Quenby Olson's Blog - Posts Tagged "parenting"
Babydom
So this post isn't about writing - though some people might say that since every part of a writer's life inspires their writing...
Well, anyway. This post is about my children. So that's my warning to you now.
I don't talk much about being a mom. That doesn't mean I don't talk about my children. I talk about them ALL THE TIME. I've no doubt I'm swiftly becoming one of Those Women that people hate, the kind that uses every other Facebook update to quote something absolutely adorable said by one of their children, or to remark on one of their most precious of little quirks, or to wax poetic on how their children are the greatest children to ever grace the planet and when they cry it is to produce crystalline tears that fall on the ground and replenish the earth with all of their life-giving properties.
But I don't really go very much into what it's like to BE a mom. And that's mostly because... well, I can't.
It's one of those things you can't sum up in a few choice words. And I don't mean that in the "ALL LOVE THAT I FEEL FOR MY CHILDREN IS THE GREATEST LOVE AND MERE WORDS WOULD ONLY SULLY SUCH PERFECTION" sense of the phrase. What I mean is... It's too crazy. Too chaotic. Too exhausting. Too full of astonishing, perplexing, frustrating experiences for me to be able to sit back and say, "Meh, it's okay."
So how do I even begin? Where do I begin? It probably helps (or maybe it doesn't help at all and the hormones currently racing through my body are making me CRAZYPANTS all over the place) that I'm about nine days away from my due date. With my third child. So all of those things I mentioned above? The frustrating bits and the perplexing bits and the astonishing bits? Yeah, I'm dealing with those in spades.
So back to the beginning. You've gone through the pregnancy, you've picked out names and nursery colors and oohed and aahed over all the cute baby clothes and imagined how wonderful it will be to be have your child in your arms, frolicking through the dew-touched woods with the other nymphs and sylphs as you embrace motherhood and nursing while just imagining how great a mom you'll be and how you'll never give your child sugar or a pacifier or jarred baby food and you'll wash out every single cloth diaper (woven from the silken threads of magical tree elves who only use chlorine-free material recycled beneath the waxing light of a gibbous moon) with your bare hands and it will all be MAGICAL, truly MAGICAL.
No. No, it won't be.
It will be scary. At least, that's the first thing I experienced. And not because I was suddenly in charge of a squalling little ball of baby acne and screams that threatened to punch the nurses in the face when they tried to weigh her at the hospital. It's also because after nine months of dealing with nausea, exhaustion (I'd say "fatigue", but seriously, that word sounds so dainty and ladylike, and there is nothing ladylike about snoring loudly while drool collects on your chest and you're still wearing the same clothes from two days ago because the thought of opening a drawer or turning on the faucet to take a shower is more than enough to make your muscles ache), contractions, midnight hunger, swelling, hot flashes and 5,000 other less-savory symptoms that I won't take the trouble to name here, I then went through over fifteen hours of back labor, several hours of pushing, and all to bring my crying little pugilist into the world.
So... imagine having the flu, and then being beaten with a sack of rocks. And then someone hands you a baby. Yeah, that's pretty much your first exposure to motherhood right there.
And so I foundered. And I cried. I also didn't sleep, I didn't eat, until at the end of the first week at home with my oldest daughter, I dropped her into my husband's arms, locked myself in the bathroom, and refused to come out.
Because it wasn't MAGICAL. I wasn't dancing with wood-nymphs or weaving flowers into my hair or planning out organic, GMO-free menus for the months ahead when my child would begin eating food. I bawled, and ate my own meals like someone who had been born without taste buds, and all while rambling around the house in the same pajamas I'd worn for a week, smelling like sour milk and I-don't-want-to-know-what-else.
But that isn't all there is to being a mom. That's only one, tiny, infinitesimal little portion of it. Because having started at the bottom, feeling completely raw, completely overwhelmed by how difficult everything was, then every achievement, every day that ended with some measure of my sanity still intact became the most glorious of victories. Another week passed by. And then six weeks. And then I was counting in months. My daughter was still alive. I could kill any plant I'd ever touched. Pets just seemed like so much work. But a child... a human child... I was able to not only keep it alive, but it thrived. So then, when I was graced with that first smile, that first laugh, that first moment when she locked eyes with mine and I knew - I KNEW that she recognized me and was glad to see me... Well, that's when I started to feel a bit more like a "Mom" and a little less like "Random Person In Charge of Pooping, Puking Infant."
So... being a mom. That's just a little bit of what it's like, or at least what it's been like for me. And that really only touches on the first few months. That's not even covering first words, and baby-proofing, and potty-training, and lots of other things that may or may not need to be hyphenated. My oldest daughter will be four years old in September. My second will be 2 1/2. And sometime during the next week or so, I'll be introducing another little one - a boy, this time around - into the fold. And I'm sure that I'll be just as tired, just as frustrated, and just as smelly all over again.
But with a good bit of that GREATEST LOVE mixed in with everything, too. I definitely can't forget that.
Well, anyway. This post is about my children. So that's my warning to you now.
I don't talk much about being a mom. That doesn't mean I don't talk about my children. I talk about them ALL THE TIME. I've no doubt I'm swiftly becoming one of Those Women that people hate, the kind that uses every other Facebook update to quote something absolutely adorable said by one of their children, or to remark on one of their most precious of little quirks, or to wax poetic on how their children are the greatest children to ever grace the planet and when they cry it is to produce crystalline tears that fall on the ground and replenish the earth with all of their life-giving properties.
But I don't really go very much into what it's like to BE a mom. And that's mostly because... well, I can't.
It's one of those things you can't sum up in a few choice words. And I don't mean that in the "ALL LOVE THAT I FEEL FOR MY CHILDREN IS THE GREATEST LOVE AND MERE WORDS WOULD ONLY SULLY SUCH PERFECTION" sense of the phrase. What I mean is... It's too crazy. Too chaotic. Too exhausting. Too full of astonishing, perplexing, frustrating experiences for me to be able to sit back and say, "Meh, it's okay."
So how do I even begin? Where do I begin? It probably helps (or maybe it doesn't help at all and the hormones currently racing through my body are making me CRAZYPANTS all over the place) that I'm about nine days away from my due date. With my third child. So all of those things I mentioned above? The frustrating bits and the perplexing bits and the astonishing bits? Yeah, I'm dealing with those in spades.
So back to the beginning. You've gone through the pregnancy, you've picked out names and nursery colors and oohed and aahed over all the cute baby clothes and imagined how wonderful it will be to be have your child in your arms, frolicking through the dew-touched woods with the other nymphs and sylphs as you embrace motherhood and nursing while just imagining how great a mom you'll be and how you'll never give your child sugar or a pacifier or jarred baby food and you'll wash out every single cloth diaper (woven from the silken threads of magical tree elves who only use chlorine-free material recycled beneath the waxing light of a gibbous moon) with your bare hands and it will all be MAGICAL, truly MAGICAL.
No. No, it won't be.
It will be scary. At least, that's the first thing I experienced. And not because I was suddenly in charge of a squalling little ball of baby acne and screams that threatened to punch the nurses in the face when they tried to weigh her at the hospital. It's also because after nine months of dealing with nausea, exhaustion (I'd say "fatigue", but seriously, that word sounds so dainty and ladylike, and there is nothing ladylike about snoring loudly while drool collects on your chest and you're still wearing the same clothes from two days ago because the thought of opening a drawer or turning on the faucet to take a shower is more than enough to make your muscles ache), contractions, midnight hunger, swelling, hot flashes and 5,000 other less-savory symptoms that I won't take the trouble to name here, I then went through over fifteen hours of back labor, several hours of pushing, and all to bring my crying little pugilist into the world.
So... imagine having the flu, and then being beaten with a sack of rocks. And then someone hands you a baby. Yeah, that's pretty much your first exposure to motherhood right there.
And so I foundered. And I cried. I also didn't sleep, I didn't eat, until at the end of the first week at home with my oldest daughter, I dropped her into my husband's arms, locked myself in the bathroom, and refused to come out.
Because it wasn't MAGICAL. I wasn't dancing with wood-nymphs or weaving flowers into my hair or planning out organic, GMO-free menus for the months ahead when my child would begin eating food. I bawled, and ate my own meals like someone who had been born without taste buds, and all while rambling around the house in the same pajamas I'd worn for a week, smelling like sour milk and I-don't-want-to-know-what-else.
But that isn't all there is to being a mom. That's only one, tiny, infinitesimal little portion of it. Because having started at the bottom, feeling completely raw, completely overwhelmed by how difficult everything was, then every achievement, every day that ended with some measure of my sanity still intact became the most glorious of victories. Another week passed by. And then six weeks. And then I was counting in months. My daughter was still alive. I could kill any plant I'd ever touched. Pets just seemed like so much work. But a child... a human child... I was able to not only keep it alive, but it thrived. So then, when I was graced with that first smile, that first laugh, that first moment when she locked eyes with mine and I knew - I KNEW that she recognized me and was glad to see me... Well, that's when I started to feel a bit more like a "Mom" and a little less like "Random Person In Charge of Pooping, Puking Infant."
So... being a mom. That's just a little bit of what it's like, or at least what it's been like for me. And that really only touches on the first few months. That's not even covering first words, and baby-proofing, and potty-training, and lots of other things that may or may not need to be hyphenated. My oldest daughter will be four years old in September. My second will be 2 1/2. And sometime during the next week or so, I'll be introducing another little one - a boy, this time around - into the fold. And I'm sure that I'll be just as tired, just as frustrated, and just as smelly all over again.
But with a good bit of that GREATEST LOVE mixed in with everything, too. I definitely can't forget that.
Real Women Have... Shapes.
I was probably doomed from the start.
My parents were both slender. My father was 6' 3" and almost too skinny to join the Navy. My mom was 5' 6" and not even 100 pounds. So once the baby fat wore off, I was a bit of a twig.
But honestly, I didn't even realize it. I was homeschooled, so I didn't have to endure any taunting about my gangly limbs from that quarter, and the kids at church had known me since I was a baby, so there really wasn't anything to comment on.
And then I started taking dance lessons when I was nine years old. Dance lessons meant being in a leotard and tights for every class. Leotard and tights that were actually baggy on me. Every costume had to be taken in. EVERY SINGLE COSTUME. And all through this, I kept growing taller and taller, my arms and legs and back getting longer, so I was obviously gaining weight, but the weight kept going straight into more and more height and it was just a whole lot of awkwardness all around.
And then... I became a teenager.
Until then, no one had really pointed out my resemblance to a toothpick in a negative light. But, of course, when you're a teenager, and you're surrounded by other teenagers, then suddenly everyone becomes SO WONDERFUL about pointing out your flaws and just being generally catty and awful to one another. As hormonally-charged, insecurity-ridden teenagers often do. All of a sudden, I couldn't be skinny just because I was a naturally skinny person. No, I must be anorexic. I must be bulimic. I needed to eat more. And more. And more. And more. And while surrounded by other girls who were constantly stressing about wanting to LOSE weight, I wondered why I was different, and what on earth was wrong with me.
And so I started to notice my body. I saw the bones of my rib cage sticking out. I saw my spine, my shoulder blades, my twiggy little thighs and the bony arms and wrists that people just loved to come up and wrap their fingers around in order to better illustrate how small and abnormal I was.
I stopped wearing shorts, first. And then skirts and dresses that showed off anything above the knee. (Funny enough, my mother is probably one of the few mothers who encouraged her teenage daughter to wear short skirts and cute dresses while stressing that I had "great legs". I, being fifteen years old and wallowing in low self-esteem, did not believe her.) I layered my clothes. I wore bulky, heavy outfits - even in warm weather - to hide my body.
I also started to keep track of everything I ate. I became obsessed with counting calories. NOT to keep myself from eating too many, but because I had to make sure that I was consuming enough. I filled notebooks with daily lists of everything I'd eaten and how many calories were in each serving (I also made sure to round the numbers down in order to keep the totals low and thereby make myself eat more). If I hit my daily goal (usually around 3000 calories) I put a little foil star sticker next to the total. If I didn't hit the goal? It went into a deficit account that I had to make up by the end of the week.
Into my early twenties I continued to keep the notebooks and the lists and the numbers. (Seriously, you know you have a problem when you voluntarily introduce MATH into your daily life.) I kept layering clothes, putting on leggings under jeans and tank tops under shirts to make me look "thicker". I would hear the saying "Real Women Have Curves", and I would get angry at my hip bones, at the sharp angles that made up my body.
Then, when I was twenty-eight, I met my husband. (CORRECTION: I started dating my husband a second time. But this is the time that stuck so it's the one that goes in the books.) I still - STILL - felt bad about my body. I didn't want him to see me. I wanted him to think I was curvy, that I had a bosom, that I looked like the other women that he most definitely-obviously-no-doubt thought were better looking than me. But he always made me feel beautiful. He always made me feel like I had the most perfect figure imaginable. He made me feel confident and gorgeous.
I stopped stressing about my weight... a little bit. Gone were the notebooks, the constantly checking out the Nutritional Information on every package to see if it something was fatty enough to even be worth my time to eat. And then, I found out I was pregnant.
Morning sickness was evil. I hardly ate anything for about six weeks, and having started out at 125 pounds, losing ten pounds was a bit scary. But I knew my body, and I knew I would bounce back as the constant illness began to wane. I remember going in for my first prenatal appointment. I remember the ultrasound and hearing my baby's heartbeat for the first time. And then, the doctor sat down to ask me a few questions.
The first question? Did I have a problem with gaining weight?
My first thought was that she meant did I have difficulty gaining weight? Which I do. I've always been skinny. And I started to point this out to her, and then something in my head... clicked. She didn't mean would it be physically difficult for me to gain weight, but would it be mentally difficult for me to gain weight. And at that moment, as tears pricked my eyes, I felt all of my teenage insecurities rush back at me, hitting me with the force of a flash flood.
So there I sat, pregnant for the first time, knowing that my life was about to change in so many wonderful and amazing and frightening ways, and I had to defend myself. No, I was not anorexic. No, I had never had an eating disorder. Yes, I was just naturally skinny. No, I didn't need to speak to a counselor. Yes, I was sure my baby would be fine without any sort of an intervention. I don't know if she believed me. Frankly, I didn't care. But I wanted to be out of there so much, because just a little bit of my pregnancy happiness was suddenly sucked away from me.
Over the next six months, I gained forty pounds. I loved those forty pounds. I gloried in them. My arms, my legs, my belly, my CURVES were gorgeous and spectacular and I wanted to bottle them up and keep them on a shelf so I could bring them out again whenever I was feeling down. I had the pregnancy glow in spades, and I didn't even mind when someone got a glance at my legs or my upper arms.
And so here I am, nearly five years after the birth of my first child (and with two more children tagging along behind her), and I have to ask myself: Why am I writing this?
Well, I have daughters. Two daughters. Two daughters born to tall, skinny parents (I'm 5' 11" and holding steady at about 130 pounds, while my husband is 6' 2" and averaging around 170 pounds) so I won't be surprised if they end up tall and slender, too. But my hope - my fervent, fervent hope - is that after going through what I went through, after hating my body for so many years, after feeling myself pull further and further inward every time someone would tell me I needed to eat something, or would ask if I was TRYING to lose weight (in that oh-so-concerned tone that still sets my teeth on edge), that I will be able to tell them that they're not alone. They're not abnormal. They're not ugly.
Will their ribs be visible during the worst of their growing years? Probably. Will they have the "coveted" thigh gap (that I loathed with every fiber of my being)? More than likely. But I want them to know that they are beautiful, that they don't have to worry about how others look at them, what others say about them, what others accuse them of when it comes to health and nutrition, AND that they absolutely, positively do not need to eat a sandwich just because their upper arm is not as wide as their elbow.
Oh, and shorts. I definitely hope they wear lots and lots of shorts.
My parents were both slender. My father was 6' 3" and almost too skinny to join the Navy. My mom was 5' 6" and not even 100 pounds. So once the baby fat wore off, I was a bit of a twig.
But honestly, I didn't even realize it. I was homeschooled, so I didn't have to endure any taunting about my gangly limbs from that quarter, and the kids at church had known me since I was a baby, so there really wasn't anything to comment on.
And then I started taking dance lessons when I was nine years old. Dance lessons meant being in a leotard and tights for every class. Leotard and tights that were actually baggy on me. Every costume had to be taken in. EVERY SINGLE COSTUME. And all through this, I kept growing taller and taller, my arms and legs and back getting longer, so I was obviously gaining weight, but the weight kept going straight into more and more height and it was just a whole lot of awkwardness all around.
And then... I became a teenager.
Until then, no one had really pointed out my resemblance to a toothpick in a negative light. But, of course, when you're a teenager, and you're surrounded by other teenagers, then suddenly everyone becomes SO WONDERFUL about pointing out your flaws and just being generally catty and awful to one another. As hormonally-charged, insecurity-ridden teenagers often do. All of a sudden, I couldn't be skinny just because I was a naturally skinny person. No, I must be anorexic. I must be bulimic. I needed to eat more. And more. And more. And more. And while surrounded by other girls who were constantly stressing about wanting to LOSE weight, I wondered why I was different, and what on earth was wrong with me.
And so I started to notice my body. I saw the bones of my rib cage sticking out. I saw my spine, my shoulder blades, my twiggy little thighs and the bony arms and wrists that people just loved to come up and wrap their fingers around in order to better illustrate how small and abnormal I was.
I stopped wearing shorts, first. And then skirts and dresses that showed off anything above the knee. (Funny enough, my mother is probably one of the few mothers who encouraged her teenage daughter to wear short skirts and cute dresses while stressing that I had "great legs". I, being fifteen years old and wallowing in low self-esteem, did not believe her.) I layered my clothes. I wore bulky, heavy outfits - even in warm weather - to hide my body.
I also started to keep track of everything I ate. I became obsessed with counting calories. NOT to keep myself from eating too many, but because I had to make sure that I was consuming enough. I filled notebooks with daily lists of everything I'd eaten and how many calories were in each serving (I also made sure to round the numbers down in order to keep the totals low and thereby make myself eat more). If I hit my daily goal (usually around 3000 calories) I put a little foil star sticker next to the total. If I didn't hit the goal? It went into a deficit account that I had to make up by the end of the week.
Into my early twenties I continued to keep the notebooks and the lists and the numbers. (Seriously, you know you have a problem when you voluntarily introduce MATH into your daily life.) I kept layering clothes, putting on leggings under jeans and tank tops under shirts to make me look "thicker". I would hear the saying "Real Women Have Curves", and I would get angry at my hip bones, at the sharp angles that made up my body.
Then, when I was twenty-eight, I met my husband. (CORRECTION: I started dating my husband a second time. But this is the time that stuck so it's the one that goes in the books.) I still - STILL - felt bad about my body. I didn't want him to see me. I wanted him to think I was curvy, that I had a bosom, that I looked like the other women that he most definitely-obviously-no-doubt thought were better looking than me. But he always made me feel beautiful. He always made me feel like I had the most perfect figure imaginable. He made me feel confident and gorgeous.
I stopped stressing about my weight... a little bit. Gone were the notebooks, the constantly checking out the Nutritional Information on every package to see if it something was fatty enough to even be worth my time to eat. And then, I found out I was pregnant.
Morning sickness was evil. I hardly ate anything for about six weeks, and having started out at 125 pounds, losing ten pounds was a bit scary. But I knew my body, and I knew I would bounce back as the constant illness began to wane. I remember going in for my first prenatal appointment. I remember the ultrasound and hearing my baby's heartbeat for the first time. And then, the doctor sat down to ask me a few questions.
The first question? Did I have a problem with gaining weight?
My first thought was that she meant did I have difficulty gaining weight? Which I do. I've always been skinny. And I started to point this out to her, and then something in my head... clicked. She didn't mean would it be physically difficult for me to gain weight, but would it be mentally difficult for me to gain weight. And at that moment, as tears pricked my eyes, I felt all of my teenage insecurities rush back at me, hitting me with the force of a flash flood.
So there I sat, pregnant for the first time, knowing that my life was about to change in so many wonderful and amazing and frightening ways, and I had to defend myself. No, I was not anorexic. No, I had never had an eating disorder. Yes, I was just naturally skinny. No, I didn't need to speak to a counselor. Yes, I was sure my baby would be fine without any sort of an intervention. I don't know if she believed me. Frankly, I didn't care. But I wanted to be out of there so much, because just a little bit of my pregnancy happiness was suddenly sucked away from me.
Over the next six months, I gained forty pounds. I loved those forty pounds. I gloried in them. My arms, my legs, my belly, my CURVES were gorgeous and spectacular and I wanted to bottle them up and keep them on a shelf so I could bring them out again whenever I was feeling down. I had the pregnancy glow in spades, and I didn't even mind when someone got a glance at my legs or my upper arms.
And so here I am, nearly five years after the birth of my first child (and with two more children tagging along behind her), and I have to ask myself: Why am I writing this?
Well, I have daughters. Two daughters. Two daughters born to tall, skinny parents (I'm 5' 11" and holding steady at about 130 pounds, while my husband is 6' 2" and averaging around 170 pounds) so I won't be surprised if they end up tall and slender, too. But my hope - my fervent, fervent hope - is that after going through what I went through, after hating my body for so many years, after feeling myself pull further and further inward every time someone would tell me I needed to eat something, or would ask if I was TRYING to lose weight (in that oh-so-concerned tone that still sets my teeth on edge), that I will be able to tell them that they're not alone. They're not abnormal. They're not ugly.
Will their ribs be visible during the worst of their growing years? Probably. Will they have the "coveted" thigh gap (that I loathed with every fiber of my being)? More than likely. But I want them to know that they are beautiful, that they don't have to worry about how others look at them, what others say about them, what others accuse them of when it comes to health and nutrition, AND that they absolutely, positively do not need to eat a sandwich just because their upper arm is not as wide as their elbow.
Oh, and shorts. I definitely hope they wear lots and lots of shorts.
