Maternity Leave? January 2004 The term must have been coined by a moronic male, who never cared for a small child.

	This maternal leave is very hard work.

	Carry me, mom!!!

The term "maternal LEAVE" must have been coined by some pretty moronic male, who also never cared for a small baby. The word "leave" invokes in me something associated with palm trees, a gentle breeze, a warm ocean, a huge bed, and a discreet room service. Should there be any babies, then only clean ones, good smelling, always smiling, and all that for no more than two hours a day. Czech maternal leave is (miserably) paid (by the state) for up to four years - the state of California covers six weeks. It's been a while since I ran out of that period; and therefore I cannot complain, can I?

As far as I noticed, women usually complain about being bored to tears during their maternity, and about living in social isolation. I would agree about the boredom, though only in part. Twice a week I go exercise at a climbing gym, I go twice a week on a stroll with my neighbor Cindy, we always do something with Sid on our weekends, and if on top of that I drive down to a store for another pack of diapers or somewhat larger baby jumpsuit, I keep running out of time. Add some dealings with our local government offices, some house maintenance -- and suddenly I find I have not seen Martina Kren for several weeks for being busy. I also did not manage yet to get to yoga sessions for moms and babies, to a mothers' club, or baby massages; all those I planned during my pregnancy. Well, if social isolation means that I could lay in my bed alone and read a book for two hours, I'm sold. Still I get bored occasionally -- e.g. at five p.m. and Tom still did not stop squealing which he started in the morning; THEN I really would welcome some distraction. I also fail to discover anything entertaining in breastfeeding, but then I can at least watch TV, read a book, eat dinner, chat with Sid, make phone calls etc.

	Well: Is anyone going to play with me, or what???

	Thanks to my hairdryer, washing turned from a hated activity to a sensual experience.

As you may know, shopping for food and cooking in our family is Sid's job. Currently his motivation has been mostly self-preservation -- since we have Tom, he would wait in vain for a warm dinner. Other house chores are left for me. I originally thought that our weekly washing (those few pieces for Tom would easily fit with our other clothes, would they not?) and some floor mopping was going to be no big deal. Well, those "few pieces for Tom" represent three full washer loads each week. I have no idea where it comes from, but besides Tom's skills in soiling himself (and his clothes and bedding), he achieved great progress in long range, projectile vomiting which targets: my back (easily three times a day), pillows, comforters and sheets on our bed, baby seat, and the only tiny floor rug we possess. His diapers leak sometimes, sometimes he pees (on CLEAN things, of course) while I change him. Our laundry volume increased by a factor of six with arrival of a third member of our household. Though, now thinking about it, he pulled off a magical number: he peed on his head without hitting anything else (not even his jumpsuit).

My chores took an interesting turn the other day, when I discovered that Tommy loves the vacuum cleaner. Now, as a calming therapy, I put Tom into a carrier and I vacuum. I reckon that we never did as much vacuuming as recently. Tommy loves all kinds of noisy things. His absolute favorite is our hair dryer. Besides humming loudly, it blows warm air and our sensualist is literally purring with delight. Perhaps thanks to our hair dryer, Tommy has finally accepted bathing. I am, however, tortured by a dark suspicion that our crown prince is so tired by his boring mother that he would welcome many uncomfortable procedures, as long something's happening.

	Sleeping pretzel... Tommy practices turning over while sleeping.

	Our poor, abused child (see a scratch on his face) is relaxing in his swing.

Tom is momentarily going through a phase when he would like to do something interesting, but he knows not how. Toys still don't catch his attention, and so he does not play with them, although he's most of the day up. I can busy him for about half hour by putting him in a swing (loaned from Cindy) or in a vibrating chair (loaned from Petra), or I roll him on a playpad in (our own) living room, I show him some toys and generally make a clown of myself. Then I run out of inspiration and stamina, and Tommy runs out of patience, followed by a "carry me, mom!!" routine. If I'm lucky, Tom accepts the carrier. If I'm not, I have not choice but to bounce our junior around in a sniper position -- i.e. with his belly on my forearm. Sometimes not even the sniper would do it and then I witness a performance I call a "desperate, abandoned baby" -- our Tommy, who has rejected all toys and available entertainment, is lying in his bed, crying at maximum throttle, accusingly shaking both of his chins, scratching his face with his little hands, to make us feel really really guilty. Thanks to his sharp fingernails he soon looks like a sadistically tortured infant. I in turn (with scratched throat and breasts) look like a flagellant or somebody with S-M leaning.

	Tommy's first little friends are a bit older than he is...

	... now if he would only climb out of the pram and learned to play with them. Mutual interest is obvious.

Last month has been in the sign of fight for milk. I can only conclude that my and Tom's opinions on milk delivery schedule differ dramatically. My body tries best at night and during the morning; Tommy likes to eat most in the evening. Eventually we had to solve it by adding formula. Tom was already getting some milk mixed with vitamins in the evening, so now he just gets more. There's happiness on both sides -- I ceased somehow being so desperately chewed at, and Tom sleeps better. Only we depleted all our stores of breast milk, which I froze in times when Tommy was back at the hospital, so now we're trying formula. Fortunately it seems that he is not choosy, and he's rapidly gaining weight: on January 28 he weighed 12 lbs -- he added almost three pounds in a month. There are some disadvantages -- the other day I sneaked out of our bedroom, leaving our sleeping baby in our cal king bed with my husband (a cup of morning decaf undisturbed by cries belongs to moments so precious that I'm even ready to sacrifice some of my sleep). Sid stumbled out ten minutes later complaining that our Tommy was shaking with the bed (on a massive steel frame) so much he could not sleep. To this day I don't understand how a twelve-pound baby could shake with a twenty-fold more massive Hippo. It is possible, however, that Tom practiced turning over, which he manages sometimes now. I hurried to proudly report this progress to my network of mothers, but instead of cordial congratulations to having such ingenious offspring, I received only expressions of sympathy with my becoming a hovercraft mother.

Copyright © 2004 by Carol & Sid Paral. All rights reserved.