The creepiest children's book ever

Anyone else out there think the children's book Love You Forever by Robert Munsch is totally creepy? I had never read or even heard of this book prior to receiving it as a gift at my baby shower (and thank goodness for that because it probably would have scarred me for life if I'd read it as a child). It was given to me and the little peanut pie by my friend Erin who admitted that she only picked it because she remembered having it when she was young.

Throughout my pregnancy I'd periodically pick out a book we'd been given and read it. I have to say that when I got around to Love You Forever I was a little horrified. Apparently it's one of the best selling children's books of all time, ranked 4th by Publisher's Weekly back in 2001, according to Wikipedia. And Maria Shriver can't read it without crying (also Wikipedia), so maybe it's just me.

If you're not familiar with the story it begins with a mother holding her newborn baby while singing a lullaby:

"I'll love you forever,
I'll like you for always,
As long as I'm living
my baby you'll be."

Not such a bad start. Quite sweet actually. But then the crawling across the room starts. Now I've tiptoed into the little guy's room to watch him sleep a time or two, but I've never felt the need to crawl across the room, pick him up out of his crib and rock him back and forth (doesn't this lady know you're supposed to let sleeping babies SLEEP?). I'm quite sure I won't be doing it when he's 2 years old, or 9 years old, or a teenager. And I'm sure as shit not going to drive across town, sneak into my grown son's bedroom window, crawl across the floor and pick him up to rock him back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

Now each time the mother is rocking her increasingly older son back and forth, back and forth, she sings the lullaby. But before each new trek across her kid's floor she's basically talking about what a horrible child he is. He runs around the house, he flushes her watch down the toilet, he never wants to take a bath, he swears like a sailor when grandma is around, he has strange friends and listens to strange music. She never has anything good to say about him. He drives her crazy! He belongs in a zoo! But she loves him anyway and across his floor she goes. And then he up and leaves her. Grows up and moves all the way across town. How dare he?! I feel sorry for whoever this poor sap marries. Talk about the helicopter mother-in-law from hell.

And then this poor guy, probably in therapy because he keeps waking up to find his mother crawling across his bedroom floor, gets a call from her one day. She says, "You better come and see me because I'm very old and sick." So now she's totally guilt-tripping him. He goes over, dutiful son that he is, and it's supposed to be all poignant because this time he's the one rocking her back and forth, back and forth, and singing his version of the lullaby. And then she dies. Or it's at least implied that she dies. SERIOUSLY? Like I'm going to read my young son a book about his mother (ME!) dying? I don't think so.

The son returns home only to pick up his newborn daughter, rock her back and forth, yadda yadda, singing his mother's lullaby and the twisted cycle starts all over again. At least he doesn't crawl across the floor.

Before I started this post I did a little research into the book, which according to the author's website is very popular with the retirement community set. It turns out that Love You Forever was inspired by the author's two stillborn babies. Now that made me feel a little bad about what I was planning to write about it, but I can't help it. IT CREEPS ME OUT!

Incidentally, I also saw on Wikipedia that Love You Forever was featured in a Friends episode in which Joey does a dramatic reading of it. I must have missed that one but I bet is was hilarious.  

On the gender inequality of diaper character licensing

So this is the type of thing I think about now that I'm a mom.

The little pipsqueak and I watch Sesame Street together nearly every weekday as he winds down for his morning nap and maybe sometimes I keep watching, or at least have it on in the background, while he's sleeping. I've become quite a fan of "Abby's Flying Fairy School" and you never know what random guest stars will show up and have to act with puppet chickens.

What I want to know is when is Abby Cadabby going to make it onto Pampers Little Swaddlers or Cruisers? Or Zoe? Or Rosita? I think the folks over at Proctor & Gamble need to have themselves a serious *twinkle think* about the gender inequality represented in their diapers. I refuse to believe that these kid-loving ladies turned down the endorsement deal. I'm guessing they were never even given the offer, unlike their male counterparts on Sesame Street. Maybe the makers of Pampers are worried that parents won't want to put their little boys in diapers with girly characters on them. Well, why the heck not? Lots of little girls wear diapers with Elmo, Big Bird, Cookie Monster and Oscar the Grouch on them.

Just me?

Puppet ladies represent!
(photo courtesy of Muppet Wiki)

Update (July 17, 2015): As it turns out, Zoe does appear on Pampers Baby Dry diapers (we hadn't tried these yet). I promise more thorough research the next time I decide to accuse folks in the diaper industry of raging sexism.

Drowning in a puddle

I'll never forget the feelings I experienced after my son was born. It was this overwhelming mixture of love and awe and pride. I couldn't believe that in my arms (after he got through a scary, difficult transition) was this incredible little life that I had brought into the world. And yes, I know my husband had a hand in things, but I carried him for nine months and I gave birth to him and I could go into everything that those two things entail, but we all know it's just not the same. I didn't sleep a wink that first night after he was born, totally wired from what I'd been through that day and now instantly hypersensitive to every sound the little bundle of snorts made.

The first couple weeks at home weren't much different. I was completely sleep deprived, making it through those early days on sheer bliss alone. But as the days progressed and the pure need of a newborn began to take its toll that euphoria started to fade, and something much sinister started creeping in in its place. I started a gradual downward spiral that became less and less something I had any control over. By the time my son was two months old I knew it was time to get some help, that this was more than just the baby blues, that it wasn't something I could just snap myself out of. I think that was the day my husband came home from work to find me rocking the baby with, as he put it, a thousand yard stare on my face.

I had slipped into a whopping case of postpartum depression and anxiety. I'd find myself swinging between the two with brief passes through, for lack of a better term, my normal self. The depression was centered around my inability to let go of my old life. I mourned my freedom. I grieved for it. I could no longer go for a run whenever I wanted. I couldn't nest on the couch all Sunday afternoon with the cats and a book. I couldn't even go out to get the mail. I had this little being who needed me all the time. He needed to be fed every two hours, his diapers changed regularly, and though he was always a pretty good sleeper at night he would only nap in my arms. I had sworn up and down I wouldn't be one of those mothers who never put her baby down, but he wouldn't have it any other way. All newborns are are reflex and need. And that need is a 24 hour job. And the days were so long. He was born in January and all winter long I was cooped up in a small condo. I longed for spring so we could at least get outside. But inside, I could feel my identity slipping away. I was a mom now. I kept telling myself my life was about him now. I needed to let go of who I had become over the 38 years before he was born. But it was so hard. When things started to get really bad my husband told me that he missed the person he'd married and he wanted her back. But I knew she didn't exist anymore. She was gone forever. I was a mom now. I kept telling myself that I needed to snap out of my funk. And I tried. I truly did. But it didn't work and there were times when all I wanted to do was curl up under the covers and shut the world away.

And then there was the anxiety. I just could not understand how I was supposed to do it all. Take care of the baby, keep the condo clean, get dinner on the table, go back to work, eventually start running again. Everything else. I knew there were moms out there who did it all the time, but it all seemed so insurmountable to me. I would obsess over smaller things, like getting him out of the Rock n Play and into his crib, getting him on a good schedule, and his torticollis, which I blamed myself for even though our pediatrician said it wasn't my fault. I stressed about breastfeeding, which was rarely easy or relaxing for either me or the baby. To be completely honest, I hated it. When I finally chose to call it quits (after agonizing over the decision) I then stressed about the amount of fluoride in our water. It was always something and I envisioned a lifetime full of somethings stacked up one after the other in my future. The anxiety was eating me alive.

The depression and anxiety were exacerbated by a whole host of things. Crazy hormones, sleep deprivation. There were times I had a really difficult time not resenting my husband. He got to leave every day and go to work. He got to run. It always seemed that when he was home and had the baby I was either washing dishes or cooking dinner or doing laundry whereas if I had the baby he was on the internet or reading or watching TV. His life had hardly changed at all, or so it seemed to me at the time. He was always willing to help with the baby and never questioned anything I asked him to do, even getting up in the middle of the night. But I always had to ask and that started to get to me. He's lucky I didn't take his head off the day he was playing with the baby after getting home from work and made the comment, "This parenting stuff isn't so tough." I would get jealous of my sister (whose youngest is 14) if she mentioned she slept in one morning. I envied my mom for being able to go to a movie with friends.

I began to think I had made a huge mistake, that I had ruined my life. And of course that added intense feelings of guilt and hypocrisy to the pile weighing me down. After all, we'd tried for over a year and a half to get pregnant. We'd been told our chances weren't good. I'd cried over negative pregnancy tests, hysterically balled my eyes out when my sister-in-law got pregnant pretty much on their first try (or so I heard). I deactivated my Facebook account in order to avoid pregnancy announcements. And now here I was, with this beautiful miracle baby that I was having a hard time not regretting having.  

At one point my mom told me she wished she'd taken a picture of my face after he was born, so she could remind me of the joy I had felt. And that was the worst part of it all. She didn't need to remind me, with a picture or otherwise. I remembered. I remembered it all. The joy, the awe, the pride. I remembered and it was killing me that I'd lost it. Because of course everything I was feeling was effecting how I felt about him. There were times I would look at him and see my little guy, the beautiful little boy I'd wanted so much, that I'd created out of love and hope with my husband and brought into this world and named after my father. But other times it was like a fog descended between us and all I could see was a baby. A baby who needed to be fed again. Or was wet again. Or crying again.

My mom told me I hadn't lost those feelings of love and awe, that they were still there, just buried underneath all of the sadness and fear that had spun so wildly out of my control. Indeed, I felt as if I was in completely over my head, struggling to stay afloat, barely able to come up for air.

I look back now, only four months later, and I can see that I was drowning in a puddle.

The day of the thousand yard stare I handed the baby to my husband, drove over to my parents' house a few miles away and cried my eyes out. I knew I needed help. I needed to be healthy and completely present for my little boy and my husband. Two days later my mom, husband, baby and I all trooped into my doctor's office and I laid it all out. We walked out with a prescription for an anti-depressant and the mindset that I was going to beat this. I could not have asked for a stronger support system. My mom basically shut down her life to be with me every day for two weeks, until Leo got home from work, while I tried to adjust to a medication that was completely wrong for me until I took the steps to get it changed (that hellish two weeks is a sidebar I'll share on another day). My sister and dad were there for me. Leo's parents were there to help in any way they could. And Leo? Leo was incredible. He was incredibly patient and supportive and I know that couldn't have been easy for him. After all, I was going through something he not only couldn't possibly understand in anything but the vaguest sense, but it was also scaring the crap out of him. I never told him this, and at the time I certainly didn't recognize it, but looking back I've never felt as loved by him as I did in those few weeks. He stood by me through it all. He just wanted me to get better.

And I did. I got on the right medication, which of course helped, but my recovery stemmed from so much more than chemistry. By this time the snow was melting and the days were getting nicer. We were able to get out for walks. I eventually started running again, which was huge for me. But the biggest factor in my recovery was the little one himself. The fog lifted just in time for him to start laughing. I could see his smiles for the incredible gifts they were. I was back to looking at him, seeing my little guy, and melting into a pile of goo. The love and awe and pride were back, this time joined by confidence and strength and joy, and they all continue to grow stronger every day.

I said above that when I look back, it's as if I was drowning in a puddle. Why? All that ALL I was so stressed out about? Well, guess what, I'm doing it. I'm taking care of the baby (and loving every minute of it). I'm working. I'm training. I'm cooking dinner. I'm keeping the condo clean. I'm even getting ready to move (we found a house!). Granted I might not get a run in every day, I'm only working three half days a week, I might let the bathrooms go a little longer between cleanings, and, yes, Leo and I still sometimes have cereal for dinner. But for the most part, shit gets done! Those smaller stresses? He's been sleeping in his crib since he was 11 weeks old (HERE). That schedule I agonized about getting him on he basically just fell into himself, and my once nap-resistant baby now naps like a pro. In his crib. He's in physical therapy for his torticollis and it's slowly but surely getting better.

I stopped missing the life I had before the little peanut and started living the life I have now. And before I knew it I was getting pieces of myself back, and little freedoms began to return. First it was getting a run in here and there. Now for the first time I had to schedule a day off today because I've run 8 days in a row, including a race, and I'm still trying to come back slowly. There's time now to watch a TV show or movie if Leo and I feel like it, which we rarely do, though that has more to do with wanting an early bedtime ourselves. I don't get jealous anymore when I hear of other people sleeping in. Some mornings I'm even up BEFORE the little slugabed. I'm not blowing through two books a week anymore, but I'm getting plenty of time to read before I go to bed myself. Or during the little snoozer's naps when I'm not doing other things like packing or blogging or cleaning (and I certainly didn't write this post in one sitting). I no longer see the little scamp as taking away from my life but for what he adds to it. The things that were important to me to have back in my life, I've gotten back in my life. Other things I've let go of for the time being. There might be time for those things later on, but for now I don't miss them. Now I get to fill my time with things like making the little guy laugh, bath time, playtime, soothing him when he's upset, and trying new foods (we start Stage 2 this week!). I've watched him master rolling over and sitting on his own. Crawling, walking and talking are all still to come, along with so much more. I can't wait for the first time he lunges into my arms.

Any resentment I had for Leo faded away as we settled back into a routine. And it means the world to me that he has never thrown what I went through back in my face. He's an incredible husband and father and I'm thankful for him every day.

I knew I would one day want to write about my struggle with postpartum depression and anxiety but I didn't particularly enjoy revisiting that dark time. It's hard to think about it and not get angry at myself for letting it happen, even though I know it wasn't anything I had any control over. It's hard not to beat myself up for the time that I lost, even if it was just a matter of weeks that the little stinker will  never remember anyway. I will remember. I won't ever forget that time. I wish I hadn't had to go through it. I wish I hadn't scared my husband and family like that. But, as cliche as this sounds, I'm probably a better and stronger mother now for having gone through it.

When things were bad I once asked Leo if he thought we'd made a mistake. He said absolutely not, that the little guy was the best thing we'd ever done. He was right. He is the best thing we've ever done. The best thing I've ever done. The world is an infinitely better place with him in it and I can no longer imagine my life without him. I don't want to.

We're terrible at selfies. 

The nocturnal gymnastics of infants

When the little bedbug was 11 weeks old we moved him into his crib. I was anxious to get him out of the Fisher Price Rock 'n Play sleeper, for reasons I won't rant about go into now, but I'd read horror stories online about how difficult the transition could be. At this point he was sleeping up to 8 hours at night, and although the thought of ruining that bliss was daunting, I was determined that it was time for him to sleep in his crib, in his own room.

By this time he was already busting out of the Aden + Anais blankets we'd been swaddling him in, but his startle reflex was still so strong that I knew there was no way he'd sleep without his arms snug and secure. Enter the Miracle Blanket. It's basically a little straight jacket for babies and I figured there was no way he'd be able to Houdini out of it (ha, wait for it…). That first night of Mission Crib I fed him his last bottle, rocked him sleepy, wrapped the shit out of him, re-rocked him to sleep, laid him in his crib and prayed.

He slept seven hours! Hallelujah! ALL PRAISE THE MIRACLE BLANKET!!!

My sister says he looks like the little caterpillar from The Fox and the Hound

(Of course I didn't sleep at all that first (or second) night, as I was up each hour frantically checking him on the monitor.)

We settled into a new routine, nice long stretches of sleep for everyone, the little dreamer snug as a caterpillar in a cocoon in his Miracle Blanket. Until, that is, the night I woke up, looked at his monitor and he was gone! I leapt out of bed and ran to his room, totally freaked that David Bowie had stolen my baby (I certainly didn't remember saying the words). Thankfully I did not burst into the little pill's room to find a spandex-clad glam rocker, twirling his crystal sphere and telling me to forget about the baby. The only little goblin in the room was my own. He had wiggled his way to the bottom of his crib and out of view of the camera. There should be a section in baby books reserved for the first heart attack I gave mommy.

And so began the phase I like to call "How will we find the little inchworm in the morning?"

Like this?

Looks pretty satisfied with himself, doesn't he?

Or my personal favorite?

WTF?

That little stinker turned a perfect 180 degrees! At this point I started wishing the camera recorded so we could have a time-lapse of his nocturnal traveling. Youtube gold, people, youtube gold.

We tried other swaddle blankets.

Though super cute (and that Aden + Anais one on the left is SO SOFT), these never worked as well as the Miracle Blanket because his arms are loose inside. The MB has arm flaps that loop over his arms and then under his body, keeping them lashed to his side snug and cozy, plus a looooong flap that wraps around and around the baby (yes, there's a learning curve to it). So even though he sometimes broke out of it once he woke in the morning, we kept coming back to the Miracle Blanket because that's what he slept best in. Subsequently, I did find on youtube (google "batwing swaddle") that some enterprising soul came up with the idea of using a regular receiving blanket to do the arm flaps and then using one of the velcro swaddles over that. GENIUS. Unfortunately, for us, it was too late for that because well, summer, and also someone had started rolling over. 

The little squirmer started rolling over at about 4.5 months. Before his startle reflex was gone. Uh oh. Goodbye swaddling. Welcome back sleepless nights? Nope. Now he sleeps 11-12 hours a night, plus naps, in a Zipadee Zip swaddle-transition blanket and he loves it!

Little starfish baby

And now that he's more mobile, his nocturnal (and nap time) perambulations are even more interesting.

We still never know how we're going to find him post-nap, or in the morning (to say nothing of throughout the night on the monitor) but it's almost always with a great big smile.

Except that one time (two weeks ago) when that first tooth popped through. Then he woke up screaming bloody murder.

I remember when change was scary

Just before the start of my freshman year at the University of Michigan, while at team cross country camp, I called my mom balling my eyes out about how I wasn't ready for college. Similarly, the night before my wedding, standing in my closet trying to decide what to wear to the rehearsal dinner, I came the closest I've ever come to a full-on panic attack. But once cross country camp was over and I arrived back on campus and moved into my dorm I was completely fine, totally unflappable, and ready to take on anything the big scary university could toss my way (except, as it turned out, Econ 101). And once dressed and at the wedding rehearsal I was cool as a cucumber. I slept like a baby that night and woke up ready to marry the love of my life. Indeed, my hair stylist commented more than once that I was the calmest bride she'd ever seen.

So perhaps it's just the anticipation of change that totally freaks me out. And, to be fair, that closet panic thing happens ALL THE TIME because I have no clothes. But regardless of whether it's the change itself or just the thought of change, having a baby has cured me for life. Or maybe not. Life is a long time. But certainly for the foreseeable future, I'm all "I got this mommy stuff DOWN. What could possibly be harder than this?" Of course, he's not walking yet. He's not driving yet. Okay, now I'm starting to get scared again so let's stay in the moment.

My husband and I are currently house hunting and hoping to soon move out of the condo we've been renting. Buying a house? Big change. Even bigger when you consider that we're almost definitely moving out of the town I love (grew up here, came back after 9 post-college years in Chicago and 5 unfortunate months in Nashville). Bring it. I am also about to start a new job. I'm leaving the office I've been at for almost seven years, along with the client base I've built up over those almost seven years, in order to work closer to home (until we find a house and move away, that is). If that's not scary enough, I'll be working for a chiropractor who has never even offered massage therapy before. This is exactly the type of thing that would have me waking up panicked and obsessively stressing over. Nowadays? No sweat.

Taking care of and adjusting to a newborn was (is) the hardest thing I've ever done. At 38 years old I was used to a lot of freedom, my greatest prior responsibilities being keeping two cats alive and trying to make dinner more evenings than not. Not all that difficult. I'm sure I'll return to this theme often (the babies are hard thing, not the cat thing, but maybe the dinner thing. Well, probably the cat thing too, since that turned out to be a lot harder post-baby as one of those cats is no longer actually alive). Anyway, there's pretty much an entire blog of material packed into the first five months of my son's life. It took a lot to get me this comfortable and confident, laughing in the face of impending change, but I got there. Or maybe it's just the pills I'm still taking after tripping face first into postpartum depression and anxiety at the two month mark (definitely will be returning to that topic someday soon), but I don't think so. My son, the little 6 lb 5 oz bundle of need and reflex, was like an adorable basic training drill sergeant; he completely broke me down before building me back up. He, along with the incredible support of my husband and our families, built me up so much that I actually believe I'll have time to post regularly to this blog (along with taking care of the little tyrant, cooking those dinners, finding a house, working, training, and everything else in my suddenly very hectic life). Time will tell if that's the drugs talking.