Caped crusaders need not apply …

I’m going to let you in on a little secret: Being a mom is hard.

Sure, people say breastfeeding is hard. Or getting your child to sleep through the night is hard. Or going back to work is hard.

But when it comes to the little everyday things … Well, it’s a lot easier to focus on the cute baby in a cute outfit doing cute things and not even realize that an hour ago, that same baby refused to take a nap, spit up and pooped all over his first outfit on the way out the door, and currently has hold of Mommy’s favorite Tiffany necklace – while it’s around her neck – and is trying to choke her to death.

Being a mom is a full-time job. And I love that job. (I mean seriously, look at how cute my kid is!) But children are unpredictable, and you have to roll with the punches, or, in Collin’s case, the scratches. (He is into “petting” me when he nurses, and considering he uses his nails to do it, I am not such a fan.) So, as hard as it is for a perfectionist like myself to admit, I now see that there is no such thing as a supermom.

Sure, there are super moms, but there is no caped superhero out there fighting for truth, justice and two-hour naps – and prevailing.

Take nursing for example. As I have mentioned previously, to call it a challenge would be an understatement – but I have a whole new set of problems now. When I started taking Fenugreek to boost my milk supply, I was skeptical that it would actually work. I figured I’d take it for a few weeks, get tired of smelling like maple syrup, and go back to sighing heavily as I tried to pump more than two ounces at a time. Imagine my surprise when my supply did go up. It’s still not the most copious, nor do I think it ever will be, but it’s enough that I was able to feed Collin satisfactorily – until he went on a huge growth spurt and started needing about 20 ounces of formula on top of what I was giving him.

At times, I have felt like a huge failure for not being able to produce enough milk to feed my child, but the rational part of me commends myself for even trying.

After all, I don’t even like syrup that much. I'm weird and put PB&J on my pancakes.

One thing about Fenugreek is that you have to keep up on feeding and/or pumping. I’m not usually away from Collin for more than an hour or two, and I have a nice pump, so no big deal, right?

Well, I didn’t count on my batteries dying after about two seconds when we were at the WSU-Hawaii game at Qwest Field last month – and Collin was 40 miles away at my mom’s house. I diligently packed and dragged my pump up there, popped my second daily dose of Fenugreek around halftime, and went off to pump at the beginning of the fourth quarter.

Oh. My. God. I have not been in that much pain since giving birth. I was engorged, and the Fenugreek wasn’t helping matters whatsoever. Oh, the irony -- I was now in agony because I was actually producing milk. I inquired about batteries at the first aid booth – nothing like hearing the word “engorged” blare over police walkie-talkies and knowing they’re referring to you for a little dose of humility – but there wasn’t a double-A to be found in the vicinity.

I ended up having to hand-express some of the milk in the first-aid room’s bathroom, and it was about as horrible as it sounds. It didn’t get the job done, and me and my funbags had to ride the train back to Tukwila and then drive home – all the while listening to Chris and my father-in-law recap every pathetic moment of the game.

Lesson learned: Never leave the house again. At least not until I buy some Energizer stock.

Another area where we have dealt with challenges is sleep. In Collin’s
3-month update, I mentioned that he was steadfastly refusing to vacate our bed. Well, about a week later, he decided he’d rather be in his pack-and-play, and has been sleeping there ever since. My personal theory is that he got tired of Chris snoring in his ear. Everyone has been sleeping so much better since the number of inhabitants in our bed was reduced to two.

And then comes 7 a.m.

The basic gist is that he wakes up, decides he wants company, and cries until he is returned to the memory-foam palace, where he promptly goes back to sleep.

Now, I realize that most normal people are up at 7
a.m. But for those of us who go to bed at 2 or 3, I don’t want to see anyone, and I mean anyone, at that time of day. Dean Cain (circa 1996) could be standing there in a tux, holding a dozen roses and a Pulitzer with my name on it, and I’d still ask him to come back in a couple of hours.

Granted, with the exception of those few minutes, Collin sleeps from about 2 a.m. until 10 or 10:30 a.m., but as with most of his battles (including napping ever since he hit the 4-month wakeful period), he refuses to go down without a fight. We are willing to enable him for now, but I do worry about what will happen when we move him into his own room once he turns six months.

It could be a long winter.

And speaking of sleep … during my pregnancy, I spent hours and hours doing research on safety ratings and looking for an infant car seat that would match his fabulous crimson-and-gray stroller. Around 25 weeks, I finally picked out a nice, expensive model that would hold up to 35 pounds. All it took was a credit card and a mouse, and I had peace of mind. But not for long.

Around 9 pounds, Collin decided he hated being strapped into it (see photo – does that look like a happy guy?) and made no secret of his feelings – and I mean in the scream-all-the-way-from-Federal-Way-to-Lakewood kind of way. That’s about 20 miles for you statisticians. He is really good about sleeping in the car, but his lack of willingness to be in the (alleged) torture device during wakeful periods was making me think long and hard before going anywhere outside Tacoma city limits. And given that we’ve been going on playdates all over the place, a solution was needed before I went deaf.

Fortunately for my ears, I solved the problem at the end of last month by buying a convertible car seat. Yep, after all of that, I willingly forfeited more than 20 extra pounds of use in my prized SafeSeat. It just wasn’t worth it. Collin still gets annoyed if the car stops for a long period of time, but otherwise, he seems to enjoy having the freedom to look around and not be as constrained. At the very least, he doesn’t cry when he’s being put into it. And since he’ll be sitting in it until he’s 50 pounds, I am immensely relieved.

But at the same time, I am terrified. Hitting the 50-pound mark doesn’t seem that far away.

Amid the achievements, the joy -- and the challenges, my baby is growing up.