“Baby, let go,” my husband says, pulling my hand away from his chest. It’s the middle of the night and I’m still mostly asleep. “Sorry,” I mutter and settle back into my pillow. This scene happens a couple times a week. I have a recurring dream in which my son is about to fall and I reach out to catch him. Unfortunately, this means I suddenly grab hold of my husband’s chest, hair and all, startling him awake. My husband is pretty good natured about the whole thing, but I’m sure it’s unsettling to be under attack by a crazed woman every night.  I’ve had these dreams since my son was about …

My sister was close to tears recently because another mom insinuated that her 10-month old daughter is fat.  At a first birthday party for my other sister’s son, his great-grandfather repeatedly and loudly commented that “there must be something in the water” because our babies are “so big.” After the third time he said it, I turned it into a joke. “We’re birthing a race of giants,” I deadpanned, drawing a laugh. But like all humor, my joke comes from two years of grinning and bearing inappropriate and sometimes hurtful comments, starting when I was pregnant with my son, and ending – well, I …

My outlook on the world has morphed from sunny, sensual and carefree to grim, standoffish and protective in the span of less than two years, and all I can attribute it to is my transformation from sexy singleton to fierce mother. I hate to credit Sarah Palin with anything, but her term, “Mama Grizzly,” pretty much sums up who I am now.  I find myself walking around thinking “Go F yourself” and “Stay clear of my baby,” and I used to flit through life like a butterfly, blindly and blithely bumping into everything with a grin on my face. I really miss that girl sometimes. I still see glimpses of…

Our culture tends to place the mantle of loving parenthood squarely on the shoulders of mothers, with fathers often as an afterthought. The subtext of the majority of movies, novels, and commercials is, “Yes, daddy loves me, but he’s the strong protector and provider, not the nurturer who kisses my forehead when I’m sick or cries with me when my first crush rejects me, or I get engaged, announce my pregnancy…” and so on. This is for the most part reflective of the roles that parents take on when they raise children together and it’s due to our physiological differences. My son idolizes his …

“Three is a magic number” People can hardly believe it when they hear that my dad became a grandfather three times over in a two-month period. I can hardly believe it myself, but it’s true. I have three younger sisters, and two of the three gave birth to their first babies just weeks before I gave birth to my son, who is now 8 months old. One sister has a son who is 10 months old and the other has a daughter who is 9 months old. We joked at Thanksgiving that our little babies would be a handful once they were all walking around. We should have figured they’d already be a force to reckon with …

The federal income tax deadline sneaks up on me every year, and this year was no different. I’ve never been one of those people who files her tax return in January and gets her money back in February. I sincerely doubt that I will ever be that person. Remember the meatball plate spinning I talked about last column? Well, money is a giant, saucy meatball that barely fits the plate and is always on its way onto the floor, or worse, poised to wreak havoc on my otherwise clean reputation. But enough of that metaphor. Taxes. Just the word is enough to make people shiver. My sister posted the word …

Being a mom is a lot like being a plate spinner at the circus. The difference is that plate spinners use pristine, white, empty plates, while the plates a mom balances are usually heaped with oversized meatballs that are threatening to roll off at any minute. Each plate is an important aspect of her life: her marriage, her career, her friends, her family, her health, hobbies, hair, finances… It’s next to impossible to keep all of the plates from tipping over, and sometimes one or two gets dropped and left on the floor. For me, the plate de jour changes depending on which plate is the most at …

The thought that anything bad could happen to my son instantly drowns my heart in ice, and I can’t breathe. I had this terrible sensation several times during my pregnancy, starting at only 8 weeks when I had a miscarriage scare. My husband and I knitted our hands into one fist while we waited for the stoic ultrasound tech to say what we most feared. But our son was alive and flipping around like a tiny bat. Later in my pregnancy, he would go entire days without moving and I’d lay in bed praying for just one little kick so I’d know he was OK. I couldn’t wait to be able to see him and know …

Women of childbearing age are bombarded with advice from competing interests on how to take care of a baby. All of the advice is intended to be in the best interest of the baby’s health, now and in the future, but it often comes off as alarmist and guilt inducing. It all starts before you get pregnant and you form strong opinions about the correct ways to care for a baby, based on theories and observation. For example, my mom stayed home with me and my sisters and breastfed all of us, so I thought that that was the best way to go. Experts tell you to breastfeed your babies as long as possible…

A coworker recently asked me if I wear skirts every day. Unfortunately, the answer is yes. Despite having a whole closet full of clothes, including a number of nice dress pants, I wear the same two or three skirts each work day, and the same pair of jeans on the weekends. No, I’m not in some weird religion. I’m a new mom, and none of my pre-baby clothes fit over my larger lumps and humps. And don’t ask me how my weight loss journey is going. It’s a bad topic, as I’ve only lost three pounds since I started last month. At this rate, I’ll reach my goal weight in 16 months. By then, I might have …

I can’t think of one time growing up when my mom was sick, and I doubt it was because she was always in perfect health. I never really thought about that phenomenon until I had my son. Being a mom is a 24-7 job and you don’t get vacations or sick time. Even when you feel like your sinuses are filled with magma and your left eardrum aches every time you swallow, you have to put on your mommy face and continue providing your baby the love and care he needs. I think this may be the most difficult part about being a mom. Sure, your social life is dead and you can’t go anywhere unless your baby is…

It’s 2011 — time for a new year and a new chance to shed the weight I piled on in 2010. Granted, I had a good reason for gaining all those extra pounds. In September, I gave birth to a healthy baby boy. The weight was there to sustain him, as well as due to my body’s adverse reaction to carrying an 8-pounder in the dead of summer (40 pounds of retained water!). You should have seen my ankles. I also got married in 2010, and as anyone who’s married knows, you gain weight that first year — especially if you’re not used to eating regular meals with a person whose tastes are different than your …