The Blueberry Milkshake Moment

This post is written in service of soon-to-be birth Mothers and their support crew that this moment may be in your futures as well.

Here's the back story. I am not normally a milkshake drinker (yes, I'm weird like that...and many other ways), but I am a sucker for chocolate. Toward the end of my pregnancy, my husband made a delicious shake that involved chocolate chips, blueberries, and vanilla ice cream. At the time, I enjoyed his concoction quite a bit so he stocked up on all three ingredients thinking that this was a quick, high calorie food that I could consume during the early newborn weeks.

Fast forward to one evening when our new baby's age was still measured in days, when my postpartum hormones were crashing, and when I was exhausted from a marathon two hour nursing session. I was hungry. Very hungry. I was also immobile due to the nursing infant on my lap. My wonderful, supportive husband offered to make me a milkshake, and I eagerly accepted. 

Upon his return, I snatched the full glass from his hand and gulped at the drink like a parched woman emerging from a desert, but my thirst quencher turned out to be a mirage. The drink had not nearly enough chocolate chips. The balance of flavors was all wrong - terribly, horribly wrong! I broke down weeping and handed back the vile thing, accusing him of being thoroughly inconsiderate to a half-starved new Mother. How could he be so careless? So unthinking! What sort of lousy husband would do that to his wife?

He watched, half offended, half alarmed, as I sobbed uncontrollably. I do not normally cry like this, not for sad movies, not even over great human tragedy, but this was far from a normal moment. No, this was a moment that many a woman who has recently given birth will recognize: when she loses all grip on sanity and self-control and realizes she is at the mercy of the biochemical stew encased in her bag of skin and bones. 

In our family, it's become known as The Blueberry Milkshake Moment.

Had one (or more) of your own? Ready to laugh about it? If so, please share!

You'll Never Sleep Again

I had heard plenty about sleep deprivation after having a newborn baby so I was prepared for a few months of disturbed slumber. My baby would be sleeping through the night sometime between six months and a year old, according to all that I'd read.

Yeah, right.

Not only did that not happen, but not one piece of writing admitted that I would never again have a year with unbroken sleep. 

Here's the rundown.

0-3 months: you slept for 3 hours straight? Lucky you!

3-9 months: did you know that all those sleep experts' definition of "sleeping through the night" means five hours straight? That's right, FIVE whole hours. Actually, five hours sounds pretty good after you've lived through those first three months. If you have the luck of the ages, your baby will sleep for 12 hours at night. If you're one of the ordinary folk, your baby will continue to have diaper blowouts and hunger pangs at why-oh-why-o'clock.

9-18 months: pretty much the same story as 3-9 months, but now you can add in wake up calls for stuffy noses, vomit, and attempts to stand or walk while sleeping. Variety is the spice of life!

18-36 months: I'm going to assume the best here - no more middle of the night eating! You might actually sleep a normal 6-8 hours a night, most nights. Bodily fluids will still escape from containment, however, and you can add in night terrors (about five orders of magnitude worse than nightmares), and getting yourself out of bed to put the kids back in bed. Oh, and if you're working on night time potty training (Exciting and exhausting! A two-for-one deal!), you can tack on middle of the night calls for help to either visit the bathroom or change the bedding.

3 - 8 years: you might be wishing your child were still wearing night diapers at some juncture during this period. Other than that, the laundry list (ha ha ha) is about the same as before, plus run of the mill nightmares. On the flip side, your child now knows that the house does not go to sleep when s/he does. You may even reach the milestone of seeing midnight on New Year's Eve again.

8 - 12 years: these are the years when your child will be able to handle everything on his or her own all night long, and you will find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Okay, fine, I can dream, can't I? Night terrors and bed wetting should be in the past (if not, you have my sympathies), and your child may even deal with middle of the night bathroom trips alone. Vomit, high fever watch, and bad dreams are still on the agenda. 

13-18 years: you will now be imagining all the terrible ways in which a) you are screwing up your child's future, b) your child is screwing up his/her own future, or c) both, and then wondering why you aren't busy sleeping while your kid is peacefully slumbering in bed. Seriously, go back to sleep! They're finally leaving you alone. In fact, they're afraid to imagine what happens in your bedroom at night.

18 years and beyond: I don't even want to know what's in store for me after my daughter is an adult. Will I finally sleep well every night, as I did when I was growing up while my parents suffered? If you're not going to answer, "Yes, absolutely, no doubt about it" in the comments, then keep quiet please. We all need  a little hope in life.

What About The Boys?

In all the brouhaha lately about GoldieBlox, princess culture, and childhood cartoons, the spotlight has been on girls, especially the elementary school aged set, and freeing them from the shackles of traditional female gender roles. Great! After all, feminism is about creating a world in which men and women are treated and represented equally in all walks of life. It's wonderful that we're ready to shift some of the movement's focus to the younger generation, but we seem to be overlooking a piece of the pie, a piece which makes up half of the pie.

That's right: the boys. What about working to subvert the traditional male gender roles that confine little boys? Without making gender equality a two way street, we will continue to propagate the idea that the All Things Male are superior, and All Things Female are inferior. We cheer when see pictures of pint sized stormtroopers with pink-adorned pigtails sticking out, but how do we react at seeing a four year old boy dressed up in a glittering tutu and tights? Little boys get teased or bullied and lose friends when they make choices outside the male norm. Worse yet, their own parents discourage this behavior.

We want to send a message to little girls that they can be more than princesses and caregivers to dolls, but we also need to send the message to little boys that sparkles, strollers, and butterflies can be theirs. What's so bad about the female side of the aisle? Why are we so focused on women's liberation without expending similar energy to liberate the men?

Let's pop back a few decades to the seventies, when gender bending was more of a two way street. Then came the eighties and nineties and the conservative backlash, frosted with a layer of homophobia. We have been trampled by the heteronormative elephant in the room: if your little boy loves girl things, he might grow up to be gay. Or weak. Or a coward. Someday, horror of horrors, he might want to stay home and raise children instead of braving the corporate wilderness to slay PowerPoint and bring home the bacon.

We need to put an end to this. "Girlie" should not automatically be an insult and "tough" a compliment. Let's applaud boys who throw like girls, and girls who roughhouse like boys. Let's make lists of toys for boys that bridge the gender gap the same way we do for girls, lists that include doll houses, jewelry making kits, dress up clothes, and glorious, scintillating swathes of glitter. Let's create clothing companies that market typically girlish fashions to boys, akin to what this company is doing but in reverse. Let the boys reclaim their right to wear pink and pastels and ruffles and rhinestones. If we can convince society to accept little boys who act in ways traditionally reserved for girls, not only will we begin to lift the stigma and the double standard that we accept today, but we will accelerate progress toward feminism's ultimate goal: truly equal treatment of men and women, girls and boys.