Better

I haven't felt like writing lately.  I was in quite a royal funk for a week or so.  Sometimes its really, really hard to be a parent.  Yes, I know how fortunate I am - a healthy child, a job, a husband whom I adore and who adores me and is a fantastic dad.  Knowing this makes me feel even worse about myself.  So I sulk, I eat, I cry, I watch television.  I feel fat and frumpy and out of the loop.  And then I get over it.  This week, I'm better.

Two lunches out with friends make a first-time mom feel good.  I reconnected to my friends and to myself.  My husband and my mom gave me the gift of time to myself, which really is the most precious gift anyone can give a new mom.

And I realized something - I want to be the best Mom I can be for Baby J, which means I need to do whatever it takes to make myself happy.  When I feel good about myself I can focus my energy on my son with gusto and joy, which is exactly what that amazing little boy deserves.  Being happy with myself means I deserve time with friends now and then.  It means I should wear clothes that fit and make me feel good.  It means I need time to move.  It means I stop freaking out about dirty floors and dirty dishes all the time.  This motherhood is mine - what's with all the comparing?  Snap out of it! 

J. deserves better.  I can be better. 

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

I love me some New Year's resolutions.  I love the fresh and clean feeling of the new year, new calendars, new planners, putting away the Christmas decorations, cleaning out closets and underneath beds.  I love January magazines, with their articles about diets and cleanses and organizing.  I love that the days are getting just a little bit longer every day.  I am ready to hit this January hard!  Watch out!

I decided yesterday driving home from Target that I'm tired of whining - I've got such a good life.  My baby is healthy, my husband is sweet, hardworking, and cute, I've got a good job and live in a lovely neighborhood - what the heck do I really have to complain about?  Sure, I'm tired a lot, and I don't have time to exercise like I'd like to, and I have an addiction to sugar, and I wish I could work less and still retain benefits.  I'm not alone.  And these things are not ideal.  But I am so lucky.  Navel-gazing and bellyaching aren't going to change any of those things and will likely only make me feel bad.  So forget it, pal! 

I'm not saying I'm never going to complain again, or feel sorry for myself sometimes.  I'm human.  But whether I eat a piece of chocolate or whether my thighs are heavier than I'd like - these are small potatoes.  So I'm gonna make potato salad - and savor every messy, tangy bite of my life.

Thankful List, 2011

So many things.  Sooooo many things. 

Parents who love me, who always loved me, who always tried to do their best for me.
Marrying into a wonderful, sane family.
My affectionate, intelligent, hardworking husband.
My sweet-natured, healthy, adorable little boy.

A job I like.  Some things about it I love, some things I don't like, so it averages out to Like. 
A pretty, safe neighborhood in which to live.
My health.

Peace in my nation -  that I don't have to be a refugee or victim of war crimes.  Lack of famine, that I might be able to be fed and feed my child.

And now, the sillier things:

J.R. Martinez, champion of Dancing With the Stars season 13.  I started watching a lot more television once the baby was born - who has energy to do anything else, especially at first?  For some reason I began watching DWTS, and I fell in love straightaway with J.R.  His joyful energy was a delight to watch all season.  And Bruno's ridiculous judge's comments are always fun too!

Tina Fey, Mindy Kaling, the cast of "Modern Family" (another recent television discovery.)  Reruns of "The Office" and "Seinfeld"   - for making me laugh on a regular basis.

The New York Yankees.  Not a championship season, but fun to watch nonetheless.  Baseball season is the best three-quarters of the year - it's springtime, then it's summer, then it's early fall.  I married into a passion for the Yankees, and it's really been fun learning all about the mechanics and history of the game.  Baseball is definitely a game for nerds, so I fit right in the demographic.  (Although I'd be more thankful if we'd never gotten rid of Johnny Damon or Matsui.  And if we could gently unload A.J. Burnette.)

The patience of my friends for looking at all the pictures of Baby I post on Facebook.

The 30 minutes a day I get to read, uninterrupted, on my lunch break at work.

Cute baby clothes with wry, silly sayings on them, like the Halloween onesie that says "Take Me to My Mummy."  They didn't have such things when I was a baby.

Coke Points, which allow me to subscribe to magazines I otherwise wouldn't bother subscribing to.


Good warm bread spread with butter.
Mmmm, butter. 

I am going to eat so much food tomorrow.  :)

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Another Fat Mom

I am not going to become another fat mom.  There are already too many of those around today, sadly.  I completely see now how someone lets this happen to them, since having James.  There are not nearly enough minutes in the day to accomplish things as mundane as mopping the floor or raking the backyard, let alone time enough to nurture your own soul. 

I adore my child; he is the greatest thing I've contributed to in my whole life.  His sweetness and delight are infectious and addictive.  I can't get enough of his sweet smell or the way he smiles at me.  Even so...  there are times when I head straight to the pantry and stuff candy or cookies or chocolate in my mouth as fast as I can cram it in.  I have realized that I do this because it's a tiny little escape.  It's a precious second of time just for ME.  Sweets are associated in my mind with comfort, with release, with good times.  I use them as a way to nurture myself.  Until the second after the taste leaves my tongue. 

Then it's a litany of horrible feelings washing over me, sounding in my head.  Ugly, fat, glutton, addiction, disgusting... on and on.  You don't need this, I tell myself.  You shouldn't.  Don't have another piece.  And then I do, a big f*** you to the food Nazi in my brain.  And then I feel even worse.

I've checked out and bought countless books about food addiction, I have watched Oprah and read her magazine regularly, I know the drill.  I am not stupid.  No one who struggles with food addiction is stupid.  We all know what to do to be healthy and lose weight.  But this isn't even about weight for me, at least not at this stage.  Breastfeeding is managing to help me maintain my pre-pregnancy weight, thank God.  This is about control, and feeling my emotions, and managing them.  This is about feeling good about myself, dealing with loneliness, dealing with fatigue.  This is about trying to figure out how to be a mother and still feel like myself, like a whole and separate person. 

So I know how women become fat after having kids, or become alcoholics, or abuse pills, or shop themselves into debt.  Whatever your coping mechanism was before you had kids is the thing you'll turn to after.  We do it because doing so feeds something in our souls that is lacking.  We do it because we're tired, we're sick of doing all the housework, we're lonely for adult conversation.  We do it because, while we love our kids more than anything in the world, we need someone to nurture us too. 

Baby Tornado

Hi! I'm here, once again. Baby J. is also here, born July 1, 2011 at 4:17 am after a long induced labor due to my gestational diabetes. He's healthy, I'm healthy, and we are blessed with this precious, sweet boy.

Our life is so different now. I was right, I had NO idea how my life was about to change. It's a completely new life we're living. I'm not an idiot, I should have been more prepared for this, but I truly don't think one CAN prepare for all the changes. No sleep (about 3-5 nonconsecutive hrs per night for me.) LOTS of diapers. Sore nipples. Watching a LOT of tv. No reading (I've read about 50 pages of my book since he's been born.) Trying to nap when the baby naps (good advice but not always easy to do!) At least one load of laundry per day.

Initially the hardest thing for me to wrap my mind around was my new identity as Mom. I had simply been Laila for 34 years, the woman who reads, works out, goes to work at the library, goes out with friends to the Farmers Market and Tomato Head whenever she wanted to, had all damn day with which to do whatever she wanted. Now I am Laila, the Mom of J. And my priority is this little innocent guy who needs us to take care of him. He comes first. If he's crying, I put down my lunch, I delay my shower, I get off the phone. It's a challenge to be thrust into that mindset suddenly when they let you out of the hospital to be on your own with this tiny life.

I know it won't always be this way. I know one day I'll have more time for myself and for my relationship with the hubby. I see moms of elementary school kids at the library and they seem more together than moms of babies or toddlers, so I know that things get more settled as your children grow up. I'm really trying to enjoy this time, when he's so small and needs me so much. I love when he looks at me with those big eyes when he's feeding, and his tiny hands grasp my fingers as I'm holding his head. I love when he curls up into the crook of my shoulder after a feeding, and he's all passed out asleep, so content. I love his little grunts and snores when he's sleeping. I love his quiet alert time when he wakes up in the morning. I love laying him down on his activity mat and talking to him about the animal toys on the bar above him.

I can't wait to teach him about the world. This job is among the most important, shaping and guiding a life. I hope to endeavor to deserve it.

So here's the thing...

A friend of mine says that all the time, and it's one of my favorite things about her. I find it's a good way to begin a post.

The thing is, lately I've been feeling stressed. And feeling stressed during my pregnancy makes me even more stressed, because then I worry about what the stress is doing to my baby. A borderline high glucose test, my husband's new job and variable schedule, trying to get the baby's room ready, trying to figure out what to register for, trying to keep the house clean... all these things press upon me. And I know it's all normal, just part of it, the anxiety, the unsettled feeling. So far this pregnancy has been a great teacher! I am learning just how much I crave order and a sense of control. I'm learning how rigid I can be, stuck in my cozy routine just like the typical bullish Taurus that I am.

I want to be able to do everything and do it well. I want to have a clean, orderly home, a sweet, pretty, organized room for the baby, time for relaxing, time for my husband, time for my friends, time for my family, time to walk, time to shop well and eat right, time to sleep. I feel like I should make a keepsake scrapbook of my pregnancy, and the fact that I haven't begun makes me feel bad. Then there are all the baby books I've got lined up on my bookshelf - one about newborns, one about breastfeeding, one about labor, a few about everything. They reproach me when I look at them, since I've yet to finish any or begin some at all.

I gotta turn those books in. I need to give myself a break. This baby doesn't care if he has a scrapbook, or if his mom has an organized closet. He just needs me to love him, feed him, keep him safe and dry. I can do that. I can't wait to do that. I can't wait to meet him, nurture him, watch him develop into a person. He's already changing me, making me better, shaking up my routines and my world view. I can't do everything. How did I ever think that I could? Or that I should have to?

Secrets and Pet Peeves

Secret: I don't like the K-town Mexican food institution that is Senor Taco. I'll go there willingly for a birthday party or a get-together, but I just don't share the love for that place that everyone else in my age bracket seems to feel.

Pet Peeve: When people say "Li-berry" instead of "Library."

Secret: I feel ignorant and uninformed when the talk turns to unions, collective bargaining, and balancing state budgets. I hear people say all the time that unions are part of the reason nothing is made in America anymore. I tend to favor the corporate greed argument, but I know it has to be more complicated than that.

Pet Peeve: When people get their library card out of their wallet and throw it on the desk.

Secret: I sometime worry that my friends think I'm an annoying, uncool, boring doofus.

Pet Peeve: When I say "Hello" or "How are you?" to someone and they don't respond. Am I speaking Farsi?

Secret: I count and cheer on every single day that this baby is in my body when I get up in the morning. 22 weeks and 3 days, 22 weeks and 4 days... way to go Peanut! I pray that he is healthy, I am healthy, and we both make it happily through all 40 or so weeks, through the delivery, and beyond.

I am too blessed to concentrate on more pet peeves. :)

Another Me

I started cleaning out the office, which will hereby be known as the baby room. It looks like a bomb went off in there now, but I have a vision of soothing, semi-organized loveliness to come. I found two boxes of letters, cards, and mementos from college. Last night I sat on the couch and started going through one, only making it half-way before I felt soaked in too much nostalgia.

Letters are fantastic. No one writes them anymore. But this is not that blog entry, the one where I lament the death of paper and pen. This is the one where I ponder who the hell that person was that received all those letters. Certainly she was lucky, to be loved by so many interesting people, eager to share their summers and Christmas breaks and semesters abroad with her.

As my stack of things to toss out grew, so did my discomfort level. A potent mix of feelings swirled within - embarrassment, yearning, gratitude, sadness. I realized just how different I am now, how much I am not that 20-year-old anymore. Old regrets rose to the surface with the hindsight of the past 14 years. I should have studied in London, I should have applied myself more to my schoolwork, I should have spent a summer at an internship away. Simultaneously I took heart in the knowledge that these great people loved me, confided in me, missed me. I was surely doing something right in my life at that time to be surrounded by a circle of true friendship and camaraderie.


My husband always tells me I'm too hard on myself, and I know he's right. I had a wonderful college experience, full of interesting classes, amazing relationships, silliness, crushes, road trips, stupid arguments, parties, dancing... all the things that make going away from home for four years worthwhile and edifying. Hubby says, "You're just a late bloomer," and he's right again. Self-confidence and a willingness to try new things came relatively later in life to me, and sometimes that's just how it goes. Better late than never, I say. Still, reading all those letters dredged up old self-doubt.

With a box and a half to go through, part of me wants to just chuck it all! Sometimes it's better to let your old life rest, let your former self stay mostly forgotten.

Craving oranges, enjoying everything.

I'm back. I've missed this cute little blog o' mine. Not enough to actually write something, apparently, but I'm here now.

Things are happening in my life, and I finally feel at liberty to start talking about them. I'm expecting a child in early July. Sixteen weeks into this crazy process I feel like maybe, just maybe, I can talk about it and write about it at will, and everything will be okay. Guess I've inherited my mother's superstitious nature after all - or maybe I'm just a worry-wart. But I also know that things will be what they will, no matter what I tell the world. And that is my father's Persian fatalism coming out in me.

One of the absolute best things so far about being pregnant is that for the first time in my life, I don't give a damn about reading the omnipresent articles in women's magazines about losing weight. I don't care a lick about the segments on the morning shows about diet and exercise. I am eating intuitively for the first time that I can recall. I actually like it when the scale inches up a pound. I am caring for and nurturing a future human being inside of me - I am growing a person! It's so profoundly amazing. I know it happens all the time, all over the world, and has for millions of years. But this is MY experience, my body, my future child. It is intensely consuming, fascinating, absorbing. It's all I can do to direct my attention elsewhere.

I hope that after the baby arrives I can cling to this feeling of caring for my body, treating myself kindly, forgiving what society says are its "flaws." I want to set a good example for my child, so that they might know what it means to value health over a number on the scale or a pants size. That they might eat some pizza or a doughnut without self-flagellation. They they can arm themselves against messages from corporations and media outlets trying to sell them self-hate.

The trouble with blogging...

How much is too much to share?

I've not been writing lately. I've been in a pissy mood lately. I think the two are related. I was doing dishes the other night, an excellent vehicle for thinking. I was struck by a realization - I'm angry. Not enraged, just a slow-simmering frustration. The act of acknowledging this emotion was temporarily freeing. I wrote a short bit in my journal and felt better the rest of the evening. Relief was fleeting, though. This morning I was my short-tempered, frazzled self again.


I don't want to write (here) about the source of my frustration - and that's the problem I have with blogging. I read blogs in which people share so much personal information that I can't help but wonder how their family members, co-workers, and friends stand it. This blog was begun in an attempt to get myself unstuck and to get my pen moving across the page again. I can say it worked on both fronts - until now. I don't really know who all reads my blog, who gives a damn at all about what I say, but something just doesn't feel right about putting details of my life out there for public consumption.

Seems like more and more people want to put everything out there these days. I'm on Facebook, but I'm trying to wean myself off of it. I guess I'm getting paranoid in my old age, but I just can't help but wonder what all this over-sharing is doing to our society, to our kids. I thank GOD that we didn't have Facebook and smart phones when I was growing up! (It's bad enough that high school classmates of mine put old pictures of us on Facebook - why?!?) I know I sound like a curmudgeon, and sometimes I feel like one. But I'd rather be a curmudgeon than addicted to gadgets. That's just me.

So why am I blogging, you ask? Good question. If I can't write about what's bugging me, then maybe I shouldn't write publicly at all. Well, I'll have to contemplate that one. There is room out there for a mostly positive blog, right? They don't all have to be navel-gazing downers or avenues of expressing frustration. So maybe I'll stick to the light stuff in the future. I'm pondering.

In any case, this mood I've been in has to stop. My new motto is: SCREW IT. I'd say something more emphatic but I'm trying to keep it PG-13. Scared of flying to Oregon in a month? Screw it, you can't live your life in fear. Worried about cutbacks at the library? Can't do a damn thing about it, so screw it. Don't feel like going to the gym? Screw it, go anyway, you'll feel better! I think it's gonna work. Bad mood or no, life rolls on. I am so lucky compared to so many. I have my health, my husband has his health, I have wonderful friends, I have a good job, I am blessed to be married to my true love. Goodness abounds! All that stuff that weighs me down, makes me frustrated and tired and bleak - Screw. It.

A Dirty Job

Why does it feel so good to clean? Last weekend I dripped with sweat, pink-faced from my vigorous battle with the kitchen floor tiles. But I felt fantastic. I was momentarily renewed, peaceful, and felt like I'd really accomplished something. It's exceedingly fleeting, this feeling, especially with two vomiting, shedding cats and a husband who insists on wearing shoes in the house. But that five minutes when the floors glow are worth the effort. I think.

Making order out of chaos is always thrilling for me - I'm not a neat freak, not by anyone's standards. But a clean(ish) house is one thing I can control in a world where I sometimes feel powerless (Gulf oil spill, animal hoarders, my insane family, etc. etc.) My A.D.D. doesn't allow for sharp attention to detail, but I do enjoy a good cleaning session - a mopped floor, a huge bag of clothes sent to the thrift store. It's best done on Sundays, and best done when I'm alone.

I can still fall into the trap of comparing myself to others in the homemaking department. Sometimes I think, a real adult has a cleaner, more organized house than mine. But lately I'm trying to maintain a more Zen attitude towards it. There will always be cat hair, mud, garlic clove skins, peppercorns, all manner of everyday detritus spilled and tracked in on shoes. Laundry keeps on getting worn, junk mail keeps arriving, recycle bins keep filling. We just do our best, right? Life keeps happening, the good and the bad, whether or not we're ready for it. We don't have to compare ourselves to anyone else in this world, not in terms of the cleanest house or the biggest bank account or the smallest dress size. We adapt, we manage. Managing is really pretty good when you stop to think about it.