motherhood is hard.

I had my doctor’s appointment today. Cervix still closed. Baby J’s head still very low.

The doctor said that this doesn’t mean Baby J will come late, as the cervix may sometimes dilate very quickly and within hours.

How do I describe the way it feels at this stage?
Hm… how about,
“My ass feels like it’s on fire and my pelvis feels like it has the flu!”

I cannot sit for too long because my tail bone hurts too much. I’m on the sofa quite a bit now, semi-curling on my side to take the pressure off my tail bone. Sleeping, though, is another matter. There’s just no way to sleep comfortably for more than an hour at a time. The bone pain wakes me up and I’d turn to the other side. Because my sleep’s been less and less restful, I’m feeling fatigued often during the day again. I’m starting to nap once during the day to get through the rest of the day. It’s times like this that I thank god I’m self-employed.

My calves and right heel feel swollen even though they don’t look very swollen. It hurts to walk sometimes, because of the fluid pressure in my heel. I’ve been eating one banana a day to help with the muscle cramps. I’m not sure how well it works, but it surely doesn’t hurt.

I’m still gaining weight! I gained 3 pounds this month! I hope most of this is going to fluid volume and Baby J’s weight gain.

When Baby J moves, I feel him along my pelvic floor and it sometimes feels uncomfortable. He must feel uncomfortable in there as well, running out of room to move around.

I bought a couple of babyslings today. I like the idea of “wearing your baby” and having Baby J close to me as much as possible during the early months of his life.

Recently we went to a get-together at one of my husband’s former coworkers. She was an aerospace engineer and became a stay-at-home mom for her two boys; it was something she always wanted. There was another couple there with two girls, they were maybe 5 and 7 years old.

The parents started talking about the current education system, and how much homework young children are getting these days. The little girls’ parents have them both enrolled in “Kumon”, an extracurricular tutoring school my husband and I had never heard of until that day. Parents were also expected to be extremely involved with their children’s homework, because their school was trying to “achieve blue ribbon status” – whatever that means.

Then I saw this on WSJ’s Juggle blog about tutoring preschoolers. My opinion is: tutoring makes sense when there is a special need for the child, not as a matter of competition as such an early age.

I still think little kids are supposed to be playing (outside if possible) and exploring (not via video game or TV or computer) most of the time as the main mechanism to learn about their world. They shouldn’t be cooped up in a classroom behind a desk memorizing stuff. Maybe I’m just old fashioned. Or ignorant.

But I feel there’s something inherently wrong about giving young kids a ton of homework before age 10. Same goes for automatic demand of parental involvement to the extent that I’ve been hearing about from some parents; if the kids are getting the type of homework that they cannot complete with parental intervention, then the material is too big of a stretch. Kids are supposed to learn independence and doing things for themselves and learning self-discipline. If they’re continually given work that can only be completed with parental involvement, how does this build their self confidence?

We are seeing more helicopter parents who constantly hover over every aspect of their kids lives because they have learned to “live vicariously” through their kids. We’re now seeing more parents “competing viciously” through their kids. There’s too much parental identity imposed on kids today.

I think there’s something wrong with our school system today if parents are required to act in some formal capacity as teachers at home once kids are home from school. Parents should be involved in their children’s education – I expect the same of myself – but they shouldn’t be dictated by their kids’ teachers to “have to do XYZ” in order for the kids to meet expectations. Kids become penalized if some parents didn’t want to – or couldn’t follow through. What teaching services are we paying for through our high property taxes?