Category: Life

This Morning’s Drama

My morning started off by me dropping and shattering a coffee mug, coffee splattering all over the floor and my dress. Guess I didn’t really want to wear that outfit today. Husband left for the gym so I was left to wrangle the toddler to get her ready for school.

First she didn’t want to leave the house and was scream crying. Then I tried to coax her with tablet. It turned off so she started crying again. We get to school and she didn’t want to give the tablet up. She screams at me. Out of frustration she throws the tablet so I take it and put it away. More screaming and crying. I tell her it’s time to go to school and she tries to slap me and physically fights me when I try to take her out of her car seat. I back off and try telling her again it’s time for school. She’s shaking her head and hollering “Noooooooo!” at me. I try again to get her out of seat and I have to hold on to her carefully as she is flailing and fighting me all the way. We walk into the building and she throws her milk, where it promptly spills all over the floor.

I take her to classroom for drop off. She wants nothing to do with me. I kiss her goodbye and as I walk out of the room, I feel the tears welling up. I quickly walk out and get in my car and lock the door.

I lay my head on the steering wheel and sobbed uncontrollably. It’s barely 7:30 and I’m already emotionally and physically exhausted. Now it’s time for me to buck up and head into week 3 of my new job, where I will face an entire day of not knowing what-the-fuck-I’m-doing, adding to the incompetence and ineptitude I already feel.

I feel so badly about how things went down with my daughter. I feel completely at a loss on how to deal with her when she’s like this. And then I feel like a terrible mother when I lose my patience with her. I vaccilate between trying to understand what she may be going through and thinking “I don’t have time for this fucking shit.”

Here I sit at the office, working on a server outage I know nothing about, praying I don’t dissolve into tears at work. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Meeting New Friends

I’ve written before that I’ve struggled to find my tribe of women mom friends. Since moving to Atlanta, most of our friends don’t have children. In an effort to make new friends, I’ve tried creating my own meetup group. Out of the 4-5 meetups I’ve hosted, I’ve had exactly zero people show up (womp womp). Despite feeling like a loser, I’m still trying to put myself out there.

I recently heard about an app called Peanut, that helps to connects moms. The advertisement was during a parenting podcast that I really enjoyed, so I thought…why not give it a try? It’s basically tinder dating to find mom friends. You swipe one way if you like the person and swipe the other if you don’t. I’ve been looking at it, and connected with a few moms through the app, but nothing had led to any kind of substantial communication so far. And then, it happened! I had a mom reach out to say hi and we hit it off!

It was great to chat back and forth with her, because it made me feel happy to have someone with similar struggles (i.e. hiding under the crib to look at your iPhone while your darling falls asleep, or dealing with a kiddo meltdown). Our online rapport and banter had been so much fun, that we decided to meet up for a coffee date this weekend.

I was nervous and excited to meet this new potential mom friend. What if our online chemistry didn’t translate in real life? What if we didn’t jive or the conversation was awkward and weird? What if she thinks I’m a total weirdo (and not in a good way)?!? Finding new friends, even platonic ones, comes with all the same kind of worries of dating!

I worried all for naught, because we hit it off immediately. When I found her, she immediately reached out to hug me. I loved this, because I’m a huge hugger too! She reminded me a lot of a good friend from Los Angeles. In some ways, she talked very similarly to my friend that it threw me for a loop at first. We sat down at a table outside and talked for two hours straight. We had such easy conversation and my cheeks hurt from laughing and smiling. I didn’t want to leave, but I also didn’t want to overstay my welcome either. We made plans to meet up again soon, next time bringing our daughters with.

There have been lots of new things lately. New job, new approach to my same old problems, new dynamic in my relationship, new way of trying to view myself. I’m hoping that today is the start of a another new thing. A new friendship with a kindred spirit.

Let’s Talk About Sex (after) Baby…

Shit changes after you have a kid. Physically. Emotionally. I remember distinctly the anxiety and nervousness I felt before having sex the first time after giving birth. It shot me back in time, feeling like a virgin who was going to “do it”. How would it feel? Have my lady parts recovered from birth? Will he notice a difference in how it feels? How will it feel to me? Holy fuck, what if I get pregnant again right away?!?

I had some birth trauma, and was getting physical therapy for my pelvic floor muscles, so I was incredibly worried I’d somehow pee on my husband involuntarily. (Side story: when I was cleared for exercise, I went for a short run and pissed myself. Not just a little leakage…full on could-have-wrung-out-my-pants pissed myself. I think the anxiety was warranted in this case.)

More than anything, I felt like this body, that I’d known and lived in for all these years, suddenly felt completely foreign to me. I had to re-learn what would feel good in the sack. And conversely, what wouldn’t. I had to come to the realization that sex post-baby wasn’t going to be like it was pre-baby. And that was OK. This was a new phase for us as a couple and for me as a woman. I can say this, now that my daughter is approaching 2-1/2, with some degree of confidence. In the moment, I felt like an insecure hormonal wreck. This is the shit about parenthood and pregnancy that people don’t tell you about, but really should. Everyone talks about the joy of motherhood…not how you and your partner will be rolling around like teenagers trying to learn the lay of the land (again) while simultaneously trying to keep quiet so as not to wake the baby! More than one time I cried after sex. Not because it was terrible, but because it was different and seemed to fill me with overwhelming emotion. I blame hormones on that one.

Things change for our partners too. My husband witnessed the miracle of birth and actually helped deliver our daughter. That meant he got an up close and personal view of what happened to my lady bits. He was traumatized for months. On top of that it took him awhile to reconcile that I could be a mom to our child and want to get laid at the same time. It was difficult for him to see me as a sexual being and not just a mom. We struggled to find a rhythm and flow to our sex life for the first year after baby.

We still don’t have sex as after as we’d like to, but the demands of raising a family, and us working full-time tires the shit out of us. I hate to say this, but it’s a reality I want to share with you. There have been plenty of nights where I have chosen sleep over sex….and I find my husband incredibly attractive. We also don’t have any family close by, so there’s no one to give us a break. And he travels frequently. The list of reasons go on and on. I write this, while my daughter is asleep and my husband retired to bed. I really should be sleeping myself but wanted to write. Ah, the trade offs.

For those men reading this that may be horrified and may never want to get their partner pregnant, it does get better. I can tell you that. It really does, it just takes time.

Mother’s Day

I should feel happy. But I don’t. I should feel grateful. But I don’t. I feel an incredibly overwhelming sadness right now. Sadness that neither my husband or I having any family that we are close to. For not really having much of a family to offer our daughter. I’m mad at myself that I don’t feel more grateful. More loved. More happiness. I cried in the shower this morning. I’m sitting in a red polka-dotted towel still crying. I can’t seem to shake this melancholy.

My husband asked me what I wanted to do today. I can’t even come up with any kind of answer. I whispered “I don’t know” while holding back another round of tears.

All I see is responsibility. Dishes to be done. Laundry to be folded. Meals to be made. House to be cleaned. Diapers to be changed. Dog to be walked. The list is endless. Where does that leave room for fun? For me?

I’m so tired of the endless sadness.