Mr. T's Return: The Co-Parenting Adjustment

Father and son checking out the furniture at the DAT Academy Yard Sale.

Life is funny. Everything is funny. Joyous funny and "did that just really happen?" funny and "I can't believe this is happening" funny.

This morning, while on the way to drop Asher off to school, he managed to puke everything he had for breakfast up, while sitting casually in his carseat watching Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood in the car.   He was completely unfazed, I was in all-out panic mode (this being the fourth time he's done this in the past nine months), and Mr. T, well, he was cool, calm, and collected.

We drove back to the apartment and he took Asher, carseat and all, and strolled him up to the apartment, got him cleaned up, bathed, changed, and hydrated.

It's about 3.5 hours later and I'm still anxious. Every time Asher puked everywhere while Mr. T was gone, I had an absolute breakdown. Not only because I simply cannot handle puke (I can count the amount of times I've regurgitated in the past 20 years on one hand), but because when it was just me and the kid I felt helpless and alone. I immediately fell back into that feeling of anxiety, helplessness, and desperation that I felt all those other times he did the same while Mr. T was gone.

Tatty and Asher teamwork with the yard sale kitchen.

Despite Mr. T's reassurances that it really was okay, the two minute ride back home I was just frazzled. And, well, I still feel frazzled.

At the same time, I think back to lost work days and anxiety attacks when Mr. T wasn't around. Today, on the other hand, I was able to run to the kelim mikvah (I picked up stuff from three other peoples' homes and took a bunch of Pyrex I got on the cheap from Wal-Mart to be toveled), get the car cleaned, and now I'm sitting, working.

I even FaceTimed with Mr. T and Ash, it being the first time I've ever video chatted with my son, which was a super weird, but fun experience.

I'm trying to laugh about this morning. My body still feeling like static is running through it. The panic, the anxiety, the "what do I do now?" all the while having a partner and co-parent there ready to man the puke and do a massive, sickening load of laundry.

It's going to be okay. I just have to convince myself that I can and should accept the help. That I'm no longer single parenting a precocious toddler who has the most adorable temper tantrums you've ever seen.

Because I'm not alone anymore. My husband, the father of my beautiful boy, is home. And all of the adjustment and growing together pains are worth it. I'll get there. I promise. It's just going to take some time.

A Day in the Life: Single Parenting, Ear Infections, and Survival

Oh hello there. The past few weeks have gone a little bit like this:

Three weeks ago Ash got pink eye.

Two weeks ago he got it again.

Last Monday: Ash was a little kvetchy.

Last Tuesday: Ash was very kvetchy and got sent home from daycare with a fever.

Last Wednesday: Ash was kvetch half the time and laying around lifeless the other half of the time. He threw up.

Last Thursday: My parents showed up. The turkey went in. I was told by the parent line to take Ash to urgent care/the ER. Then the turkey came out. We went to Children's Hospital and it was diagnosed as an ear infection. We drove across town to a 24-hour pharmacy, went home and ate turkey and Pistachio Salad. (For my first turkey ever, it was pretty amazing.)

Friday: Ash screamed for two hours straight inconsolably several times. I felt helpless.

Saturday: Ash seemed a bit better. Hoping the meds were working, we went to shul and then out to lunch. Ash deteriorated again that night. He threw up twice.

Sunday: Magic! Just as my parents prepared to leave town, Asher brightened up, became himself again. And by Monday he was healthy, happy, and giggly like normal.

I'm not asking for sympathy or for the trolls to write about me and how sad and pathetic and whiney I am. I'm just writing it out for perspective. Thankfully, Ash has been a pretty healthy baby as far as illness goes. Yes, he was terribly colicky and had terrible gas/intestinal issues the first part of his life, but considering, he never suffered ear infections or anything worse until now. I'm simply hoping he doesn't get chronic ear infections. I never had them as a kid, and the inconsolable screaming proved one thing to me: ear infections are the worst. Worse than teething. Worse than a painful poop. Worse than anything for baby.

Ultimately, however, I realize that it all was probably a lot harder on me than it was on him. Having my parents around should have been helpful, but it made me anxious. All I could think was, they probably think it's always like this. I'm a terrible parent. I can't sooth and calm my child. I'm failing.

The worst of it all for me? This is going to sound stupid, but when G-d decided that babies shouldn't be able to blow their own noses on instinct, he was asking mothers everywhere to feel terrible, horrible, demonic for having to pin down their children to suck snot out of their tiny noses. At the hospital, I had to hold Ash down while the nurse did it and made him wail. Dad heard all the way out in the waiting room. At home, I found it too hard to do. I probably did Ash a huge disservice not squiging out his nose four times a day like they suggested, but the stress of his screaming and having my parents around and feeling like a failure as a parent kept me from it.

Also? That tiny little screaming baby face with welled-up tears and that look of, "Mommy, why are you doing this to me!? I'm so cute and cuddly and snuggly and I love you so don't take my boogers" is hard to overcome.

Sigh.

Just a week and a half and we're off to Israel so Mr. T can help us celebrate Asher's first birthday (and, you know, it's been more than two months since we've seen each other and it'll probably be another three or more). I can't believe it's already been a year since Asher was born. I can't believe it's only been two years since Tuvia and I first started talking. Where does it go? The time. It's ripped away at lightning speed.

The reality? You never know your own strength until absolutely everything is moved out of reach and you're forced to cope, adapt, and stumble through it all with necessary optimism. Because there's a tiny human -- one that pulls off your eye mask in the morning with a huge grin and loud bursts of "da da da ba ba ba" as he crawls all over you -- relying on you for absolutely everything.

To be needed is what forces us to survive.

The Anti-Social Parent

Peek-a-boo!

I had this awkward moment today as I drove Ash home from the Denver Children's Museum (which, much like the local mall, unfortunately couldn't seem to keep grown children out of the play area for toddlers and babies). It was like that moment after a first date where you relive the experience and think of all the places you should have said something or asked a question or laughed or commented or reacted and you, of course, didn't. 

Except this was the kind of replay I was having in regards to an interaction with another parent there with his child. You see, he immediately engaged Ash and I in conversation.

"Oh wow, he's standing, look at that." (Because Ash looks small, people are usually shocked to see him standing and walking so easily apparently.)

"Yeah, he's 10 months!"

"Very cool."

Then there was that awkward silence where I totally should have said something about his kid or lamented being stay-at-home parents or engaged in my sob story about my husband being overseas or we could have laughed about being grownups crawling around on soft play at a children's museum instead of sleeping off a hangover. The only further conversation we even had was about how I usually take Ash to the local mall, but thought I'd mix it up with our free day pass, and he responded, "Yeah, I just have to get this kid out of the house" or something along those lines.

But I didn't. I didn't say anything about his child. Or him. Even when I disappeared with Ash and he picked his child back up and came over to us to play after watching as we plodded around the play area. Seriously, it was like I was purposely rejecting this poor man and his very cute child.

I felt like a parental/social failure. I seriously have zero social skills when it comes to parenting sometimes. After leaving I couldn't help but think that, here's this stay-at-home dad who is clearly bored as beans and looking for conversation/interaction and I totally just kicked him in the proverbial balls and said "I'm not interested in engaging."

Why is there a whole different set of social skills when it comes to parental interactions over drooling, growling toddlers?

Or am I just generally socially inept ... she wonders ... trailing off ...