Round One goes to Nick.
Dammit.
Sunday Weigh-In
…and if you couldn’t figure it out: “W” stands for win.
Dammit.
Bath Time!
Control
My wonderful mama has flown in from Virginia to stay for a weeks with us so she can help out with Isaiah. I never appreciated another set of hands around the house so much in my life. You’d think that between Nick and I, we’d have everything under control.
Shatter those expectations right now. There’s no such thing as control when you’re learning how to be a parent for the first time. Quite the opposite, you’ll find that nearly everything is actually OUT OF CONTROL.
For example – let’s take the bathroom.
Once the pride and joy of our house when we got a few things redone, but since Isaiah has come along, it has evolved into a banished and neglected corner on the second floor. It is in such dire need of a cleaning that even NICK said something about how we need to get control of that thing. By “thing,” we’re talking about the overdue scrubbing of the tub. Our BRAND NEW tub that we’ve neglected for months now.
Control is a funny illusion of life. We THINK we know what’s around the corner because we anticipate problems, we logically hypothesize the risks and factors of every decision and, understandably, wait for the expected outcome.
Remember, though, that an illusion is something that appears to be real. It presents itself as something actual, something tangible, but it is, in fact, not.
It’s like how I believe I have Isaiah’s schedule in control and then, out of nowhere, he decides he’s bored out of his mind and wiggles like crazy for an hour. He’s fed, dry, and not tired. He’s just wiggling. Wiggle, wiggle.
He wiggles out of his bouncer, he wiggles off the blanket on the floor, he wiggles out of my arms, he wiggles to the corner of the couch. And I think, “I can’t control this boy.”
Ah HA! Parenting lesson #827462 – NO CHILD IS UNDER OUR CONTROL, PARTICULARLY CHUBBY NEWBORNS.
And thus Nick and I feel out of control at times. We do our best to stay in routine, not make any plans and be nerdy 30-somethings with no lives outside our jobs and domestic responsibilities that include trips to Home Depot. We have learned that control is, quite frankly, laughable.
I thought I had control of nursing Isaiah and yet, still, every stinking week, something comes up. This week, for example, I developed a low grade fever on Sunday. My leg muscles were achy and my whole body was sore. I couldn’t believe I was sick. Considering how neurotic I’ve been about washing and/or sanitizing my hands every time I touch an unsterilized door knob, I didn’t think I’d catch any bug.
And as it turns out, I was dehydrated. I kept drinking waterbottles full of H20 and didn’t have to pee at all. Miraculously (insert sarcasm there), the next morning my fever broke. I kept drinking and drinking and by the early afternoon, I felt as fine as a shiny new button.
How could I forget to increase my water intake? Nursing, working out, the weather is *just* beginning to warm up…hello? Water? More of it?
Before I admonished myself too harshly, Nick shared a story with me that made me feel oodles better…
The other night Nick woke up in the middle of the night because he heard Isaiah on the monitor. Nick thought Isaiah was just fussing around but he still got up to listen to the monitor more closely. He was alarmed, though, when he realized that Isaiah’s breathing was making an irregular high pitched squeak, like he was having trouble breathing. As he started to move quickly toward the door, concerned that maybe Isaiah was sick or in a bad sleeping position, he noticed that the high pitched noise was moving with him, despite he was growing further and further away from the monitor.
“It was my own breathing,” Nick told me. “It was my own freaking nose that was making those noises. I couldn’t even distinguish my own self from a baby monitor.”
Mhm. That’s bad, babe, I thought.
So, you have a dehydrated and dizzy mom and a dad who can’t hear his own nostrils.
Perfect.
Control
My wonderful mama has flown in from Virginia to stay for a weeks with us so she can help out with Isaiah. I never appreciated another set of hands around the house so much in my life. You’d think that between Nick and I, we’d have everything under control.
Shatter those expectations right now. There’s no such thing as control when you’re learning how to be a parent for the first time. Quite the opposite, you’ll find that nearly everything is actually OUT OF CONTROL.
For example – let’s take the bathroom.
Once the pride and joy of our house when we got a few things redone, but since Isaiah has come along, it has evolved into a banished and neglected corner on the second floor. It is in such dire need of a cleaning that even NICK said something about how we need to get control of that thing. By “thing,” we’re talking about the overdue scrubbing of the tub. Our BRAND NEW tub that we’ve neglected for months now.
Control is a funny illusion of life. We THINK we know what’s around the corner because we anticipate problems, we logically hypothesize the risks and factors of every decision and, understandably, wait for the expected outcome.
Remember, though, that an illusion is something that appears to be real. It presents itself as something actual, something tangible, but it is, in fact, not.
It’s like how I believe I have Isaiah’s schedule in control and then, out of nowhere, he decides he’s bored out of his mind and wiggles like crazy for an hour. He’s fed, dry, and not tired. He’s just wiggling. Wiggle, wiggle.
He wiggles out of his bouncer, he wiggles off the blanket on the floor, he wiggles out of my arms, he wiggles to the corner of the couch. And I think, “I can’t control this boy.”
Ah HA! Parenting lesson #827462 – NO CHILD IS UNDER OUR CONTROL, PARTICULARLY CHUBBY NEWBORNS.
And thus Nick and I feel out of control at times. We do our best to stay in routine, not make any plans and be nerdy 30-somethings with no lives outside our jobs and domestic responsibilities that include trips to Home Depot. We have learned that control is, quite frankly, laughable.
I thought I had control of nursing Isaiah and yet, still, every stinking week, something comes up. This week, for example, I developed a low grade fever on Sunday. My leg muscles were achy and my whole body was sore. I couldn’t believe I was sick. Considering how neurotic I’ve been about washing and/or sanitizing my hands every time I touch an unsterilized door knob, I didn’t think I’d catch any bug.
And as it turns out, I was dehydrated. I kept drinking waterbottles full of H20 and didn’t have to pee at all. Miraculously (insert sarcasm there), the next morning my fever broke. I kept drinking and drinking and by the early afternoon, I felt as fine as a shiny new button.
How could I forget to increase my water intake? Nursing, working out, the weather is *just* beginning to warm up…hello? Water? More of it?
Before I admonished myself too harshly, Nick shared a story with me that made me feel oodles better…
The other night Nick woke up in the middle of the night because he heard Isaiah on the monitor. Nick thought Isaiah was just fussing around but he still got up to listen to the monitor more closely. He was alarmed, though, when he realized that Isaiah’s breathing was making an irregular high pitched squeak, like he was having trouble breathing. As he started to move quickly toward the door, concerned that maybe Isaiah was sick or in a bad sleeping position, he noticed that the high pitched noise was moving with him, despite he was growing further and further away from the monitor.
“It was my own breathing,” Nick told me. “It was my own freaking nose that was making those noises. I couldn’t even distinguish my own self from a baby monitor.”
Mhm. That’s bad, babe, I thought.
So, you have a dehydrated and dizzy mom and a dad who can’t hear his own nostrils.
Perfect.
It’s SO On
For those who know us best, the gene that determines competitiveness runs strong in both Factora and Borchers families. It has to. I’ve never met anyone who’s more competitive than I am. That is, not until I met Nick.
Competitiveness comes in many forms. There’s the obvious kind that reveals itself in sports. The Michael Jordan/Tiger Woods (sans sex scandal) kind of competition. This is the “I CANNOT LOSE. EVER.” gene which makes athletes train twice as hard and cultivates a near military discipline that most of us civilians would find unbearable.
Then there’s other genes of competition, more subtle but just as lethal. This competitive gene revolves around the oratory debate stratosphere, aka “I MUST BE RIGHT. I AM RIGHT.” kind of thinking. It’s a gene that makes its way into the most innocuous of situations – bowling, finding a parking space, starting a campfire, any household project, insurance claims…
You think these situations are not competitive? Move in with us for a week, you’ll understand after that.
No matter what the situation, Nick and I often pit ourselves against the opponent, be a piece of stubborn firewood that will not flame up along with the others or a slow car in the Panera Bread parking lot who is blocking traffic. Everything’s a competition. No dispute too small, no challenge too big. There are two trophy words uttered in our house that carry more weight than anything: I WIN.
Sometimes it’s shouted, sometimes it’s whispered into a billowing pile of laundry. Whatever needs conquering shall be conquered in our house.
So, you can imagine the kind of raised eyebrows and smack talk in our marriage when the competition is between us. It can get ugly, but it’s always entertaining. Many people do not know that Nick is, as Keith Borchers said in his best man speech at our wedding, “an ego maniac who thinks he’s sweet at everything.”
Save opera and any form of dancing, this is true about Nicholas David Borchers. He hates losing. He can’t stand being second. He likes strategy and mind-games during poker. He’s all about focus and readjustment. Don’t be fooled by his calm demeanor. There’s a beast inside him called THE WINNER’S CIRCLE.
And then there’s me. Don’t think that I don’t have my own monster and even according to Nick, I may be more competitive than him. There’s a reason why I have the Rocky IV soundtrack on my iPod. Most people wouldn’t see it coming, kind of like a CATEGORY FIVE HURRICANE that didn’t come up on your weather outlook.
My competitiveness is often stuffed away because of its monstrosity. It can and has ruined moments of friendly game playing. While everyone else shrugs after a loss, I seethe inside. Competitiveness is like a constant search for perfection, which can never be attained. So, the desire to win or be right or dominate knows no rest. But, it’s not always appropriate to be competitive so I, along with Nick, keep it to myself. We’re like two man-eating sharks in a Sea World tank: it’s in our blood and in our nature, but we’re trained to be harmless.
That was a long introduction into the heart of this post, but it’s critical for you to know the background of our competitive edges.
Nick and I have a combined goal to be and become healthier parents. Running around with Isaiah necessitates optimal states of health so we decided to commit to losing a few pounds. I need to shed my pregnancy weight and Nick, many months ago, invented a campaign called, “Don’t Get Fat” because of his fear of rolling into a “fat new dad.”
So we made a deal and the stakes are high.
Beginning Sunday, March 7th, we are having our own personal Biggest Loser competition. We adapted the show to our own lives and here are the ground rules:
Weekly weigh-ins on Sunday
Largest percentage of weight loss wins
Two goal dates: June 4, 2010 (our 5 year anniversary) and September 4, 2010.
Whoever has the largest percentage of weight loss on June 4, 2010 has the intermediate prize – winner gets one evening of their choice every week to go out and do whatever s/he wants while Isaiah is with the other parent.
If you don’t understand the impact of that reward, go back and read it again. This prize is HUGE. This can mean going out with your friends. For Nick it can mean going to play racquetball with Books and Sam or going to the library for a few hours. For me that means extended trips to a coffee shop or taking my time at a farmer’s market.
The ultimate prize, come September 4, will be individualized. Nick has yet to announce what his prize will be if he wins. If I win, I get to go to the conference of my choice in any part of the United States. (I’m such a nerd. I adore conferences on writing, feminism, media, etc…) Beside the fact that I want to shed my preggers weight, that conference-attending prize alone all by guarantees that I will win. Hello? Travel? Hotels? Learning? Meeting new writers and artists? That’s what I was born to do.
This competition is huge and normally, I would not post something like this on our blog, but I figured if our friends and family – and God knows who else on the internet is reading this – is in the know, we are accountable to seeing this through. And we will.
It’s man vs. woman. Focus vs. Passion. Tall vs. Short. Endurance vs. Intervals.
Choose your team now and place your bets. Nick is team blue. I am team green.
Cheers to a healthier Borchers/Factora-Borchers family in 2010.
(And, here’s to ME, cause you know I’m going to lick this thing…)
It’s On…It’s SO On
For those who know us best, the gene that determines competitiveness runs strong in both Factora and Borchers families. It has to. I’ve never met anyone who’s more competitive than I am. That is, not until I met Nick.
Competitiveness comes in many forms. There’s the obvious kind that reveals itself in sports. The Michael Jordan/Tiger Woods (sans sex scandal) kind of competition. This is the “I CANNOT LOSE. EVER.” gene which makes athletes train twice as hard and cultivates a near military discipline that most of us civilians would find unbearable.
Then there’s other genes of competition, more subtle but just as lethal. This competitive gene revolves around the oratory debate stratosphere, aka “I MUST BE RIGHT. I AM RIGHT.” kind of thinking. It’s a gene that makes its way into the most innocuous of situations – bowling, finding a parking space, starting a campfire, any household project, insurance claims…
You think these situations are not competitive? Move in with us for a week, you’ll understand after that.
No matter what the situation, Nick and I often pit ourselves against the opponent, be it a piece of stubborn firewood that will not flame up along with the others or a slow car in the Panera Bread parking lot who is blocking traffic. Everything’s a competition. No dispute too small, no challenge too big. There are two trophy words uttered in our house that carry more weight than anything: I WIN.
Sometimes it’s shouted, sometimes it’s whispered into a billowing pile of laundry. Whatever needs conquering shall be conquered in our house.
So, you can imagine the kind of raised eyebrows and smack talk in our marriage when the competition is between us. It can get ugly, but it’s always entertaining. Many people do not know that Nick is, as Keith Borchers said in his best man speech at our wedding, “an ego maniac who thinks he’s sweet at everything.”
Save opera and any form of dancing, this is true about Nicholas David Borchers. He hates losing. He can’t stand being second. He likes strategy and mind-games during poker. He’s all about focus and readjustment. Don’t be fooled by his calm demeanor. There’s a beast inside him called THE WINNER’S CIRCLE.
And then there’s me. Don’t think that I don’t have my own monster and even according to Nick, I may be more competitive than him. There’s a reason why I have the Rocky IV soundtrack on my iPod. Most people wouldn’t see it coming, kind of like a CATEGORY FIVE HURRICANE that didn’t come up on your weather outlook.
My competitiveness is often stuffed away because of its monstrosity. It can and has ruined moments of friendly game playing. While everyone else shrugs after a loss, I seethe inside. Competitiveness is like a constant search for perfection, which can never be attained. So, the desire to win or be right or dominate knows no rest. But, it’s not always appropriate to be competitive so I, along with Nick, keep it to myself. We’re like two man-eating sharks in a Sea World tank: it’s in our blood and in our nature, but we’re trained to be harmless.
That was a long introduction into the heart of this post, but it’s critical for you to know the background of our competitive edges.
Nick and I have a combined goal to be and become healthier parents. Running around with Isaiah necessitates optimal states of health so we decided to commit to losing a few pounds. I need to shed my pregnancy weight and Nick, many months ago, invented a campaign called, “Don’t Get Fat” because of his fear of rolling into a “fat new dad.”
So we made a deal and the stakes are high.
Beginning Sunday, March 7th, we are having our own personal Biggest Loser competition. We adapted the show to our own lives and here are the ground rules:
Weekly weigh-ins on Sunday
Largest percentage of weight loss wins
Two goal dates: June 4, 2010 (our 5 year anniversary) and September 4, 2010.
Whoever has the largest percentage of weight loss on June 4, 2010 has the intermediate prize – winner gets one evening of their choice every week to go out and do whatever s/he wants while Isaiah is with the other parent.
If you don’t understand the impact of that reward, go back and read it again. This prize is HUGE. This can mean going out with your friends. For Nick it can mean going to play racquetball with Books and Sam or going to the library for a few hours. For me that means extended trips to a coffee shop or taking my time at a farmer’s market.
The ultimate prize, come September 4, will be individualized. Nick has yet to announce what his prize will be if he wins. If I win, I get to go to the conference of my choice in any part of the United States. (I’m such a nerd. I adore conferences on writing, feminism, media, etc…) Beside the fact that I want to shed my preggers weight, that conference-attending prize alone all but guarantees that I will win. Hello? Travel? Hotels? Learning? Meeting new writers and artists? That’s what I was born to do.
This competition is huge and normally, I would not post something like this on our blog, but I figured if our friends and family – and God knows who else on the internet is reading this – is in the know, we are accountable to seeing this through. And we will.
It’s man vs. woman. Focus vs. Passion. Tall vs. Short. Endurance vs. Intervals.
Choose your team now and place your bets. Nick is team blue. I am team green.
Cheers to a healthier Borchers/Factora-Borchers family in 2010.
(And, here’s to ME, cause you know I’m going to lick this thing…)
The Irony of His First Laugh
Writing, for me, serves many purposes. Not only is it my passion, my center, my lifelong dream and goal, writing is also cathartic. When I write, it always relieves something. It helps me share the good. It also helps me release the aggravation.
Today, I am writing for the latter.
It is my first taste in understanding how parents can simultaneously love their child and also want to run away to Bora Bora alone and get lost in the beauty of the ocean, away from screaming cries and milk stains and the smell of diapers and the sight of bad eczema.
Today Isaiah was a complete paradox. After sleeping through the night consistently for over a month (I know, I know – we’re incredibly blessed and I shouldn’t be complaining), he didn’t last night. He WAH!ed and AIGH!ed for an hour while I tried everything to calm him down, but…to no avail.
He woke at 8am and was just as fussy. So I stripped him down to his diaper to look for any signs of…anything – rashes, bumps, bruises – signs of discomfort or hurt. Nada.
While he laid on our big bed squirming like a fish out of water with nothing but his diaper on, I couldn’t help but laugh at how adorable he looked. His pure smooth skin (except his face where he has eczema, poor guy) and fat rolls…he looked like an enormous human cinnabon, just ready to be eaten. So I leaned over and teased him, calling him my favorite pumpkin and gave him a friendly zerbert on his stomach.
And thus came Isaiah’s first laugh.
3 hearty, adorable chuckles erupted from his tiny little mouth and I squealed in delight.
That was the highlight of the day.
The rest of the day he was either fussing, crying, yelping, or sadfacing. I was at my wit’s end and contemplated what Bora Bora looked like this time of year. I could hear it calling my name. Liiiiiisssssaaaaaa…LLLLLLLiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiisssaaaaaa
I was brought back to reality when Isaiah spit up on me for the fifth time.
It was a toss-up between me and his burp cloth for WORST SMELL IN THE LIVING ROOM. We both were covered in Isaiah’s regurgitation.
Of course it had to be a night when Nick worked late until 9pm. He walked in to find me on the floor, lightly bouncing Isaiah in his bouncer while his eyelids drooped closer and closer to a close. My other hand was stuffing dinner in my face because I hadn’t eaten in hours. Taking care of Isaiah required both hands all day. Food was secondary. By 9pm, I was so ravenous, I felt like I was going to eat a piece of old firewood laying in the fireplace. It looked like a hotdog at the time.
Luckily, I was able to scarf down dinner while Isaiah bounced around for a few minutes. Nick had barely entered the house when I announced that I needed to go upstairs and get my sanity back. “I’m going to take a shower. If you need me, I’m NOT available.”
It’s ironic that Isaiah’s first laugh came today when I spent most of the day near tears with Bora Bora dreams. Nothing, not even the promise of spring in three weeks could alleviate the stress of a restless baby.
And so, I write.
The Irony
Writing, for me, serves many purposes. Not only is it my passion, my center, my lifelong dream and goal, writing is also cathartic. When I write, it always relieves something. It helps me share the good. It also helps me release the aggravation.
Today, I am writing for the latter.
It is my first taste in understanding how parents can simultaneously love their child and also want to run away to Bora Bora alone and get lost in the beauty of the ocean, away from screaming cries and milk stains and the smell of diapers and the sight of bad eczema.
Today Isaiah was a complete paradox. After sleeping through the night consistently for over a month (I know, I know – we’re incredibly blessed and I shouldn’t be complaining), he didn’t last night. He WAH!ed and AIGH!ed for an hour while I tried everything to calm him down, but…to no avail.
He woke at 8am and was just as fussy. So I stripped him down to his diaper to look for any signs of…anything – rashes, bumps, bruises – signs of discomfort or hurt. Nada.
While he laid on our big bed squirming like a fish out of water with nothing but his diaper on, I couldn’t help but laugh at how adorable he looked. His pure smooth skin (except his face where he has eczema, poor guy) and fat rolls…he looked like an enormous human cinnabon, just ready to be eaten. So I leaned over and teased him, calling him my favorite pumpkin and gave him a friendly zerbert on his stomach.
And thus came Isaiah’s first laugh.
3 hearty, adorable chuckles erupted from his tiny little mouth and I squealed in delight.
That was the highlight of the day.
The rest of the day he was either fussing, crying, yelping, or sadfacing. I was at my wit’s end and contemplated what Bora Bora looked like this time of year. I could hear it calling my name. Liiiiiisssssaaaaaa…LLLLLLLiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiisssaaaaaa
I was brought back to reality when Isaiah spit up on me for the fifth time.
It was a toss-up between me and his burp cloth for WORST SMELL IN THE LIVING ROOM. We both were covered in Isaiah’s regurgitation.
Of course it had to be a night when Nick worked late until 9pm. He walked in to find me on the floor, lightly bouncing Isaiah in his bouncer while his eyelids drooped closer and closer to a close. My other hand was stuffing dinner in my face because I hadn’t eaten in hours. Taking care of Isaiah required both hands all day. Food was secondary. By 9pm, I was so ravenous, I felt like I was going to eat a piece of old firewood laying in the fireplace. It looked like a hotdog at the time.
Luckily, I was able to scarf down dinner while Isaiah bounced around for a few minutes. Nick had barely entered the house when I announced that I needed to go upstairs and get my sanity back. “I’m going to take a shower. If you need me, I’m NOT available.”
It’s ironic that Isaiah’s first laugh came today when I spent most of the day near tears with Bora Bora dreams. Nothing, not even the promise of spring in three weeks could alleviate the stress of a restless baby.
And so, I write.
2010 State of the Self Address
Four years ago I began delivering the “State of the Self;” a reflection on the past year of life which is always given the evening of my birthday. This is my 2010 State of the Self.
February 27, 1979 is the day I stopped breathing someone else’s air and began breathing on my own. It was not by choice. The woman’s body is built only to support another life for so long before the placenta begins to thin, before the protective and nourishing sac of life begins to deteriorate. It’s like our birthday is our first eviction and the landlord is our mother’s body.
A birth. A day.
I spare no indulgence on the 27th of February and, previous to this year, birthdays always meant my customary helium balloon, sheet cake with vanilla satin icing, and a long list of “must to do” things that include morning mimosas, naps, writing, dreaming, and sniffing around closets and car trunks for my hidden gifts. For the record, I never pretend to be more than a child on my birthday, save the mimosas.
But this birthday is different. This is my first birthday as a mother. This is the first birthday in which the word “birth” and “day” have extracted themselves from streamers and sweets and grew into profound meaning. “Birth,” as in, a son, my firstborn. Day has grown to be more than the frame of 24 hours. “Day” is now gift.
Last year, my State of the Self focused on my identity as a writer. My pen itself nearly throbbed with pain as I described the challenges of creative writing. Now, I worry less about identity as a writer and more about truthfulness. Being truthful with Isaiah may very well be the most challenging task of my life.
And one truth I am going to share with my son is to take moments for himself. Or as I like to put it: Breathe in the awesome. I never understood those who hated their birthday. I suppose it can be viewed as a self-important concept, but the celebration of life, of my own life has always superceded any other reason to deny the day. Those who dread their birthday often do so because of a number – age. Or it reminds them of death.
Birth, for me, evokes the boundless beginning of life.
But if birthdays aren’t your cup of tea, I hope and pray that you do find a day, a time to rejoice in your own life in the very miracle of your existence. Because if we can’t find a reason or an hour to relish in our blessings, to be authentically and radically grateful for our friends, family, lovers, gifts, talents, experiences, insights, and lessons – I don’t know if we’re truly seeing ourselves – or life – clearly enough.
Thirty-one years is more than enough reason for cake and drinks. And after birthing my son, I know that thirty-one seconds alone is more than enough reason for celebration. The paradox of birth – its fragility and its power – must, begs, needs to be recognized. And celebrated. Isaiah has taught me that.
So, my state at 31 is one of utter grace. Grace of understanding. Grace of frustration. Grace of holy parenting and emotion. It is a period of firsts and failures and finding that my life can hold so much more than I ever thought possible. That realization also came with the responsibility that I myself am capable of so much more than I ever thought possible.
It is my birthday wish that everyone – at some point in their life – births new life and it need not be a child. A revolution, a concept, relationship, invention, methodology, habit or path that inducts an enhanced thought-process, a better more gentle way of loving and being in the world.
Because if we all took a moment to birth and rejoice in our own birthing, the state of grace would no longer be a temporary lingering, but an everlasting positioning of soul.