Maia Papaya Brings in the Spring 2010

Why choose homebirth? I hope to share that with you.

by Tatiana on June 7, 2010

Before having my homebirth back in February 2009, I was basically unaware of women’s rights when it came to their own bodies and giving birth.  Ever since the experience of giving birth here in my own living room, the very same room I’m typing this in right now, I’ve become aware that the very reason I can look back at my birth experience and feel so empowered is because that, throughout the entirety of it, I was in control and comfortable and didn’t spend a moment doubting myself.

Tonight, I’m going back to my midwifery practice for the first time in over a year.  I’ll be their guest speaker at their monthly homebirth night, and I’ll be speaking to pregnant women who are want to learn more about giving birth at home about my experience and perceptions.  I’m so excited about this!  I feel so lucky that I was able to have the birth experience I hoped for.  I was so nervous about it for a long, long time, though, so hesitant to accept the thought of having a homebirth, and it was a night session like this very one, in January  2009, that settled my mind about it.

If you’re interested, here’s my take on the homebirth meeting we attended: Home Birth Night

Here are my thoughts on the hospital tour we attended: Maternity Ward Tour

Here’s the story of Maia’s birth: The Birth Story

{ 3 comments }

The toddler is winning

by Tatiana on June 1, 2010

We’re hitting a point where “avoiding temper tantrums” is becoming the theme of our days together with Maia.  I hate this.  She just wants to be carried everywhere, and it’s exhausting.  Sometimes she’ll sit in the grocery cart or want to walk beside us or whatnot, but the vast majority of the time it’s I WANT TO BE ATTACHED TO YOU MAMA.  We take her out to dinner and she spends the entire time in my lap, climbing on me.  What am I supposed to do?  Put her in a chair where she stands there screaming and shrieking and ruining everyone else’s dinner?  The easiest thing to do is leave her in my lap, even though it makes me miserable and doesn’t teach her a damned thing.

I took her out with me to buy dog food the other day.  I carried her from the car to the store, of course.  Then in the store, she wouldn’t let me put her down.  It didn’t matter that we were looking at rodents and birds and cats, things she was intrigued by; she wanted nothing to do with them if I wasn’t holding her.  She squatted there on the floor, glaring at me, shrieking like she was in the greatest pain imaginable, tears streaking down her angry red face.    I walked away down the aisle, and she still just sat there.  Screaming.  The entire store was looking at us.  Again, what am I supposed to do?  Ignore her until she follows me?  So she sits there making an unholy amount of noise and annoying everyone else?  I ended up having to carry her 20 lbs on one arm and the bulky 20 lb bag of dog food on the other.  And no, that wasn’t any more fun than it sounds like.

We just returned from taking the dogs out.  She wouldn’t let me set her down.  When I did put her down, so I could, you know, pick up dog shit, she sat there shrieking and sobbing, right outside of our apartment building, loudly enough that, yes, I caught at least two curtains flicked aside so people could peek out.  And this is USUAL for her at this point.

I guess my frustration lies in the fact that there are other people in this world whose feelings I don’t want to have to deal with.  I know that sounds completely ridiculous. I don’t want to care if my angry kid interrupts their dinner or their pet food shopping or their morning coffee.  I’m responsible for parenting, disciplining, and raising her.  Right now, because of my utter fear of inconveniencing other people, I’m inconveniencing myself and letting my child be in control of my life.  I don’t know if the solution is simply not to take her out anywhere until things are better, but I know that, again, doing that puts her in control.  So I do whatever I can to soothe her, all the while fuming inside and wondering just what kind of brattiness and bossiness I’m encouraging, what kind of out-of-control behaviour this coddling will lead to down the line, because I don’t know what the fuck else to do.

I want to hold her little baby hand when we’re walking across the parking lot.  I want her to romp around when we’re outside with the dogs.  I want her to sit in her chair and colour her little kids’ menu or play with the toys we bring to keep her distracted.  I don’t want to carry her everywhere.

I don’t know what to do.

{ 12 comments }

Tomatoes are serious business

by Tatiana on May 28, 2010

She loves her vegetables.  This is a “don’t you even THINK about taking this away from me” look!

{ 2 comments }

GTT: Books

by Tatiana on May 27, 2010

I’m your hostess over at Girl Talk Thursday today, where we’re talking about books we love.  Come join the conversation!

{ 0 comments }

Maia hearts soccer

by Tatiana on May 26, 2010

Maia loves to play with balls (yeah, I know, the 15 year old boy I apparently harbour in my soul snickered at that too).  When we were at a family dinner recently, she was kinda bored and antsy until she spotted a bouncy ball, at which point she became super-animated and just played with the damned thing all night.  We played Monkey In The Middle with the two other girls who were there — ages 4 and 9.  I held Maia and we were the monkey, and it was honestly a blast.  I don’t know if any of us had ever laughed as hard as we did while playing!

When Maia & I are at home and we head outside to play, I bring a ball with us.  Today, Maia showed me that she’s apparently learned how to play soccer.

It’s crazy how big she’s getting.

{ 3 comments }

My (overwhelmingly positive) take on the LOST finale

by Tatiana on May 24, 2010

I saw a snarky comment last night — I don’t even remember where, whether Twitter or a blog — that if you equate an emotional response with “greatness”, then you’d consider last night’s LOST finale to be great. While I do consider a finale that can bring me to tears five or six times (and two of those times leaving me sobbing) to be great, I’m also incredibly satisfied with the resolutions reached last night.

One thing I’ve loved about LOST, and I’d bet I’m not alone in this, is that it lets the characters fail.  There are no elegant solutions, no fail-safe answers; our characters are human, flawed, and they don’t always make the right decisions.  Yet in the end, regardless of what they’ve done right or wrong, they find redemption.

I don’t need my plots in tv shows, movies, and books to be neatly resolved and tied up with a bow.  I don’t need every loose end to be tied. I don’t need everything to be explained.  In fact, I don’t like it.  Do I know everything about the world I live in?  No.  At the end of my life, my finale, will all of my experiences in life come together into a coherent whole that I can look at and say “everything I ever worried about is perfectly resolved”?  No.  That’s life.  We not only don’t have all the answers, but we never will.

For six seasons, the writers of LOST haven’t provided concise answers.  I don’t understand why anyone would think that the finale would offer such a thing.  To me, the finale provided an emotionally and mentally satisfying resolution to the main story arc I’ve followed for six seasons.

Now, let me be honest: I’m not thrilled with the whole “well of light” thing.  I think it’s a weak ass premise for all these people to have been on the Island experiencing all the things they did.  I’m also kind of eye-rolling at what the Sideways world ended up being (although I think that, ultimately, it makes sense).  That said, I’m looking forward to (someday — hopefully soon!) rewatching the entire series and trying to apply the things I’ve learned about the characters and the Island in season 6 to the overall story arc.  I won’t lie, though, I think that while the creators/writers may have had an idea that they wanted the Island to represent something like a chess game between Good and Evil, a lot of the specifics were hammered out as they went along.

I’m okay with that creative process, and I understand it’s how some people work best. I’m a writer, and that’s how I work best.  I’m working on a novel right now whose premise is “magic is fucked up and needs to be fixed”, and while I have an answer to that problem in mind, I’m making up the details as I go along. If this storyline becomes a series (which, uh, it’s planned to be), then yeah, there will be some dangling plots along the way, and some characters whose motivations might never be known.  That’s simply the way things go in a sprawling, epic story (you know, just like in life).

Like I said on Twitter last night, I wonder if my satisfaction with Lost’s finale stems from my avid love of fantasy fiction, where suspension of disbelief is a must and accepting the possible (or sometimes downright ridiculous) is simply a part of enjoying the story.  Lost has been, all along, character-driven.  Watch season one again.  Heck, just watch the pilot.  It’s all about these characters, and the evolution they’ve gone through over the course of six seasons was deeply satisfying to me.

Also, the fact that, for once in her life, Kate didn’t follow someone into the jungle and get herself captured was brilliant.  Actually, this was a great episode for Kate and I’m so thrilled that she finally was the strong, smart, vulnerable, loving woman that she should have been all along.

The moments that hit me hardest:
- When Kate looked at Jack as they stood up on top of that cliff with fear, love, acceptance, and that crazy hope against the inevitable that I was experiencing as a viewer.
- Kate’s epiphany being triggered by Claire.
- Claire hugging Aaron close and sobbing his name.  Finally.  FINALLY.
- Claire and Charlie.  Oh my god. (I should note that I started watching Lost while pregnant, and identified in a lot of ways with Claire, so every scene with her is a favourite.)
- Jin and Sun sobbing together in the ultrasound room, knowing what had happened to them on the Island, yet so incredibly happy to be together now.
- Vincent at the end.
- Locke greeting Jack in the church.  Locke being Locke again.

I don’t need everything answered.  I like to be left wondering, wanting, and imagining.  What I need is for the characters I’ve loved for six seasons to have emotional resolution, which they did.  And that’s why LOST’s finale was, to me, phenomenal.

{ 6 comments }

Month Fifteen

by Tatiana on May 21, 2010

Dear Maia,

I have a deep flaw that I hope you don’t inherit.  It’s something I struggle with daily — hourly — and I honestly work on it. I’m trying to get past it.  I don’t want to be like this.  I’m a serial procrastinator, almost to the point where I think I’m mentally incapable of NOT procrastinating.  And hence, why your fifteen month letter wasn’t written on time.  Then, once I procrastinate something past the point of being ridiculous, I decide I just won’t do it, because it would be stupid to do it late.  You see?  Like this.  It’s May 21st, over a week since your fifteen month birthday, and I’m finally writing this.  I almost didn’t write it; I almost decided I should just skip this month because hey, screw it, I’m already so late, what’s the point?  And I’m sorry.  Because you deserve better than this.

But this letter shouldn’t be about me.  It should be about you.

This month, I’ve begun to call you “my baby” out of sheer stubbornness, because you’re clearly a kid now.  You are independent, very capable of expressing your likes and dislikes, and you like to do things on your own schedule.  You’ve begun sleeping through the night most nights as well, which is amazing, although you’re still nursing (which is also, in its own way, amazing, although I won’t lie, I’m looking forward to having my boobs back to myself eventually).  You’ve become more verbal, making sounds like “yiyiyi” and “bwah” and sometimes even multi-syllable sounds, and although Mama & Dada are still the only words we really hear from you, you have said “girl” (while pointing at one in a book!) and “dog”.  Usually, though, you like to point at dogs and exclaim, “Ah!”


after you “helped’ us with potting plants

You love Yo Gabba Gabba.  Even the mention of that phrase makes you giggly and giddy.  When the television’s off, you’ll sometimes grab the remote and wave it around while pointing at the screen, babbling very seriously.  You want to watch your show.  If I turn the television on and it’s NOT your show, you babble even more seriously at me.  It’s pretty hilarious.  I just distract you by taking you outside!

Sometimes those jaunts outside end up at Starbucks, which is a place you dearly love.  The blended strawberry lemonade basically makes your day.  I can’t even carry it when we buy it, because YOU want to, and whatever, who am I to deny you the simple pleasure of holding a cool drink on a hot day?

We’ve been able to spend a nice amount of time outdoors, particularly in the last week or so.  You love to take the dogs’ leashes in hand and wander around the area, laughing and exploring your world.  The dogs were pretty bad at letting you handle them at first, but they’ve fortunately gotten to be a lot better about it and the three of you have a blast now.

When we’re inside together, though (as we have been a lot this month — the weather’s been unseasonably cold), you like to show off your climbing skills.  You get on top of the couch and prance back and forth along the top of it, although fortunately — for now at least — you listen when we tell you to sit down.  You use a laundry basket as a stepping stool to climb up into my computer chair, and if the chair isn’t facing so you can sit down in it, then you just grab the back of it and hang there until you let yourself go.  SERIOUSLY, MAIA.  You monkey.

On a less stressful note, however, you also like to play with your blocks, read books, and draw.

You’re the center of my world; you keep me grounded.  Your beautiful smile is the first thing I think of every morning when I hear you calling out for me from your room. I will never forget when we sat on the couch together, you in my lap, and dipped a chocolate chip-studded granola bar into peanut butter to share with one another, or how you spin yourself in circles until you get “ditzy” then laugh and laugh when you fall on your bum, or how you start to dance at the merest hint of a sing-song tone in my voice.  I will never forget when you climbed up onto the chair beside me on the balcony and we both read our own books, or the way your eyes grew huge and wet when you tasted the bit of Nutella I smeared on a cherry for you.  You are forever making some little sort of mischief, whether it’s opening the cereal cabinet and helping yourself to handfuls, chasing the dogs around with a plastic spoon in hand, or pulling out your hair clips.

I want you to know, Maia, that despite my procrastination on things like writing, I never procrastinate on you.  You are my number one priority.  Always.

We love you desperately,
Mama & Dada.

{ 1 comment }

The comfort of coffee

by Tatiana on May 12, 2010

Sometimes, we have perfect mornings together.  I want to remember them.

I know she won’t.

Today, as she shovelled Cheerios into her mouth, I put my coffee down on the table beside her.  As usual, she stopped to look at it, and although she’s learned not to put her fingers in it, she likes to lean close and hold her hand over the top to feel the steam rising.  Today, I tried to show her how to sniff and breathe in the smell, leaving her laughing at Mama’s wrinkled nose and exclamations of “MMMM, COFFEE!”

She won’t remember these days.

But there’s something profoundly comforting in knowing that the aroma of hazelnut creamer will remind her of comfort, and home, and me, many many years into the future.

Which scents bring memories back for you?

{ 12 comments }

A picture’s worth a thousand words

by Tatiana on May 11, 2010

Poor dogs.

{ 3 comments }

Onions

by Tatiana on May 10, 2010

Let me tell you a little bit about the reason Maia thinks she was put on this Earth.

She thinks she is here because the onions need her.

The onions need her to peel them.  They HATE their papery skin.  Also they apparently love to hang out with potatoes (who knew?)

The onions also need her to move them around the house.  They aren’t happy in their bowl, or in their little mesh bags; they need to be all over the house.

For example, hiding in the couch.

Or on the seat of her high chair.

Sometimes I find onions that completely boggle my mind:

How?  How did it get on Chris’ desk, inside a roll of packing tape?  HOW?  Was she on his lap at his chair, and had an onion in hand?  Why would he leave it there?  Was she happy when she realized it fit in there so perfectly?

And no, I’m not moving my onions somewhere that she can’t reach them.  Every damned thing else in the house is set up to be perfectly catered to the baby. She’s already learned that eating them raw leads to a not-fun experience. In exchange for not having to rearrange my already very tight kitchen, I’ll take finding onions in random places.

The mysteries of my child’s mind astound me.

{ 5 comments }

← Previous Entries