Tag Archives: motherhood

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When Old Men Attack

Saturday was a hot day. By 9:30am, the sun was already setting us on fire while we were getting ready for the last little league game of the season. I mentioned how a nice iced drink would be perfect, and we decided to hit McDonald’s drinks to cool off with. No big deal, and our son in the back seat was excited for his day of baseball then a picnic with his teammates. The day was supposed to be a good and stress free day, and so far so good. That was wishful thinking too soon, I should’ve known better.

As we pulled away from the “drive thru”, barely out of the corner of my eye I notice a car too late. The guy saw that we didn’t notice him and decided to continue his drive anyways. He stopped so we went ahead, and we thought that it was all done with. We were wrong. In my view I could see that he pulled up next to us, and was yelling at us through his window. When my husband opened his window, and a slew of profanities came out of this old man’s mouth. He apparently expected my husband to climb out of the car and bow down to this obviously superior white man to beg for his forgiveness. My husband calmly said “I’m sorry I didn’t see you, I already said I’m sorry. What more would you like?” This man continued to yell, and I swore I heard him hurl a few racial slurs towards my husband. Luckily the light turned and we went on our way trying to forget this incident.

A few things bothered us about what happened. The obvious thing was that this man (who was easily in his 50’s-60’s) felt that he had a need to belittle my husband over a mistake. A grown and supposedly mature man was acting like a 16-year-old. The fact that he hurled obscenities and slurs at my husband was bad enough, but we had a 9-year-old in the back seat listening to this person act this way. He listened as a person referred to my husband with words he’s never heard before and words he knew were negative towards him. If my son wasn’t the kid he was, that man could’ve shown him that it was acceptable to use that language in that situation. Luckily, my husband is a good person and obviously a much better man than this guy twice his age.

I have an awful temper, I know this and I know well enough to swallow my words most of the time before something is said that would make me ashamed. That man should’ve been ashamed of himself, and I could see from the look on his wife’s face that she was ashamed enough for all of us. Road rage is awful enough, but what gives that man the right to say what he said? He would’ve been just as much as fault if we did actually get in an accident, as he didn’t look like he was going to stop when he realized we didn’t see him. So what, my husband is Asian and the joke is that Asians can’t drive. There’s also a joke that old people shouldn’t drive, should we have said “get your eyes checked old man” or “you people shouldn’t be on the road after 50”? No, if we had it would’ve been appalling and they would talk about how the younger people don’t respect their elders. Yet this man is able to shout racial slurs and people probably wouldn’t care except people that are negatively called “liberals making a big deal out of something minor”. This incident scares me more than I was before about my child being mixed race in this society. I hope that either things change or my children will help make this change.

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When Pregnancy Meets Summer

I’m a bit of a wuss when it comes to heat. I’ve fainted more than a handful of times due to the heat, and it’s not ever even all that hot. I’m fairly certain my body just slowly starts shutting down when it hits 75 degrees, and for every 10 degrees after that I become more miserable. I apologize, I don’t just get more miserable. I become incredibly intolerable as well. I’m a January baby, I love the cold. If whatever means controls the world had wanted me to be a summer baby, they would’ve made me a little less gingery and a little more into beaches and pools.

Last pregnancy, I wasn’t very big at all during the pregnancy only gaining about 10 lbs maybe at most. The summer only bothered me as much as summer normally bothers me. This summer I’m shamefully admitting being an extra 30somethinglbs of baby, and it’s not comfortable at all. In fact, I would rank it pretty low on my comfort scale. I think that my plan on having a child during a time when it can have a party it can enjoy without fear of snow or being too cold backfired on me. Sure he gets a pool party, but I get to sweat through all 5 of my maternity shirts and wish I could just sit around in my underwear in front of my AC, nicely nestled against my bed. Maybe I should get a mini-fridge for there too, so I could just stay in my bedroom all summer long and wait this fetus out.

I can probably take comfort that I’m not the only miserable pregnant woman fighting 90+ degree weather, but I’m a New Englander. I’m used to snow and rain and awful weather, while crying about how humid our summers are wishing to move to Alaska. I won’t go to Alaska though, I saw 30 Days of Night. There’s a political joke in there somewhere, but I’m not touching it. Just like I’m not touching a vampire. Twilight was wrong, vampires aren’t sparkly they just look that way as you transform into one of them. They are just as uninteresting as the movies make them out though.

So while pregnancy books all say “go out and swim and keep hydrated in this heat”, I’ll deal with this my way. I’m going to alternate between laying next to my AC and an ice tub filled bathtub, while wanting to migrate to Canada. If you nuts can go south for the winter to stay in summer heat, I can go north to frenchieland to keep winter. I’d take a fjord over a beach any day.

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And Then, He Went Down

Children are just like us: no matter what, there’s a risk to everything they do. We want them to go out with friends, but I don’t know any parent that doesn’t worry when their child isn’t in their sight. Anything can happen and if something did, we’d second guess our decision to let them be free. The truth of the matter is we can’t bubble wrap them as much as we’d love to. All we can do is protect them in the best way we’re capable of, and hope that fate or whatever you believe in follow suit.

Case in point: putting your child in a sport. Organized sports are an incredible thing for our children. It teaches them sportsmanship and discipline. They get a ton of exercise, and they get to befriend people outside of their little circle at school. I fully support those youth organizations that help our children both physically and mentally. I would dare to argue that putting a child in some sort of organization that teaches discipline and sportsmanship helps that child grow up with team building skills. After all, they do enforce that there is no I in team. For the record and on a side note, I do hate that expression but the song is good.

The downfall of sports is the risk of injury. My son plays baseball, and does well at it. Of course everything has a risk, but the risk always seems higher when your child is just as graceful as you are. And if you’re as impossibly clumsy as I am, you spend more time worrying than you probably should. Every bruise he gets from pretending he’s a goal tender with line drives, I wonder if I should’ve signed him up for a chess team for 9 year-olds. He hits himself clumsily with his bat, and you really second guess this.  He enjoys it though, and it’s something he’d love to continue on with. As much as we fear harm, sometimes we just have to take a deep breath and support them. It could be worse, he could want to be a skateboarder or an X-Game BMX star. On Saturday his team had a game against their bitter rivals, and yes I’m just as in awe that a little league team has bitter rivals that young. His first up at bat was successful, he drove the ball and took the base. The next up at bat he did make it on base, but it was a lot less successful. The batter before him gets hit in the leg, he shakes the leg and takes his base. My son takes the plate, and he’s ready and determined to smack this ball in the outfield. The ball, it had other plans. The pitcher pitches and before my son could react, there he was on the ground. The ball went straight to his head.

As a parent on the sidelines, you don’t have time to react. If we had blinked, we would’ve missed this entirely. We didn’t blink though, and as soon as he went down, he stood up and gave us a thumbs up while running to first base. He was fine, and he was fine because we spent a few extra dollars on a well padded and sturdy helmet. Even though we can’t be there every second, we can still give them the tools to be safe. The bat he uses is second-hand, his batting and catching gloves are the same he’s had since he’s started. This year, we decided with kid’s pitch we’d rather be safe than sorry and bought extra protection for him. That moment, I was thankful we had. I was also thankful we’re crazy parents to know the signs of concussions or head injury. I’m also not ashamed to admit I didn’t sleep that night and constantly checked on him while he was sleeping. Sports are a great activity for your children, but the better thing you can do is to make sure they are well protected because you never know what could happen.

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A Letter To My Unborn Child

Dear Fetus,

Your father and I are overjoyed by the idea of your presence. I’m certain that it was an incredibly happy day when he found out he was going to be a father again. We’ve watched you grow for 29 weeks and it’s been a miraculous journey. However, it occurs to me you’re getting overcrowded in there and sharing a body with another person has become uncomfortable for me too. I would like to propose a small list to make these last few weeks more enjoyable for both of us, because I’m certain that your life will be miserable otherwise.

1) We need to discuss your sleeping. I know that I’m a bit of an insomniac normally, but since pregnancy I’ve grown used to sleeping at night. That was until you decided your prime time for activity occurs during my prime time for sleeping. I’d like you to consider changing your time of activity to daytime so I’m not too tired to feed us both. Cereal is not filling enough, and I’m too self-conscious to go for seconds.

2) I know we all have certain positions we like to sleep in. I appreciate that, except I don’t appreciate that your favorite sleeping position is on the major nerve on either side of me. I enjoy walking, I enjoy not having a searing pain shooting down to my toes. My theory is that this wouldn’t be an issue if you were to change the time of your sleeping. Let’s be reasonable, compromise is something all roommates need to work out.

3) Finally, no I don’t like pepperoncinis, buffalo wings, or artichoke hearts in oil. Don’t make me want them and make me regret ignoring you after, it’s not happening. This proves you already are your father and brother but since neither of them are carrying you, you’re going to have to just deal with it.

With these few requests, I hope that we can learn to live out these next 10 weeks in peace. I promise to continue to make sure your large appetite is well fed with food that doesn’t make me want to vomit. Let’s work in harmony to make this enjoyable for the both of us, because when you’re born I know that we’ll both live in chaos for the first few weeks. A nice, well-rested mother before labor will benefit us both.

Love always,

Mom

P.S. You can’t keep kicking people who “invade your territory”. The doctors need to hear  your heart and see you, and they think you’re a silly little ham of a boy. I think you’re just being a pain in the butt. Prove me wrong.

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Spending Nights on the Bathroom Floor as Parents

I’m sure we’ve all had those nights after staying out late where you made your bed on the bathroom floor so your evening’s mistakes would end up in the toilet and not your bedroom floor. Eventually we grow into parenting, and these days we spend our time sitting on the floor while our child vomits away a fever. It’s heartbreaking watching them moan and shake while getting sick, but it’s good to know that they can curl up in our arms afterwards to comfort them. It doesn’t make you feel any better though, and I think all parents hate it when they watch their child feeling miserable.

Once my son, then around 1 1/2 or 2, had a fever during a weekend he was away from me. I received a call at work telling me he had a high fever and wasn’t feeling well. I heard myself repeating “take him to the doctor’s” and restating the doctor’s information. He was never taken to the doctors and when I had gotten him back, his eyes were sunken in and he was lethargic.  He wasn’t my son, he was a zombie form of my child. I was scared, and luckily my doctor’s office had a nurse that was able to calm me down and told me to head to the emergency room.

I’ll remember that trip forever I think. The nurses were urgent with him, and hurried him into a hospital gown. I remember the look of terror in his eyes when they put in the I.V. and taped it to his arm and splint, and pumped him full of fluids. They took vials of blood and I sat and watched helplessly while this happened. He was sick and needed me to comfort him, but I couldn’t. They wanted us to walk around with him to make him thirsty enough to drink and my now husband got him a snack to coax him into drinking enough to get discharged. Several hours later he was released, diagnosed with a rhinovirus and severe dehydration. Ever since then, I’ve been neurotically overprotective every fever he’s had since then.

Mothers have this natural ability to tell when they’re kids are seriously sick or not. From the phone call, I knew instantly he needed to be seen by the doctor. Other times, I knew he had an ear infection and while the doctor’s argued with me, they checked and discovered I was right. We have this child inside of us for 9 months, and that gives us the ability to sense something wrong with them. This isn’t just true for the child being sick; I find that it applies to knowing when he’s had a bad day at school or similar situations like that. It’s hard to explain until you’ve experienced it.

Sometimes we are irrational and overprotective, but sometimes you need to trust our maternal instincts. It might not make sense, but there’s usually a reason for it and it pays off when you listen. It still bothers me today when I sit there with the doctor and they don’t listen to me until they see that I’m right. “No, there’s nothing wrong he’s just small because that’s the way he’s supposed to be. That and he didn’t exactly hit the genetic lottery in the height pot.” The worst thing we can do is let our kids see us buckle under the pressure, whether it’s crying with them when they get a shot or getting nervous in the hospital. Kids get sick, everybody does. It might be heartbreaking, but as the parent it’s your job to make them feel as awesome as possible.