Holly is turning two this week and I'm going to be making a peanut butter pie for her. When I was at Trader Joe's grabbing a box of graham crackers for the crust, I was hit with the memory of the last time I bought a box of these. I had been discharged from the hospital a few days after my c-section. I was given three different types of pills, all to be taken at different time intervals (4, 6 and 12 hours I think), and some had to be taken with food. With a newborn at home, I hardly got any sleep as it was, but then also needed to wake up at the right times to stay on top of the medications. Getting up was near impossible, so I kept a Ziploc bag of Trader Joe's honey grahams by my side throughout the night. I figured out that if I broke them up beforehand into bite sizes, I could stick whole pieces in my mouth while laying down and not get crumbs everywhere. They somehow tasted good any time of the day, but after that initial recovery period, I didn't buy graham crackers again.
Thinking about that memory made me smile and cringe, as that was one of the most intense weeks of my life. I was in so much physical pain, and trying to make sense of how to feed and care for this brand new life that had just come out of my body. We were all in survival mode. Somehow we made it through, and that helpless, swaddled little newborn is now asking me for a snack, picking out the books she wants to have read, and telling me she doesn't want a hug. Just like that, she's not a baby anymore! It's a strange mixture of sadness, and relief.
Holly is doing wonderfully in her second year of life. She is affectionate and determined, learning and growing every day. It's amazing to watch little changes add up over time, like how for awhile she couldn't say the H or the L in her name, so it was "oddy", then it gradually became "olly", and now "Holly!" She is a healthy kid, right on track. For us as parents though... wow, has the second year been hard. There is SO. MUCH. CRYING. And whining. And screaming. We do our best to be calm, empathize, set clear limits, and avoid her triggers. But it's a lot to handle and it's a tiresome mind game. The triggers seem to be completely random, like putting her food in a bowl instead of a plate. Or giving her the thing she wanted three seconds ago, but doesn't want now. This is the reason I can't stand when people bring up the "terrible twos", and how we're really in for it now. Frankly, if it gets worse than this (and I'm sure it does), I just don't want to hear it. I felt that way when she was a newborn too, and people would warn me of how that was the easy part, while I was struggling to get through each feeding and each night. Well-meaning people of the world, don't kick a mama when she's down...
It's impossible to articulate the way brilliant highs and lows bleed together as a parent. If I only spoke of the sweet, Instagrammable moments, it would be insincere, and a disservice to the real work and strength that goes into raising little humans. But when I say in honesty that it's hard, it sounds like I'm complaining or that I regret my choices. I don't regret them at all and I love my life. But motherhood, for me, is not full of warmth and tenderness. There are moments when I feel rageful and anxious and overwhelmed. I do sometimes long for the simplicity and freedom of life before. I've tried to spell it out in my mind many times, but it is hard to accurately describe how one can hold the good and the bad together simultaneously, without denying the truth and weight of the other. Everything I want to say about parenthood comes with an asterisk, or a "but...".
The one thing I've read that has continued to resonate with me is this Humans of New York story, even though Holly is only two, not ten:
“My wife and I were eating at a rib joint in Key Largo, and we actually took out a piece of paper and made a pros and cons list. The ‘con’ list was pretty normal: time, money, things like that. I remember at the top of the ‘pro’ list was: ‘Full Human Experience.’ After our daughter was born, that became an inside joke with us. Every time she was screaming at bath time, my wife and I would look at each other and say: ‘Full Human Experience.’ The first three months were the hardest. Honestly, we wondered if we’d made a mistake. It was like a bomb dropped and eviscerated everything in our lives. But then our daughter started growing up, and learning to do things on her own, and we kept taking small steps back and getting more of our own time back. There’s an unexpected sadness to getting your life back. It’s like your getting laid off slowly from an equally grueling but joyful job. She’s ten now. And I’ll notice that she’ll be reading alone for an hour without getting bored and jumping on me. We used to make tents on the bed, now it’s more homework and YouTube. Sometimes she’ll go in her room for a long time and close the door. Her life is becoming hers and I’m fascinated by where it’s going to go. But it’s bittersweet that she needs me less and less.”
Full human experience. That's the best description I can think of for the daily toddlercoaster we are on. All the twists and turns, good and bad, that's the stuff of life. When all is said and done, I am grateful to be growing as a person with her and for her. Ready or not, onward to two...
Thinking about that memory made me smile and cringe, as that was one of the most intense weeks of my life. I was in so much physical pain, and trying to make sense of how to feed and care for this brand new life that had just come out of my body. We were all in survival mode. Somehow we made it through, and that helpless, swaddled little newborn is now asking me for a snack, picking out the books she wants to have read, and telling me she doesn't want a hug. Just like that, she's not a baby anymore! It's a strange mixture of sadness, and relief.
Holly is doing wonderfully in her second year of life. She is affectionate and determined, learning and growing every day. It's amazing to watch little changes add up over time, like how for awhile she couldn't say the H or the L in her name, so it was "oddy", then it gradually became "olly", and now "Holly!" She is a healthy kid, right on track. For us as parents though... wow, has the second year been hard. There is SO. MUCH. CRYING. And whining. And screaming. We do our best to be calm, empathize, set clear limits, and avoid her triggers. But it's a lot to handle and it's a tiresome mind game. The triggers seem to be completely random, like putting her food in a bowl instead of a plate. Or giving her the thing she wanted three seconds ago, but doesn't want now. This is the reason I can't stand when people bring up the "terrible twos", and how we're really in for it now. Frankly, if it gets worse than this (and I'm sure it does), I just don't want to hear it. I felt that way when she was a newborn too, and people would warn me of how that was the easy part, while I was struggling to get through each feeding and each night. Well-meaning people of the world, don't kick a mama when she's down...It's impossible to articulate the way brilliant highs and lows bleed together as a parent. If I only spoke of the sweet, Instagrammable moments, it would be insincere, and a disservice to the real work and strength that goes into raising little humans. But when I say in honesty that it's hard, it sounds like I'm complaining or that I regret my choices. I don't regret them at all and I love my life. But motherhood, for me, is not full of warmth and tenderness. There are moments when I feel rageful and anxious and overwhelmed. I do sometimes long for the simplicity and freedom of life before. I've tried to spell it out in my mind many times, but it is hard to accurately describe how one can hold the good and the bad together simultaneously, without denying the truth and weight of the other. Everything I want to say about parenthood comes with an asterisk, or a "but...".
The one thing I've read that has continued to resonate with me is this Humans of New York story, even though Holly is only two, not ten:
“My wife and I were eating at a rib joint in Key Largo, and we actually took out a piece of paper and made a pros and cons list. The ‘con’ list was pretty normal: time, money, things like that. I remember at the top of the ‘pro’ list was: ‘Full Human Experience.’ After our daughter was born, that became an inside joke with us. Every time she was screaming at bath time, my wife and I would look at each other and say: ‘Full Human Experience.’ The first three months were the hardest. Honestly, we wondered if we’d made a mistake. It was like a bomb dropped and eviscerated everything in our lives. But then our daughter started growing up, and learning to do things on her own, and we kept taking small steps back and getting more of our own time back. There’s an unexpected sadness to getting your life back. It’s like your getting laid off slowly from an equally grueling but joyful job. She’s ten now. And I’ll notice that she’ll be reading alone for an hour without getting bored and jumping on me. We used to make tents on the bed, now it’s more homework and YouTube. Sometimes she’ll go in her room for a long time and close the door. Her life is becoming hers and I’m fascinated by where it’s going to go. But it’s bittersweet that she needs me less and less.”
Full human experience. That's the best description I can think of for the daily toddlercoaster we are on. All the twists and turns, good and bad, that's the stuff of life. When all is said and done, I am grateful to be growing as a person with her and for her. Ready or not, onward to two...
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