Melissesages

It has come to my attention recently that some people are better than others at being sick. If, for example, you gave four people the same cold, one of them would be all stoic, “it’s no big deal” about it, one would think it was the end of the world and hide in bed, one would run around talking about it to try and get some pity, and one would do some combination of the three, like talking about it a lot but feigning stoicism to show off how tough they are.

I’m sure serious, life-threatening illnesses are another matter entirely, but I do think it’s interesting how people react to getting sick. How much do you complain? How much do you let the sickness change your daily routine? How optimistic are you about your recovery? When I get sick, I always tell myself I’m going to be stoic and not whine about it too much, but I end up whining in a hyperbolic, attempt-to-be-funny way that gets across my unhappy feelings while going for some kind of humor; ie “Ugh, this week has featured a spectacular kicking of my ass” or “I will make this cold my bitch, and it will bow down and beg my forgiveness and I will say NAY!”

When I was pregnant, though, it was another matter, because every time I got sick, early in the pregnancy, I knew I was going to have many more months of that sickness, which adds this great element of despair. Mostly I sucked it up, but there were a few nights when I struggled with this terrible, overwhelming feeling of “I can’t get through this. I seriously cannot make it through this pregnancy.” It’s a terrible, terrible feeling, especially when you know you simply HAVE to. There’s no choice, no relief. You just have to endure until it’s over.

Anyway. I like to think I am a decent sick person - not too much whining or trouble to whomever is stuck taking care of me. My demands on Tyler during my nausea days were mostly “please procure me whatever food I can stand to eat” and “acknowledge how tough I am so I can keep going.”

Tyler, bless his heart, is a terrible sick person (I love you, honey!). I don’t mean that he gets crabby and orders me around, or that he even whines, exactly, it’s more like…every illness is him on his deathbed, and he has to get out all the emotional things he wants to say. Sick Tyler is always going on about “Thank you for being so good to me,” and “I love you so much, I’m so sorry I’m sick,” as though his cold may kill him at any moment, so he just has to make sure I know how much he loves me. The thing is, I’m not that good to him. I do all the basic spouse caretaking stuff, of course - getting him food, taking over some chores, rubbing his back or fetching his Advil, etc - but I wouldn’t say I’m exceptional in any way. That’s just what you do when someone you love is sick. And apologizing for being sick is just stupid (unless you like, intentionally went outside dripping wet without a coat and therefore got a cold. Then you’re an idiot and yes, you should be sorry).

Anyway, to me, Tyler’s deathbed routine would be funny if it weren’t so annoying. But other wives (better wives) would probably find it touching and adorable. This may be a bit childish, but I think those wives are stupid and I watch to punch their stupid faces. The whole situation reminds me, once again, that I am unsentimental and unromantic and in most ways not “in touch with my feminine side.” In fact, just typing the words “feminine side” makes me want to go rent a Bruce Willis movie. Something with explosions.

In the world of my marriage, we run into this dynamic a lot. I think of Tyler as a sensitive, affectionate guy, sure, but not ridiculously so. He tells me he loves me a lot, and expresses feelings of gratitude that I’m in his life, and was the only one of us to get a little misty on our wedding day. It’s all pretty normal, and very sweet, right? I, on the other hand, do not react well to either positive reinforcement or sentimentality. Last night, for example, when we were going to sleep he said something gooey along the lines of “There’s a lot of love for you on this side of the bed,” to which I responded “there’s a lot of vomit for you on this side of my pillow.” I would rather make a joke along the lines of “Yeah, you’re okay, I guess,” or “shut up, I’m watching TV.” (Sometimes I also go a little bit over the line, as in “yeah, you’re a really good first husband.” He does NOT like that.) Despite my pregnancy hormones, when we got married there was no point in which I was in danger of weeping. There was absolutely no threat to my makeup at all, in fact. It doesn’t mean I wasn’t happy, or that I was in any way reluctant to get married. It’s just…not my way.

This isn’t Tyler-specific, either: I’m just not a big fan of compliments or the sharing of feelings. I’ve noticed, also, that I am not alone in this: I’d say at least two thirds of my sisters have the same hangup. Some might argue that we didn’t get enough love in our childhoods, but they would be very mistaken. Really, we just didn’t talk about our feelings much, and when we all worked manual labor for my father, we were taught to be tough, to be “one of the guys,” whatever that means. To this day, I don’t think I’ve ever said “I love you” to my eldest sister, and I still feel a twinge of weirdness in saying it to my other sisters, though of course I love all of them.

But anyway, I digress. The reason I’ve been thinking about all of this is that Tyler is sick again, and I’m maybe feeling a little bit guilty because while naturally I never want him to feel ill, I’m maybe more upset that Sick Tyler is in town again, and I have to go through the deathbed routine with him (I love you, honey!). And it’s got me thinking back to how great he was (most of the time) during my early pregnancy when I was sick all the time, and wishing I could be a more loving caretaker. I suppose I just have to have faith that Tyler knows how much I love him, even if I would prefer to make a crack about how I “love lamp” whenever he expresses his feelings for me. And, as I finish typing this, I realize that he’s going to read it, give me a big hug, and tell me he knows and he loves me, too. Blech.

Mattie is now making up for her perfect behavior during her first few weeks of life. The baby has recently discovered the joys of both crying inconsolably and having blowouts (when the baby poops so powerfully that it leaks out the side of the diaper, soaking through clothes).

Some of this is because of, or aggravated by, her first bout with diaper rash. If you’ve never seen it, diaper rash is splotchy red patches that show up on the parts of her body usually covered by a diaper. It looks really painful, which might explain why she’s having trouble sleeping and being calm. I have an ointment for it, and diaper rash is a pretty common thing, but I still feel like a bad person for letting it happen to Mattie. This might be projecting here, but I swear her little upset face while crying has an accusation in it. Sigh.

Predictably, as Mattie becomes more difficult, my nerves get stretched thinner and thinner. On Friday I couldn’t get her to stop crying all day, and at 4:00 I was so frazzled I started to worry that maybe she was sick. I called her doctor, whose nurse told me to take Mattie’s temperature….rectally. Trying to make it as comfortable as possible, I had Mattie draped over her Boppy pillow on the couch, covered up except for half her butt. I went in with the thermometer - and Mattie retaliated. She pooped a fine spray that managed to hit me, the couch, the pillow, the library book I’d been reading earlier, etc (though weirdly, the snow-white cardigan I was wearing remained untouched). Sitting there at the end of this stressful day, covered in poop, I just didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I think I did both.

In other, more pleasant news, on Saturday I took a trip over to UW-Milwaukee to take a tour of my new campus. It was pouring on Saturday, and my co-tour takers were a bunch of 17-year-old high school seniors, so not the most ideal conditions, but I still found myself getting excited for the fall. As we went through the union, visiting the bookstore, the student ID card desk, the lounge areas, and the Burger King, going back to school started to become real for me. This is really happening. Being on a college campus made me look forward to all the great things about being a student: discussions with your peers, attending artsy college events, staying up until 3 to finish that stupid paper, and so on. It was a strange feeling, to stand there as a student knowing that I also had a husband and baby waiting for me back home. The majority of grad school students still live on campus and partake in student life, so I’m going to be something of an anomaly, I think.

The experience also made me pretty nostalgic for my own undergraduate days. Maybe I miss having no responsibilities just a little bit (come on - show me a new mom who wouldn’t), but more than that I sometimes feel envy for the college experiences that a lot of my friends had. At USC, I had a first-rate film education, but my life there was so surreal - Steven Spielberg came and spoke at my class, for crying out loud. I waited on Tom Cruise at Blockbuster, and went to the Academy Awards as a journalist. These are amazing, amazing things that I’m grateful I got to do, but there are also a lot of typical college things that I never did. I never lived in a dorm, so I never made large quantities of friends. I never hung out in a group, period - most of my friends didn’t know each other, so there were no movie nights or parties or any of the other things I hear about from my sister or my husband, who has more college friends than you can shake a stick at.

Don’t get me wrong - I wouldn’t go back and trade my time at USC for anything. I wouldn’t do anything differently (except maybe live in the dorms freshman year). But that doesn’t mean I don’t sometimes hear these stories - about going to Walmart in the middle of the night out of boredom, or throwing a ridiculous party, or having a Firefly marathon - and get kind of wistful. My grad school experience isn’t going to net me any of those things - that time in my life has passed, and I’m on to different things now, which is okay. But in going to school again, being back on a campus, I feel like a weird combination of grown-up and adolescent. Without, hopefully, the freshman 15.

The weather in Madison was gorgeous today. The temperature was in the high-50’s, and though it was not entirely sunny out, it definitely wasn’t overcast, either. I think it was maybe the warmest day of the year so far, and as a result, everyone was out and about: students on campus, business people on their lunch break, and even a couple of good old-fashioned anti-abortionists (On the way to baby group - hello, irony). There were two of them picketing in front of the hospital, which is the place to do it, I guess, but I had to laugh because they were picketing towards the road, not the hospital. I can only assume they were trying to discourage anyone who might have been having an abortion while driving somewhere (This is NOT safe!). I also laughed at the anti-abortionist who was missing her friend: she was holding a picture of a newborn baby, and her sign said, “It’s a Baby…” Now, I’m sure somewhere she has a buddy with a sign that says “Not a Choice,” but without that buddy, she looked kind of ridiculous. Yeah it’s a baby. No kidding. Seriously, anti-abortionists, if you’re trying to scare women out of terminating their pregnancies, you’re really going to have to get a little more organized. Silly anti-abortionists.

Anyhoo, today was my first time at Meriter’s Mother-Baby Hour, which is sort of a support group for new moms. There are three different groups that meet according to the age of your child: the 0-3 months group, which you don’t have to pay for ("the first taste is free!"), the 3-6 month group, and the 6-9 month group. The second and third groups require a $35 fee, and they enforce it, too: the Meriter person keeps close track of how old your baby is, to keep you from, say, trying to stay in the group longer than you’re supposed to. I thought the strict policy was a little funny given that it’s a support group. Anyway, the group itself was really neat: every week there’s a set topic, like “Traveling With Baby” or “Changing Relationships With Your Spouse,” and we talk about the official topic, and pretty much anything else we want. The coolest part, though was just being in a room with twelve other women and their babies: some were breastfeeding openly, or letting their kids kick on a blanket on the floor, or pacing back and forth with a fussy baby. It was a really “come as you are” kind of environment, which was nice given the usual difficulties in having an infant out in public (See previous blog about taking Mattie to a movie). Of course, my baby was the only one to have poop explode out of her diaper and through her clothes, and I was the only mom to not have enough baby wipes (I had to borrow) and noticeably forget to pack a spare onesie (Oops). Even in a “come as you are” support group, I feel like I’m maternally challenged. Sigh.

Overall, though, I’m calling Baby Group a success. I’ll definitely go back, if only to try to make some new friends I can spend time with during the day (Mattie’s nice and all, but not the world’s best conversationalist). And I’m proud of myself for getting out and about despite the complexities of taking Mattie anywhere. Now if I can just make it to the gym and make time every day to write and find a job, I’ll start feeling on top of things.

Under any circumstances, finding a job is hard. In a terrible economic recession,that’ s especially hard. And when you’re trying to find a part-time job that pays enough to make daycare worthwhile, it’s just friggin’ ridiculous.

I hate job hunting. No one’s especially a fan, of course, but for me finding a job always reminds me of those tough times in my life when I was without one for months, like after I graduated from college and when I got laid off from NBC. And when I moved to Madison and was unemployed for six months. Remembering those times is not fun for me, and hunting for a job always causes those feelings to resurface: anxiety and worry, and the constant reminder that you don’t have what you need. Job searches are never about what you can do, they’re all about the many things you can’t do, being not experienced enough, not educated enough, not old enough, and so on. If you’re a liberal arts major, like me (genius move, there, Melissa), you get to skim past all the many, many job openings at law offices and insurance companies and banks. There are always plenty of jobs I know I’d be able to do, like organize volunteer services at a hospital, for example, but someone who doesn’t know me and simply glances at my resume will never make that leap. They see “video producer” and think that’s the sum total of what I can do.

To make matters worse (because really, why not?) I also happen to live in a town where part-time jobs are snapped up faster than you can blink, thanks to the twice-yearly infusion of new students and new graduates looking for work. Most of them will work for a lot less than I would, so that cuts into what I can get as well. At this rate, I’ll be amazed if I get a job before the summer. And excited if I can get one after.

I need it, though. I’ve come to the conclusion recently that I am not a very good stay-at-home mom. Not because I neglect the baby or anything, but just because I have a hard time with the boredom and the monotony - every day is basically the same, and while I adore my daughter, none of them are what you’d call exciting. I’ve always been the kind of person who needs things to look forward to: a new movie coming out, a trip to Chippewa, or even just the weekend. Now, the only thing I have to look forward to is Saturday and Sunday because then Tyler can help with the baby and I’ll get more sleep. I don’t mean to be complaining, here: I know there are plenty of women who’d give anything to be able to stay home with their kids. I just don’t think I’m cut out for it.

Of course, some of this is my own fault - Mattie and I don’t spend much time out in the world during the week. Yesterday, in the name of trying to get out more and do something different, I tried taking her to a movie for the first time. It was not what I would call a success. It took me two hours to get us clean and packed up to go, and then she woke up about fifteen minutes into the movie. It wasn’t that she behaved terribly, she just behaved like a baby: needing to be fed, burped, entertained, and changed. Luckily, I had gone to a movie I didn’t care much about ("He’s Just Not Into You"), and we were at the first show, so there were only two women in the audience besides us. They didn’t seem to mind that I walked Mattie up and down the aisles when she got fussy, and in return Mattie never actually cried. Still, it’s not an experience I’ll be repeating anytime soon. I learned my lesson: taking a baby out in public sucks.

At last, the internet has returned to my house. The last two weeks left me feeling pretty bored and isolated, unable to watch TV online or check my email. The internet is definitely one of those things where you don’t realize how much you use something until it’s gone.

In baby news, yes, today was Mattie’s first-ever trip to Walmart. We just went to pick up a few toiletries, but I was kind of tempted to record it in her baby book as a joke. The book that I have for her has lists and lists of “Firsts” for you to record: there’s the obvious ones, like first step, first smile, and so on, but goes even farther to first wave, first peek-a-boo, first time holding a bottle (I kid you not), first time holding your head up (which was in the hospital). In retrospect, I really wish I’d chosen a baby book that required a little less committment - after all, I’ve already dropped the ball on recording first bath and first smile (does it count if it’s gas?). And I already feel guilty about it.

The book definitely plays into America’s obsession, in the last few years, with memories and records. I blame this increased interest on the rising popularity of digital cameras - suddenly, we no longer have to buy film and pay to develop it. You can just take as many pictures as you want, into the hundreds, and get the instant gratification of knowing whether or not they’re good or bad. And now picture-taking has gone overboard: it seems like every time I see kids playing at the park, there’s a mom or dad nearby ordering them to stop and smile. Then he or she checks to see how it turned out, and if it doesn’t meet the parent’s satisfaction, it has to be done all over again. What happened to the days of out of focus, poorly framed shots making it into every photo album in America? When everyone shot on film, even the bad pictures were precious, valuable, because they were the only possible record. Now, when you can take a hundred pictures at the park, each one has to be great, too.

Then there’s the cultural obsession with scrapbooking, a hobby I will never really understand. It’s not enough to take good pictures, and get them developed and put in a book. Now they also have to be decorated. Scrapbooking is a billion-dollar industry (I made that up, but I bet it’s true) with its own stores, clubs, tradeshows, experts, and levels of difficulty. I’ve seen my mother and sister poring over their scrapbooks, gluing pictures, stickers, and stenciled letters into specially designed multi-colored pages, and I just don’t see the appeal. Memories just shouldn’t be so much work.

I suppose I do, however, understand the motivation behind all this. From the moment Mattie was born, I’ve had the instinct to record everything - not just her first bath or first time being held by us, but just what her daily life is like, how she looks and acts. Kids - babies especially - change pretty quickly, and the urge to keep track of those changes is so strong. I find myself thinking about the future a lot: when Mattie is thirteen, what will I tell her about her birth? What will I remember? It’s interesting to me that we humans are so compelled to hold on to our own histories, to leave behind photos and stories as proof that yes, we were here, we existed. Not just the great leaders and artists, but individual people. We are pulled to pass something on to future generations, and now in the 21st century the tools to do so have been made cheap and accessible.

There has to be a line somewhere, though, doesn’t there? Where does picture-taking stop being about recording childhood and start being about impeding one? When does scrapbooking cross the line from fun crafty memories to annoyingly intricate chore? And dammit, just how much of this baby book do I have to fill out, anyway? Will Mattie come to me someday, book in hand, and say, “yeah, but when was my first haircut?” How much history is too much?

Right now, things are already starting to fade for me. I remember that I was so incredibly nauseous during my first trimester, but I can no longer remember how it felt. When I close my eyes I can see my view in the hospital bed, when I was pushing my daughter out, but how many people were in the room? What was the name of the nurse who cleaned Mattie up and gave her to Tyler? That woman was the first person to ever hold my daughter, aside from the doctor who actually caught her, and I have no idea what her name was, or what she looked like (though, to be fair, I was pretty hopped up on the epidural at the time).

These things seem small now, but hey, that was four weeks ago. When Mattie asks me as a teenager for the story of her birth, how much will I be able to remember? Will it really affect Mattie’s life to know the story, or is it meaningless, a tiny blip in the big history of this one person in a world of billions? These are big questions, and I don’t have answers. And sadly, the nature of it is that by the time I know how much history I want to have, it’ll be too late to go back and record most of it.

Which, I suppose, is why it’s good to have a digital camera.