More Confessions of a Crazy Mommy

So, I’ve mentioned at least once that I’m still washing my little power pooper in the kitchen sink.  When F was less than a week old, my mom bought us this handy little seat, which has made sponge-baths in the sink ever so easy.  But that’s just one reason why I’m still picking broccoli bits off F during the course of her bath.  There’s more to the story.

Here’s the thing.  I think baths are dirty.  Gross.  Almost as bad as not bathing at all.  Before I share the details, let me preface this by saying: 1) No, I’m not a germaphobe, not when it comes to me, and not when it comes to my daughter.  We don’t sterilize bottles.  I let her play with spoons that have fallen on the floor of the restaurant, and I only occasionally remember to wash her pacifiers.  (Thank goodness she prefers her thumb – it never falls on the floor and bounces under the crib right into a tumbleweed of kitty hair, which is damn hard to pick off a pacifier.)  2) There is no internal consistency to this story.  I love hot tubs, and will sit in them any where, any time, and I swim in public pools.  I also swim in lakes, rivers, and almost any other body of water.  Having said that, let me explain the bath thing.

I firmly believe that baths have no place in the world of cleanliness.  What is clean about sitting in a tub of water that has already been sullied by the dirty body you just put into it?  Nothing, I tell you.  Nothing.  You can add soap, but in my book, a few bubbles won’t change the fact that it’s still a cesspool of germs and dirt and boogers and spit up and invisible little poo particles that I’m sure are still there no matter how many wipes I used after the last diaper.  (I don’t believe hot tubs and swimming pools are any cleaner, but at least they have chlorine in them.  And I shower aftewards.)

When I was pregnant, Josh and I took a hypnobirthing class.  (We had all sorts of big plans for a med-free labor and delivery.  Things didn’t quite turn out that way, but more on that later.)  Hypnobirthing is based, in part, on the idea that having a baby is a natural process, one that doesn’t require medicating the crap out of the mother.  As part of the curriculum, they show a number of videos of natural childbirths, many of which took place in water.

The vast majority of the people in the class (including my husband) were visibly moved by the images of women delivering their babies in calm, supported, med-free ways.  I thought it was all fine and good, except for the water births.  I was horrified.  Mortified.  Disgusted.  As my classmates were wiping tears from their eyes, I was tasting small amounts of vomit in my mouth.  All I could think was “Oh dear G-d.  That women is sitting in dirty placenta water.  She’s holding her baby in that bloody water.  I’ve heard women sometimes poop during childbirth.  What if she pooped?  What if she’s sitting in bloody poo water?  What’s going to happen when she gets out of the tub?  She’s going to drip nasty poo placenta juice all over the rug.  Who’s going to clean that rug?  Are they going to rent a steam cleaner?  Wait – now they’re showing her lying in bed, holding her baby.  Man, I hope she took a shower.  Otherwise her sheets are covered…”  You get the point.

There you have it.  My latest Crazy Mommy Confession.  Despite my craziness, I’m going to have to get over it and start giving the baby a bath.  She’s just getting too big for the sink.  Unless we get a bigger sink…

(By the way, you may have noticed that I didn’t mention the unthinkable – the horrible possibility that F might spit up, pee, or G-d forbid, poop while in the tub.  I know, it sounds too revolting to be true, but it is.  My nephew once handed my sister a turd while bathing.  (The fact that she didn’t immediately relinquish him to the authorities for such behavior is a true testament to her patience as a mother.)  It could happen to you.  Even worse, it could happen to me.  But I’m trying not to dwell on it, or we’ll never make the transition to the tub.)

My own brand of Mommy Crazy

I won’t lie to you.  I used to judge her for it.  When I heard that my aunt had the baby’s car seat installed by the police every time she removed it and put it back in, I thought she was crazy.  I was sure she was being overly anal and obsessive, and I wondered what else was going on that I didn’t know about.  Most of all, I was confident that I would never be *that* kind of mother.

Then I had a baby, and I learned that we all have that one thing – if we’re lucky.  Some of us have many, many things.

One of my friends is obsessed with organic pacifiers.  Another mother is constantly worrying that her daughter isn’t getting enough tummy time.  Then there is the couple that wants to make sure their son see all of the Baby Einstein videos… and the list goes on and on.

Yes, I have mine too.  It’s SIDS – Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.  It’s definitely something all parents should be aware of, but I think I take my “awareness” to a new level.  I’ve read all the checklists multiple times.  I’m breastfeeding the baby, and she sleeps in a crib with a new, firm mattress and NOTHING else.  No bumpers, no toys, no blankets, NOTHING.  We keep the room warm, but not too warm.  After I read this article, we immediately put a fan in her bedroom.  We put her down with a pacifier every night.  She is never exposed to cigarette smoke.  She doesn’t nap on our bed or the couch or any other soft surface, and when she does fall asleep in her car seat, I make sure that the blankets on her don’t go anywhere near her face.  When the baby is sleeping, I’m on SIDS patrol.

The truth is, I’m on SIDS patrol almost all the time, including when we are visiting friends who have babies, or when I’m looking at pictures of other babies’ cribs.  Oh no, I’ll cluck to myself, look at those bumpers and that teddy bear – that crib is a death trap.  What?  They put a blanket on their sleeping son?  What kind of negligent parents are they?  They let the child sleep in the bed with them??  Haven’t they read the warnings, the studies, the lists of risk factors?  The might as well light up in front of the kid as far as I’m concerned.  I notice all of it, and my first reaction is generally horror.

Horror, followed closely by a twinge of jealousy.  The reality is that regardless of where they sleep, most babies don’t die of SIDS.  My daughter’s risk level may be even lower because she was born full term, is healthy, and is breast-fed.  There is definitely a part of me that knows I could be a little less obsessive about this particular issue, and I do feel a bit envious of my friends who feel comfortable co-sleeping, or putting the baby down for a nap on the bed.  I wish I could do it, but I can’t.  I just can’t.

So, instead of worrying about worrying less about SIDS, I let myself worry about it.  I’m mostly ok with the twitchy discomfort I feel every time I see a bumper in a crib or a blanket on a sleeping baby, because I know that I’m relaxed about other things, and that my friends have their own obsession, their own SIDS.  We all have something, right?