I’m Not the Angry One

It was an emotionally exhausting journey across the mountains. Potamus slept until Issaquah (which is about…um…thirty minutes), and then cried until we got to Cle Elum for a snack. And then he ate a lot of french fries, and cried some more because he was out of water, and then he was content for five minutes down the road before he started to scream again because he had pooped.

We had three stops on the “2.5 hour” drive. It was hell. There might have been a ten minute stretch where I plugged my ears and shut my eyes (I wasn’t driving) and tried to notice my breath like I did when I was in labor or in Savasana in yoga. It helped me to keep myself from hurling out of the speeding car at 70 mph.

But other than that, the trip was brilliant. There was a wound-up kiddo who loved his gifts, and plenty of cupcakes that induced sugar highs for all of us, and maybe some good natured teasing. I even managed to only shout one time, out of passion and not anger, about how cool I actually think The Pope is (because my dad insinuated he was evil because he was ‘Marxist,’ which I later debunked). And then, about ten minutes until we left, the shit hit the fan. Somehow my dad managed to start yelling at me and saying that I had been yelling at him and it became a crazy convoluted argument about who-the-fuck-knows-why, of which I left feeling confused and sad and might have cried for twenty minutes until we got out of the city limits. Ad if you know me, you know that I cry approximately every 2 years, so it’s a pretty freaking big deal.

Because no matter what I do, I somehow am always pegged as the ‘angry one’ in the family. I’m tired of having a perfectly good time and still not ‘doing it right enough,’ to show my family t hat I’m not the angry  depressed teenager I used to be. But somehow in pouring my heart out to Boof, I realized…I am not the angry one. I haven’t ever really been the angry one. In fact, my dad, who has been so pegged as jovial and overly rational (let’s sit down and discuss this conflict using I statements) is actually the angry one. He is angry. I am not. And that realization shifted something in me.

I am not angry.

Knowing that he is angry relieves me. It makes sense for why he’s been lashing out and blaming me for things that I didn’t actually do. I don’t know why he’s angry, what hes’ bottled up over the years, but that’s not my job to figure out. My job is to work on myself, which I have been doing in therapy, and it’s my job to continue to treat him compassionately. So while I don’t like having to have experienced that explosiveness earlier today, I do like the insight, because now I feel like I am better prepared to handle myself in the future.

What have you learned about your parents over the years that has re-shaped how you view yourself, your childhood, or them?

Biological Motherhood: I get to be different

it’s hard being his world

I have been in the midst of several conversations lately, with friends, about our own mothers, and all the ways they failed us as children, and are failing us currently. Like my own mom who failed to recognize any symptoms of anxiety in me as a child and failed to connect with me as an adult when she finally learned that I had anxiety. And while my mind understands that I will fail Potamus in so many ways (my heart has yet to catch up to that reality, and oh how it will break when it does), I have been reflecting on the fact that, at the end of the day I get to be a different mother than (both of) my own.

There have been conscious differences, like extended breastfeeding my 20 month old vs. being formula fed or Montessori bed-sharing. But in these conversations, about making all of the conscious choices to be different, my perfectionistic (as in, I’m going to do EVERYTHING differently) brain was rocked a little while driving down the road, because, AUTOMATICALLY there will be differences with me as a mother than my own.

Because I carried and birthed my baby. And he is a firstborn son. I was a firstborn daughter. And I was given away to strangers at 3 days old. I was given to a mother who didn’t carry and birth me from her own body, so these differences have set us on a very different course from the beginning.

In what ways are do you hope you’re not like your own parents? In what ways do you hope you are like them?

When everything around you is annoying…

maybe it’s you that has a problem?

I don’t know if that’s a fact, but yesterday we got home from the in-law’s and I was kvetching about EVERYTHING. Seriously. I know that we’ve been doing Sunday dinner at the in-laws every week for FIVE years, and that I’ve had similar spells where I am just done with it. And then we always come back, it’s something about family that keeps sucking us back in. Sigh. So after complaining about the time of dinner (always later than intended) and the purposelessness I feel sitting around their house on Sunday (I could be doing other things! OR we could be doing other things, together, like playing games or talking or SOMETHING!), it then spiralled into complaining about my mother-in-law trying to feed Potamus Teddy Grahams at dinner, though she knows how hard we’ve been working to get him to eat things OTHER THAN COOKIES. Ugh. And the awkward interactions with Potamus by Auntie and Grandpa, it just spiralled into a ball of too-muchness that I could handle.

So we were trying to get a plan for how we want to break this annoying cycle, and I then started ranting on about my own sister and her boyfriend and complaining about the dinner we had on Saturday and it was just like…

Dude, Monk-Monk, get a grip. If this much stuff is annoying you, then it’s probably your issue, and not those other things.

Boof didn’t actually say that, it was something that I thought and then said aloud. But it’s probably a combination…annoying things PLUS my reaction to them. I’ve never been one to really hide my emotions. And I’m not easily persuaded out of a mood if I’m moody. Fortunately I haven’t actually been that annoyed with Potamus, but even Boof has been getting on my nerves. Like, for example, last Friday when we were supposed to be spending his birthday dinner at a nice restuarant, I was annoyed with him ALL DAY. Except…well…he wasn’t actually home. I had all of these imaginary annoying conversations in my head about how frustrated I was over this or that, and none of it was actually real. And yet, I was annoyed nonetheless.

So, what to do?

I mean, I’ve thought of going back to therapy this summer, when I have a little more time, but what should I be doing NOW when it seems like everything is annoying me. Am I focusing on the wrong things? Are things really annoying? HELP!

Advice dear bloggy readers? What do you do when it seems like anyone and everyone/everything is just annoying?

 

 

Great Expectations

From what little I know of Buddhist and Hindu and other yogic-type meditative philosophies, is that expectations are what get us into trouble. We get disappointed and feel hurt and upset unnecessarily, rather than the simplicity of just experiencing what is, rather than wishing something was different.

The topic of expectations came up in my mind this morning after I dropped Potamus off with grandma. She was talking about my night and I was complaining about Boof’s long work schedule and his attendance at a soccer match, leaving me home alone to deal with Potamus and Scrummy by myself. In my complaint was this underlying expectation that my husband should be home at a reasonable hour (like 5, instead of 8…or 10 because of the Sounder’s game), and help me out with the boy-child.

Expectations.

As I was leaving, and beating myself up for once-again complaining to my mother-in-law about HER son, I had an imaginary argument with my father-in-law, because arguing with myself is just pointless. It went something like this:

“It’s not what I signed up for,”

“But Boof supports you, and lets you do things that you want to do, and it’s that whole sickness & health part of your vows”-FIL

“Yes, but it’s not what I signed up for. Yeah yeah, sickness and health. But when we met he was in school to be a pastor. I was going to be a pastor’s wife. And then he got a job as a teacher. I was a teacher’s wife. We went into the decision to have a kid based on the fact that he was a teacher. And then, when he resigned quietly after a false accusation about ‘inappropriate texting’ with his student (who, sidenote, he had permission from her mom to text about schoolwork and no inapprorpiate texts were actually found), I supported him through that, and HE got to stay at home and I haven’t liked having to borrow money from you all, and now I’m an accountant’s wife and it’s tax season and it’s NOT WHAT I SIGNED UP FOR!”

My imaginary argument with FIL ends about there, and I am driving and listening to the radio and feeling sorry for myself and annoyed that I keep whining. I don’t understand why I can’t be like my military wife friends, or my stay-at-home mommy friends who bear the burden of childraising all by themselves during the day  and night because their husbands are working/too-exhausted-at-the-end-of-the-day.

Sure I’ve gotten into a better rhythm with things, but I get annoyed that Boof comes to bed at 12:30 after watching hours of television, but forgot to get yogurt for Potamus’ breakfast and I have to go to the store so he’ll have food at daycare. When we were dating and we took a pre-marital questionaire for our pre-marital counseling, one of the things that we talked about was egalitarian parenting and relationship, since I had been accustomed to this idea that women should willingly raise children without a complaint. But he informed me otherwise of his beliefs, and I let myself believe in egalitarian relationships, and it felt good. But now it feels like I am in charge of both working hard, raising Potamus AND caring for the house and meal-planning. It’s a lot more than I signed up for and I’m struggling with that. I know that it will straighten out after tax season is over, but I’m not looking forward to every year being like this…especially since we’re thinking of possible expanding the family…

How do YOU deal with unmet or disappointed expectations?

Weaning Funnies

For the most part, my in-laws are on-board with this whole breastfeeding until whenever idea, but sometimes even their comfort zone is stretched. Like last night, when we were out to dinner at the fancy Columbia Tower Club (read, tallest building in Seattle). All of us were fancified in our finest Christmas garb, and dinner started out past Potamus’ early bedtime. He was holding up like  champ, mugging for photos and throwing Chex all over the fine carpetting, when he started to get a little cranky. Boof had been feeding him some asparagus, but he looked tired and maybe like he wanted a nursing snack, so I threw my hooter-hider on and hoisted him into my lap (after quickly shovelling the bison steak and mashed potatoes into my mouth, YUM!). After going through the routine of unhooking the nursing bra and whipping it out, while struggling to hold his wiggly 1 year old legs, I looked down to see his smiling face happily munching on asparagus and totally ignoring my exposed breast. With a laugh I squeeled, “ahaha, he’s eating asparagus under there!” The whole table giggled, too, and then they said “well, I guess it’s about time to wean, eh?” To which, I agreed.

But later, it got  me thinking, about how the general public views weaning. Because, truthfully the weaning process was begun a few months ago. At this point he’s down to a few times at night and maybe, maybe once during the day, if I am home, and we’re going down for a nap. But weaning is a relationship, ESPECIALLY since young Potamus doesn’t take liquid in any other form, that I’m not about to cut cold turkey. And Boof is even protective of my time with Potamus, acknowledging that it is the quickest, most effective, way of calming a fussy tired cranky needy sad little growing baby. The incident was funny, even downright hilarious, and there is truth to the whole weaning comment, but I wish that overall people saw weaning as a process and not a light switch to be turned off when one leaves the room.

Any funny weaning stories that you might have? Share here!