In response to Julep's melancholy post, I wanted to offer my own experience. One of the things I knew before I even contemplated having a child was that I am not cut-out to be a stay-at-home mother. I *hated* baby-sitting, unless the kids were old enough to watch a movie in which I was half-way interested. Otherwise, I am not someone who wants to "craft" with children for days on end. My mini-Lo and I have a basket of markers, stickers, and an art pad that we will pull-out from time to time, and a bucket of chalk for the driveway, but that is it. I was actually shocked to learn that a child mini-Lo's age should be proficient with scissors(the safety-scissor variety, sure, but still...?). For many reasons, including this one, I am so thrilled that mini-Lo gets to do all these things with a group of kids being led by a professional with child-development experience. Take a look at this photo and, although all the happy faces have been blocked out, I can assure that this activity will never take place at my house:
That's mini-Lo in the middle, wearing the yellow apron, with non-toxic finger paint all over his grubby, little hands. My office door and a better part of my office h-vac unit are covered with art projects which mini-Lo has gotten to do at school, and these are just the ones that made it past the garbage can on the way into the house at the end of each school day. I certainly know that each mother and each child is different, but I can tell you that my child would not have half as much fun with me if we both didn't have other outlets for our skills - me: office work; him: toddler-aged craftiness. Then when we are together, we go places! When he and his daddy are together (unsupervised), they are usually playing on an ipad or watching TV...but hey, priorities...and at least that time is limited.
Truly, my maternity leave felt like one of the worst times of my life. And as I sat in a chair, bleary-eyed and nursing (or pumping), I often wondered how anybody managed to do that with a second child (presumably a toddler) running around. Same with sleeping! How does that even happen when there are more than one child? So super props to Julep and Twinkle for having the chutzpah and grit to push past the far-limits of where I know my sanity ends. And also, the only time when I was convinced that my marriage was dysfunctional was in those first three/four post-partum months. Admittedly, I am not my most charming when I am sleep-deprived and feeling incompetent, and most days my husband seemed to me to be less competent than I. Furthermore, I will admit I was totally tracking how much time and effort each of us was putting into the baby-endeavor and comparing my lot with his....and feeling very aggrieved. So an awesome camaraderie-building exercise newborns are not. Give me an eff-ing ropes course any day!
So that is my stream-of-consciousness on the subject. Now I have a brief to type, whilst my child is supposedly eating an organic meal and planning out his nap-time strategy. He will likely be playing outside later today and tomorrow at school he will have his Spanish lesson. I think he might know the word "Hola", but that's about it. But no matter how we get there, we are all doing our best to just keep them alive and you, Dear Julep, are doing a great job! Bear is always so happy when I see him and he is not suffering in the least for lack of corn-starch finger-painting....because, at the very least, he will have a little sister with whom to plan coup-attempts against the authoritarian regime in the not-to-distant future.
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