This week I took Baby Evan into the pediatrician for what should have been an easy visit that ended up being incredibly stressful and annoying and bad-mother-guilt-inducing.

Then I had a visit to the emergency room that was the most relaxing part of my weekend.

Doctors are weird.

Because of the weight-loss between his 12 and 15 month check-ups, our pediatrician scheduled a quick weigh-in on Friday for Baby Evan. I knew he’d been eating more and had definitely gained, so I expected a nice “You’re doing great and clearly not neglecting your kid” visit. That’s not quite what I got.

After the nurse weighed him – up almost a pound in 1 month –  the lady pediatrician, one I don’t think I’ve met before, came in to talk to us about what we feed our kid. Want to feel bad about your parenting skills? Try honestly answering that question. Peanut butter, bread, Goldfish, pita chips, cookies, french fries, fruit leather, cheese…yeah, I win mother of the year for sure. I didn’t even bother explaining it’s whole wheat bread! And organic fruit leather! And homemade cookies! And I offer him TONS of fruits and vegetables, I just haven’t figured out how to make him eat them!

Surprisingly, the ped didn’t seem to care much about the totally lack of color in my kid’s diet. She was more concerned that I get him to drink at least five cups of milk a day, offer him even MORE food and having us come back again EVERY MONTH for another weight check. When I went through my list of what caused the original weight loss and why it wouldn’t happen again, she made the same face my mom used to make when I came home late for curfew. The “I don’t care about your excuses” face. The “I doubt your ability to do the right thing” face. It was AWFUL. I’ve been thinking about that face constantly since Friday – every time my kid tosses his cup on the floor, every time he feeds his sandwich to the dog, every time he sleeps through a snack time. Today at the grocery store he ate a whole piece of cheese the deli lady gave him and I almost cried with joy, knowing the doctor would have approved.

You know that feeling you had when you left the hospital with your tiny newborn, the one where you couldn’t believe the staff was just letting you TAKE A BABY without any sort of instruction manual or rules or scheduled home checks to make sure you were doing it right?

This is the opposite of that. This is the feeling that just when you thought you were finally doing everything right and really getting the hang of motherhood someone comes along and tells you you suck. It sucks.

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On Saturday morning I noticed I had had some bleeding the night before and called my OB to see if he wanted me to come in for a rhogam shot. It was an exact repeat – almost to the same DAY of pregnancy & the same OB doc on call – of what happened when I was pregnant the first time (hint: certain grown up activities are apparently a little too much for my cervix to handle after the 22 week mark) only this time around I wasn’t a freaked out mess. I knew what it was, I knew what caused it, I knew the baby was fine. If I had an OB checkup scheduled this week I wouldn’t have even bothered to call on a weekend, but my next appointment isn’t until September and I could just imagine the doctor’s face if I brought up bleeding a MONTH after it happened, especially because he had JUST reminded me to have any bleeding checked out because of the rh-negative thing. O- might be the good blood type for donating but it SUCKS for pregnancy.

The doctor wasn’t super concerned, but said I could go into the ER for a shot “if I wanted”. I told him no, I didn’t really WANT a painful shot in the ass, so I’d just skip it. Of course, then he decided what he really meant was “You should definitely go in for a shot” although why didn’t he just say that in the first place? So I left E and Baby Evan at home and popped over to our very nice local ER for my rhogam.

It’s a funny place, the emergency room. There was an old lady with a broken hip who kept yelling “I’m peeing! I’m peeing! I have to go!” even though the nurse kept coming in to explain it was ok, she had a catheter and was supposed to pee. There was the kid laughing his head off at the doctor’s jokes even though he was still strapped into a car seat – they had been in some sort of fender bender and the paramedics brought the whole thing in on a gurney. There was the tearful family in the room next to me who cried as the doctor explained the definition of a DNR. There was the male nurse who kept saying “This is why people need a primary care physician” and “I wish more people would call their doctors before using the ER as a walk-in clinic” and “Well, the doctor doesn’t KNOW you so he might not just give you whatever medicine you want” despite the fact that I said my OB was right upstairs and said I needed a shot and he could verify my non-drug-seeking status if anyone wanted. Like rhogam is some sort of narcotic that gets you high instead of just making your thigh hurt for a couple days. DUDE, YOU’RE TOTALLY ON TO ME. I’M A JUNKIE FOR SURE.

Like I said, weird place. Happiness and sadness and noise and quiet and fast and slow at all once.

Because everyone has to check with everyone and everyone’s mother and then do a bunch of paperwork about what was said before they could treat me for my non-condition, I spent a good 2 hours just waiting around. I had my knitting with me and managed to finish a whole scarf plus catch up on everything in my Google reader on my iPhone. There were no babies climbing on me, no food being thrown, no dogs running in circles, no loud noises. The doctor was totally cooperative and happy to get out his fancy ultrasound machine to print me some pictures. The paperwork admin lady came in to chat a few times and we talked about kids and babies and pregnancy. After he realized I wasn’t a drug addict or a crazy person, my nurse was very nice and didn’t make me stay for the required 30 minutes post-injection so I could get home and enjoy the beautiful day.

I left feeling like I had taken a mini-vacation. Although next time I’d like one that didn’t involve quite so many needles. Or blood. And maybe included a massage.

But hey, I can’t really complain when I got enough quite time to finish knitting a whole project.

So to sum up: I’m much better at caring for babies that haven’t been born yet. Maybe I’ll just stay pregnant forever.

If my whole family wasn’t coming to town (ACK) for Baby Evan’s first birthday, I would be a posting fool about all the decorations, games, crafts and fun I’ve been buying and making for  the party. Some of it is just so damn cute I can barely stop myself. But as my friend Sarah is always saying, it’s important to make wise choices. Of course, Sarah is usually talking to her 2 year old, but it’s still an important concept. Like for example, when Baby Evan chooses to eat mulch and Sarah’s daughter gets very concerned that “Baby Eban not make wise choice” even thought she TOLD him to stop eating that mulch! Of course, the wise choice in that situation would actually be for”Baby Eban’s” mother to stop her child from eating the dirty mulch on the playground, but Baby Eban’s mother is still working on remembering these things. Like I said, I’m trying to make wise choices so I’m starting with NOT posting every detail of the birthday party before anyone even gets her so they can all oooooh and aaaaaah over my skillz and talent. Plus I’m counting on that party to give me at least four days worth of posts (I know you’re SO excited) so I can give my brain a little break while it recovers from an influx of house guests and company.

So my wise choice for today is to give you just a sneak peak of some of the stuff I’ve found so far:

Dollar Store, 3 for $1

That container used to hold Boy Scout popcorn (if you don't know what that is you clearly your family is not as BLESSED with Eagle Scouts as mine is)

From Celebration Express online

Dollar Store

I think the reason babies are born helpless and wordless and unable to sass back is to give new parents a chance to practice their patience before they’re required to actually PARENT. When you come home with an infant you quickly learn important baby-care skills such as how to get dressed while holding a baby in one arm, reading lips on tv because the baby is sleeping and you don’t want to risk turning up the volume, and taking 30 second showers. But Baby Bootcamp lasts only a few months and doesn’t include what to do when your child steals a toy from someone else’s child and then smacks them in the head with it. And then laughs. That requires discipline, something I am definitely still learning.

Yesterday at play group Baby Evan had a pushing incident with one of his friends. Shockingly, he was the victim instead of the aggressor but it’s only a matter of time before Babyzilla attacks become an international concern.

(Recreation of said incident:)

I’m very lucky that watching the moms I know with their kids is like taking a master class in patient parenting. They say stuff like “let’s make a good decision” and “what do you think will be the consequences of your actions?” and “put your eyes on my eyes while I’m talking to you”. I was secretly laughing at that kind of talk – does a 2 year old really understand consequences? – until the 2 year old understood the consequences. And another kid shared all her toys nicely. And no one screamed when Baby Evan stole their sippy cup (because my child is the worst behaved one) (mostly because he’s only 9 months old) (we’re working on it).

I’m hoping both the good parenting and the good behavior will start to rub off on us. Nobody wants to be the pariah of the playgroup or have a kid who doesn’t get invited to birthday parties. Because those kids grow up to be assholes. And then everybody blames their mothers.

I’ve been feeling sort of out of place recently – both on the internets (where, let’s face it, I spend most of my time) and in real life – when it comes to where I fit in as a mother. I’m not afraid of being a bad mother or a neglectful mother or a lazy mother. I’m comfortable with my choices and don’t feel guilty for making them. I’m worried I’m going to be a lonely, friendless mother because it is hard to maintain friendships with people who disagree with your parenting decisions, no matter how well you get along.

On the one hand, I’m a breastfeeding, babywearing, co-sleeping attachment parent. I feel very strongly about breastfeeding and end up talking about it a lot, mostly because it’s hard not to talk about something you do 12 times a day. Other things I believe in: making my own baby food, feeding on demand (even at 2 am. And 3 am. And 4 am), sharing a bed (or bedroom) with my baby and carrying Baby Evan more often than not.  In general, my view of parenting is that kids weren’t meant to be easy and if raising an independent, well-adjusted child means I don’t get to wear non-nursing clothes or see a movie in a theater or get eight hours sleep for a year or two (or eighteen), I’m OK with that.

But on the other hand, I loved my hospital birth, complete with epidural and pitocin. Really, I loved it. We chose to circumcise Baby Evan. I’ve followed a standard vaccination schedule so far (I can’t resist linking this article on the importance of herd immunity my friend Lareign posted on Twitter). We don’t cloth diaper, although if someone wanted to offer me a lifetime supply of BumGeniuses and a diaper service I’d certainly make the switch. And the moms who agree with everything in my first paragraph are absolutely totally anti-EVERYTHING I JUST SAID in my second paragraph. To them, those decisions are all risky and uneducated. I’m clearly blinded by Big Medicine and Big Pharma and hate fresh air, trees and puppies. My child will get autism, penis cancer, mercury poisoning, male pattern baldness, early onset puberty, and incurable diaper rash and it will be all. my. fault.

I think the key to mommy friendships is to not comment on anyone else’s parenting. And “not comment” doesn’t mean not saying anything to someone’s face but loudly ranting about the dangers of cesarean sections within earshot of someone you know had one. Or “not comment” by saying “Oh I would NEVER…” Or “not comment” with my biggest, hugest pet peeve smack-down, “Just educate yourself on all the facts and then make a decision.” No one ever uses that phrase unless what they really mean is YOU’RE DOIN’ IT WRONG AND SUCK AT PARENTING AND HAVE UGLY HAIR TOO. “Not comment” means seriously don’t talk about stuff you know is going to lead to someone being uncomfortable and stick to safe topics like trying to remember the last movie you saw in a theater or how annoying it is that all little boy clothes have footballs on them. And I can do that for about 20 minutes. But then I start talking about how exhausted I am since the baby started rolling and kicking me in bed and the co-sleeping comes up and then suddenly the conversation is back to sleep training and feeding on demand and boobs and oh look this isn’t a beach it’s a minefield.

I just wish there was a place where I could meet other moms with my half one kind, half the other parenting approach. It could be the “I vaccinate my breastfed baby who wears Pampers but doesn’t use a bottle” club. Maybe we should get lapel pins. Or a secret handshake.

No, not Baby Evan’s anxiety. Mine. I almost lost my marbles the other day at the thought of leaving Evan in someone else’s care for twenty minutes. How could a stranger possibly nurture my precious snowflake in my absence? I mean, he could get hungry and start crying and his mommy won’t be there to hold him! I bet that’s the first thing everyone says in therapy: “My mother wasn’t there that one time I cried.” Besides, I don’t know these people. Maybe they secretly hate babies and would pinch him as soon as my back was turned. Are they qualified? What if they’re drug dealers? Or child molesters? I mean, that’s not usually who works in a church nursery but YOU NEVER KNOW.

I wasn’t expecting this to be a problem. I know in theory that the focus of attachment parenting is making you feel, well, attached to your child. One of the articles I read described it as feeling like part of you was missing when you weren’t with the baby. But c’mon, it’s not like I’m a super over protective mom type. I’m the opposite of overprotective and cautious. I’m the kind of person who says stuff like “God made dirt and dirt don’t hurt” without a hint of irony. So what’s my problem with letting someone else watch the baby shove inappropriate things in his mouth?

My problem is no one else HAS ever watched him. We don’t have any family nearby to “practice” babysitting to see how Baby Evan handles being in the care of someone other than his parents. When I was about 16, I babysat for the neighbor’s infant. Who cried. THE. WHOLE. TIME. I told them never to call me again and swore I’d never have children (yeah, I said a lot of things when I was 16). I don’t want to traumatize someone that way. But is it just going to get worse if I don’t? My fear is I’m going to be the mom at the first day of kindergarten who can’t walk out the door without prying her kid off her leg with a crowbar. Maybe I’ll just practice on my parents when they come to visit. They have to love me and Baby Evan anyway.