Hungry, angry, lonely, tired

Have you heard of the HALT theory? I’ve only read about it relation to child rearing, and in an effort to not research anything further than I have to (I have a paying gig for that, yo), I’m just going to share the gist of the article I read. Basically, if you’re kid is upset for some unexplained reason, maybe he’s crying uncontrollably over a dropped cookie when you know he has no problem eating food off the floor, you can apply the HALT theory to figure out what’s really wrong. To do this, ask yourself, could he be Hungry? Is he Angry? Is he Lonely? Or is he Tired?

The idea is that once kids are beyond the baby phase, when you can rule out a dirty diaper as a possible cause of alarm, you can try HALT. Sometimes when CJ’s 18th fall off the couch results in tears, I just need to pull him onto my lap for a little snuggle time and he’s fine. Sometimes he needs an extra snack, or an earlier bedtime. But find a solution to HALT, and all is right in your preschooler’s world again.

I think the HALT theory applies to adults too, and even more intensely to pregnant women. When I’m hungry I get snappy, and Chris can do nothing right until he puts food in my belly (when I’m hungry I’m also incapable of producing an acceptable snack for myself). When I’m tired I’m unreasonable and while not as mean as when I’m hungry, I know if I don’t get a nap in I’ll be crabby for the rest of the day.

Today after work I was home by myself for an hour watching Lifetime Television for Women (The Client List is, rather unfortunately, a new guilty pleasure of mine) before Chris walked in the door with CJ. And the second he did I pounced on him (well, yelled, from my perch on the couch). He wanted ham for dinner, fine, but why wasn’t he making it? (Remember, I’m incapable of cooking at this point.) Didn’t he realize how hungry I was? That he had a child to feed who was hungry too? I yammered on in a similar vein, yelling more at the TV than my bewildered husband, until Chris started the painstakingly slow process of fixing dinner (the au gratin potatoes were first MIA, then once found, took a whopping 24 minutes in the microwave to cook).

Yes, I was hungry tonight and yes, I was probably tired, and both of those things contributed to my anger. Maybe I was lonely. I find I like being alone these days but maybe deep down I missed my family. Whatever it was, I think my anger was a cry for help. I was lashing out at Chris because I couldn’t find the simple words to say, “I miss you, talk to me.” Or “I’m sad, talk to me.” That, and I really WAS hungry.

My theory is that applying the HALT theory for adults is a nice quick fix, but it usually means there’s something deeper going on, like there was for me tonight. So the next time your friend or wife flips out over the fact that you plugged the food processor into the wrong plug (see month seven of my last pregnancy) ignore the crazy and ask what’s wrong. Go one step further and ask what you can do to help. Make her tell you, because she won’t want to at first. And then do what you can to make it better.

She’s baaaaack…

I hate introductory posts. Or explanatory posts. Or any post that isn’t witty, insightful, and hilarious all at the same time. I hate them mostly because when this blog gets turned into a book (HA!), it’s these types of posts that really break the flow of the thing, you know? Blah blah blah I was living a great life over the summer but for whatever reason, I stopped blogging. Blah blah blah it turns out blogging was THERAPEUTIC for me, yes, THERAPEUTIC, and taking the time to put words on this website is actually what kept me sane all those months last year. Because now, now that things have HAPPENED in my life, now that I have a new job and a baby on the way and I’m out of that limbo place and into something real, things are much, much harder. Things that used to be easy, making dinner, playing with CJ, heck, even taking a shower, are now monumental tasks that it takes an incredible amount of help and motivation for me to overcome (OK, I don’t need help in the shower, but let’s just say it’s been at least six weeks since I shaved my legs, and I went swimming last weekend and DIDN’T EVEN NOTICE my hair growth until after I was done and drying myself off).

So, in lieu of taking meds that may potentially harm my baby—wait, that sounds bad. If you have depression and need or want to take medicine during your pregnancy I think that’s GREAT! If it’s what you need and it’s what you and your provider have discussed it will most likely be what’s best for you AND your baby in the end. But I…I, am more of an oscillator. I like to think about things, like, for a really long time. And if I don’t want to do something, I like to think about it for even longer. So long, in fact, that I wasn’t ready to talk about my potential need for depression medication til week 26 of my pregnancy. And let me tell you people, week 26 is the beginning of the third trimester, and the third trimester is too late for my best friend Zoloft to join me in my creation of new life.

So, blogging it is. And I’ll maybe talk to someone about how I’m feeling, IF I can get up the nerve to send her an e-mail. Her e-mail was on her card. Weird, right? Like, can I e-mail her at 4 AM on a Sunday and ask for an appointment? Is that appropriate? Hi, you’ve never met me, but I’m so depressed I feel I can no longer handle carrying this child and I’d really like to talk to you as soon as possible, thanks! But I don’t know, I’ve been out of the therapy game for a while so maybe this is what it is now. (Even so, I think I’ll e-mail her on Monday, during regular office hours, when she can be expecting such ridiculous things).

All this is to say, we’re hitting this newfangled form of my depression from two avenues—blogging and talk therapy. If this doesn’t work and I can’t make it to 40 weeks, Zoloft it is.

Not all of my posts will be this depressing, I promise. And I’m going to leave my posts from last year up here, because besides that OTHER introductory one I did (chronicles of my overexamined BARF), I think they’re just fine. So enjoy the five posts I have in the archives and maybe I’ll get something new out here sometime soon. If not, you know where to find me—at the drugstore picking up my prescription for Vitamin Z.

Wannabe

There are so many moms that I want to be. Here are a few off the top of my head:

• The Granola Mom, who feeds her kids a strictly organic diet, never lets sugar into her house, and doesn’t even own a TV.
• The Handmade Mom, who makes clothes for her kids, sews toys for them, and has a handy husband to boot.
• The Goodwill/Garage Sale Mom, who’s always on a hunt for a good bargain, who has no qualms about the people who may have previously worn her or her kids clothes, and who is saving her family a buttload of money on their wardrobes.
• The Skinny Mom. There are two types of Skinny Moms: the ones who have to work at it and the ones who don’t. I would be happy to be either.
• The Stylish Mom, who always looks put together, even when she’s clutching a potty-training two-year-old who’s just wet his pants.
• The Always-On Mom, who finds an opportunity for fun and learning even in the most everyday activities, like walking to the car.
• The Researching Mom, who has read every book about child rearing she can get her hands on and who, when she asks her 15-month old to use her words, actually expects her to do it.
• The Entrepreneur Mom, who has somehow found a way to work at home and make lots of money and still be with (and enjoy) her kids at the same time.

The reality is, I’m a mix of some of these moms. I wish I could say I were a mix of all of them, but unless my trolling the Internet in the wee hours of the morning is somehow putting money in my bank account I’m no entrepreneur. (I’m also not skinny or stylish, but we don’t need to go there just now.)

But I try my hardest, and I’ve got to say, our library’s weekly story hour is a virtual melting pot for all of the mom types above (and probably a few more). I’m a visual learner, so when I’m there I mom-watch as much as I can without embarrassing my child or myself.

Today I witnessed The Carefree Mom in action. When she couldn’t find her three-year-old, she told her one-year-old, “I’ll be right back,” and left him in the story room so she could go get his brother. I was appalled. I could never just leave my baby in a room while I stepped out for who knows how long. It would only take a couple of extra seconds to scoop him up and bring him with me. Besides, if I left him, something could happen to him! To my BABY! On the other hand, I was a little jealous. Maybe I need to put my kid on a longer leash. Stepping 10 feet away from him (even if I walk through a DOOR!) will most likely not harm him. Although, the total meltdown and bloodcurdling screams he’d surely issue may bother some of our fellow library patrons.

What I’m trying to explore here is how I feel like I’m never good enough. No matter how many books I read, how many gallons of organic milk I bring home, or how I try to justify buying things on sale at Ann Taylor Loft as saving money, I’ll never be the mom I think I should be. And I think there’s only one answer to that: figure out the mom I WANT to be, and then do it. Be her. Don’t let anyone else’s opinions on child rearing get in my way. If I want to buy all organic, find a way in the budget to do it. If I want to save money on clothes, find a way to do that without hitting garage sales (I just can’t stomach the thought of where those clothes have been. Unless I know you, and you tell me where, and I use lots of detergent and the Sanitize setting on my washing machine). And if I want to do more things with my child (like baking and crafting, which I believe the Always-On Mom does) then I need to stop fantasizing about it and make it happen. Which involves deciding what craft I want to do, buying the supplies, and not feeling guilty about spending money on something that will probably only bring CJ joy for a couple of hours (heck, if that’s my logic, I’ve got four bins of toys for the consignment shop in my basement that blow it out of the water).

The bottom line is, for all my observing I’m not doing a lot of changing, but I want to. I’m going to try to figure out the kind of mom I want to be. I’ll pull what qualities I want from that list of moms above, add some new ones, and then I’ll be the best mom I can to my kid, a mom who knows what she’s about and who can feel confident in her choices, even if they don’t fit into the cookie-cutter version of the perfect mom we all wanna be.