An Ode to Curiosity...and Learning...and Peregrine

Forgive the red eyes. And the goofy expression. But this was a fairly accurate representation of Peregrine from about five weeks to five months.

I noticed when it happened. It was a matter of days, maybe even hours. But when Peregrine was about five weeks old, he opened his eyes.

Not that they hadn't been open before. But something changed, really changed, around the five-week mark. It was like suddenly, he could see, and his eyes popped wide open, and he started looking at the world, and studying it, and eating it up, and drinking it all in.

Peregrine has the most insatiable curiosity of any child, and possibly any person, I have ever met. He reminds me sometimes of some little wild creature, all of his senses so incredibly keen and honed and alert. He'll be playing away happily and then just sit up, tense, his eyes huge and all his muscles ready for action. I will have heard nothing, but if I pay attention very closely I'll eventually find out what caught his attention. A dog barking several blocks away. A siren up the hill in town. A little bird on the deck. Andrew's car pulling into the driveway.

Maybe it's the teacher in me, but it absolutely fascinates me watching Peregrine learn. It blows me away with amazement. He has such a readable face, and he does everything with such intense zest and zeal, that I can all but see the wheels turning in his brain. He eats up every new experience and stores it in his memory, and hones it and refines it and figures out what it all means.

He's in a very steep learning growth spurt right now, especially when it comes to language. He's always been pretty vocal and verbal, and he has a substantial vocabulary, but it's his understanding that has amazed me lately. How does he do it? How can someone who has been alive for such a short time pick up on the things I say as quickly and eagerly as he does?

He absolutely loves "assisting" me with housework. I've always encouraged it, because I think the best way to teach children to work is to include them early and make it fun. So I give exaggerated thank yous when he hands me silverware out of the dishwasher or picks up stray socks from the laundry basket. And I always tell him what a wonderful helper he is, how much I need his help, and so on. Now all I have to do is say "I need your help!" and he dashes across the room, ready to save the day by closing a door or retrieving a fallen spoon. Yesterday he shut himself in the bathroom, and then opened a drawer in front of the door. He couldn't get out, and I couldn't get him out because of the drawer. I knew the only way he was coming out was if he closed the drawer, but I had no idea how to tell him this. Then I remembered that closing things (drawers, washing machine doors, etc) has been one of his favorite ways of helping lately, so I told him I needed his help--could he be my helper and close the drawer? He started hyperventilating with joy at coming to my rescue again, and the next thing I knew, the drawer was closed and he was free. A month ago, a week ago even, he would have had no idea what I meant. It floors me how fast he picks up patterns and learns what things mean.

He watches and analyzes constantly, and he is always making connections. When he hurts himself, he wants a quick snuggle, and then he immediately returns to the site of the injury and tries to figure out exactly what went wrong. When I tell him no, he wants to know exactly what I meant. No ripping the toilet paper? No touching the toilet paper at all? No approaching the toilet paper? And he never forgets anything. He knows every off-limits item in the house. (In fact, he can't get away with anything, because he tells himself no loudly, even when I'm not nearby). I took something away from him this morning, and explained to him that it wasn't for him, it would make him choke. He looked at me with big, earnest eyes, and then started coughing and gagging. Oh! Choke! I know that one!

He's noticed lately that I throw the compost off the side of the deck. So, helpfully, he's been carrying all the crumbs and dirty utensils he can find outside. He wants to know the system for everything, how it all comes together, and what we do when. He's always been very attached to schedules and routines, something I always have to remember and impose on my attachment to spontaneity and flexibility. And right now, it's to my advantage. No matter how mad he is about having to take a nap or stop doing something, he can't help but be excited at going through the ritual of whatever it is we're doing. And excited is putting it mildly. He pants like a puppy. He speed-crawls as fast as he can from one spot to the other, because he knows where teeth get brushed! and after that we read a story and he knows where those are too! It never gets old.

I know he's my first, and that's a learning curve for me, too. But it's one of my greatest joys right now, watching him learn. It's immensely satisfying for me as a teacher and as a mother (and, as a nerd in general). The human brain amazes me. Peregrine amazes me. I know he'll grow and change, and one day, the fact that shoes go on your feet and you put on one and then you put on the other!!!! will just be a fact, and not a reason to hyperventilate and bounce up and down with anticipation. But I hope he never loses this joy, this intense curiosity, this drive to know and do and experience and understand. I hope it's a part of him I'll always nurture, always revel in, always encourage. Because it's incredibly wonderful. I want to be like that when I grow up.

Common Advice, Amended

I've gotten quite a bit of parenting advice since I became a parent. It has ranged from the life-changing to the absurd, from the practical to the laughable, from the that's-a-good-idea-in-theory to the who-knew-that-would-work. But I've been thinking lately of pieces of advice I've given, over and over and over again, and that I see given to practically every new mom. They've never sat exactly right with me, so I've decided to pick them apart a bit, and amend them to make more sense in my mind.

1. Don't Watch The Clock

Why it's good at its core: Babies don't come out of the womb understanding clocks the way adults have been conditioned to. It would be amazing if they slept 12-hour nights and ate three meals a day from the get-go, but they don't. And that can be very, very frustrating. No matter how well you know that your schedule is going to be blown to pieces with a baby's arrival, it still comes as a shock. And sometimes, the best way to cope with it is to just kick clocks out of your life for awhile. Ignorance can be bliss when you've been awake for hours nursing and rocking and diagnosing your baby's lack of sleepiness. Or at least it's more bliss than knowing that you woke up at 1:15, it's now 5:47, and usually you're asleep during those hours. Going with the flow, catching sleep when you can, feeding the baby when he's hungry and not stressing about how long (or short) it's been since his last feeding, can save your sanity and help keep your expectations realistic.

Why it doesn't quite work for me: Well, first of all, I had a baby who preferred eating his hands to nursing. So, right from the start, I had to watch the clock. But, in the long run, here's what I found out. My baby, and most babies I think, do eventually fall into rhythms. And observing those rhythms, and figuring out what they are and what clock-times they usually correspond with, can make for a much, much more peaceful household. I was told many, many times to just watch my baby's cues and meet his needs as he expressed them. But here's the deal: sometimes I just didn't know. Sometimes I thought Peregrine was hungry, and would feed and feed and feed, and wonder why on earth he was still hungry, and then realize he had been tired, exhausted in fact, all along. I think this happens to most parents. Reading a baby's cues isn't always as simple as it sounds. And I found that watching the clock--not stressing about the clock, just watching it--helped me predict what needs he would have when. Since I knew he often became tired about an hour and a half after waking up, for instance, I could predict that time and put him to bed before he became miserably over-tired. Far from tying me to clock-time and making me ignore my baby's needs, watching the clock actually helped me anticipate Peregrine's needs and meet them before he became desperate.

So here's what I would say: Don't stress about the clock. Ignore it when your baby is new. But as life starts to develop some rhythms, use it to watch them. Always be flexible. But use clock-time to help you figure out when, generally, your baby tends to get hungry or tired.

2. No One Ever Regretted Holding Their Baby Too Much

Why it's good at its core: I've heard this one a lot from grandmas and from people whose kids are grown. And I've heard it as a response to the whole "you'll spoil your newborn by holding him!" position. The truth is, you can't spoil a baby, or child, or person, by showing them genuine love. Lavishing children with love, or being spontaneously extravagant, or stopping your work just to play and laugh and be silly--odds are, you won't  regret doing those things. Odds are, your children will remember them and love you for them. And it's always helpful to remember that your newborn just emerged from a uterus, where she was warm and snuggled 24/7. No, you won't spoil her by holding her. Even if you hold her a lot.

Why it doesn't quite work for me: I don't actually think many people of my generation believe they can spoil babies by holding them. In fact, I think the opposite is true; I think a lot of us believe we can hurt our babies, emotionally or otherwise, by not lavishing them with constant attention and closeness. I think there has been a definite swing for the better in terms of baby-raising philosophies, but, like any philosophy, I think it is unwise to take it to an extreme. No, I don't think anyone regrets showing love to their children. But I think people do regret not caring for their own emotional and physical health. Feeling as though you must, at all times, be engaged with your baby (or older children!), can lead to a lot of false guilt and burnout and be incredibly unhealthy for your family.

So here's what I would say: Hold your baby as much as you want to; you won't spoil her. But if you feel consistently trapped by having to hold her, don't just consider it a necessary sacrifice. Go to the bathroom, take a shower, run an errand. Give her to your husband, or mother, or a neighbor you trust. Put her down. She will be okay, even if she cries a little. Even a small break can clear your mind and make you much healthier overall.

3. Sleep When The Baby Sleeps

Why it's good at its core: Having a baby knocks most of your priorities around, and makes it virtually impossible to do all the things you used to do. And since newborns  often don't sleep when you are used to sleeping, you end up losing a lot of sleep that you desperately need. I also know a lot of new moms (myself included) who feel the need to use the baby's sleeping hours (or minutes!) to catch up on all the housework that hasn't been done. It's tempting, because it's the only peaceful time you get. But when you spend the baby's waking hours caring for the baby, and the baby's sleeping hours caring for your neglected work, you can burn out pretty quickly. It's good to remember to slow down and shift priorities toward caring for yourself and maintaining your basic physical health.

 Why it doesn't quite work for me: Well, for one, I can't nap on command. In Peregrine's first few weeks, I was so exhausted I could. But usually, I just don't nap. I didn't, even when I was pregnant. And if I do nap, I am out cold for hours. Cat-napping for twenty or thirty minutes just doesn't refresh me at all. It's exceedingly frustrating to settle myself down for a nap, only to be woken up twenty minutes later by a needy baby. I'd rather just not try. Also, this isn't very practical advice for anyone who works, or who has other children (especially toddlers!). And finally, I feel like this is often marketed as the end-all for having a peaceful relationship with a baby, when in reality it's a lot more complicated than that. It can help, sure, but you're still going to be tired. And that tiredness is not your fault, or the result of you not being flexible enough to just sleep when your baby sleeps.

So here's what I would say: Use the baby's sleeping hours to refresh yourself, whatever that means. Take a nap, read a book, play quietly with another child, even clean your house if a few minutes/hours of quiet cleaning do actually refresh your soul and make your life more peaceful. Try to do things you can't do when your baby is awake (I could always put Peregrine in a carrier and wash the dishes; I couldn't sit and read). Also, take time for sleep in whatever way works for you. Go to bed early. Sleep in if you can. Or, if it works, nap when the baby naps.

4. Trust Your Instincts

Why it's good at its core: Mothers know their babies better than anyone else in the world. We spend more time with them than anyone else and even in the first few weeks, come to be experts on their various cries, facial expressions, and body language. Besides, maternal instinct is a powerful thing. It's ingrained in us to know our children. And when other experts (doctors, mothers, mothers-in-law, friends, etc) give us advice, however well-guided by knowledge, experience, and science; the fact remains that they still don't have to live with our specific babies 24/7. Sometimes it's easy for both us and our advisers to forget that.

Why it doesn't quite work for me: I have two problems with this one. The first is that I have almost always encountered this piece of advice in conjunction with other pieces of advice. As in, say, an article  urging mothers to co-sleep, and telling them to trust their instincts and ignore the people who are telling them their babies need their own beds. It doesn't matter what the advice-giver wants people to do (not picking on co-sleeping, it's a wonderful thing!); the message is that whatever it is ought to be instinctual. That of course all mothers, if they could just blot out The Other Voices, would be doing it without a second thought. I feel like it's often used more as an emotional argument than a reassurance. And secondly, I don't always trust my instincts. Sometimes my instincts are misinformed. Sometimes they do odd things simply from habit. Sometimes they tend toward absurd paranoia. Of course my basic maternal instinct is a good thing. But it's not a perfect thing. It needs information, and assistance, and reality checks, from other reliable sources.

So here's what I would say: You know your child better than anyone else, and you (and your household) are the only ones who have to live with him day in and day out. Don't forget that when others are giving you advice, even if they are well-informed. Surround yourself with people, and sources, that you trust. Allow your natural, wonderful maternal instinct to be influenced and guided by them. (And please trust an actual doctor instead of Dr. Google!)

Well, there it is. I'm sure the people giving these pieces of advice probably don't read this much into them. But since they are so ubiquitous, I thought it was worth amending them a little. Take my amendments for what they're worth.

Best

So, I've been thinking of the "soulmate theory" lately.

Part of it was this post on the impossibility of everyone having one theoretical soulmate in the world. Part of it was the amazing song the article linked to. Part of it is simply that it's a theme constantly running in my mind.

I love Andrew dearly and I hope to love him more and more with each year and day and hour that we spend married to each other. But I do honestly believe that I would find a marriage to any number of men equally satisfactory and wonderful--in some ways even more so, in some a lot less. Andrew and I fell in love and dated and married, but I don't think we were destined for each other, or that there is a possibility I picked the wrong one and I am actually destined for someone else. I think we chose each other, pure and simple, and vowed to be stuck with each other, for better or for worse.

I think the idea that love and marriage are matters of fate and destiny and hoping to find the Right Person is a pretty deceiving one, and permeates a lot of the way we think about relationships. But that's another rant and one I've had plenty of times before. What I've been thinking about lately is that we often approach parenting in the same way.

I spend a lot of time thinking about the best way to raise my child; probably too much time, to be honest. And it's a vortex that is easy to be sucked into, because there is so much information out there. It's a double-edged sword, I think. We are incredibly lucky to have such a wide range of research and experience to draw on. We don't have to do things the way they've been done, simply because that's all we know. But on the other hand, the information can be overwhelming. And the opinions can be even more overwhelming.

It goes deeper than just the ever-present Mommy Wars. Underneath the sometimes-uplifting, sometimes-petty debates about clothing and feeding and sleeping and teaching, we all truly want what is best for our children. And I think that sometimes we are searching, perhaps without even knowing it, for our parenting-style Soulmate, so to speak. For the way of parenting, whatever it is, that we can start dating, and eventually marry, that will be compatible with us and make our journey with our children smooth and peaceful and make everything turn out right in the end.

I think we all know, in our hearts, that it isn't that simple. We know that every relationship involves real people and is therefore much messier than it looks on paper or computer screen. But we keep looking anyway. We may know, and believe, that there is no One Right Way of Parenting. But we want the best. We spend a lot of time trying to find the best. And when new research comes out, or new people influence our lives, we feel guilty for not having known, for having given our children less than the best.

But you know what? I don't think there is a Best Way, any more than there is a Right Way. I think the way we parent is dependent on hundreds of factors--our personalities, our children's personalities, where we live, what kind of support systems we have, what kinds of stress we are experiencing, to name only a few. We will grow and change as time goes on, and we won't parent the same way all the time. And that's okay. I do think, when it comes down to it, that I am doing a good job mothering Peregrine. But I also think I could have made hundreds of different choices and still be doing a good job. Just like I could have married any number of men and had a good marriage. It doesn't negate the beauty and wonderfulness of the marriage I have. It just puts it into some perspective.

Of course I want what is best for my child. The vast majority of mothers do. But I'm learning it's more complicated than that. There certainly isn't a right way to raise a child. There may not be a best way either. But there are many, many, many good ways to raise a child. I hope I will always seek after the good for myself, and always recognize it when it is present in others.

Violent

In the few months before Peregrine was born, as I began to prepare my mind and body and soul for the immense and unknown task of giving birth, I read a lot of birth stories. Dozens, possibly hundreds of them. And I watched videos, too, whenever I could find them. I don't know why I did it, other than just to know a little of what to expect, and to know that birth came in many shapes and sizes, and perhaps just to remind myself of the fact that millions of women had done what I was going to do.

And many, many times, as I read stories of the kind of birth I was planning--out-of-hospital, with a midwife, in the water--I heard birth done this way described as powerful, intense, laborious (yes, pun intended), but overall gentle and peaceful. Gentle birth, peaceful birth, I heard and read those phrases thousands of times. And I watched videos of births I would certainly describe that way--candlelit and quiet, mother making low noises, baby slipping out into the hands of father or midwife or doctor or even mother herself. And then beautiful release of emotions--tears and joy and everything suddenly exploding into goodness and life and light.

Let me first say, very clearly--those birth videos and stories remain some of the most beautiful and amazing things I have ever, ever seen, and it is a picture of birth that I think all women, no matter what their childbirth plans are, ought to see and know. But my birth experience wasn't like that at all.

I suppose I could call Peregrine's birth peaceful, if by peaceful I mean whole and good, shalom if you will. But gentle? Try as I might (and I did try, in the days following the birth), I just could not call it gentle. Everyone who helped me give birth--my midwives, my mom, Andrew, my friend/doula, my friend/doula's husband who fell into the role of emergency doula--were all incredibly gentle. I could not have asked for greater respect or tenderness on any of their parts. The atmosphere, the night, the day, the warm water--they were gentle. But my body was not gentle. And Peregrine, with his hurry to escape my womb and his eager little hands nestled up by his face, was most definitely not gentle.

In fact, as I reflected on his birth in the days and months that followed it, as I retold his story and stamped the details into my mind and heart, as I put words to the tumult of feelings and memories swirling around that story, one of the words I always came back to was violent.

Part of me (the part that chose to give birth without drugs and will choose to do it again, and has therefore spent a lot of time immersed in the natural-birth-culture) feels incredibly guilty using that word. I mentioned it to a friend and she balked, visibly, at my use of it, and asked me if I didn't mean intense instead. I nodded then, because I didn't really know how to explain it, but no, I didn't mean intense. Intense doesn't even scratch the surface of the searing power that took my body over, completely, as Peregrine was being born. Furious comes close. But violent, honestly, comes closer.

I wish the English language had another word to describe what I felt, because I think the word violent conjures up images of rape, of war, of killing and horror and badness. What I felt was the opposite of badness, but it wasn't calm and peaceful. It was, well, violent. Like an earthquake, or a tornado, or a Colorado thunderstorm. Like a piece of awesome and terrifying music, played at full volume. Like God creating the world, in a storm of fierceness and fury and let-there-be-light.

And when I realized that, and made that comparison, it was somehow fitting. I am a (very, very) calm and peaceful person by nature, but I have always been fascinated by ferocity, drawn to the things that sweep me over with their power. Thunderstorms that can kill me, that transform a dry, hot, sleepy landscape into a floodplain within seconds. Music that makes my soul and my arms ache when I play it on the piano. Blizzards and windstorms and fire and lightning. When I experience these things, I think I have felt a piece of God. Giving birth, the particular way it happened to me, felt much the same.

And it was fitting as Peregrine's story too. My child is not calm and peaceful. He has always been in a hurry, has always done everything at full speed and with full passion. A gentle, zen birth would have been oddly incongruous with his nature. Was he directing the story--and he was, mostly, I think--he wouldn't have had it soft and slow, or even merely intense.

There are other words I would use. Sacred. Powerful. Awesome. Kind of terrifying. Simple. Right. Good. But also, violent. Because I didn't control it, it controlled me. It ripped and tore and opened and closed and broke me open and used me as a vessel to bring my child, an incredible living human being, into the world. It hurt. A lot. It was destructive. I tore in and out and up and down. And it was not because my midwives were not careful or because I was too anxious or afraid. It was just--the way it was. The way Peregrine's story happened.

I didn't expect it that way, honestly. I expected it to be truer in line to my nature, to the core of my calm and peaceful self. Or to start that way, but to encounter complications along the way and to need interventions to bring safely to completion. Not to do its own thing, in its own way, so, well, so violently.

But it was good. It was so very, very good. And I wouldn't have had it any other way. It was Peregrine, and the opening to his life outside the womb. It was his story and his way of coming into the world. Birth, I guess, comes in as many different ways as the different children it brings. It comes in gentle and zen, in tears and intensity, in beauty and humor and curiosity, in speed and rush and stormlike violence. And all those ways lead, eventually, to a new and tiny and unique little person and a new and complicated and beautiful love.

When Theory Meets Reality

I had a lightbulb moment once.

A very small lightbulb moment, but luminous, and there, nonetheless.

I had nursed my tiny, days-old Peregrine for the second or third time that night. Nursing him in those early days was a tedious ordeal, mainly because he refused to nurse if his hands were within chewing distance. So for every feeding, I had to first un-swaddle him, then pin his hands behind his back with a blanket. After he nursed, the straitjacket came off and the swaddle went back on. It was awkward; we were both learning to live in a whole new world.

So, in the wee hours of this particular August morning, the whole thing was finished and Peregrine was ready to go back to bed. Only, he wasn't quite ready. He wanted to look at me first.

I had been told that the easiest way to teach a baby the difference between day and night in those early days when they sleep all the time anyway was to treat them differently when you feed them. In the day, be playful, make eye contact, talk, sing, bounce. At night, be silent and gentle, no words, no playing, feed and snuggle and lay back in bed. It's good advice, I'm sure. It's worked for many babies. The problem is, it didn't work that way for Peregrine. Over the last few nights, I had begun noticing a pattern. If I turned off the light and laid him back in bed right away, even with snuggling and patting, he would fuss and squirm and cry. Until I turned the light back on, and picked him up, and propped him up against my knees and looked at him--just looked at him--for a couple of minutes. That was all it took, and then I would turn off the light, put him in bed, and soon he would be peacefully asleep. So that became our ritual--re-swaddle, prop him up, and stare in each others' eyes for awhile.

And this night a thought fluttered through my head and hung there for awhile.

That's interesting. It doesn't work the way it's supposed to for Peregrine. The extended lights-on "play" doesn't make him more awake. It calms him and helps him sleep.

And then the lightbulb.

So that's how parenting works. You just figure out your own child.

I'm no stranger to theory meeting reality, really. I've been a teacher, a babysitter, an oldest sister, for many, many years. Theories and ideas are there because they worked for someone, or because they worked for many someones, and they exist to help us all navigate the very difficult world of raising human beings. But human beings are human beings, and they have their quirks and sometimes, what you've read or heard or had recommended may not fit with the real live person in your life.

And that's okay.

The day/night difference thing was small, very small, in the grand scheme of parenting choices I have made. But it meant something to me then, and I remember it still and reference it often. Parenting is a lot more than choosing how to raise a child, and then following your plan. It's a lot more than subscribing to a style or an idea or a philosophy. It's learning a person. And it's learning how you, as a person, relate to this person. And that will look different, for every single parent and every single child. Sometimes it will fit the theories. Sometimes it won't. Usually--perhaps always--it will fit some theories and not others. And then it will change the next day.

And you know what? Because of me, despite me, whatever you will, Peregrine has never had an issue telling day from night. Within weeks, he gave up the staring ritual and ever since, has eaten and gone right back to sleep.

But he does have a bizarre addiction to being swaddled very, very tightly, with his hands trapped at his sides. I know of no one else who still swaddles their one-year-old like a newborn.

And that's okay, too. For now. We might rethink the swaddling thing when he starts middle school.