Filed under: Body, Current Situation, Other Moms | Tags: new baby, sister criticize, toddler discipline
My sister uses a girdle to shrink her uterus after delivering, per her ob’s advice. Within a week her stomach flattened to look a mere three three to four months pregnant. She doles this information out sparingly so that acquaintances think she is super mom with the super body. We went shopping a week after her son was born and the oohs and ahhs she received from the sales clerk about her body led me to chime in that I have a five month old, and my body is lean.
I was looking for some sort of validation. Staying at my sister’s house for two weeks with my two kids and her three children including the newborn was a lot, even though we are best friends and her house is significantly larger than any New York City apartment I’ve visited. I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt of her post partum mood swings, but she made comments about my kids. Comments that one such as myself might take offense to. Comments about my daughter and how she adjusted to being in a foreign place with constant stimulation. Every time she picked up a toy, one of the other kids would snatch it out of her hand and say Mine. She was not on her turf or even in her own country. My sister discounted this when she complained that my daughter whined too much.
I kept my mouth shut about her children and their misbehavior because I did not want to get into a tit for tat situation. There was nothing to gain. Kids are kids. They have good moments and bad ones.
She did share some helpful advice that perhaps I would have come to on my own. Given her kids are older she was more familiar with how best to handle a toddler. I do remember taking a trip when her eldest was a little over two years and my mom and I advised her how to discipline her toddler. I shared my thoughts in a constructive and sensitive way as opposed to attacking and criticizing.
I took full advantage of my sister’s help and changed an average of one diaper a day which was awesome. My sister felt the need to comment on that as well. She must forget that when I am in New York I can change multiple diapers in an hour and I have to run around looking for the proper size for each kid. That was my vacation, some R & R that I desperately needed and earned. She must have forgotten or never realized how hard I have been working and the amount of stress I am under.
So don’t judge me! Don’t judge my parenting! Since she is my sister and best friend and had just delivered a baby…I won’t digress and mention how she treated me in the delivery room, I’ll give her a grace period.
With my newfound responsibilities I am finding it harder to relate to other moms with whom I once bonded over spilled milk. Complaining about nannies and sharing sharing stories of how stressed our husbands over the uncertainty of their jobs is not as fulfilling as it once was.
My father taught me to humble among m anomoly y peers, and not let them know of my (or my parents) investments. When I lived in California I invested in a duplex while I lived in a dumpy one bedroom. As a struggling artist with a property I was an anomaly among my friends. Since I shared the information on a need to know basis, most did not know. Now that I am married with two kids living in Manhattan my contemporaries are more successful so I am less shy about revealing my situation, but I’m still not eager to advertise the assets.
Since I’m reluctant to talk to friends about the new responsibilities that I inherited and did not exactly create for myself and since my daily life has expanded beyond diapers and playgroups that leaves less to talk about. And because I don’t watch reality shows, well I guess that means I should stick to blogging.
Filed under: Other Moms | Tags: borrowing, friends, loaning clothes, returning borrowed items
I was once eager to loan my clothes or other paraphernalia to my sister or friend or acquaintance. Somehow, having someone cooler or more popular than me wear endorse my attire made me feel a little more hip. It also created, however superficial, a connection between me and the other girl. For similar reasons, I loved borrowing other people’s clothes, a habit that was relatively easy in boarding school.
Issues tended to arise when the borrower turned out to be a bad returner. I hated putting myself out there and asking for my clothes back. And for the real acquaintances who I rarely saw again, well, my clothes disappeared with their friendship. I also remember borrowing (and loaning) items to casual flings in the hopes of prolonging the relationship; it was rarely successful.
In retrospect, it does come across as slightly pathetic that I would swap my goods for a fleeting chance at friendship, but it was one of the few currencies that I had.
Old habits die hard. I recently loaned a *friend* (note the asterisks, because she is not a good friend and has often been lame about connecting for a play date) some of my daughter’s fancy dresses which she has probably outgrown in the two months that they were on loan. My mom encouraged me to get them back now. The longer one takes to return an item, the likelihood of it being returned diminishes. I felt badly asking for my items back, having the mom trek to my hood when we couldn’t figure out a convenient playdate option, and was frustrated when she did not drop them off when she said she would. And these clothes are MINE!
On a good karma note, I did, reluctantly, return a friend’s baby carrier even though I knew she never used it. But we had it for most of the summer and it was the right thing to do. I just wish she returned the doll and the book I had loaned her, or at least made a half hearted attempt to do so. Oh well.
I met a great mom recently and by virtue of our small community within a big city, have become friendlier, to the point of exchanging contact information, a big step in mommy relationships. So I sent her an email recently and she asked me to volunteer at the Halloween festival in the park tomorrow.
My first thought is, do I have to?
Obviously, I should volunteer.
*I like the mom and want to get in her good graces
*I intend to go to the festival
• I partake in a lot of activities in the community and should help out
• Volunteering is not difficult, cumbersome and apart from taking an hour out of my day, is not terribly inconvenient.
But like a bratty kid, I just do not want to commit to spending time away from my husband and daughter to help other families. But the guilt, the mommy guilt, that manifests itself and is impossible to shake, is telling me to stop being a baby and just do it.
So, reluctantly, I agreed, but told them I may need a chair because of condition (six and a half months pregnant).
I brought my daughter to an outside playgroup yesterday and once again forced myself to feel comfortable socially with my peers. My little girl was initially shy, clinging to me while the older kids (all of about 18 months, but walking and talking) ran around interacting with each other.
I brought out a toy hoping to break the ice. Basically, one kid ran off with the little truck and when my daughter tried to reclaim it, he refused. Then he dropped it 50 yards away and another kid picked it up. I didn’t mind so much as 1) I didn’t want to lose the toy and 2) I wanted my daughter to have more interactions.
#2 was solved when the kids started having snacks and she broke out of her shell to crawl over and paw at the child until whatever it was that she was eating was shared. (This is after she picked up a cigarette butt and put it in her mouth.)
I guess as a mom I have to learn to share too.
Filed under: Other Moms | Tags: moms at playground, Other Moms, popularity contests, popularity school, writing novel
I was never popular in high school, or middle school or elementary school for that matter. I would watch the popular girls with friends and boyfriends with envy.
When I went to boarding school for two years, I did not feel popular either. After some adjustment I did feel that I had friends and was friendly with a decent population of the students. (When three of my boarding schools friends walked out of my wedding two years ago, I realized that they were/are not my friends, but I digress.)
Through Facebook I have reconnected with some friends from boarding school, and some acquaintances from my hometown. I’m not sure why some people with whom I never spoke let alone was friendly with want to be my friend on the Internet when they ignored me in person. Perhaps they are amassing friends hoping to win their modernized popularity contest.
On the playground, in baby classes and through other child-centric activities, I have met new moms and have re-lived some of the exclusionary feelings of my youth. Nobody is malicious or outright mean, I think we’ve all outgrown that or are just too damn tired with our baby to care. But I do believe that cliques exist, and at times I feel excluded. I do not know how much of it is my heightened sensitivity (yes, I am bringing that up, again, but my hormones are surging.) or that they blatantly forgot about me (which, I suppose not being on someone’s radar, while perhaps accidental, still remains a slight) or what (insert plausible explanation), but I confess to being jealous of seeing other mom’s relationships amongst each other.
I have made one great friend, who makes me laugh partly because of her over-protectiveness and thoroughly researched parenting. I’ve been at the park and run into acquaintances giving the impression of knowing but not quite befriending other moms in the community. But I want more friends! However, I do pat myself on the back for pursuing activities independent of my daughter like writing this damn novel. It keeps me busier than others and fulfills me in an intellectual way.
Perhaps if/when it gets published (and succeeds) I will gain some clout and the women will want to befriend me.
Filed under: Other Moms | Tags: baby and dog, mom of five, mom of four, parenting advice, super mom
Last night I saw a beautiful calm mother with four kids and a bulging belly. She sat with another woman who I thought could be the mom of at least one or two of the kids. When the second lady failed to discipline or “guide” any of the children, I wondered her relationship to the crew. The set of girls and the set of boys looked close enough in age to be friends. Perhaps the pregnant mom was taking her two kids and their two friends out for dinner and ice cream.
When she left and said goodbye to me and my daughter, I asked if all four kids were hers. “Yes,” she said. Wow! I am blown away not only by her beauty, her relaxed mothering style and the fact that her petite body was harvesting another child but by her overall tranquility. What an inspiration.
A little bit later after my daughter took a tumble out of her stroller in front of a crew of mothers and their kids (I didn’t strap her in for the five yard walk) we met another attractive and stylish mom of a little girl. The very fit mother told me that her two year old was the youngest of four. She is the second mother I met out here recently that makes having four kids look easy, fun and stylish. These moms don’t look like they have spent less time being caught up in the petty mothering competition that I have seen, than say reading Lucky magazine.
As I find myself getting frustrated on this solo trip with my daughter and misbehaving pooch, I try to channel my inner super mom and smile.
One of the best pieces of mothering advice I received, from *my best college friend* who doesn’t take my calls anymore, was that it is so easy in the beginning and you do not realize it. I have to imagine now that no matter what, next summer will not be this easy with two kids. But perhaps if I can get rid of the dog, I may have a little advantage. 
