Why I love you guys, part 487

Thanks for the birthday wishes everyone. There's nothing like announcing it's your birthday to guilt people into leaving you comments. It's the next best comment-generator to giving birth.

On my big day I attended my first mom's group thing, went to lunch with my husband (who works from home on Wednesdays, rock on family-friendly employers!), spent an hour and a half at the DMV before I decided I didn't want to spend my entire birthday at the DMV, went to dinner with my husband and left the baby with a most obliging sister and wandered over to my neighbor's house for her birthday party. I KNOW. What is this having a birthday on MY BIRTHDAY? But she's the doctor and gave me, like, 450 pounds worth of pregnancy books way back when and practically did a jig when she saw our new baby, so she has my blessing. Also she is closer to thirty than me. (Although she is also a doctor. What have I been doing with my twenties? NOTHING. GAH.)

In case you are interested, I talked the most obliging sister into babysitting again this morning so I could return to hell the DMV and renew my license. Whereupon one of the machines broke and I was there even longer than the demons licensing representatives even planned to torture me.

Now Jackson and I are hanging out in the living room waiting for his grandparents to show up with our weekly delivery of fried rice. Jack is kind of sort of napping, by which I mean he is passed out on the couch and only occasionally waving his arms around and squealing for attention. (Which I am not giving. You are tired! Go to sleep!) Sometimes he smiles in his sleep. Phillip and I have a number of theories as to why this is, most of them involving milk. What else could a baby be dreaming about?

So the mom's group thing. I have thought long and hard on whether I should detail my mom's group experiences on the internet and the answer is: no, am I crazy? One day I should like to be friends with the mom's group ladies and I won't want to hide my alter-online-ego. But I will tell you a little bit, because I simply cannot help myself. Also, it involves you. (ARE YOU HOOKED?)

If you are local, you have probably heard of this organization. As soon as you even mention 'baby', a crowd of well-meaning experienced moms (and people who are not moms but are the kind of people who think they know everything) are insisting that you sign up with this group, even though doing so costs more than the shoes I bought myself for my birthday and requires you to hang out with strangers at their houses. (And if I had time and energy, I would go off on a little 'who do they think they are, it's not just middle class stay at home moms with big clean houses who need support groups!' but blah blah blah.) Anyway, all of that is to say this particular kind of mom's group is HIGHLY recommended by everyone from your best friend to the nurses at the hospital. Even though I have gobs of mom friends and plenty of playdate-ish opportunities, I signed up. Yay me.

We all met at the facilitator's house (yes, there is a FACILITATOR) and put our babies on our pretty Land of Nod blankets and proceeded with the whole Getting To Know You thing. Which wasn't horrible. Why are strangers always so nice?! I'm going to have to change my whole personality platform pretty soon.

But it was a very weird experience for me. Some of these girls were having hard times. I mean, really hard times. They were not shy about talking about those hard things either and I sat there thinking: these are all the things I worried about while I was pregnant. I devoted at least one anxiety-filled day to each and every one of these concerns. But I? AM DOING SHOCKINGLY WELL.

Seriously, I nearly started crying in the middle of mom's group. And it would have been an odd sort of crying- sadness and empathy for my fellow new moms and tears of relief for myself. How did I get off so easy? Sure I've had my moments. Anyone remember that mouthy can of Similac calling my name at 3 am? The first weeks at home are now a blur and lately I'm dealing with boredom and selfishness and stir-craziness and resenting a husband who takes a shower whenever he feels like it. But compared to some of the things the other moms were sharing, I'm conducting a cakewalk over here.

Sometimes I think my previous experiences with anxiety prepared me pretty well for this motherhood thing. The no sleep part, for example. Been there done that! Worrying over things you can't control? Totally covered. Feeling like you can't do it anymore? The last two months have been a breeze- a BREEZE- compared to my most anxious week. Granted I have a pretty easygoing easy-to-figure-out baby, but I can't think of one single time in the last two and a half months when dealing with anxiety would have been easier than caring for my baby.

Which is why I was so freaked out about caring for a baby and dealing with potential post-partum anxiety at the same time. I would surely die. So this is why, before the baby even arrived, I was asking friends to watch me for signs of rapidly declining mental health. I was collecting phone numbers for last ditch breastfeeding help. I made logistical decisions about work and babysitters. I did not assume, ever, that any particular part of this baby thing would be easy. And most of all? I had the internet. I am being dead serious super duper honest- if I hadn't had my little message board and my RSS feeds and the amazing women telling their stories online and my very own website with my very own blindingly gorgeous readers I would not be doing this well. I love my real life mom friends. They're the best. They've lent me breast pumps and made me dinners and listened to me freak out about stupid stuff and met me early in the morning for walks and called me to make sure I'm still alive after immunizations and family visits and Phillip's first day back at work. But the amount of stuff I've learned from you guys... not to mention the encouragement and the "I've been there too" comments and the funny supportive emails- OKAY STOP IT. ARE YOU TRYING TO MAKE ME CRY?

I know there are lot of people who think the internet is all stalkers and everything, but when I think about what things have supported me through the baby stuff, my online community comes instantly to mind. I couldn't help wondering if the moms at my moms group knew about the sites I know about. If they had any online friends. If they had BLOGS. Because I am all about people starting up blogs. People leave you nice messages on your birthday! Why wouldn't you want that?!

A lot of stuff that could have been hard just wasn't hard for me. And the stuff that's hard, well, I read about it and emailed about it and got a lot of virtual hugs.

Oh my gosh could this BE any sappier? It's not even regular sappy, it's NERD SAPPY.

The baby is waking up and he's timed it well as I'm about to make even myself throw up. Time to begin the daily afternoon racking of my brains to figure out how to keep the baby happy. I promise to dial back the saccharine stuff. Maybe tomorrow I'll write a blistering character sketch of the woman who took my picture at the DMV. Think Dolores Umbridge in a DMV uniform. Mmm, Dolores Umbridge reminds me that I will be spending my entire weekend reading the last Harry Potter book. And as much as I love the internet, if the internet tells me what happens before I finish the book, I will send the entire internet to the DMV for all of eternity.

Comments

[Lindsay]

I love you, too. A lot. Well, more than a lot. And you give me hope, because apparently we have quite a bit in common, and that means that I will be pretty frigging cool when I'm your age, and that? That's pretty neat. :o)

However, the same applies for you. You tell me the ending of Harry Potter before I read it and I totally take back everything I just said. Friends don't let friends read spoilers.

[Arwen]

I forgot to leave you a birthday message. Poop.

Happy belated birthday! You should show us the shoes you bought.

I so totally know what you mean about teh Internets being the best thing ever in terms of community and support. I have great friends and family and really good support in my outside-the-computer life, but there have still been times when blog comments or emails from people I'd never even met in person were the best thing standing between me and Depressed and Unhappy Me. If that makes any sense.

Proximity tends to make people friends but it could turn out that some random girl in Seattle might be more of a kindred spirit than your college roommate ever was. And you'd never have met her if it wasn't for the Internet.

(Awwww.)

I've decided to reread all the HPs before reading the last one, but I started too late (last week), and I'm only on book three now, and I'm terrified that someone is going to reveal the final ending to me before I get a chance to read it myself. Hold me.

Happy birthday, seriously. I can't say it too many times.

[Maureen]

The Husband and I saw the HP5 movie on Monday (I KNOW! My father-in-law VOLUNTEERED to drive up here after work and sit for us so that The Husband and I could go to a movie and then for ice cream with our friends! And Jack was awake when we left but asleep when we got home and then he slept ALL NIGHT! It was the best night ever.)

Ahem.

So, we saw the movie and I suddenly realized the I must immediately re-read book 6 because I've forgotten everything and there's no way I'm going to finish it by Saturday and I, like Arwen, am terrified someone will tell me how book 7 ends. If anyone tells me how it ends, I will perform the Cruciatus curse on them, legal or not. So there.

[Laura]

AWWWW....smooches to you too!!! I think being prepared like you were really made a difference. I have an easy kidlet too so I am totally prepared for my second one to be difficult LOL
Mom groups can be fun but every child is different and a lot of women seem to have the answer to everything...yuck!
Glad you had a good birthday you young hot chick!! (see, don't you love comments...) Speaking of...hmmmmm...when did you last comment on mine ... bad girl!!

[Kate P]

Belated b-day wishes, you young thing (from someone just on the other side of 30). I love my blog friends, too, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. It takes all kinds of friends and boundaries to get us what we need. (And someday I'll finally bite the bullet and start up a blog for myself.)
Nor is there anything wrong with crying out of gratitude (so says the person who not too long ago was crying over the recent kindnesses extended to her. . . probably out of fear they would go away). Thank God for moments like that.

[E.]

Sorry I scared you with my Harry Potter blog post! I would never, never post any spoilers -- mainly because I refuse to read any! I too will be spending the weekend reading the book and avoiding all contact with the outside world until I'm finished.
Oh, and happy belated birthday.

[Angela]

It sounds like you had a great b-day overall :) One of my other friends here takes part in the mom's group, I think it's great that there's a resource for new moms that don't have the benefit of blaaawging to find that sense of community.

Enjoy Harry Potter!!

[karianne]

You and Jackson are doing so well. Take some credit girlie! You are a great mom.

Did I send Bday wishes? If not,
Happy Birthday!

[Jenny Ryan]

I'm SO glad you're doing so well. Yay for you for taking such good care of yourself and making sure you had all necessary supports in place.

Can't talk more now because the hubby and I are making our final preparations to go into lockdown mode this weekend so as to be able to read the final Harry Potter without unintentionally being spoiled.

And if you want to talk about nerdiness, he and I have to take turns reading it out loud to each other so that one person doesn't get to read it before the other one. (Can you tell that we are both firstborns and used to having to make everything be "fair" for everyone?)