Phantom Shower Scream Syndrome and other Mommy Psychoses

Before and during my pregnancy, I always heard woman talk about an unexplainable love for their children. An indescribable, powerful bond, that can only be experienced when you become a mother. I blew this off as something women with children say to "one up" the childless.... I had done a ton of babysitting. My last 18 months of college, I was a nanny to a little boy who spent more evenings and Sundays with me than at his own house. I had a car seat, a tub full of toys, and my pantry was stocked with baby snacks. Hell, I had even taken this sweet boy for his last round of shots, repeatedly gotten his hair cut, bought his school shoes, taken diapers to daycare, and picked him up from his grandmother because "Kim...he doesn't know her that well." I loved that kid. That is a true story. 

Then I had my own child and I realized that everything that I thought I knew or experienced about love was just the tip of the iceberg. The love that a parent feels for their child is fuel to do amazing things. It is truly beautiful. It's an infatuation, an obsession, an addiction. It turns us into completely different people. It is dangerous. It sits on the borderline of sane and crazy. 

Crazy. My kid makes me crazy. Some days I'm sure I'm certifiable. There are multiple things that I do now, that never in a million years could I have predicted, would become normalcy. These should go in some medical journal as actual mental illness...

1. Phantom Shower Scream Syndrome:
This syndrome can be described as an overwhelming feeling of panic while taking a shower. The mother is insistent that she hears the blood curdling scream of her offspring. The mother is known to  shower in seconds to be able to run to the aid of her child. The mother is always surprised to see a sleeping or completely content child upon arrival. In severe cases, the mother will run streaking through the home with shampoo running down her body....(a less severe case can also be described as Phantom Blow-dryer Scream Syndrome)

Y'all this shit is real. I swear to you.. I hear my kid cry every time I am in the shower. Every TIME. She is 4... she can come get me, she is not crying. I tell myself that every day. CRAZY.

2. VIH (Vomit In Hand) Reflex 
This reflex starts to show up moments after the first feeding of the child. The mother has no control over this debilitating reflex. Upon the sounds of gagging or burping, the mother instinctively cups her hand to the child's mouth to prevent the vomit from hitting the floor/couch/clothing. This reflex has proven no acceptable help to the situation. It usually prolongs clean up, as now the mother is also the victim of the unfortunate mess. This reflex has no known cure or timeline.

LADIES... Why in the WORLD do we do this?? We can not help ourselves! We do it to kids other than ours too. Gross. Nothing makes a puking kid situation worse than having to clean tonight's regurgitated dinner out of your wedding ring.

3. Spontaneous Mutation of Auditory Abilities (Super Human Hearing)
This self explaining phenomenon can be lifesaving as well as a nuisance.

This is my most serious issue. I inherited this fabulous trait from my mother. Growing up, all my sister and I had to do was whimper, and my mom was in our room lick-idy split. My sister had one warning cough before she would puke, and my mom could be down a flight of stairs…hear her cough, and have her to the toilet before the second cough hit. Unbelievable. My squirrel has ridiculously vicious asthma. I swear to you.. I can hear her wheeze, in the middle of the night, with the TV on, through two fans. It's super human. On the other hand, this kids sneezes and I am UP. Forget about sleeping in the same room with her, pure torture. My husband is a true gem, he checks every noise, I think I hear, without complaint. Now that I think about it, he could be an enabler.. ha.

Crazy confession #1… I kept her baby monitor running at night until last year. I have no idea why, I guess I was afraid I was going to miss something. I hated that thing. The little blinking green lights proving that their was noise coming from that room were a blinding comfort in the middle of the night. After a year I came home and my husband had put electrical tape over the lights.  It broke in the second year, a perfect time to call it quits. I bought another one. My friends asked me when I was taking it out, I told them never. I was going to hide it in her room in her teen years. One day I came home from work and it was gone. God bless that man. True story

She didn't get it from me...

In our house food is the devil. Feeding my child is absolute torture and it has been since day one. Don't get me wrong, things are better half-way through our fourth year, but we are still participating in a never ending war.  I have the green monster of jealousy sitting on my shoulder every time I see a kid gobble down a veggie. 

My squirrel will not eat potatoes, beef, shrimp, lunch meat, vegetables of any kind, any white sauces, any yellow sauces, anything with visible pepper... did I mention she won't eat potatoes? What kid won't eat a FRENCH FRY? Ranch dressing is her nemesis. She swallows diced carrots and corn whole so that she doesn't have to taste them. And I'm pretty sure she could eat mac and cheese for every meal every day and not get sick of it.

In the magical fantasy land of what to expect books, nobody ever tells you that your kid has a 50-50 chance of having food fears and aversions. You can't predict it, it's nothing you did, and it's nothing you can prevent. I swear to you my squirrel is a super-taster, who has texture issues, and food fears. Nothing says "enjoy your dinner" like a gagging preschooler.

Flashback time...

I nursed, I loved it. My girl did great. I went back to work. The pump was a nightmare, every second was torture and left me feeling defeated. At 3 months old we switched to formula... and so it began.

At 4 months old my girl began to refuse to take more than a few ounces at a time, she had to be tightly swaddled in order to eat well.

At 7 months old she would not take a bottle for anyone but me, at daycare she may only take 4-6 ounces all day. My husband and I took turns sticking a bottle in her sleeping mouth before we went to bed just to get her calories in her. 

At 10 months she would not take a bottle during the day AT ALL. I started mixing her formula with apple juice and putting it in a sippy cup, she may only take 4-6 ounces all day. At 10pm we stuck a cereal fortified, apple juice mixed, 8 ounce bottle in her mouth, and stood over the rail of her crib to feed her while asleep, hoping to get though the night without an angry hungry baby. Desperation. At this point in the "war on food" I let the pediatrician know my concerns... she was growing, just slowly and I was pretty much told to "keep fighting the good fight".

When I finally said "F*&K YOU" to the bottle, our girl was 12 months old. She was eating solid food well, I switched to milk, and I said a prayer. In 12 months, she never held her own bottle, not once. Don't call me a sucker... She wouldn't hold it at daycare either. It's like she was saying "You want me to have that? It's on! Bring it.."

At 18 months old Squirrel's asthma was out of control, she was still suffering from acid reflux and she had JUST hit 20 lbs. Our pediatrician took her off milk. It was a blessing and a curse at the same time. She quit spitting up and her asthma got better, but there went a source of calories. She wouldn't drink soy or almond milk either.

Fast forward through the next 2 years and you see an underweight, high energy little girl who saw mealtime as torture. Restaurants meant tantrums because in her little mind she was thinking "these fools are eating again?!?" Looking back at myself, I see an anxious, organic-food-crazed, calorie-counting-fool, who wanted desperately for her daughter to love healthy food. Fail.

There is no happy ending to this story. 

I gave up. The last 2 years I have transformed from a 100% organic preaching mom, to giving my kid 1/2 of a honey bun and a drinkable yogurt for breakfast every morning. Don't judge.. you'll do the same thing when your kid wakes up "hangry" from lack of calories from the day before. My kid eats to not be hungry, she does not eat for fun. She "taps out" on things she doesn't enjoy after three bites.

Here is the moral of the story. I thought that I could control my kids eating, and that just didn't happen. Just because I cooked an organic, healthy meal, didn't mean she was going to eat it. True Story.

For those of you going through the same situation STAY STRONG! Keep putting those veggies on the plate. Enforce the three bite rule. Let them gag themselves sick, they'll stop when the realize that leads to vomit. PRAISE them when they try new things, even if its just a lick. She swallowed one bite of a pickle tonight the size of a tic-tac.. I whooped and hollered for joy! Pickles are green :) that counts as a veggie right? Put fruit on every plate. If they are hungry after dinner has been served, have an "only" snack, like apples or yogurt.

(Her "only" snacks.. )

Those of you with a kid that eats... quit giving advice. It's an apples and oranges situation. We know you mean well... but you have never experienced this. We aren't feeding them candy for dinner so don't judge us. Our kids are not over-eaters and probably never will be.

For those of you without kids, quit judging. You have NO idea what you might deal with one day. Don't burn bridges with those who are having a hard time, you might want to know how they got through it. 

Moms we have to quit feeling guilty. Period. Do what works for you and your kid :) It's just a phase right?

Here are a few things that I do or have done that help.

- Buy orange colored baby foods and mix them in mac and cheese :) It's a beautiful thing. Who cares what age they are.

- Mix blended/pureed spinach into your pizza sauce. (baby food green beans work too!)

- Put cooked chicken into the food processor with cheddar cheese, blend until smooth, spread on tortilla and warm it up:) "what chicken?"

- Look for the fruit squeeze pouches that are filled with heathly green goodness and serve them cold. Don't tell them whats in it. These live in my purse.

- Call all meat chicken. True Story.

I buy Cheetos.

I am a professional.

I am a student.

I am a teacher.

I am a mom.

I am real.

....and I am tired.

I picked up fast food twice for my kid this week... Guess what, she's still alive (gasp).

I have one child. A beautiful, spunky, witty, squirrel-of-a-four-year-old, who is absolutely the center of my world. I worry every day that I am screwing her up. I worry about her health, her happiness, her adaptability, her temperature, her calorie intake, her social status, her number of stuffed animals in the bed... 

Being a mom is hard and some days it flat out sucks. So why in the world do women promote fake motherhood? Being frustrated is a natural feeling. It means you are trying over and over to be good at something. Nobody is handed a baby and thinks "Wow, this is so easy, I am so good at this, I can't wait to show off how good I am." If this describes your mothering style, well then, go ahead and click that little x or red button at the top corner of your browser because this blog ain't for you.

Sometimes I think that If I hear "mommy" one more time I'm going to burst. I frequently pretend to be sleeping when I hear her make an appearance at my bedside at 3 am. The word "shit" slips out of my mouth sometimes. We listen to a top 40 pop radio station in the car because she likes it. She's never worn a helmet. I say "you're killing me smalls" at least twice a day. I buy Cheetos. When necessary, I spank. She sleeps with the light on. She cartwheels in my living room. I am not ashamed. 

I look at the last 5 years of my life, and If I could do anything over again, I would. I would have put the parenting books down, I would have never watched "a baby story", I would have waited to move her from her crib to a bed a while longer, I would have pulled out another pacifier and smiled when people gave judgmental looks at my (happy) paci-sucking toddler, I would have never read the blog on clean eating and your baby...or the one about exclusive breastfeeding... or the one about underweight babies... and I would have fed my kid whatever I was eating as soon as possible. 

Mistakes.

I have made plenty, and I'm sure I'll continue to make more, and I'm proud of that. I am good at a ton of this motherhood stuff... I make a mean pot of macaroni and cheese, I can hide greens in pizza sauce, I can teach a 3 year old to ride a bike without training wheels, and I am an excellent couch snuggler. And most importantly, I am extremely proud of my girl-the-squirrel.

No more beating ourselves up. I am done comparing my style of parenting with the parenting dystopia of Pinterest and Facebook. You can not convince me those people are real. "Hey you.. lady who posted about your backyard-garden-grown-organic-veggie-home-made-baby food and your perfectly-porcelain-ribbon-wrapped-baby bump..you suck." My stomach looks like I got into a shirtless knife fight with a piranha. True story.

We have got to embrace the mistakes we make, laugh at our kids, and stop comparing ourselves to the minority, no-stretch-marks, super(ficial)mom. This blog will be an outlet, a relief, and a bit of humor for us regular folks. I'm excited to see where it goes.

My squirrel told me in the car not too long ago, "When I'm big Mom...(pause for effect).. I can say shit." I smiled and told her, "You're right sweetie, when you're big, you can."
True Story.