Ring of Despair

I suppose it's OK to let Max play in his bedroom while I'm here in the boys' bathroom sorting his brother's laundry he is going to be stuck downstairs all day it's freaking snowing again and I'm too filthy to go to the gym and take him so he can have fun in the kid room there I didn't wash my hair yesterday it's so dirty it hurts I'll just wait until he naps if he naps he hardly ever sleeps but maybe he will be merciful to me today and I can pop in a workout DVD and shower too while he naps Jesus how much laundry does Gabe have did he go to school naked his closet is only so big wait a minute what's that sound that very distinct tinkling sound of delicate metal and gems on crystal oh my God that little shit has gotten into my jewelry dish again I'd better rush into my bedroom and see what's happening he hears me coming he's already saying "oh no no no" and "it's OK" like I'm not going to spank you look what you did dammit how many times do I have to tell you oh yeah you can run but I'm going to catch you oh God you're struggling and I'm mad and I just hate myself for spanking you and this morning is just going to shit I'm trying to do laundry and housework and act like I've got it together and here you are dumping my jewelry you're entertaining yourself you've got no one to play with I guess there's just nothing to do but pick it up no I don't want your help just get away from me I don't even want to look at you right now and I hate hate hate myself for how I feel about you when you're just a little guy and you're just curious and I wish I was a better mother and oh my God where the fuck is my wedding band no get away stop it oh shit where is it where is it I've found all the earrings and the diamond and the other rings where is the band how many times do I have to tell you to leave my things alone this is my stuff stop it leave it just leave it alone my wedding band is gone I'm crying now and I know it's just a ring just a thing but this makes me so sad your daddy gave me this ring this is from daddy he gave it to me on the day we finally got married and this is my wedding ring and I miss him so much he's gone so long at sea and he gave me this ring and I'm sobbing and there is snot coming out of my nose and I'm on the floor now you're really crying and upset and trying to hug me and crap I have to hug you because you're making that funny little upset penguin honk and you only ever do that when you're super upset of course you're upset because you're just 2 and you don't know why your mom is on the floor sobbing but you know it might have something to do with you and you just said "it's OK" in half reassurance to me and half hope for yourself and you're putting your soft little chubby hands on the side of my face and trying to physically lift my sobbing face into a smile this makes me love you and hate myself even more and stop it you have to go somewhere else now I can't do this right now I just want to find this ring it has to be here somewhere I'll go through everything and lift up everything and put away all this piled stuff maybe it fell into this stuff everywhere wait a minute I'm doing extra work now and it's taking more time where did he go I hear the rattle of the blinds in the guest bedroom my God is he hanging himself in the cords of the blinds while I'm looking for a stupid ring I'm running down the hallway nope there he is just screwing around trying to make that noise again with the blinds c'mon let's go downstairs and do this laundry please I just want to do some laundry it's the one thing that always makes me feel like I can accomplish something just something anything in this house that can be some evidence that I have done something right.

(Just a little snippet from my morning.)

Operation Save Classic Games

At least most retailers restrained themselves until the clock struck midnight on Halloween, but the beginning of this month unleashed the full Christmas marketing torrent.

I love, love, love Christmas. I look forward to decorating my house all year, but I don't do it until after Thanksgiving. That holiday deserves its own feast and festivities.

I do my best to avoid the rampant commercialism that heralds the coming of the prince of peace. (No, the irony is not lost on me.) But I'm not always quick enough to mute the commercials between the few TV programs my toddler watches.

There are about four blog posts in this introduction alone, and I'll probably get to all of them at some point. What I want to write about today is one of the toys I heard advertised in those commercials.

Hasbro was hocking its games, including Operation. I about needed one myself when the announcer happily proclaimed that the pieces were "now easier to remove!!!"

What the hell? Isn't that the absolute point of this game?

My grandmother had the classic version, preserved since it first came out in the 1960s. We played with it constantly as kids, jumping every time our little metal tweezers made contact with the exposed metal border of the various anatomical parts the player is to remove.

There probably was a significant electrocution risk, but we played it like it was designed to be played: tough.

Operation back then taught us to be careful, patient and persevering. Operation today will teach kids that everything is easy and handed to them on a silver platter.

And we wonder why kids can be such pains in the Adam's apple.

The piece that desperately needs to be removed from parents' brains is that unfortunate desire to make things easier for their children. That won't make an experience more enjoyable. It just will heighten children's disappointment in all things and will erode their self-confidence and creativity. And yet Hasbro has caved to get their money.

Childhood isn't complete without a little zap now and again.

Neither Snow, Nor Rain, Nor Heat, Nor Gloom of Night

There was a blizzard yesterday, but not the snowy kind of my childhood that prompted us to wear thermal leggings under our Halloween costumes and parkas over them.

It was a social media storm, conducted by pleading parents and a few school board candidates mere days away from the election. Heavy rain and wind were in the forecast, and communities all over northwest Ohio started postponing trick-or-treat times.

Some did it earlier in the week, while other officials tried waiting as long as possible to see if the weather would cooperate. But once a few communities started switching dates, the rest fell like dominoes -- even those with long-standing traditions of Oct. 31, rain or shine.

It is apparent that many bended not to Mother Nature but to Mother Next Door.

I get it. No one wants to be outdoors in that kind of weather, let alone shepherding kids dressed as dinosaurs and superheros and spooky creatures. And there was the danger of cars losing traction on wet, leaf-strewn streets and plowing into crowds of candy-collectors. Because that happens all the time.

What no one really wanted was a kid dressed as Iron Man writhing on the kitchen floor in a full-blown tantrum that he didn't get to go trick-or-treating this year when his parent determined the weather was too inclement.

First, it would have needed to be an active tornado warning for parents of yesteryear (like mine) to even consider not letting us go out on Halloween night. We might not go far or for very long, but we all bundled up and got a few blocks covered. We'd dutifully unzip our coats when neighbors asked, "Well, what are you supposed to be, sweetie?" Hell, most of the time we incorporated boots and gloves into our costumes just to be prepared. It's the end of October in northwest Ohio. It's gonna be crappy weather most years.

Second, if I had thrown such a fit, my parents never would have let me trick-or-treat again. It just wasn't acceptable, but particularly to be that dismayed about an annual event, one at which we'd get another shot the next year. This was the same for Fourth of July. Fireworks were on July 4 only, and there weren't even displays every week at the baseball game like there are now. If it rained, the show got canceled and you waited until next year.

This was crucial development for us on how to handle disappointment. Parents today seem much less willing to deal with this admittedly hard part of raising a child. They hover over their kids and fix every little trial that comes their way. They're reordering days of the year, for heaven's sake.

I know several amazing, clever, thoughtful, dutiful parents with smart, respectful, playful children who wanted trick-or-treat times to be rescheduled around the weather forecast. This alone certainly doesn't make for a parenting failure. But it is a disturbing trend nonetheless.

If the weather turns sour next Halloween, I encourage you to get more creative about how you will handle it. A neighbor of mine throws a party every year for his children and their friends, and he arranges for them to trick-or-treat on our street at a certain time. (He and his wife even offer to supply the candy.) You and your neighbors could always do this among yourselves.

Check around your communities for shopping malls and churches who offer indoor trick-or-treating for a Plan B. You might find it a happy alternative on most years.

Or stay home and make a night of it. Throw an impromptu Halloween parade around your house, banging on pots and pans. Hide all the candy you were going to pass out around your house and have a scavenger hunt, with all the lamps off and using flashlights. Play games, make paper plate masks, read books, watch "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown."

Resist the urge to call your town hall and demand an official change in trick-or-treat times. You'll be setting a much better example for your kids.

Now This Is Really Working from Home

It's been a little over two weeks since I quit my job at the newspaper, and I'm finally getting around to doing all those things that I said I would do now that I'm not offering sacrifices of time and sanity to the altar of journalism.

Like write my first Mommy Remix blog post in two months.

Maybe I needed a longer break from writing than I anticipated. Maybe I underestimated how much more time I would be spending with my family. Maybe I wanted to be out of the public eye for a little while.

I do want to reconnect with the blogosphere. Frankly, I need some adult engagement other than the residents of "Sesame Street."

I have been fortunate to recognize some affirmation here and there that my husband and I made the right choice in me quitting my job and him continuing to go out to sea to support our family financially. I went to the doctor today and when the nurse asked the litany of questions at the beginning, including how many days I had felt despair or worry or anxiety, I was thrilled to answer "none" when I know my answer would have been quite different just a month ago.

To keep on the worry-free track, I'm not going to sweat explaining my decision in a blog post.

I will share that I am glad I pushed through that time when the reporting position I took to "work from home" was so overwhelming just because it was new, and that I didn't quit when I was flailing (and never home, by the way.) I am confident that there will be a media job for me in the future, when Max is older and Gabe is on his own and when I have energy again for a career as demanding as one in newspaper.

I also will share that it's an odd thing to give up the clout of being in the media, the vanity of seeing my name in print, the real and measurable effect I can have for a wide range of people by telling their stories.

And to be a housewife? There is a fear of becoming dependent on my husband, of being marginalized, of making a mistake.

But each day that has gone by has brought a new little victory, even if it was just getting the laundry done. I suppose I always managed to get the laundry done before, but all of my chores feel easier now. I especially love doing them without the burden of a story deadline hanging over my head all the time.

I love cuddling Max in the morning and not feeling guilty that I hadn't checked my work email yet. I love being able to go wherever I want, even on short notice, because I don't have to cover some assignment at a certain time. I love, love, love getting to spend all that extra time with my husband before he went out to sea.

My gratitude for him is boundless. He even bought me a brand new car. I think we're both getting a little kick out of him taking such good care of us right now. We'll just enjoy it for as long as it can last.

Daddy Ashore

Daddy takes Max for a little motorcycle ride in the village park.

After four long months, my husband has returned from sea.

One hundred and twenty-eight days have gone by since he last saw his infant son. His jaw-dropping, eye-widening smile when he came down the escalator at the airport and saw us standing there was worth every minute.

Max got a lot bigger since he was 2 months old. He wasn't ever a scrawny thing, but he has plumped up into a chubby chunk of absolute cuteness and several arm rolls. And he can sit up on his own and stand on your lap and babble away, which are amazing to a man who remembers him only crying, eating and pooping.

Baby and daddy adjusted to each other quite well. I'd like to think Max actually remembers him, but it's hard to tell and really doesn't matter.

It probably helps that every night I played for Max a voice mail Dan left for him and that I showed him one of our wedding pictures in which Dan is kissing me, saying, "That's Daddy! See Daddy? That's your daddy!"

Max is a happy, interactive baby, and he had Daddy enamored pretty quickly. He must have said, "Look at that smile!" a dozen times the first night home.

The next day, we put the baby in the stroller and did our village rounds, including the post office, hardware, bakery, and dollar mart. This time we added the park, and we both delighted in Max's little feet clapping away as Daddy pushed him in the baby swing.

We still have some things to work out. A minor one is that Dan isn't used to how baby things multiply like baby rabbits and spread all over the house. If he has a better solution, he can knock himself out. But most parents accept a certain level of it and deal with it.

A major one is that Max was still co-sleeping with me in our bed. I had made significant progress in Max sleeping in his crib for his naps, but we never got around to a different nighttime routine. He is still nursing a few times a night, and he rests best when he's cuddled up next to me.

But since Dan has been working aboard a ship for 128 straight days, standing a midwatch that gives him only a few hours of sleep here and there, his first night home was going to be spent in his own bed.

Max slept contentedly the first few hours in his own crib -- some pretty vital hours for a husband and wife to be alone in their bed after being parted for four months -- but protested mightily when I tried to put him back in there after a nursing session.

I gave it a good hour, and then gave up and took him into the guest bed and spent the rest of the night with him in there. I didn't sleep well at all.

But there's always a transition period, no matter the time away. This time is special because it's the first one coming back to a son who is older and bigger and different, but there will be more of those times to come.

For now, we'll all just sleep when and where we can. I'm the only one awake, keyed up after seeing the new James Bond movie for our date night. Max is still asleep in his downstairs playpen where my mother laid him, and Dan is curled up in the big chair asleep with his dog.

My plan is to wait until Max rusltes, take him upstairs, nurse him back to sleep, and conk out with him in his bed. Shh ... don't wake Dan.

To Work or Not to Work, That Is the Question

I'm out of writing juice.

My new reporting job is sucking it out of me. It's also being rather gluttonous with my emotional and physical well-being.

I sent some videos of baby Max to his daddy out to sea, and they inspired him to protect what he could see as the results of a good, strong mother-son relationship. He said that I could quit my job and that he would keep working hard to support all of us.

To say I was relieved would be an understatement. On "E" in my articulation tank, I can't adequately describe what I felt to have been given that gift. It's something for which I had been praying about six months into my pregnancy, and now Max is almost 5 months old.

I also have no words for how difficult it has been to consider really quitting my job.

Lots of people are telling me lots of different things, which is turning my brain into utter mush and spurring my already manic tendencies. My bosses are begging me to stay and insisting that I just need to give it more time to feel settled and qualified in this beat. My mother is dead-set against me giving up a career for which I've paid so many dues.

I think my boys are leaning toward me quitting. My teenager Gabe found the most gentle way he could to tell me that I've been a raging bitch the past several weeks. Max just clamors to be nursed more often.

My identity has been wrapped up in newspaper for so long that it is far more challenging to jettison it than I ever had imagined. I have clear pictures in my mind of what kind of mother, wife, daughter, sister, cousin, auntie, friend, and community member I could be without the stress of a professional job. But I go back and forth several times a day.

My litmus test has become: "Do I really need this kind of bullshit in my life?"

The question is easily answered with a resounding "hell no" upon cranky emails from coworkers, standing in the damn rain at assignments, or typing a story with one hand while the other hand is desperately trying to guide a boob into a screaming baby's mouth.

Yet these "well maybe" answers keep creeping in. A story, typed with one or two hands, sometimes turns out really well, and it's hard not to be proud of it. A reader will thank me, or I make a really interesting new acquaintance. Suddenly laundry and bottle washing don't seem that glamorous, or even necessary.

I have more than 100 pairs of shoes in my closet, and I haven't found the walking ones just quite yet.

Ain't All It's Cracked Up to Be

Max in one of his favorite places: his changing table.

This first week of working from home was like being inside a tornado. And it's not over yet.

"From home" is also a misnomer of sorts. Two significant board meetings, two on-site interviews, and a formal event all took place somewhere besides my husband's big desk that I have commandeered while he is out to sea. I have a whole festival to cover tomorrow. I'm schlepping around a lot more than I expected I would.

Beginnings of new jobs are always challenging, but I didn't think it would be this hard. Or that I would suck at it this much.

I've blown deadlines. I had an actual error in my first damn story. I swear I thought she said her name was Donna. Nope, Ana.

Complicating matters is that my babysitter has become unavailable. My mother and teenager have stepped up, but that came with a price. Gabe had a really bad cold and I tried to keep the baby away from him as long as possible, but I just couldn't get anything done and had to have him watch his brother. The next day, Max had sniffles.

Runny noses just happens to be my Achilles heel. I can't stand the snot seeping out and will make it my mission in life to eradicate it. That blue bulbous sucky thing the hospital gives out is my favorite baby tool ever.

But tending noses is a big time suck, too, and I haven't gotten anything done that I actually wanted to get done this week. Not in my job, and certainly not in my house. What a wreck that became in just a few short days. I forgot that I had washed a load of clothes and left them soaking wet in the washing machine for a whole day and night before remembering to put them in the dryer. Of course, I had to put them through another rinse cycle first, and there was a whole basket of baby clothes waiting their turn yet.

Hippo's horrible handiwork. That crap used to be a cushion.

And that miserable mother-)&)$#^@ mutt dog of my husband's (I like his desk, not his dog) has acted out terribly now that even less attention is being paid to her. My dog Johnny died recently (too sad to blog about it just yet) so she lost her playmate, and she had a yeast infection in her ear that required significant vet care. I was feeling a tad sorry for her and was trying to interact with her more often. But then she went and tore up a patio chair cushion and strew it all over the backyard. One more goddamn thing I have to take care of now.

Working at home is not green grass on the other side of any fence. Working early mornings downtown was stressful, but when I was "at" work I got my work done, and when I was "at" home I got my housework done. Now nothing is getting done, not with any satisfaction.

And there's not much I can do about it right now, except bitch on a blog. I've had time to do this only because I've been composing it in my head for two days now, and I finally figured out a better place to do work than the desk in the family room.

I'm sitting in the nursery rocking chair with my laptop in my actual lap while Max babbles away happily on his changing table. (I'm right next to him, so no danger of him rolling off unattended.) Like the strange-but-wonderful baby he is, he loves getting his diaper changed. He loves hanging out on the table and interacting with whomever is changing him. He loves sucking face with the little stuffed frog I keep on the table.

This is the most productive moment I've had in days.

Hello, There, Sailor!

How did I let a whole week go by without blogging? Because that was the week that my husband's ship was in U.S. ports.

Everything revolves around when I might get one of those precious phone calls from him. Depending on what kind of bridge watch he had or how many hours it had been since he had slept, the calls ranged from quick check-ins to lovely chats. My job is to be available and to keep my phone charged and nearby.

Most importantly, I let one of those calls go to voice mail so that he could record a message for Max. When I play the distinctive voice of his daddy to him, his eyes get very wide and he holds very still. It's one way we're trying to help his memories connect for when they are reunited.

We had very little advance warning before Dan went out to sea this time, but hopefully by the next cruise we will get around to my idea of video recording him reading children's books. Playing those videos for Max would make a very special bedtime routine indeed.

But now it's back to my routine. Which apparently will include bathing my husband's dog, Hippo. She is filthy.

The Throne

My chunky boy in his happy seat.

"Now, this chair is a little controversial, but I don't give a shit."

This is what neighbor Kendall says to Miranda on "Sex and the City" (Season 5 episode 72, "Critical Condition") when she loans this mother of a fussy baby a vibrating bouncy chair. I happen to think the same thing.

I'm not sure what is so controversial about getting your kid to shut up, but I do make sure that I don't let Max shimmy-shake in the seat I bought for him any longer than he may vibrate in the car seat when we drive somewhere.

Perhaps his brain cells are getting shaken away, but I also am getting dinner cooked. One of my precious showers. Laundry done. A blog post written.

Or just some peace and quiet. It's something we both need, really.

Since this little throne has come into our lives, the periods of Max's bliss have extended greatly. He is happier a lot more often, and he gets plopped into the chair only when absolutely necessary. Our shower routine is so happy that I don't even have to switch on the vibration. He just contentedly sits in it on the bathroom floor, rocks a bit, and laughs when I peek-a-boo around the shower door.

Old wives' tales have been telling us to set our babies on clothes dryers for years, and this is why parents willingly drive around the block with their baby at all hours of the night. It's the vibration.

There's a positively awesome reinforcement of this point later in the episode with the character Samantha, but I'll let you watch it and find out that little gem for yourself.

One of These Boys Is Not Like the Other

Several things he does can be explosive, including belching, diaper filling and screams.

"Stop comparing him to Gabe. This is not Gabe, this is Max. Meet Max."

My cousin Amanda recently had to reintroduce me to my infant son. I had become a broken record in mentioning how different Max was behaving from how Gabe did as a baby.

My memory may not be perfectly clear, but Gabe nursed for long sessions, slept contentedly in his crib, was happy to let his father hold him and could be easily soothed in his car seat by a rousing rendition of "Old McDonald."

That Max differs in these areas was causing me a bit of distress. I was doing pretty much the same stuff I had done 15 years ago with my first son, and with any other infant I could get my hands on, but my results were suddenly of the fussy kind.

Side note: I cracked up Dan a while ago with these comments to Max: "Hey, what's your major problem? Major Problem? He must serve under General Fussiness!" You'll have to forgive the military family humor. Back to my blood family.

Amanda reminded me that Max was an entirely different person and would have his own needs, likes, dislikes, attitude, nursing schedule, poopy face, etc. I needed to let go of what an easy baby Gabe was, and maybe even how capable of a mother I had been.


Surprisingly enough, things with Max got a lot easier from that moment on. Successes are of the two steps forward, one step back variety, but they are coming. He still thinks sleeping anywhere else but in my arms is an effrontery, but we're working on it. The vibrating bouncy chair helps.

I may be less sure of myself as a mother, but Max thinks I'm the bees knees. He loves to look at me and smile and wave his chubby fists at me. He will happily lie over my shoulder and slobber all over my shirt for as long as I will let him. He has learned what it means when I squeal "Kisses!" and he crinkles his eyes and opens his mouth and waits for me to smother his face in smooches. He is *this* close to actually laughing.

He would beg to differ if anyone called him something other than easy. To him, it's very easy: Just have his mommy hold him at all times, feed him practically every hour, let him nurse himself to sleep, and cram herself in the backseat with him and let someone else drive so he can see her at all times. The screaming comes only when we deviate from this plan.

I knew that every baby was "different," but I didn't think it would be this different. I should have kept in mind my mother's oft-repeated comments on the differences between her own two children, which go something like this:

"You were a perfect baby. As long as you were in the same room with me, you were content to sit by yourself and watch. You quickly added a half an hour on each end of your sleep until you were going through the night. I thought I was a great mother and had this baby stuff licked. And then your brother was born. He had to eat every two hours and had to be touching me every moment of the day. It's a good thing you were born first, Rebecca. If I had had Andrew first, you wouldn't be here."

I'm already pouting at my husband about wanting another baby (which he is adamantly refusing, btw) so Max isn't anywhere near the colic or stress that make women rush to the doctor to get a tubal. He's just not what I had expected, based on my previous experience.

And all that means is that *I* am not what I expected I would be. You know, someone who could cook and clean and get shit done around the house, even with an infant. Maybe even read a book (although I am quite glad I don't have to write an essay about it for some professor).

Max isn't really the cranky one at all.

I am.

Guest Post: Sometimes It Stays with You

Guest post by friend and coworker Roberta Redfern, a city desk editor at The Blade newspaper:

As both a mother of a little one and a journalist at a daily newspaper, sometimes I have to separate.

Sometimes it doesn't work. There was a drowning of a 2-year-old boy this week -- a tragic, tragic accident -- and I can't seem to scratch the images out of my brain.

Of that poor family. Of the lowest point in that grandfather's life and how he wants to take it all back; have a do-over for what is most likely the worst day of his God-given life. Of that sweet little boy’s face pictured in the obituary that came way too soon.

How my dad would feel if this happened to him. “Papa” watches my son almost every day.  He would be forgiven, for his pain, I imagine, would be torture enough.

Sometimes, when I drive home from work I feel the stressors of the day leaving me, but for this one, I haven't driven far enough yet.

Mirror, Mirror in the Car

When you live in a rural area, you spend a lot of time in a vehicle to get anywhere. Your kids have to spend that time in the back seat, which is only a few inches away from you but remarkably out of reach.

You can eyeball them a little bit with your rear-view mirror, or do a death-defying head turn or a contortionist hand reach as you are driving to tend to them. Infants in their backwards seat are even harder to deal with, especially mid-scream.

One of my favorite parenting contraptions are the little mirrors that clip onto the visors or suction onto the windows. You can angle those anywhere irrespective of traffic and train them directly on your children.

This way, I can watch helplessly as Max screams while I drive down the road. When he gets a bit older, as with his brother, Gabe, the mirror will get more useful. I can entertain him with silly expressions or direct him to stop picking his nose.

And apparently give lectures.

I recently pulled out my trusty mirror the other day, and teenage Gabe cried, "Oh, no!" When I asked him what was wrong, in that panicky way that assumed I had left the diaper bag on top of the car roof, he explained that he was having a flashback to the several admonishments that I had delivered through that mirror.

Excellent. ;)

Putting the God in Parents

Esther holds Max during a baby shower
for Teresa, our congregation's pianist.

This past Sunday, I managed to get Maxwell and myself to my church's first service at 9:30 a.m.

Well, we weren't exactly there at 9:30. But most folks understand that a 1-month-old on-demand nurser doesn't always cooperate with a planned schedule. Or his mother's need to bathe before she goes out in public.

At either worship service, I tend to sit in the front row. I see and hear and pay attention best there. I might sit with a friend sometimes, usually for just a song or a prayer, but I know that if I station myself too far away from the altar, my mind starts wandering or I start people-watching among the congregants.

We strolled in rather late Sunday, so we hung out in the glider in the back of our indoor garden just off our worship space before finding an appropriate moment to slide into the front row. For our efforts we were blessed to sit in front of Lois, Esther and Gene.

Lois, the widow of Peace Church's previous pastor, sent Max his very first letter full of sentiments that will teach him what it means to be part of a water family. Esther and her husband Gene are gentle pillars of the congregation, and they also will be Max's baptismal sponsors.

Godparents, so to speak.

When Gabe made me and his dad parents, we were still fairly young. We picked as godparents for our child people who had known us since our own childhood, people who would support us as we figured out what the hell we were doing.

This time around, I feel called to find folks who specifically support Max's faith life. Esther offers me excellent friendship, knitting tips and the tightest bear hugs this side of the Mississippi, but it's her lifelong Lutheranhood that I'm after.

Max's parents are of different religious traditions, but he will be raised in his mother's. He will be free to choose -- or, rather, be chosen by -- any faith once he comes of an age of discernment, but while he's being brought up a little Lutheran, it will be nice to have some qualified help. (It sure doesn't hurt that his grandmother is a pastor.)

On Sunday, sitting in the front row was a particularly lovely experience. Lois, Esther and Gene formed their own choir, harmonizing through the hymns. When they joined voices for the Lord's Prayer, it felt like power support coils in a spiritual mattress, a place where Max and I could rest assured in the faith of people who loved us and loved God.

The place will be full of those kinds of people when Esther and Gene stand with us to bathe Max in the waters of grace.

Help a Mama Out

Life continues to go well here in newborn land, although I had hoped to blog more often. It's not that I couldn't find the time. I just often spend it doing something else.

I always had planned to extend an invitation for guest bloggers, so please don't feel like it's just a desperate, unshowered, overtired mommy begging for others to do her work. No, not at all.

I will keep posting, but it will be good to publish someone else's thoughts when I've suddenly realized what feels like one long day actually has been four in a row and Mommy Remix is getting a touch stale. In journo land, this is what we call having a well, from which we dip when it's a slow news day.

Please send your submissions to me via email at rckleiboemer@gmail.com and I will happily put them in the lineup.

You can write a full-length post or just a paragraph. Send pictures if you'd like. You have my full permission to be as snarky and foul-mouthed as I have been to this point, but no worse.

Topics could include:

• Your own family story
• What you do/did or don't/didn't enjoy about pregnancy
• Adventures in fertility, or disappointments and challenges 
• Why you don't want to have a baby
• What you can't stand about how parents raise their kids
• Thoughts on co-sleeping, nursing in public, crying it out, cloth diapers, etc.
• Hilarity of traveling with children
• How you keep your marriage and adult relationships going
• Public policy regarding education or health care
• What you like or don't like about your OBGYN or pediatrician
• Tips and warnings for new parents
• The best baby shower game or birthday party theme
• How you're raising your kids to deal with their peers
• To give or not to give an allowance
• Methods of discipline
• What phrase of your parents you swore you'd never repeat but did

For the record, Gabe often hears, "What the hell's the matter with you?" The more I say it, the more I like it.

And this post took me more than three hours to write, interrupted by two nursing sessions and one pee blowout that soaked both Max and me to the point of complete outfit changing.

Power Play: Bullying

This morning I caught a segment on CNN about bullying. There wasn't much I hadn't heard before except a little tidbit on an increase in the number of girls who are doing the bullying.

The author being interviewed (Erik Fisher, "The Bully in Pigtails") posited that bullying was rooted in a power struggle, and as girls were being socialized/raised more these days to be powerful, they were becoming bullies more than they had before.

I worry that this can be twisted into an argument against parity. He didn't go there, but it's not that far of a leap for someone to say, "Well, the answer is to go back to raising our girls to be Little Miss Pretty Pants." Which means skirts.

Power as a factor in bullying -- and in shame that prevents kids from admitting that they are being bullied -- is likely part of the equation. But this seems too linear, and too critical of "power."

Kids should be raised to feel like they have something to contribute, that they have leadership qualities to exercise. The key is teaching them servant leadership: Good leaders equip and empower others.

So maybe it's not so much "power" but "strength." Socializing any boy or girl to feel confident that he or she could influence another person is not bad, as long as the pride and goals are rooted in something positive and beneficial to all involved.

Child bullies often are suffering from someone else putting them down and continually draining them of their positive power. The old paradigm held that bullies often came from "bad" homes or families, broken in some social or economic way. But nowadays bullies come from all classes and backgrounds.

Somehow the kid bully from the "good family" seems even more heinous. Like she should know better, or be more generous with her resources, or have two parents who would notice the behavior and rectify it.

My newly developed theory, fresh off the griddle only this morning, is that maybe some of these bullies are yet another unfortunate consequence from helicopter or hover parenting.

Parents who spend so much of their energy fretting over every detail of their child's life are probably worn out by the time the kid hits adolescence. In desperation to reclaim some of their own adulthood, they may put their kids on autopilot and essentially stop paying any attention to them.

Adolescents are horrible creatures, but that's the time they need a parent's best time and energy. It's never going to go well for the parent and no one gets medals for it. But parental effort at this stage makes the difference between a tolerable kid and an asshole kid. And perhaps a bully kid.

A child who goes from being the center of a parent's world to being virtually ignored doesn't have the emotional toolbox to fix that herself. She is going to take that out on her peers, manifested in as unbalanced a power structure as her parents had established with her from her first toddling days.

Those are my thoughts on the matter this morning, anyway. And if you don't like it ... no, you won't get a knuckle sandwich from me. My parents had at least one eye on me during my adolescence.

My Dogs Will Narc on You

Hippo, left, and Johnny take a break from barking.

A sign posted in our flower bed announces the protection of a professional alarm service, but it's rather redundant with the dogs who live here.

I am confident that neither Johnny, my 7-year-old black lab-shepherd mix, or Hippo, my husband's 1-year-old pit-bulldog mix, would ever harm anyone, as long as we're home, but they sure do love to herald the arrival of anyone near our property with ferocious barking.

Note: No, we do not leave the baby alone with either one of the dogs. Ever. But the dogs do seem to be growing even more protective of their pack since it gained a tiny little member.

I'm still learning Hippo's language, but I know Johnny's distinct barks. I can tell whether it's the garbage men or the mailman who is setting him off, and he especially hates the Big Brown Truck. Hippo seems most offended by robins in the front yard.

But nothing raises the four-legged alarm like a stranger.

Earlier this week, Johnny erupted into that very bark, and I saw through a front window a carload of young teenage boys had pulled into our secluded cul de sac and parked off our front yard. They figured they were on a public street, but as far as Johnny was concerned they were on our turf.

When I saw them passing something back and forth, and then putting something in their eyes, I concurred with Johnny.

Normally I would have gone all Mama Bear and confronted them. But as a mama of a brand new cub, I was dressed only in a nightgown stained with breast milk leaks and was thus unpresentable to even doped-up boys trying to get the red out if their eyes before going home.

Instead, I called for my husband. "Dan! There are kids doing drugs on our lawn!"

He came into the foyer holding our infant and peered outside. "Should I go out there?"

"Yes. But leave the baby. And take the dogs."

I would have given anything to see the looks on those boys' faces when a very military-looking man, a big black dog and a stocky white dog all burst through the front door of our home and strode through the front yard. Instead I had to be satisfied with watching them speed away.

And I will be keeping my eye out for that car. Some day I might just follow it to whatever front yard in which it belongs parked, and I may just set off whatever alarm system goes with the house in which I hope to find some parents.

I might even bring Johnny and Hippo along.

And Then It Hits You

In August 1996, I lie in my Syracuse hospital bed with
infant Gabe and Minky, the teddy bear my mother had
tucked into his bassinet on the day he was born.

When my son Gabriel was born, it felt like an eternity before I was settled into my recovery room with only my new baby.

Well, and a roommate.

While her delivery had not taken three days like mine, hers had left her with a gruesome tear. I faulted her not at all when she opted to let her baby stay in the nursery as much as possible, and we both were grateful when the nurse pulled the curtain between our beds so that neither of us would have to suffer the other's obligatory chatter.

I did want to snuggle with my baby, though, especially after all the hell I'd gone through to get him. With my family members finally cleared out that first (third?) evening, Gabe and I relaxed in my hospital bed, tucked away in the privacy of our curtained cocoon.

As I was holding him, it occurred to me that I hadn't yet said "I love you" to him. A mother should tell her child that she loves him, I figured. So I did, sweetly but rather casually. "I love you."

A torrential flood of emotions took me so off guard that I don't think I've yet to recover. I started sobbing, as silently as I could so as not to disturb my resting roommate, and just kept whispering, "I love you ... I love you ... I love you ..." over and over to the tiny angel who had made me a mother.

When I went to deliver my second son, this time thankfully by a quick operation, I wondered what kind of moment like that I might have with him. It wouldn't -- couldn't -- be the same kind of moment I had when I first became a mother, but I had no doubt there would be a moment.

In May 2012, I lie in my Maumee hospital bed with infant
Max in a knitted beanie donated from an area group.

I happily had a private room, and even though my husband was irritated it was one of the smallest on the ward, I started to appreciate the cocoon setting again. At some points it was overflowing with family, but eventually it was just me and Maxwell. While I couldn't get enough of holding him and marveling at how super cute he was, and I told him right away how much I loved him, my maternal feelings felt more like a comfortable slipper, something warm and fuzzy and easy to slip on.

On the second day, The Moment came.

I was in my hospital bed in the afternoon, holding Max in a sitting position on my lap. The light from the window attracted his gaze, and I shifted him so he could get a better look. "There's a whole world waiting for you out there," I told him.

Whammo! The emotional freight train rushed by, and I dissolved into tears. Here was a brand new person to love and raise, to teach, to send forth. He had his whole life ahead of him, from that day forward, and there were myriad experiences waiting to enrich his life. I cried the better part of the afternoon.

My sons learn early that I'm a weeper.

Could Mother's Day Be Any Happier?

Me and my mother, Deborah Lynn O'Leary Conklin.

This is quite a special Mother's Day for me, as I will be heading home from the hospital today with my new son, Max.

Today has a tandem connection with the very special Mother's Day last year, when I married Max's daddy and gained a sweet mother-in-law.

My very first Mother's Day was celebrated in 1997, when 9-month-old Gabe snuggled me into bliss.

All of these Mother's Days were made possible by the mother who taught me how to be one.

Here's to my Mama, who is as beautiful today as she was back in 1974. I love you!

You Hadn't Better Leave Your Kids Behind

In a Shine blog on Yahoo, the fifth phrase mentioned in a post about "Things Parents Shouldn't Say to Their Kids" is a big pet peeve of mine.

I've overheard plenty of parents at parks and restaurants and libraries threaten their children with: "I'm going to leave without you."

I've always been tempted to respond: "I'm going to take your kid, then."

Really, people? You've got the audacity to admit in public that you're about to do something that should result in a call to Children's Services?

First, never ever ever ever say anything to your children if you don't intend to follow through with it.

Don't say you're going to ground him if he ever does such and such again unless you really will do so. Otherwise, he will come to view you as a paper tiger, and he will have no reasonable expectation of the consequence to prevent him from doing it again.

There was only one time in Gabe's childhood (that I recall) that I knowingly threatened him with a consequence that I never really would have meted out. We had moved to a little cottage house near a set of railroad tracks. Even though the big backyard was fenced in, I had visions of my 4-year-old sneaking through the gate and investigating the oft-used tracks.

"Gabe, if I ever find you anywhere near those train tracks, I will beat you until you can't grow anymore."

His little eyes got round as saucers. I've had never beaten him, of course, and I never shall, but I was putting on a good enough show that he figured I was serious. I wasn't serious about beating him, but I surely was terrified by the thought of his limbs severed or head squashed. He was going to be equally afraid before the day was out.

Other than that, I've refrained from telling him I would throw away his toys if he didn't pick them up or send him to school in dirty clothes if he didn't put them his laundry in the hamper. I wouldn't ever do something like that, so there's no point in lying to him about it.

Second, never ever ever ever tell your children that you are going to do something criminal to them.

OK, so beating to the point of stunting is indeed criminal. But again, I threatened that only once and that was in the scenario of another deadly threat.

In the scenario of trying to get an unwilling child to leave a place when summoned, the threat of legally acceptable physical consequences seems preferable to the psychological torture of abandonment.

I've seen kids thus threatened go chasing after their parents, screaming incoherently in a trail of tears. The parent has gotten what she wanted -- to leave -- but the child has gained emotional scars.

Since he was misbehaving in the first place with his defiance, he obviously already was compromised in his pee-wee brain. Now he has to contend with the horror of being left behind as his parent goes off to whatever safety he knows and leaves him to the wolves.

On the other hand, especially with an older child, getting left behind might just be nirvana. He didn't want to leave in the first place, and now the person demanding that he do so is going to bug out and let him be. That probably sounds pretty good to his pee-wee brain.

Gabe was not prone to tantrums because I had been conditioning his obedience from early on. But if he had refused to leave a public place, I likely would have thrown him over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes. I would rather he cry and rail against his mother's sheer force of will -- which he would come to respect one way or another -- than sob and flail over his mother's cruelty.

If your kid is too big to do this, and you're still dealing with his refusal to leave a place when you tell him it's time to go, I've got news for you: That sure as hell isn't his fault. Don't make yourself look like an even bigger ass of a parent by threatening to leave him behind.

Oh, excuse me, the experts put it like this:

"Don't tell your kids you're going to leave without them. Instead, plan ahead. Chances are high that you've seen your child behave this way before. You know what will trigger a tantrum. What will you say if your child throws a fit or refuses to leave? 'It's okay to identify unacceptable behavior," says Dr. Deborah Gilboa, a family doctor, parenting speaker, and mom of four boys. 'You can tell them it's not acceptable but you have to motivate them with a consequence that you can carry out.'"

My Three Husbands

When I married Dan in Las Vegas,
I think the something "old" might
have been the groom himself, who
was a boyfriend 16 years prior.

No, this isn't an episode of "Big Love."

For those of you keeping track, you may have noticed that I have mentioned three father figures so far.

Yes, yes, I've had three husbands, but don't bother trying to shame me about it. I did that enough to myself and I'm long over it.

I am fortunate to have had three good marriages. True, two of them ended, and there was much sadness and pain involved, but on the whole they were loving experiences. Divorce ends some aspects of the relationship, but it shouldn't obliterate the honor. While not all of the guys are crazy about each other, I maintain friendships and co-parenting of Gabe with each of my ex-husbands.

In a roundabout way, my marital experience actually begins with my current husband, Dan. We met while we were undergrads at Syracuse University, where his philosophy major and my religion major brought us together in a class called -- get this -- "The Ethics of Love."

We dated for a little while but ended up as friends. And we stayed friends, the best of friends, for 15 years while we moved to other places and joined our lives with other people. I had a baby, he went to war, life just happened.

Fifteen years later our paths intersected again, and everything we had been through made it all the more poignant when our hearts were ready to be one again. We got hitched in Las Vegas on May 8, 2010, and fast-tracked ourselves into parenthood. In all likelihood, we conceived in a town called -- get this -- New Hope, which is on the New Jersey-Pennsylvania border. I'm hoping to at least get through our one-year anniversary dinner next week, at the restaurant where he proposed, before I pop this baby out.

Ted and Gabe at Chickamauga
National Military Park.

I don't often think of Dan as a stepfather to Gabe, mostly because my oldest son already had such a good one in Ted, my second husband. Ted and Gabe don't see each other as often as either of them would like, but they keep in touch and exchange gifts on holidays and birthdays. Truthfully, Ted and I share my dog Johnny more often.

Ted and I had about a decade together, in our home and in our profession. We suffered through major flooding events, including a national disaster-level one in 2007, and other joys of homeownership on two journalists' pathetic salaries. He dutifully parented Gabe through youth sports, something I rank slightly above diving into a vat of snot on the enjoyability spectrum, and was there for those milestole family vacation trips. Ted helped Gabe grow from a little boy to an adolescent, and there's no limit to the amount of gratitude I shall always carry for that.

Snuggled in his daddy's arms,
Gabe experiences his first
snow. In Syracuse, that was
probably in September.

I was married to Gabe's dad, another Dan, for like a minute. We too had met at Syracuse, and we were ostensibly engaged during what was supposed to be my last semester there when we found out that I was pregnant. My studies derailed, but Dan had another year to go anyway after changing schools and majors several times, so our little family had its beginnings in central New York while I took another year to get my degree. We soon moved to Ohio to be near my family, and I was able to start my newspaper career.

Dan F. was a loving, attentive, patient baby-daddy. He even survived a poo bomb incident during a shared bath with generally good humor. Gabe was an adorable toddler when we finally got around to marrying, but we quickly realized we were going to be better parents than good mates, and we amicably parted ways in under a year. Dan F. soon found Jackie, who became the world's most amazing stepmother and has been nothing but wonderful to Gabe since the first day she met him. Dan F. remains a loving, attentive, patient father.

It was a great advantage to have four loving parents working together to raise Gabe. It's just me and Dan K. with this incoming one. That will be different, if I'm permitted an understatement here.

"Two times is lucky, third time's a charm," croons folk singer Meg Hutchinson in her song "Can You Tell Me." I certainly do love my charming third husband, more than I ever could articulate, and I'm having the life with him that I dreamed of having when I was a mere 19 years old and hoping he was going to be my first and only. But I feel lucky to have known and loved and lived with Dan F. and Ted too.

Of course, they may be wiping their brows in relief to have escaped me.