New Mommy: Take Three

A numbness had settled in as the weeks droned on. I felt like I was reduced to just heaving myself through the day. I was unmotivated. I wanted to do nothing and what was worse, I was in a mental ditch that felt more like a canyon and I was trapped between the mountains on either side. I was tired and I just didn’t care.
I was pregnant. It was my third child and as lazy as I felt, my husband felt the same for frustration towards me. I wasn’t completely milking the situation. Every other day I really did feel like I couldn’t move without feeling a wave of severe nausea. It’s been a cruel nine weeks. I have been given the nose of a dog, yet, ironically, certain odors make me vomit. I’ve been cursed with a severe increase of hunger that I am unable to satiate because of that on-going nausea.
It doesn’t take more than a week before I realized I was playing a numbers game. Four out of five food attempts will cause me to vomit regardless of what my choices will be. After the cabbage, pickles, cereal, and ice cream, the peanut butter sandwich is bound to come back and haunt me.
To make matters worse, my loving husband has anointed himself official coach over my nausea and diet.
"You know you can’t eat that! It’s acidic!"
"Last time you ate vegetables you threw them up!"
"You know you can’t eat that stuff!"
Occasionally, I use the last bit of my remaining strength to lift my head out of the toilet and glare at him with my evil eye in hopes that he’ll gain the hint and abandon me at my post in peace.
But it never fails. Shortly after my stomach has found a moment’s peace, I’ve retired to the couch to regain my strength. It wouldn’t be complete without my retch referee reprimanding me about my lack of motivation and poor eating habits.
"I told you not to eat that stuff!"
"You’re bringing this on yourself."
"Maybe next time you’ll listen to me."
I can’t believe I have allowed myself to forget this from the first two rounds of pregancy.

Keeping Strength

by Angela Tadlock
It seems, no other topic rises such rivalry when a woman becomes pregnant than the bottle vs breast debate. breast feeding, as wonderful, natural, and nutritional as it is, is hard. Though I not always believed this.There was no need to think about it, I thought. My grandmother breast fed. My aunts all breast fed. My mother breast fed. I would breast feed. Like most new moms not yet introduced to the truth about parenting, I was arrogant. Breast feeding is natural. If cave women could do it then I sure as heck could! I went in prepared with a plan.I would have my child. Then, before I would plant my first kiss on her cheek, I would take her to breast and we would bond. Beautiful bonding in a picture perfect scene.I did not foresee the emergency c-section. The thirty minutes in the recovery room where I had to argue with a nurse about bringing me my daughter. I did not plan on my morphine making me so comfortable that pain from an inappropriate latch did not send the signals to my brain telling me that her latch was incorrect.By the end of the first day my left nipple had cracked so much that it looked as if the nipple was lacerated. The pain was enough that I screamed when Emily suckled on the left side. The lactation consultant came to instruct and correct, but the damage was done. The next month would be filled with excruciating midnight feedings. My milk supply would diminish on my left breast making me look lop-sided and grossly unbalanced.Every night my husband pleaded with me to formula feed until I was healed, at least. But I knew that once my milk dried up, I would have no milk. It was not an option. I bore down on the pain and suffered through it and finally, FINALLY, after a long month of a torn, bleeding nipple being suckled off with every feeding, I healed.My daughter was breast fed – as was my son and my second daughter. Only now, I’m wiser and less arrogant.Breast feeding is work, but the reward pays off. Go in knowing that it will be hard at first and that the process will "toughen up" your nipples. The first week is the most difficult and challenging. But don’t place your child’s nutrition on the line if it ends up being more than you bargained for. The difficulties you experience end a lot sooner than the benefits your infant will gain from breast feeding.

Snake Noodles and Turtle Socks

by Angela Tadlock
Being a mother of two - two toddlers that is - has taught me a couple of valuable lessons I’ll always take to heart. My three-year-old, Emily, constantly shows me what seemingly goes unnoticed. My two-year-old, Danny, teaches me everything I missed the first time around. Despite the stress accompanied with mothering two toddlers, Emily’s continual lesson in the English language has earned a smile on my face more than once, from "snake noodles" (spaghetti) to "He has issues" (In reference to her brother’s tantrums).
With every day I look for ways to compliment and praise my children. One way to go about this easily, I found, is to allow my three-year-old the gratifying pleasure of dressing herself. But that occasional sock that doesn’t go on quite right can be enough to start an array of frustration, the prelude to any tantrum. The sock becomes twisted. She pulls harder. The sock then catches on her toes and she screams. Regrettably, the turtleneck is much like a sock one attempts to fit over their head instead of their foot.
One day, while my daughter attempted to squeeze her head into the extra-long neck, she became quickly flustered when her head didn’t slip through as quickly as it usually does. Seeing frustration on the rise, I stepped in.
"Emily, slow down and think." I reminded her. "This is a turtleneck."
"A turtleneck?" She inquired calmly. I could see her little nose protruding slightly through the fabric. I find the quickest way to avoid a tantrum is to teach something new. As I pulled the sweater off her head I proceeded to help her dress, confirming that yes, it is a turtleneck and the neck is longer.
By then the sweater was on and I rolled the extra fabric down around her neck. I picked up her pants and she presented me with her newest inquiry.
"My turtleneck?" She asked again. "Are these my turtle pants?"
I permitted a chuckle as I pulled her pants on then went on to her socks.
"And are these my turtle socks?"
The rest of the day was committed to a repeated fashion show of turtlenecks, turtle pants, and turtle socks. I can’t wait to see what new perspectives Danny has in store.

Operation: Birthing Eli

by Angela Tadlock
"How many kids do you have?"
"Three, just like you."
My doctor had just lifted Elizabeth out of me and was currently sewing me back up. I laid there feeling a pulling in my abdomen as I chatted with my doctor. I could hear my baby girl crying from the corner of the room and was gasping for air out of relief. The baby had rested high and for nearly five months my lungs had been unable to expand to their full capacity disabling my breath.
We hadn't planned this one. She was an accident. And the most wonderful mistake we ever made in our lives. I was crying all the same.
I don't believe in God. But each time I see a sleeping babe I am convinced that they came from Heaven. Where else could something so beautiful come from?

My husband kissed the top of my head as a cleaned, bundled Elizabeth was placed down beside my face. I kissed the little white and pink face through my tears. In a moment she was carried away and my husband followed her to the nursery.
I laid there wide awake looking around the room. The stainless steel surrounding me. What else was there to do besides chat with my doctor as she put me back together. Visions of the show House flashed through my head. I knew what was happening on the other side of the sheet in front of me.
Don't think about that. I shook my head to clear my thoughts and began to study the room. My cousin was a nurse in that hopsital and she was able to assist my doctor in delivering my baby. Periodically I looked for her or called out. It would be another twenty minutes before I would be taken to the recovery room.
A flash of metal caught my eye as I glanced at the metal cabinets. I could see the tools in the doctor's hand reflected in the cabinet - And beside me I could see . . . well . . . me. It didn't scare me or make me sick. I was curiously interested in the miracle before me. There I was wide awake on the table. I had been opened and my child taken out of me. I had spent that time talking, crying, laughing, and memorizing and now, I was watching my own surgery.

Another Monday

by Angela Tadlock

"Momma! Momma! Danny is playing in the cat boxes again!"
I threw the covers against the wall as I leapt, in one breathless bound, from my bed to the door. My eyes adjusted to the sun light flooding my living room as my brain attempted to grasp the possibility that I just might be out of bed. I made it to my son's bedroom expecting the worse and discovered that it was much worse. I scanned the horror before me.
Handfuls of cat litter had been thrown everywhere. Cat litter covered his bed, the bookshelf, and his toys. His Geo Trak was buried under a mound of litter and beside the mound sat the three year old culprit complete with shovel in hand next to his dump truck. The sight was enough to snap my pre-coffee brain wide awake. The anger in my chest had swollen into my throat as I took in the vast mess before me. Only a couple words were able to break past the anger in my throat.

"YOU! BAD! BATH! NOW!"
I took hold of the boy and began to pull him out of the litter towards the bathroom. Emily followed behind us gleefully dancing as she began to tell Dan how gross he was. Danny had other things on his mind.
"Mommy, you angwy?"
I didn't bother answering him. While I started to strip him in the bathtub a new shriek cut through the air. My five week old newborn was now awake and was looking for mommy . . . That would be me.
I glare up at the clock as Emily shouted from my bedroom.
"Mommy! Elizabeth is crying!"
"I'm with Danny right now! I'll be there in a second!"
A moment later I heard Emily squeaking out Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Elizabeth took that as cue to find another level of pitch so high that the neighbor's dog could hear her.

Boy stripped. Water on. Hands washed. Now on to the infant. While I fed the youngest, Emily walked by with the broom.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm going to clean up Danny's mess."
"No. Mommy has to do it 'cause it's dirty."
"But, Mom. I will clean it and then it won't be dirty."
She turned back toward the litter room.
"Emily! Out!"
"It's okay, Mom. I'm just going to clean it."
"I don't want to give you a bath too!" I gasp! BATH! I had left the water running. I gently, but swiftly placed Elizabeth on the couch and dashed for the bathroom. My son was now in a sea of water that was running out of the tub and onto the floor. I stepped into the pool and turned the water off. Then I pulled the plug.
"NOOOOOO! I wan' the plug!"
I decided not to reason with the toddler and, instead, I headed off to his bedroom to join Emily in cleaning the cat litter off the walls with my Danny screaming behind me.

An hour later I was able to call his room clean. I locked the cat boxes . . . again . . . and set off to pull Danny out of the empty tub. Emily had plopped herself in front of the TV for the past thirty minutes. I hate the TV on in the morning, but that morning I was willing to let it slide.
I entered the bathroom to find that Danny was no longer in the tub. I froze and the knot that clenched my stomach that morning had returned.

I went into the kitchen where I found the boy standing on a chair, naked and covered head to toe in granulated sugar. I screamed. Beyond anger a took a wrist in each of my hands and carried him back to the tub where I held him down and scrubbed him from toe to head to toe again. I pulled him from the tub and walked him to his room where I selected a pair of sweats, held him down, and stretched them over his head and legs while he screamed and kicked in protest. I walked him to the living room where I sat him before the TV in hopes to now mop up the sugar and the bath water.
Just another Monday and I haven't had my coffee yet.

The Voiceless Speaks

by Angela Tadlock
Despite the bustle of shoppers, the fruitcake slicing, mistletoe kisses and the magic adrift on the moonlit snow, politeness, during the holidays, leaves a lot to be desired. The rudeness that accompanies the irate mother and the disrespect that linger in the shadows of the impatient customer the other eleven months of the year, suddenly rages forth like a leviathan the morning that dark Friday arrives.One lesson I learned while working in retail was that a person chooses to be rude. It costs nothing to be polite. The only requirement is that you not care about other people or how they may perceive you.I have worked in retail for five years and have formally retired to the stock room where I oversee the organization and preparation of the back stock. In that stock room I work alone, away from people and their malcontent. Unfortunately, my job insists that I must trudge out to the sales floor on occasion where I am forced - or rather paid - to stand behind a counter and ring out customers’s sales of whom, most are rude.Most talk on their cell phones and don’t respond properly when you cordially say, "Hello." Others permit their children to pull clothes off the racks, and some return clothes emitting the strong scent of cigarette. But above all, it’s their demeanor that offends. A refusal to smile. Persistence to stay on the cell phone throughout a transaction. A lack of propriety as they gossip endlessly about their private affairs.In the mass of rude conduct, I will always remember a single child who showed me that thankfulness still exists out there in the material world. Her stringy hair was light brown, which covered the glasses she wore. Her eyes seemed to bulge from the refracted optical lens making her appear slightly frog-ish. Her smile was as big and as bright as her eyes. She was the most polite child I have ever met in my life, standing only forty-five inches high with a scraggly frame. She tried to bottle an enthusiasm that hopelessly poured over. But what I remember most of this child, was the enormous hole in her neck.Her eyes glistened with joy as her grandmother placed a little knit purse on the counter. I’ve seen parents and grandparents lay down more than three hundred dollars for a single child at a time. During the holidays parents will ask for twelve boxes to wrap four outfits so they can "wrap each item individually so they’ll have more underneath the tree.""Ungrateful," I think to myself every year."You’re promoting materialism!" I want to shout in place of the cheery "Merry Christmas!" I wish them. But I’m paid to give them their boxes and not discuss the materialism that has infiltrated our society.Now, before me, there stood this little girl with nothing but a single knit purse clenched in her tiny hand. So happy to be getting this purse . . . or so I thought."Hello." I said with a genuine smile.A short, raspy "I," was her reply, which resembled the scratchy squeak of a soprano clarinet in the anxious hands of a student. The sound plunged a bucket of ice water into my stomach as I fought to hold the smile unaltered on my face. Her grandmother began to explain."Four weeks ago she had surgery. She’s four and has never been able to speak before." The ice water froze in my stomach as my throat tightened."The surgery has allowed her to speak for the first time since she was born." Her grandmother continued. "I’m buying her a purse today ‘cause she’s been such a good girl."I continued to smile despite my hardened gut. Her face beamed with pride, not over the purse in her hands, but the voice she finally had. I looked into the eyes of this child as I thought of what ordeal this four-year-old already had to bare. I no longer saw her stringy hair or her bulging eyes. Only the proud smile that said, "I can talk," spoke the words she was unable to articulate. I looked at the angel as selfless and as thankful as the heavens could send and for the first time in my life, I was humbled.I felt the tears sting my eyes, which I fought back. I composed myself quickly unsure of what to say while I gulped down the knot in my own neck. I finished the transaction and bagged her little purse in a small accessory bag – the children always love that."Goodbye," I called to them as they turned to leave.Without hesitation she turned back to me waving her whole arm, refusing to miss an opportunity to omit any kind of sound."I," She called back with her new voice, smiling like never before over the power to speak.As they turned away once more, my thoughts filled with my two-year-old daughter, who had spent that morning shrieking inane babble at me in between shrieking no’s. In an instant I became grateful that my daughter could tell me "no" for she could also tell me "I love you."The next time she screams I’ll be grateful that she can and, despite the materialism, there is one angel I know of who was grateful enough for the voice she finally had.

Old In My Prime

I released a disgruntled sigh as I placed the phone back on the cradle; The whiny, scratchy voice of Lucille Ball echoed from the bedroom. I had just finished talking with my sister which, lately, had been enough to put me in an off mood. She was three years younger than I and had a knack for making me feel older than our mother when we finished comparing notes on our lives.
I had two children, both toddlers, and had been married for only four years. She had a live-in boyfriend, no kids, and no husband. I had four senior cats who were pushing nine. She had a quiet, one-year-old kitten.
She had started college, changed majors, was promoted to manager in the warehouse, changed majors again, and had begun planning a wedding. I had begun a writing course, was promoted to supervisor in the store, had skipped the wedding plans along with the honeymoon altogether, and had two children.
She and I hadn’t always been like this. As children, we were best friends, as teenagers, we were inseparable and now, as adults, we couldn’t stand each other. Neither of us knows how it came to this. We both know that it has. We never talk about that.
I walked into the kitchen, replaying the conversation over in my mind while re-quoting the parts that really troubled me to Tribble who was laying on the table relaxing, her eyes half shut. Ignoring the cat on the table, I walked to the cupboard and pulled down a solid, white coffee mug, then on to another cupboard where I pulled down my coffee crystals and flavored coffee mix. It was nine o’clock at night and I had some writing to do. Setting the mug next to the now sleeping cat, I walked to the fridge, pulled out the milk and removed the singing tea pot off the stove.
As I scooped out the desired amount of coffee into my mug, I thought of what Alicia had said to me. "Your dishes are so boring." She had then proceeded to tell me about her freshly bought dishes which were lined on the outer rim with little red lighthouses.
"They’re not boring. They’re classic." I said to Tribble defensively as I stirred my coffee. I took a sip and headed into the living room to the computer, first stopping to grab my evening vitamins from my regiment while mumbling about my "boring dishes."
She and her boyfriend had just returned from a weekend excursion to Niagra Falls. The twelfth one this year. It was October. Three weeks before that, she had been to Atlantic City. I sat down to my desk and stared off while pensively sipping my coffee.
It had grown cold these past few nights and the current chill in the air forced me back out of my chair. Setting my coffee onto my desk, I walked to the thermostat and turned it up to 72. Any higher and the husband would let me know about it. With my mind now preoccupied with the description of my sister’s first bar hop, I made my way to the bedroom closet and pulled down the cream, heart-crocheted afghan to throw over my legs. Desi Arnaz was now shouting in Cuban.
"I can bar hop if I wanted to." I said to my lounging, white Peach asleep on the couch as I walked back to the computer and coffee. She stretched lazily in response to my persistence and looked up at me. "I just don’t want to because it’s stupid! Who enjoys being drunk? I prefer my coffee, oatmeal, and toast to throwing up last night’s beverage in the morning."
I sat back down to the desk, my afghan now in hand. After spreading the fringed blanket over my legs, I resumed my coffee as the whistling of the radiators began. She had boasted proudly about her drinking parties and the day she had spent in New York with her old girlfriends from highschool. It had been more than nine years since I had even spoken to any of my girlfriends. And parties...?
The sudden sound of my daughter’s fussing shook me back to motherhood and forced me to abandon my thoughts. In a flash, I had set my coffee down, whipped off the blanket, and ran to her room on tip-toe.
There she slept, shifting and mumbling in her sleep. I proceeded to her bed, quieter than before so as to not wake her sleeping brother in the bed next to her. I gently began to rub her back and her body relaxed to my touch. The restlessness passed as she settled back into a calm, dreamless sleep. I released a quiet, deep sigh and tip-toed out of the room to return to my chair and to blanket, coffee, and thoughts.
I sat back down, recovered my legs, and took another sip from my coffee.
"She’s immature." I said, this time to Rolo who had leapt into my lap, her needle like claws bearing into my thighs. After positioning the cat into a more comfortable position, I continued. "She has no kids. She hasn’t grown up yet. Of course, she’s 23 and engaged. It’s about time she did settle down."
I had begun stroking the long, soft fur as her purring sedated my nerves. "She’s too old to be acting like that and the way she flirts....." My thought trailed off unfinished. Despite my feelings, some subjects were left alone. After all, she is my sister.
I drained the last of my coffee, now lukewarm, and placed the empty mug on the desk for the final time. My legs were feeling warm again and the radiators had stopped whistling. My mind, still focused on the winded monologue my sister had subjected me to earlier.
As she had poured over every rich detail of the hotel room and every event of her trip, I had sat in silence with nothing to say. She was as detailed as a nineteenth century French novel and the interest had worn off long after I had spent my own vacations living it up back when I was nineteen. Since then, I had settled down with my husband shortly preceding the arrival of our children.
"I’m not suppressing myself. I love the way I am." Rolo looked up at me unconvinced of what I had said. Her solid yellow stare bore into me.
"I am content. There’s nothing wrong with being conservative. There’s nothing wrong with being prude."
The yellow eyes continued their hard accusing, stare.
"I can bar hop if I want to. I’m not boring. I’m not as reserved as she thinks!"
The hard, yellow eyes never moved as the "I Love Lucy" theme echoed from the bedroom. The credits were rolling and my Seal, looking to nap, had curled up at my feet under the desk.
I finally broke my gaze with the uncomfortable stare of my cat and looked to the black and white of an era gone and nearly forgot.