Separation Anxiety

Michelle and I had a nice visit with my Mom and Dad. Mom gave Michelle a little Easter gift to enjoy before Easter. An adorable little bunny book. Later we went to Walmart. I needed to get all my grocery shopping done and Mom loves to get to Walmart any chance she can. She offered to walk around with Michelle while I shopped unencumbered for a change. It gives her a chance to visit with her granddaughter and gives me a rare opportunity to shop without a baby fussing. We were going to meet at the front of the store in an hour. I said I'd probably be done before that and where might I find her. Mom said she wanted to look in Menswear for a gift for my brother. I rushed around to get my shopping done and asked someone the time. I was a bit early. I thought I'd run into my Mom somewhere in the store but didn't. I checked back at Menswear a few times. Then I started to worry. I searched from one end of the store to the other, all the places I thought she'd be. There was no sign of her. I thought maybe she was checking out. I scanned all of the line-ups and didn't see her. Finally I decided I might as well cash out and put my groceries in the car because I could run around the store a lot faster without the cart.

When I went back in the store, a feeling of panic set in. "What if something happened?" My Mom is just about the only person I would trust to watch Michelle but even with Mom I worry. After all, Mom admits she left my brother Mike behind in the bank when he was a baby. She had Chris as a toddler and me as a child and I guess a young baby was just too much. As she left the bank, the teller called after her "Aren't you forgetting something, Ma'am?" "No," Mom replied, "I have my purse." Priorities! She always laughs when she tells this story but now I was recalling it with horror. What if she left Michelle somewhere and someone took her? My Mom was famous for walking away from her cart. I remember even as a child I had to keep saying "Mom! Someone is going to take your cart!" (I'm not sure why I didn't tell her about little Mikey when she left him behind. Maybe I didn't notice. Or maybe I thought one brother was enough...) She was always misplacing her purse and her keys. My mind started to race. Where was she? Was Michelle OK? I thought I heard a baby cry. Was it her? I looked down one aisle after another. Each time I saw a babyseat in a cart I'd get excited then disappointed it wasn't her. Where were they? What if Mom had to go to the washroom and left Michelle outside? What if Michelle needed to be changed and Mom couldn't get her out of the carseat (my Mom had problems with the buckle. It is pretty hard to undo)?

Ironically I thought I needed a break from Michelle. As a single Mom I look after her 24-7 with no break, ever. You would think that I'd be relieved to have an hour to myself. Instead I missed her. I worried about her. It didn't feel right not having her there. When I went to pick up some baby food there was another Mom with her baby. The woman looked a  little dishevelled, tired and distracted like me except she had her baby with her so you knew why. I realized that without Michelle I just look disshevelled, like I don't care. I would just look like a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Stained jeans, sweatshirt, messy hair, crooked glasses (Michelle keeps grabbing them off my face) exhausted expression. Most of the time when I was shopping with Michelle, strangers would smile, make conversation, comment on how cute she was and make a fuss of her. Now shopping on my own, no one acknowledged me at all.

I'm closer to Michelle than I've ever been to anyone. It's only natural. She's my own child. I feed her, play with her, read to her, sleep with her. In my entire life I've never spent so much time with anyone. Every hour of every day and night. I'm an Attachment Parent for sure. I couldn't be more attached! It's like she's part of me and when she's not there it really doesn't feel right. As difficult as it can be sometimes to care for her constantly on my own (especially when she's fussy and difficult and I'm on no sleep) I love her so much I can't bear to be apart from her. God forbid when the day comes when I have to leave her with someone. I'm trying not to think about that. I'm having enough trouble sleeping as it is.


So I sprinted around Walmart, growing increasingly anxious. I wondered if I should have my Mom paged (of course she was ALWAYS late whenever we were supposed to meet but this time she had my baby.) Where could she be? I realized I could probably search the store forever and not find her because as soon as I go down one aisle she could be going up another and I could keep missing her. Where could Mom be with my baby?! Maybe she'd kidnapped Michelle and was on her way to Mexico! (OK, now I was just being silly.) I had spent so much time with Michelle, the bond was so strong that not being near her felt wrong. I started to soften when I thought of times Michelle had awakened and started to cry that I wasn't there. I always got so frustrated when she'd wake up before I had a chance to get anything done. (Like when I FINALLY thought it was safe to take a shower and had just stepped in only to hear "Waaaaah!" a minute later. So I'd curse silently like Yosemite Sam, dripping wet, throwing on a towel, thinking how unfair it was that I couldn't have even 5 minutes to myself.) Now I understood. She had that moment of panic. "Where is Mama?" We're supposed to be together. And as I raced around Walmart, all I could think was, I can't wait to see her face. I can't wait to hold her. Even if it is breaking my wrist. (I had carpal tunnel in my left wrist while pregnant and I've been having a lot of pain especially since that's the arm I carry her in the most. These days she's over 16 lbs so it's murder on my poor arm.) In my panic all I could think was "Where is my baby?"

When I finally saw the carseat in the distance, brown and turquoise with a pink blanket and a little pink baby inside, a wave of relief and joy washed over me. I almost ran across the store to get to her. "There you are! I've been worried sick!" "Oh sorry," my Mom said. "I didn't want to stop in Menswear until Michelle was asleep." Meanwhile Michelle wasn't suffering from separation anxiety at all. She was sleeping sweetly, quite content to roll around Walmart with Grandma and wasn't worried where I was.

So apparently an hour is my limit to be without Michelle. I have left her with my Mom for an hour before to go to a doctor's appointment. It's strange that I didn't even plan to have children but now she has taken over my life so completely that she's everything to me and I can't imagine life without her, not even for an hour. I used to use the excuse that I had to feed her every couple of hours but I've managed to stretch the breastfeeding to every three hours now. The truth is that I can't bear to be apart from her. Yes she needs me but I need her just as much.

One of the stories I read to Michelle often is called "We Belong Together." We belong together like milk and cookies, "like peanut butter and jelly, like a pencil is drawn to paper..." Michelle and I belong together. She is my other half, my better half. My reason for being. Yes there are times when she drives me crazy but most of the time she is the joy of my life. She IS my life. Maybe I love her too much. Maybe I go overboard. I can't help it. I never expected to be a Mom but this is the only Mom I can be. All in.

Shots, grasshoppers and wrong turns!

Someone pointed out to me that STRESSED backwards spells desserts. Hmm. Maybe that's why I'm craving ice cream. I have been really stressed out lately! I know that I should relax. I do plan to start doing yoga again soon. Maybe that will help. I need to find my "Zen" again. I wish I didn't let things get to me. I wish I was one of those people so laid back about everything. Just go with the flow. Take it as it comes. I'm a little high strung (it's hereditary.) I can only relax when everything is perfect and everything goes right. Now how often does that actually happen?!

Car trips are often stressful with the baby. I never know if she's going to scream or for how long. I worry about the position of the sun (because even with the screens covering the back windows, sometimes there is full sun on her face and it drives me crazy! I wind up dislocating my shoulder reaching to the backseat to hold up a piece of paper to shade her little face. Have to be especially careful with my sensitive little red haired girl.) I worry if she's going to poo (because she goes so often and as I've learned the hard way a few times now, trying to change her in the car is beyond awkward. It's just short of impossible. And God help you if you don't change her because she will scream bloody murder the entire way until your ears are bleeding and your head explodes. If you happen to be on the highway and can't pull over, you're S.O.L.) or cry for some other reason. I worry that she'll wail the whole time or wait for a really embarassing moment like when I'm at the drive-thru window. Every time I put the keys in the ignition I cross my fingers and hope I get lucky.

It was my brother's birthday celebration, so I set out in the car with Michelle, hoping for the best. At least now I have my trusty soother to help out during the trip. (I have gone from being opposed to the pacifier to absolutely loving it! It really helps to calm Michelle down, keeps her from crying, actually seems to help her fall asleep and so is my magic talisman when we're out and about.) The only problem is that of course it doesn't always stay in her mouth and she cries when it drops. So I pulled over three times during the trip to give it back to her. Then there's the sunlight. For some reason on this particular drive, the sun was on her face no matter which way we went, even when the road curved. It seemed to be coming from all directions. I was afraid she'd get a sunburn. I guess I don't have to worry that she only swallows about half the vitamin D drops when I try to give them to her. She's getting vitamin D whenever we take a drive thanks to the useless screens I got for the windows. I guess I need to install full curtains or black out the windows or something.

At least we made it there for the birthday party but being at my Mom's is stressful in itself. My mother's house is a little crowded to say the least, never mind when there are nearly 20 people there. She had cleared out the family room to make some space but my nephew James and one of my brother's friend's kids were playing with toy cars and had taken up the entire floor. I needed to feed Michelle and my Mom didn't have a private room I could go to. So to get to the couch I had to carefully tiptoe like a Mommy Godzilla through a little village filled with hundreds of toy cars, trying not to slip and drop the baby.

I don't feel comfortable breastfeeding in public. I don't mind as much if I'm just around women but I just can't do it in front of boys. Family or not. I had pumped breastmilk in a bottle but it wasn't enough to do all day so I had to breastfeed her at least once while I was there. My Mom said "Save the bottle for when we're having dinner so I can feed her while you're eating." I put a big scarf over Michelle and I (and it was a hundred degrees under the thing!) for privacy and tried to feed Michelle. It was very uncomfortable. At home I have my nursing pillow when I'm sitting up or I feed her lying down in bed. Trying to feed her on the couch with no pillow and trying to stay hidden from two little boys playing with cars by my feet was not easy. I knew that James was aware of breastfeeding (he had precociously made the comment while I was pregnant that a baby was going to be a lot of work and that I'd have to feed her from my boobs!) but I really didn't want to expose myself to him. Using the nipple shield (which I continue to use and couldn't live without! The first week trying to feed her with my bare nipples left me bleeding and bruised! I'm never going back to that!) makes it that much more awkward especially when you're trying to stay hidden. Michelle and I both wound up soaked. (When she's not on a proper pillow she's a sloppy eater and the milk tends to drip down the two of us.)

Michelle is sometimes fussy, sometimes good. And you never know how it's going to go. Usually the soother will placate her at least but it doesn't always work. She was probably cranky because she didn't get to have much of a nap. She closed her eyes for a few minutes here and there but wouldn't stay asleep. Even if there were room for her to lie down, the TV blasting (we couldn't find the remote to turn down the volume) and the boys playing in the room probably would have disturbed her. At least my sister in law took her for a while which gave my arms a break. Barb was excited to hold her. "She's so small! You forget how small they were!" Barb's youngest is a toddler. She isn't planning to have any more. Holding Michelle almost made her want another. Hearing Michelle cry almost non-stop probably nipped that in the bud.

I had the bottle of breast milk to give Michelle at dinner which she consumed in seconds (120 ml should be plenty. I can't believe how much she can drink/eat!) and then proceeded to cry while I tried to scarf down my dinner. My brother in law joked "This would be a good commercial for Advil!" It's funny because I remember so many get-togethers in the past where my siblings' kids were crying, screaming. Arguing over toys. Crying because they fell. Sometimes it could get pretty loud, especially with a couple of them going at once. I never suspected that one day it would be MY baby who would be crying. Having a child seemed beyond the realm of possibility. Now it's my reality.

My brother in law asked if maybe she was hungry or needed to be changed. "No," I explained, "She's just been fed, burped and changed. She's just a redhead! Mom says I was a nightmare too."
Even little James asked "What's wrong with the baby?"
"She's a baby!" I answered. Babies cry. It's their only form of communication. (Well other than the occasional coo or goo and a little laugh.)

The sound of the baby crying, along with all the other noise and commotion of the family was a bit overwhelming. I wondered what Christmas would be like when an even bigger gang (all of us) will be there. Of course by then Michelle will be 5 months old and hopefully much better behaved. She may even be talking. (I can dream. She has said "Hi" more than ten times now which to me makes it more than a fluke or accident. So who knows? A few times when she was crying it sounded like she said "Mama" even when she was first born. OK that probably was just a fluke...)

Get-togethers with the family are a little different with the baby. Everyone was hanging out in the backyard. Usually I would have been out there with them. We went out briefly but then I had to go in to feed Michelle and after feeding her we were both damp with milk and it was too cold to go out. So I barely had a visit with anyone other than the boys and their cars in the family room. Then even when everyone came in I missed my brother opening his gifts because I had to change Michelle who was screaming (again). I tried to get a group photo of us but there really isn't anywhere to set up the camera at my Mom's. My camera has a self-timer so I'm usually able to get all of us in a shot. Unfortunately on this occasion I couldn't fit everyone in and the baby was crying. It was one of the worst pictures ever. At least Michelle settled down for a few minutes and we were able to get a couple of photos.

By the end of the day I was physically and emotionally exhausted and anxious to get home. Little did I know what lay in store for me...

The baby was screaming. She wouldn't even keep the soother in her mouth a second so I thought something is definitely wrong. I was on empty anyway (of course) so when I stopped to fill up at the gas station, I took her out of her seat to change her diaper (as nightmarish as it is to do so in the backseat of the car.) Sure enough she'd had another HUGE poo (why she couldn't have done this five minutes earlier before we left my Mom's, I don't know. Timing is everything! She usually has at least three really big poos a day but you never know exactly when they'll happen.) So at least she was changed and happy. Unfortunately it seems that while I had the car door open, we picked up a hitchhiker...

I was driving along when I suddenly saw a grasshopper spreadeagle, legs splayed across the windshield. Inside the car! Normally I'm not afraid of grasshoppers but I'm not a big fan of insects flying at my face when I'm trying to drive. I have had insects -- spiders, wasps, mosquitos -- in the car before, long before I had the baby and it was never pretty. It usually involved me screaming and swerving and nearly crashing to my death. I'm a little more cautious now with the baby and knew I'd have to try to restrain my natural instinct to scream and flail like a madwoman, possibly killing us both. I didn't know if the grasshopper might jump or fly or fall on me but he kept slowly inching up the windshield until he was at my eye level. I can't describe how hard it is to keep your eyes on the road when you're whiteknuckled staring at a grasshopper praying that he doesn't jump at your eye. I had to get him out. I just didn't know how. I didn't want to squish him. It made my skin crawl just thinking about it. Then I remembered my friend had given me this handy little diaper bag dispenser for my purse. I could catch him in a bag and let him outside. I finally went for it. It was terrifying but I managed to catch him in the bag and let him out the window. Logically he probably died anyway. If the impact didn't kill him, then a passing car would but in the scheme of things I figured the lives of my baby and I were slightly more important! One disaster had been averted but there was still another in store for me...

The route that I used to take home hasn't been possible for months thanks to an annoying road closure due to a never-ending construction mess (on the main road that I took 50% of the way) so I had an alternate route. Then to my horror as I was heading home I saw that the infuriating construction disease had spread even to my alternate route. It was closed. Great. It was pitch dark out. My night vision isn't great to start with. I thought I had figured out another way home. Turns out the road that I thought I was on was something else entirely. Before I knew it, I was lost. Really lost. Nothing was familiar. I was in the middle of nowhere. There were no lights. I turned from one street to another hoping something would take me somewhere. I didn't even know what direction I was going. North, south, east, west? I hadn't a clue. For all I knew I was going in the opposite direction to where I should be heading. Everything was "Sideroad" this and that. You know you're in the country when they don't even call it a road or a street, just a sideroad. Sure enough, now I was on a dirt road! It wasn't even PAVED. Thankfully Michelle was still asleep through all this but I started to panic. "OMG. She's going to wake up and be starving because I should have been home with her an hour ago to feed her. I don't even know where we are! How will we ever get home?!" I started to pray "Please God help me get home! Soon!"

Now most people have modern gadgets like cellphones and GPS. I don't. I refused to get a cellphone. Yes I think I'm the last person left in North America over the age of 10 that doesn't have one! There are times I wish I had one for an emergency but with money tighter than ever as a single Mom it's not really in the budget. Anyway, so I had nothing to help me find my way and no way of calling for help. I started looking for any lights or signs of life but it was just blackest pitch as far as the eye could see. I was getting more and more nervous. I didn't know what to do.

Finally I saw a house with a light on. Part of me worried that this was just too much like those horror movie scenes where some poor unsuspecting schlep is lost in the middle of nowhere and stops somewhere to ask for directions (or runs out of gas -- at least I had gas) and happens upon a family of inbred cannibals. I was hoping that wouldn't happen! I nervously approached the wooden door and a man came to greet me before I knocked. Thank Heaven he was NICE (and not a murderer/cannibal!)

"I'm so sorry to bother you," I said "but I'm really lost and I have a 2 month old baby in the car..."
He kindly gave me directions and even drew me a map. I was so relieved and grateful. I should have asked him how long I was going to be on each of the roads though because it took so long for me to find the main road that I started to worry I'd passed it. I didn't know how much longer to keep driving. When I finally got to a sign and to signs of civilization I was so happy I wanted to scream "Woo hoo!" but was trying to stay quiet for Michelle who was miraculously still asleep. She didn't wake up until we were nearly home and she started to scream. Poor girl was starving by now. Of course (because we hadn't been through enough already) I got stuck behind some idiot on the one lane road going as slow as molasses. I kept trying to comfort Michelle "It's OK baby. We're almost home! We'd be home by now if it wasn't for this IDIOT in our way!" Of course I was an idiot too. I'd gotten us lost in the first place.

I was ecstatic when we finally made it home. I was like Dorothy in her ruby slippers saying "There's no place like home!" Michelle fed voraciously. It felt so good to be home safe and sound that I swore I wasn't going to leave the house the next day and we didn't. We had a nice peaceful day in our pjs and Michelle was quite mellow and content (probably exhausted from the day before.)

There was still something else coming up to stress about -- I had to take Michelle for her 8 week shots. Needles had always caused me anxiety. The idea of my innocent little baby having to go through it was far worse than if it were happening to me. To make matters worse I'd even read about immunizations in "What to Expect in the First Year." Now don't get me wrong. It's a great book. I like that it's so thorough that it warns you about absolutely everything that could possibly happen. The problem with this (much like "What to Expect When You're Expecting" some sections of which gave me nightmares) is that if you're a worrier and you read about all these negative, horrific things that "might" possibly happen, it's a recipe for anxiety. So when I read that the shots could cause a rash, fever, hours of screaming and in very rare cases, even DEATH I was petrified. Of course the book said that the benefits far outweighed the risks. I hoped Michelle would be OK. I was worried enough about her crying at the needle never mind her having a bad and possibly fatal reaction! After cutting her thumb accidentally when I did her nails I wondered if she'd keep bleeding after the needle.

My Mom came with me for moral support. First they gave Michelle a Rotavirus vaccine which consisted of drops (if drops are an option why use needles at all?!) Then they gave her two needles, one in each thigh, one for Diptheria, Tetanus, Polio, Pertussis and HiB. The other for "Prevnar 13." I'm not very familiar with any of the infections/illnesses. I guess because we've been immunized against them for so long they're not really around anymore. Michelle cried and it was a heartbreaking cry of shock and pain. I comforted her. I had tears in my eyes myself. Poor little thing must have wondered what the heck was going on. At least she didn't bleed much. They didn't even put bandages on her. We stuck around for a bit to see if there was any allergic reaction (rash or anything) but she seemed fine. She calmed down eventually. The doctor gave me some infant tylenol just in case but she didn't need it. She wasn't any fussier than normal and you could barely see the tiny dots where the shots had been. I had worried for nothing. I was so relieved. Unfortunately we have to go through this over and over again. Apparently she has to get more needles at 4 months, 6, 12, 15 and 18 months. Then at 4 years, 12 years, 13 years and 14 years. Gheesh. I don't remember getting so many shots as a kid. I thought it was just one booster shot once in your life and you're done.

Even when I don't have anything immediate to worry about, my Mom will call up and try to give me something new to stress over. The latest was her phoning to warn me that there is arsenic in rice. She heard it on the news so it must be true. There's never anything happy on the news so I avoid watching it but I get to hear tidbits from my mother. I'm never sure if she got the story quite right. (Like when she told me that eating eggs is as bad as smoking cigarettes. Not quite right. Apparently eggs -- cholesterol anyway -- and cigarettes can both contribute to heart disease but I'd prefer the eggs.) Some foods I might be willing to give up (broccoli for instance) but I love rice. I eat it almost every day. I was pretty sure that if all rice was poisonous they might make more of an effort to warn people about it, like drawing a big skull and crossbones on the front of the bag or something. Then again it took them a while to let people know that cigarettes would kill them and even that doesn't stop the smokers out there. I don't know much about arsenic. I remember hearing about a play called "Arsenic and Old Lace" about a couple of psychotic old ladies poisoning people. Anyway, I Googled the rice arsenic thing just to see what Mom was on about. It turns out that there is actually arsenic in air, water and soil. Consequently it ends up in many foods, not just rice. Organic arsenic isn't so bad. But there is also inorganic arsenic (in the form of pesticides and insecticides which wind up on fruits and vegetables.) So while the focus was on rice recently for some reason, apparently there is arsenic in apple juice too (which is fine because I HATE apple juice! My Mom turned me against it because she used to always put it in my thermos and made it smell like apple juice. Even when she started giving me milk in the thermos it still tasted like apple juice. Awful.) Anyway, I'm a big fan of rice, especially Uncle Ben's Express Basmati Rice -- my fave. From what I read online there are only trace amounts, not enough to kill you, so I don't think I'll change my diet too much. The weird thing is that I read the FDA really doesn't have any standards for levels of arsenic. So technically all our food could be poisoned with toxic levels of arsenic and they wouldn't have a problem with it? I don't get it. I'm going to try not to worry about it. Apparently everything is bad for you in some way, even things that are good for you. You can't stop eating everything. Fish is brain food but might have mercury in it. Fruits and vegetables are healthy but might be poisoned with insecticides. My Mom said that when I start giving the baby food, not to give her rice cereal, just in case. I rolled my eyes. I won't give her apple juice either.

My Mother was always a worrier and she's passed a lot of her worrying tendencies on to me. As much as I swore I would never become my mother, sometimes I catch myself doing it. I don't want to turn Michelle into a nervous wreck so I do want to try to relax. I don't want her to think the world is a scary place (even though sometimes it is.) Overall it is a beautiful place, full of magic and wonder. The good things are what we need to focus on. And sometimes it's just your perspective. I remember one boyfriend that I dated could put a positive spin on anything. Even when he got lost while driving he would smile and say "It's an adventure!" He would have loved the grasshopper thing. Maybe I need to work on my sense of whimsy. You can't wait for life to be perfect. You just have to smile at the imperfections. Attitude is everything.

I can't believe Michelle is two months old already. The doctor said she looks very healthy and she weighs 11 lbs 6 ounces now. I figured she had to be over 11 pounds by now (judging by how much it hurts my wrists, arms and back carrying her!) Time is flying by. I am so grateful that she is in my life. Even when it's stressful. Even when she's difficult. The moments when she's happy, when she smiles or coos at me make it all worthwhile.

I just need to lighten up. I need to learn to laugh at life's (and my) foibles. The key to overcoming stress is keeping your sense of humour. I usually find mine after the fact. I can laugh about it later when I recall these things. It's just finding my humour in the moment that proves difficult. I have to remember that nothing is that serious. Nothing is the end of the world. Almost everything becomes an amusing anecdote eventually. As Charlie Chaplin said "Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up but a comedy in long-shot."

Good days, bad days...

Every day is different and I never know when I get out of bed whether it will be a good day or a bad day. Sometimes I get lucky. Michelle is often fussy, especially when I try to go shopping, but I had a really good day with her and she actually let me get through Walmart without causing a scene. Mind you, I was motoring through the store. I was walking so quickly it would have been a run to anyone else. People saw me coming and ducked out of my way. I was a woman on a mission. Pushing the cart like Mario Andretti on acid, burning through the store, from one end to the other. Diapers. Cat food. Milk. Baby clothes. Even when Michelle woke up at the cash register, miracle of miracles, she didn't cry! Maybe she was in a daze after riding in the cart at 100 miles an hour! I was so happy I kept thanking her for being so good for Mama. And then I decided to be really brave and go to the Tim Hortons drive-thru. She even stayed quiet for that! (She screamed previous times I tried to get my iced capps. Sometimes she'd cry if I even glanced at a Tims, slowed down and contemplated pulling in. So I'd drive by and she'd be quiet again.) I was amazed. All day she was happy and smiling. We played and read books (Well I played and read but she did look somewhat curious/interested what I was on about.) She barely fussed at all. It was Heaven with my little angel. Until the evening when she was restless and wouldn't settle down so I barely got any sleep. She can be good in the day or at night. Expecting both is being greedy.

The next day, unfortunately, didn't go so well. It was a nightmare actually, but more my fault than Michelle's. I was rather zombie-like on minimal sleep. Sometimes I feel so weak and exhausted it's hard to carry Michelle around (I'm guessing she's over 11 lbs by now.) I was clumsy. Bumping into, tripping over things, dropping things (like my vitamin when I went to take it.) While I was playing with Michelle on her ocean play gym I accidentally dropped a toy on her head. She cried and it was a different cry than I'd ever heard before. It was a cry of shock. I felt horrible. I kissed and kissed her saying "I'm so sorry baby!" It didn't bruise her or anything, mostly just startled her.

It wasn't just me, maybe the whole day was jinxed. I checked the calendar in case it was Friday the 13th. It wasn't. But the cat was clumsy too. She tried to jump up on the counter and missed. Then she jumped on the glass side table in the living room (which I guess I will have to get rid of before Michelle is crawling/walking) and knocked it over with a loud crash that scared Michelle and I out of our wits. She's never done that before. At least the table didn't break. It was just weird.

Then things got much worse...I don't know why I picked that day to cut the baby's nails. I should have known better. I had cut her nails once before and it had gone smoothly but they were growing long again and she kept scratching herself. She wriggles around so much and clenches her fists so you could never cut them while she's awake. I had to wait until she was sleeping and preferably during the day when there's enough light to see. So when she settled down for a nap in the morning I thought I may not get another chance. I got the scissors and carefully went to work. She stirred a little but didn't wake up. It was hard to cut though because she's a restless sleeper and jerks her arms and legs every so often. I tried to be quick. I was almost done when the unthinkable happened -- I accidentally clipped her finger. Her thumb actually. "Crap!" The cut was tiny. Just the size of a pinprick but it bled. I applied pressure and it still bled. I held it for a solid minute (I even counted to 60) and it was still bleeding. Not a lot of blood but each time I took the tissue away it was still dripping. I kept expecting it to stop (and praying it would stop!) After 5 minutes of it bleeding, I was a basket case. I called my sister frantically. By now it had been 10 minutes and every time I removed the tissue, it was still going! Why wouldn't it stop? The only time I'd seen a cut like that was when I stubbed my toe while pregnant and it was a geyser but I figured that was because all the blood was pooled in my feet (if you read some of my pregnant posts you no doubt caught the descriptions and photos of my freakishly swollen feet). Why would a baby's finger bleed that way? My sister was very reassuring and comforting as always. She suggested calling Telehealth but anytime I've called them or heard anyone else call them they always just say "Go to the hospital to get checked out." The idea of sitting for several hours in the emergency waiting room with a screaming baby (she never lasts more than half an hour without crying when we're out in public so several hours in a waiting room would be unbearable) only to be told at the end of it that it's a minor cut and I was an idiot to worry anyway, did not sound enticing. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't understand why it wouldn't stop bleeding. At least it didn't hurt her. She didn't even wake up until I started talking to my sister on the phone. And then she didn't even cry. I managed to nurse her, while holding a paper towel around her thumb and talking to my sister on the phone. It wasn't easy! Now awake she kept wiggling around and moving her hand. Trying to keep a grip on her tiny thumb was beyond challenging.

My sister checked Google to see if anyone else had been through this or had any suggestions. She found all sorts of people describing the same thing -- accidentally cutting their baby's finger and it bleeding continuously, for hours even. One person suggested it was because babies' fingers are so fleshy, another said that their blood is thin. Whatever the reasons, it seemed to be common. (That's one thing I love about the internet. The human community and the ability to find answers so quickly. No matter how strange you think your problem is, you're not alone. There are many people who have been through the same thing and may have advice for you.) Everyone's baby survived. Everyone said it was normal and OK and would stop eventually. So I tried to stop panicking. My sister suggested putting a little bandage on it and one of those mittens so I did. And thankfully it did stop bleeding. I was so relieved when the ordeal was over. My sister said that it's a rite of passage as a parent. Accidents happen and it's so stressful when your child is hurt. But it's even worse when it's your fault! I felt so guilty, so awful. But it happens. Their fingers are tiny and trying to cut those miniscule nails isn't easy but if I didn't do it, her face would be covered in scratches. I think I may just have to keep mittens on her until she's 10 years old because I don't ever want to cut her nails again! Later that day I looked at the red mark on her little thumb. She didn't even realize what had happened. She looked into my eyes and smiled and even let out a laugh. I was so grateful that she was OK. It made me appreciate her even more. How precious she is. I couldn't bear for anything to happen to her. I was so relieved that she was OK and realized I probably had overreacted but I still felt awful about the whole thing.

When I told my Mom about it she said I'm in for a lot worse as Michelle gets older and started listing all the times she had to rush to the hospital with one of the kids needing stitches or a cast. Kids get hurt. They fall. They get scraped up. They break something. It's scary, it's heartbreaking to see your child hurt, but they survive and somehow you get through it. Life happens. It's worse though when it's YOUR fault that they get hurt! I have heard stories though of parents accidentally dropping their kids, accidentally dislocating their arm (I always worry when I see fathers horsing around with the kids and swinging them by their arms...) Even the most careful, cautious parent can slip up now and then. I remember the cool nurse in the hospital saying "Kids are like hard-boiled eggs. They're more resilient than you think." Still, I want to protect her from ever being hurt. I'm still beating myself up for the nick on her thumb.

My Mom was so overprotective of us when we were growing up, we were never out of her sight and never allowed to do anything. I was the only one in my class that never got to go on school trips. Mom never went on a vacation. Wouldn't get on a plane. She liked to be at home and wanted to keep us there too. She was a stay at home Mom and we were her world. She was so worried about us getting hurt, she tried to keep us sheltered. She gave me an ornament when I was young and I still have it. It's a little redhaired girl in a glass bubble. I think it's symbolic. It always felt like Mom wanted to keep me in that bubble, her happy little redhaired girl, safe from the outside world. She did keep me quite a while. I was late leaving the nest (I didn't move out on my own until I was 36!)

Then there is the other extreme -- parents who don't seem to worry at all, who are so laid back they let their kids run amok. One friend I knew had parents who let him travel alone (on trains and planes!) even as a very young child. I couldn't imagine. Growing up I knew kids that could come and go as they pleased. Their parents would let them do anything. I would like to fall somewhere in between the overprotective parent and the overly lenient one. To give Michelle just enough structure to be safe yet enough freedom to grow and explore. Not an easy balance. So many things sound great in theory but are almost impossible in practice. I don't want to be too strict and hold her back from living life to the fullest. But I want to protect her from being hurt. The problem is that living is risking being hurt. I know from my own life that some of the heartbreaks and mistakes I went through wound up being the best things that ever happened to me. Like falling in love with the wrong man and winding up with the greatest gift of my life -- my beautiful girl. So I don't know what the answer is. I will let her know I care. I will try to steer her in the right direction. But I will try to never hold her back from living her dreams and following her heart, wherever it leads her.

Years ago, back when I never expected I'd have my own children, I remember being out and seeing people let their kids go barefoot on filthy floors in fast food joints, put things in their mouths that were on the floor, etc. I even saw a parent pick up a soother from a dirty floor in a liquor store, blow on it and stick it back in baby's mouth! And I used to hate when I'd see kids out with that ice cream-lint beard (you know where the kid has a five o'clock shadow made of ice cream residue that the parents never wiped and then they get lint and dirt stuck to it? Brutal.) Or the runny nose dripping into their mouths. I always hated that. I wanted to go up to them and clean them with a tissue myself. I will never let any of that happen if I can help it. I know I could never stand to be sticky or messy when I was a kid. I'm pretty sure Michelle would be the same. She'd be screaming for me to wipe her face. She will be a princess like Mama.

Of course it's easy to say "I would never..." when you don't have kids. Sometimes you think you know what you would do in a situation until actually faced with the situation and then you have to rethink your stance on it. Case in point: Yes, I waffled on the whole pacifier issue. I finally broke down and got a soother. I was against them initially (I thought it would interfere with breastfeeding etc) but there were times when it seemed nothing would soothe her and I thought I might as well try it. Everytime I went out I saw people with babies sucking on pacifiers. Along with the bottle, the pacifier seems to be the international symbol for babies. My friend who is a nurse said that everyone uses them. They even gave her baby one in the hospital when she was born. I asked my doctor about using them and she said it couldn't do any harm, as long as it's before their teeth come in so it doesn't interfere with that. Having the doctor's reassurance that it was OK was just the push I needed. I thought, what the heck.

So I went to buy one. There was an entire aisle filled with pacifiers. Different brands, shapes, colours. I wouldn't have known how to choose except that one woman I ran into with a newborn baby (sucking on a soother) suggested that "Nuk" was a good one. So I got it. I was at my Mom's place when we tried it for the first time. I sterilized it. My Mom gave it to Michelle actually. I got a tear in my eye. I felt guilty about it. I didn't feel like it was right. It seems like just putting a cork in a kid to make them quiet! But then I realized I was being ridiculous. She puts her fist in her mouth anyway as a comfort thing and then her sleeve gets wet. This is just another way to comfort her. Like the vacuum or shushing noises or crinkling sounds or anything else that calms her down. I was afraid it would interfere with breastfeeding but the doctor said she's well-established at 6 weeks (she's obviously eating well, she poops non-stop and is gaining weight consistently). I use a nipple shield anyway so she's used to rubber. I also give her bottles of my pumped breastmilk when we're out. So she's used to different kinds of nipples (there's no "nipple confusion" which I had read was a risk.) The soother will just be a last resort when she cries inconsolably and all her other needs have been met -- when she's fed, burped and changed. When she is just cranky, overtired and needs to calm down. I just don't want to create an oral fixation and turn her into a smoker one day. It's silly though because children naturally have the instinct to suck and even without a soother she'd be chewing on her hand, sucking her thumb and you can't take that from them. So yeah, I caved in. But I still have standards. I wouldn't let her keep sucking it once she's a toddler (I've seen those kids out there). And I would never pick up the soother off a filthy floor, blow on it and stick it in her mouth. I'm almost certain...

I admit I'm neurotic and worry too much. I torture myself with guilt (it was instilled in me through Mom, the Queen of guilt trips and of course there's all that Catholic guilt). I always tried to be the good girl (unfortunately I fell for a lot of bad boys! Opposites attract...) I always had to be the good student. I had to be the best at everything. I was alway hard on myself. Nothing was ever good enough. It did help me achieve excellent grades in school, straight As and academic awards but it also drove me crazy. Now I'm trying to be the perfect Mom but of course there's no such thing. I have to cut myself some slack. I'm doing my best. I'm not perfect. I make mistakes. I'm human. Michelle seems to be doing well so far. She's physically thriving, gaining weight, obviously getting enough milk. She's happy overall (everyone comments on how much she smiles and she's even starting to laugh.) Strangers approach and tell me how beautiful she is (when she's not screaming bloody murder!) She's talking up a storm (though it's babytalk and hard to interpret) cooing and making a lot more sounds. I know she is trying to communicate. I spend my entire day caring for her: Feeding her, burping her, changing her, reading to her, playing with her, entertaining her, carrying her, rocking her, dancing with her, singing to her. I give her all that I have.

Considering that I didn't expect to have children, that it's all new to me so I'm figuring it out as I go and considering that I'm doing this all on my own, I think I'm doing a pretty good job. I need to go easier on myself. I've talked to parents who made a lot of mistakes and their kids still turned out great. No one is perfect. Your children likely won't remember all the times you screw up and even if they did they'd likely forgive you. Until they're teenagers and then they probably fault everything you do! (Not looking forward to that.) When they're babies they won't even notice if you mess up now and then. As long as their needs are met, they're happy.

The most important thing you can do for your child is love her. And I do. I'm realizing more each day just how much.