Attention 2-Year-Olds

When you are two years old, you are required to cry when the following things happen:

It’s 12:30 at night.
You wake up with a wet diaper.
Your mommy changes you and goes back to bed.
You suddenly realize that you are not covered by the “Star Blankie” that your Grammie put on you in the car for the ride home, and that your mommy, The Traitor, has covered you with your Frozen Blankie instead.
Your mommy felt especially proud of herself for not leaving said Star Blankie in a crumpled heap on the floor, but folding it and putting it in her car, ready for the next time you all drive to Grammie’s house.
Your mommy, The Idiot, goes downstairs to retrieve Star Blankie from the car in the garage, actually remembers somehow to turn off the house alarm, runs back upstairs, and get this, COVERS you with Star Blankie. Because by this point, you don’t want to be covered up anymore.
Your mother, She Who Thinks She’s So Funny, posts a Facebook status about you to all her friends, presenting you as an impetuous toddler.
Your mother, Who Does She Think She Is, picks you up and in a clueless attempt to comfort you, puts you in her bed, rubs your back, and sings you a freaking song.
In all her infinite wisdom, your mother warms up some milk. Milk. So you say, “I don’t want a baba!” Oh, wait. That tastes pretty good.
It’s 2:30 in the morning.
Headed up to bed again, you’re ready. But wait. Where’s the moon? You can’t see the moon!

Alright, 2-year-olds, at this point it’s 2:45 and you’re starting to get sleepy. If, and only if, all of the above steps have been taken, you are welcome, at this point, to go back to bed. After all, you’ve got a big day ahead of you.

violet.1 — Violet, two years, five months old, the morning after

Only One Birth Plan That Matters

April 2015 is C-Section Awareness Month.

There are a lot of moms out there who think that a c-section is a cop out, or cheating.

In birthing classes, teachers talk about all the things moms can do to avoid c-sections. Women telling delivery room war stories often insert things like “Well, there was no way I was having a c-section!” right before they get to the part where they rallied and delivered.

As if c-section moms didn’t try hard enough. Couldn’t handle the pain. Didn’t love their babies enough to push them out the way God intended.

Or worse, that c-section moms are control freaks who need to fit their births into their busy schedules, appearing at the appointed time with perfectly coiffed hair and fresh manicures, attended by doctors who have tee times later.

Dana and I have five c-sections between us, but we agree, it’s the first one that leaves the biggest scar.

My water broke at 36 weeks, so my labor started off with a clang. From six pm to midnight, I went from 1 cm to 7 cm before I asked for an epidural. At 3 am I was fully dilated with a contraction pattern the nurse said she had never seen before—it was a constant up and down on the monitor with no break. I pushed for three hours, but I don’t remember much because the epidural dropped my blood pressure so low that I could not stop puking.

One moment is crystal clear: I heard the nurse say “Call her doctor” and I knew that wasn’t good. I opened my eyes and saw my mom and Shea look at each other across my belly. For the first time, I realized my mom was still there. We had decided to do it alone, but later Shea told me that it was so scary he was glad she was there.

Then the baby’s heart rate started to drop, and he hadn’t moved at all from the place where he’d been for three hours. Later he would come out with a giant bruise around one eye, swollen and puffy from where he’d been slammed against my pelvic bone again and again while I pushed.

Our birth plan was simple: Everybody lives. So when the OB told us it was time for a c-section, we said yes. My mom, a former Lamaze instructor who had three unmedicated births, stood outside the door praying we would say yes.

A week later, after I’d had time to process the delivery a bit, I asked my mom what would have happened 100 years ago, if I had labored in some dim room in a Victorian house, attended by her and the town doctor.

“Would Gabriel have died?” I asked.

“Yes” she answered.

“Would I have died?”

“Probably.”

And not only that. There would be no Kate or Annie, my second and third c-sections.

There would be no Mazie, whose heart rate dropped off the table during Dana’s delivery, and maybe no Dana. No Violet.

No Jack and Noah. Brixton or Kennedy. Bella or Diego. Gino, Dean and Darren. Wyatt, Avery or Trey. Nick. Eleanor or Emma. Samantha. Marley or Koa. Jason. Quinn. Nicholl and Jennifer. Austin, Christian, Alec, Craig, Alijah, Colbe, Aubrey or Clare.

Maybe you think that list makes the point that c-sections are too prevalent.

I think it tells a different story.

The story of moms who labored, at first in hope and then in fear. Who understand how quickly a moment of life can be overshadowed by a threat of death. Who thank God often that they became mothers in this century and not in any other.

Because facts tell us that the historical level of maternal mortality during childbirth has hovered at 1 in 100. It’s estimated that at some points in the 1800s, 40% of women died in childbirth. The number in the US dropped to 11 in 100,000 in 2009. Many things have contributed to that drop, among them c-sections.

Dana and I think the shaming of c-section moms needs to stop. Both of us are peaceful about how our beautiful children came to be here, but there are women who struggle with the events that led to their c-sections, who suffer post-traumatic stress over their difficult deliveries.

When we tell them they are less than the mom who delivered “naturally”, we hurt all of motherhood.

And we give a lie to the truth that there is only one birth plan that matters: Everybody lives.

Can Is Not Should.

My niece has been visiting the last two weeks. On Saturday, she was thinking about her next time to visit us. She has a friend who goes to Oregon University and his older brother is moving back to California to take a job. But before he starts the job, he wants to road trip up to see his brother at Oregon.

“So I could hitch a ride with him.”

Totally innocent. She’s 22 years old and in a long term relationship. She has known the brother for a while. He’s 25.

But still, “NO” erupted from my mouth, almost before I could think.

“Why?”

“Because he’s 25 and you’re 22 and you have a boyfriend.”

“He’s my friend. It’s not like that.”

“I know, but it’s disrespectful to your boyfriend.”

“How? If he knows the guy and he knows I’m going and he’s ok with it?”

“Then he doesn’t know he should be offended. I can’t explain it, but this is wrong. It just is.”

It just is. Which sat between us for a few seconds before we both started laughing.

“I know it’s lame to say ‘It just is’”, I told her. “But it really just is.”

Earlier in the week, she had floated the idea of going to the local country bar. When I rolled my eyes because it was a Tuesday night, I hate country music and the kids are going to get up at 6:30 regardless of when I go to bed, she was ready with a solution: “Then you leave early and I’ll get an Uber ride home.”

I love this girl. She is a good girl, a college graduate, volunteers with her church’s teen ministry, works for a Catholic company kind of way. She has a solid foundation and lots of support.

But sweet Mother Mary.

I don’t blame her. She is a product of her generation, whose motto seems to be “If we can, then we totally, absolutely should”. They plan and communicate more efficiently than any generation before them because of the amazing technology they have at their fingertips.

In all of this super planning, they very rarely seem to stop and wonder if what they’re doing is necessary. Proper. Prudent.

Perhaps the man in her life won’t care if she travels alone with another man, but his mom might. And her mom. And me.

And I didn’t need to Google “Uber Rapes” to know that Uber is dodgy at best and downright dangerous for a woman alone at night. But when I did Google “Uber Rapes”, I found that taxi rapes are even more prevalent.

So this school of thought that says if you can make all the dots connect on an idea, then it’s a good idea?

Not always, my young friends. Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should. Not without further reflection. There are greater rules that govern our society for the good of one and all, and those need to be considered.

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

In the midst of writing this, I came across a Carol Costello op-ed on CNN called Ready for the Marriage Apocalypse? It’s a perfect example of what I’m talking about. Millenials think they don’t need marriage because they can make all the dots connect on not having marriage.

For them–not all of them, but a majority polled–the here and now is more important than the long term or the eternal.

Traveling through Europe trumps having kids.

No paperwork means no mess when it’s time to move on to the next person.

Yeah, they could be like the generations before them. The same Boomers who burned their bras and lived out of their Volkswagons are now twice as likely to identify as conservative.

But what if they aren’t?

We have to start talking to them in a better way. A way rooted in faith and hope and love. We have to show them that family is a solid and crucial foundation. And that no one can make decisions in a vacuum, thinking only of ourselves and asking only if a thing is possible. I am afraid that if they continue on, so focused on the moment, they will miss out on the lifetime.

Harassed

I’ve been reading so many great articles supporting women. These articles challenge the use of gender to put down someone else (“Stop being a little girl!”), call for the end of devaluing powerful qualities in women and little girls (“She’s bossy,” versus “He takes charge,”) and my favorite, the Always commercial that you can watch here, which challenges the notion of “She hits (or runs, or plays) like a girl.” That last one is my favorite because I can hit the smack out of a volleyball. You WISH you hit like me.

Although it is refreshing to hear and read people discussing these things, on Tuesday I was reminded that there still are differences in the way that people treat men and women, and that sexual harassment is something that creeps its way into our everyday lives.

As a high school teacher, formerly in a school setting, presently in a tutoring setting, I find myself locked in a room with 30+ teenagers on a regular basis. There are some things that are super cool about this, like their eagerness to learn (sometimes), their willingness to please, their creativeness, and their sense of humor. I have taught some really great kids. However, there are some not-so-great things, too, like their defiance of authority, the chip on their shoulder, their disinterest, and their hormones. Oh, those hormones. The girls can sometimes be ultra-sensitive, or cool and stand-offish from one day to the next. And the boys can be giggly, or have a crush on anything that walks in front of them, including me. In fact, when I was a new (read: much younger) teacher, many of the boys would ask, “So, Ms. B, when are we going to go out?” to which I would reply something smug like, “Please. You couldn’t afford my dry-cleaning.” I even had a student that, on every single piece of paper that he turned in to me for an entire year, wrote his name, his phone number, and “call me.” I always laugh off those incidents because they are light-hearted and innocent.

But there have been a few other times where the “joke” has crossed the line. Tuesday was one of those times. In a tutoring class that I teach, there is a group of boys that have been skating close to the line. They’ve been flirtatious, asking me to come to their male-beauty pageant, showing me the dance they’ll be performing which I asked them to stop due to too much pelvic thrusting, but on Tuesday night, on the sign in sheet, one of them signed in as Ron Jeremy, the pornography star. As I checked the sheet I didn’t react, knowing that that’s exactly what “Mr. Jeremy” wanted. But I was angry. If the student had signed in as Luke Skywalker, Michael Jackson, or Ronald McDonald, it would have been funny. But Ron Jeremy has a sexual tone that is absolutely inappropriate for a work or classroom setting.

And you know what? I’m tired of it. I’m tired of discussing it. I’m tired of telling students that this sort of “joke” is inappropriate. They KNOW it is. I’m tired of telling administration about the student that drew an erect, ejaculating penis on a paper that he turned in to me, only to have the incident brushed off as “an error in judgment” and that I need to “lighten up” and “not take it so seriously.” I’m tired of this behavior being swept away, when we know that it is wrong. I’m tired that I am a 39-year-old woman with 15 years of teaching experience and (almost) a Master’s Degree, and I have to put up with sexual harassment from a 17-year-old punk.

And don’t even get me started on what I’ve put up with from principals and district officials. A principal once asked me if I liked the way his “ass moves” as he walked up the stairs in front of me. There was a time that an assistant superintendent of our district leaned in for a hug, but rubbed one hand over my 7-month pregnant belly, looked me in the eye and said, “There’s nothing sexier than a pregnant woman.” I’m tired that this sort of behavior isn’t absolutely abhorrent and that parents, administrators, and district offices don’t drop the hammer on the offenders. I’m done talking about whether or not this happens. It does. While we are all sitting around deliberating what is or is not harassment, women are being harassed. I’m tired of people looking the other way. I’m tired of the offenders being moved and/or promoted and not punished. I’m tired of “sensitivity training.” I’m tired of “Mrs. Alvarez has a problem with Mr. X” I don’t have the problem. He does.

Some friends of ours have an older boy who has a pretty smart mouth. Whenever he says something that he shouldn’t, his parents respond with a “Hey, that’s inappropriate.” That’s it. And he says “inappropriate” things all the time with no consequence. He’s a good kid overall, but he can say whatever he wants and never gets called out on it. I wonder what he says when his parents aren’t around and what he will say in the future.

It’s time, parents. It’s time to start teaching our children that in a world of tongue-in-cheek remarks and innuendo, it is not only inappropriate, but unacceptable to make sexual jokes. It’s unacceptable at school; it’s unacceptable in the workplace. It’s time that we not only expect more from our sons, but that we demand more.

My Thumb is Chartreuse

The awesome news is that we have garden beds:

The less awesome news is that for four straight nights, and after a robust imitation of Spring that caused all the trees to bud, we’ve had frost.

Good thing I didn’t transplant my sprouts.

Here they are, these precious babies that I planted six weeks ago:

Don’t ask me what they are, though. When I first planted the seeds in little pots, I labeled them with cute signs. Then I repotted and my Annie wanted to “help oo” and I lost track of what plants went with what signs. So if you recognize any of my sprouts, feel free to comment. The choices are: cucumbers, tomatoes, lavender and snap peas. Good luck.

I have never started a garden from seeds before. In So Cal, we just went to Lowe’s the first weekend in April that was sunny and hot and bought six inch plants. But we’re in Oregon now and everyone else was buying tiny peat pots and planning out a planting calendar and it made me feel behind.

I asked my cool neighbor Julie, who grew up on property, for pointers. She suggested a grow lite or a grow pad or something. Or possibly both, because she grows her seeds in the garage. I didn’t listen closely to that part because I thought “I’m only growing four things and they can live on the dining room table”.

What I did not foresee was that in the roughly twelve weeks before planting, the seeds would outgrow the tiny little peat pots and need bigger ones. So I went from 36 two inch peat pots which took up minimal space, to 36 four inch peat pots.

Which take up more space.

I also did not reckon on—that’s right, reckon on—the fact that Lizzie the Hound would be uncontrollably attracted to the potting soil.

Which led to the demise of four pots and some ugliness in the dog run for about a week.

At first it was too cold for the plants to be outside at all. Every afternoon I just moved them into the sun spots in the dining room. Then we had a stretch of warm, sunny weather. So every morning I carried them out to the patio and every evening I had to remember to carry them back in.

Which I didn’t, not every time. Some awfully cold nights, I forgot about them.

On Sunday, my English mother-in-law, she of the genetically gifted forest green thumb, asked with a sly smile how my plants were coming on.

By the time I was done describing the last six weeks, she was chortling gleefully into her white wine. Then she slammed her hand down on the table, looked at me from under her raised eyebrows and said—you can only do this justice in your head if you hear an English accent mellowed by 36 years living on Maui—“Why on earth did ya start with SEEDS??? Just go ta Home Depot and BUY THE SIX. INCH. PLANTS!”

Yes, mum. Right away. Mahalo.

I’m not giving up on my seeds, though. We’re going to plant them in one of the beds and see what happens next.

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