Fickle Feline

People tell you lots of things before you have kids that you don't believe. One of them was that I'd start to feel differently toward my cat. Now D and I are bit nutty about our cats. Before the other one died, I syringe-fed her for weeks because I didn't want to put her down. Even before that, I've spent a fortune on vet bills, including ultrasounds and feline antidepressants! We said hello to the cats before we said hello to each other. I have her on special food that requires a trip to the vet to purchase. And I've turned down apartments, roommates and dates because of their incompatibility with felines.

So why does everything she does now make me completely mental? She craves attention but when she gets on my lap all I can think about is the cat hair. I have turned over litter-cleaning duties to D permanently because I just can't deal with it. All her irritating habits - the occasional puke, her incessant meowing before mealtimes, the fact that no food can be left on the counter for more than three minutes without her attempting to consume it - all seem a thousand times more irritating.

She's been banished from the bedroom since LM was born and D is now pushing for her re-entry. But although I used to let her snuggle next to my head, now I'm thinking she should be out of the bedroom permanently, even once LM is no longer in with us. I told D that and he looked shocked and surprised.

Don't get me wrong - somewhere deep inside, I still harbour affection for the little rascal - at least enough to feel guilty about my change of heart. But she has moved from queen of the roost to distant third.

Bad Mummy Moments

I've been trying to be better at reading LM's cues so as to help him sleep when he's tired, but it's hard. Just had one of those times where he would not stop crying. Called D to tell him maybe his sports event tonight was not such a great idea; - D said "Well, it's your call." I didn't want it to be my call - I wanted him to hear how anxious and tired I am, and agree to come home.

LM kept crying and I grew increasingly frustrated and finally just put him in the crib and walked into the other room to cry myself. He kept wailing at an increasing pitch. After sort of regaining my composure I went back and got him. He comfort-nursed for a few moments and then fell fast asleep, completely exhausted, in my lap. He is out cold now with a most serene expression on his face and his little hand tugging at my shirt. I'm still crying though - I just wish I was better at figuring out what he wanted and less prone to feeling frustrated.

The Guilt

I want to say first that I am really open to the hippier-trippier side of parenting. I'm open to learning about people who want to carry the placenta around attached to the baby until it falls off on its own, even if it makes D burst out laughing. I must admit, we still have our placenta in the fridge, much to D's disgust.

I went yesterday to a class on infant development, not a subject I'm that interested in frankly, since I figure it's all pretty obvious. They hold their heads, they sit, the crawl - I'm not too hung up on when it all happens.

There was a chiropractor there too who was to talk to us about babies' development too. Now, once again, I am a bit believer in chiros - I saw one for a year and I really credit him with being a major help in my headaches - they have, knock on wood, never been as bad as they were before I started seeing him. So I was pretty open to listening to what she might have to say about babies.

Right in the class, LM decided it was his fussy time and started to wail. At times he just gets overtired and every little tummy gurgle makes him very upset, so I started rocking him and shushing him. I think it comforts him (like most white noise, vacuums, hair dryers) because it reminds him of the whoosh-whoosh in the womb.

All the while, the chiro is talking about how important it is for babies to be close to mothers and all the usual attachment parenting philosophy. A lot of the attachment stuff about babies needing to have demands met and being kept close to caregivers I do find very compelling - but some of it is so guilt-ridden that I get a bit tired of the whole school of thought. Especially the stuff that says things like "Babies in other countries are worn constantly are have every need attended to, and they never cry." Well guess what? A) I've been to other countries and their babies do cry, and B) Even after every need is attended to, and after he's been worn all day, sometimes my baby still cries! Inconsolably, despite being held, loved, rocked. And at those rather stressful times, all those attachment articles about how letting babies cry causes brain damage are very stressful on a poor first-time mother (i.e. ME!) Sometimes they just cry for no discernible reason - I'm not saying that they don't have a reason, but it's pretty hard for you or me to figure out.

But we weren't quite at the inconsolable point, it was just a small rock-me-burp-me-help-me-fall-asleep cry, not a big vein-popping-out-of-the-head-I-HATE-THE-WORLD wail. So I'm doing my rocking, shushing and thinking about moving out into the hall to walk around with him. Then the chiro diverges from the attachment theory, and talks about her own work. She tells us that we really shouldn't shush babies. Sometimes they need to just fuss because they are recalling something traumatic, perhaps about their birth experience or something that happened to them in the womb. We need to dialogue with them. And a lot of times babies and young children need therapy to recover from the trauma of things that have happened in the womb, or at birth. LM, she said, was trying to tell us something VERY IMPORTANT and we needed to listen! And we should not just try to shut him up, because doing that could have long-term effects on the way he communicates with people that would affect relationships for the rest of his life! She has to help such people all the time, people who need to recover from the trauma of mediocre parenting. "Everyone was just trying their best" she said. The implication, of course, is that sometimes your best just isn't good enough.

Anyway, I'm not much of one for feeling guilty, but I do have to say, the amount guilt placed on parents is quite extraordinary. Whether it's guilt because they're in your bed, or not in your bed, or because you try to stop their crying, or you don't try to stop it, it's everywhere. And if LM is upset because of trauma at birth or in the womb, I think every child on Earth must be permanently scarred, because I really can't imagine how any of it could have been less traumatic, unless perhaps they'd sedated him throughout, which I think most people agree is not the best idea. Also? I think I kind of hate it when someone who doesn't have a kid gives me advice on mine.

We Have Smiles!

I have to say, there is nothing that makes up the sleepless nights, the mastitis (yes, I had that this weekend), the occasional screaming spells, and the blatant refusal to sleep more worthwhile than a big old gummy smile aimed right at you. LM has been flashing sleep grins since he was born, and flashing the odd smile for a little while, but only at other people - never at me or D.

But in the past couple of days he's started grinning more frequently and today I've gotten three smiles and it's not even noon. It's pretty awesome.

Born or Made?

I was having a discussion with some people recently about parenthood and it really surprised me how many people felt that women, i.e. mothers, have some innate difference (they argued advantage) in terms of meeting their baby's needs. I, having been brought up by a classic liberal feminist, protested. It's true, I am the primary caregiver, but this, I argued, is for two reasons only, one economic and one physiological.

I'm home during the day because I happen to make less money right now, and it made more sense for me to take advantage of our country's relatively generous parental leave (which is obviously not as generous as D's salary!) Secondly, because we're breastfeeding, I am kind of glued to him in these early days. But, I argued, if it were Dad at home, he'd do the exact same thing as I do. Other than those two factors, mothers are no different than fathers.

But two things kind of made me rethink this a little. First, someone asked a hypothetical question about how if there was a fire, would you first help your baby or your spouse. My immediate response is BABY! Not because I love the baby more, but because he's my child and I just feel this overwhelming responsibility for him. I don't think the answer would change if he was 26 instead of six weeks. I assumed D would feel the same way, but when I asked him his immediate response was "You, hon!"

Then last night, as I was up late pumping in an effort to have enough of a stash of milk to, I don't know, get a haircut or go out to eat, I was sitting in the living room in the dark with my two guys down the hall in the bedroom. I heard the baby moan in the room, but being hooked up to the machine, I assumed D would deal with it. He didn't. The murmurs eventually grew to full-blown screaming, but D slept through it all until I went in and said, "Don't you hear him yelling his head off?"

So anyway, I'm wondering, is there more of a difference between mothers and fathers than just breasts and a few social conventions? Is there something underlying innate difference that goes beyond that? Are mothers (for the most part, there are always exceptions) just better suited to certain parts of the job and fathers to others?

It seems like motherhood has meant something very different (not better! just different) for me than fatherhood has meant for D. We are totally falling into this hunter-gatherer dyad, and D's role is all about providing and playing and mine is about nesting and feeding the family. Is it just economics that's forced us that way, or is it something more? Or am I just starting to feel like there's this innate "mother-ness" because motherhood is pretty much all I've got going on right now is baby, whereas D has this whole work life where he doesn't have to be Dad 100% of the time. It's just, I'm starting to think that even if I were working full-time, there would be something fundamentally different in our roles.

For some people these might seem so obvious - like, duh! Mums and dads are different. That was the way the discussion I had went. But I have to say, as someone who's always thought that gender differences were more nurture than nature, this is all a bit of a revelation.