Mothers and Mother-in-Laws as pertains to newborns

I was reading a post on Diapers and Wine - I don't even remember which one, I was just having fun reading and remembering what it was like to be a young mother.


ANYway. Reading about having a newborn brought back so many memories. Not all of them good.

*WARNING! 30+ YEAR OLD RANT ABOUT TO BEGIN*

I had the fortunate/unfortunate experience of bearing the first grandchild for my parents and my husband's parents. Double-whammy. I thought it would be cool, bring the family closer together, yadda yadda. Riiiight. Apparently, I had never met my passive-aggressive mother and mother-in-law. The evil twins reared their ugliest heads early on, but in my pregnant bliss I managed to ignore it for the duration of the pregnancy.

Now, I don't know how it is in other familes, but in mine, new mother always "needs a little help that first couple of weeks". Whether she does or not. Whether she wants it or not. Being a mom for the first time at 19, not really sure what all was expected of me, I was willing to bow to elder wisdom and accept the assistance and advice.

From my mother.

Mom arranged to take immediate leave from her job for a week when my child was born to come over during the day (she only lived about 5 miles away) and help out. Hubby would be home in the evenings, so she would leave when he got there so we could have private family time.

At last the big birth day came. Right away there was conflict. In the labor room (remember this was 30+ years ago, labor and delivery was pretty sterile), only two visitors were allowed at a time. I wanted Hubby and Mom. I did NOT want to see a parade of my in-laws and all of their immediate and not-so-immediate relatives - got it anyway, albeit only two at a time (the nurses were pretty strict about that). Not to be outdone, my Mom sent in every relative my side of the family had available - again: DID. NOT. WANT. THEM. At all. I was miserable. Just a child (in hindsight) and didn't know how to stop it. Fortunately, the actual birth allowed only my husband, and then only via a small window where he could watch but not participate, as he had not been through the birth father training classes which would have allowed him into the delivery room.

My little Dancer was born and I experienced peace for a brief period as we took a few moments to get to know each other (she was the only one I had a few moments with - the other three - well, let's just say they each have an interesting story and leave it at that). It was months before I had true peace again. Little did I know.

Second conflict - breast feeding. MIL was TOTALLY against it. It was the 70's, I was a college student, had friends in nursing school, it had been discussed to death, and I had determined that breast feeding was best for me and my child. NOTHING would sway me. Hubby, however.... MIL set upon him and told him every breast feeding horror story she knew and probably made up a few more. By the time she finished, he was terrified I was going to be at death's door in a week's time. I stood fast in the face of everyone's objections.

By the way, he and I solved that argument the first time a 2am feeding came around:

Me: Baby's crying, time to eat. Wanna get up and feed her?

Hubby: Breast feeding is probably a good idea.

End of Argument.


The real drama began on the day we prepared to go home. I noticed that MIL hadn't been around for nearly 24 hours - unusual, she and my mom had practically camped out at the hospital, competing for who got to hold Dancer first, who changed the first diaper, etc (feeding was ALL MINE *BWAHAHAHA*). She called to let me know that the house had been all cleaned up and was ready for our arrival. And that she had stocked the kitchen due to the fact that she was planning on cooking all the meals for the next week. Wasn't that WONDERFUL? *dripping with sarcasm*

Hubby and I got home with the Dancer to be greeted by his parents and brother and sister-in-law, huge dinner waiting - and EVERYTHING in my house rearranged. Including a big ol' recliner that my tiny trailer living room did not have the space for. For FIL. Because, even though they lived a bare three miles away, they had all but MOVED IN. Behind my back. MIL proudly announced that she had the NEXT TWO WEEKS off, to help me out (note the competition again? My mom had only taken off a WEEK). OH. MY. GOD.

I escaped to the bedroom with the baby, with the excuse that she needed to be fed (not really, but no one wanted to watch - and I didn't want them to). Only to find that her handiwork had not stopped in the living room and kitchen. She had put the most HIDEOUS sheets someone had given me on the bed - my bed. Huge vomit-yellow, man-eating flowers of some sort. Ergh.

Speaking of cameras...

Apparently, my DIL is NOT without her camera.

Arranging to sign up Lulu (7) for gymnastics, my son and I got to talking about Boogah (4). NOT going to Pre-K, pricey and didn't really do Lulu any good. But he needs something to get him out of the house. Jason suggested checking into gymnastics for Boogah, I suggested KARATE. BabyBoy said, "Let me ask him (talking away from the phone) Boogah! what do you want to do, gymnastics with Lulu or Ninja school?"

Predictably, I could hear Boogah bellowing out, "Ninja School!!!"

So here he is, in his new gi, ready for his first day at NINJA SCHOOL.

Where's the camera?

Where's the camera when you need one? Never fails, one of the grandkids is on his or her game and me without a camera.

I was wishing for one several months ago when the Duchess (age 2) had spent the night with me. She gets up at the buttcrack of dawn (thanks kids for that colorful expression!), and I'm still sleepy. Turn the TV on, lock the gate to the kitchen, gather the toys, and I'm thinking she's good, she's ok. I'm right here in case she needs me, but I'm dozy. Wanna go baaaack to sleeeeep..... *gentle snore*.....

Next thing I know, she's right in my face, watching to see if I'll open my eyes.

"WAKE UP! LOVEY! WAKE UP!" then when I do open my eyes, she grins. "Hel-LO Lovey!" like it's a day in the park. No sleeping on duty with this one!

Another time was at McDonald's, the one with the indoor playground, you know the one? Well, anyway, Tris never takes her in right away, goes through the drive thru to get food, then lets her eat as much as she will before they go in, since she always wants to go straight to the playground.

Well, I gotta be different. I took her and PoohBear in to place the order. I didn't think she would be that hungry, as she'd had some spaghetti just a couple of hours earlier, but we'd been playing hard at the house, chasing the dog, etc. so she was ready for a Happy Meal. Or the french fries anyway.

First, she was going to get her own fries thankyouverymuch, and headed behind the counter (why, for the love of all that's holy, is it WIDE OPEN???). I caught her and she decided it would be best if she waited at the table - not in the playground area amazingly. Nope, she found a table within grabbing distance of the counter and sat with PoohBear, shouting, "Do you want some FRENCH FRIES? Ok, ONE PLEASE! Lovey, ONE PLEASE!" raising her finger in demand as if signalling a waiter. I guess she WAS pretty hungry.

But what put me in mind of the camera was when Turtle and the Duchess came by the office yesterday to bring me a book. Apparently, they spent quite a bit of time up front in the reception area with the CSR's. The Duchess was feeling her oats and being quite the little show-out. They eventually came back to my office and Duchess showed out a little more for the kids in the upper dungeon - "What color is that? Thas GREEN! Look, Lovey, thas GREEN" and so on. We chatted for a bit, but I needed to leave for lunch, so we started out together.

Turtle says, "Say 'Good-bye, everybody!' " as we near the front. The Duchess parrots back a little early, so Turtle says, "Wait just a second, we're almost there."

When we get to the front desk area, the Duchess puts both hands over her eyes and throwing her hands up in the air in a grand gesture and squeals, "Peek-a-boo!"

Classic and cute, but not really remarkable, I know, except to Lovey. However, the CSR ladies giggled appreciatively and got into the game for a moment or two. This is when it got, well, camera-worthy.

The Duchess starts (fake) laughing along with everyone, leans over with her hands on her knees, shaking her head, still laughing. "Aha-ha-ha-ha... Thas funny! Thas funny!"

*sigh* Ok typing it just doesn't capture how funny it really was. Just seeing her imitate the grown-up laughter (that the whole "That's FUNNY!" sounded just like her mother) was somehow just hysterical to me.

Why don't I ever have a camera when I want one??

About teaching

I was a teacher. All I ever wanted to be, when I was growing up.

That changed, once I got to be a teacher. I realized, after 5 years of college, nearly 2 years of graduate work, that when I got up in front of a classroom, that was not where I wanted to be. I stuck it out for four grueling years, until I finally admitted that it wasn't good for me, it wasn't good for the students, and mostly, wasn't good for my family.

HOWEVER - I continued to teach, just tutoring, mostly, and private music lessons. For nearly 10 years. Classroom teacher I was not, one-on-one, I did fine. Even that eventually burned me out. There only so many times you can suffer through "Mary Had a Little Lamb" after all.

My teacher-ness apparently rubbed off on my kids, though. My oldest, the Dancer, is a teacher - and a damn fine one at that. Everyone wants her to be on their staff, they don't care what she teaches, just that she does it at their school. It's really kind of awe-inspiring, to me. She is currently directing a creative drama camp this summer - school without being school, is the way I'm thinking of it. She always wants to be teaching or organizing or directing something.

My second daughter, Turtle, is in banking, in loan operations. Not very teacher-y you might think. But she is adept at explaining difficult loan and interest issues to customers. The biggest telling point about her teacher-ness is with her daughter. There is a picture of her and her daughter in one of our family albums on facebook: Turtle is holding 9-month-old daughter, clearly telling her about something she is holding in her hand, and the baby is drinking it in. My oldest daughter's comment is "Turtle and baby girl - everything is a teaching opportunity".

My son, Baby Boy, now has three children of his own, and he's never been interested in teaching. But kids gravitate to him from everywhere. They all want to be a part of whatever creative game he's got going on with his kids. Big and tall and sturdy, he's like a human jungle gym sometimes, but always aware of what each kid is doing all the time - that radar that teachers (and most parents) seem to have. Not so teacher-y but then he's a guy. He didn't really enjoy making home-made valentines.

Which is another story altogether.

Trying again

I've tried this blog thing before - not successfully. I either forget my password or it starts getting too dark. Sometimes I forget the reason I started and depress myself.

THIS I want to be about my blessings. I would like to try to remember at least one blessing every day - a reason to be happy with my life. Because, no matter how bad things are, I do have a lot of blessings. I must remember that. I'm pretty sure I'll be repeating some of my blessings - although there are a lot, there are a few really special ones that may deserve more than one mention.

So today, the first blessing I'm going to count is my kids. They are all adult-age now, and have provided me with even more blessings - daughter-in-law, son-in-law, grandchildren. After reading some other "mother" blogs, I am also beginning to count their pretty much grown up independence a blessing, too. But most of all, my greatest blessing from each of them is Love.

And now a story:

How Lovey Got Her Name

Once upon a time, my son got married to a beautiful girl. This girl was already a mother of a little girl, Lulu*. So the day that Son got married, I became mother-in-law and grandparent in one fell swoop.

Months passed and as Lulu got older, old enough to talk, we all struggled with what to have her call me. She was, after all, my first grandchild. I had already decided that I did not want any of the standard grandmother names - besides, they were all pretty much taken by the wealth of living grandmothers Lulu already had. She already had: Granny, Maw-maw, Mamaw, Grandmother, Gramma, and Nanny. Quite a quandary!

Son tried not to call me "Mama" in front of Lulu - this had proven to be confusing. My DIL called me by my first name a few times - this stopped the day that Lulu repeated it. This made conversations in front of Lulu a little difficult, as they waited for me to make up my mind what I wanted to be called. Truthfully, I didn't know what I wanted to be called. Really wasn't ready to think of myself as a grandmother at all, as much as I enjoyed it. They just had a tendency to say "her" and "she" when they referred to me, avoiding any title or name as much as possible. This went on for over a year.

We saw each other often, going to lunch together about once a week, or just visiting each other's homes. And every time we had lunch together or visited, my DIL would tell Lulu as they were leaving, "Give her some lovings!" I'm not sure whether the "her" was me or Lulu, but we both know that "lovings" was hugs and kisses.

One day they all came to my workplace to pick me up for lunch together, and as soon as 18-month-old Lulu saw me, she started stretching her arms to me and shouting (in that cute baby voice) "Lovey! Lovey! Lovey!"

From that moment on, I have been Lovey.

And that makes me special.

*not her real name