This October, I get to finally check something else off my bucket list. No it's not free falling out of an airplane but it has the same level of danger, exhilaration and adrenaline rush. I finally get to be an Auntie! My baby sister and best friend Steph is entering a new chapter in her life. Freshly married, and as predicted by the monsoon that besieged her vows in Mexico, she is carrying a precious gift of life. I have lovingly nicknamed the growing bump as Belly-Belly and because she's family, I get to molest her whenever the moment moves me. The funny thing is, as a big sister you have the heavy burden of making sure you are a role model to your siblings. I am writing this post more as a disclaimer to my baby sister that perhaps when it comes to parenting, she should seek another mentor. I have excelled in many things in life... parenting is just not one of them.
I remember bringing Tai home and the community nurse stopped by on the second day to go over all the services our wonderful health system offers. She discussed the "Blue Period" where a new mother may experience post partum depression and unintentionally harm her baby because of it. She calmly looked into my eyes and said, "Now you know that when you get really upset, you should not shake your baby right?" Due to a lethal combination of hormones crashing, bleeding like I'm dying while wearing a telephone book between my legs and lack of sleep I laughed out loud. Like, I REALLY laughed out loud. Like... maniacally tossed my head back and belted out a deep bellowing cackle. At the time, it seemed like the most ludicrous thing a person would tell you. Of course I wouldn't shake my baby! What kind of lunatic do you think I am? Fast forward two weeks later and I learned that Tai is what the medical community has labelled as colic. He was an inconsolable crier and would cry for long bouts even after he has been fed, changed and was rested. For a new mother the feeling that you can't even console your own child is up there on life's ultimate failure list. After the fourth hour of trying to do everything humanly possible I held out my crying baby and just like that my arms started to shake. I literally was shaking my baby. The haunting words of the community nurse came vehemently back and then I started to cry. I remembered she said to put the baby down in a safe place when it came to that point and just walk away to catch up on my thoughts. With tears burning into my cheeks, I kissed the top of my screaming newborn head and put him into the safety of his crib. I shut the door and walked downstairs. For the next twenty minutes I stared at the beige walls... in total bliss and tuned out the crying demon.
Tai is six years old now and I haven't killed him (yet). In fact, I thought it would be fun to test my boundaries and add to my insanity... er... I mean my family with Kaiya, who will be turning three in July. This generation of parenting is on crack. There I said it. I'm not sure if it's because so many parents are killing themselves by working that they compensate by hyperparenting out of guilt? Or perhaps this cyber world has us so connected that we realize at the tip of our fingers we can have information about anything we want. Unfortunately the backlash is we are bombarded with all these different benchmarks and "experts" that tell you what is good and what is wrong so you have a disillusion that one MUST parent a certain way or carry the dreaded social construct of being the parent of THAT kid. I'm not sure, but one thing I know for a fact is that these hover, super-parents have a bad habit of making my parenting skills look ghetto. Contrary to all the literature on perfect parenting circulating out there, I subscribed to the following ill-parenting practices:
1. I combo fed both babies with breast milk and formula. My husband is a big guy. We made big babies. Unfortunately breast feeding wasn't easy for me even after taking hormone inducing pills so I had to compensate with formula. When Kaiya was born I had to sign a release form from the nurse that I understood the consequences of feeding my child formula. It's like a four letter word in the baby world. Gawd... (eye roll)... yes I, Huong Nguyen, understand that my teeny Asian boobies don't produce enough milk to feed my giant half White babies thus injecting this formula into them will create Michelin rolls. You know, the kind where they get so chubilicious that you need to lift their four chins to clean out the milk coma before it turns to cheese. Tai was so fat at six months he had rashes because his heifer rolls rubbed against each other.
2. It was not love at first sight. Tai spent the first three months just crying. It's really, really, hard to love someone that screams at you for three to five hours at a time for no apparent reason. I did not have that instant deep bond of love until he outgrew his phase which was more at six months. When he finally showed some personality and realized that I wasn't such a horrible person, we did eventually fall in love.
3. I fed my babies food... from a jar. I did not spend more money buying organic yams harvested with magical love from a group of tree-hugging, whale-freeing David Suzukis and blended it with my overpriced, brand-name Kitchen Aid Cusinart that not only dices, chops and folds laundry but looks great parked by my Mercedes as well. The time I saved I did other things, like brush my teeth; and the money I saved I used to buy luxuries, like disposable diapers.
4. I am a technology whore and I use it liberally. My children sat many hours in the loving arms of their mechanical swing, watch a lot of TV, play a lot of video games and now hog my iPad. I will unapologetically spend good money to keep them quiet and from beating on each other. The alternative is I check myself into AA or become that mom that ran away from her family.
5. I am an excellent negotiator. I will bribe with threats, or candy, or a toy or staying up late to get the behavior I need. I don't have the patience to teach them to stop it because it's socially in appropriate to have a melt down right at nap time in the middle of a busy mall because Mommy didn't schedule the day so well.
6. I use drugs as a best defence. If we are travelling in small confinements, I will take one for the team and use physical force to shove medication down Kaiya's throat. It may look alarming to the untrained eye but you will thank me for not exposing you to a child that is screaming, squirming and kicking the back of your seat for the next eight hours.
7. I don't always share. If it's a really good chocolate bar, I will be hiding out in the closet enjoying ALL of it.
8. I don't believe my child needs to be scheduled into every activity to excel in life. There are parents that have their kids in everything from art classes to martial arts, to hockey, to piano lessons to French cooking classes to pre-algebra calculus in an attempt to create an exceptional child. And then they complain that they're so tired from being a professional driver. I hang out with my kids in the backyard. Kaiya shows me how she made two worms by pulling one big one apart. Tai is patiently constructing some kind of fortress out of sand just so his crazy sister will destroy it in one kick. I'm sitting in my hammock drinking a Corona and reading on Facebook all the moms that are stuck in traffic.
9. I prefer working than staying at home. My husband is a real live super hero. He has the emotional endurance to stay at home and run a daycare. I would rather poke my eyes out with burning sticks.
10. I don't do well with humans under four and a half feet. I can't relate and on most days I prefer the company of any other species like... goats or a pit full of venomous snakes.
11. There are days where the thought of throwing my kids out the window or strangling them brings me great pleasure. I hate those older parents that think they are offering sage advice when they say: Enjoy these moments, they grow up so fast! I just want to whack them upside their senile head and shout: You FORGOT how painful it is to be a parent! The moments that I consistently enjoy is bedtime.
I know... how on Earth did I get into breeding? Well, the good news is that we must have tricked Tai's kindergarten teacher pretty well because according to his first report card he is a well liked, talkative, inquisitive and bright young student with really good manners. He does need to work on raising his hand before speaking and remember to not interrupt others.
Oh well, no one is dead so I'll take that as a positive sign of progress. Don't worry Steph, I got this!
No comments:
Post a Comment