Motherhood progression from one child to four

My motherhood progression from one child to four:
Stage 1/ Child 1:  Still put together, still have my "single and rockin'" body. My child wears all the latest trends in clothes and sits in all the newest gadgets, which, as a first time Mom, I have carefully researched and obsessed over. I take long, 3 hour lunches with all my new Mom friends where we complain about the lack of sleep and whether our babies are hitting their milestones at the same time as their classmates. I maintain willpower and restraint when I walk into my latest charity organization and bypass the fresh bagels and cream cheese for a plate of the freshly cut fruit. I feel good. I got this parenting with balance thing figured out.
Stage 2/Child 2: Still fitting into half my pre-baby outfits and worrying about whether my kids coordinate or not. I still linger over long lunches, arrange for all day play-dates to Disneyland, keep strict naptime schedules and refuse to be daunted by the grocery store experience with 2 kids in a cart. Tired, but enthusiastic about parenting.
Stage 3/ Child 3: I'm ignoring the bulging waistline threatening to relegate my favorite pair of pre-baby jeans to a life at the back of the closet. I snag that bagel and cream cheese and wrap 2 more for the road at the one charity meeting I've managed to attend in the last 4 months. My laugh sounds a little high pitched and my conversational efforts slightly alarming probably because of the barely noticeable twitch I've developed in my right eye.
Stage 4 /What's the child count?: If it's not spandex, I'm not wearing it. If it's not online, I'm not buying it. If lunch last 3 minutes with butts in seats, I can count the day victorious. I'm wondering if my kids know yet that the doors to get back in the house are locked and if it will buy me enough time to shave my legs. It doesn't. I put the diaper bag over one shoulder, my purse over the other, the baby on one hip and grab a bite of leftover waffle in syrup with my teeth from Kenzie's breakfast plate still on the Dining Room table.  Three children, self-dressed in mismatched, clashing outfits from Target or the "hand-me-down" store, race for the tank of a minivan that has recently replaced my sporty, cool quotient MDX.  I shake off the haze of sleeplessness that has settled into my head and bones over the past 5 months and think about my favorite pair of pre-baby blue jeans sitting at the back of my closet.

I am perfect

I am perfect..if your definition of perfect is a mother of 4, rarely on time, still carrying 5 lbs from each of her 4 pregnancies (you do the math), lets her son wear his sister's clothes to the neighbor's house, often offers unfiltered, awkward commentary in front of other mothers and just looked up how much it would cost to prime ship a bulk pack of Mike and Ike's from Amazon (that's not normal. I'm not still pregnant). 
I am also perfectly honest about being imperfect. I come from a long line of perfectly imperfect women and we'd be the first to publicly list our shortcomings. I meet many Moms who would never admit to their imperfections. In fact, most find it hard to acknowledge they may not always have it pulled together. I do not understand this unwritten rule of superficial over-achieving. There are entire days when I don't think it wise that I get out of bed, let alone engage my children in our daily routine of warfare. But, now, in addition to suiting up for my at-home combat, I find I should also steel myself for the away-from-home interactions with other mothers.

When I was 14, I jumped at the chance to attend high school 3000 miles from home because I believed it would provide a refuge from the social cliques of junior high school girls. Now I know, high school is high school regardless of where you go and our many insecurities undergo constant transformations in the name of conformity and materialism regardless of our age.  I thought graduating to the world of motherhood would be different. Aren't we all relegated to the same 9 months of discomfort, bodily dysfunctions and general gracelessness that comes with pregnancy? Shouldn't we all be humbled by the lack of control we exert over our body at that time and continually defeated by the emotional imbalance of parenting at all times? I am not promoting we all abandon social propriety, but whatever happened to a little humility? Why would you choose to carry a Louis Vuitton diaper bag instead of a sense of humor?

PTA meetings these days are filled with enough mothers who avoid the open box of glazed donuts, who just showered from the 5k they ran that morning and texted their manicurist that they need an emergency appointment to fix a snagged nail that got caught closing the zipper on their designer jeans. Where's the PTA with the women who fight for the last of the glazed donuts, chalk up their sprint to the coffee line as their only source of exercise for the day and proudly admire the crayola colored manicure their 3-year-old gave them after they had to hide the nail polish so she wouldn't paint the ottoman again? Put me in a room with women who introduce themselves with a little honesty. "I'm Patty and this morning while my kindergartener screamed 'I hate you, Mom, I hate you!' I wondered why they make muzzles for dogs, but not toddlers." I would raise tons of money with those women any day.

Since perfecting how not to look imperfect is the reigning mindset, I should be better about what I say and how much I reveal. Withholding my imperfections has never been my strength, though  (4 kids should tell you that) and the rules of social protocol should stay squarely on the shoulders of those mothers who can balance being perfect in addition to being a Mom. I'm not one of them.

Let's be honest, who doesn't have a few weaknesses?

Meredith, you have inspired a return to the blog. It must be, what, 6 months since my last? So, this would be right on schedule.

Let's be honest. I'm not any good at hiding my mistakes. So, when I make them, I find it easier to handle them by making fun of them. Self-deprecating humor is a fail safe for all Strong children. This, however, does not seem to be standard protocol for most people and, in particular, for most parents holed up in the 91011 zip code. More often than not my ramblings and stories of inadequacy are meet with blank, confused stares. The "why is she still talking?" look is a familiar one. So is the self-congratulatory look of "I feel put together compared to her."

I don't really mind the looks or blank stares. What I mind is the controlled impulse parents employ to keep themselves from commiserating, from sharing in my feeling of motherhood inadequacy. Really, what parent doesn't have a few mis-givings about being a parent?

I will readily admit that there may be some lack of confidence psychosis behind my self-deprecating remarks. They do help present the world as though there's nowhere to go but up. And it is easier to build from the bottom than to sustain at the top. Argue what you will about the nature of self-deprecation, I use it to break the ice and cut through the superficial "lets see how my child measures up against yours" crap. My kids never make it very far in that game anyway. What I don't get is why it is so damn important for everyone to stay quiet about their screw-ups when there is clearly a willing and understanding party at the ready to listen? Why am I seemingly the only one admitting to my faults? What is so great about being perfect? It's tiresome, isn't it; always requiring that you keep up appearances? A healthy dose of humor and humble pie might be just what the parent psyche needs.

Granted, playing the part of the lonely class clown is not without mental repercussions. I can only confess my shortcomings for so long before the inevitable sound of followed silence makes my confessions feel like valid concerns. When no one is sharing in your experience of poor parenting choices, you start to worry that you really are making the worst of parenting decisions. My confession of "I let my children eat cereal for dinner" often makes the room go quiet. Where are the like-minded sentiments of "Oh, that's nothing. I skimmed the mold off the cheese last night before feeding it to my children."? That parent, that honest woman there who shared a piece of her life at the risk of sounding like a less than put-together parent, that woman needs to be my friend. Instead, I usually hear the sound of my shared failures echoing through the room like a ship's cannon booming long after it's been fired.

So, yes, eventually those moments of self-deprecating humor turn into self-fulfilling prophesies. By divulging my weaknesses and not hearing any divulged in return, I start to doubt my most basic abilities. I start to believe the things I am revealing about myself for the sake of motherhood bonding are instead revealing valid weaknesses and inabilities. This is why it is important to step away from the social calls if motherhood every once in a while for a little perspective.

That is typically what Vermont has been for me. But this summer, VT was not the oasis it normally is. Too many other projects and not enough time or attention given to the one thing that mattered most: forgiving myself.

Wow, even saying it aloud stops me short and clutches a little too tightly at my chest. All the social expectations of keeping it together and the implications of feeling like I was alone in not being able to do so hit a peak. It was further complicated by Bryan's 2 month absence 2 weeks after Jamen was born. If I thought 3 kids was my breaking point, having 4 threw the world into a tailspin and was cause for total mental meltdown. When I finally sat still in the car from NYC to VT, it was as though someone had hit the pause button after letting me run on fast-forward. I was lost. I knew the appropriate questions to ask: "What comes next? How do we get everyone there? How will they all behave on the way and once we're there? Who will I see? Whose name do I need to remember? Can I remember anything anymore on little sleep and baby brain? Do I really even know what I'm doing anymore? Did I ever know?", but was at a loss as to how to answer any of them. I let the anxiety of the last few months get the better of me. Tears fell uninterrupted from the moment we crossed the GW bridge until we stopped at a Chuckie Cheese outside of Albany, NY. I had nothing left. Six weeks in VT should've been restorative. Instead, it was frustrating and confusing. I got lost in thought. I couldn't forgive myself or Bryan for mistakes made over the past year, for not being the parent I was sure everyone else thought I should be or the parent I thought I should be. I couldn't let go of the angst and enjoy my children being children. And regardless of how frustrated I felt, I always thought that there would come a moment when the switch was thrown and the chaos of my life would settle, when it would find its balance. That was Vermont's intended purpose, wasn't it? It never came. I returned to L.A. feeling just as drained as when I left. Could my broken motherhood confidence bounce back for another year of self-deprecating jabs if I hadn't been allowed to fully recover from the prior year's?

It turns out, forgiving yourself takes far less time than six weeks, but requires constant attention and nourishment. You have to forgive yourself along the way. It cannot be expected to wait until you are good and ready for it to happen. Goodness knows, my mistakes don't wait until I'm good and ready to make them. So, forgiving them shouldn't either. Your confidence and health would be too much at stake. Your ability to parent would be to much at stake. No one knows how to do this job perfectly. And everyone, E..V..E..R..Y..O..N..E has or is going to make mistakes doing it. Part of forgiving yourself is learning to be honest about what you can get done and whether it will get done perfectly. I suffer from no illusions about my parenting perfections. I can't pretend I know what I'm doing when I don't; I don't hide my faults that well. I do wish there were more parents who felt as free to admit the same, but for now, I will settle for hearing the defeaning sound of silence in response to my misguided parenting tales.

Long live self-deprecating humor! May it be a cathartic release of over-anxious thoughts everywhere.

This last go-round

I have been pregnant now 4 times. 5 if you count one early miscarriage, which, when it happened, was unbearably devastating and now somehow feels like a depressingly common right of passage in the process of having children. I have forgotten the specifics of each pregnancy and become resigned to the discomfort my body endures at the hands of those who take over it's most basic functions for 9 months. The Invasion of the Body Snatchers comes to mind, though I couldn't begin to tell you why since I've never seen the movie or really know what it's about (cue the eye-rolling from Bryan who suffers these references as a reminder of my age and how old it in turn makes him). If there is any particular emotion I now feel, it is an amalgamation of sadness mingled with relief. This is to be my last pregnancy. A fact that reminds me not to wish for it's hasty end, but to relish the rareness of it's remarkable process. I was 25 when Noah was born and will have had 4 children by the time I turn 32 and 2 months. That's a lot of transition for someone who at 20 was sure she'd never date. When time and life events move that quickly, it's hard to process their importance and the relevance of their rewards in the bigger picture of life. Will I remember the way each of my kids felt when they kicked in utero for the first time? Will I remember how I felt when it happened? Will I remember how later in pregnancy I pushed at them in irritation when they jumped on my over-exhausted bladder for the 10th time in 2 minutes or how I could possibly move between pink, bubblegum ice cream and bacon cravings without pause or shame? Few people ever tell you what pregnancy feels like. Perhaps because most of it is ugly and unpleasant. Perhaps because your body adjusts it's heading and direction with a only a few minor course corrections as though providing for another human being is normal and needs no explanation or description. Whatever the reason, I would have benefited from a few "heads up" remarks about how my body would not be my own for the course of each pregnancy and consequent breast-feedings. Now, by the 4th child, I'm old hat at this and little surprises me or shocks my sensibilities. Things fall apart and I don't wonder "how that happened", but rather why the hell it took so long before it did. This brings me to the final ingredient of my emotional cocktail: relief. I am ready to reclaim my body. My skinny jeans have been on lay-away for just short of a decade, my turtle-neck sweaters have come in and out of bad fashion sense over the course of my pregnancy-ridden adventure and my boobs, which have suffered the greatest confidence blow of any of my body parts, have finally resigned themselves to their less than prominently perky status. Now, they just pine for the day when they might extend beyond the post-pregnancy remains of my bulbous belly.

Maybe it's fitting that the weight of my melancholy for the finality of this baby's impending birth is mitigated by the destruction I know carrying him for 9 months will inflict on my already haggard body. If I have learned anything from being a mother, it is that the rewards of parenting do not come without consequence. Now, if I could just remember to isolate the moments of joy throughout the day and throughout this final pregnancy so that the consequences of my having 4 children in 6 years doesn't further undermine my body's already low self-esteem.