Mothers Day Musings + Gift-Buying Guide

Mothers Day is exactly two weeks away. This is my first Mothers Day. My FIRST Mothers Day. My son is too young to know what this day means to me, but that doesn't mean that it will not be one of the most special occasions since he has been born. I so look forward to Mothers Days of the future--to getting scribbled portraits that are supposed to be me and my Sweet Baboo, and dandelions clumbsily picked from the backyard and put into a mug to keep fresh, and breakfast in bed that consists of cheerios on a milk spattered tray because he's too young to use the stove. I can't wait until he is old enough to put his sticky arms around my neck and tell me he loves me, that I am the best mom in the world. I have no illusions of grandeur. I am not the best mom in the world, not by a long shot, but miraculously every child under the age of five thinks their mother is the best and mine will hopefully be no exception.

But this year my son will not yet be a year old on Mothers Day, and so this one won't be about me feeling loved, but about me feeling how much I love him.I am nuts about that child. Just nuts. And I am so excited to have a day that is all about the wonder of me being his mama. Sometimes I honestly still can't even believe where I am in my life. It's like I just woke up one day, and I was married with a kid. A real grown-up. I don't remember all this time passing, I don't remember going from 19 years old to almost-25, but here I am. I somehow managed to house life inside of me and here is the proof. This Mothers Day, I will not only be celebrating my own mother, thinking of what to get her and how to make her feel appreciated. This year, I will be celebrating the fact that I am a mother. I can't wait.

There has been lots of talk amongst my first-time mommy friends about what they want to mark this momentous date. It's not just another Hallmark holiday, people. It's a day where we can think about how much we love our little guys and gals, a day that we can celebrate the fact that yes, we have made it. Yes, we are mothers.

I am a very sentimental person, and I like to have trinkets and physical reminders of important events in my life. My first mothers day certainly qualifies. So I am putting together a list of great Mothers Day finds for you to pass on to your husbands and/or children. For us first time Mamas, this will make the first day celebrating the fact that we're moms. For you more seasoned Moms, you have made it through another year with your little rugrats and lived to tell about it. Treat yourself--or have someone else treat you.
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Gift-Buying Guide

For the Jewelry Loving Mom:

Mothers Day Necklace from etsy.

I love this. It's gorgeous, simple, and it conveys the truth. The word love and the word mom just go together.

I love this necklace. Inspired by my favourite poem by ee cummings (we actually had this read at our wedding!). Sweetly personalized with your little one's name and the magical date they were born.

Not your traditional, cheesy locket. Name, birth stats, and a photo of your little guy or gal. LOVE.

For the Shutterhappy Mom:

Ladies, my life was far more frustrating than it needed to be before I entered the world of DSLR. You don't need to be a photographer or have professional aspirations to invest in one of these babies. You just need to be sick of missing all those split-seconds of candid adorableness because of regular point and shoot shutter lag. There is nothing like a DSLR for capturing every precious look, smile and expression. Get your hands on a Canon Rebel.  You can thank me later.

If you're a beginner, this book has great tips and tricks for capturing those moments.

For the art-loving mom:

Turn your kiddo's sweet profile into art.

Think your kid is a budding picasso? Clean out that drawer you have stuffed full of every drawing your kid has ever made and put that stuff proudly on display with http://www.mykidsartoncanvas.com/.

Mommy/Baby Pop-Art. I definitely have this one on my wishlist. I love that we live in an era where we can get a canvas of us with our kids without having to sit for oil paintings.

For the Stressed Mom (Oh, wait, that's all of us.. .):

Give the gift of relaxation, with a spa finder gift card.

For the mom who only shops for the kids:

OiOi - Hobo - Diaper Bag

Because that tattered canvas bag you've been lugging around town isn't going to hold up for much longer.

For the breastfeeding mom:

We've all seen those nursing necklaces. You know the ones I'm talking about--the ones that look like toys. We're willing to do a lot for our kids, but not all of us feel like sacrificing our sense of personal style to wear a giant string of brightly-coloured plastic baubles just so our kid has something to play with while we feed them. Enter: Julian & Co. Eat your heart out, fashionable nursing mamas.

Baby Bond nursing cover. Love. Looks just like a sassy blouse. No more hiding under a tarp for you! Or, if you're like me, trying to breastfeed with the baby in a sling, thinking that's discreet enough, and having a total stranger behind the counter at Burger King go to extreme lengths to see INSIDE THE SLING, despite you repeatedly shifting away, until she realizes OH! Her boob is exposed--and apologizes sheepishly while you bite your tongue to keep from snapping at her to just get your damn fries and stop harassing strangers. True story.

For the Lit-Loving Mom:

Baby-Proofing Your Marriage. Because the rug-rat is already here, but that doesn't mean its too late!



Little Earthquakes by Jennifer Weiner.



A yummy piece of fiction about the ups and downs of mommyhood.

Hope you got some fabulous ideas, ladies. Direct your husbands to this post and I'll take care of the rest.

EDIT: It has come to my attention that there has been a gross oversight. Single Mamas, by all means, skip the middle man and treat yourself! It's actually better that way since you don't have to hope for someone to magically pick the right thing, or grasp any of your not-so-subtle hints.

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I've become one of THOSE parents

. . .One of those mothers who will advise their child to "Do as I say, not as I do." It's unfortunate. And I feel bad about it. But if my Sweet Baboo decides that he wants to get married and have children before he's done college, I don't know that I'm going to be able to hold my tongue.

Of course I will support him. Of course I will allow him to make his own choices. But I will definitely, definitely tell him how hard it is. I will tell him how his own mother took SEVEN YEARS to get a Bachelors degree because she got married and had responsibilities and could only take a couple of classes a year instead of a full course load.

I will tell him about how his parents hadn't planned on having a child before they were done school, but that these things happen, and how difficult it was to try to write a paper with a baby clinging to my leg and fussing to be picked up and relentlessly reaching for the keyboard and mouse until the entire 6th paragraph of my paper looked like this:

ASNILASHIOLSAHIOASBjkbjkadflanhhhhhhhhhhhhh ;////////////////////sdfgfgfgfgfgfgfgkjdarhflikhasldjkhaldfhakldfhdlafhkbh
asdfhjidfhjasidlhadfuklkaudhfasffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff           fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,olllllllllllllllllllllllllll888888888888888888888888888888888
iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

I will tell him that I didn't do as well as I could have and that my assignments didn't reflect my best work because I just wanted to get them out of the way so I could get back to the new most important thing in my life---him. That college, which should be a wonderful time of travel, experimentation, forging friendships and really challenging ones self, was put to the back burner. That Daddy couldn't go to bars with his friends after class and mommy couldn't even go to class and had to do the last half of her degree from her living room with a baby hanging off one boob and toys scattered everywhere. Not exactly the college experience we all hope for.

Of course I will tell him that I love him and that I wouldn't trade him for anything in the world. Of course I will tell him that he was the greatest surprise ever and that I wouldn't change a thing.

But I will tell him that life would have been easier, just easier, if I had finished school before he came along. I will advise him to really think about it, and let him know that once you have a kid, they're yours forever. You can potentially always become a parent, but you can never go back. You can potentially always become a spouse, but if you do it right, you won't un-become one.

Marriage is hard. I went from living in a house full of girls who came and went as we pleased and paid barely anything in rent because there were so many of us to renting a house with my husband and having to work a lot more to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table. There just wasn't time for school, friends, extra-curricular activities. Even now, my husband wants to run for student union,  and he's really going back and forth on it because any time he spends at school is time he's spending away from us.

I wish he could have had a normal college experience. I wish he could have lived with friends and focused on school and activities and just enjoyed himself. I wish that for me too. And *gulp* I wish I'd listened to my parents!

But not really. Because I love my husband and we were at the place in our relationship where it was time to get married. It just was. There was agony involved in every goodbye. We were sick of trying to fit each other in around everything else, of not coming home to one another, of loving each other as much as a couple who is married but living like a couple who is just casually dating. And love is the most important thing of all. And all you need is love. And love conquers all. And what other cliches can I throw into this paragraph in order to make myself sound even more cheesy and unoriginal?

If my son finds that kind of love, if it is agony, if he just can't wait, then I will tell him to go for it. I will warn him, but I will give him my blessing and send him on his way. Just because something is more difficult, or not the ideal way to do things, does not mean that it isn't right.

I love my boys.

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Writer's Workshop: What I'd Do as New Mom

Oh, there is a long list of what I'd do differently given the chance. A long, long list. I am not ashamed to admit that one of the reasons why I'd like a second child someday is so I can have a do-over. That sounds terrible, but I've realized some things in my 8+ months as a mommy, and I'd like a chance to use what I've learned with our next baby. So sue me.

I would definitely, definitely get professional maternity pictures done. Definitely. I love the photos that my husband took of pregnant me. They are lovely. But the problem is, he isn't in any of them. There's a couple crappy snapshots people took at my shower, and a couple where we did that awkward production of holding the camera up above our heads and snapping blindly, hoping that both of us are in the photo. In those ones you can't even see my belly. Awesome.

Another thing I plan on doing is going natural. Before you jump in and say "You don't get a medal for going med free" and "Don't try to be a hero", let me explain to you what happened in my last labour. The stupid epidural froze ONLY my legs. That's right. I felt EVERYTHING above my waist, but I was powerless to walk around, take a shower, bounce on my yoga ball or any of the things I'd planned on to get me through the pain because my legs were totally numb. Not cool.

Next time, I am getting a midwife instead of a bossy OB and I am having my baby at a birthing centre, in a birthing tub. I am taking hypnobirthing or hypnobabies to deal with the pain, and it is going to be a magical experience. And I WILL give myself a medal. Or a trophy. Because I've never won one and it makes me feel sad.

Don't judge me for being a hippie. The over-medicated, impersonal hospital birth didn't work for me last time, next time I'm trying something new. I would do a home birth if I wasn't terrified, so maybe that interferes with my crunchy, earth mama status, but baby steps. No pun intended, I swear.
 
 

To capture this magical experience, I am hiring a photographer. Again with the photos, I know. Our hospital photos, while precious to us, are terrible. Two exhausted brand new parents were in absolutely no frame of mind to be creating great art. Grainy, blurry photos of the most important moment of your life are NOT cool. I will not be getting any crotch shots or anything like that (I still have a very tiny sliver of dignity left), but at the end I will have a beautiful, non-crotch shotty slideshow like this. Best slideshow ever. Seriously. Watch it. Go now!

Aside from the stuff I will do differently during the pregnancy and birth, I'm happy to say that there isn't a whole lot I would change about the way I mother. I may look back in a couple of years and think WHAT WAS I THINKING!?!, but for now, I am satisfied and happy with the way that I am taking care of my son. You know what they say, though. Hindsight is 20/20, and I may be living in a sleep-deprivation induced bubble of rose-coloured denial.

Check back with me when I have a toddler and I can talk from a safe distance about everything I'll do differently next time.

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This has been part of Mama Kat's pretty much world famous writers workshop. Head over and check out the other submissions, or enter one of your own!

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Writers Workshop: Motherhood is another word for Ambivalence

This morning I'm participating in Mama Kat's pretty much world famous writers workshop.

BAM!

Ten Things I've Learned Since Becoming a Mom:

1. How to ask for help (read: lateral pass my baby to my husband/mother/crazy lady down the street as I run screaming for a bubble bath and a bottle of wine at the end of the day)

2.How to function on next to no sleep. For 6 months straight. And actually enjoy the hallucinations that sleep deprivation brings.

3.How to make dinner while dancing and singing La Cucaracha for the entertainment of my fussy baby, who will ONLY stop crying at the indignity of being imprisoned in his high chair if I'm making a fool out of myself the entire time.

4. How to use a Moby wrap. May not seem like a big deal to you, but when I got that thing as a shower gift, I was like "huh?" And I wrapped myself up in it and got stuck like a female Spiderman who lost control of her own web. And now I can throw it on in public in 5 seconds flat, and people look at me like I'm some kind of Ninja. Which I sorta am. Heh.

 

5.That it's possible to go a ridonculous amount of time in between having sex, even if no one is cheating or deployed. And that it doesn't mean that you don't love each other.

6. That its possible to lose all interest in shopping for grown up clothes, in grown-up stores, and that retail therapy can be even more therapeutic if the items are miniature and say "I love my mom" on them. (Doesn't hurt that all grown-up clothes in question will eventually just get pee or spit up all over them anyway).

7. It's possible for someone who was formerly against all forms of elective plastic surgery to be putting her "grown up" clothing money away to save for a boob lift.

8. Taking well over a hundred pictures a day can be fascinating, even if they are all of the same subject, when the subject is your Sweet Baboo.

9.It is entirely possible to want to sell your baby to a traveling circus one moment, and miss them like crazy when you finally get a break.

10. I've also realized that this ambivalence will probably follow me throughout the rest of my life.

Happiness that he's crawling will be accompanied by frustration that he's destroying the house. Pride that he's got teeth shadowed by desperation to stop the biting. Amazement that he's starting school will be clouded by pangs when I think about the fact that his teacher gets to spend more time each day with him than I do. And let's not even talk about his high school graduation, moving out of the house, getting married, having children. I'm glad I will have this blog, thousands upon thousands of photos, and lots of memories to look back on when that day comes. He makes me crazy, but I never want him to leave. Ambivalence is the word that most characterizes my new role as a mother. That's something I was very surprised to learn. When it comes to how being a mom makes me feel, I'm torn.

How about you?

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Updates

The Home Front: My neighbours are still ridiculously loud and trashy. There is still daily screaming, cursing and fighting, and weekly visits from cops. I overheard (from where I was eaves-dropping--if I have to put up with their noise I should at least get some good gossip) that the woman across from me is on parole, and that the woman downstairs has had her children removed from her before.

Here's my question: Do I have the right to judge? I feel like The Hubbs and I just had unfortunate timing regarding School + Baby, and we're paying for it by living alongside criminals, derelects and deadbeats.

My Mom: She's not doing much better. We went over to help cook and clean the other day, and she was really tired and weak. She tried to admit herself back into the psych ward, and they said things weren't bad enough yet. Nice, huh? They want to wait until she has another complete psychotic break from reality and THEN they'll help her. I am blind with rage.

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Thoughts and Prayers Needed for My Mom

For those of you who know the back story of my mom and her relationship with my father, things are not good. He had moved back in for awhile because he couldn't afford rent where he was staying anymore, but they were staying in separate bedrooms and he was supposed to be moving back out once he started his new job this month and saved up some extra cash. Well, apparently my mom is starting to cave and I found that really weird because she was so determined to not be with him anymore. The reason she is starting to cave, though, is because the stress of everything is really starting to wear her down. She has been getting gradually sicker and sicker over the past few weeks. She isn't eating, she isn't sleeping, her body really hurts (she has fibromialgia, so that contributes to it) and she doesn't have the strength to fight my father anymore. She says she needs him to help her because she's so exhausted. He's been cooking for her and getting her medicine and helping her up and down the stairs, etc.




Another concern I have is that my mother was hospitalized in the psychiatric ward in August because things got so stressful for her that she had a complete psychotic break with reality. She was in a really bad car accident years ago (that's how she got fibromialgia), and in July was supposed to be the settlement hearing. Well, they went to the hearing and neither the insurance company nor the cement truck company (she was T-boned by a cement truck) wanted to settle, so after four years of suffering she found out she had to go to trial. And then they were moving, had sold their house and were counting on the settlement money to pay for their new house because my father had worked for GM and been laid off when the economy crashed, so they had that financial strain .



Plus their relationship had really deteriorated. She watched her husband verbally abuse and scream at me while I was pregnant, vandalize my sister's property when she was "disrespectful" to him, and treat my mother like dirt, refusing to help her around the house though she was disabled and constantly making her feel bad about herself for gaining weight and not being the perfect housewife.



So one night, when my son was a month old, my sister called me in the middle of the night to tell me that "something was wrong" with my mom. She was crying and obviously very scared. I found out later that she was admitted to the hospital under the lable of "psychosis" because all the stress had just been too much for her.



I went to visit her and it was horrible. She kept reliving the accident over and over and trying to convince me that she really was injured and really couldn't work. She refused to eat while I was there so they made me leave, and when I was leaving she tried to follow me out and they had to pull her away from me.



I don't think I will ever forget hearing her yell my name down the hall of the Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit. They thought it would be weeks, if not months, until she was better and able to come home, but everyone in my family and our church prayed for her, and within 3 or 4 days she was totally back to her old self.



Well, the past few weeks things have started to deteriorate for her again, and I am afraid that she is headed back to the hospital if she doesn't get her stress under control and start sleeping and eating again. I am terrified of what will happen if she doesn't. I called her this morning and she sounded really out of it. So if you're the praying type, please pray for my mom.

I mean, it's my mom.

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My Baby, My Passion

I'm participating in Mama's Losin It's Writers Workshop this week. The subject is, "Describe what makes you want to live a life with passion?":
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When I found out I was pregnant, I did not experience the excitement and awe I’d always dreamed I would experience. I’d always wanted to be a mother, but at the time I was a miserable, unemployed student and living in my parents’ basement, which was placing a huge strain my marriage. It was just about the worst timing ever for the news. I took a couple of weeks to be depressed, wallow and will “it” away. Then I realized, this baby is coming and it doesn’t deserve such a mess for a mother. I had to get it together.

I got a crappy retail job, and on my days off I worked in the church nursery for a little extra cash. I wanted to work in my field, which was community services related, but in order to finish my degree I had to put 600 hours of field work—for free. So my days were dedicated to volunteering, and my nights were spent folding clothes and pretending to be nice to customers, while on weekends I chased around other peoples’ kids, hoping my own would be better behaved, and crammed for exams. In the meantime, my husband and I found free counselling from both an agency and the pastor who married us. We wanted to get as much help for our marriage as possible before it was transformed into a family. We didn’t want our baby caught in the cross-fire. He hadn’t asked for us to be his parents.

The nine months of pregnancy were a frenzy of 12 hour days, penny-pinching the likes of which you have never seen, and valiant attempts to reverse the damage that being poor and living with my family had inflicted on our relationship. During my lunch breaks I holed up in the storage closet with my previously-owned, pay-as-you-go cell phone and made frantic phone calls to different housing agencies, trying to find a place of our own. My parents were having their own relationship issues (read: yelling and screaming) and I was sick to my stomach at the thought of bringing a tiny, helpless baby into that environment. I trolled second-hand shops, craigslist and garage sales looking for the things my little one would need but I couldn’t afford.

Desperate love calls for desperate measures. I didn’t know it then, but this frenetic despair was actually passion in disguise. I was disheartened and hysterical, but devotion to my kid pushed me on and forced me to keep trying. I had to make money, I had to finish school, I just had to find a peaceful quiet place where we could be parents. And I did.

Sitting in the hospital in late July, I realized what it had all been for. I knew that all women didn’t necessarily bond with their babies at birth, but after everything I had been through during the course of my pregnancy, I was desperate to just feel something other than worry or sadness. My husband was an amazing birth coach, and after just under four hours of labour, the nine months of hell I’d endured were a blip on the radar compared with the tornado of love that ripped through me. They threw that baby on me and told me we had a boy, and I knew that I was incapable of living a life that resembled anything ordinary from that moment on.

I live to teach him that anything is possible--to show him the world and how to fully embrace it. I will tell him the story of his nine months in waiting so that he can see how love changes everything. I will live with passion so that he has a good example in me; so that he will do the same.

From the outside, my life is nothing spectacular. But from where we were just a year ago, when I got my Big Freaking Positive, it is absolutely charmed. I dance around covered in spit-up, and do it with gusto. We go for walks with him wrapped around my torso, and I am happy to stop so he can marvel at the leaves. I wake up at 3 am in our new apartment and can’t help but burst with joy as the most beautiful boy in the world grins up at me. It is just a 3 a.m. feeding, but it doesn’t get any better than this.

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Ode to a Crazy

Gather 'round, children, and I will tell you a tale,
 of a mama so scary, you'll tremble and wail.
It started the day she got her BFP--
"It's positive!? Are you kidding me!?"
Hormones upon hormones,
Pounds upon pounds,
A once sexy lady.
Grew stretchmarked and round.

The yelling and crying woke the whole neighbourhood,
and her husband said "This baby better be good!"
He ran to and fro,
And his quests for the grail,
Led him only to find
chicken sold by the pail.
The ice cream mix-in combos would make people sick,
but it wasn't for people. It was for Deranged Chick.

She grew and she grew til they feared she would pop,
Then a week past her due date, the doctor cried "STOP!"
"Time to give her the drugs!"
And the Crazy concurred,
but a whole lot more scary was about to occur.

There was pushing and screaming and ganshing of teeth,
The doctors and nurses all wanted to flee.
Then just three hours later (which was scarily fast),
a baby was born and they all sighed "at last."

But they didn't know,
the horrors had just begun.
She'd be a raving insomniac til he turned one.
Then a whirwind of crazy until he was two,
and a tidal of tears on the first day of school.

She became truly scary,
this woman turned mother.
But scariest of all?
She thinks her son needs a brother.
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Written for a Contest held by Scary Mommy. Comments give me a better chance to win!

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Things are Looking Up!

So we went to church today, for the first time in our Sweet Baboo's entire life. Kinda sad for people who profess to love Jesus. A few weeks ago we actually went to church, but since we moved we're going to a different one than we're used to. My mom told us it started at 11, so we showed up promptly at 11:05, only to discover that it really started at 10 and service was half over. We were too embarassed to go in so late, so we sat out in the lobby and drank coffee while our baby slept.

Two weeks after that we were determined to go again, but our car was in the shop. My mom said she'd come pick us up, but her car had absolutely zero gas. She needed someone to take her to the gas station to fill up the canister and bring it back to the house so she could fill up the car. There was no one who could do it on such short notice, so we didn't go.

But the third time was a charm, and we actually managed it today! We were 15 minutes late, unfortunately, but I'm learning that such in life with a baby. It took me forever to get dressed because Baboo was fussy and wouldn't let me put him down. Then when I finally got dressed and was ready to go, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and realized that my boobs have become WAY too big for the shirt I was wearing (breastfeeding will do that to you). So I had to scramble around and find something else to wear. Meanwhile, Baboo spat up all over The Hubbs and I tried to find him something else to wear, but the man has shockingly few decent pieces of clothing, so I wound up just wiping him down with a wet wipe. Baboo was fussing in the backrgound the entire time, then needed to eat right when we wanted to go, and the kid has grown AGAIN so we had to adjust the straps of his car seat to handle his newfound height. Whew!

We finally, finally got out of the house (with uncombed hair and breakfastless stomachs) and made it into the service while the songs were still being sung. I have to say it was a very productive visit. Not because I got very much out of the message (I didn't), but because of the following:

1) We ran into my father. This is ordinarily not a good thing, but he's been complaining about how he never sees our Sweet Baboo anymore, so now he's seen him and we don't have to make it happen on our own time.
2) I ran into another new mom, her baby is 2 months old and we worked in the church nursery together before Baboo was born. We exchanged numbers and she is going to hook me up with her playgroups so I don't have to be lonely and sad. Yippee!
3) I also ran into an old, old, old friend of mine--I'm talking my best friend from kindergarten. We exchanged numbers and will hopefully be keeping in touch. It's always great to touch base with the past. I couldn't believe he recognized me after all these years!
4)We booked Baboo's Christening--holla! It's going to be next Sunday, which I know is a crazy short amount of time away. We're having it at my mom's house and we chose that date because the holidays are approaching and it's always impossible to get my whole extended family together for extra events this time of year, well next Sunday is Canadian Thanksgiving so they'll all be at my mom's place anyway--holy run-on sentence, batman!

Now I just need to find my sweet Baboo a Christening outfit, and put together some verses I want read. Pick out a cake, buy some white balloons, put together a short slideshow/video and find a keepsake for him to commemorate this event. Later on he'll be blessed in front of the church (they usually do the infant blessings 3 or 4 at a time), which will be nice. He'll be able to wear the same outfit and we'll get some church pictures.

All in all, things are looking up.
I'm gonna go join the Hubbs in bed (I have bedroom stories to tell in my next post--stay tuned!)

"Church is a scream."

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My love affair with a breast pump

Yesterday was my third wedding anniversary, our first with a child. The most action I got was from a breast pump.

We planned on going to dinner and a movie. Nothing spectacular, but more than we've done in awhile, since we have a six-week-old and are student working poor.

My mother was going to baby-sit. I was going to shower and put on make-up. My hubby was going to shave and change out of the spit-up covered jeans he'd been wearing for three days. It was to be a momentous occasion indeed. We'd miss the baby, but a movie about marginalized aliens on earth would take our mind off it and bring back that lovin' feeling.

Then my mother had a nervous break-down.
It was a couple of weeks ago. She and my father had just had the most stressful move in the history of the world. The money almost didn't come through for the down payment, he was working round the clock and not around to help her with any of the logistics, they almost lost the house twice and the one they were living in was promised to someone else. It was literally the day before they were about the be homeless that the money came through.

Then there was the matter of my husband and I, who'd been living in the basement apartment of their house since before our Sweet Baboo was born, finally moving out and getting an apartment of our own. It is great for us to be out of there. When we got married we lived across the country from my parents, and everything was at a nice comfortable distance. While I missed my mom, I was overjoyed to be nowhere near her husband (my father) and could take or leave my sister. But my husband and I had terrible luck, and after struggling for a couple years we decided to take my parents' offer of their basement and try to get back on track. That definitely didn't go as planned, but that's a story for another day. What I was getting at is that hubby and I taking our baby and moving two towns over (all the towns here pretty much sprawl together, so its not as bad as it sounds) took a toll on her too. I don't know that she missed hubby or I, but she definitely missed Baboo.

Then's the issue of her chronic illness, which keeps her from getting a decent sleep and has her in constant pain throughout the day. And her troubled joke of a relationship with my father, that probably should have been over before it began. (True story, also for another day.) All of these stressors plus her history of depression and she wound up in the hospital. In another post I'll tell you all about that scary night when she went into full-on diagnosed psychosis, but for now I will selfishly focus on how it affected our anniversary.

My mom is much better. She was in the hospital for four or five scary days, then made a dramatic recovery and was released. She is functioning normally now, chatting non-stop like her old self, driving herself to appointments and events, and showering her first grandbaby with love. But I am just not comfortable leaving him alone with her yet. What if there was a relapse and it happened again? I shudder to think about what might happen to my sweet, sweet son, and no movie and overpriced but oh-so-delicious steak from The Keg is worth the risk.

Sad to say, I don't know when we'll be comfortable leaving him alone with her again. It could happen any time. . .Of course, we can't tell her that's why. It would crush her, and I won't be responsible for breaking a grandma's heart. I did ask my sister if she would be there the next time my mom baby-sits. I told her it was because I didn't want to tire her out, I didn't want to play the nervous break-down card. She said she will. She's going to check her work schedule (she just got back from Europe and today's her first day back at work), and let me know when she can "help" my mom baby-sit so that hubby and I can take a rain check on the movie. I don't know when or why life became so complicated, but I'm glad my sister is there to help us, and I'm glad she was there to call and tell us what was going on the night my mom wound up in the hospital.

This is why I want my son to have a sibling. My hubby is so not on board--but that's a story for another day.

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