Our third child, a boy, was born in mid-July. He’s ten weeks old now and delicious--sometimes smiley and gurgly, sometimes more of a placid gazer, often still quite sleepy. Each of my third trimesters has consisted of eager anticipation punctuated by intermittent bouts of weeping and panicking, and this time, those bouts were mainly fueled by a fear that we were on the verge of drowning. That we’d gotten overconfident, misjudged our capacity, that the tenuous house of cards we’ve built into a domestic life would immediately collapse when he arrived.
Fortunately, that has not (yet) turned out to be true. It helps that Logan is such an easy baby, but we’ve also found that adding a third didn’t throw any surprises at us. The first kid blew up our lives; the second added an exponential amount more labor and coordination; the third required us to buy a minivan, but beyond that? Not many new changes.
I am, though, reaching a point in my postpartum recovery and maternity leave that is familiar to me. His delivery was the easiest, and I’ve felt physically recovered for weeks. He (and his sisters) are sleeping well enough that I feel passably rested most days. My body feels good and my mind is alert(ish), no longer content with binge-watching TV all day, getting restless for something meaningful and productive to engage with—but my hands are, literally, full. Nursing and diaper changing and spitup-wiping and shushing and rocking are active tasks that require my full physical engagement, but are also—let’s be honest—tedious as hell a lot of the time. The other day, I was in our bedroom, hovering over the white noise machine, bouncing up and down, one arm cradling the drowsy-and-crabbing baby, the pinkie of my other hand resting in his mouth because he dearly loves the ‘sucking’ element of the 5Ss but wants only a parent’s fingertip and will accept no rubber substitutes, and my brain just felt like a hamster wheel. Whizzing, whizzing, whizzing furiously with no traction, no way to produce something or move forward. I had a sudden vision of myself as the mosquito John Hammond studies in his cane topper in the early scenes of Jurassic Park: trapped in amber mid-flight. (I also then reflected on what it might say about me that I have repeatedly drawn parenting analogies from Jurassic Park.)
So here I am, writing again, carving out a couple of minutes where my hands get to connect with my brain. I have repeated “do one thing each day that can’t be undone” as a sanity-saving mantra since Amelia was born. Or at least, right now, I will try for once a week.
If you like reading Extra Credit, would you consider sharing it somewhere, or with someone? Parenting can be hard and isolating even in non-pandemic times, and lately…..well, you know. It helps to connect!
Ask A Teacher
Because I am now a mom of three and therefore officially Frazzled, and because I’ve been out of the classroom for awhile and don’t intend to return, I’m going to gradually step away from writing for this column! I’ll be responding to questions here and there until Slate finds a new columnist, and I’ll link them here when they run. In the meantime I’ll post some columns that published over the past few months. Here’s one about handling nosy personal questions from parents:
I have been teaching elementary school for several years, and I’m moving to a new school next year where the parents are notoriously…. intense. I am all about parents advocating for their kids, and I form strong relationships with families, which helps us all do the best for their student. But, I’m very petite and look quite young. Upon meeting me, parents regularly ask me if I’m a new teacher, and when I say that I’ve actually been teaching for many years, they ask how old I am. I don’t feel like I need to reveal my age to them, but I’m not sure how to respond to this (very rude and inappropriate) question in a way that still communicates that I’m interested in having a positive relationship. My strategy in the past has been to say “older than I look!” It usually works okay. But recently I met some parents at my new school for a summer class I’ll be teaching, and two parents would. not. drop. it. It was extremely awkward. Any advice?
Recommendations
I was emotionally knocked backwards by this excerpt from Gabrielle Union’s new memoir. It’s about her baby’s birth via surrogacy, and I was not expecting so much vulnerability and emotional clarity from such a public figure:
So much time has passed. So many firsts. Yet the question lingers in my mind: I will always wonder if Kaav would love me more if I had carried her. Would our bond be even tighter? I will never know what it would have been like to carry this rockstar inside me. When they say having a child is like having your heart outside your body, that’s all I know. We met as strangers, the sound of my voice and my heartbeat foreign to her. It’s a pain that has dimmed but remains present in my fears that I was not, and never will be, enough.
I just finished The Upstairs House, and as I posted on Instagram, it is a late contender to edge out Leave the World Behind as THEE SCARIEST FUCKING BOOK of 2021. It’s a strange and surreal novel that I might describe as….postpartum Gothic horror? The narrator, Megan, gives birth to her baby Clara and begins to devolve into postpartum psychosis as she is literally haunted by the ghosts of her unfinished PhD dissertation. It, to put it bluntly, fucked me up!
My binge-watch of choice in the early weeks with the new baby was a repeat viewing of both seasons of Succession. It is so good, you guys, and it’s coming back in October! I inhaled both of these long articles about the creator and the cast of the show to tide me over until season 3 premieres.
We took a long car trip in April, and I bought these $6 lap trays at Walmart beforehand. Where have they been for all of my life! (Or at least the portion of it in which I take extended road trips with little kids!) The tray fits neatly over the carseat and has a large, sturdy desk surface and ample compartments on each side to hold snacks, toys, stickers, and whatever other diversions you stockpiled. I will never leave the driveway without them again.
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