Even though it's been over a year since I gave birth to E, in some ways, it feels as though I've been a mother forever. How could I have not known she'd be a girl? Was there ever a time when I didn't know she'd love sweet potatoes? Did I ever really wear long, dangly earrings without worrying they'd be yanked from my lobes?  And who doesn't know how to use a nasal aspirator?

 

But it was when I spoke to  a “younger” (35!) expectant mom today, that I realized just how far I really have come since my own pregnancy. She was watching me navigate changing E's messy swim diaper and said without any guile, “Oh, this is good! I've never changed a diaper before! I should watch!”

 

 

All of sudden, I felt like the Martha Stewart of Mommies. And let me tell you, I've never felt like the Martha of anything, whether it's sewing, cleaning, cooking, crafting…well, you name it. Although come to think of it, maybe my “expert” diaper maneuvers were more like Julia Child trussing a capon…

 

At any rate, I found myself giving advice-good advice, I might add!-about all things new baby. In no particular order, things like:

1)     Be your own advocate in the hospital. If something hurts, if you have another question, if you need another glass of water, ASK FOR HELP.

 

 

2)     If breastfeeding doesn't work for you (much more on this another time), DO. NOT. BEAT. YOURSELF. UP. 

 

 

3)     Don't register for the upright tub. You'll never take it out of its box.

 

 

4)     Triple Paste cream can cure any diaper rash instantly.

 

 

5)     And speaking of diaper rashes, if you keep a blow dryer by the changing table and blow it (cold, of course!) on your baby's bum after changing him/her, you'll never have to worry about rashes, *This tip courtesy of my sister's pediatrician.

 

 

6)     Diapers.com can deliver almost anything you need, straight to your door. Good for those stormy days (emotional or weather-related!) when you just can't leave your house.

 

 

7)     Bables like watching ceiling fans. This can be a lifesaver in restaurants.

 

 

8)     Even if your baby hates it, try to make sure he/she has plenty of tummy time. It'll pay off in the months to come.

 

 

9)     Take notes before and during your visits to the pediatrician.

 

 

10)     Getting poop out of a swim diaper ain't easy.

 

Of  course, many of you may like the upright tub! And as we all know, parents need to figure out their own way with this stuff and unless you're asked, it's often best to keep your advice to yourself. That said, I'm asking…what are your new/old mommy tips?

 

 

 

 

Mommy Dating Game

 

 

 

When we moved from Manhattan three and a half years ago, I cried like E does just when she's bumped her head: a slow, lip-quivering kind of sob. As I looked back at the city through my rear view mirror, I thought of all of the things I was leaving behind. There was the quotidian excitement of living in the greatest city in the world, the Empire State Building lit up at night, and the quesadilla place on 6th Avenue that was so addictive that we referred to it as the Crack House.

 

 

But the most painful thing about leaving New York, was saying goodbye to my friends. Sure, it's incredibly easy to keep up with everyone these days through email and Facebook, etc., but it's just not the same. To know that the people I loved were just a walk or subway or cab ride away was the greatest luxury in the world.

 

 

And now, here I was in a new town, where everyone seemed to turn out their lights by 9:30 p.m. (I noticed this as I walked the dog through desolate streets) and it didn't matter anyway, because I didn't know a soul. That said, I was stunned to discover that I actually loved being out of the city. My country childhood came back to me almost instantly and I loved walking in the field with my beloved spaniel. And it was in that field, oddly, that I made my first friends (this town has a lot of devoted dog owners!) who introduced me to other friends and as the old Toni home perm commercial said, “And so on..and so…on…”

 

 

So, when people started to tell me that I had to make an “effort” to make new “”Mommy” friends, I felt like screaming, “ For god's sake, I just made an effort!” The last thing I wanted to do was go to "Mommy and Me" classes with the intent of making new best friends. I had my childhood friends, my New York friends, and now my new NJ friends. At 42, I felt exhausted at the very thought of entering what seemed like a weird Mommy Dating Game. When you have a bologna-covered cranky child on your hands, the last thing you want to do is engage in small talk with a stranger about sleep patterns and diaper rash solutions.

 

 

Or…maybe that was just me being cranky. And old.  A lot of my new mother setups felt forced and somehow inorganic, because I was much older than a lot of the mothers around here. (In New York, it's not that strange to have children when you're over 40. Here, I felt like Miss Havisham.)Was it enough that that only thing I had in common with these new mothers was that we both had babies? How does one fill the silence between the bottles and the diaper changes? There's only so much “So….um…does yours like sweet potatoes, too” that one can handle.

 

 

So, I decided to give myself a break and to stop trying so damn hard. And guess what? It worked. I've met some really nice women-young and old- in E's music class, at the playground, and through other friends. As with less Mommy-centric friendships, it's all happened at a more natural pace. I have always loved meeting new people and to know that E will be meeting wonderful kids makes it even better. I think the key was, as with all of this new mother stuff, is to just let things happen at their own pace. And if you let yourself relax, you can make some amazing new friends.

 

 

 

Illness FINALLY Gone 

 

 

While I am not usually a sucker for a Hallmark holiday, I will admit that I was looking forward to my first Mother's Day. It's not as though I was expecting a blinged-out locket with E's picture in it or for her to smile cherubically and say, "Mama!" as her first word that day. But sure, when you wait as long as I did to have a baby, it's rather thrilling to be the honoree rather than the honorer on that May Sunday.

 

 

When we woke up that day, however, we were greeted by a very sick baby. When E awakened, she'd been her usual sunny self, albeit with a runny nose and some sneezing. But by 8:30 a.m., she had developed a raspy, barking cough and a high fever.

 

 

 

It was definitely time to call the doctor and thanks to our fantastic pediatric practice, we got an appointment right away, even on a Sunday. The on-call doctor-who looked as though he'd just come back from prom and probably thought we looked like relics-was lovely and told us that it was just a virus, but he was glad we'd brought her in.

 

 

As I'm sure the rest of you seasoned (aka smarter) parents know, we probably didn't need to. A virus is a virus is a virus, etc. and there's not a whole lot you can do for your kid at that point. We felt sheepish for racing to the doctor with the same alacrity and panic we'd had when rushing to the delivery room. That said, I'm glad we did, in that it prevented a whole day of freaking out and Googling crazy illnesses.

 

 

 

It's one thing to be a lunatic about one's own imagined conditions (I will confess to having diagnosed myself with everything from shingles to a rare illness only found in Malaysian males), but it's a lot less quirkily charming to do it with your child. It was yet another instance where it was time to grow up and stop giving in to my uber-extended, self-indulgent, pre-E emotional adolescence and focus on taking care of someone else: my daughter.

 

 

That afternoon, E's fever peaked and she started shaking uncontrollably. I fought through my tears and rushed her into a warm tub with me. I held her naked body against mine and felt a visceral love for this little creature that I'd brought into the world.  This moment with her, scary as it was, was something I will never forget as long as I live.

 

 

Does that mean that I will be cool and collected the next time she's sick? Probably not! But I hope that I will continue to grow into the person she can always depend on to look cool and collected, to hand her some ginger ale and crackers, and to tell her that she'll feel better soon. In other words, a great mother.

 

 

Chicken Little Syndrome

 

 

So, since I am writing a blog about being a mom, our efforts to get pregnant obviously worked. That's not to say that Eleanor's journey (sounds like I'm talking about The Bachelor or something!) into the world was easy. While my pregnancy was relatively drama-free, it was definitely fraught.

Because of my “AMA” (Advanced Maternal Age), I was checked constantly. And because I was super neurotic even before I got pregnant, my worry was constant as well. During my thrice-weekly (!) visits to the doctor, I laid on the examining table and said my best Quaker-Jewish prayer that there would be a heartbeat. Every ultrasound made me nervous, and every stress test caused actual stress.

I couldn't imagine what “normal,” aka not “mature,” women felt like during their pregnancies. (And let's face it, the idea that some people actually got pregnant from having sex was a mind-blowing concept for me at this point.) I heard stories from countless women about how beautiful and sexy they felt when they were pregnant ... how their burgeoning bellies turned them into embodiments of Mother Earth, every craving and swelling just more proof of the incredible beings that were growing inside of them.

And me? I felt like the embodiment of a big (OK, huge) red panic button.  For every good story about young pregnant women, there seemed to be one of horror for the older ones. I knew I was incredibly lucky to have even gotten pregnant at my age, so I kept waiting for my luck to run out. This feeling — let's call it Chicken Little Syndrome — is something I struggle with on a daily basis, and my pregnancy only exacerbated the problem.

 
One early June night, as I waited for Tim to get back from the movies with a friend, I felt my first contraction. As soon as he got home, we rushed off to the hospital. As I looked out of the car window into the warm, misty night, I somehow, finally, knew that everything would be all right.

 

 

 

Figuring Out the Puzzle

Anything But

1/6/2010

 

I have a message for all of you older women who are pregnant, struggling to get pregnant or looking around at the other mothers in your baby group thinking, "Am I the only one here who was alive for The Love Boat? For toe socks? For a world before the Internet?"

 

You are not the only one.

 

A defining moment in my three-year-long quest to get pregnant happened during an early trip to the fertility doctor. (Did I mention that he is embarrassingly handsome? Because he is. Expect to hear more about him in the future, for he is my hero.) He was discussing reasons why my husband, Tim, and I might be having trouble conceiving, and he gently referred to the fact that I am "mature."

 

You must understand: I am anything but. Tim and I barely made it through the conversation without cracking up at references to vaginas and scrotums and bad eggs. We were like two seventh graders transported to the future and being tortured by a teacher.

 

So when I was told I was "mature," it was galling. But after I stopped (internally) snickering like Nelson from The Simpsons, I was faced with the all-too-real reality that this quest to have a baby, something we wanted desperately, was not going to be easy. And that's where my story begins....