Family Life

Middle Schoolers & Dating

November 14, 2015 by Jami Howard Mays

So I’m almost halfway through middle school… Well, my son is almost halfway. The first half of seventh grade is coming to a close and, welp, my son asked about dating.

He’s always been romantic and has had a thing for one girl in particular since fourth grade. He’d write her notes, draw her pictures and even pick her flowers while he rode his bike to school. We know childhood love often fades, but he was steadfast, even moving into middle school. No, they were never boyfriend/girlfriend — this isn’t something we ever even discussed. He just liked her a lot, thought she was special and wanted to show her as much. Even when she wrote him a sweet note back that said, in the nicest way possible, “Let’s just be friends,” he held true in his heart and even said things like he thought he’d end up married to her one day.

It was all very sweet and innocent and cute and all of us, myself and the collective swarm of cooing moms around me, thought it was just positively the suh-weetest thing ever!

Then middle school came and I was sucker punched with a seemingly automatic leap into semi-adulthood-autonomy. Fear not, everyone said. Nobody REALLY expects your sixth grader to be an independent adult yet! And I was grateful for the sweet arm pats and knowing nods from all of his sixth grade teachers. For as much grief as teachers get these days, these people are fucking saints. Not only did they do a perfect job of protecting my kid, they did a great job of holding my hand through the process.

And so, seventh grade… Started pretty much just like sixth grade. Missing assignments, generally disorganized ADHD preteen boy stuff, same ol’, same ol’… But then it happened. Puberty. It really snuck up on me. My first inclination was the hair on his legs (what?!) that he refused to acknowledge. Then his voice changed – thankfully, he didn’t/hasn’t had a huge period of big shifting/voice cracking in this department, but we’ve had our fair share of bitty-cracks. My best friend came to visit and hadn’t seen Harrison since early June and was beside herself when she heard his voice.

But that was kind of it… No real other big changes happening. Until last night.

We were cleaning the kitchen up, getting ready for bed. He asked me, “Mom, when is my next Friday night that I’ll be here with you?” He goes to his dad’s every other weekend and, in addition, spends Thanksgiving week with his dad this year (we swap even/odd years for holidays like that). So, by my calculations… Because it goes dad’s weekend, ~~my weekend~~ first weekend of Thanksgiving week and then dad’s weekend/second weekend of Thanksgiving week, he’s not going to be home for a Friday night until December 11th.

“Why do you ask?”

“Well… I think,” he fidgeted with his face and pursed his lips, “I want to ask a girl to go to the movies.”

faint

And it’s not his old flame… It’s someone new. And maybe someone else. And he goes on to tell me about his crushes and I’m both shocked and celebrating that he’s sharing so much with me. So we talk about it, on the fly, because you can’t just tell your kid, “Hang on, let me research this and compose myself and I’ll get back to you tomorrow.”

We talk about preparing yourself for no. That was THE FIRST thing we talked about. My kid is fucking adorable. He’s handsome and he’s funny and he’s so damn smart. He’s great at making and keeping friends and he has a wide spectrum of interests. I don’t think someone will tell him no because I don’t have confidence in him — I’m preparing him to prepare himself for no so that he has a perspective of consent before he ever even gets any time alone with a girl. Because boys should know that a girl — even a girl that likes him — has every right to turn him down for a date and he needs to prepare for that reality so that he can take it with grace and maturity.

Second, we talked about what they’d do on a hypothetical date. Going to the movies is, let’s be real, a shitty first date. You say hello, go to the ticket counter, maybe buy her a popcorn and then you DON’T TALK for two hours. Then, you’re sort of sleepy-eyed from being in the dark for so long and your breath probably smells a little bit because you’ve had it closed for two hours, only opening it to put buttery popcorn or sugary soda down your gullet. And then what? You’ve spent over two hours together and know nothing else about each other!

So… We discussed other ideas. There’s a great place in town called Rook & Pawn that would be a PERFECT spot for a first date. Sodas, snacks, pick any game you want and play it together. EVEN BETTER – bring a few friends with you, make it a group outing. More people = more options for what to play and less pressure to make it feel all date-y.

He half way smiled at me, “You sound like you know all about dating mom,” and I’m pretty sure he was picking on me. “Yep, I dated a lot in high school.”

Do I think he’s going to ask this girl out on a date in three weeks? Probably not.

Even if he does, do I think this girl is going to go on a date with him in three weeks? Probably not. Most, if not all, of my friends with daughters this age are not letting their girls date until high school.

So why do I think this is important? Why am I stressing out and texting my sister while she’s on vacation about it? What really is the point of teenagers dating? Shit, what really is the point of dating in general? (this is the question my sister asked me, minus the shit… I added that in)

So… We date to learn more about someone that we’re interested in… And, once we know them a little better, we grow to like them and want to show them that we do and also demonstrate to them that we care about them. We also date to learn about heartbreak and about relationships — both the couple dynamic and the jealous best friend, left out best friend, etc. etc. dynamics.

She told me she thinks that’s more than a seventh grader is interested in.

And I don’t disagree. But I think there should be some sort of… pre-dating? Junior dating? Dating permits? So… What’s the purpose of this pre-dating thing then?

And really, it all boiled down to consent for me — lessons in consent.

For these examples, I’m going to follow a boy/girl dynamic because that’s what my son is into… We also live in the south, so as much of a feminist as I am, I am also southern and there are certain ways about courtship that are deeply embedded into our culture. So… Grain of salt, all of that, blah blah.

For girls:

You do not have to say yes to a boy just because he asks you out.
You do not have to say yes to a date activity just because the boy suggests it.
You do not have to hold his hand or hug him in the hallways.
You get to start actively thinking about what you DO want in a partner, what you DO want to do on a date, what you ARE comfortable with in terms of PDA, etc. You get to decide how you want to be courted. You get to decide what you want your dating relationship to look like.
You do not need to flaunt your relationship.
Chicks before dicks, a hundred times. I mean, we’ll probably use other language for the middle schoolers, but your friend relationships come before boys ALWAYS.

Ultimately, it’s about practicing the navigation of your autonomy. Without this practice, our girls are thrust into an environment with pressure from every direction to be be thin, beautiful, perfect and happy. Yes, these skills will help them in their dating life, but it’ll also help them in their professional lives!

For boys:

You do not have to go out with a girl just because she likes you.
You do not have to have a girlfriend just because your other friends do.
You do not get a date just because you ask for one.
You need to learn how to hear no and not take it personally.
You need to find a framework for your masculinity that is respectful to everyone.
You do not get to objectify a girl, ie: referring to her by a number based on her position on your list of girls you like (we saw this in a friend recently and I had a long talk with him about what it must be like to be #5 on that list of 5)
You need to wrap your brain around how you plan to court a girl — this includes having the money to pay for everything you plan for a date, planning a date that is creative and memorable.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a young man wanting to take some traditional positions when it comes to dating — asking her out, holding the door for her, blah blah blah. But the biggest lesson I want him to learn is that those things are a gift you give, not an exchange. You can be the biggest gentleman on the planet and she just might not be that into you — you cannot get pissed. You cannot let it rock your self esteem. You are a fucking brilliant human, but you are not entitled to any prizes for it.

So where did we land on this whole dating thing? I think that I’m comfortable with my son going on group dates with some loose/basic parental oversight, ie: sitting four rows behind you at the theatre, eating at the same restaurant or in the same shopping center. I’m not yet comfortable with my kid going on a one-on-one date, but I am NOT going to tell him that he cannot date until (high school/he turns 16/some other arbitrary rule that has no basis on his actual readiness to date).

A friend said that her rule is that you can date when you can have candid conversations with your parents about sex and sexuality, ie: birth control and condoms and safe sex and all of that. I love that — because, really, I don’t want my son having sex as a young person. But I can’t forbid it and I’m foolish to think that I can control him or prevent him from having sex. He’s going to have sex when he’s ready — my job is to help him navigate HOW to recognize that readiness in himself… And once he’s got that readiness in himself paired with all the healthy, open dialog about safe sex, then all that other stuff about consent.

I think. We’ll see. This stuff is so exciting and confusing and different.

This baby is full of shit

October 5, 2015 by Jami Howard Mays

Don’t worry, I’m not posting pictures of baby shit. I’m not THAT terrible of a person. (I only texted the video of the aftermath to my husband).

When Charlie was three days old and STILL shitting meconium, I told my husband, “This baby is full of shit!”

Nevermind that I had to be admitted to the hospital 12 hours before my labor began because there was meconium in my water when it broke (so he was shitting in utero), this baby went on for SIX days of meconium poop. And he was born five days post-estimated-due-date.

Charlie has always been a farter — much to his daddy’s praise — but it’s only in the last few weeks that I’ve become increasingly obsessed with my baby’s bowels. I know logically that it’s considered within the realm of normal for an exclusively breastfed baby to only poop once in a two week period. But I think, because of all the farting, around day three I start to turn into a weird, obsessive poop patrolling parent.

“Did he poop?” is the question I ask anyone else that changes his diaper. I’m sure I sound like a crazy person, but I’m seriously wondering, “When is this baby going to poop?”

The first time, it was only like three or four days. You could tell that, by day three, Charlie was noticeably cranky. I was giving him belly massages and we were all taking turns playing with him by bicycling his legs. And then, YAY! He pooped. It was a little anticlimactic — just a regular sized little dijon mustard schmear in his cloth diaper.

The second time, it was six days. I remember saying to my husband, trying my damndest to play it cool like the experienced, not-gonna-freak-out-about-stuff mama I like to pretend to be, “If he hits day seven, I’ll call the doctor or something.”

Nevermind that I had already frantically pinged my friend Amber, the lactation consultant on Facebook messenger. She assured me that everything was fine, blah blah blah.

And it was… This time. He finally pooped on day six and, again, it was just a regular little breastfed skid mark of a thing.

When Harrison was a baby, he seemed to poop at every nursing. Half way through feeding him, his little skinny body would get stiff and rigid and his face would turn red — while he was still latched and actively nursing — and SPQUOOOOSH — he’d poop. He was so predictable. He never did anything crazy with his poop. There are no stories of coming in to find him after a nap with his diaper off and shit smeared all over himself and his bed. He was the model shitter, you guys.

This is what first children do to you. They’re great in a lot of ways… And you eventually forget about all the bat-shit crazy things that happened (I seriously cannot remember one crazy thing that happened with Harrison when he was a baby. Seriously, not one thing right now. Hashtag buried trauma). It’s a biological imperative because if we remembered all the horrible things our first kids did, we’d never have more children. IT’S ABOUT FURTHERING THE HUMAN RACE… At our own expense.

So, of course, Charlie… Oh my lort, Charlie.

This was the third time he had gone for a while without pooping. I was looking at my diet, thinking surely there’s something I’m doing wrong that is causing his poops to get further and further apart… I’m looking at him like he’s the tardis of babies, “Where are you putting all this milk, dude?” If the average breastfed baby gets 25 ounces of milk a day (that’s like THREE GLASSES OF MILK, y’all!), where the ever-loving-fuck is he putting the milk? He’s not super chunky or fat. He’s not growing at an overly-exceptional rate. He’s smart as hell, but seriously, where is the milk going?

My friend Leah wisely said, “No waste.” Which makes sense to me on a philosophical level, but when we’re talking volume and measurements — where does the milk go when a baby doesn’t poop for a week?

The better question would have been, “Where does the milk go when a baby doesn’t poop for a week and, actually, he’s only had two little Hershey-squirts in the last THREE WEEKS?”

You see where I’m going here, right?

Let me go back a little bit, before I open up the trauma wound for you. A couple of weeks ago, my friend Kristen was writing her column, Kiddie Dope, for the Flagpole, our local free paper. She wanted a picture of a fresh baby + mama + the midwife that delivered him to go along with her article about birth choices in Athens. When she arrived, Charlie had just pooped in his diaper, some basic little poop, nothing to write home about. We’re standing in his room, waiting for my midwife Alexa to come by to get the photo op.

I’m all tra-la-la-ing through this diaper change because, big deal, right? As I’m wiping Charlie’s ass, he REDI-WHIPS-HIS-SHIT into my hand. Thankfully, I had a cloth wipe in my hand because if I had felt the heat of his shit on my skin, I probably would have stress-fainted. It really rattled me in a way that is funny now, but was really kind of pushing me on the verge of a panic-attack. It was twenty minutes before my heart stopped racing.

Can you see the trauma on my face? No? Good.

I had NEVER had a baby literally shit in my hands. Somehow, I was able to dodge all of those disgusting bullets with my first kid, but Charlie has other plans. This kid is up to something, y’all. Pray for me.

So, last night, he pooped! Yay! It had had been six days again. I was beginning to think this was our new normal. Charlie drinks a week’s worth of breastmilk and only poops a sandwich’s worth of dijon mustard. Fine. I congratulated him (and breathed a sigh of relief), changed his diaper and we went to bed.

This morning was completely typical in every way – we have got our mornings down to a science. Get up, get the oldest child up, get dressed, nurse a little, take the big boy to school, Charlie falls asleep on the ride, wakes up about 15 minutes after we get back home, nurses again and then takes a good, long morning nap.

Except…

He wouldn’t settle in for his good, long morning nap. I’m thinking, “Is this another growth spurt?” He’s snuggled up next to me on the couch, happily chewing/sucking on his hands when I hear that familiar SPQUOOOOSH and think, “Hm… That’s weird. He just pooped last night.”

So I’m going to stop here and give you a chance to leave. It’s not too late. You can save yourself. I was not able to save myself from what happened during this diaper change, but you can still save yourself. Close the website. Walk away. Look toward the heavens and breathe in a deep, sweet breath of autumn air and exhale knowing that you saved yourself.

No?

Still want to go on? Okay… But I’m just apologizing in advance. I promise, no pictures.

I unsnap his cute, yellow Fuzzi Bunz diaper and, welp, there’s more poop. Nothing terrible (yet), but it’s an interesting consistency. Less watery than usual and almost a little, peanut-buttery in texture. There’s even a little smooth-terd-y piece right between his butt cheeks. Let me just wipe that–OH MY GOD.

OH MY GOD. IT’S STILL COMING OUT. The poop was still coming out of his butt. The best way I can describe this to you is via gif.

O9ZriYf

Nightmare fuel.

So I wipe his butt and frantically move the wipe and the diaper away from his kicking feet.

I’m holding his feet with my left hand and the wipes warmer is on the left side, so I’m reaching over his body for another cloth wipe and he grunts and I hear a soft gurgling sound. I’m barely able to catch the next … wave? … of shit as it oozes out of his butt. I don’t even have time to unfold the wipe, so IT’S TOUCHING MY HAND BARELY.

So I’m freaking out. I don’t remember if I was squealing, but I’m pretty sure I was making noise. I really don’t remember sound at all except what I heard next, when I was looking at my right hand, with poop on it, and reaching with my left hand for another wipe.

His foot made an audible SQUISH in the shit smear on one of the cloth wipes. I’m up to four wipes now, frantically trying to keep the shit controlled to one area and keep his feet from kicking or flinging it onto me further.

By the fourth wipe, I had almost figured out how to deal with this kind of shit. I had the wipe open in my right hand, catchers-mit-style with his ankles in my left hand, holding his legs up and he just…

It was like warm icing. And I just held him there in that position while he pooped and pooped and kept pooping. And kept pooping.

When it appeared that he finally stopped, I cleaned him thoroughly, paying careful attention to clean the shit from between his toes (ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!), and sliiiiiiid his body up to the other end of the changing table. I corralled all the shitty wipes and the diaper to one corner of the changing table, rubbed my hands thoroughly with more wipes, and put a fresh clean diaper on him. I snapped the legs on his sleeper and stood him up on his feet and he just SMILED AT ME.

giphy

Now every time he nurses, I’m going to stare at him in horror because I know this shit will happen again.

This kid is going to kill me.

Yes, I happily overpaid for these pictures

July 18, 2015 by Jami Howard Mays

It might be the most brilliant business plan I’ve ever been witness to and I can’t help but think, “Damn, I’m a sucker.” But Bella Baby Photography came by our room and offered to take pictures of our day-old baby and, of course, we couldn’t say no. And then once we saw the pictures (and the $145 price tag for the digital images!), we pulled out the credit card and bought them because HE’S ONLY A DAY OLD Y’ALL AND LOOK HOW CUTE!?

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One Week Old

July 18, 2015 by Jami Howard Mays

Melissa Pepin is a client and dear friend here in Athens. She did such an incredible job with our maternity pictures and came to visit us last weekend when Charlie was a week old.

Melissa doesn’t do the typical “newborn” portraits where you wrap them up in cheesecloth and hang them from the ceiling or perch them atop a basket full of teddy bears. She’s such an authentic and real person and her newborn portrait style reflects that.

Colin asked me that morning, before she came, “What do you want me to wear?” I guess I was a little obsessing/controlling regarding our wardrobe for the maternity pictures. Heh! I told him to wear whatever he wanted to wear — that I wanted the pictures to just look like Melissa popped in for a visit. I just adore what she captured. I hope you like them, too!

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Charlie’s Birth Story

July 18, 2015 by Jami Howard Mays

I plan to come back and update this post with the full birth story when I have more time. (update below)

In the meantime, the pictures will have to suffice. HUGE thank you to Amy Moss for capturing the event so beautifully.

I’ve not posted the crowning shots — as incredible and empowering as they are — I’m not ready for my lady bits to be on the internet just yet. 🙂

Update: The Birth Story

I had been having erratic contractions for several weeks — most of the time, they’d start in mid-afternoon and last until bedtime. Nothing was ever strong enough to make me think that it was “real” labor yet, but we made sure to wrap up all the loose ends: installing the carseat, finishing his room, washing up all the cloth diapers, packing the hospital bags, etc.

We worked it out with my exhusband so that Harrison could be home for the delivery. We had plans to pick him up from church camp on June 27th — June 28th was our due date. We puttered around together, waiting for the baby, busying ourselves with things around the house, pretty much staying close to home.

On Thursday, July 2nd, I got up early and went to go get a haircut. A few days earlier, I had been commiserating with another pregnant mom on a local parenting Facebook group. She was 38 weeks pregnant and getting impatient and increasingly uncomfortable and I told her she needed to do something to take care of herself. Then I caught myself in the mirror and thought, “Oooh, mama needs a haircut herself.” So, off to Washington Square to see Shayne for a very pregnant haircut.

After that, I came home and Harrison and I set to tackle his closet — he came back from the first half of summer with his dad and his feet had grown a size and a half and I realized we needed to purge his closet of all the clothes he had outgrown so that I could figure out what he would need for the upcoming school year. I gingerly lowered my round, pregnant butt onto his floor and my eyes widened because, “Holy shit, did I just pee my pants?”

It wouldn’t have been unheard of — I was VERY pregnant and going to the bathroom every 30-45 minutes anyway because of the pressure on my bladder. At only 5′ tall, it’s pretty early in the pregnancy when you just, sort of, run out of room in there. So I got up, changed my pants, went to the bathroom and then went back to Harrison’s room, plopped myself back on the floor and, gush-gush-gush, I did it again! There’s NO WAY I just peed my pants again!

It dawned on me that my water was probably broken. I don’t remember my water ever breaking with Harrison, though I think I recall it trickling during active labor, so I changed my pants again and put on a pad this time and sat down to continue helping Harrison clean out his closet. We filled a trash bag with pajamas and shoes that he had outgrown (and I discovered that he only had one pair of shoes, a pair of flipflops, that fit him).

I texted Colin. An hour later, he was home from work, clearly concerned but not pressuring me or trying to let me know that he was concerned. He was quietly pacing the house, making sure all of the loose ends were handled.

I called my doctor’s office to alert the midwives that my water had broken, but that I wasn’t having contractions. I remembered that I had one of my midwife’s cell phone number, Alexa. And I also remembered that she was going to be on-call starting that evening. So I pulled my phone out and texted her as well. We pinged back and forth a bit and I shared with her that the water I was collecting in my pad was a little bit yellow. I laughed when she asked me to text her a picture of my pad (there’s a first time for everything!).

She was a little concerned by the coloring, looked a little bit like there might be meconium in my water. It was late enough in the day that getting checked at the office wouldn’t happen before the office closed. In addition, Meredith, another midwife in the practice was already at the hospital at the tail end of a long shift there. Alexa said she’d let Meredith know I was coming up to the hospital to get heart tones checked. We put all the hospital bags in the car and the three of us headed to the hospital. We got the last room on the floor and arrived shortly after 4pm. We left all the stuff in the car – I was certain that we’d be heading home once they checked me. I wasn’t even having any of my fake-labor contractions!

It took a few hours for my birthing team to come to a consensus. I was 3cms dilated and 60% effaced. I had a home birth with Harrison and did not want to spend any additional time at the hospital unless I really had to be there. My midwives knew that and really waited to make the final call. Ultimately, what they told me was that if I they were my homebirth midwives, they’d be coming to my home at this point, even if contractions hadn’t started, so that they could listen to Charlie’s heart tones. So… We were officially admitted.

Colin and Harrison went to the car to retrieve all of our bags and my brother in law came to pickup Harrison so he could spend the night with them. We got some takeout, unpacked all of our stuff and watched Family Feud together in the room. We were in bed by 10:30, in better spirits than I anticipated, considering where we were sleeping.

At 1:30 in the morning, I woke up with a steady, strong pain and I just knew it was a legit contraction. I waited in the bed until I had a few more before I woke up Colin, texted Devon (our doula) and texted Amy (our photographer). Both Devon and Amy had an hour+ drive ahead of them to get to St. Mary’s Hospital, so I wanted to make sure we gave them both plenty of time.

Sidenote:

Devon was my doula at Harrison’s birth 12 1/2 years ago. When we met, she came over to my house with pink hair, braless with her young toddler daughter. We sat on my mother’s back deck and she nursed her daughter while we talked about what I wanted my birth to look like. It was very early in her career as a doula and she was working for my mother’s company. After his birth, I moved to Atlanta and Devon and I became best friends. To have her at Charlie’s birth felt like the cycles of life coming full circle.

My mother had already driven to my sister’s house, where Harrison was spending the night. We enlisted her to be Harrison’s doula — to answer questions and shepherd him in and out as he was comfortable. My niece, Savannah (she and Harrison are the same age) wanted to attend the birth as well, so my sister would be coming when she came. We texted mom at 2am to let her know what was happening, but didn’t get a reply from her. (I laughed about this later — my mother, the professional doula, slept through her daughter’s in-labor-text!)

When Colin woke up, he was giddy with anticipation. I was pretty excited as well to actually BE in labor finally. I think we were both so high on adrenaline and excitement, it was easy to forget that we had only slept for like three hours. From here, my memory is a little spotty. I think Amy arrived shortly after 2:30, Devon got there about 3:30.

We walked the halls a little bit, but I ended up preferring to be in the room.I took a short nap in the recliner, but it was early labor still, so I was laughing with Colin and present between contractions still. I found a position I really liked, standing/kneeling/sitting on the ball with my upper body draped over the end of the bed. Because of the meconium, they were checking heart tones every half hour. The wireless monitor wasn’t working, so this meant that whatever position I was in, I had to position myself so that they could hold up the monitor, find his heart beat and listen to it for a minute. This was probably the most annoying part of labor, especially as things really ramped up and my contractions were closer together because I would have to stand up or hold myself in a position for the nurse even through a contraction.

Mom, Julie, Savannah and Harrison arrived around 5:30 or 6am. I wasn’t quite ready for the kids to come into the room yet, so Colin waited for my signal before inviting them into the room. This is when labor really picked up and got hard.

Sidenote:

Savannah, my niece, had called me a few weeks ago with a semi-rehearsed speech requesting to attend Charlie’s birth. She had attended her little sister’s birth, but she was only six then. She was really curious about the labor and delivery and also told me that she felt like attending Charlie’s birth would bridge the age gap for them and bring them closer. She didn’t want to be disconnected from her cousin just because she was 12 years older than him.

As her aunt, a feminist, proud natural birther, I was honored and excited to be able to invite her into the birthing space to be present and witness it happening. It felt like… Almost like it was my womanly duty to her to mirror the work that her mother had already done and show her what she was capable of, through my birth experience. Birth is normal. Our bodies stretch and the babies come out. The more normal birth could be for her — especially this early in her life — the more normal birth would remain for her. It was a gift, really, to me to have her there.

I got into the tub — oh, the glorious tub! — and it was so large that my entire body fit, fully stretched and so deep that getting in and out almost required me to straddle the side. I think I was probably in there for an hour and the contractions were coming fast and hard now. Alexa came over and asked me to get out of the tub so she could check me — at this point, I hadn’t been checked since before I was admitted the night before. I don’t recall dilation/effacement numbers, but I had a small, stretchy bit of cervix left and felt a little pushy.

I climbed up onto the bed, thinking it would be nice to be in a modified hands and knees position to push, but my pushing just wasn’t productive. My sister wrapped the rebozo (like a giant, woven scarf) around her back and I held onto the ends, using the leverage to help me push.

Turns out, Charlie was in a less than desirable position. Instead of tucking his chin down so that he could fit into the birth canal, he was presenting in a military position, almost like he was looking straight forward, like a saluting position. This caused his head to get sort of wedged up against my pelvis and he was not going to come out like that.

Figure B is the Military Postion - Figure A is what he should have done - Figures C & D are dangerous because the neck could break Source — Figure B is the Military Postion – Figure A is what he should have done – Figures C & D are dangerous because the neck could break Source

So, my mother pulled Devon aside and explained to her how to do the ketchup bottle to me to try to knock Charlie loose from his wedged position so that he could have a chance to re-enter the birth canal with a better position.

So what is the ketchup bottle? I mean, Devon basically thumped my sits bones with open palms, like I was a bottle of ketchup… And as hilarious as it sounds, that shit worked!

At this point, I was really hitting the end of my energy reserves. I would have liked to have gotten up to a squatting position, but I just couldn’t find the energy. Devon and my sister held my legs up and, at each contraction, I would pull up on my own legs, mimicking a squatting position. Each contraction brought him closer. I remember bearing down with everything I had, taking a breath and doing it again and thinking, “Is this contraction ever going to end?”

Savannah was spooning ice into my mouth, but my mom swapped with her so she could be on the business end of things. Harrison was content, across the room, not watching, his back to me, but listening, Colin was called over by Alexa to catch Charlie and he wasn’t sure what to do. She said, “Put your hands on him!” His head crowned — fuck, it burned! I forgot how much it burned! — and with one more contraction, his body followed. He let out one cry and Alexa put him on my stomach and then his body flopped.

The NICU nurses were in the room — standard protocol when there is meconium — the room was so quiet. One thousand one… One thousand two… One thousand three… Alexa instructed Colin on how to cut the cord and the NICU nurses wanted him. There’s a lot at risk if the baby inhales the meconium into his lungs — so they wanted to suck it all out before he took in a big breath. They were looking for him to cry and his silence alerted them that they might need to spring into action.

Alexa scooped him up, pivoted and took two steps toward the NICU team and then Charlie let out a few great, big, loud howls and the NICU team said he was fine, so she spun on her heels and put him back on my belly. He was fine and all mine!

He was 19 1/2 inches, 7 pounds, 3 ounces. Born at 11:37am on July 3, 2015.

I typed the last half of this post with one hand while holding a fussy two week old with the other. Forgive the typos.

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Sucker Punched: Gestational Diabetes

April 25, 2015 by Jami Howard Mays

I realize I haven’t written in a while and I feel compelled to do that blogger thing where you apologize for it being so long since you’ve updated your blog, but the truth is, none of y’all have been sitting with bated breath since my last post in October. And really, the bigger truth is that I want this blog to be for ME, not for YOU (#sorrynotsorry). So, I’ll write when I wanna write.

So, the news you’ve missed, if we aren’t close in real life is that we’re pregnant! Charles Howard Mays is due at the end of June and we could not be more excited about how our family is growing. Having a 12 year old son at home is kind of like having two daddies in the house to care for me. It’s been awesome.

This past week, I was diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes and it was a really low point emotionally. The most pervasive feeling is guilt – did I do this to myself? Did I do this Charlie? And after that, fear. I was terrified that I would have a huge baby, that my plans for a natural hospital birth with no intervention (a “home birth in the hospital” is what I’m aiming for) would be dashed.

I bought this book and slowly, with the help of the most supportive husband on the planet, pulled myself out of my panic. I’m really lucky that my husband is a chef – he’s taking on this new low/no-carb and low/no-sugar diet on as a personal chef’s challenge. I’m really fortunate to be with a midwifery practice that isn’t panicking and pushing me with fear and talk of inductions.

For now, I’m testing my blood sugar and closely monitoring what I eat. My midwife believes I’ll be able to get a handle on it by changing my diet, so I’m white-knuckling to that belief as well.

More later…

Entitlement: Pick up the bag of chips, man.

October 1, 2014 by Jami Howard Mays

It was so much easier to teach my son about gratitude when I was extremely poor. It was a hard, but teachable moment having him watch me put groceries back on the shelf or rifle through trash bags full of donated clothing from friends. Those moments of deeply rooted gratitude for the small things we did have are hard to find now that we’re no longer living in poverty.

Part of the issue with ingratitude and entitlement with my son lies squarely within the margins of his development — he’s 11 1/2… When I tell my friends that he’s being ungrateful, I get a lot of pats on the back and, “Brace yourself,” comments because we are not, in fact, having a unique experience. But I’m seeing more and more that because I am ABLE to give him more, I do. And because he gets more, he’s growing up in a world where he thinks this “more” is baseline.

I have carefully constructed a career path that not only brings me joy but also affords me the opportunity to be available to my son. I drive him to school, pick him up from school, attend most practices (his stepfather and I alternate duty there) and go to all his games… It’s important to ME to be present and available to him and to demonstrate to him that he is a priority in my life over work and friends and really, pretty much everything. And by just BEING there, he’s starting to act like I’m *supposed* to do these things for him… Like, not having to ride the bus is a right, not a privilege.

My son got a rude awakening this morning when he, in all seriousness, declared from his bathroom after several attempts to get a response from him that he was pleading the fifth.

Then, when my look of shock and disbelief surprised him, he scowled his little prepubescent brow at me and declared that it was his CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT to not answer me.

So, the morning went downhill after that (surprise) and I lectured him about how this house is not a court of law and he doesn’t get to plead the fifth.

I know I can’t get all THAT angry at his mouthy, sarcastic back talking — it’s kind of a cornerstone of who I am. But I need to figure out a way to help him read the room because that shit was NOT funny this morning. Right now, it’s a little funny, but at 7:15 this morning, I was NOT laughing.

And honestly, I’m looking around at my community and I’m like, “Fuck, man. This is kind of your fault, too!” We live in such an entitled culture — people cutting in the carpool line (oh my gahhhhhhhd I could write about this for WEEKS), people walking past garbage on the street and not picking it up, people dripping their coffee on the counter when they’re putting their cream in it and not just wiping it up themselves with a damn napkin! Yesterday, I watched an able-bodied, well-dressed woman reach for a bag of chips off the shelf at the grocery store, knock down another bag and look at it, look up at me looking at her (with, no lie, probably a stank face because resting bitch face is real life) and then spin on her high heels and walk away, leaving the stray bag of chips in the middle of the aisle like snack roadkill. I noisily picked it up for her and put it back on the shelf, but she never looked back and — I’m being real here — I don’t think she really even was AWARE that I was trying to make a big deal out of her bullshit.

On the ride home from driving him to school this morning (which may be off the table from here on out), I was riding in the left lane and the guy next to me in the right lane was in SUCH a damned hurry that he had to keep tapping on his brakes to not ram into the guy in front of him. We were all coasting at about 50mph in a 40mph zone, so it was just kind of like, “Hey guy… Chill the fuck out.”

After Atlanta Highway split, the impatient brake tapper was finally able to break free from the confines of traffic and he sped off, I’m guessing at upwards of 65mph at least. A few minutes later, as I was approaching the light where I turn to go to my neighborhood, there’s the speedster, approaching the red light and he is traveling in the right hand lane and there’s a car ahead of him, already stopped at the light. There is no car immediately to his left in the next lane, so he just sort of slides over into that lane, no blinker, cutting off the person that was approaching the light in the left hand lane… ON HIS PHONE.

And I wanted to park my car and go SCREAM at him about how fucking entitled he was driving.

I guess the hardest part about teaching entitlement and gratitude is that we have to, as parents, embody it. That’s how you teach it — you can’t just yell gratitude into a kid. (I need to hear that one again, “Jami, you can’t just yell gratitude into a kid.”) There’s no way for us to go back to being so insanely poor to teach him gratitude. It’s up to me to try to frame my position around the things we have and the places we get to go and the things we can do from a place of gratitude that actually resonates as true emotion.

I can’t fake gratitude. I know that I’m grateful for what we’ve got, but I need to work harder to show him that I’m grateful.

Sloughing off the Labels

August 21, 2014 by Jami Howard Mays

It wasn’t very long ago that I came home and the electricity in my apartment had been turned off because I was so far behind on the payments, only about six years ago. As a single mother, times were always tough, money was always tight… But I fell into a really weird pocket of poverty — at the time, I made $40 too much to qualify for any state assistance.

I fought so hard in court to get the child support that my son deserved and it came back to bite me in the butt because I was earning too much money.

And, let’s be real… My annual income that year (2008) was just over $10,000 for the year. I was in school full time, working part time and living beyond paycheck to paycheck. My best friend Nancy, one time, offered to “Dave Ramsey” my budget. She was certain she could find some wasted money in my spending. But at the end of all her calculations, I was -$12/month. Whomp whomp.

I recall this period in my life in spurts — there are large pockets of time missing. I guess it was my way of blocking out the pain and shame associated with being so very poor and that, no matter what I did, I could never get a leg up. There was always something — a doctor’s bill, a broken down car, an illness that prevented me from working which left me with a short check, an attorney’s fee for the ongoing battles in court with my exhusband, $10 for a field trip at school or a request to bring food to a party at school…

I was reminded of these hards times recently on a trip to Target with my son.

I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting lately, in therapy mostly, on my time from about 26-28 years old when I was at the lowest spot of my journey as a single mother, just before my Saturn Return.

One of the things I realized today in session is that I’m really struggling with how I identify myself now, in this current space, separate from my identity as a single mother, or really, a mother in general.

I looked at my life this week and realized that my life revolves around my son. My work day doesn’t start until after I’ve gotten him to school and it only runs until it’s time to pick him up from school. I don’t have a lot of time for self-care, something I’m becoming increasingly aware of as a need and not just a want. I found myself this week becoming resentful because my husband doesn’t have to do any of the shuttling and, after some introspection, it’s not because he’s DONE anything or that he’s shirking his duties. Quite the opposite, he’s really super dedicated to our son.

What it boils down to is that he’s not available because his schedule is work has been set a certain way. In elementary school, his schedule afforded us the opportunity to really share the duties of parent responsibility — we alternated days on who had to get the boy up and off to school. But now, in middle school, he goes to school an hour later and my husband is already at work and well into his stride by the time we’re heading out the door to get to middle school. My husband hasn’t changed — I haven’t changed — but our circumstances have changed.

Adjusting to these new circumstances has me kicking and screaming (who knew that I didn’t like change?!) because my position in this equation is changing. But it’s so unnecessary.

I’ve chosen a career path that affords me the opportunity to create my own schedule, around my life and our family’s plans. I’ve crafted a professional life that should support the flexibility that this transition is requiring.

So why am I still over here kicking and screaming?

It’s because I feel like I’m turning into a soccer mom and I do not like soccer moms.

Let me rephrase that. I don’t dislike soccer moms. I dislike that association I have with what they represent to me. For nearly ten years, as a single mother, I struggled… I didn’t have a community of peers in my real, day to day life. I didn’t have anyone I could relate to — my friends were either unmarried and childless or happily married and had children. There was no one else like me and it caused me to feel… otherly.

There was a lot of isolation in the grit and grind of single motherhood. The capacity to open up and learn about someone else and create and cultivate friendships was so hard because I was SO tired and the logistics of connecting with other single moms when neither of us had a partner to lean on — we couldn’t afford babysitters.

And there was also the judgment from the soccer mom types — whether it was implied or overt — that I was otherly. “Can you commit to volunteering?” was always met with a no because I didn’t have time, couldn’t afford to take off from work and often didn’t have money to contribute to teacher gifts, cupcakes on birthdays, etc.

And at the root of my dislike for the soccer mom types was jealously.

This is taking a lot for me to unravel because I am really not a jealous person, but I was so very jealous of the moms I knew and my perception of their lives — especially those who didn’t work outside of the home. I wanted an opportunity to volunteer, to participate in my kid’s school life, to go to all the practices and be engaged and to be able meet him off the bus after school.

I was angry that my life was hard.

I wanted to have a partner to talk to at night, share my day with, hold and be held… And instead, I was putting my kid to bed and left with the darkness and the stillness of night.

And now, I’m on the other side of this… I’m no longer the single mom. I’ve crafted a life of flexibility that gives me the freedom to drive my son to school and pick him up from school — because this is important to me. I volunteer at school, I want to go to PTA meetings, I want to be on a first name basis with all of his teachers.

With the exception of the minivan with the stick figure family stickers lined up on the rear window, I am a soccer mom. And it makes me feel so conflicted — how can I be irritated with the soccer moms when I am over here, being a fucking soccer mom?

And the crux of my issues, as of late, become clear: how to define myself and my role in this new, beautiful, positive well-supported space? I spent so long scrapping and fighting and trying so hard just to make those damn ends meet — I was so heavily armoured against the world… And now, the battle is over. I’m on a great team – my husband is my best friend. We have a great life… And I’m over here, wearing armour still… Clanking around in it and wondering where the noise is coming from…

As I peel back the unaddressed layers and layers of trauma, I’m sure I’ll rediscover lots of things like this… Old ways of thinking that I’m white-knuckle-clinging to out of habit and not out of current need… It’s tough. But, damn, I just feel really grateful to be on this side of it…

Maybe being a soccer mom isn’t all that bad after all… I certainly won’t be driving a minivan any time soon and if you ever see stick figure family stickers on my rear window, you have my permission to smash that window in, okay? That’s not me… But I’m hoping this empathy I have, from the experience on both sides, will help me be a better soccer mom than the ones I ran into when my kid was really young.

The days of the boy man…

August 10, 2014 by Jami Howard Mays

Last week I wrote something for ~~a new local online-and-probably-in-print-soon magazine~~ (edited: now-defunct), The Broad Collective, called Straddling Worlds. It’s one of those conclusion-less struggles that all parents of preteens or teens can probably relate to, I’m sure.

My kid is the jam. He’s just so smart and perceptive and it really feels like, any day now, I’m going to look at him and realize that there’s no more kid left in him…

You know, when they’re really small, there’s this moment when they go from baby-faced to kid-faced. And you never see it coming, but all of a sudden, they look at you or say something or use their hands to gesture and you think, “Wow… I just got a glimpse of what he’ll look like as a kid!”

I’ve been hypersensitive to this incoming change — so much so that I think I need to give it a rest already… I’ll let you know how that goes. (Spoiler alert: it’s not going well so far!)

Friday, he cleaned his room. It used to be a three day event complete with gnashing of teeth and crying and whining and complaining. And after all the drama, I’d open his closet or look under his bed and find all the crap he had just shoveled from the floor to these dark places. But I told him on Monday that I needed him to clean his room by the end of the week and he got up on Friday and just… did it.

In the process, he found two gift cards and concluded that, because they weren’t in his wallet, they must be empty, but I asked him to check the balances before he threw them away. Turns out, one of the cards was totally unused, sitting with $30.00 on it. (Thanks, mom!)

We’ve been talking a lot about money and responsibility, both with him and about him. So he talked about how he wanted to spend this new-found cash and after two days of really considering things, he decided he wanted to buy some Beyblades.

What’s a Beyblade you ask? Like… Um, a spinning top, remember those? Little wooden things that you twist and watch spin on the floor. Only, with BeyBlades, they’re like muscled up and WWE-Smackdown-ified so they BATTLE.

Because, how do we take something old and remarket it to appeal to the younger generation? We make it, um… tougher. Or something.

He played with his younger cousin this week and they had a hell of a time with his Beyblades and really was dead-set on spending his money that way.

With the other gift card and the cash and all his change pooled together, he was just shy of $42.00. Burning a hole in his pocket.

We went grocery shopping together today — yet another thing that has changed. It used to be such a chore to go grocery shopping with him tagging along and I’d spend way more than I needed to spend because ohmygodgetmeoutofthestorenownowNOW.

But today was different, he had the list and I actually really enjoyed it with him today… Teaching him how to pick out cucumbers and reading labels to find a spaghetti sauce that didn’t have added sugar (there was only one, so we got the stuff to make our own from scratch) and, of course, checking out the one shitty part of the grocery store, mid-way in the candy aisle to see if there were any Beyblades there for him to buy.

After we got home, unloaded the groceries and had a little snack, he asked me to take him to Target so he could spend his money. “They have the BEST selection of Beyblades, I think.” So much confidence behind his voice.

There was a single Beyblade for $9.99, a two-pack of Beyblades for $17.99 and the pit/arena/thing for $10.99. Adding it up in his head, I could see his confidence start to falter. He asked me to check his math on my phone, “Don’t forget about adding tax!”

Even after we crunched the numbers, he was unsure, but I encouraged him, “Take it up there. If it’s too much, you can always just tell the clerk you want to put something back.”

I immediately saw the white-faced panic wash over him. I recognized it. I remember not too many years ago having to put groceries back at the checkout line because I didn’t have enough to purchase everything in my cart. There’s so much shame in having this happen — people behind you in line, watching, getting frustrated that you’re taking so long. Shit, I’ve been the person widening my eyes in irritation at someone ELSE doing this dance in checkout ahead of me.

But I just told him, “Don’t worry about it. If it’s too much, you’ll put something back.” This gave him a little confidence, but I could tell he was nervous. We got to the checkout line and he says, “Will you do the talking?” giving me those sweet, sad, brown eyes… “No way, man. You’re about to spend $40 on a toy with your own money. This is all you.”

The clerk was so patient and kind and the women in line behind us were just smiling and beaming. I was damn near tears. He swiped his first card, the clerk helped him with the selection choices and then it asked for his signature.

He bounced back and forth, looking at me with pleading eyes, I said, “It’s your money. Sign your name.”

“I don’t even have a signature, mom,” but he carefully wrote his first name in cursive on the screen and touched the green button. He swiped his second card, taking the balance to zero and then started fishing all the dollars and coins from his zipper pouch in his velcro wallet.

“Sixty six… Sixty seven.. Sixty eight,” he gathered up the stack of coins in his little hands and passed them to the clerk. He had only a tiny handful of pennies left. But he was OVER THE MOON.

As soon as the clerk smiled at him and handed him the receipt, he realized he did it. It was done. He got all three toys. He had enough money.

But more importantly, he had just done something that was kind of a big deal… Faced the fear and the potential shame and came out on top.

The Beyblades were all ripped from their boxes before we were out of the parking lot and he was (is) so happy. I can help but smile at the face that I’m watching my kid turn into a man while he buys himself toys… like a boy.

Straddling Worlds

August 7, 2014 by Jami Howard Mays

This blog post was originally written for and published on The Broad Collective, a now defunct local blog here in Athens, Georgia. I lifted it from there to republish it here because… it’s mine, all mine!

Something happened this summer when I wasn’t paying attention . . . my kid grew up.

My son is a rising sixth grader at Clarke Middle this fall. Rising sixth grader, did you hear me? How did this happen? I mean, I know he was in fifth grade last year and fourth before that – but sixth grade? In middle school?

Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be a weepy, melancholy diatribe about how my little baby boy is turning into a young man, because if you really want to sit and stare at me crying, I’ll invite you to my next therapy session.

Here’s the thing: as of May (as in, this May, just a few months ago), my kid was a kid. He liked doing kid things. If his friends wanted to hang out, his friend’s mom usually called me or emailed me to make the arrangements. He still called me mommy when he wanted something. He wasn’t allowed to go home with a friend from school unless I had the foresight to remember to write a note to his teacher AND deliver that note to school. I couldn’t even pick him up in the carpool line unless I had that rear-view-mirror-number thing that always seemed to not be in the car when I needed it.

And now, this month . . . August . . . he’ll be in middle school and when the dismissal bell rings, that’s it. He’s finished with his day and he’s his own man.

What? No after school care or supervision. No teachers guarding him from release into the wild unknown. Just a dismissal bell and then Baxter Street.

Trying to sort out how our afternoons will play out has been complicated.

He’s asking me if he can leave school and walk to the library next door. This is actually a thing that my kid wants to do – he loves to read but seriously has only asked to go to the library maybe three times since we moved to Athens. However, suddenly, when you’re in middle school, it’s just, “what everyone does, mom.” My reply was simply, “Are you going to actually do your homework at the library?” and he just grinned at me and laughed like that was a preposterous question.

“Of course I will mom!” But I remember seventh grade… I remember sitting in gym class and getting a pep talk from my friend Julie about how to kiss.

“You just have to alternate, like, you kiss his top lip and then his bottom lip. He’ll show you!”

Julie stood guard while Daniel and I kissed, awkwardly and all I could think about was “top lip, bottom lip, top lip, bottom lip.” But what happened after that first kiss? Well, a lot of nothing really, save general normal adolescence. I looked him up on Facebook just now. He has a hand tattoo (a scary one, you know) and several kids and is generally kind of greasy and shiny and bald.

Do I think my kid wants to go to the library to make out? No. Do I think he even could without having someone at the library call them out on it? No.

I’m more worried that he’ll get picked up by a traveling circus creep and put in a sideshow. Will he get mugged for his ice cream money? Will he get ran over by an inexperienced college freshman that isn’t used to narrow city streets (oh my god, they’re everywhere)?

kevin I suddenly feel like the mom from Home Alone, except instead of screeching, “KEVIN!” I’m screeching, “HARRISON!”

And he’s over there, rolling his eyes at me like, “Moooo-ooom,” because what’s the big deal? “EVERYONE goes to the library after school, mom.”

Oh really? EVERYone? Every single person at your school? I have to stop myself before I jump on him with, “If all your friends decided to jump off a bridge . . .” because I am NOT that kind of mom, right?

I’m a cool mom. I believe in autonomy and independence. I have spent the last eleven years guiding him to make independent choices, to evaluate a situation and figure out what the right thing to do is . . . He’s ready. I’m ready. He’s capable of walking down the street, right?

But I’m not ready. On the outside, I feel ready. It’s RIGHT next to the school, for crying out loud! But on the inside, I keep thinking to myself that I’ll end up parking my car across the street and waiting for him to exit the building and then walk down the road and then, I’ll slowly creep my car down Baxter to follow him, park far away in the lot at the library and stalk him . . . In my mind, I envision myself watching him through book stacks, wearing a trench coat and dark glasses. Incognito mom.

But that’s not cool at all. And that’s not respecting him at all. How is he going to grow up to be a man that makes his own decisions about his life if I’m hovering over him, helicopter parenting him? How is he going to gain confidence in himself if he sees that I don’t have any confidence in him? What if this is one of his first experiences with real, honest to goodness independence and I poo-poo on it and stunt his growth? What if I have a little faith in him and he surprises me by being responsible and making great choices? What if I gave him a little room to make mistakes because, really, that’s how we all learn lessons the best?

How in the world am I supposed to help guide him through this space where he is part child, part man, straddling the two worlds? One minute, he needs me to hold him and comfort him and the next minute, he’s upset that I’m micromanaging the way he does his chores. One minute he’s happy playing with his Pokémon cards on the floor, listening to pop music and the next minute, he’s stinking up the whole back end of the house with his cologne and worried about how his hair looks.

I don’t have answers. I just have anxiety. And school starts next week. And, with regard to the library thing, I haven’t given him a definitive answer yet . . . it’s just been a lot of, “We’ll see,” and, “Maybe.”