PROGRESS REPORT: B minus

Those of you who have been following my blog know that a) I made a New Year's Resolution to stop saying "sorry" and b) my child likes to chew on garbage. I'm happy to report that a) my resolution has been going well so far and b) I am headed to Bed, Bath, and Beyond today to get a garbage can with a lid.

Regarding point A, I have a few updates for you. Here is what I have learned so far:

1) There are other ways to word certain social niceties, like saying "sorry" when you do that awkward "who's walking which way on the sidewalk" dance with a stranger. "Excuse me" works perfectly well.*

2) There are even other words for expressing condolences ("I'm so sad to hear of your loss").

3) Sometimes (I have realized), I apologize for things that are actually good for other people or the human race. "Oh, sorry I moved that breakable object of yours out of the way of two rambunctious babies" makes no sense! I SHOULD be saying, "That's right. I moved that object so it wouldn't get broken into a trillion pieces. You're fuckin' welcome!" My new motto is going to be "you're fuckin' welcome."

4) I definitely heard "sorry" come out of my mouth at least four times over the past two days (down from seventeen! Progress!) and kicked myself and told myself loudly to do better. BUT, I also had a marked success. After I saw online that Stanford won the Rose Bowl (which I admittedly was only looking up in the first place because if the game was over than that meant Ethan might be on his way back to relieve me of primary parenting duties), I said casually to my BFF's husband, whose house I was staying at, "So, Stanford won, huh?" At which point he looked me directly in the eye and said, "I was Tivo-ing that game."

Major, major oops. MAJOR OPPORTUNITY FOR REBECCA TO SAY "SORRY." Normally, I would have said sorry at least four times. Maybe five. I had ruined the game for him... hadn't I? Well, I thought about it. I thought about what I WOULD have said, pre-resolution. And instead of saying "I'm so sorry!", I said, rather robotically because it was so freaking hard for me: "Oops. My bad. I had no idea. Guess you'll never have us visit again." And then I proceeded to run the whole exchange over and over again in my head for twenty minutes, wasting a whole lot of mental energy. But I was tortured. What if he was mad? Annoyed? What if he thought I DIDN'T CARE THAT HE WAS MAD OR ANNOYED? And I decided in that moment that I couldn't say to him, "Normally I would say sorry, but I can't right now" because that would totally be cheating. The whole point of this experiment is for me to deal with the consequences of not relying on my crutch. If I use the crutch, even backhandedly, it doesn't count.

Later that night, after I was able to get some perspective on the incident and realize (duh) that nobody was going to de-friend me on FB because I ruined a football game of a school he didn't even GO to, I proudly told my friend that I had successfully censored myself from apologizing, and (after messing with me for thirty seconds which I totally deserved), he gave me a mental high-five. So there you have it. I did it. I succeeded. And I felt just a tad bit awesome. I still have so far to go that I should definitely not be calling myself awesome yet. But... baby steps. I give myself a B-minus for the week. And that's probably generous, honestly. But if I get less than a B I freak out.

xo,
Rebecca

*I know that these use cases aren't really my worst offenses. EVERYONE says "sorry" at some point, so is it so bad, you might ask, to say "sorry" if you bump into somebody? YES, if you are me. I'm an addict. I have to go to an extreme or this is never going to work.

The S Word

It's really happening. (My New Year's Resolution). Last night, at ten till midnight, we all went around the table declaring our resolutions, and as soon as I said mine out loud I was filled with an uncomfortable emotional cocktail of dread, anxiety, and that agita you get when you know there's a good chance you might epically fail at something.

I explained to the other guests at the dinner party (several of whom I was meeting for the first time) that saying "sorry" is my addiction. My crutch. The thing that I like least about myself because I'm pretty sure it makes me seem not confident. I say "sorry" to strangers, to friends, to family, and I say it when I have absolutely nothing to apologize for. It's a reflex. It's incredibly annoying. And I've been doing it for decades.

Everyone basically agreed that there would be no way I'd be able to stop cold turkey — clearly, I'm going to fuck up. In fact, I already have. I wandered into my BFF's kitchen this morning and, without even thinking about it, apologized for not helping clean up more after the dinner because Ethan and I were so tired when the ball dropped that we rushed to the guest room to climb in bed by 12:07. I caught myself halfway through the sentence, cursed the the world and myself, and then came to the realization that breaking this habit is going to take at least a couple of weeks — if not months — of training myself, and trying to do better next time.

I should probably come up with a reward/punishment system for myself. Every time I say the S Word (which I hope is NEVER, but I have to be realistic here), I should have to do something unpleasant like drink kale juice or go camping.*

I'm quite serious about this goal, though it feels ridiculously daunting because it's not just a WORD I say — it's a loaded, tricky, slippery little compulsion, and there's going to be a big ole hole left when it's gone.

Happy New Year! What is YOUR resolution?

*Two things I do not like.

Long (and by long I mean VERY LONG) Day's Journey

We took Leo on a road trip yesterday that lasted seven and a half hours. It was either brave or completely and totally inadvisable: depends on whether you want to high five us or just point out that we're idiots. Your call.

Miraculously, the trip went fairly well, though Ethan and I treated every second like we were about to step onto enemy lines, and at one crucial leg of the journey, I drove 100 miles straight with the concentration of a fighter pilot while Baby slept in the back, his special Land of Nod CD set at exactly the appropriate level to provide the ultimate soothing white noise to keep him in dreamland for as long as physically possible. Ethan sneezed and we almost lost it.

Things only get really, really bad the last twenty minutes, when all our poor baby wanted was to GET THE HELL OUT OF THAT FREAKING CAR SEAT, and we were so close to our destination that stopping would have felt like torture (admittedly, the screaming was also torture. I'd really like to never think about it again, thanks).

We're quite happy to have arrived safely at our destination, but please don't ask us how we plan to get back home.

Hope you're all having wonderful and road trip-free New Years!

xo,
Rebecca

Piano Baby

Leo learned how to play the piano the other night, and I have already decided to make him practice "The Little White Donkey" for 17 hours straight without access to his sippy cup until he gets the synchronized hand movements right. (Kidding. Obviously. I don't think I could ever come close to being a tiger mom — today, I practically shoved my smoothie and my mom's Starbucks at him before he even showed signs of wanting them. And I let him come into the bathroom while I took a shower. AND I bought him a pony). In all seriousness: Leo loved the piano. He has a tiny little one that was near his crib in his room before we moved, and he could reach two of the keys through the slats. In the middle of the night, we would hear "tinkling" that Ethan dubbed "so melodic" until the fifth night of it, when we scooted the mini piano out of fingers' reach. "Melodic" had turned into "cute but incredibly grating."

Hope you're all enjoying safe, warm, happy holidays and that your kid learned cello, French horn, or at least violin while you were away.

xo,
Rebecca

All I Want for Christmas is for You to Take a Nap

My 15-month-old decided to stage about 13 nap protests this past week, while we've been traveling, and between the time change, a slight cold/cough, the fact that he has made it quite clear he'd like to switch to one nap from two, and his "revelation" that we've been sharing a room with him, it's been — how shall I put this? — slightly like getting a wild bear cub to fall asleep next to a tiny kitten and not eat it.

I'm tired. Ethan's tired. Poor, poor Leo has been very tired. Earlier today, I found myself at Walgreens, on Christmas, unshowered and at the end of my rope, trying to convince a well-meaning pharmacist to help me come up with an over-the-counter medicine to stop my baby's cough so he would sleep, dammit! (No such luck. Said pharmacist offered me nothing useful whatsoever because he didn't want to get sued. Thanks a lot, well-meaning pharmacist).

Mercifully, Leo took an hour and forty-five minute nap later in the afternoon, and his mood visibly improved. And, because sleep begets sleep (didn't you hear that a million times in books and on get-your-baby-to-go-to-sleep websites and from all-knowing septuagenarians when your baby was a newborn?) he even went to bed tonight, knowing there was a full room of raucous adults enjoying cookies just steps from him, without protest. A great Christmas present, indeed.

How is your child's napping schedule these days? Is it consistent? Is it cruel and just completely unfair? Or should it make me very, very jealous?

PHOTO CAPTION: Leo's new favorite gift — a "Lil Texan" sippy cup. Genius.

xox,
Rebecca

Having It All: Part One of 147

Last night's dinner conversation with friends and family took a turn for the worse-slash-better (depends on who you ask!) when Anne Marie Slaughter's infamous Atlantic article came up — and we debated or attempted to debate every possible facet of the "having it all" dilemma. As you know, it's so complicated I could literally write a thesis about it if I did that kind of thing but I don't because I'm way too lazy.

Pumping at work. Breastfeeding. Splitting childcare 50/50 with your spouse. Maternity and paternity leave. Flexible hours. Spouses as equal earners (or not). Women changing their names when they get married (or not). What it means to be a mother or a father, and whether parents-to-be spend nearly enough time coming up with a parenting "game plan" before they have kids (hint: they don't).* The list of hot topics went on and on, leaving me with far more questions than answers (naturally), and a burning desire to continue to dissect this topic a little — or even a lot — more.

No, there won't be 147 posts on this topic, but there might be ten. And my first question — the one that seemed to be "core" to our entire discussion — is this: What does "having it all" even mean? What does it mean to women in general, and what does it mean to women in specific (i.e., you)? And, perhaps even more important, because I don't know that anyone ever asks this, what does it mean to fathers? Because if they don't think about it when they first have kids, they should.

*This is not a judgement, but rather a "whoa, parenting is incredibly hard I wish I had more of a game plan and maybe it would help other people if they did too" kind of a statement.

xo,
Rebecca

Flying with Your Toddler

A seriously short post today because it's been one of those days (read: weeks) where Leo staged several nap protests and discovered spaghetti (happy he liked it; not happy about the state of our floors, clothes, and hair), and I accomplished essentially nothing, but I think my baby and his stuffed sheep solved world peace (they spend a lot of time together in the crib chatting. It's getting serious).

I did get the chance to visit our house today and was floored by all the progress that's been made. No, that's not our dining table in the photo — it's one of those sawhorse worktable thingies. I totally want to ask them to leave it 'cause it's so rad.

Happy almost holidays — I'll be writing as much as I can over the next two weeks because I'm sure Leo will eat wrapping paper and it will be noteworthy. Are you flying with your toddler? Here are ten tips that I don't think we're following at all, which makes me now feel inadequate.

xo,
Rebecca