Mama Bean is stuck at the crossroads of OWS and feminism and motherhood and also, the internet has themes

My husband posted this story to his facebook. And now we're going to have two heavy, sort of political posts in a row on here. Weird times, friends. (There's a lot of linkages in this post, sorry. ) (I promise to return to light-hearted anecdotes of my adoring toddler and baby soon.)

There are some who will say this woman should not have knowingly put her pregnant self in such a charged situation. Which sounds, to me, a bit like saying, well she shouldn't have been wearing that dress and walking down that street at that time of night, if she didn't want to get raped. As if anyone wants to be raped. As if this woman wanted to be kicked in the stomach and pepper-sprayed and miscarry. As if anyone wants to encounter violence and assault. As if anyone should expect violence and assault.

Because we have a right to personal safety. And the police are supposed to uphold that right, not counteract it. And we have a right to protest peacefully, and to be met in our protest with non-violence. (At least the St. Louis police got it right.) Again, maybe this sounds terribly naive of me. But I want to believe I still live in a world where this is true.

In the vein of Eve Ensler's brilliant words at HuffPo (seriously, just stop reading this, go read that, and call it a day), I am over it. I'm over blaming the victim. (For example, this guy. I am so over this guy getting nothing but a slap on the wrist.) I'm over the kind of privileged thinking that presumes it can judge the necessity another person feels to protest, because it is privilege (and I am privileged, too, and fully acknowledge it) which allows us to think, "Geez why don't they just shut up? What is there to complain about anyway?" Let them eat cake, indeed. I'm over a culture that continues to "hystericize" women - that continues to tell us we're too emotional, too vulnerable, too precious, to have our opinions and passions and yes, our dirty "hysterical" emotions count for anything. I'm tired of apologizing for being naive and "crazy." (Here's some great thoughts on that whole thing.)

Do you ever find the internet has a theme? Like, all these disjointed posts and facebook links and current events are all speaking to the same thing, for no apparent reason? For me, the theme lately has been the intersection(s) of motherhood and feminism. How do I raise a feminist son and daughter, when so  many societal messages tell us feminism is no longer relevant? How do I respond to those societal messages, when it's women telling other women to stop being so "hysterical" or we "won't get anywhere"? (How can someone, in the same breath, acknowledge there's somewhere else we need to get to, and disdain of using our voices, the only tool we have, for getting there??) How do I deal with what television has done to my favourite Canadian character on TV ever; are we really rehashing this poor beaten dead horse that motherhood and career success are not mutually exclusive? In fact, while I am writing this post, this comes across my facebook wire, and I just...really? The answer to hormones is "Buck up and have some self control?" What about helping young women actually understand menstruation, how about taking the shame out of it, how about taking responsibility for the sexual education of our children instead of leaving it to their schools, how about providing meaningful social support for at risk teen women so they're never in the position of feeling their only choice is throwing a baby away? And I don't just mean literally.

Seriously, the internet has themes. Roseanne's got me feeling all warm and fuzzy about menopause, for pete's sake.

I just bristle at it all. These tensions between the responsibilities I feel toward my intellect and dreams and career, and the responsibilities I have toward my children and my family. And why does that have to be a dualism anyway? Eurgh! Pregnancy and motherhood don't make women suddenly weak. Having small humans who depend on us, who we are driven to protect at all costs, doesn't mean we ourselves become dependent and needy of protection. Motherhood has revealed to me strengths I didn't know I had, or indeed, did not have before. 

The world is dangerous, I get that. The dangers are real, including the dangers of protesting. But I can't reconcile myself to sacrificing my right to speak out or have an opinion or even get a little "hysterical" just for the sake of playing it safe. I don't think that's the call of motherhood. Because if I do that, if I am cowed by the overbearing danger of simple existence into silencing my voice and hermitting my family, all I will succeed in doing is raising dependents who, in addition to fearing the real dangers of life, also fear they have no voice, no tools, no means of fighting back. And I refuse to do that to them.

(My response to PBs post, btw, was "i have no words. and i have no grace. someone must pay for this shit." Because I am having trouble finding grace in these stories coming out of OWS. I can't see where redemption is coming into this Story. It troubles me. Maybe that's why I keep writing about it, because that's how I deal with being Troubled. I was reading some poignantly topical chapters in Brian McLaren's Naked Spirituality, which focused on praying compassion into the lives and world around us. I couldn't quite get where he was leading, but I know it was God whispering out some answers to me, showing me the grace. I will continue looking for the faith to seek and live that grace out.) 

Mama Bean can't get UC Davis out of her head

I feel a little late to this story, as it happened days ago, and I saw flickers of it hitting my facebook and twitter, but didn't really take the time to read anything until last night. And then I just cried. I couldn't help it. It made me feel sick. And I couldn't even actually make myself watch the video. This entire visceral reaction was just to reading about it.

I don't talk about politics much on here, because I shy away from the kind of traffic (i.e. trolls) that attracts. But, as a so-called mommy blogger, I think my heart and stomach are reacting to this as a mother, and I want to write about it as a mother. I read the UC Davis details and Nathan Brown's open letter through the lens of my experience, because that is what I have, and that is what we do. 

In my experience as a student: when I went to the University of Cowtown, there was a protest that lasted several weeks on the central lawn of campus, because of proposed tuition increases. About fifty (? my memory fails me...) students camped out in tents, and ate ramen noodles, and told anyone who would listen why we couldn't afford higher tuition. I don't remember if it was effective. I don't even remember how or why it ended - were they forced out? I do remember, for sure, that pepper spray was not involved. At my Chiropractic college in the first few months of my very first semester, our (generally) beloved Chancellor was forced to resign. There was huge student outcry (well, as huge as a small Chiropractic college can get), protests in the streets, angry letters to the powers that were. It was not effective, he is now president of a different Chiropractic college. Pepper spray was not involved. 

I am not (have not yet been?) a camping-out in protest kind of person. But I'm a sign-a-petition kind of person, which I did during the U of C protest. I am a write-angry-letters to politicians and boards of directors type person, which I did as a member of my Chiropractic college's student council. I have an Activist sort of mentality, though I don't express it very loudly. Papa Bean would say I have Causes, in a way that he does not.

In my experience as someone's child: during these events, I'm sure I didn't tell my parents anything about these things happening, or my participation in them, peripheral as it was. I don't really talk to my parents about my Causes, because we have differing opinions, because we have enough things to talk about without introducing new opportunities for conflict, because there have been times when I felt I was not taken seriously, just because. Because that is not something my parents and I do. If it were me getting pepper-sprayed back in my college activism, I'd be more worried that they'd just be mad at me for getting into trouble than anything else. Come to think of it, that's probably what kept my activity peripheral to begin with.

In my experience as a mother: well. I mean... God, if that was my kid? Father God, that was someone's kid, those were all someone's kids. And this is the world they've grown into? I would just lose my mind. Because I am a mother who believes in a student's right to protest, who believes a fundamental property of The University is its place, its foundational identity as A Place for Discourse. Is this naive of me, in this day and age of mixed corporate and government funding and 1% and lobbyists over us all, to still think that this is what universities exist for? That if there's anywhere for a tent city to exist it would be on the campus lawn of a post-secondary facility? Then I am a naive mother, and perhaps my kids will be embarrassed by my naivety, but they will also know that protest is not only a permissible response, sometimes it is the necessary response. I am a mother who wants to know what her kids care about, are moved by, feel passion for. I want them to tell me their Causes, even if we disagree, even if we sharpen our positions in the potential conflict, even if that's hard, just because. I want them to say, "Well, that's just what me and my parents do" and shrug it off. I don't want them to be afraid to step away from the sidelines just because they could get in trouble, if it's the right thing to do. And I want them to know, if it were them being brutalized by a police state that I cannot even fathom is real, except the video is right in front of us, viewed over a million times already, if that were them, that I would stand with them, and fight back with them, and not back down. Because that's my kid. And you don't do that to my kid.

We don't do this to our kids.

Right?

Look, maybe I'm just a Canadian with no real bone to pick in this fight. You can write me off like that, if you want. But I can't sit back and let this be our new reality. I can't mother kids into a reality like that. And I hope you can't either.

Mama Bean doesn't look good in green

I've recently been dealing with feelings of jealousy. I wouldn't say this is rare - I get consumer envy all the time. But in the context of relationships, it's relatively uncommon, and I don't know how to deal with it. On top of feeling justsohighschool, it's also problematic that jealousy is fundamentally a problem in myself, in my own head and my own heart. And I'm the only one to blame for it (really) and to fix it, I have to change my Thinkings and my Feelings, and I, frankly, suck. at. that.

It took me awhile to really figure out what was going on. At first, I just collected a bunch of situations in my head that made me feel bad, in an unidentifiable way. Bad in my stomach, like losing your appetite. Bad in my chest and shoulders, like a suddenly cold day. Bad like a buzzing, nagging thought, "This hurts. I feel hurt. But why?" From there I embarked on a convoluted emotional extravaganza, fueled by hormones and sleep deprivation, and bless my husband for listening to it all.

First, I wondered if I had done something wrong. Maybe I'd unintentionally done something offensive or inconsiderate or whatever. And there are possibilities, I'm not a perfect friend...

But then again, nothing I'd considered I thought warranted the coldness and distance I was sensing, so then I got a little defensive...

But then again, it's not like people intend to be malicious, I'm sure it's just about busy-ness or busi-ness or any other combination of factors...

But then again, these situations just kept/keep happening, and I haven't changed my behaviour or done anything new that might explain it, so...

Then I'm back on the defensive train, defending my actions against accusations I've only imagined could possibly explain what's going on, and also leveling my accusations, and backing them up with exquisite prosecution. All completely in my head. 

Am I the only person who does this? Like, seriously, it felt like I was running a trial, in my head, and making up the dialogue for all involved parties, in my head. It was exhausting! What the hell was I thinking?

Anyway, at some point I just had to acknowledge how truly high school it felt, how it was keeping me up at night the way being nerdy and unaccepted did when I was a teenager, how it was truly exhausting my already exhausted resources, how it was so horribly fueled by hormonal fuckery, all of it

And I guess I'm just jealous.

Which really just feels like square one, in the sense that it doesn't fix anything. I still have the hurt stomach feelings, the situations keep adding up to more, confirmed hurt feelings. I can't escape the sense that a little glitter and sparkle is being progressively scattered, when I like to keep all the glitter and sparkle I can get.

Being an IF (in the MBPI), I have a complicated Mental Handbook for managing myself and my relationships. (I'm thinking the above mental meanderings don't make a convincing case for my Handbook's effectiveness, but, uh, moving on...) I take this stuff way too seriously (obviously) and it almost always blows over without confrontation or consequence. I don't know why I'm blogging it, except that it's sort of eating a hole in me, and I only have so many places to getitoutalready. (And I think Papa Bean is sick of hearing about it.) So, well. Here it is on the not-at-all private internet. Maybe now I'll feel better.

By the way, I actually look fantastic in green :)

Mama Bean once again did not miss PMS

Is that too much? Should this be a "TMI Tuesday"? Too bad!

Menstruation happens - and I don't care what kind of google hits that gets me. I saw this preview for a documentary about it recently, and I really want to see the whole thing. Menstruation happens! All the time, too much of the time, and I don't want to be ashamed of it. Gah!

You know, I didn't used to get PMS. Not in any noticeable way. You could ask Papa Bean about it, and he might tell you different, but then I'd get annoyed with him, so maybe he'd just tell you the same :) I didn't get cramps, I didn't get terribly moody, or have my appetite or sleep patterns go all wonky. Thank goodness I didn't get hormone related headaches. I did get low back pain, but only slightly moreso than my status quo LBP. Anyway, there were problems enough with menstruation - you know, bleeding, profusely, for several days, covered in a slimy film of shame, because noone should know so it's like your body becomes a Big Secret once a month, but you still have to walk around where everyone can see you.. Yeah. So I was happy - happy, I tell you - not to bother with PMS.

Now, two kids later, I have PMS. Every month. For like, half the month. I hear tell your hormones post-partum don't return to normal for two years, so y'know yippee, I only have to wait through sixteen more cycles to see if this is my new normal or not.

My PMS looks like being pregnant. Which, I guess, shouldn't surprise me, since the second half of our cycle is your body pretending, waiting, hoping it's pregnant, and then dejectedly sloughing hormone and hormone by-products (oh yeah, I just called my endometrial lining a hormone by-product) when it turns out you're not. If pregnancy is the mentrual cycle stalled and then amplified exponentially over forty weeks (which it is), then it should not surprise me when they look the same.

Here's what I mean. I get heartburn. My appetite is a rollercoaster, and my stomach goes wobbly when I've eaten too much. Especially too much sugar or too much fat. All I want to eat is sugar and fat. Why? Because I'm eating my emotions. Which are all over the place. Places like: angry, angry, and pissed off. Good places. I have no energy, beyond mere sleep deprivation, so that I take two B vitamins instead of one, and my pee is extra extra yellow (okay, that might qualify this for a TMI...) If it sounds like I'm bitching, it's because I am. But I know it will soon be over as soon as my hair starts falling out. Oh yeah, I get "post-partum" hair loss once a flipping month.

I'm looking for the silver lining here. I'm trying to remind myself that this is womanhood, that the reason I can write posts about my beautiful children, the reasons I can celebrate motherhood is because of menstrualhood. But motherhood is like All silver lining and bright sunshine and love love love with some Tired and feelings of Ineptitude at the edges. Menstrualhood is, well. not.

And that's all I have to say about that. What say you? Is your period different since having kids? Feel free to comment, this is a Safe Place... :)

Mama Bean is thankful for happy surprises

This was going to be titled "Mama Bean is having A Day" but then there was a happy ending (not that kind of happy ending, you pervert.) (Oh I know, there are no perverts that read this blog. I have no perverted friends. Not one.) (Anyway...) Do you ever have A Day? Why am I asking, of course you do! We all have those days when everything is Crap and there is no Beauty left in the world, and the sum total of the Universe is things that Piss You Off.

It started with my last patient of a very not-busy morning totally no-showing, and being totally no-apologies about it when my staff called her, when I could have gone home half an hour earlier if she'd had some Common g*dd*mn Courtesy. Then there was Dreaded Traffic. The people of the Prairie Valley City (bless their hearts) are so unaccustomed to seeing someone use a turn signal, they seem utterly flummoxed as to its meaning. Let me fill you in, folks! It means I want to tuuuuurrrrrn maybe possibly into your fricking lane so it'd be superawesomewonderful if you'd leave. a. gap. kthxbai.

Fast forward an hour or so, and I'm changing the Bean's poopy diaper before his nap. I let this change go too long, and it was a soft poop, it sort of mushed around the sides of the diaper and onto his jeans. Not fun. Took about seven wipes to clean up, I should have just tossed the kid into the shower. (Figuratively. We are not about throwing babies into baths around here.) So I go to throw the mess away, only to find a) the bag in the diaper garbage pail has not been replaced since garbage day Thursday, and b) there are about twenty dirty diapers in the bagless pail. 

There may have been yelling. And curses.

I realize I should have just replaced the bag myself when I emptied the diaper garbage (for the fourth week in a row < cough cough >) on Wednesday evening. I realize I should not have piled up the dirty diapers on the change table while muttering good intentions of Getting-To-It-Eventually under my breath. I realize I am not Without Fault in this situation. But I was still pretty mad. NGL, I was mad at Papa Bean.

It's just... I just... oi... I mean... what is so hard... ugh... you know... *throws hands up* The man has a personality defect quirk that makes him put things where they Fit as opposed to where they Belong. Does your man/partner/exasperator do this? Do YOU do this? It's just part of his SP personality that contrasts (muchly) with my NJ personality. In between episodes of frustration, I laugh about it. I have to laugh about it. And then, I take pictures of things he has "fit" places, before moving them to their rightful homes. I should start a facebook album of his creative housekeeping.

Well, so, fast forward a little bit more, and Bean is napping, Sprout is sitting on her mat playing with crinkle toys, and I hop onto facebook. As an IT professional, PB is basically paid to be on facebook all the time, it's really unfair. We often chat during naptime. Here's how our conversation went:

MB: twenty dirty diapers in a garbage with no bag, PB? seriously?? are you trying to make me yell at the air???

PB: lol, i thought you put those in there. I didn't.

MB: ?? really??

PB: really

MB: bean put all the diapers from the change table into the garbage can by himself?

PB: LOL, I bet you Bean did. he was playing in the bedroom when I was bathing Sprout and saying yucky.

MB: BAHAHAHAHAHA that's awesome. and here i was all pissed at you. oh that's funny

PB: oh my MB

MB: well that's a lesson in not jumping to conclusions. and it's gonna be a blog post

PB: i didn't think anything of it, b/c he'll sometimes do that when smelling the frog's feet

MB: GAH our kid is so cute

PB: You really shouldn't think the worst of me. :):) I'm a pretty good guy 99% of the time. ;);) And I love you 100% of the time. :):)

(Word for word, except with bloggy names substituted in, which I realize comes across a little awkward sometimes. Like, it's a lot more endearing when PB says, "Oh my [real name]" We have this IKEA frog hanging in Sprout's room, and apparently Bean plays the stinky foot game with it that I play with him, namely, sniffing his feet and saying P.U. Sooooo stinky!!)

So now I feel simultaneously better about life (because my kid is so cute) and bad that I jumped to conclusions about PB (because he really is an amazing husband who I love to bitzesez) and sad that I reacted angrily in front of Bean (because he might think he did a bad thing now, when really he did a super cute and helpful thing) That's one :) and two :( :( 

Oh well, I probably haven't scarred him for life, right? Bonus happy ending: now the pail has a bag in it, and Bean watched me take all the diapers out, put them in said bag, and replace the bag in the pail, so at the very least, he learned that. Right? /sigh. 

Tomorrow is another opportunity to be my best self. And for everyone else, too. (You hear me, PVC drivers? Learn to drive!)

Mama Bean wonders if these things only happen to her...

On Tuesday morning, I took the kidlets to drop off some veggies at the Food Bank and then grocery shopping. It's taken awhile to figure out the logistics of getting the two of them ready and out the door in a minimum of time. Right now, that means starting, oh say about, half and hour before I actually want to leave. It doesn't always take half an hour... but just in case...

It's kind of fun now that Bean can walk out the door and down the steps and over to the car by himself. I used to take them in two trips - lock Sprout's bucket onto its base, come back with Bean and into his straps. Now, theoretically, I take one trip. Usually, this means hustling over to clip Sprout's bucket in, while Bean is still perusing the flower beds and kicking at pine cones, or circling the car to see if some door is open on a more interesting seat than his own boring, strappy seat. (For example, the seat behind the wheel. That's the door he really wishes to be open.) On Tuesday, Bean was all ready to climb into his seat, except my camera was there. So I put it on the roof, and strapped him in. Then I had to grab the bags of chard from the garage and put them in the trunk, and we were off!

We took four bags of chard, which was about 16 pounds. I parked right out front, Bean really enjoyed coming in with me. The lady at the desk even gave him a little fun-size chocolate bar. Then we went to the Superstore on the way home, which is not our usual Superstore, and for some reason that's really disorienting. Isn't it weird how you get used to these things? Somehow, even when I think we don't need many things, I end up spending too much. I hate how the Food In Boxes adds up so quickly (crackers, cereal, coffee, stuff in boxes, you know. Not to mention diapers and stuff, oi.) If I was only buying produce and dairy, life would be so much cheaper.

Sprout fell asleep in her bucket at the store and then again on the way home. She is so much better at this than Bean ever was. He was such a Schedule Baby, and his sleep cues included his Swaddle and his Crib, he didn't (still doesn't) like sleeping out of the house. It was nice that his schedule was so predictable, and since he was our only baby at the time, it was easy to work around. But now, with two, it's so good that Sprout is adaptable :)

When we got home, I herded Bean into the backyard, to play with his trucks in the garden dirt. This has been his favourite thing to do for a week or so. I am getting more comfortable letting him play while I do stuff in the house, checking every minute (Thirty seconds? Ten seconds? He's very cute to watch, runs around telling himself stories, caramel highlights in his hair caught by the perfect Autumn sunlight...) I carefully took sleeping Sprout into her room to keep napping, then started putting groceries away.

And that's when I remembered my camera on top of the car.

Hours later, many many kilometers later, taking Bean in and out of the car more than two times later, I mean seriously, how did I forget my brand new Nikon DSLR on TOP OF MY CAR???

Do you feel the sickness in your stomach that I felt in that moment? I think you do...

Will you believe me when I tell you it was still there? Srsly. I mean, you have to believe me, because I would not be blogging this story if it had fallen off the way one would expect to fall off. I would be crying a lot and then hoping Papa Bean didn't get too mad at me. I considered not telling him, except then I couldn't tell the Internet about it, so I told him, but only after making him promise not to get mad at me. And he didn't. Phew.

Somehow, in all the openings and closings of the door, the door kept closing onto part of the strap. And I suppose the material of the camera's base/body is kinda grippy. I am just crazy grateful it was still there. Does this kind of thing only happen to me? Tell me about some crazy thing you thought you lost and found again. Tell me I'm not the only one with stories like this. For one thing, it will make my husband feel better!

Mama Bean wants to explain why sometimes she doesn't write anything in a long time

Or rather, why she doesn't publish the things she writes. Here's a step-by-step peek into my stupid writing process. Enjoy! (That is, if I publish this... lol)

1) Have a thought or opinion about something that people do that is weird or irksome or annoying or downright infuriating. Spend a few mind-blogging moments thinking up clever and funny and hyperbolic ways of describing why this behaviour is so weird/irksome/etc.

2) Then, at the peak of clever, funny, hyperbolic vitriol, think to self, "But surely, Self, I do this very same thing sometimes. In some ways. It is unkind to think such vitriolic (though clever and funny, etc.) things about people who do this."

3) Then, think about the ways I do said activity differently, which makes it less weird/annoying/etc. That is, engage in The Rationalization. This is listed as part of my Skill Set on my Resume of Life. Perhaps it is part of your Skill Set, also?

4) Use the insights garnered from Rationalization to distill the essential weirness/infuriatingness/etcness. of the activity, and separate it from the intentions of the person performing the activity (including when said person is myself.)

5) Muse over the particular personality traits that make me so prone to dissecting intentions and underlying motivations.

6) Realize not everyone else cares about intentions and underlying motivations the same way.

7) Realize also I don't want angry comments from angry people I've offended, because they do the thing I find weird/annoying/etc. and/or don't agree with my secondary opinions/rationalizations behind their (and my, admittedly, on occasion, under certain circumstances thus dissected in step 3) behaviour,

8) Fear these people may wish to offer (angrily) their own rationalizations for the behaviour, which I will then have to disagree with (maintaining my Correctness) or, even worse, agree with (attaining Incorrectness.)

9) Decide not to write about it, and just tell PB instead.

Apply this process to almost anything related to parenting, Christianity, politics, and you have hundred of posts-worth of excellent blog material that stays in my brain and never gets out. Ha!

Oh!

I should also mention steps 10 (wonder if this all merely stems from my insatiable need for acceptance and approval) and 11 (chastise Self for the terrible Feat of Ego is takes to think people would even care enough to get offended or comment.) Okay, that's all the steps.