by Rachel Toalson | General Blog
Every morning when I get him up to eat and every night before I put him to bed, I tell my 11-week-old that I love him.
I say it over and over and over, knowing that one day he will say those magical, heart-effectively-exploded words back to me.
It’s one of the best parts of being a mother—hearing that baby voice coo in a way that is surely “I love you,” listening to the toddler echo, treasuring the spontaneous words from big-kid lips.
My boys rarely go a day without saying they love me, mostly because I can’t go more than a few hours without telling them, and they can’t just ignore me every time.
But even if they didn’t tell me in words, I would know in a million other ways.
Sometimes, when we are wading through a week and there’s really just not enough time to get everything done and we’ve barely had a chance to sit down and talk about anything important, and we start feeling more like a maid and a shoe-finder and a diaper-changer and a laundry-doer and a cook and a story-reader and a do-your-homework nagger and a get-back-in-bed-dang-it-yeller and an invisible piece in the world of husband and children, it can feel difficult to remember that we are loved and appreciated.
Our children, every moment, are loving us in a thousand different ways. Just like we show love in the little ways—sorting socks and applying dish soap to that stubborn stain on his favorite shirt and keeping those art treasures in a closet box—they are showing love in the little things, too.
Love doesn’t always need words. It just needs eyes.
There is love in those shorts left on the floor—but not underwear, because he knows you hate it when he comes to dinner with a naked lower half.
There is love in those crayons spread all over the floor, because he was coloring a picture for you.
There is love in the “I hate you” he throws out so recklessly when you say it’s no longer time to play with LEGOs, because he trusts you enough to share how he feels instead of locking those emotions tight.
There is love in his picking that first bloom on the peace lily that hasn’t flowered since kids came along, because he wanted to give it to you.
There is love in that twelfth knock on your bedroom door after lights are out and they should be sleeping, because he spent all day at school and just can’t get enough of his time with you.
There is love in the hug he gives you in the middle of the second- and third-grade hallway, because he didn’t have to do it.
There is love in pulling the dishwasher open and accidentally dumping out all the silverware, even though you’ve told him a billion times not to touch the dishes. He just wanted to help you.
There is love in the stuffing all his clean clothes into his underwear drawer, because he knows you like a tidy room.
There is love in the way they get up at 6 a.m. on the weekend and you have to drag them out of bed at 6:30 on the weekdays—because they know one means they have all day with you and the other means all day apart.
There is love in the note slid under the door, the one that says you’re the meanest mama ever, because he feels safe enough in this home to express himself.
There is love in those forty cups lined up on the counter, waiting for washing, because he knew you wouldn’t want him to drink from a dirty cup.
There is love in the egg smashed all over the floor, because he was just trying to bring you breakfast.
There is love in that unexpected mural on the wall, because he wanted to make you something beautiful, and this bare white wall looked like exactly the right place to do it.
There is love in the stuffed animal left in your room after fifteen reminders to get it, because he just doesn’t want you to be lonely.
There is love in his asking you to carry him downstairs, even though he has perfectly capable legs, because, deep down, he misses those mornings when you would do this all the time.
There is love in the running away, because he knows you care enough to come after him.
There is love in the toddler attachment weighing down your leg while you’re trying to take laundry out of the dryer, because he really just wants a two-arm hug. PUT THAT LAUNDRY DOWN, MAMA.
There is love in the interruptions that somehow find their way past a locked door, because you’re just his favorite person in the world (even though he’s not really yours right this minute).
There is love in all the carpet stains and all the broken dishes and all the scratches on the walls—because they mean children felt comfortable enough in your home to really live.
This is how children love a mama.
by Rachel Toalson | General Blog
This week my husband and I attended a creative conference in Georgia. The baby was too young to stay with family or friends, so we took him with us.
Every time I had to feed him, I hid out in the bathroom. I made his bottle while hunched in a bathroom stall so I didn’t have to share my shame.
You see, I don’t breastfeed my baby.
I didn’t breastfeed any of them.
It’s not because I don’t want to. God knows I tried every time. I did everything those lactation consultants told me to try with the first one, who ended up in the emergency room two days after we brought him home because he was dehydrated.
Sometimes I wonder if his first few days, the nursing that wasn’t really nursing because there wasn’t any milk, is why he struggles with anxiety today. Did it change something in his brain, that dehydration? Did it make him feel insecure when he couldn’t get enough food? Did it harm him in ways we couldn’t even see at the time?
This kind of thinking can drive a mama crazy.
The truth is, I am one of a minority of women who just can’t produce enough milk for their babies.
I knew it would happen. I waited for all the familiar signs, and they came around the same time they had for all the others, about three weeks in. I thought I’d taken the pressure off this time, but no. I didn’t. It felt like failure all over again.
That guilt comes creeping in slowly, when another mother asks me how breastfeeding is going and I have to explain why I can’t and wonder if she believes me. When I read a new study that finds yet another benefit of breast over bottle. When I am in the presence of other people who may or may not care how I feed my baby.
The publicity around breastfeeding has been great and wonderful and so very helpful for most mothers.
It has also been hard for women like me. Mom guilt likes to hide in statistics. It likes to use facts. It likes to twist something beautiful into something dark and ugly.
We moms aren’t always the kindest to ourselves, and that mom guilt can come out swinging, and it’s vicious and unrelenting and so very cruel.
Shame can lock us in a bathroom stall so we can try to hide our I-don’t-breastfeed secret. It can close us in a house so we can try to hide our I-don’t-think-I-like-my-children secret. It can steal the courage to venture out to a park or a grocery store or a restaurant so we can try to hide our I-yell-at-my-children secret.
This mom guilt lobs its lies at all the weak places.
You should have handled that more calmly.
You should have spent more time with them.
You should have let them sleep with you.
You should have bought them that toy.
You should have hugged them good night.
You should have built that LEGO house with him.
You should have colored that picture with him when he asked.
You should have cooked a healthy meal instead of ordering in pizza.
You should have planned a better birthday party.
You should have done more.
You should have tried harder.
You should have been better.
Where does it end?
It ends at a mom saying enough is enough.
It ends at moms sharing their secrets. It ends at admitting our fears—that we are afraid our baby won’t be as smart because we can’t breastfeed or we’re afraid we don’t really love that difficult one or we’re afraid no one else has ever dealt with this or felt this way before.
We will never crawl out from beneath the weight of mom guilt if we don’t bare ourselves.
Shame cannot get a foothold in the light. Only in the dark.
I don’t want to hide in a bathroom stall to make my baby’s bottle anymore just because I’m ashamed of my inability to produce milk. I don’t want to pretend that I always love my children and exact perfect patience in the discipline areas and keep a level head at all times. I don’t want to wonder if I could have done more or tried harder or been a better mom to my children.
Enough is enough.
We will never know enough or do enough or be enough, at least not according to those ridiculous expectations we put on ourselves.
We must choose to believe that we are already enough. We must choose to get real. We must choose to find other mothers who are ready to get real, not the ones who pretend they’re perfect.
There is no perfect. There is only good enough.
The thing about mom guilt is that it’s only true when we are alone. It’s only true if we are hiding. It’s only true if we refuse to acknowledge that we will never, ever be perfect.
Sometimes I yell at my children, because I’m just SO ANGRY at them for doing what they’re not supposed to do.
Sometimes I spend too much time on Twitter because their stories have so many words and I checked out five minutes ago.
Sometimes I wonder if I was out of my mind to have so many.
Now you know some of my secrets. What are some of yours?
by Rachel Toalson | General Blog
They say sleep deprivation is a lot like walking around drunk.
That must be why I keep running into doors and passing out on the couch and forgetting where in the world I put the baby’s clean diaper when it’s literally right in front of my face, and I’m looking at it and it’s looking at me.
After the first baby, all those people who have walked in our shoes give us that helpful advice: “Sleep when the baby sleeps.” And if you’re like me, you don’t realize they’re serious until you’ve spent 60 hours awake.
People also give this advice after baby number two and baby number three, which always makes me wonder if they ever really had more than one.
It’s just not helpful advice once you’ve passed the first baby.
Kids, you see, at least a tribe like mine, need constant supervision. The only time I sleep is when they’re ALL sleeping. Which is never.
(Actually that’s not true. My kids sleep like champs. In their beds by 8:30, the first one usually falls asleep by 8:45, and the last one by 10, and then that first one will wake up by 6. Which leaves me a whole four hours for sleep, after I finally wind down from the thirteen times I almost dropped into dreamland only to hear a knock on my door from the one who needs to tell me about that new character he’s developing for the story he’s writing or another one who needs to tattle on a brother for kicking him in the face or another who just wants his third kiss goodnight.)
Sleep while the baby sleeps.
Oh, I wish it were that easy.
Once, when I slept while the baby was sleeping, my 8-year-old, 5-year-old and 4-year-old boys climbed to the top of our minivan parked out front and decided to see what it would be like to pee off the top, in clear view of every house on the block (sorry neighbors).
Another time I passed out involuntarily, I woke with a start, five minutes later, because I heard something clinking in the background. Turns out it was my 2-year-old twins, racing out the back door with knives they wanted to use for sword fighting.
And who could forget the time I took a twelve-second nap and my 5-year-old ate two pounds of grapes.
Sleep while the baby sleeps.
It’s just not helpful anymore.
Another piece of used-to-be-helpful advice that is no longer relevant after the first child: Take care of yourself.
Well, see, I tried it one time. I tried putting up my feet for 10 minutes of quiet in my bedroom. Just 10 minutes. When I came back out there were 100 paper airplanes scattered all over our living room floor.
Another time I went to the bathroom for no more than two minutes, begging my pee to flow faster, and my third son located a black permanent marker and turned his yellow shirt into a black-and-yellow striped shirt.
And then there was that time I felt brave enough to rinse off in a fifty-two-second shower, and my 5-year-old used the time to cut a chunk out of his hair, draw whiskers on his face and glue his hand to his shirt.
“Hold him all you can,” they say.
I tried holding him every minute I could. And then a 2-year-old figured out how to open the under-sink cabinets, even though they’re baby proofed, and sprayed vinegar cleaner all over the floor so his twin brother would slip in it and bust his head on the tile floor.
There was that time at the children’s museum I tried to hold him and stare in his eyes for five seconds or so, and the 2-year-olds snuck into an elevator and we searched for them for twenty whole minutes, nearly giving them up for lost before the elevator door dinged and out they came running with grins on their faces and not enough vocabulary to tell us what exactly they were doing in there.
Once, when I thought I’d feed the baby in the privacy of my room so we could share some one-on-one time, because the 2-year-olds were sleeping, one woke up, unbeknownst to me, and colored his entire door red. (It’s still a mystery where he found the crayon, since they have NOTHING but beds and clothes in their rooms. I think he was hiding it under his tongue.)
OK, kids. You win.
I just can’t use all that well-meaning advice anymore.
When I was talking it over with my husband, trying to figure out a new plan, some way we might be able to sleep while the baby was sleeping and hold him all we could and take care of ourselves, he looked at me for a minute and said, “Maybe we should just invest in some kennels.”
I think he might be on to something.
by Rachel Toalson | General Blog
Dear Dr. Brougher,
I miss you when I’m not pregnant.
I know it sounds a little crazy. You, the doctor whom ever woman dreads that one time a year, because there are stirrups and cold metal and paper-thin sheets to cover everything and nothing at all, but I mean it. I really do.
This last time around, when I learned there would be another baby, part of my excitement was that I would be able to see you again, that you would share, once more, in the most joyous, scary, beautiful moment that can happen in the lives of a man and a woman.
I wonder if you know just what you have done.
The first time I met you, I was three months married, coming on the recommendation of a friend. You sat me down in your office and told me you’d been a former journalist, because I was one, too. It was the beginning of a friendship.
I asked you all sorts of questions about sex, the ones I’d never been able to ask my mother, and you answered them all in that direct, no-nonsense way of yours.
And then you sent me off with a “See you next year,” and you did see me the next year and also four months after that, when I took my first pregnancy test and it said yes. You may not know it, but I drove 115 miles to see you for that first prenatal appointment, because even though we’d moved to another town, I couldn’t imagine anyone else delivering my first.
And it’s a good thing, too, because there I was in the hospital, three hours pushing and no baby, and when my eyeballs felt like they might explode from the brutal strain, you told me you needed to use a vacuum to get him out.
I went crazy. I cried about how a friend who was a nurse in neonatal intensive care had seen so many cases of brain damage because of the vacuum. “Just don’t let them use a vacuum,” she’d said just two days before I lay on a bed in labor.
You did not laugh at my fear. You took it and held it gently. “That has not been my experience,” you said. “But it’s entirely up to you.”
Those contractions kept coming so I had to scream out, “Whatever you need to do, just get him out,” and you did, and he was fine, and you slipped out of that birthing room quietly, because a new mama and daddy were having the moment you’ve seen a thousand times, and the last thing you wanted to do was intrude. We didn’t even have a chance to thank you.
We would have more chances, though.
You would be my rock that this-is-the-safe-day when you ran the wand across my belly and there was no heartbeat, the same day you would deliver a baby and instead of placing her in my arms you would place her in a lab jar.
You would walk us through a twin pregnancy, a high-risk, share-the-placenta case that has more pages of what could go wrong than what could go right.
You would carry me through this last one, and maybe this is the most significant of all.
You see, I didn’t know if he would make it. There was that pregnancy condition, when I itched all over day and night. The condition that made me want to scratch my eyes out. The condition that could end in stillbirth.
And, God, I couldn’t do that again. I couldn’t lose another one.
I cried after every appointment near the end. I had anxiety attacks when he stopped moving for a minute or two. I dreamed about a baby whose face I would not kiss alive.
I sent you notes. I begged you to deliver early, since I’d read all about those stillbirth chances and how they increased the longer babies lived in a womb. I became the patient no obstetrician wants.
And then, the day before my birthday you gave me a gift. A baby, and he was ALIVE.
I love you for that.
I just had my last post-pregnancy appointment with you, because this boy was always going to be our last, and you don’t know it, but I felt all torn up inside.
Because the truth is I will miss you.
I will miss your humor. I will miss our talks. I will miss sharing in this new life experience with you.
I don’t even know that words can express how grateful I am to and for you, but I will try.
Thank you for all you have done.
You saw the fear in my eyes for that first one, and you spoke courage and peace and wisdom. You felt the sorrow of that lost one, and you spoke comfort and hope and healing. You knew the fear and worry that can consume a mama when stillbirth looms, and you spoke calm and understanding and love.
This cannot be underestimated.
Maybe it’s not what typical doctors do, this caring enough about a patient to ask about the lost job and the writing pursuit and the husband at home, whose name you remember, but you were never typical.
You were exceptional.
Not only did you deliver new life into the world, but you delivered new life into the heart of this mama, who did not know if she could really do it, any of it.
I will not be the same because of you. My family will not be the same. We are forever changed.
So thank you. Thank you for your gift of life. Thank you for sacrificing weekends so you could deliver every one of my half-dozen boys. Thank you for your love and care and constant concern.
You are a healer in every sense of the word.
Thank you for being you.
by Rachel Toalson | General Blog
My husband and I used to sit down to a quiet dinner, just the two of us. We used to be able to eat the same thing every week. We used to be able to hold hands when we wanted and pack up leftovers for the next day’s lunch.
Kids changed all that.
Now we sit down to a dinner with more words than you’ll read in a George R.R. Martin novel. We have to have something different every night of the month. We use our hands to dish out food, and there are never any leftovers.
Over the years of eating dinners together, which, in spite of the mayhem six boys can rouse, we still find important, my boys have emerged with very different eating personalities.
There is The Picky Eater.
This is the kid who asks what’s for dinner, and, before you even get “chicken noodle soup out,” he’s already looking in the pot and saying, “I want something else.”
“If you can cook it,” I say. (He can’t. He’s 4.)
“But I HATE that.”
“Do you even know what it is?” I say, because I’m a cook, not a chef, kid.
“No.”
I have to give him credit. He gives it a chance. In fact, he gives it three chances, in three separate helpings, all the while saying how much he wishes he could have something else for dinner.
We also have The Player.
This is the kid who will take a string of spaghetti and swing it around like a rope. He’ll set up a forest with his broccoli. He will wear his pizza like a triangle hat.
“Stop playing with your food,” I’ll say.
“I not playing,” he’ll say. “I eating. See?” He puts the broccoli in his mouth, shouting, “I eat tree! Oh no!”
Well, at least he’s eating broccoli.
And we have his twin brother, The Wanderer.
This is the kid who cannot put one bite in his mouth without moving from the table to pick up the book he wanted to show his brothers. He’ll take another bite and remember he forgot to show Mama the toy he found under the couch today. It was gone for so long. Another bite, and he’s up again, using the bathroom or putting his shoes where they go or remembering he left his Thermos in the refrigerator.
“The rule is you stay at the table and ask to be excused,” I say.
“I am staying at the table,” he’ll say.
“You’re not.”
“I AM!”
“No. That’s not staying. See? You just got up from the table.”
“No! I staying.”
Ever argue with a 2-year-old? Not only does it not make sense, YOU WILL NOT WIN.
So we strapped him into a booster seat. The Wanderer wanders no more.
One of our boys is The Talker.
This is the kid who will take so excruciatingly long to eat his dinner he’s the last one at the table and we’ve all fallen asleep.
It’s not that he isn’t hungry, because he’ll always ask for more, even if dinner has already been cleaned up.
It’s just that he has to tell us every single second of his day, and he forgets that there is food to eat. The loud rumbling in his belly will not make him shovel that food any faster.
“You should eat,” I’ll say, after he’s told me in finite detail what went on today in his Sage class.
“But I want to tell you about my day.”
Twenty-five minutes of every person he came across at school today and what he did in math class and who he played with at recess and I’m getting a nervous tick in my leg, because dinner is almost over and he’s only taken two bites.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad he talks. It’s just…Eat.
Then there is The Inhaler.
This kid is the opposite of The Talker. He will start eating at the exact same time as everyone else but will finish when everyone else is on their second bite.
“May I have some more please?” he’ll say.
“You’re already done?” I’ll say.
“I’m really hungry,” he’ll say.
Obviously.
These are the only words The Inhaler will say during dinner, except for a quick one-word answer when asked what his thankful is for the day. He’s too busy shoveling to talk.
“Chew your food,” I’ll say. “Take your time.”
He’ll shoot me that you-don’t-know-what-you’re-talking-about look.
“My stomach hurts,” he’ll say after dinner.
“Do you think it’s because you ate too much?” I’ll say. “Too fast?”
“No. I think it’s just gas.”
I’ll wait a while before I tell him that eating too fast causes gas.
All I know is mealtime sure has gotten interesting.
And, if I’m being honest, a whole lot better.
by Rachel Toalson | Crash Test featured, General Blog
I don’t know if I’ve ever faced a harder challenge in my parenting years than raising twins.
Maybe it’s because our twins came near the end of the line of boys and they see all their older brothers do, and they expect that life will be exactly like that for them.
Except there are two of them.
Oh, you want to drink out of a big-boy cup because your older brother did it when he was 2? I’m sorry. There are two of you.
Oh, you want to sit free at the table instead of strapped into your chairs because all your brothers did it when they were almost 3? I’m sorry. There are two of you.
What? You want me to leave the baby gate on your door open because you haven’t yet figured out how to climb over it (it’s coming)? I’m sorry. In case you haven’t noticed, THERE ARE TWO OF YOU.
Out twins are identical, two sides of the same egg. Nature’s gift, doctors say. One is left-handed, one is right-handed. They complete each other.
That’s part of the problem. What one doesn’t think of, the other does. What one is afraid to do, the other will try.
It’s like having four toddler wrecking balls walking around the house, scheming about what they can destroy next. I imagine their conversations go a little something like this:
Twin 1: Hey. Hey, bro. Mama’s not watching. Remember how she told us not to touch this computer? She’ll never know. Where is she?
Twin 2: She’s in the bathroom. Remember what we did last time she was in the bathroom?
Twin 1: Oh, man. That was fun. But this computer. She’ll never know. I just can’t figure out how to open it.
Twin 2: Like this. But how do you turn it on?
Twin 1: Easy. I’ve seen Daddy press this button right here.
Twin 2: There it is.
(Mama comes back into the room with the baby she just changed.)
Twin 1: Close it, close it, close it!
Twin 2: Walk away. Not too fast, not too slow. Just enough to look like we weren’t doing anything.
I love my twins. Of course I do. It’s just that they were unexpected.
If I could have read a primer two years ago, this is what it might have said:
Every parent of twins needs…
1. An extra dose of patience.
You will need this for many things. You will need it for the stranger at the store who asks to see your amazing bundles of joy and, after looking at their angelic sleeping faces, declares she “always wanted twins” and you want to say, “Oh, really? Then take mine,” because one was up screaming at 3 a.m. and as soon as you got him calmed down two hours later the other one woke up screaming, and as soon as you got that one calmed down an hour later all the other boys were up asking for breakfast. Which woke up the twins, who were also hungry. Again.
You will need it for when they learn to talk and there are so.many.words and so.many.whys and so many demands for everything under the sun. You will need it for the potty training and the big-boy-bed transitions and the constant fighting from dawn until dusk.
You will need it for the times you were helping one out of his pajamas and into his day clothes and you return back downstairs to find all the jackets removed from your poetry books and spread across the living room floor like a special carpet for toddler feet, for the six thousandth time (You should probably just put those books away, Mama. Far, far away.).
I’m an angel. That’s what this face says. Keep this picture close. You’ll need it for the times you wonder if he really is the devil.
2. Good decision-making skills.
These will come into play those times they both wake up at 3 a.m. because they’re hungry. Which one do you feed first? (Answer: You’ll figure out a way to feed both.)
You’ll need these skills when one twin is in the downstairs bathroom playing with a plunger in a potty you specifically remember your older boy didn’t flush five minutes ago when he stunk it up and the other is in his bathroom upstairs finger painting the mirror with a whole tube of eco-friendly toothpaste. Which do you get first? (Answer: The toilet one. Toothpaste is much easier to clean than the mess an overzealous plunger can make.)
You’ll need them when the one who’s known for wandering does exactly that, moves from his nap time place while you take a minute or five for a shower, because it’s been four days since the last one, and you walk out to find him playing with the computer he’s been told 50 billion times to leave alone and, in his panic to close it, he deletes the 1,500 words you wrote this morning before kids got up. What do you do? (Answer: Cry.)
3. A rigorous workout regime.
When one is running down the street because someone forgot to lock the deadbolt he can’t reach and another is going out back without shoes in 26-degree rain, you’ll want to be in shape for that. I recommend interval training. That way when they stop and change directions, you’ll be ready. You’ve done this a thousand times. Ski jumps. Football runs. All-out sprints.
When they slip, unnoticed (because they’re like ninjas), into the playroom while you’re wiping down the table after a ridiculously messy lunch, and both of them come out with their scooters, you’ll want to be able to wrestle those “cooters” from screaming, flailing bodies without hurting anyone.
And when one collapses in the middle of the park because it’s time to go and he’s not ready yet and the other thinks that just might work, you’ll need strong arms to carry 32 pounds of kicking and screaming twins back to the car, one tucked under each armpit.
4. Containment measures.
This would be things like strollers until they’re 3 and booster seats until they’re 4 and a baby gate on their door until they’re…15. Okay, maybe 13.
It also means leashes at the city zoo on a packed day, even though you said you’d never use them and you can feel the disapproval of other people and you want to say, “Come talk to me when you have 2-year-old twins. These things have saved their lives 17 billion times, and that was before we even got out of the parking lot.”
Containment saves lives. And sanity.
Twins are great. And hard. And maddening. And great. And so hard.
They can disassemble an 8-year-old’s room of LEGO Star Wars ships in 3.1 seconds. They can disassemble a heart with one identical smile and a valiant try at saying “Uptown funk you up” that sounds like it should have come with a bleep.
There’s just nothing like them in the world. You’ll be so glad you get to be their mama.
Especially after they fall asleep.
