Writing to Parenting

Writing

I’ve slowly, and I mean very, very slowly, started writing again.  It’s excruciating, because I have a general idea of what I want to accomplish, but placing the words is tedious.  I longingly looked up writing classes scheduled for the Fall, knowing that I won’t be able to take one, because our little girl is due in September.  Meanwhile, I’m working on a pseudo love story with plans to work in as ex scene (my first).   I’m looking forward to the challenge, but I’m feeling a stalled on the logistics people walking in and out of a room.  Literally, I am struggling with Person A enters, Person B exits and Person C, what?  Hangs around for 5 minutes?  Takes the bus home?  Jumps forward in time?  It’s ridiculous how the small things grow into impossible obstacles AND become the manifestation of self-doubt.  “Wow, Bert, if you can’t even write in what happens to Person C after Person B leaves, then how in the hell are you going to convey the wretched emptiness of Person C anticipating the too soon ending of the love affair of her lifetime?”  Good point.

The Big C

As September approaches, I’m feeling both confident in our birth plan:  repeat C-section.  It’s the right decision for both my safety and health and for our little girl’s.  I also acknowledge that there is a part of me that will miss the process of labor.  With my first child, labor was an earthly nightmare that ended in an emergency C-section.  I would not choose to go through another induced labor and yet, I feel a little weird about showing up at the hospital and essentially passing on all the effort to the surgical team.  I’m very grateful to have that safer option and a little disappointed that I will have nothing to contribute to the birth.  Kind of an odd place to be in mentally.  I’m okay with it, I just want to acknowledge that I do have an undercurrent of feelings that while they don’t change my(our) decision, but are still important me.

Grumps

Matt and I had a “spat” the other day, which is pretty rare for us.  Of course, it was nothing big.  Matt wanted to know why I was angry at Adam (because he had been yanking on my foot and accidentally hit my ankle against the wooden base of the futon).  I refused to answer Matt and our tempers escalated to raised voices.  I’ve been so grumpy in this pregnancy and not at all myself.  I knew that I was being unreasonable, but I was so angry and frustrated I just didn’t want to talk about it at all.  Later, Matt and I apologized to each other and I apologized to Adam and tried to explain why I’d gotten so angry.  I think I now understand what people meant by, “Oh, no, you’re going to be pregnant over the summer!”   My previous bouts of depression and even the baby blues taught me that all these emotions are temporary states and I’ll be back to myself soon.  I’m managing my irritations since our spat and working on not giving into them.  I’m making an extra effort to work with my passionate two year old in positive ways.  I’m seeing improvements in both our behaviors.

Parenting

I’m learning that the goal of raising our child (soon to be children) under positive guidance takes continual commitment.  I’ve also realized that I must be willing to adapt.  What works in one situation may not work for all situations.  He’s growing and changing every day.  This type of parenting is a completely new thing to me.  I wasn’t raised that way so, I’m learning these skills as we go.  The greatest benefit is that by trying to work with Adam, I am learning far more about him than if I was rigid about trying to make behave or think a certain way.  I feel like we’re on the right track particularly when he is loving and thoughtful.  This morning, he heard me coughing and he asked me, “[You] Okay, Mommy?”

Mommy Milestones this week:

• Giving him two simple choices.  When he asked for a lollipop for lunch, I counter-offered pizza or a sandwich.  He chose pizza and didn’t think about lollipop until much later in the day.
• When throwing fits this week, I sat down on the floor nearby and waited for him to calm down then talked to him about what was bothering him.

Last week, I would have said a clear no to the lollipop and it would have resulted in him throwing a tantrum and wanting to go back to bed and I would have pleaded with him (or lectured him) on how he needed to eat real food.  I also would have told him to STOP whining/crying and would have fruitlessly tried to reason with him WHILE he was in full tantrum.

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House of To Do

Empty Bird Feeder

Outside

Now that I am out of the first trimester of pregnancy and gaining back my energy,  I am starting to look at all the things I want to do inside and outside the house.  The backyard requires new work with each change in weather and no matter what the weather, there are always weeds to pull.  The biggest to do for the backyard is to install a drip system.  It takes roughly 30 minutes to water the plants with a garden hose, because we have that many plants in the yard now.  Spending 30 minutes a day, under the bright, hot sun just to water plants is just not a good way to spend our summer and summer here goes on for months and months.  Before the real heat swoops in, we’ll need to have a basic drip system set-up to water most (if not all) of our backyard plants.

Bamboo skirting waiting to be tied to pergola frame.

Overall, the yard is coming along nicely.  The purple verbena is spreading and sprouting throughout the yard.  The Texas mountain laurels were blooming a few weeks ago, filling the yard (and sometimes the house) with the smell of grape Kool-Aid.  All the roses are getting buds and the miniature crape myrtle that appeared dead all winter is slowly showing red and green leaves.  The Japanese and variegated boxwood bushes have grown during the cold weather and tiny buds of green are peeking through on the hackberry tree.

Strawberry plants waiting to be potted.

My regret in the yard is where I planted the bougainvillea and the plum tree.  If I didn’t think I’d outright kill the plum tree, I’d swap their places.  Right now the sun/heat loving bougainvillea is in a spot that gets only early morning sun and the heat-troubled plum tree gets sun all day long and in fact, is the last plant touched by the setting sun–the roasting sun.  I should probably move the bougainvillea soon.  The tree, well, I don’t know what to do with it.  It lives, but does not thrive.

Smaller to dos in the yard include:

• Fill the bird feeder – I bought feeder mix last weekend, so I just need to add water and fill the feeder.
• Cover the pergola – We bought a couple of rolls of bamboo skirting a few weekends ago to service as our new pergola cover.  I think it will look better than the fabric that came with the pergola, which is dramatically faded in color after one summer.
• Pot/Plant the new plants – I have a love/hate relationship with this time of year, because of the garden centers!  I love, love, love browsing the garden areas, but it’s torture to leave without piles upon piles of new plants.  I didn’t make it out last weekend without buying three strawberry plants and a geranium.

The front yard needs a good clean-up and we need to plan petunias in the half-barrel that sits in front of the kitchen window.  There is also a plant growing right next to the foundation of the house that I was to preserve but move to a more appropriate part of the front yard.  A lot of the more laborious chores will have to be done by whatever sucker I can convince to do it, meaning, either Selesia or Matt.  Because I’m pregnant, I should not be touching garden soil, so I’m hoping to just use food handling gloves and my work gloves to pot the new plants.  I know that I can at least work on the pergola and the bird feeder.

Inside

I’m a huge proponent of spring cleaning and de-cluttering.  It’s one of my favorite activities.  All week long, I’ve been daydreaming about going through my clothes and sorting out items to donate, items to throw out and items to just put away until the baby is born.  I didn’t resist starting in on Matt’s jeans.  One day, during lunch break, I pulled out all his jeans and sorting and reduction.  This weekend, I’ll dive into my clothes and at least swap out my non-pregnancy clothes for my pregnancy clothes.  There are other items that will need to be de-cluttered, but I haven’t gotten further than thinking about the clothes.  We continue to struggle with the study.  We simply have too many things in that room and nowhere else to put them.  Matt has all his electronics and music stuff and I have all my arts and crafts crap.  We’ve done a lot to improve the room, it’s still not what I consider most functional.

Further Inside

This week, I started writing a murder mystery.  I typically aim for a short story when I’m writing, but with this one, I’m going to see if I can expand it out into a novel.  I haven’t tried to write a book since I was in high school and although it was once a dream of mine, I lost a lot of faith in it, as I became a stronger writer.  I just never saw myself having the stamina for a large piece, but as I construct the skeleton of this story, I cannot see it fitting into a short story.  So, I’m going to work at it and see how it evolves.

As for murder, I am embracing death in fiction.  For several years now, I have fought my tendency to have death in my stories.  “I will write a story where no one dies!” I declare each time I embark on a new work.  Have I accomplished this goal?  The closest I’ve come, is disfigurement.  When I got the story idea (post-nightmare), I wondered why I insist on trying to keep death out of my stories.  If that’s what gets in my head, so be it.  Why fight it every single time?

I will have to scan and post my writing journal from 4th grade.  I don’t think any of those stories refrained from death either.  Ha!  I’d probably have been sent to a child psychologist if I was a kid these days, but now, I just get to write fantastical stories that betray the things that would scare the crappola out of me if they could happen in real life.

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