Never's Remedy

I shouldn't have to write about this. I shouldn't have to argue this in the 21st century. The right of mothers to 1) breastfeed in public spaces, and 2) do so without hiding their babies under stuffy blankets. It's rather like other issues some people froth at the mouth over, but seem so inherently backwards to my view of the world . . . or how it should be.

Nevertheless, the debate comes up again about whether women should hide away from the masses to do their dirty business of temporarily exposing their breast in order to feed a hungry infant who doesn't understand why its body hurts, at least not on a conscious level, and who certainly can't "wait" for an opportune moment. However, this time, after reading through half of over a 100 comments, I realized one position had never been addressed in many of these arguments: the bonding aspect of not using a cover. Here's my comment from a Facebook discussion on the subject (a discussion that includes such comments as, "It's disgusting!!! No one wants to see your nasty pregnant boob and dinner plate nipples flopping around everywhere!" (Posted by a very angry female commenter, who clearly has serious issues with self-image and body consciousness.):

I never used a blanket or cover with my daughter. I wore shirts appropriate for breastfeeding, and was discrete for the brief moments before and after latch, but I wasn't going to cover my infant while she was feeding. What I haven't seen in the comments, although there are some older ones I haven't read, is the relationship between mother and child during breastfeeding.

A blanket or cover prevents one of the major bonding experiences that take place during a feeding--namely eye contact. The first time I breastfed my daughter, only minutes after her birth, we made eye contact, and I believe it made all the difference in her early achievements in gross motor coordination and verbal communication, well ahead of the average.

All I had to do was hold her, let her latch, and look her in the eyes, and an understanding passed between us. She examined my face, and I learned hers. There are numerous studies out there to read about the neurological and developmental benefits of these early encounters for an infant (search: developmental benefits eye contact breastfeeding), but even if there were no scientific support for such claims, the emotional connection deepens between mother and child in those early months when eye contact occurs during breastfeeding.

When I have more children in the future, I can guarantee I won't be covering them up just to protect adults from a natural bonding process. A flash of nipple for half a second isn't going to traumatize my infant, and it shouldn't be cause for alarm in a society where glorified violence and hyper-sexualization can be seen on every television channel at almost any hour of the day.

Ana and I ended up in a conversation where I started to tell her stories of her early years, and it occurred to me after the fact that I was beginning to give her the stories she would later grow up with and tell others.

We had been watching Cotton roll around in delight because a couple of his toys were near one another, and I'd noticed for a couple of months now, his habit of dragging his toys into one place so he can hold onto and play with all of them at once. I mentioned that it reminded me of Ana as a toddler.

ME: You used to throw all your toys down on the floor, put them in piles, and lay on them, no matter how hard or sharp or pointy.
ANA: Yeah, they were comfortable.
ME: That's how I knew I definitely had a dragon, it's dragon-like behavior to horde your treasures and lay on them. You used to hide your toys in cabinets around the house, and at various times of the day, you'd pull all of them out at once, scoop them into piles, and lay on them!
[Ana laughed and seemed to recall it.]
ANA: I still do that sometimes.
ME: Do you remember that as a toddler you also ran your own daycare?
ANA: No.
ME: You did. You would take out all your dolls and you'd lay them on their tummies on receiving blankets. Then you'd lay baby blankets over them and pat each of them on their backs to comfort them for their naps.
ANA: I don't remember that.
ME: Well, you had your own preschool as a toddler, and you made sure every doll had a good nap.

Recently, we went through a box of memorabilia mostly related to my Grandpa Vin and Uncle Buzz. We went through Buzz's year book from high school and found pages and pages of him in there; he was incredibly popular. Not one person made a generic comment; many of them went on and on about how wonderful he was and how fortunate they were to have known him. He was voted as the senior male student with the greatest amount of school spirit, which surprised me that he wasn't the one voted most popular.

What I kept noticing, though, was not so much about him, but about people in general. There were still signs of a different social structure than we have today, certain social boundaries still being kept up and silent agreements about how people treated one another in a given way, but despite all their seeming intelligence and adherence to certain codes of ethics and behavior, most of them had as much trouble differentiating between "your" and "you're." I wasn't sure whether to feel disheartened or to think that maybe certain things hadn't become as awful linguistically as I once thought. Then again, I realized these are the parents of people who would later raise the current youth, a great many of whom have trouble differentiating between "your," "you're," and "ur" on formal papers.

But I digress . . .

The stories I'm telling Ana now are overdue. There are things that I have taken for granted in my life: my ability to parse out what people mean to say from their actual words, a trait I think I picked up in part due to my many bouts of temporary hearing loss from multiple ear infections. I also take for granted my role as parent, and assume that Ana should understand things through osmosis, she was, after all, inside me for nine months . . . shouldn't she have already gained all the knowledge previously learned up to that point? I take for granted my linguistic capabilities to breakdown unfamiliar words in English and in languages that use a Roman alphabet, and glean information about the meaning of those words, often enough so that I can understand the gist of a completely foreign statement. I take for granted that Ana should, after years of educational neglect on my part (even to this day), be able to comprehend the basics of what she reads, analyze it, and draw upon elven years worth of foundational knowledge--a foundation I did not truly help build and is quite obviously unstable.

I keep hoping that it's not too late; I also keep hoping that I'll somehow remember on a daily basis what I must do each day to support her education, not just academically, but on all levels and in all aspects of her life. It's very hard for me to stay consistent, to be proactive on a regular basis, to make the priorities in my mind, priorities on my daily schedule. Story telling is not ritual in our house as I believe it ought to be; many of Ana's communication difficulties might never have been had I made two very different choices in my early years as a parent: 1) controlling my temper and creating a different environment in which she could develop her voice, and 2) reading, singing, and telling stories more than I did.

In truth, I shirked my storytelling responsibilities; I did not make them a daily priority, I did not sing much for the first few years of her life, even though I wanted to, and I didn't sit down with her each day to guide her through the challenges of basic motor skills, behavior, communication, and life skills. These are failures in my parenting, flaws I'm still struggling with. Lately, homeschooling her has become a lesson for me in what mistakes I've made, and finding ways to solve them. The hardest part for me is still to be hands-on, to move away from my own inner world, my internet life, my writing, my hang ups, my own inner drama, and sit down for an hour or two each day and say, "here's what we're going to work on until I help you make sense of it."

Because I wasn't consistent with these things from day one, she's resistant to it. Add the early signs of puberty, and her resistance is greater. These are my challenges, the majority of their cause being my own failure to do the very basics of what was necessary to help her live up to her potential up to this point. In tiny ways I'm getting better. I see myself becoming more consistent in other ways, with my health, with maintaining the house, and with working toward a routine in my career goals. Now I must translate these forms of personal responsibility into meaningful work to do with Ana to meet my parental responsibility.

Ana reads constantly, and yet, I find that she does not read well. She may slide through a book and get some pleasure from it, but there are large gaps in her comprehension. This is known as functional illiteracy. A lot of this has to do with a combination of laziness (if it takes effort, she doesn't want to do it, no matter how great her original interest, e.g. robotics) and a fear of asking for help. My frustration with the former contributes to the sources of the latter. I don't abide laziness, lies, or stupidity (which I define as a choice to remain ignorant, where as ignorance can be cured with a desire to learn and gain knowledge), and all of these behaviors are rampant in the person most important to me in this world. All of these behaviors are in large part due to my own past actions and choices.

I continue to try to find ways to redirect her energy, to learn how to parent better, and to push myself to do what I know is necessary to implement the methods I feel will best support us as mother/teacher-child/student. When I realized tonight that lately I had been reminiscing with Ana about her early years, I believe it is a sign that I am beginning to better understand my role in her life and am becoming more active in making positive changes to guide her. I also believe that reminiscing together is an act of healing, one which is helping bring clarity to what is most needful and how to achieve the goals we set forth together.

Craig and Ana were playing Mariokart together (again), and they'd unlocked some feature where they could both be Baby Peach. I should mention that Ana has taken to using a particular swear word when playing this game, and when I suggested an alternative, she struggled with it, and finally shouted, "I'm sorry, but it's not the same!"

But I was upstairs listening to them go on about their mad skillz, and I came down to see what they had accomplished when Ana get sideswiped by a number of NPCs. She shouted, "You don't know how to treat a baby or a lady!" I imagine she might have shaken her fist, except that her hands were on the Wii remote wheel.

After the laughter between Craig and I ended, and I'd made some comment about, "'Lady?' This from my daughter?"

She made some comment about how boys need to be nice to boys, and I asked, "Why?"

She rolled her eyes, thinking I was teasing, and I said, "No really, I'm serious. Why do boys need to be nicer to girls than they are to other boys?"

Ana avoided eye contact, sputtered a few times, and finally shouted, "You wouldn't understand!"

Craig looked at me, I looked at him. "I wouldn't understand?" I asked.

In the midst of our guffawing, Ana said, "What?!? Arrhhh!!!"

Poor kid, she must find it difficult having me as a mother. At least I gave her fair warning that I was blogging this.

^_^

Frustrations continue. There is now silence.

Craig has a cold, and I'm working very hard to keep from getting sick myself as I've already been sick this quarter and I lost out on three days of class last week. Three important days.

At present, a pot of chicken and garlic is cooking with herbs and olive oil and when it's ready, I'll add carrots, broth, more herbs, spices, and water until it's boiling. Then it will simmer for a while, and just a short time before it's finished, I'll add the spinach & egg noodles.

Every chicken noodle soup I make is different, but somehow I always know what to put in it, what balance of herbs, what spices, even what vegetables to make us feel better. Sometimes I add curry. Sometimes it's more of a lemon-pepper broth or it has the essences of an Hungarian dish. Sometimes it has Thai spices, and other times, it's Japanese. It doesn't matter. Tonight I don't know what it will taste like, not yet, but it will have spinach noodles and rainbow carrots.

Ana's teacher has not written me back. She said they had a talk in class about bathroom behavior again, but she couldn't remember what the teacher said. I couldn't believe that she didn't pay attention, when it was so important to her, but ... ugh.

My friend Consuelo, whom I worked with at NSCC and is now in my Archaeology class, sat and talked with me during my hour break between classes today. She happened to suggest taking a minor as well as a major. Now I'm considering it. I suppose I'll really make a decision after we know who's going to be the next president. To attach myself to a minor would mean graduating later than I planned. I'm not sure if I want to do that. If I can take a minor for which I've already had some classes and use up my limited electives for that then maybe it's possible to still graduate in the summer of 2010. I wish I'd given more consideration to it before now, but seeing as I wasn't sure of my major until my last quarter at North in 2004 ...

Anyway, if you want to weigh in on it, if I decide to have a minor:

[Poll #1287015]

Links:
Class M Planet found where Vulcan was said to exist in Star Trek

David Sedaris on Undecided Voters via silveringridd

I commented in this entry at metaquotes about the uses of duct tape and keeping babies' hats on their heads. [Please read entry first.] I just had to comment, being an experienced duct taping parent:

Duct tape comes in quite handy when rearing children. First, it's to keep things on them (i.e. hats, shoes, socks, diapers) or them on other things (i.e. high chair, car seat), then you use it to bind their hands to keep them off of things (i.e. any crystal figurines, star wars action figures in pristine condition, or anything that's breakable or easily destroyed by drool, depending on your fandom base). Finally, you end up just using it all over them, most especially their mouths, once they learn to run about and tell people about their genitalia and gas, everything they just learned from their friends or the television, and your private life with the new "daddy" who comes over for dates. This is also why it's good to have a membership at Costco; they sell duct tape in large quantities at wholesale prices. If you have duct tape left over, you can repair your $350 replica of the Millennium Falcon with tiny pieces and a lot of crying.

So I've heard.

In other news, I had a nightmare that I was thought to be a cop killer, when really all I'd done was steal candy with a bunch of co-workers in protest to our lack of holiday bonuses. The real killers got away, and I was pregnant. Jodawi and Mittel were raising Ana, and I was pregnant with another child, who also became their ward. Ended up making sure another child at Ana's school got safely back to her parents, but was followed by a vigilante cop who wanted to see justice done at his hands. Woke up before resolution, quite convinced I need to make an announcement to my dearest friends on here, which I will do after this post. *sighs, shudders*

I'm also either INFJ (most likely), INFP (more true now than before), or (on good days) ENFP. The links lead to the relationship page, not the overview, because it was easier for me to recognize myself in terms of parenting and lovers and such than it was to read about my daily life. Jen and I have just determined that there should be an index in the backs of these Jungian personality tests that include an entry entitled "writer." It would read: "If you are a writer, then none of this, or rather all of this, may apply to you. Or not. You're not normal. You don't fit in these categories, and you never will, so stop asking. Or go get a real job, you liberal git."

I am the son
And the heir
Of a shyness that is criminally vulgar
I am the son and heir
Oh, of nothing in particular

You shut your mouth
How can you say
I go about things the wrong way ?
I am Human and I need to be loved
Just like everybody else does

There's a club, if you'd like to go
You could meet somebody who really loves you
So you go, and you stand on your own
And you leave on your own
And you go home, and you cry
And you want to die

When you say it's gonna happen "now"
Well, when exactly do you mean ?
See I've already waited too long
And all my hope is gone

You shut your mouth
How can you say
I go about things the wrong way ?
I am Human and I need to be loved
Just like everybody else does

Take the Which Powerpuff Girl Are You? Test.



Wow, Bubbles! You're hardcore! ::bounces::

----

Why, it only took me two days and a lot of Ana crying and throwing fits for me to figure out she's TEETHING! Two big, sharp canines are coming up from the bottom, and she's not having a very happy time of it. ::raspberries the air::

...and writers bearing sell sheets and press releases. ::sighs::

Well, Ana's got an ear infection, I've got *something* making me feel lousy, tomorrow's my welfare review (though I don't know whose welfare they're concerned with).

Sitting before me are several pages of "How to's". How-to write a sell sheet (what, am I a prostitute?), how-to write a press release, how-to write a query letter, and how-to set up a book signing. All of them scare the crap out of me.

Speaking of feces, Ana decided tonight it was a great idea to take off her diaper, hand it to David, hang on to the coffee table and release waste all over the living room carpet. Of course, I was in the kitchen at the time, and unable to stop this from happening. Clean-up was most fun. ::big smile, like you mean it::
David reports it was the most shocked he's been in a long time (keep in mind she did it *right* in front of his view). What a protest!

Peach pits.

Animaniacs: "Mr. Churchill, may we jump up and down on your stomach?"
Churchill: "OK"
Animaniacs: "Boingy-boingy-boingy"
(And then Stalin wanted to join in)
Stalin (deeper voice): "Boingy-boingy-boingy"

So, no, I'm not well in my mind, I'm finding my hair in the drain after one bath, and I think I need a little stress-releaser... mom says I need to get laid, Roy confers. (He attributes my recent fires to the amount of sexual frustration I'm accumulating... he's probably right.)

As for the Year of the Horse, I was mortified to discover I was wrong when I went shouting out that it starts on the second of February... it doesn't. Yes, Candlemas (Brigit, Imbolc) is scheduled for that day, but the New Year doesn't start until the 12th! Ahhhhh! Someone help me!

SprintPCS is trying to screw me (still), they confirm that they sent the check (a month after my Voice Mail message said they would), but it should have only taken 3 business days... it's been *much* longer. (In case you don't know, I had a SprintPCS phone for ten days and sent it back with angry protests. It worked great as a date book, an address book, a secure informational storage unit, but not as a phone. I sent it back, and was supposed to receive a reimbursement check for my initial payment sometime at the end of August... it's January, and I still don't have the check!)

If Sprint PCS wants to screw me, why don't they come over and do so! Argh, I'm going to turn back into a pumpkin on the 28th, and I don't see anyone around here named Peter ready to eat me! ::smirks::

Received a VERY nice card with cute pictures of Mike and Marcie, two friends from EQ, hopefully I'll remember to write to them soon and thank them... if not, at least I posted my thanks and gratitude here! Oh, and a very loud "awwww...." for the picture of them together. The biggest smiles you ever saw.

I should go now, leave David to his computers, relinquish them back and never return... well, not never, but not soon.... well, maybe soon, but... Forget it! I'll be back here slavering all over the keyboards as soon as I can. I'm such a computer junkie, I really act like such a drug addict. Each use is like a little fix. ::slaps vein:: Just plug me in!!!

...I've been waiting too much, but there are times when I feel there is nothing more I can do, or I don't want to face the little chores and steps I need to take to get to certain minor goals.

Yes, I need a job, really need a great one that pays well enough to support Ana and I without assistance. There are two problems in this: 1) The unemployment rate is horrendous (Washington State has dropped to only the 2nd highest unemployment rate in the country). 2) I don't really want to do the jobs I'm qualified for. I've found some great Administrative Assistant positions, some of them don't require a BA (Ha! If I had a BA in *anything* I wouldn't be looking for this type of job!), and some are actually within my means of transportation. However, I look at the job requirements and the long list of duties and tasks to perform, I know I *can* do them, but I'm loathe to actually be expected to do them.

Expectations and Guilt, two things David and I've talked about a lot lately. He's a great sounding board and he's able to clarify much of my own confusion I can't see through. I have difficulty with expectations, I don't like being *expected* to do things, but I like to do them as a surprise or out of the kindness of my heart. I love to be asked to do things, but when someone makes an expectation I resent it. Then there's the guilt... David says I carry around a lot of guilt, often for things that are too minor to have guilt over, and others which I didn't mean or can't go back and change. He says guilt is holding me back from much of what I'm doing, if I keep thinking about what I've done (or haven't done) and obsessing on it, I'll never be able to move forward to correct my mistakes.

Sera hasn't called, she hasn't written, and I wonder why I even bother putting the choice to her. It's a big choice she's leaving up to me regarding our daughter, and because I haven't seen her in person long enough to talk with her in the last three or four weeks, I can't even tell her what the decision is which she needs to make. I resolved myself not to call for some time, and then I finally caved this weekend. I called her at work, she told me how very much she missed me and Ana, and she was going to call. She didn't. I called her the next day at work, she said she'd call, and she wanted to come over Sunday night, she just had to check her schedule. She didn't call, and I didn't bother to on Sunday. What's the point? If she's determined to avoid me and to disappoint Ana, then she'll never know what happens, and I won't allow this cycle of disappointment to continue. It's either Ana or no Ana, Raven or no Raven, it can't be whenever the mood hits her, change of plans at the spur of the moment, and skipping out on Christmas after six months of planning because she's afraid. Yet how will she know this? Does she even read this journal? I can't allow her to do this to Ana, I can't allow Ana to grow up with so much disappointment and resentment directed towards Sera. But I won't tell this to Sera on the phone, only in person. She hasn't posted since December, I have no idea what's going on in her life.

It's a world of frustrations, but somehow I keep smiling. Had to take Ana to the doctor's yesterday, only to find out she's healthy. Probably having trouble at daycare because of emotional issues, not physical. She didn't require I carry her most of the way back. The rain had left us, the clouds were gone, it was blue sky and white sun. Ana walked by my side for four long blocks. Such a wonder. She's been "shh"-ing me, and she's become possessive of her toys, tells everyone who tries to play with her favorites "no" very firmly and takes the toy from them. Another mimcry of me, mixed with her determination to have her way. So cute. This morning she woke up, pulled her big rag doll I got her for Christmas out from under the covers, sat it up and gave it a big hug. She then turned it to face her, talked with it, tickled it, and played peek-a-boo. The smiles and giggles were a blessing this morning.

This is the joy of parenthood, the reward for the hard work, but I'm still waiting for a miracle to come ... to help us free ourselves from State obligation, from fear, from frustration, and to build our foundations for the future.

Sera needs to post more to her journal, ::winks:: and I'm looking forward to our little Christmas gathering.

Trying not to lose my mind thinking about Ana in daycare, she cried and wailed, reaching out for me when I left her there. I'm thinking about keeping her there for a full day, so she doesn't expect me to pick her up early tomorrow. Maybe it's better that way. I'm required to search for work 30 hours a week, and here I am at the library, looking for work online. (Qwest DSL is screwing up at the WorkFirst office, joy!)

I feel myself being propelled toward the next phase of my progress, to the next major hurdles that lie in waiting for me to attempt to jump over them. I hope I don't trip... I can't use the word "hope" anymore without a pained thought of Sera, and her new Primary, Hope. No, I'm not jealous, not in anyway I see jealousy, but I am envious of the time and attention she is able to claim from Sera, the security... the bragging rights.

I hate to admit it, but Sera and I really did need our time of separation, just as much as we now need to take things slowly right now, to grow, to mature, to reach personal goals before we're ready to reunite in a more dedicated way. Love, adoration, caring, we have those between us. But we both have old patterns to do away with and new foundations to build (yay for 2002, year of the Horse! can't wait until Feb. 2nd). It will all work out for the best in the end, even in the interim it isn't so bad. Still, I don't like to wait, and if I *just* wait, our goals will never be achieved, the destination I can see in the distance will never arrive unless we're both doing what we must in order to get there.

I continue to write, though much of the "damned book" is being placed on the backburner. I'm writing some scenes which are necessary, but I can no longer continue to write it from start to finish knowing my mistakes across the last eight months. It wouldn't bother me if I had a computer, I could just go into the file, rearrange the text and fix the continuity, but I can't do that in a notebook. So I write little scenes, full of resentment for all the months wasted in writing it out of order, confused, missing important turning points. ::Sighs:: This too shall pass.

I wrote my Christmas letter, though most of those I mail will arrive late (thanks, JCPenney portrait studio!), I'm handing out those that I can on Christmas Eve and Christmas to save on postage and grief. Perhaps now I should look for those jobs, eh? ::smirks:: See? This is me looking for jobs...

"Back in the days when Phil Colins had... Well, no, Phil Colins never had hair."
-96.5, the Point advert.

The hunt continues. Of course I know I need to find one soon, place Ana in a safe environment so I can work, but it's hard for me to go through this part of the process. To actually find the daycare. I don't have trouble after she's in daycare looking for work. It's this step, interviewing what few daycare facilities are available to us (some have waiting lists up until September 2004!), and trying to get her to understand I'm not leaving forever, just for more than half of each week. ::sighs:: I hate giving her up to this, but I am required to find work, spend 40 hours a week doing it, and eventually work 40 hours a week. How do I manage? ::shakes head:: I just have to do it. No matter how much it hurts.

On another note, yesterday Ana had her pictures taken for Christmas, and while I set up the appointment based on a C.S.R.'s assurance that I would get the pictures back in time for sending the Christmas cards -- they lied. I found out after having her pictures done, and paying them, that they won't be ready until the 22nd (Saturday), after the post offices close, which means I wouldn't be able to send them out until the 24th, ensuring that the letters and pictures wouldn't reach anyone until after Christmas. ::growls:: We'll see if I can make them work a little faster, but it may not work out the way I want it to. ::sighs:: Ah, well.