America is horrified and fascinated by your story but don’t get confused by this attention; America pretty much hates you and I am willing to bet, young moms hate you most.
Living only a few hours from you, I began following your story in 2008 when your beautiful child went missing and I had a newborn. I projected onto you how I would feel if my new daughter were missing. The thought made my stomach hurt yet I stayed glued to the set.
When they found your daughter’s body in a trash bag in the woods with tape over her mouth, my daughter was a still-screaming-non-stop-7-month-old. I thought about you. I wondered if you lost your shit. I wanted to lose my shit too. I was angry that my baby was so hard while others’ seemed easy. I was anxious and worried about crazy things like giant snakes getting into my house and biting my baby while she slept. My sleep deprivation fueled some dark post-partum thoughts, too horrible to write here. But I put my child first; I didn’t allow myself to entertain these thoughts.
I asked for help, something you had in abundance. How blessed to have your parents, not only involved, but willing to house you and help you in any way they could.
I wondered if you were too young to understand the unspoken maternal code that we protect against all costs. This means that there is no more “you” as you existed before. Moms mourn that loss of self and move forward through packing lunches and nighttime routines and potty training and kissing boo boos. This means that playing drinking games with tatted college dropout types while wrapped in an American flag is not an activity you get to do anymore. Pretty much every action that made you a reckless 20-something girl is out and the Mom order is in. In even shorter terms- suck it up and be effing responsible for the child you created. Even when you don’t want to. Even when you are careening on the edge of your own sanity. Even when it is no damned fun. Even when you are still a girl yourself.
Do what all the moms do. Pop a Xanax. Have a cigarette. Pour yourself a glass of wine and call your friend. Give yourself a Time Out before the unspeakable can be entertained.
Despite your new upswept ponytail and your pastel button down tops, we cannot get out of our heads the pictures of you partying while your daughter was missing. Whatever the jury comes back with, we moms have already found you guilty. Guilty of putting yourself before your innocent child.
Once a week there is a nighttime knock on my door, followed by an exchange of quizzical looks between my husband and me, and then I sprint to the door to mouth to the tall, familiar man on my doorstep, “My husband is home. Come back later”.
Thank God my UPS man just gets me.
The hiding of packages and bags is an art form bestowed upon me by my mother, the fashionable and well-shopped Donna Diva who knew all her UPS men on a first-name basis. My mom fondly retells her first mail-order story from the 1960’s when she was a sixth grader longing for a contraption that held up her school knee socks. (Catholic school girls have limited self-expression by day). From there she was hooked on mail-order shopping and I followed suit. When I was in high school, our nighttime routine involved perusing catalogues in bed together. From J.Crew to VSC to Boston Proper and the one with a romantic story per garment; we loved to browse for ideas to recreate looks.
My mom had many secret shopping skills. She left bags in her trunk until the coast was clear to transfer. She had packages delivered to work. She learned from a savvy neighbor how to do the charge/send while traveling so your husband wouldn’t ever see your purchases and the item comes conveniently to your house after you’re settled back in. Genius. Call it financial infidelity or fun, most women I know employ sneaky tricks to avoid Husband Tweakage.
As my mom kicked plastic bags under her bed at the sound of the garage door going up, my mail order habit grew and I learned to track down any item in Vogue that I desired. I still have a pair of Anne Klein kitten heels with laser cut pink and red leather flowers that I ordered from New York as soon as I could save my Steinmart paychecks to cover the price tag.
Then two things happened to my shopping life that altered it forever. The internet was born and one could shop 24 hours a day in their pajamas and, I married my sweet and fiscally-conservative high school friend who majored in Finance. Of course he was madly charmed by me, but not as in love with my spending habits, so the packages moved to my car trunk. That was over a decade ago.
I have learned to budget, but I still consider shopping online my fave sport, even if it is only vitamins or kid’s crap or sale stuff. Occasionally something fun for me creeps into my online shopping cart like make-up.
The reward that online ordering offers is the ultimate Pleasure Delay. How boring to shop at a mall when the transaction is quickly finished and the shopping high swashed. From the click of the Place Order button until the goods arrive at my house, I wait with anticipation for the beautiful sound of the UPS truck brakes screeching before my house. Then I slice open. And sample. And bask. In total privacy. I love to shop alone, without my dear husband lurking for the price tags.
Family folklore has it that my mother later divorced over an argument involving her purchase of $500 red leather boots. I choose a different path. If I can’t have Carrie Bradshaw’s closet and Mr. Big then I am more interested in staying married to my man. That doesn’t mean however, that I have to totally stop seeing my UPS man.
“All Hands on Deck”- a frazzled state when all kids are crying, you just realized you are fresh out of formula and everyone must lend a hand. This is not the time for Sports Center.
Bangs- cheaper than Botox.
Barf on your shoes- in my former life, barf on my shoes was discovered Sunday afternoon upon waking and always accompanied an excellent night-before mystery. Now it is just spit-up. Mystery solved.
Birth plan- shut up already with your soy candles and Mozart. My birth plan was called, “get the baby out alive and make sure I am okay too”. Expectations higher than that and you might leave the hospital heartbroken.
Coffee-Maker- 1. Your sweet husband who knows you’ve been up since 5 a.m. with the teething baby. When he makes your coffee it just tastes better. 2. The only way a mom can make it to nap time. 3. The barista at the Starbucks drive-thru. 4. Your beloved Keurig.
Convonesia- when you try to have a conversation with your husband at 9 p.m. while “True Blood” is on and you are both about to pass out on the couch, you are having a convonesia. One person says something, then an immeasurable amount of time elapses, then someone says, “What were we talking about again?” and no one can remember.
Church- a place where your toddler will pull up and down your dress until all body parts have been exposed to fellow parishioners. When it is time to turn around and shake “peace be with you” you have to leave immediately so the family of six behind you will never be able to place your postpartum ass to your face.
“Cry It Out”- this happens when you are trying to take a much needed nap and your spouse has the screaming baby in the other room because he wants to help you “relax”. How long you can handle this situation and actually try to get some shut-eye is a test of your will.
Entertainment Tonight, Us Weekly, E! and Bravo- where you get all the news that your exhausted mind can handle. How many times Lindsay’s gone to rehab, is Beyonce finally pregnant?, and the Kardashian family become very important characters in your life.
“I have nothing to wear…really”- like the boy who cried wolf, you abused this excuse pre-bambinos to go shopping often but today your old career clothes, your maternity clothes, your going-out clothes and your transition clothes do not actually work anymore. Underpinnings included. You have been any number of different sizes for a few years and have no clue what you are today. This could cause a former fashionista to have an identity-crisis though it might also be an opportunity to nuke the whole closet and start over.
Family vacation- after packing for 2 days, you and your spouse will get less time together than usual since one parent will sleep with one child and one the other. Your kids, however, will have a blast. My toddler is still saying her favorite part of her summer vacation was “my baycation bed- sleeping with Mommy!” Translation- mommy didn’t sleep a wink. It is advised that you bring one bottle of wine per day to save your sanity. When home, be prepared to do laundry for a week and a half even though you were gone 2 days. Then immediately start planning your next vacation-child-free.
My Publix Bestie- another mom you randomly run into at parks, stores and free kiddie events. You know her stance on sleep training, organic baby food and spanking but you don’t know her name. You probably know her children’s names. This happened to me last week in the dairy aisle of the grocery store with the mom of 6-week-old William. I totally love that chick but I have no clue who she is.
Natural child birth- what your first pregnancy goal is for labor. When you find yourself in hour ten of labor and still only 3 centimeters your conviction changes dramatically.
New Mom Bubble- what you are living in the first months of new motherhood when you feel like everyone must be speaking to you underwater. If someone asks you a question you will surely have no idea what they are saying or why they are bothering you and it might piss you right off. I remember writing my own name instead of my daughter’s for the first six months that I checked her into the pediatrician.
Play date from hell- once a mom came to my house three hours late, let her kid almost break a drawer knob off an antique, told me my house was dirty, swept my floor, then insulted my child somewhere in there too. I wish I was making this up! I couldn’t get her out of my house fast enough. Rule of thumb- ask yourself if you would have been friends pre-motherhood. If not, no play dates.
Phantom lice- the mere mention of a friend of a friend’s kids getting lice causes you to go into a psycho cleaning frenzy and itch your scalp for days. You might even check the kids a few times even though your kids haven’t played with those kids. Ever.
SAHM verbal diarrhea- this is a grave and embarrassing affliction that can affect a stay-at-home mom or dad (also includes those who work from home) into speaking quickly and non-stop when they come across another grown-up. It is a very dangerous disorder because you don’t sense it until you have gone too far and the other person is nodding and walking slowly away from you.
Saturday afternoon nap time- the first chance you and your husband have all week to get “reacquainted”.
Shower- 1. pulling your greasy hair into a ponytail. 2. The ten minutes between one child going down for their nap and the other one waking up from theirs when you try to bathe.
Suicide Hour- coined by Andrea, this is from 5-6, 6-7 or worst-case-scenario from 5 until bedtime when low blood sugar makes way for insanity at the same time you attempt to bathe/feed/clean .
Ten-minute meals- how fast dinner needs to be every single night; even faster than Rachel Ray and that Semi-Homemade lady. I call this “assembly cooking”. Pre-cooked, pre-chopped everything just shoved together and voila! A healthy dinner of chicken-rice-something with a side salad is served.
Xanax- you had me at hello.
Originally posted August 25, 2010. It was so good I had to post it again!
As I engaged in potty-training combat with my toddler over the last year, I began envisioning her walking into her middle school classroom wearing giant Princess Pull-Ups. I started and stopped the training a dozen times when potty-resistant Punky didn’t seem ready. It’s been a long year. But last week Punky turned 3 and her August preschool deadline crept uncomfortably closer, especially since I signed school paperwork that claims my child will be “potty proficient” by then. Tick Tock, tick tock.
First I turned to my family. Family folklore has it that my dad potty-trained my brother and me in our kitchen in two days when we were both under three. He has no recollection of how he did this; I’ve asked many times. My mom, who said she was too impatient to train us herself, has no memory of how my dad did it either. My husband and his then-Assistant-Principal mom had Spring Break Potty Showdown ‘81 that ended in suppositories and a serious battle of wills that we still joke about today. And my step-mom said my sister completely trained herself, just deciding to ditch diapers one day.
Needing a little more to go on, I asked my girlfriends for advice.
A had success with the 3-day naked method. L said not to sweat it, that I had lots of time. C said it was a process that can take months. And years ago, T described potty training as “the first real crisis” of parenting. She is an actress so I thought she was being melodramatic. Not so much.
Before I fully committed, I tried to skim books to make sure I was going about PT the right way but then quickly decided I couldn’t stomach another “How to _______ for Dummies” read. Parenting books can be insulting to your intelligence, sanctimonious, preachy. The last thing an anxious parent needs is to be called a dumb-ass. I like to figure things out on my own anyway, so I dove in with the No-Real-Plan Plan.
Now in PT week two, I think we’re hitting our stride. Here is the wisdom I have gleaned in the hopes it could help you:
1.My toddler is a Taurus. This means she is a stubborn little bull and everything must be her idea. If I want her to think it’s her idea I have to gently massage my idea into her brain without her catching on. (Much like a husband). But sometimes I get frustrated and have to wrestle her to the potty, while she attempts to break free and throw a hissy fit. Then she pees down her leg which I believe in the animal kingdom translates to, “You can’t control me biyatch”. So I have to be subtle. And use bribes…
2. M&M’s work. A little bit. I am generally against “food as reward” systems but chocolate can rule a toddler. I might be trading cavities for diapers but after three years’ worth of zillions of diapers, I am OK with this tradeoff.
3. Some toddlers are terrified by the flushing mechanism and believe they will be sucked down into the watery vortex of the toilet. At least mine does. She will only work with her plastic one, the portable and pink Princess Potty. It comes everywhere with us. I take comfort in thinking that Cleopatra probably also traveled with her own private toilet contraption.
4. Whilst in the throes of p-training, you cannot actually leave your house. The days I braved outings were the days Punky had accidents. So I do brief stints everywhere and make her try before we leave.
5. The extra laundry is a bitch.
6. Daycare kids have a leg up. Sometimes I think I should have enrolled Punky in school earlier. Then she would have witnessed kids her age going to the bathroom and the peer pressure might have worked to my advantage. Some daycares actually potty train children. If your child gets potty-trained at their daycare don’t brag about it to me or I will stab you in the boob.
7. Whatever the major change, Day 5 will be hell. Day 5 is the day your child knows it is no longer a game and they want out. Day 5 Punky was on the floor screaming for a Pull-Up and by 7 p.m., I almost cracked.
8. Sibling rivalry is a blessing. Everyone joked with me that I should train both girls at once. First I thought this was insane but as our family is now potty-obsessed, this was not lost on my 15-month-old. Peachy has successfully used the potty and is extremely interested in all things Big Sister. It could work but I am not letting myself get too excited just yet…
9. My pediatrician told me that there are two types of potty-trainers. Ones who just “get it” all of the sudden and ones that put up a fight. I am praying for my own sanity that this theory is correct and that I have one of each.
10. Stick-to-itiveness. Consistency gets the job done and leaves you an exhausted shell of your former self. Since the end of the world didn’t come and relieve me of my potty trainee duties this week, I have no choice but to charge forward, dealing with one pee pee dance at a time.
