Fess Up Friday: The "Be Careful What You Wish For" Edition

Remember when I told you that Charlotte was a Daddy's girl? And remember how I said it really bugged me?

Well, a couple weeks ago, Charlotte wasn't feeling well, and during those few days of fevers and crankiness, she was all mine. She didn't want anyone else (not even DADDY!) to hold her. She wanted to cuddle with me, wanted me to put her down for naps, and wanted me where she could see me, damnit! And even though she's nowhere near that level of clinginess these days, it seems to have triggered something in her, because she's been all up in my business since then.

And, my confession?

I love it. And, I hate it.

I guess the latter is more...confessiony. That is to say, of COURSE I love finally being the preferred parent most of the time. It's a nice change of pace. I love seeing her little arms reach for me, love hearing her ask "Mom? Mom?" when Chris collects her after a nap, I even kinda love when she cries for me when I have to leave her (I know. That's just a little bit sick).

But, I also HATE when she cries for me because if there's one emotion that can really fuck me up, it's guilt. It eats me up, ruins my day. Guilt is the reason I've been a crappy sleep trainer, the reason I give Charlotte a cookie when I've made her sit in the car too long, and the reason I nurse her every night at 3 A.M., even though every evening, I say I won't. So, even though it's an ego boost to have Charlotte want me, it feels wrong and unnatural not to go to her when she cries for me.

But, sometimes, I can't. And this is where the real problem lies. Even though, yes, I am a stay-at-home mom, and yes, it is primarily my responsibility to take care of her, I occasionally need some time to myself, I need to work out, I need to WRITE. Most of the time, it's fine, because she still loves her daddy. So, I can duck out for an errand or grown-up coffee date and leave her at home. But, being 15 minutes into my workout at the gym and having the daycare page me to inform me she's been booted for her wailing? Not so cool.

And then there was the night she spent in our bed a few days ago. She acted like she was being physically assaulted each time we tried to put her in her crib. It was late. We were tired. We suck at sleep training. What more can I say? So, there she was, in our bed, kicking and chatting, and sitting up. Chris and I are exhausted, and I decide to turn my back to her, hoping to check out and let Chris deal with her for a minute. I no sooner roll over when she starts SCREAMING. I didn't even leave the bed! Apparently, she needed me to watch her not sleep. Later she grabbed her bunny and cuddled up to me, leaving Chris alone on his side of the bed. This made him sad. Which made me feel guilty.

It's like I said before: I know her favoritism will come in waves. So, I'm soaking it in now, while I can. But, that doesn't mean it isn't a tad stifling at times. Like when I'm just getting a good sweat on the elliptical, after haven driven twenty minutes to the gym and standing in line to check her into the daycare, and I have to pack it all up and go home. Or when I want to get some sleep, and she'll have no one but me keep her company in the middle of the night. Or when she's being carried down the hallway at nap time, reaching and screaming for me, and I have to deal with the guilt of not going to her because I selfishly want to hand that off to Chris so I can have a few moments to myself.

So, the moral here is "Be careful what you wish for." Because you just might get it. Though, anything involving a baby that cute could never be all bad.

Fess Up Friday: Wherein I Gross You Out and Possibly Make You Sad for Me

Okay, I am digging deep down to find my last scrap of energy so I can fess up to y'all tonight because I haven't blogged in a week, and that is just SAD.

So, last night I was at Target buying diapers, and I was using the restroom. I have a bladder the size of a walnut, so this isn't surprising. What IS surprising is that after nearly two years (insert cutsey phrase of choice to indicate that I started my period, but if you use the words "visitor" or "Aunt Flo" I will stab you in the face).

ANYWAY, I opened the shiny, metal trash receptacle to insert my feminine hygiene product of choice, and I saw a very familiar sight. I saw a discarded pregnancy test. Back in my heyday of trying to conceive, I was known to test in public bathrooms because I had just purchased a test, and I was SO SURE it would be positive this time, I just had to find out right away because how awesome would it be walk out of the restroom, meet Chris's annoyed countenance at yet another lengthy restroom trip with a "Surprise! We're pregnant! And don't you feel like a jackass for being so impatient?"

Long story short, I had to know if this test was positive or negative. I had so many scenarios floating through my head: a scared teenage girl hoping and praying that broken condom wasn't about to cost her her youth. A woman who had been coveting conception for months, maybe years, and was hoping to surprise HER husband upon leaving the restroom. Maybe a mother of four or five, who felt the all-too-familiar tenderness of breasts while cruising the diaper aisle, and, on a hunch, decided to take a test before returning to her brood.

I needed a conclusion for all these stories. Unfortunately, the test was face down. Somehow this made sense to me. Even though no one would know to whom the test belonged, I can understand why hiding that plus or minus from prying eyes would seem like the thing to do. But, mystery lady's privacy be damned, I was picking up that test to see the result!

Okay, be grossed out. But, I washed my hands after, and if you don't think you are touching someone else's pee every time you use a public restroom, you are kidding yourself, my friend.

Guess what? It was positive! That is either really awesome or really devastating news, but for some reason, I was relieved.

So, yeah. That's my confession. I'm nosy, and I have nothing better to do than dream up pregnancy scare scenarios in the bathroom of a Target.

Oh, and that I totally touched someone's pee. Because, let's face it, no matter how hard you try not to, you ALWAYS get some pee on the handle.

Fess Up Friday and Favoritism

Well, it's Friday. That means it's time for a confession and time for you to head over to Mommy in Chief to check out hers and everyone else's.

My confession will neither shock nor surprise you. In fact, I reckon it barely constitutes fessing up at all. I could tell you about how I took a break from Charlotte's regimented diet of fruits, veggies, organic this, whole grain that, to feed her some nuggets from McDonald's (the horror!) and tried some strawberry flavoring to get her to drink her whole milk. But, whatev. The flavor didn't work, and she's gonna eat junk food once in a while. So, that's not a big deal, either.

My confession is that even though every fiber of my intellectual being tells me not to, I really let it get to me when Charlotte goes into full-on Daddy's girl mode, which is almost always.

Seriously, how many of us have let our feelings get hurt by these tiny people? I mean, it isn't as if they are trying to hurt our feelings. They just want what (or whom) they want. But, when you aren't the one they want, it can really sting. Especially if you hauled that kid around in your uterus for nine months, then pushed her out of it. I mean, really. How is it fair that after all that, you don't even get to be the favorite parent?

Intellectually, I know that this favoritism will come in waves. But, it's been low tide for me for quite a while. A few weeks after Charlotte was born, she got really colicky. No amount of nursing, burping, rocking, or anything, really, could stop the screaming. Chris and I were totally lost, but I did notice that she cried less when he was holding her, that HE was able to calm her down more often than I could. I told myself that it was because I stress more than Chris, and that she could sense my stress. I told myself it was because when she was with me, she wanted to nurse even if she was full, so she would cry either way.

And just when I thought I had a handle on my jealousy, I handed her to Chris after a good, solid try at calming her the hell down. The second we made the transfer, they crying stopped. Well, hers did. Mine was only just beginning. "Why doesn't she LIKE me?" I wailed, running from the room. Chris got to work on convincing me that our daughter didn't hate me, that she was just a tiny baby who was reacting to things such as smells, stress levels, the way she was being held, etc. In her defense, he really is a kick ass daddy.

Chris has always been wonderful about trying to console me in moments such as those. Even now that Charlotte is a toddler and clearly prefers her daddy, Chris makes a valiant effort to console me when I try to hold her and she whines while reaching for him. Sometimes he pretends not to notice. Sometimes he lies to me: "She was reaching for the balloon, not me). And in both scenarios, I call bullshit, because I don't need anyone's pity, damnit!

Except that I do. But only from the person who is far too young to comprehend her capacity for breaking my heart and thus too young to throw a sympathy cuddle my way once in a while.

It is true that I've had my moments. Once...ONCE, during the colic, I took a screaming Charlotte out of Chris's arms without optimism and was shocked when she instantly quieted down. Not as shocked as Chris who said, "Wow. That actually DOES suck a little." You think?

It is also true that Charlotte generally wants me in moments of distress. If she's hurt, overtired, or stressed, she is more apt to want to be held my me rather than anyone else, including her daddy. I suppose I'll take it. Truth be told, I'd be offended that she only hands her stuffed animals to him because she prefers his silly voices to mine, if I wasn't so damned relieved not to have to DO the silly voices. That's something I'll gladly defer to him.

I keep saying that I want my next baby to be a boy so I can have a mama's boy to call my own. I know it's gender stereotyping, and I don't know whether or not there's any truth to it. I know I'm extremely close to my mother. I also know that in the coming years mine and Chris's relationships with Charlotte will get more and more complex and the things that seem huge now will pale in comparison with the way we will relate with her down the road.

She may always get a special gleam in her eye and bounce in her step when she sees her daddy, much like she does now. But, maybe she'll always want me to be the one to put on her band-aids. Maybe she'll want me to show her how to put on makeup 9good luck with that, kid). Maybe she'll come talk to me when she likes a boy.

Who knows? Until then, I'll keep on loving her and keep on warming the bench until she calls on me to be there for her.

Fess Up Friday

It's that time again! Time to confess my sins for the week. And boy, do I ever sin. But, here are just a few minor blunders. I don't want to scare you off with the real stuff. Besides, dead hookers don't exactly scream mommyblog.

A couple days ago I kept Charlotte out way past her nap time because I'm a horrible, selfish human being. She (understandably) got cranky on the ride home. So, I gave her a cereal bar to eat. I also neglected to take off her shoes and hoodie before strapping her in the car seat even though I KNEW she'd fall asleep on the way home. Which is why I ended up putting a fully dressed and shoed baby with cereal bar smeared all over her face into her crib. She didn't exactly look comfy, but she slept for two hours. She was probably depressed about having such a lousy mother.

I fed Charlotte mac n' cheese for dinner last night. A LOT of it. The box says organic, but the neon orange all over her face begged to differ. She's gonna eat crap food once in a while, whatever. The part that gets me is that I stupidly thought it would be a good way to get some dairy into her system, forgetting that the entire box only takes about two tablespoons of milk.

I talked really loudly on a hiking trail and scared all the poppies.

I splattered grease all over my favorite jeans, coffee grounds all over my pajamas, and got a mystery stain on my new shirt.

I got more writing done than usual (though nowhere near enough), and I'm currently ignoring my child while she spills dog food all over the floor. She may even be eating it. No, I'm kidding, that isn't happening. Or, it is. I don't really know.

I'm sure there's more, but I have a body to bury...I MEAN, baby to feed. Yeah, time to feed the baby...