Friday, 10 October 2014 14:03

Everything Old is New

By Kate Towne Sherwin | Families Today

You know those nursing covers? The swath of fabric that goes over the mom’s head with a bended plastic insert on top so she can see the baby while he, or she, is breastfeeding, but no one else can? 

I’m a huge fan of those. 

I’ve used one with all of my babies except my first, and I think that was because I never went anywhere with him, so all my nursing was done at home.

I love them because I feel more comfortable being covered up. I like that the baby can do his thing without me worrying about parts being shown that I don’t want anyone to see. 

Sometimes I would hear other moms say that they can’t use them because their babies hate them, and I admit I used to think, “Hm. He/she’s a baby. They’ll get used to it. You just have to be firm and consistent.” 

I believed it too, but I’ll tell you—my current baby hates the nursing cover, so much so that I’ve given up on it. When he was tinier he was too little and too hungry to do much about it.

But these days it’s clear that a big-ish baby flailing his arms under the cover and pulling the cover off his head and preferring to chew on the cover rather than nurse defeats the purpose of the cover, since him doing all of that manages to uncover what I meant to have covered up. 

So now I nurse in public sans cover, which I never in a million years thought I would do, but the baby’s old enough and skilled enough to nurse discreetly, and I have some pretty good tricks about blanket placement that provide enough modesty.

I say all this because it’s just the latest example of the several times in my motherhood in which I’d had a firmly held conviction get upended once I had an experience or child that proved me wrong. And I’ve been sort of shocked how, each time, it felt new to me—like I’d made this amazing revelation—when really all I was doing was joining the ranks of those who’d already discovered it.

I wrote a bunch of things the last couple of days with this column in mind, and I reread them several times and marveled at how I wasn’t saying anything new, even though it all felt new. 

With writing, that’s what you’re supposed to do, right? Say something new, or something old in a new way; surprise the reader with your newness while communicating timeless truths and, whatever you do, don’t use the same old clichés.

But with mothering, no matter how many times you go through it, or how many other mothers experience it, being a mom is being privy to the newness of all life, in all its stages, in all its iterations and repetitions. 

Which of course is where clichés come from, and why we all use them and understand them.

The recent stage I was writing about, and marveling at in its newness to me even as I acknowledge there’s nothing new about it, is little boys growing into bigger boys. 

I was reading some of my old pieces, and came across the one I wrote when our oldest was about to start school for the first time. He was 3 years old and was entering a 3-year-old preschool program two mornings a week for two and a half hours each day at the school he would continue through until he graduated in fifth grade. 

Oh, the angst I went through thinking about his first day of school!

It turned out that none of the things I worried about were ever a problem. Three more brothers used that same Thomas the Tank Engine backpack that I worried was “too babyish,” and I think those sneakers that I was worried might not be “cool enough” were worn by two more brothers until they fell apart. 

Number Five will be starting the program next year, and the baby two years after that. Somehow we went from being a family with just one little guy in nursery school to, this year, having a fifth grader, a third grader, a first grader, and a 4-year-old preschooler.

Did you catch that? Above? Where I said I have a fifth grader? 

That same little boy who paved the way for all my children at our school has just begun his last year, and I’m finding myself weepier than I expected over things like his last “first day of school” at our school, new rules and freedoms for fifth graders,  already hearing talk of the big class trip at the end of the year, the graduation ceremony, everyone’s plans for next year, and even the fact that I had to dig out size 12 pants for him. 

All that’s enough, but then they’re all complaining that their shoes are too tight. The older three all wore ties for their school pictures last week. I had to put the baby’s ExerSaucer on its highest setting recently. Number Five is dabbling in potty training and holding long, intelligent conversations with me. 

Number Four, who is only 4 years old, came downstairs this morning after watching his dad’s morning routine with his hair gelled like Billy Idol. He had on long basketball shorts and long white socks pulled up to his knees, and I swear he could have passed for 15 if he wasn’t so small.

Like I said, I have nothing new to contribute to the conversation of “the days are long but the years are short,” of which I assume every mother, father, grandparent, etc. goes through some variation. 

But I do try to watch and remember when it happens to those around me—my parents, my friends’ parents, older mom friends of mine—to verify that it does pass, we do survive, we do stop crying, happiness of other kinds await. 

I try to let this all wash over me. I try to soak it up, wanting—as I always do, and always have—to squeeze every last drop out of being a mom, out of these long/short years, being able to fully appreciate the highs because of not shying away from the lows.

So here I am, just another sobby mom sobbing about how it’s already October even though it was only just the end of the school year, and the leaves are falling even though I’m still sweeping beach sand out of the house, and my kids are different every day—everything’s happening and everyone’s moving on so fast, just the way they should.

 

Kate Towne Sherwin is a stay-at-home mom (SAHM) living in Saratoga Springs with her husband and their sons ages 10, 8, 6, 4, 2, and 6 months. She can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

 

Read 2196 times

Blotter

  • New York State Police The New York State Police announced that it issued 5,576 tickets during this year’s St. Patrick’s Day enforcement initiative. The campaign began on Friday, March 15, and continued until Sunday, March 17. During the campaign, funded by the Governor’s Traffic Safety Committee, State Police utilized sobriety checkpoints, additional DWI patrols, and underage drinking and sales to minors detail. State Police also ticketed distracted drivers who use handheld electronic devices. State Troopers arrested 132 people for DWI and investigated 199 crashes, which resulted in 25 people being injured and no fatalities. As part of the enforcement, Troopers also…

Property Transactions

  • BALLSTON Heather DiCaprio sold property at 473 Garrett Rd to Justine Levine for $288,000 Sharon Willman sold property at 99 Jenkins Rd to Charles Lemley for $165,000 CORINTH George Montena sold property at 422 Oak St to Stephen James for $142,250 Mark Makler sold property at 313 Oak St to Sabrina Sinagra for $195,000 GREENFIELD Landlord Services of Upstate New York sold property at 1935 NYS Rt 9N to Cochise Properties LLC for $210,000 MALTA  Linda LaBarge sold property at 35 Snowberry Rd to Qu Haozheng for $270,000 Dennis Mitchell sold property at 60 Village Circle North to BGRS Relocation…
  • NYPA
  • Saratoga County Chamber
  • BBB Accredited Business
  • Discover Saratoga
  • Saratoga Springs Downtown Business Association