On motherhood and mental illness

“I feel like something bad is going to happen.”

“Don't say that, sweetie.” My mom would reply.

I would be perplexed. It was a feeling as though I knew what would happen next. A tumbly falling down feeling in my belly, like talking at the front of the class and peeing your pants and losing your new expensive winter coat the first day you take it to school. I wasn't sure if she didn't want me to say it because she felt it too, or because she didn't like what it meant. That I was broken. That I didn't know how to be happy; when everyone else was staying up late at slumber parties, I would fearfully creep off to sleep in a corner of the room, because not sleeping held an unmistakable fear of the devil, death, and horrible things that would happen to my family if I didn't close my eyes and fall asleep right then.

I think about these childhood anxieties a lot more now that I have children, and (not-so coincidentally) have been diagnosed with mental illness. I don't mean my kids have made me crazy, not clinically anyhow. But they made me seek out help, because I was scared when I felt differently about them.

I fear this legacy that I may have passed on to them. It's a thought that has only recently occurred to me, and like any parent I wonder to myself. What can I do to prevent it? And barring that, what can I do to prepare them? And perhaps most unhelpfully, what the fuck have I done?

I started to suspect I was suffering from mental illness in my early university years in Montreal, but part of me felt like my sadness was just me being romantic about my life. It had been a hard few years. My father was in the depths of substance abuse, my relationship with my mother was fractured, my ex-boyfriend had his first manic-depressive episode, and I was on my own for the first time ever.

Montreal is cold in winter. So cold that you can stay inside, huddled over your computer's cpu and no one notices that you haven't been outside in a while. I lived on chocolate soy milk and pasta. I was trying to be a vegetarian, probably so I could tell someone in a conversation and feel important and progressive, but that conversation never happened. I didn't talk to anyone. I went to my classes and I sat in the back. I didn't brush my hair. My clothes were old, and unwashed.

I hated myself and every single word that came out of my mouth.

When I look at it objectively, nothing was that bad. I was in a world-class city with lots of things to do. I was thinner than I am now, and by all rights fairly charismatic. I track this now as one of my first depressive episodes. Maybe it was situational, but it was also the first of many future incidents that looked and felt similar.

It wasn't until I was pregnant with my second child that I sought help.

I was about 8 months pregnant with my unexpected baby girl, and everything was going wrong. My husband and I fought constantly. My son had just broken his leg and was learning to walk agian. His temperament was difficult, as he was simultaneously adjusting to going to preschool for the first time. I was tired and sore, and having trouble walking. As I didn't know how to drive, this left me at home for most of the day. I started taking long naps. And sleeping in. And going to bed early. I started avoiding visits with family. I started staying upstairs in my bedroom while life went on along, in my view, perfectly fine without me. Dinners came and went. I stopped being hungry.

And then the baby kicked. And I hated it.

The feeling shocked me. When my son had kicked in my belly, I had always felt this twinge of happiness and pride. But this feeling. Annoyance? It wasn't right, and I didn't like it. So, I felt like I should tell my doctor at one of my frequent, end of pregnancy doctor's appointments. She sent me to a psychiatrist immediately, who diagnosed me with severe antenatal depression. She said I was resilient, though. She said I would make it through, because I had overcome worse. I wasn't really sure what she meant.

At first I thought maybe it was just the hormones. Women with a history of depression are more likely to suffer from pregnancy related mental illness, but some women without any history at all are struck, and I counted myself among their numbers. It was temporary. I was ok. Just like swollen feet and peeing all the time, this too would pass.

But an event like that does not come and go without rumination. It effected the whole family. We are talkers, and we talked about it. We thought about it and we talked some more. And as I came out of it, able to look up again as I walked down the street thanks to a dose of fluoxetine, I started to think about the feelings, the experience of my first 'diagnosed' depression.

And I realized that it wasn't new at all. It was a pattern, and it had been systematically effecting the pattern of my life for years.

I had to ask myself, what does that mean for me as a mom? Or even just as a person who is part of a family? Who am I to even be a mother, if I can't keep my brain together and I am at risk of falling into that pit again, regardless of my knowledge of my responsibilities?

It struck a fear into me that I have to admit hasn't gone away. Now, my daughter is one year old and I feel that darkness creeping in again. I'm not ignoring it this time, though. I'm not calling myself a romantic, or berating my self pity. I'm paying attention when news articles make me sadder than they should, when I'm mad just because I'm married and a mom and someone needs me to get them a cup of milk. Not just mad, but resentful. Like life is too fucking cruel and too hard to carry on living. When I feel that way, I know something is wrong. I have hope for a life where I can see it coming so clearly that I can head it off before it effects us too deeply as a family.

I don't want to be the one who teaches my kids that this is normal.

But maybe, I do.

I'd be lying to myself if I said that they were going to escape from my legacy of depression. It's such a scary thought, that at one point they'll be dealing with what appears to be an insurmountable bleakness inside of them. All I can do is show them that it isn't a bad thing, not judge myself too harshly, and explain what's going on as they become old enough to understand. I don't want to create a self-fulfilling prophesy: “mommy is depressed and you will be too.” but I also don't want them to feel that uncomfortable feeling that I did, where I wasn't sure whether my mom felt that same darkness too.

Because if they feel that way, I want them to know they aren't feeling it alone.

And that eventually, they'll come out the other side.

Return to writing

It's been a long time. A lot has happened, so much so that it's almost painful to read back on the old entries that I wrote. I'm not sure why. Maybe reading back on them will remind me of attributes of thankfulness and hopefulness that I'm trying so hard to grasp onto these days.

I finished most of my diploma in costume to find myself pregnant at the very end. The day after my last class, my little boy broke his femur in a freak accident and our world was turned upside down. As these things usually happen - there was no warning before our lives changed, there was no way to be thankful for the way it was before. The femur cast, known as a spica, was put on both of his legs up to his waist to stabilize his hips, and completely immobilized him. It's difficult to think and speak about, let alone write about. The cast was on for six weeks, and after that rehabilitation had to occur. My son has amazed me, as I don't think I could have ever imagined how resilient a 3 year old could be in such difficult circumstances. He learned to walk again, in tiny shaky little steps, and now we have to the joy of getting to see him run and jump around the house. It's hard still though, he has started preschool and though he enjoys it, is still trying to keep up with their motor skills.

The pregnancy has been equal parts good and bad. A second pregnancy is such a different experience. No one treats you like you're precious, or fragile. Life has to go on, and there are little people to take care of. The celebration feels lacking, too. No one seems excited. Maybe that's just me.

Perhaps it's that I'm remembering my pregnancy with Ender wrongly. I know that I felt curiosity about him, but did I feel love? The love I feel for him now is so accumulated that I could just be projecting it backwards onto my pregnancy. Maybe this feeling of ambivalence is partly that I haven't yet had a chance to fall in love with this little person. My little girl.

Yet, it's more than that, I know. Antenatal depression, they call it. It sounds awfully ominous for something that just makes me not leave the house, or finish books, or cook food. Something that just makes me more sensitive than usual to what people don't say. I feel guilty about it. Embarrassed. Like I should know better now that I'm as old as I am, and have so much to be thankful for. But the longer I've been pregnant the harder it has been to ignore the creeping darkness of my thoughts, and it was time to acknowledge that I needed help. It has been a hard year, and there's nothing wrong with admitting that I'm having a hard time keeping up to what all of the changes that have been thrust upon us mean for my plans and my future. I hope that I can figure out everything, to start over and make everything better for myself and my family. In the meanwhile, I think I'll try and write here more often again. It seems to help.

Way Back Playback

Every once in a while I happen across one of my old blogs. I read it out of curiosity and am never disappointed by what I find. The one that was in the one year span before I met Mike is a particularly good one. Things that I notice are all to a similar tune. I was so SO so SO self involved. Like, living in my own head to the extent that I could hardly even lift it to see the things around me. Half of the posts involve me complaining about having to get up before eleven. This should be tempered by the fact that I haven't slept in past eight thirty in two and a half years. Since it wasn't that long ago that I wrote the blog, I also remember writing some of the entries. I remember the way I skirted around some topics, leaving little signposts to jog my own memory, but no one elses. I would allude to the fact that I was tired, but not mention it was because I had been up all night arguing with my problematic boyfriend. I had that grace, at least.

I was also constantly trying to convince myself of my own happiness. "It's not always like this" I would write "my life is filled with light and colour and love." I don't think I really believed that, but in a way, writing things down always makes them feel true. Despite these lies, I was more honest back then, too. Something about being a mom tricked my reflex to self-improve that just wasn't there before. It didn't seem worth it. It didn't seem like something I would waste my time doing. I was who I was, and it made every moment with every person who was willing to take me as I was incredibly precious. I miss those connections now, as I try to become a picture of what a mother 'should' be, and avoid the judgement of others. While it may not be genuine, it is for the sake of my child who has no say in whether his mother is socially acceptable or not.

Of course, some things never change. I am still the romantic that I once was. I still watch movies and picture myself living la vie boheme again. Living in Paris, or New York, or L.A. or a cabin in the woods. I want all of these things, and none of them. I miss Montreal, and the person I once was that had time to think and dig deep within herself for Truth and Beauty and What Has Been Repressed. I despise her, too, and am glad to be rid of her, and the people that liked what she represented. But I don't regret anything, and I am so happy that the twisted road lead me to who and where I am today.

And so, I will leave you with a way-back playback of the good old days:

I'm at the doctor's office, trying to enact a retrospective-type perspective on the present. It's no easy task, because I don't know how time will make me look back on this moment. I may be just as jaded as I am now, decrying the bitchy secretary who I hung up on earlier in the day. Laughing at my vanity, as I sink further into the chair, wearing my toque in 20 plus degree air inside, just to hide the current condition of my skin. I may look back fondly, as the time when I had XYZ. But I don't know what I'll lose, or what will become more precious with time. I don't know if I'll miss the taste of jolly ranchers, or using my computer in public places stealing wireless internet, or the sidelong glance every man in the room gave me when I walked in. I may just be filled with regret, neither sad nor happy. A wish that I would have done something, or everything, a little differently.

So what can we ascertain from this, if we wish to live without regret (as I obviously do, and you do too if you know me and I've deemed you a decent human)?  Well, that we should respect what comes our way, firstly. That we should appreciate the fickle nature of our bodies and our surroundings. That we should look at one moment with a schizophrenic flurry of emotions, both happy and sad, positive and negative. We should realize that regret, like guilt, is pointless. Regret is guilt that has been left to ferment, rise, and become something even less fixeable. Guilt can be tossed aside with one decision, whereas years of regret are far more difficult to assuage with such resolution.
I don't think I regret much, and therefore I can deduce that this pointless little moment in time that I wont' remember save for this blog entry, will not be regretted either. More likely it will be missed. The hard angles will be softened by my nostalgia, and I'll tell someone; I used to live in Montreal...

It seems sad that Montreal must be added to the litany of cities and towns I've inhabited, but it must be done. I am a nomad, at heart.

Salt

The salty soil, they say, is at fault here for the tiny trees that are one hundred years old but never grow larger than saplings. The salty air makes wood rot and paint peel, and faces age before their time. The humidity in summer has a sting of salt, a taste around the mouth of tears, or sweat.

After we returned from our journey, Ender and I took a walk in this salty air. The humidity and the silence gave a sense of being inside an enormous hallway. My neighbours, forced out to the step, glistening with sweat and trying to keep cool, take furtive sips from a flask passed lightly from fingertip to fingertip. All floats in this heavy air. Strains of ukelele make their way down the street, saying "Sleep-sleep-sleep." Ender's head bobs and falls, taken over by the salt-magic, the pull of the ocean, of home. His tiny hands relax upon his lap, open, offering.

I pick him up from his stroller, his head falls heavily against me and I steady myself on the wooden shingles of our home. The new paint has begun to peel, as though the joy from this house had caused the shingles to burst and ripple.  I walk as smoothly as I can up the stairs, each step a tiny creak, "Sleep-sleep-sleep." Upstairs, my husband is napping, and I place our son in his bed alongside ours. Salt facilitates electric conduction. Between the two of them, there is an unconcious connection. They each roll to face one another, faces slack and arms outstretched.

I make my way downstairs, slow steps that feel like gliding. Each movement saying, "sleep-sleep-sleep".

Flea Markets

We went to the flea market today. I used to love flea markets. All of these objects, out of time, out of place. Every single thing was purchased by someone once, seen as imoportant enough to pay for and take home. Even if its home ended up being in the bottom of a drawer, not to be seen again until a momentous occasion: a move, a renovation, a new piece of furniture, or a death. I used to delight in this. Now, as I pick through chipped figurines and stained plastic kitchen appliances, I am only reminded of how many things I own that I don't need. But there is a culture here, the flea market is more than just buy and sell. People know each other, there is a comfortable hum of familiarity. They come to buy things just to sell at their own table. And so, there are some objects that will remain in the flea market circuit endlessly.

When I get home, my eye is more critical. I look at my possessions like a shopper, and see that the only reason I keep some things are for the things they remind me of. Each book that I have read once, and never will again, is held onto because I remember where I bought it and when I read it. It is not intrinsically valuable, but I cannot bear to part with it. It reminds me of who I am, and what it took to get here.

I wonder about people who lead those aesthetically clean, design driven lives. I suspect white walls and a vinyl couch would cause me to forget myself.

the weather

I have decided, in the interests of my mental health, to stop checking the weather online. At all. What good does it do anyone, really? What kind of activity is it, to check the weather? One goes on, sees that it might rain, or be sunny. Then we feel preempretively happy or sad, all the while knowing that it could be completely wrong, so to cancel plans because of potential rain is really just a signifier that you didn't really want to do that thing anyway.

It's not worth it.

Anyway. It is the summer now, or so I'm told between rainstorms. As soon as a sunny day hits, I dash outside to the yard with Ender and we garden and talk about bugs and worms, and chase bumble bees. We walk aimlessly. In all this, I am trying to take better care of myself. I quit smoking in the new year, and quit coffee a month ago. I am avoiding gluten, which is apparently the secret ingredient which makes everything taste good. I miss all of these things, but have begun to really appreciate the energy and general well being that eating well affords me. I think once you've passed the age of that anesthetizing starry eyed syndrome that early adulthood affords most, more corporeal concerns come to the fore. When I feel good, I am a better mom, wife, etc. And can walk, and enjoy these glimpses of summer that we have received.

Currently, I'm st home taking care of my little boy and continuing to learn/improve my craft. I designed and drafted and sewed my mothers wedding dress, which turned out lovely and hope it fits well. Knitted my first sock, which also the first thing I ever knit from a real pattern. They follow an old world war one sock pattern that would have been used by women at home to ship socks to the boys abroad.I've also been beading, which has really become a lost decorative art, and I'm glad to be learning more about it. Ender is taking swim lessons with me as well. He begs to go, but once we take him there, he seizes up repeats "no no no" whenever the instructor tries to get him to move. Small progresses have been made, though, he kicks his feet, jumped in the water, and blows bubbles. I'm really enjoying the time we sound there, watching my little boy being challenged and dealing well with being a little out of his comfort zone.

Mike and I made an effort to be more social lately and it has been a verifiable success. We are making ourselves go out once or twice a week so that we stop being such home bodies, and it has been a lot of fun. Sometimes I just want to sit on the couch and watch old episodes of True Blood and surf facebook and knit, but forcing myself to go out always ends up making me feel better, and never worse.

The return to the maritimes....

My son, who is almost but not quite two, has been on a plane seven times in his short life. The first time was a trip to Calgary when he was three months old. He slept through the entire flight, which I remember being somewhere between five to seven hours. He breastfed intermittently while I held his little hand and he snoozed happily away. The second time, we had gone to Halifax to house shop. He slept for some of both flights, also peeking his head over the seats to stare at a little kid behind him. He was about fourteen months old. This last flight, there was very little sleeping and a steady stream of babble. Ender wrestled both me and his dad, frantically pointing out the window at the planes, trying to mash the flight attendant call button, giggling at the stream of air that he opened in the ceiling. The tiny televisions behind the seats were of no help, as he doesn't understand tv is for staring at. All in all, travelling with a toddler is oddly energizing. It makes you feel like you can take on the world, and you certainly don't need a book. It helps that Ender clearly enjoyed the sensory experience of flight this time, as he hooted during takeoff and buzzed during landing. I kissed his rosy little cheeks as we set our course back to Nova Scotia, home, and our regular everyday lives.

The trip was a refreshing change of highs and lows. We laughed and cried, as is appropriate for visits with family members and long held friends. We had a chance to head out to the city on several occasions, though we spent the majority of our time in Etobicoke with Mikes parents. Ender basked in the attention of his grandparents and multitudinous loving aunties and uncles, blood related and otherwise. I feel very grateful to be so loved. Probably I dont deserve it.

I had a chance to go fabric shopping while we were in toronto as well, which was great. The fabric selection in halifax is just dismal, so I did the best I could, and I think I made some good selections. No point in buying any old polyester; I bought unbleached linen, checked silk duppioni, heavily embroidered cotton and a stiff black silk organza.

We watched, amazed, as Enders language made leaps and bounds during our trip. Words and names all came easily to him and a constant smirk of self satisfaction was on his face. "bay-bee" he said, pointing at himself, "bay-bee done down" his way of saying he was both finished and ready to get going. Along with self expression comes a belief that all reactions should be immediate, and with this he is an unforgiving taskmaster. All of us must learn patience in this thing.

I shall wrap up here, for now. Very tired and looking at a full day of catchup tomorrow, as I did not keep up on my homework as I should have on this week off. Till next time...

The Love Dare

Say what you will about evangelical Christians, they have the marriage market covered. They get married more, younger, and add children to the mix. They also don't believe in divorce. There, me and evangelicals get along just fine. I didn't take getting married lightly. I was the girl who claimed she would never condescend to link herself to someone for life, let alone have a child. But here we are, and both Mike and I are convinced that we have found our partner for eternity. We take the awesomeness of our baby as a daily affirmation of this, of our genetic and fateful predestination for one another. That the mingling of our souls and our DNA was chosen for us before we were even born. That said, nothing is ever perfect. Having your life all jumbled up in another persons leads to several issues: reenacting the mistakes of your parents, taking your partner for granted, and closeness leading to contempt, to name a few. Raising a child in all this adds to the issues. There is little time to discuss when one feels overlooked or disrespected. Arguments, which can be healthy and fulfilling, are stunted into a quick and sharp whisper that leaves everyone feeling cold.

So, all this to say that there is a book, called The Love Dare, which is mingled with so much scripture as to make my staunchly atheist mother shudder. But it's also filled with daily exercises that promote respect and communication with your partner, and I appreciate the wisdom that it has imparted so far. I plan on buying the book, but the sample chapter had this to say: 


"Anger almost never makes things better. In fact, it usually generates additional problems. But patience stops problems in their tracks. More than biting your lip, more than clapping a hand over your mouth, patience is a deep breath."


So yes, maybe this is just a bunch of WASPy repressive talk, but I think I could use a little repression at times. Too often I say what I think, to no good end. So the dare for day 1? Spend a day saying nothing negative to your spouse at all. It doesn't propose that you should never speak negatively to your spouse ever, but that its complete absence from your life for one day can make you appreciate its benefits. 


The Love Dare is a forty day journey into appreciating and linking yourself to your partner. A dare from the couples who have undertaken the challenge and succeeded. Because I love my husband, because I love myself, I am devoted to strengthen and appreciate our relationship together. I am an agnostic, if we are going to put labels on things, so I can pick and choose from faiths what I find to be helpful and useful. I think yoga is good for the body, I think Buddhism is good for the brain, and I think a few Jewish shepherds had some helpful things to say about love. 


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


As for updates: Ender's language development is exploding! He attempts to say all words that he sees in books, mostly with a lot of success. I suspect he will be a very well spoken little boy. He is still a little sick with a cough, but the dr said it was not a localized sound in his lungs so probably not an infection. Thank goodness, I really hate that he has already been on antibiotics once in his short life and my goal is not to repeat the experience any time soon. 


I think all of our friends in Toronto will be very surprised to see how much Ender has grown since they saw him in July. He is so much bigger, more articulate and his dexterity is that of a grown person. He understands every word you say, which still takes some getting used to.  


And with that, my beautiful baby boy is awake and I must go get him and feed him lunch! 

Sickness

"I think I am getting sick."

I received this text from Mike on wednesday night and my stomach dropped. My mind started racing. Sick? The last time he got sick, the illness got to us all, incapacitating us into whining sniveling family unit for over three weeks. It's truly terrifying. The best you can hope for is that everyone will get sick around the same time, close to a weekend, far from exams, and that if (god forbid) there are complications, it is when the clinic is open. It's a nasty thing to have to wait in the hospital for four hours.

Now, on Sunday, Mike is mostly better, Ender has yet to get sick (knock wood) and i am sitting with a raging fever waiting for the clinic to open. The nurse line that I called recommended that I go, a decision that I would not have made for myself. Though sitting in bed all day yesterday hacking my lungs up wasn't pleasant, it was far superior to waiting in a doctors office. The nurse thinks i have a lung infection, and I have no doubt that this is the truth. I also know that I would be just fine without antibiotics, thank you very much, but Mike makes his puppy dog eyes at me and I have to go.

Hopefully this will resolve itself soon...until next time.

A day in the life...

Pinpointing when a mother wakes up is sometimes a difficult thing. When someone asks me what time I woke at up, the first question I ask is, "Which time?" Lately, due to some sleep disturbances, I have been waking up at four thirty, five thirty, six thirty and seven. This morning was no different. By seven, I gave up on putting Ender back in his bed, listened to his little padded feet go 'padpadpadpad...padpad' and let him crawl into bed with me for a little while. Mike had been up late last night working on some homework, and hadn't gotten much sleep either, so it was a slow waking.

I made breakfast, (eggs with immersion blended kale, mushrooms, green peppers and tomato, with a side of sausage) while Mike got Ender dressed and put him on the potty. We ate, drank coffee, and Mike fetched the car from the lot, while I got Ender's sweater and boots on. I gathered up my school supplies, trying to remember, through my generally fuzzy mom brain what classes I had that day. Mike came back with the car, and I put on my own shoes and coat, and then Ender's coat and hat. This sequence is important. If you put Ender's coat on first, and wait, he will get very upset. He only will put up with wearing his coat if there is forward motion involved. I guess he gets that from me. He also dislikes if you put your coat on, or shoes, and then don't proceed to immediately put on his own outerwear, as then he assumes you are leaving without him. Sure, we are slaves to routine, but we also do what works.

Then, Mike drove me to school with Ender. I said my goodbyes, grabbed a cup of coffee and headed into the studio. I was there a half an hour early, which was perfect to get some homework done. Mike likes to do his homework at night, but I like to squeeze it in whenever I can by going to class a half an hour early every day, and working through all my breaks. That way it seems like I get maximal relaxing time, as well as time with Ender. So, I broke out my hip pocket sample and started to sew it up. I had a good conversation with my professor, so I sewed it wrong several times and had to go back, but made some progress. Then class started, where we learned to sew a sample welt pocket in wool. Wool was everywhere. My head ached from trying to stare at navy thread in navy wool, which absorbs light.

But, luckily enough, I completed my wool welt pocket by working through my lunch break, which meant no extra homework for that week. I couldn't have been more pleased. Next was show class, where we are working on costumes for the upcoming show. I was put in charge of hats, but also assigned a dual character (with one actress) who (unfortunately) has to wear a suit. Suits are not like dresses, they can't fit wrong and you can't claim its a design feature. Everyone can tell when a suit doesn't fit, so a few alterations had to be done to make sure that the suit fit her well. I took in the pants, put in a hook and eye closure, and still have to restitch in the lining. I also changed out the buttons on her vest for more netural coloured ones, designed a pocket for the inside of her jacket to hold a gold brick (?) and pulled a few scarfs and hats out of the closet at the request of the designer. Again, I did this through my break for dinner.

By five o'clock, I realised that I had history class in an hour and I hadn't eaten yet.  Luckily my classes are held above a grocery store, so I grabbed a few things --fruit for Ender, an immune system boosting elixer for mike who texted me to tell me he was getting sick-- and for me, a hunk of cheese and a pack of crackers. Not just any hunk of cheese, some kind of mouldy, delicious brie-like cheese. I got a knife from the attached restaurant and a plate, and headed off to history of costume class. There, I ate my cheese and crackers, listening to a lecture on Tudor era costume, and briefly talking to my friend Marlee regarding the possibility of one sewing their own jeans. Apparently she is going to try. This hour and a half was the most luxurious part of my day.

Mike picked me up at the end of class, and we drove home. It was my night to put Ender to bed, and already a little past his bedtime when I got home, so I scooped him up and put him in the bath, singing him songs, pouring warm water over his little body and giving him a little sudsy baby shoulder massage. I put him to bed, and he fell asleep pretty quickly. Now I'm here, writing a blog and considering what I should do with the rest of my evening.

A day in the life of me. Admittedly, Wednesday is my busiest of all days, and usually the most draining. This one in particular was hyperactively ridiculous. My brain hurts.

Much love to you, dear readers, that was a catharsis that I needed indeed.  

Projects on the Go!

As I get to know more people in the costume studies program, I am blown away by how much talent I am surrounded by. I add people to my facebook, and see that they have a multitude of fascinating interests. It makes me wish I knew them even better. It also makes me feel insecure. I've always considered myself to be the one with obscure interests, so while being surrounded by like-minded people is nice, it simultaneously makes you wonder if you are as awesome and badass as you think you are. So, I'm going to list my current and prospective projects to make myself feel better. They are listed in order of progress, and all are extracurricular, that is, a separately daunting pile of work. Hardy har.

1. At the moment I'm making a 18th century style pocket. Its embroidered on linen and I will post pictures when it is finished, but the V&A has some pictures here. Back then women had their skirts sewn with holes on each side and the pockets, which were the size of two purses, were separate garments worn under the skirt. I'm only making one, and mine is a little scaled down, but I think I'm going to wear it as a funky fanny pack/purse dealie.

2. 1776 style stays, from Diderot's "Tailleur de Corps". It is a very well known and classic pattern for half-boned stays (popularly known as corsets, but that term didn't come into use until later). The progress on this is stalled. I've drafted the pattern in muslin, done a fitting, and cut my three layers of fabric. I still need to buy boning for it, stitch that in, and bind it around all edges. All in all its a huge project that I am delaying because I know I'm bound to run into some weird roadblock.

3. Soap making. No, not your sweet pretty variety, but bulk household soap. In my Natural Life magazine, there was a recipe to make a 5 gallon bucket of soap that is good for washing your hair, dishes, laundry, and more. It requires minimal supplies, is cost effective, fragrance free and reduces the amount of packaging your household consumes by a large margin. We still need to buy supplies for this, but Mike is very much on board with this as well.

4. Full Victorian outfit for myself, which is by far the most ambitious and far off of the projects. My mother gifted me with the most lovely book of period patterns, and there is a few in particular I'd like to make. So, this involves making a corset (Farthingales has a serviceable corset making kit which would be sufficient and make quick work of it), petticoats, possibly a bustle, basque bodice and walking skirt. As I explained to a classmate, I don't think it would be terribly difficult to create something that would look good, I am just terrified of purchasing that much fabric. The first step really, is to make the corset. The second, to scale up the patterns, adjust them to my shape, and do a mock up in muslin.

Aside from all this, school is providing many interesting opportunities. I was assigned head of hat making for the production of The Madwoman of Chaillot, and the teacher is so wonderful and is giving me fairly free reign over the design process. Sewing feathers, tulle, veiling and other sparkly bits to hats is so much fun. The characters are quite ostentatious as well, so there is no worry of having to remain within the boundaries of good taste. Pictures of those once finished will grace my page here as well.

Things continue along here in our household. Ender is having some difficulties with sleep at the moment. He is sleeping on his own futon still, but he is taking about an hour to settle down each night. Now that Mike and I take turns every other night putting him down, it is less stressful, but it is a lot of unpleasant time. We figure he is trying to learn how to put himself to sleep, wanting our closeness but not our help. I can only imagine it is very frustrating, and I'm glad that we have once again chosen our conscience over convenience, and stuck by him to comfort him through his difficulties. He is also at a peak of language development, which can lead to sleep problems. According to doctors, children at this age are learning as much as ten words a day (internally, not yet able to speak them all, but to understand) and attempting to absorb all of this means lighter wave sleep.

Mike's birthday came and went, celebrated with a few small gifts and a very loudly coloured angel food cake. We went out for drinks with some friends, and friends of friends, and relatives. It was a nice evening, and while I do in general prefer being a hermit in my little house, it was nice to go out and see some people. I'm glad that Mike was able to celebrate his birthday in good company.

I think that's all for now dear readers, a show coming up and several papers, so it may be a while before you hear from me again, but you will. Oh yes.

Home businesses and Home schooling

So, after my incredibly preachy last post (apologies everyone) I thought I'd give in and do a less thematic and more rambly blog post. You know, the kind I'm known for?

Christmas break has me going absolutely crazy. A month off doing nothing is way more time than I need. I like school so much that I would be perfectly happy if there were no breaks at all, and that has me thinking about what I am going to do when summer break comes, which is quite a few months.

Because Mike's school will take longer than mine (mine is over in two years, his in four) I would like to do something in the meanwhile. The jobs available to me here in Halifax are limited, there's really only one wardrobe to speak of and it's a pretty difficult club to get into. If I could, I would in a heartbeat. However, I'm thinking that I will start my own business in the meanwhile, beginning when I'm off school. My concept is that it will be mostly for historical re-enactors and weddings. I thought about making myself available to theatre companies that don't have their own wardrobes, but realistically I don't think I could take on the production of a cast's wardrobe myself, no matter how small. I want to get down to the details, the nitty-gritty, and have time to really focus on authenticity. This is what I see lacking in the market. And I know my market very well. For years I have stalked the websites of pretty much every big name online in historic re-creation. The main problem? A lack of authenticity. It seems that re-creators are willing to deal with a few iffy bits for an overall look, but a trained eye immediately sees something is off. I can always pick it out. Often it's the fabric (synthetics hang wrong, and upholstery fabric usually has a pattern too large to be authentic) or the closures (how hard is it to make a thread covered button?) or something as simple as an inaccurate cut, and foundation garment. The best re-creation garments are being made in Europe, mostly the netherlands. I'm not sure why, but I do know in this time of e-commerce I have a real chance at breaking into a market and being known for quality. My education is really quite priceless, in that regard.

That's the dream.

There are hold backs, of course. One of which is space. Mike has dominated the guest room/studio, with his stuff, and we have to face the reality that room will one day be Ender's. I don't have a table to cut on (essential) and the lack of space makes the smallest projects very difficult to execute. Not to mention a four yard Victorian walking skirt. So there are logistics to consider. One solution may be rearranging the studio space in the summer when Mike will be using it less, another may be renting out some space to do my work. Either way, this is what is on my mind.

The other thing that is on my mind is school. Not for me, but for hte little man. He seems like he is growing up so fast, hitting new and more subtle milestones. He sleeps through the night, uses a potty, and for all intents and purposes, is not a baby anymore. The thought of sending him to a public school just jarrs me in a way I can't explain. Sure, you can dismiss it as mommy jitters that everyone has, but I know it's more than that. I don't believe in institutionalisation. I don't think it's a good thing that we teach our children to arbitrarily follow figures of authority, simply based on their age and occupation. I believe in the power of rational discourse. I think that children should be allowed to justify their actions, and be involved in the discussion that surrounds their education. Their education should involve real world experience, taught by various people of various backgrounds, rather than a pack of children their own age who have little to teach eachother aside from confusion and bigotry. So...where does that leave us? Alternative schools (which exist only in big cities, like Toronto), private schools (expensive), home schooling (time consuming) or ideally, a schooling circle. This is what I'd like to find. Some like minded moms who each take on a little bit of their children's education. We all would have something to contribute, and it gives such opportunities for unusual learning opportunities. I think having a kid work at a cash register at a bakery for a week teaches them more about science, math, and sociology than anything they could learn about in school. And what about travel? For a third of the price of private school, we could take Ender to see some of the best museums in North America.

Just a few thoughts jumping around in my brain. I really shouldn't blog when I've had too many glasses of wine, though.

On our tv free home

I live in a beautiful home. It's a fact. I am an incredibly lucky woman. I walk around, running my fingers along mahogany, antique fixtures. But, if you were to walk around my home, you may notice there is something missing. There is no tv, and we like it that way.

We didn't always go without tv. When I was pregnant, we had full cable, a flat screen monstrosity, right in the middle of our living room. We bowed to our glowing god, morning, evening and night. However, i started to notice that it made us stop talking to each other. In fact, we weren't even looking at each other much anymore. I felt like it had become a default to just plop down in front of the tv. Finally, when mike was tired of staring at it, and i was tired of watching him stare at it, we got rid of our tv.

It makes me really happy to think that we will raise our little boy in a tv free home. Studies have shown time and time again that television exposure reduces attention spans, and increases umpulsive behavior in children. In my Natural Life magazine (which I love) it said that the average girl will see eighty thousand ads on tv before she reaches kindergarden. So, not only do i have concerns about the negative effects tv has on Ender's growing brain, the content is bizarre to me as well. I find it disturbing that children as young as two are trained in brand recognition and conspicuous consumption (mommy those shoes look cheap!). The idea of spending your way to happiness is one that i have been grappling with most of my adult life and i am going to try my best not to pass on to my children. Television makes that goal difficult, if not impossible.

I remember telling my dentist, who had two young children, that we had gotten rid of tv in our home. "it's going to be hard," he said "television is the best babysitter we ever had." Maybe so. I know that sometimes I would really appreciate a little screen time, a little quiet time. But with even the american pediatric association recommending no tv for children under two, i feel onfident in my choice. We still watch the tv shows we like, but we do it online, and it lacks the constant oppressive flow of television, one show after the next. We watch what we want, and stop. Our consumption has gone down from approximately 25 hours a week to 5.

I am glad that we are a tv free home, and i hope we stay that way.

Identity

I've been thinking a lot lately about who I am. Maybe it's because I'm living in a place that I lived in when I was a kid, and for me, that's unusual. I remember being little kid me, seeing the same sights I see today. Being a child is in a way having no identity, or having all identities possible. You are malleable as putty, your personality changing daily.

I'm not sure why, but lately I have been paranoid that I am not my own person. I've been accused of this in the past, and shrugged it off. Some people say I am too much like the people who surround me. While I have always accepted this as true, it somehow suddenly seems inadequate. Now, here, I am reassessing who I am.

I know I am a Leo, a lion, a fire sign, passionate. I burn hot and cool slowly. I yell when I'm happy, mad, and impatient. I always know what I want, but am not always sure how to get it. I have spent many years seeking out experience as some kind of badge of honour that states: "Been There, Done That." It is a quest to be an Interesting Person. I have gone on a Vipassina retreat, and not spoken a single word in ten days. I have been a student of religion, and a student of academia. I have let myself fail. I have enjoyed the persuasion that my looks have had over others. I have modified my appearance, again and again, not out of any self-hatred, but again, a burning desire to express the multitudes of selves that I have. I love food, the lifeblood of experience. I eat and I think of the tongues that have experienced the same flavour. Food for me is emotion. I love clothing; caterpillar, chrysalis, butterfly. It can simultaneously hide and reveal our best and our worst. I am afraid of repeating mistakes that I have seen. I am afraid of being misunderstood. I am afraid of being alone. I am afraid of wasting any moment with boredom or lack of action.

I think in this quest to become interesting, I have learned that once you truly have become such, you don't feel any different. I think I've done my fair share of experiencing the world for my age, and yet there is a grace in the fact that most people I meet don't know anything about it. It's not about saying "This one time in Italy...", it's about letting my experiences enrich the way I view the world. What began as an arguably superficial pursuit has improved my ability to consume and digest my environment.

Perhaps, in my impatience to find my identity, I've found that it is an overrated concept. I am a collection of (at times, bizarre) experiences, and that is undeniably unique to me.

Breastfeeding and its effect on the division of labour - and also school

When I was pregnant, my husband worked in construction with a bunch of brawny he-man types. One of his coworkers gave him this piece of advice: "Make her breastfeed! That way you won't be getting up in the middle of the night with a bottle of formula." Obviously, things turned out that way. Throughout Ender's childhood, I got up in the middle of the night for feedings (until we began cosleeping and I slept through them too) and Mike took on the responsiblity of being awake during the day. Often I had fantasies of what it would have turned out like. Studies have proven that formula fed babies sleep better at night, and for a lot of mommies, the lack of stress over breastfeeding enough, and properly, is a significant improvement. At one and a half years old, Ender still only sleeps in two to three hour increments. That is, until I come to bed, when he sleeps perfectly fine.

Not that I'm complaining. It should also be noted that at this age he has had approximately three colds, zero ear infections, etc. Knock wood. He has been a very, very healthy baby boy.

Now, he is old enough that breastfeeding to sleep doesn't work. He falls asleep mostly through motion, though sometimes will nod off on his own. As a result, tonight, Mike is going to put the baby to sleep. For the first time. Ever. He is scared. I am scared. Ender is oblivious, but I can imagine he won't be impressed. Debate continues in our household on whether it is time he has his own bed. It is set up in his room, perfect and unused. I think of our ambivalence as representative of the world, one that recognizes the importance of breastfeeding, but has a hard time making cultural space for it.

------------------- other news

I am in my second month of costume studies and abso-lute-ly loooooving it. Every second is sheer amazing awesomeness. I have some younger girls in my classes and I appreciate that they have the bravery to follow what they want to do immediately after highschool. Still, the have the same assumption that I did, back in the olden days that upon graduation a job would follow -- they don't necessarily see the fact that networking has to occur within school, that volunteering during your education is the best way to ensure future employment in your chosen field. These were hard won lessons for me. I'd pass them on, if anyone was listening, but I guess you have to be older than 26 for that.

I think my favourite thing about costume studies is learning to sew properly. I mean, I have been the exception from most people I know in that I know how to sew. But I never really knew how to sew professionally, and never really took the care to learn all the little tricks that make things well finished. As I pick up my needle (with my teacher enforcing an always-wear-a-thimble rule) I make sure every stitch is even. When I pin, I pin twice to make sure the fabric doesn't shift by one thread. When I sew on the machine, I begin a half inch forward, backstitch, and then continue on so that I only have two layer of threads, instead of three to reduce bulk. This kind of inane attention to detail usually wouldn't be my style.

Except that I love it. Dearly.

I am surrounded by people to whom I can gush about farthingales, and not only have them know what I am talking about, but gush back. I can talk about historical accuracy, and no one rolls their eyes. Five hundred dollar books on the history of costume are owned by my colleagues. *gush gush*

I guess I don't really have much else to say.

Mike is putting the baby to bed now. Anxiety reigns. I need to do my homework!

On Loss

I wanted this next post to be a positive one, but life doesn't always work out that way. Recently, I was saddened to find out that an old friend had lost a baby through miscarriage. As it may shock my readers to know, I too have experienced this loss. I think it is common to a lot of women, though not frequently and openly discussed.

The baby that my husband and I lost was not far along. I started miscarrying at work and called my husband immediately, we went to the doctor's office, who sent me to the hospital. I knew there wasn't anything that could be done. I sat in the hospital, regretful and slightly shocked. The emergency doctor informed me that my pregnancy had terminated healthfully and that I shouldn't be upset because it was early along and therefore 'not really a baby at all.'

It was quite possibly the worst thing he could have said.

While I do maintain a pro-choice attitude about abortion, and recognize the usefulness for the letter of the law to describe a fetus as a bunch of cells for a certain period in the pregnancy, this is not necessarily the case from the perspective of the woman carrying the child. It may not always be useful to dehumanize the person that she has carried inside of her. I grieved this little person that I would never get to meet. My body ached. My heart hurt.

After I stopped being sad, I started feeling ashamed.

We hadn't told many people, not our family members, and only a few friends who raised their eyebrows when I refused a drink at the bar. I felt ashamed that they knew. I was ashamed that I had stopped in front of a few baby stores, lingering just a little longer at the window. I felt stupid for being so confident and assuming that everything was going to work out.

I realised, after my friend's loss brought all these memories back, I still feel ashamed. I'm not a person who wears their weakness on their sleeve, and this thing that had happened to me made me feel unable to discuss it with anyone. I feel so ashamed that it still brings tears to my eyes. Pregnancy is a huge leap of faith. You have to trust your body, you have to let go of control and let yourself love something that is not fully formed. My second pregnancy was full of fear, wonderment, and finally, relief.

I hope one day I can stop feeling ashamed, and just let myself feel sad. I hope I'll be able to talk about it openly without a catch in my throat and embarassment in my voice. In the meanwhile, I will just feel lucky for the beautiful things that have come into my life, and live for those.

Hurricane

So as is to be expected when my family moves to a place, something catastrophic happens. In this case, it was a hurricane.

Hurricane Earl was a long nosed, shriveled little bureaucrat of a hurricane. He yelled from his car, but never on the sidewalk. He wrote long winded letters to the editor that he never sent. He wasn't very impressive.

The wind and rain began in the morning, a few hours before we all woke up. We had stocked up fully on batteries and canned food and a large 20L of water. Partly because of our survivalist tendencies, and partly because Nova Scotia Power has a terrible reputation of taking a very long time to get the power back on. In preparation, Mike had fixed the evestroughs, downspouts and put engine weld on an old cracked spout that took our rainwater down into the sewers.

The rain was really only spitting, but the wind was getting stronger and stronger. We listened to the radio, as the speed of it raised incrementally. I put the baby to bed, feeling the bed shake along with the house, watching the trees bend over sideways. The power went out, and my child, my rock, my bastion in the storm, slept through the hurricane.

It waxed, and then finally waned. I went outside and sat on the park bench outside of our house. Our neighbour played his saxaphone, the strains of which floated into the eerie greenish sky, not quite mournful, but sad nonetheless, and I surveyed the damage. Trees had lost large clumps of leaves which nestled themselves against cars, some leaves were stuck flat against the side of our house. I heard the damage was worse elsewhere.

Ender fussed because he wasn't allowed outside, and I placated him with horrible preprepared toddler meals that reminded me of kitty chow. We cracked open a can of meatballs and gravy for ourselves, and ate while it was still light. After the babe fell asleep, we read by the light of our flashlights until we fell asleep from the deathly silence of a city without electricity.

After it all, I feel Nova Scotian again. And my family has been baptized by a hurricane.

100th post

And after the expected hiatus, I'm back. And at the 100th blog post, to boot.

After a lag in posting I'm bound to leave something out, but I'll try my best:

Through most of July and August, my husband and I were packing, stressing, packing some more. We saw more of our friends than we had the entire year past. Everyone refused to say good-bye. There was a common element of denial where they all gave a crooked smile and said they'd come visit us before we left. While these didn't (and couldn't have) come to fruition, it was still nice to know people will miss us. Ender became rapidly more able to walk around this time, parading like a small tyrant unpacking boxes and causing general adorable misery. The movers came. The movers left. Our fish tank cracked. The fish were moved to a beer cooler, and seemed happy enough about it. We waved our things goodbye and made final preparations.

Ender and I took the plane together a few days later, which was a generally pleasant experience. It was his fifth plane trip, so by now he's an old pro. He waved bye-bye to each person leaving the plane, in turn. He crawled the walls of the bus shuttle as we made our way to the hotel. Upon check-in, I stripped him down to his diaper, where he giggled and rolled around on pristine linens. We napped. We had room service.

My dad and Mike travelled by car, taking various things we didn't want to wait to arrive with the movers. They arrived in the morning and slept in my fairly gracious suite, after 24 hours of straight driving.

The house closed without issue, and we entered it with awe. It is a gorgeous home. The pine plank floors have a gorgeous patina of age, the crown mouldings are simple but add formality to the master suite and parlour. The back yard is made up of overgrown trellises of English ivy and Virginia creeper. The old owners left us a Victorian style park bench in the back, and we sit on it, enclosed in a kind of dewy silence. Our neighbours introduced themselves, each in turn. All leave their doors open at all times of day and shout hellos over the fence.

While we've been much caught up in the general messiness of setting up a house, we've still had time for the simple pleasures of true home ownership. Ender splashes in his pool, learning to spray us with the hose and then laugh maniacally. He rips off the heads of flowers, and I don't scold him. Those flowers are there to be dessicated at his will! They belong to him! It is truly a glorious thing, to have space. Space to breathe and grow and love. It was immediately and irrevocably home.

Now to start school.

The mathematics of possibility

So as much as I love being a mother, there are things about it that bug me. Mostly, I hate the incompatability of having a large brood of children and having a career. I'm not quite sure how it works, with my style of parenting. I suspect it is nearly impossible.

I mean, I'm an only child so I don't really know how big families function. I like to picture it going on, I like to imagine how it would work, and then I come to a full stop. When, exactly, am I working? Where is the money coming from? What job do I have that happily lets me go on successive maternity leaves without finding some excuse to fire me? Of course, I have stalked enough fundamentalist Christian blogs to know the answer to these questions.

First of all, the woman works from home. It is a necessity by virtue of nature of pregnancy. The work force, even some Forbes' top ten employer, is not a great place to be pregnant. Ask any woman who is still at work in her third trimester. It sucks. Secondly, the money comes from a gainfully employed man and maintained by an obsessively frugal wife. Let's face it folks, my husband has an amazing work ethic, but he is an artist. This is historically not gainful. I also am only *okay* at being frugal. If you've been following my blog long enough you'd know that frugality was a lot easier when my kid couldn't crawl. Now that he can do that, and walk, it's almost impossible to bake bread, let alone anything more involved. Every day is a battle to prevent some disgusting food from rotting under the couch.  So I guess there is the seemingly impossible picture of what it would be like to have more kids in our household: my husband would have to stop following his dreams, I would have to get a lot better at the internet and sell costumes online, and I would have to become adept at juggling babies and compromising my beliefs regarding their care and my attentiveness. My dreams for my family seem impossible as our numbers increase.

I think this is why bohemians usually only have 2 kids. We are inherently selfish.

Yes, I need to be needed

For all the talk of infant sleep, of getting and keeping your child in a restful slumber, I have to admit that I feel kind of weird when my kid falls asleep on his own and stays that way. My maternal instinct starts to go off. Is something wrong? Why is he sleeping so far from me? So when he turns, and tosses a few times, and opens his eyes in that sudden and surprised way, I feel a little surge of relief. All is well.

I guess I'm strange because I can really take or leave my kid sleeping like some kind of comatose valium addict. The rhetoric of sleep in North America is completely different than the rest of the world. We sleep less, we work more, and we expect our children to nod off alone and stay that way. The reality is that kids aren't meant to sleep that way. As very young babies, frequent arousals are due to a need for nutrition, comfort, and attachment. It is also associated with reduced chances of SIDS. As babies age, their circadian rythms also mature, but are still not the same as adults. And why would they be? Their brains, expanding and processing as they are, require sleep in different ways than ours do. Not only restorative, sleep is also a time of increased mental activity and growth. Children wake up frequently at night because they cycle through deep and light sleep phases more quickly than adults, not because their sleep is dysfunctional. Even children whose parents believe they sleep through wake at night, they just go back to sleep without parental reassurance.

Of course, there are times when I wish Ender would be guaranteedly fine on his own. When company is over, or when Mike and I have plans to watch a movie just me and him. The baby wakes and I let out a long and audible sigh. There will be no movie. Just cuddling a baby back to sleep.  Mostly, though, aside from being frustrated, I notice progress in Ender's sleep patterns. He sleeps more heavily, and pushes away from me at night, not wishing to be in constant contact. Eventually we will put him on a little mattress of his own next to our bed, and when he is old enough, move him to his own room.

Until then, I'm enjoying being needed. As infrequent as that may be these days, I treasure the way his chubby hands twine in my hair and he lets out a little sigh, so different than my own, of true contentment.