A Terrible Day - December 14, 2012

Today, after a long day, I set about closing down my little store for the day. I cleaned up some Cheerios a little one had dropped, lined up the trucks and cars the last round of toddlers had been playing with, and wrapped a few gifts for my own children’s Christmas. I re-hung a few ornaments an enthusiastic toddler had pulled down, turned out the lights, and headed home to my family.

When I arrived home, I learned of the terrible events that had transpired this morning, in Connecticut. Every channel, every headline screamed the terrible news. I held my daughter, and wept for the parents that would not be able to do so tonight.

I am sure that I am not the only person who wonders how we can live in a world where innocence could be a target.  I am sure that I am not the only parent who is angry about the ease with which something like this could even happen.  I am sure that I am not the only mother who has cried for those lost today.

It is easy to be angry.  It is easy to be frightened for our own children’s safety.  It is easy to wonder how God could ever let this happen. It is impossible not to.  And yet, there is not one of us who hasn’t thanked God that it wasn’t here – in our town – in our children’s school.  It is beyond what we, as parents, can even comprehend.

In the face of such tragedy, what can we do?

We can hold our loved ones a little tighter.  We can pray for those who are affected. We can teach our own children that the world is still a wonder, and that evil will not win.  And we can shut out the noise and fear, and confusion that is on every channel and in every paper today, that would rob us of our peace.

Our thoughts are with the lost and the survivors of this day.

Our hopes and prayers are for peace, for them - and for us - tomorrow.

The Sweet Spot

The Sweet Spot – May 26, 2012

I listened to a song today, by a beautiful songwriter named Antje Duvekot. She sings about the “Sweet Spot.”  We all have had those moments that are so perfect, so beautiful they can’t possibly be fully appreciated until they’ve passed.  We look back at pictures of our lives past, our children, before they are grown – before they have changed. Our babies, so new that the world hasn’t touched them yet. And I don’t know about you, but I can’t help but cry when I see those perfect snapshots of happiness. It isn’t because this moment in time is lacking in it’s own beauty, but rather that I wish I had realized what was happening then. We spend too many days rushing to get through them, always looking ahead to what the next day might bring. But isn’t today wonderful? This day. This moment, whether it holds messy, chubby, little hands, spilled milk, giggles or tantrums? This moment, when your baby surrenders to the notion that you can take away all of their problems, that last hiccup of tears before they turn into your breast and the only thing that tells you they haven’t fallen asleep yet, is that tiny hand, twirling at a lock of their hair. Take in that moment, and hold it, for those days ahead, when they won’t think you are so brilliant. And for those days ahead, here’s something to soften the sting of the adolescent years ahead: I was somebody’s baby once, too. And I remember those “Sweet Spots,” from my own childhood. I remember my Mother’s smell, and how her hands felt in mine, twirling her wedding ring around and around her finger as I sat beside her during church services on a hot Wednesday night. I remember her voice, singing to me, and how her lap felt soft, under my head as she tucked my hair behind my ear, to lull me to sleep. I too, became a monster during my adolescent years, and I’m sure my mother looked back, at that time with melancholy, at the sweet baby I once was.  And I am convinced that there will be a pair of wings waiting for her someday, because she must be an angel to have put up with me. What a gift it is then, that I am finally able to realize the capacity of her love; to see those “Sweet Spots,” from her perspective, when she holds my own babies, just as she held me.  Everything passes, eventually. But don’t lament the moments that have passed – there are new ones ahead.  And the “Sweet Spot?”  Well, that’s right now.

Carla Muller, copyright, 2012

Some thoughts on baby showers...

How awesome would it be, if our baby showers weren't run like some assembly-line, militaristic event. Your sister sitting beside you, having already written who it's from on the card as your mom snatches the onesie from your grasp. You try desperately to make eye contact, at least, with the person who chose this lovely gift for you, who spent their time, money, and love on you, but nooooo! "We've got to keep things moving, dear. Everyone wants to see these things!" See these things - translation: touch, maul, and awkwardly pass from person to person (who, let's face it, just want to eat) over cherry cheesecake (okay, I do love that part), egg salad sandwiches and coffee, (think, ladies! You're dealing with a pregnant woman who probably, at this point, wants to hurl from the combined food smells), while a kafeklatch of elderly women at the end of the table find sport in identifying those items that may or may not be re-gifted from the last baby shower they attended. The paper flies, you fry, and try desperately not to think of that hot flash commercial where the woman stomps out into the cold to dust the snow off of the air-conditioning unit. Ah, the joys of a baby shower. If you're lucky, your husband is with you, because he probably wouldn't believe you if you told him that these seemingly kind women, who are supposed to have your best interest at heart,  have spent the entire evening replaying their own horrible birth stories with you. "I'm telling you! 200 stitches, if there was one! And then, the doctor dropped the baby!" No-one tells you the information you really need to know; like how to make that little pain-control-squeezy-thing give you more pain meds, or where those sadistic nurses are hiding the ice chips! (I swear, I could hear a marguerita-party forming in the nurse's break room as I gave birth!)

another old post - but a good one! Cloth Diapering

This is from way, way back! When we were living with my parents after a sewage flood ravaged our home, and little, oblivious Charlotte was only 5 months old!

April 20, 2008

Today is the day for prefold diapers. I’m not sure why they’re called Chinese prefolds – they come from Egypt, but perhaps since paper-making originated in China, they too, like the Japanese, have also mastered the art of Origami.

So…here I am, with a stack of glorified napkins that look surprisingly industrial in nature.  Honestly, they remind me of the automotive rags my son uses to fix and clean his lawnmower. I mean, we all saw Lady & The Tramp, and the beautiful clothesline full of downy-soft looking, perfect little white squares.  A baby. A baby means diapers. And those looked so innocuous, so innocent. No word, of course, on how, exactly the elegant mother in this fairy tale was supposed to wrestle a squirming infant into what turns out to be the equivalent of a cloth origami reality-show challenge. My mother tells me cloth diapering is easy. Piece of cake, sweetie…you can do it. Right.  Well, I am quite adept at Origami. 

After all, I’m the crazy mama-to-be who, even on her way to the hospital to deliver, was frantically folding Moravian stars, lest her baby’s nursery be incomplete. I could practically fold them in my sleep!  You see, while I was pregnant, I had this dream about a nursery finished with paper stars floating above, which sounds just great in theory, but honestly, the execution was somewhat more difficult than one would expect. When I confidently purchased $200 worth of supplies from Michael’s craft store, way back when, I thought that I was surely overcompensating, but there I was, on my Labour Day, on my last attempt, after trying metal stars, gauze stars, purchased party lanterns, and papier maché, (which looked like a sick model of the solar system I attempted in third grade), and time was seriously ticking.  

What worries me here, is that those same stars are now sitting in a bag in the laundry room, and the baby’s crib is being used as a dresser because we didn’t send her dresser to be refinished in time, and the nursery is a mess, so the baby is currently co-sleeping, which I am constantly afraid will end up in her being squished like a grape while she sleeps, since I am so exhausted these days.  

Oh yes…my point? I rarely finish anything I start, and that has me thinking that maybe cloth diapers aren’t for me.  It’s not as if I can leave this soon-to-be-stinking-bundle in a bag in the laundry room, if the going gets tough.

So, focusing on the task at hand.  First you need a baby. Check.

Now I just need a place to fold these things.

Actually, the baby, my little guinea pig, Charlotte, is lying exactly where I need to be folding, and according to the cryptic diagrams I have printed from some sadistic diapering web page, I have to assemble this floppy piece of hemp into a pseudo-diaper shape before laying the baby down. Crap! The bed is full of laundry, since we are still living at my mother’s house after our sewage flood (yuck!), and I may be recreating my very own miniature sewage flood right here, if I don’t do this quickly.  Of course, I have already removed the disposable diaper, and packaged it into a neat little time bomb that probably won’t open until I attempt to carry it downstairs to the garbage, since I have already, fastidiously filled my diaper pail with warm sudsy water, awaiting the first of what is supposed to be many eco-friendly cloth diapers, and there isn’t a plastic bag in sight.

 So, anyway, here we are, she’s cooing up at me, (and, I suspect laughing at my expense), and I have managed to lay her down on a comforter on the floor while I try to make a square of cloth ‘bloom’ from both ends. I stick the liner in place, and admire my handiwork… a little too long because it has just magically unfolded itself, and my little angel has just peed on my favorite duvet.

So… refold, place liner, plop baby on top, and try to make it morph into a diaper shape. Now, I don’t know if any of you remember what diaper pins actually look like, but I’m thinking that this may just be a great way to skewer your infant. Of course, just as I come to this realization, I notice that the Snappis, (an odd looking hook-rubber band thingy, that are supposed to be safer than pins), are across the room on the night table.  “MOM!!!  I yell, abandoning any last vestiges of pride, and from somewhere, more peaceful than this room I hear, “You can do it, sweetie!”

Thanks, Mom.

Okay… grab baby and pseudo-diaper thingy, liner trailing, and cross the room to get the Snappi.  Rescue said Snappi from under bed where it has fallen, and realize that baby has just peed on the floor.  Well, at least it’s not – Shit!

Scrape up crap using prefold with one hand, lift baby (still laughing at me), dump glass of water from night table onto liquid poop stain, remove pillow case from my pillow with my teeth, and my non-poopy hand, and drop onto the whole mess hoping, balefully that baby squash poop will come out of white shag carpeting. (Seriously, who buys white carpet???) Console self that, at least if things don’t work out I have $200 worth of great cleaning rags. (I suspected they looked a tad industrial)

Place baby on new prefold, on floor, (these things are great, aren’t they?), make a new one ‘bloom’, place liner, place baby, morph magically into diaper, and hook rubber-band torture device into left side of diaper. So-far, so-good. Now hook Snappi into the crotch of the diaper, pray that she can’t feel that, and stretch Snappi to try and hook the right side into place.  Success! I actually did it!   So… cloth diapering from the 1800’s. Not so bad.  It actually looks like a diaper! Use wipe to clean up hand, survey the ruined bedroom, and pick up cooing baby.

Scream as Snappi lets go with a loud ‘snap’ and embeds itself into my nipple.

Stifle a second scream, as the other side lets go.  At least, now I know, why it’s called a Snappi.

Re-attach Snappi, and get a *#^%ing diaper cover onto the child. At least these have Velcro. Put baby in crib, and gather stinking mass of poopy laundry.  Gaze fondly at the last disposable diaper I will even (plan to) use.  Lose balance with laundry load, and step squarely into disposable time-bomb.  Curse as it lets loose.

Add carpet cleaner to list of things to buy.

So…my advice.  Get your shit together before you attempt this, or you‘ll be covered in it.  (I’m pretty sure I can hear my mother laughing)

The Potty Wars (to be continued, I'm sure!)

July 16, 2011 (I know this is old, but you've gotta relate on some level?)

Well, it seems as if I am going to have the only toddler not potty trained upon entering kindergarten. Okay, so it’s only Junior kindergarten, and when the hell did society decide that we stay-home mothers have to give up our babies at the age of three??? –but I digress. You know how everyone always says, “well, don’t worry, at least she’ll be potty trained by the time she goes to school?”  Frankly, as that deadline looms on the horizon, and I clean up one after another of my darling's ever-so-effective little ‘protests’, I have to say that I am, in fact having serious doubts.  So much so, that I have enrolled my little darling in a nursery school J-K, just in case.  $3000.00 a year to admit that I’m a bad parent, while the rest of her more enlightened peers make plans to attend the wonderful public school just steps from our very own front door!  And no matter how many kind souls reassure me that it’s no big deal, it is a big deal to me.  This is the kind of thing that my overactive imagination tells me will scar a child for life. In fact, just about everyone from my school class can probably tell you the name of the unfortunate little boy we went to school with, who pooped his drawers on the second day of school.  On the other hand, back then - we went to school when children were supposed to go – at the age of five! But I probably don’t have to worry too much? This lovely grandmother over here tells me that surely, surely, she won’t still be pooping her pants when she goes to high school???

In our little store, I see toddler after toddler, (babies, really), do what all the jelly beans, books, and stickers in the world cannot entice mine to do. I see their mothers, smiling beatifically as they shop, secure in the knowledge that they will not be humiliated by their little darlings, who have mastered the elusive art of toilet pooping.  

I think, perhaps, that my station, as the owner of a store that is all about babies, toddlers, and little kids, imparts a false sense of “She may actually know what in the hell she’s doing, here.”  And it sounds good, on paper, but sometimes, I feel like a hypocrite, and I swear, one day, the floor will swallow me up whole from the shame of it as I counsel parents of 2 and 3 year olds on the theories behind successful potty training.

All this, while mine is crouching behind the display crib, frantically trying to ‘make’ in her pants before I can catch her – I can see her now, out of the corner of my eye, as the mother of an eight month old asks me if I have any thoughts on infant potty training. As if I know!  Sigh!  All I can tell parents, really, is which eco-friendly disposable training pant can manage a size 4 toddler through the night.  Well…I guess that’s something