach a new class or meet a new roomful of students. It can be utterly exhausting, to be sure, but it isn’t a kind of work that fills my mind with obsessive thoughts or anxiety. It’s a kind of work that for me, for the most part, is blessedly devoid of ego.

There’s no boss to please or clients to impress. There are no communication games to play or battles to wage, no guessing games about hidden intentions, unspoken resentments, or judgments harbored inside. There’s no fear about whether people like you, what impression you are making, all the self-judgment that we pass on ourselves each day. It’s just me and my baby, doing my best to stay present with his needs.

True, his needs are near constant and incredibly demanding with no breaks scheduled in, much less any autonomy to claim them at will-- not even to take a shit or a shower. But at the end of the day, when I am utterly drained, I never have a sense of dread about waking up the next morning and starting a new one. Caring for my baby simply is what it is. In spite of my recent worries about my son’s gas, allergies, and sleep patterns, caring for him is still a cleaner, simpler kind of tired. I trust in my role as his mama. I still worry, yes. But at core I know that I’m doing the best I can.

Caring for any child holds forth an immediate, constant lesson in being present with each moment. It teaches patience and acceptance like no other job I can imagine. If you can master these skills, then you are liable to enjoy child-rearing as your full-time occupation. Days can feel long and spacious. One activity flows into the next. One has the ability to slow way down and to come closer to taking in the world from an infants or child’s perspective. Look at the brilliance of this yellow sunflower. Listen to and watch the magical spray of the water coming out of this hose. Feel the rhythm of this swaying reggae music. The world holds such an infinitude of wonderment and discovery. This is what we wake to each day.

But lest I paint a too idyllic picture of what our days are like, and thus perpetuate the myth that staying home with the kids is somehow easier than going to work in a suit and tie, let me just reiterate that it is not easy, only different. More devoid of psychological maneuvering, yes, but more constant and never-ending—and often compounded by sleep deprivation, chores and housework, and a gnawing reminder of all the other things you’d like to be doing which you no longer have time to do.

My good friend who holds a demanding position at a nonprofit and who recently returned to near full-time work after over three months of maternity leave, has said that the days where she is at work all day are actually less tiring than the days she is at home with the baby. She’s come to appreciate little pockets of time, such as riding the bus to and from work each day, in which she is not doing anything, and where she can just be by herself. Herein lies a key difference. When you are a full-time mother or childcare giver, you don’t have any moments to yourself to take a breather.

Being at home alone with my baby for four days a week, I want my husband to understand how hard it is, even when to him it may sound like most of my days are fairly carefree (met so and so at the park, walked to the pond, watched Family Feud, etc.). It may look like I do a lot of laying around on blankets or nursing in bed, but those moments of “rest” are never really restful in the way that one can rest when you have the ability to completely “check out”. For when you are caring for a child, you are always “on.” And this seems doubly true for a new mother, in which your body is programmed to tense and jump and sometimes, yes, run, at the slightest call and need from your baby. Even when you sleep. You are always on call.

I certainly don’t envy my husband, however, when he has to pack his bags on Monday mornings and head out onto the road, giving presentations to doctors and trying to get his foot in the door at clinic after clinic. And I do possess a certain freedom and luxury in my ability to stay home all day if I please, hang out with new mom friends, and not have to engage with many of the stressors of the outside world. But if he could live my 24-hour a day reality for even just a week, I’m sure he’d have a new appreciation of what I do. And likewise, if I lived his job and work week, I would too.

But as it is, I envy his ability to take off to the river alone at the end of a long, hard day and fish in the elements until nightfall. Or to meet up spontaneously with a friend for dinner and a beer. Or to even have a beer without waiting till nightfall, and even then, still feeling slightly guilty for it. I envy the ways in which he is still very much a free agent in the world, with an identity that is separate from the baby still intact, or, at very least, still easily accessible. I envy the fact that he’s gotten hours upon hours of time away from the immediate demands of being a new parent since Cedar was born, whereas I could probably easily tally the short, two-hour dashes to a café breaks I’ve had they are still so infrequent and precious. And most recently, I envy the fact that he can eat whatever he wants without worrying about how it will affect the baby, and how he still sleeps sound and hard most nights, whereas I wake up every couple hours to have to nurse and settle Cedar.

And yet, I still wouldn’t trade places with my husband. For I can’t imagine giving up the intimate bond I have with my baby; I would feel sad to not be the one who is closest to him. Despite my complaints, I am grateful to be the one who stays home with our baby. I can’t imagine being on the road, away from home, so many days a week. And I am grateful that my husband is out there, working hard to support us.

In my ideal world, I could still work part-time, and we could trade off more of the care for our baby. But the problem is, the kind of work I do, as a freelance writing teacher, editor, and mentor, never did bring in very much money. And the work I miss the most—my soul work, my creative work, my writing--  hardly brought in any money at all. So this is the way it must be for now, the best arrangement we have found. I must continue to learn the lessons of patience and acceptance from my baby and my role as full-time mama. And I must allow for this work to feed me as much as it can, to not pine so much for what I’ve given up, but to hold fast to all that I’ve gained.

Yes, everyone said it would be tiring, and it is. But it’s a different kind of tired than I’ve known before. It’s a kind of tired that is less existential, and more rooted in the present moment. For there’s no question in my mind that what I’m doing right now is what is most important, and that it’s what I’ve chosen.

Tears and Decaf

This has been a hard couple weeks, maybe the hardest since Cedar was born. All of his gas and allergy problems, plus me being run down with a cold, plus health issues in my extended family, all compounded by my lack of sleep and rest, has resulted in a swelling of my emotions, all of my worry and exhaustion coming to the surface in tears.

I have always been a fan of tears, however. That is, I am usually relieved when I finally come around to crying again, especially if I can really have at it in privacy and let out those wailing sounds of desperation. Because then, usually, I feel better, even if there are still more tears that need to be let out. For tears are always inside of me, dormant, waiting to build up enough that they finally must be released. So when they do come, I welcome them with a degree of relief. Oh, yes. You again. What took you so long?

I’ve cried a few times in this last week already. The last time was on Monday morning when I was finally going to get my long-awaited date with myself and my journal at a café. Only since I am on an elimination diet now, I could not have my usual coffee (much less dairy or soy). So I ordered a decaf, which was lukewarm and sour. I drank it down nonetheless in the midst of chattering parents and noisy children at Top Pot, and tried to begin a new blog post about finally visiting a naturopath for Cedar’s allergy and gas issues. But I gave up after a few paragraphs. Not only did I not feel like rehashing the ordeal that we’ve been going through right then (especially since that morning Cedar’s red cheeks looked even worse than the day before, right when I thought they were getting better which left me demoralized and sad), but I also was not getting that usual caffeine kick that I’ve come to depend on to get me started with these blog entries. Normally, I can quickly overcome a bad night’s sleep, sit down, focus, and crank a first draft out in an hour or two, but not this day. Instead, I gave up after half an hour and drove home in tears, proceeding to bury my head in my husband’s chest. “What’s wrong?” he asked (he later told me he thought it was something awful, like I’d gotten in a car accident). “I’m too tired to write,” I cried. “And I just had the worst cup of decaf.”

I decided I just needed to sleep, forget about writing today. Matthew left to take Cedar on a walk, I got in bed, cried a little, then lay there for almost an hour, unable to go to sleep. Finally I got up to eat and resume the thus far disappointing day. Later on that day, I tried to sleep with Cedar three times while he napped, but every time my mind wouldn’t turn off, especially when fueled by the knowledge that I needed to fall asleep quickly if I wanted to get in more than a few minutes before he woke up again. No luck.

Later, at 9:30 in the evening, after Cedar had been down for a while and I’d finally managed to send off an important email, I decided to go to bed early, despite the fact that my husband was still home, the last night of his five-day weekend. Again, I lay in bed for an hour and could not fall asleep. So, I got up, took a shower, poured myself a glass of wine, and joined my husband on the couch. Slowly I felt myself begin to decompress. I guess I needed to unwind my mind, let out all this worry and exhaustion I’ve been carrying, even if it meant that I yet again wouldn’t get enough sleep that night. It was more important that I sit and be with my emotions. Sift through all those layers that were now churning in my chest where they’d risen to, more fluid and accessible than before. Still liable to spill out with the right word spoken at the right time, but easier now at least for me to sit with them calmly, breathe in and out of their pores.

I didn’t mean to write this blog entry today. I wanted to go for something more positive this time, about an aspect of motherhood that I’m grateful for, and have wanted to write on for weeks. I don’t want to people think that I complain a lot, or am depressed, or that I am not, at core level, enjoying motherhood, because I am. But I guess I still need to get this other stuff out of the way first. And there is a lot of “stuff” that builds up when you don’t have the time to properly take care of yourself.

Today, my mother is watching Cedar for three hours after returning from L.A., where she has been taking care of her mother. When she wasn’t here for three weeks, and right in the midst of a lot of my stressors, I realized how much I’d come to depend on this weekly Wednesday afternoon break, how much of a difference even just a couple hours to myself can make, especially when they are a scheduled into my life, and I can look forward and depend on them each week.

I don’t always write during this time. Sometimes I get a massage, and other times I simply do chores and run errands. But these days, even doing chores and running errands can feel like a break, if you aren’t trying to do them while still caring for a baby.

But I don’t want to end this blog now on a complaining note like that. It’s not that I always want to tie a Pollyanna bow on the end of every post or essay, but it’s more that I am striving to keep everything in perspective, to remember how good I still have it compared to so many. Things have been rough, yes, but I feel like I hit my low point last week, and now things are on the upswing. Things will get rough again, and again I will finally come to the point of tears, and then slowly, things will get better again. And it is only through reaching those low points that I can finally be blessed with my tears again, and start to realize how hard it really has been, and then remember that I can and should ask my community for all the love and support they can give me.  

I feel like during the first couple months of this motherhood endeavor, I was surprised and pleased by how good I was handling things, especially the single-mom for four days a week aspect of my arrangement. These last couple months have been more challenging. I still think I’ve been handling it pretty well, but I also now acknowledge how much it has caught up with me. It’s been hard. And no need to tell me “it will get better” or to “hang in there,” because I know it will get better, and then it will get worse, and then it will get better—and around and around—because that is how life goes. And I will hang in there, of course, because I have to, and because I’m still breathlessly in love with my son, and with this thing called life.