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Save It For the Internet, Lady
Amy Storch of Amalah.com | January 12th, 2009 - 1:57 PM
At one of our many recent jaunts to the pediatrician’s office, I shared the waiting room with a couple and their brand-new, fresh-from-the-hospital newborn. The husband was puttering around, pausing to thoughtfully take in the cartoons playing on the TV, giving the wooden bead mazes a try — while his wife sat with the carseat and…I don’t know. HOVERED. She was staring at her baby with a kind of scary intensity. Like the force of her gaze alone was what kept his heart beating and his lungs functioning.
She gave off a fairly tightly-wound vibe, is what I am saying.
I had my new baby in a sling and my three-year-old running wild, probably smearing germs onto every available surface. I attempted to smile at her, all “oh! these kids! whattaya gonna do, right?” but noticed her gaze had shifted and she was full-on GLARING at my toddler, who dared to — you know — COUGH. At the DOCTOR’S OFFICE.
Her husband walked back over. He’d found a brochure on new baby care. “It says here we shouldn’t use the nail clippers. We should only use a file.”
His wife looked like she was about to burst into tears at this factoid — nay, this damning, horrible judgment of her parenting. And then she yelled at her husband that he can’t just get advice off of random pieces of PAPER and what could be so WRONG about clippers, she was CAREFUL and the files don’t WORK THAT WELL, what, was she supposed to let him SCRATCH HIS FACE OFF? GOD.
And then the blogger inside me — the one who never has to let a single thought go unexpressed, who is always ready to share her brilliant ideas in a patented, self-deprecating manner — made me open my mouth. Wait! I know this one! I have advice!
And the words were on the tip of my tongue: Forget clippers AND files! I just BITE the nails off.
But before I could say anything, the husband spoke up once more. “So-and-so said she always just bit the nails off.”
And the blogger in me once again got ready to butt in: Ha! Me too! Me toooo!
“BITE THE NAILS OFF? ARE YOU CRAZY? THAT’S DISGUSTING. LIKE I AM GOING TO BITE HIS NAILS OFF AND GET MY GERMS ALL OVER HIS HANDS. THAT’S HORRIBLE. STOP TALKING.”
Her husband wisely walked away to return the Evil Brochure to its slot. I snapped my jaw shut and picked invisible lint off my baby’s head.
Silence ruled the room, except for the sound of my son’s hacking cough.
I felt badly for her. I remembered sort of being sort of like that, right after my first baby was born. I sat there in that very office sobbing hysterically because my baby had lost too much weight and my milk wasn’t in and we were given 24 hours to fatten him back up with formula lest he get sent back to the hospital. They hooked me up to a breastpump and taught my husband how to bottle-feed and I stared at the floor while big fat tears made a wet spot in my lap because of this damning, horrible judgment of my parenting. Just when I’d managed to compose myself a nurse commented that my newborn had a little bit of diaper rash and I lost it all over again. AM TERRIBLE MOTHER. I FAIL.
I tried to think of something to say to her that wouldn’t come across as assvice-y or condescending but couldn’t. Noah came up to me and asked for a nose wipe, and then promptly sneezed all over me and the baby. I pulled a probably-used tissue out of my pocket and instructed him to blow. Then I gave him a kiss, because I love the way he says “nose wipe.”
I noticed she was eyeing me in horror, so I turned and smiled. “These kids! Whattaya gonna do, right?”
Isn’t it liberating to be on #2 and be so free? I always feel so bad for the moms who are wound so tight.
There IS such a thing as too much information. I’m always amazed at people who are so germ phobic…
Eh, kids get sick, their bodies build up immunity. If they didn’t we’d be extinct. Yeah, I’m on #2, too!
I still have plenty of neurotic ideas about keeping my kids away from unwanted germs but I am really thankful to be beyond the new mom fear of failure. Once your 14 month old jumps off a bed and breaks his arm, you pretty much give up on the idea of perfect and realize that they heal, it might scar and as long as everyone still has all of their digits, it’s been a pretty good day.
My mom just told me to do this. I think I might try it, nail files are crap.
She’ll learn……
Like the baby holds still long enough for a file!
I love motherhood, and I think I’ve always been fairly relaxed and “common sense” about it…except those first few oh so new weeks. No – I would not ever wish to be a first time mom during the first 6-weeks ever again. I think no matter how relaxed we THINK we are, there’s a bit of “her” in each of us that first go ’round…but most of us learn to roll with the punches sooner or later. hopefully she will…and soon
Funny! I might have been a little like that the first time. I am glad that I can be more relaxed with my second baby.
Whenever I began second-guessing myself, I’d remind myself that women used to have babies in the field, pop ‘em in a sling or a papoose or something and keep on working…no harm done. Fourteen year olds are having kids, and they’re turning out ok!…at least for a few years! And heck, by the time they’re 3 or so, it’s smooth sailing right? All over the world people are having and raising babies that stay! alive! and really if they can do it, we can do it, don’t ya think?
Besides, even if they do scratch their faces off, it grows back, right?
I love being a second-time mom.
What do you think of the new moms that make you wash your hands before they will let you hold their newborn? Really is that neccesary?
Sounds like new mom could really use a long nap and maybe a massage. I get so wound up and testy when I’m sleep-deprived and totally over-think problems. Soooooo much is fixed just by sleeping.
i’m having my first this summer and i’m dreading the whole “new mom” bit, where i’m certain to be neurotic and give nasty looks to moms with sick kids and yell at people who give me advice that sounds crazy but probably actually works. because as much as i think i won’t be “that woman,” i totally will be. eeeek! thanks for the great posts though, amy, i love reading them!
I hope I wasn’t like this. I probably was though.
When my 10 weeks premature granddaughter was in NICU, a nurse told my daughter to bite the baby’s nails because. So there!
oops…because it was safer than using clippers.
New moms think they know a lot, too! While shopping for a baby shower present with my mom (a mom of 7!!)we were told by a newbiemom that baby bathtubs are really useful! “We love ours!” she called after us as we continued shopping. Um, doy! Had a few kids myself. I think she thought we were too old to remember or had never figured that out for ourselves.
I still bite my baby’s nails. He’s one now and thinks it’s SOOOO funny!
After I cut the tip of my newborn son’s fingers I WISH someone would have suggested to me to bite them instead . . . and that was 18 years ago! I still remember how horrible I felt!
And this is why the internet will always be here for you…
Look, my Mom/Grandmother/Aunts were convinced that drinking copious amounts of beer would help your milk come in. So, for like a year I got Kokanee flavored breast milk.
We survived. Biting your kids nails off is nothing.
As a new(er) mom, I wish someone told me about biting the nails. I am still a little on the neurotic side, but have relaxed a LOT in the last two months or so.
With my fist I used a nail file and what a nightmare that was, with my second I bought a pair of baby nail scissors – brilliant of me!
The second child loosens up even the most highly strung parents…
Like all of her germs aren’t in her breastmilk? I totally use breastfeeding as my justification for all kinds of stuff.
My dad’s a pediatrician and he tells all his patients to bite their babies’ nails off…some freak out, some take the advice. He’s like, “Hey, I have three kids of my own and have been a pediatrician for 30-odd years, but what do I know? You want to fight with your infant and clippers or a nail file, go right ahead.”
p.s. You must post video of Noah saying “nose wipe” on your site.
i believe i was a much better mother the second time around.
I used to stay up and make sure #1 was breathing. I was so much better with #2. Now that they are 18 and 20, I can say that it will all work out fine. Little kids, little problems.
I used baby nail scissors while she was nursing. It takes some doing, but until she hit about three months it was the ONLY way to do it. I tried biting them, but always ended up biting skin instead.
I’m a new mother, and I think I’m TOO laidback sometimes; my subsequent children are going to have to raise themselves. I wash my hands after using the rest room and when I wake up in the morning (just in case I scratch my butt in the night or something). That’s about it. So far, she has not contracted the creeping crud. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes all the way back into my head when a friend insisted she couldn’t hold the baby because she hadn’t sanitized her hands yet.
Oh my goodness, I’m so afraid to be her! What if I’m like that? How do I know? I always swore I’d be a low-key, relaxed and realistic parent, but then I just got pregnant and all the things that I blew off as over-reacting before I was growing a person seem SO IMPORTANT. WHAT IF I’M LIKE THAT AS A MOM? GAA.
I remember when my son was a newborn and I felt like he wasn’t totally in the world yet. I was much more relaxed when he seemed more solid to me.
I remember being like her…being horrified at what parents “let” their children do, at how blase (there’s supposed to be an accent there, but- yeah, not sure how to type it) parents of more than one seemed. Now, at my 4th…well…ha. I now horrify most mothers I meet.
I see nothing wrong with giving advice, or telling someone what you do. Even if it was upsetting at the time, I’ve gotten a lot of good unsolicited advice.
I was never like that other Mom! Except the first time I took kid#1 to the doctor. Which was exactly 21 hours after we left the hospital. And when I used to bring him into the bathroom with me, because heaven forbid there be more than 7 seconds at a time that I wasn’t STARING at him, making sure he was still breathing.
Now he’s ten, and I sometimes go to bed before him, even when my husband isn’t home. See? Things get better eventually.
I’m like that already and I’m just on my first. By the second or third, I’ll be putting them down for naps with a bottle of vodka.
Love it. Thanks for the fly-on-the-wall look back in time.
I’d like to say I was never like that, but I totally was.
I think you just met the future me in that waiting room. A normally pretty laid-back person, I find myself waking up these days to make sure my DOG is breathing, can you imagaine me with this child? (coming in April) Oh Lord, please help me.
At least you let me know what as a** I’ll look like to others, thanks, I needed that.
Motherhood is such a guilt trip. Fortunately, with time we all learn to choose our battles. I have a 12, 10 and 6 month old. Can’t worry about germs, especially with a couple of tweens always in my face.
I love that you were trying to catch her eye to smile at her in solidarity, even if she was thinking Noah was an evil germ factory. Someday she’ll be you and she’s sigh and smile at her old self.
My baby is 10 months old now, and we still use clippers … which wasn’t the point of this post, I know … It’s hard to have any clarity and/or wisdom at all those first few mind-boggling weeks. Poor doctor’s office lady …
Amalah, again you give me something to strive for
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Man, I wish someone would bite MY fingernails for me. What a time saver!
I luckily had a great mother, who every time I freaked out about something, would say “when you were a baby they didn’t even have car seats and you turned out just fine!”
I get the overprotectiveness but she was taking to a whole new level. WOW!
Ah, the sage that you are!
I have four so you can’t even IMAGINE how laid-back we are! Really I never had any of that first-time mom anxiety and I don’t know why. It must have been all the drinking. LOL I’m just kidding… maybe.
I was so clueless as a new mom, I actually went around asking anyone with a child for advice. I was insufferable when I was pregnant, all “My child will never do this,” and “I will totally do everthing perfectly”, and “really, it will be so easy and fun”. And then I brought the screaming bundle home, sat her on the table in her car seat and just stared at her in horror realizing I knew absoulutely NOTHING about taking care of a child.
Thank you for everything you write. I think you are hilarious, and you help me remember how sweet and wonderful my children were at one point in their lives . . . before they turned into teenagers. Teenagers – gah! – they’re God’s way of making you totally love and appreciate your own mother for not feeding you to the wolves when you were a teenager!
I was lucky enough to get my first and second babies at the same time…I never had a chance to hover and obsess. 16 months later I still fight the nail problem. They hate the clippers and so do I.
I enjoyed this story and share your sympathy for the Hovering Mom. Hopefully she relaxes soon. And her poor husband! Nose-wipe is the cutest thing I have heard/read today.
My first son is 8 months old, and I STILL go off on my husband when he simply mentions something in passing. We have a diaper genie as well as a tall trash can in my son’s room by his changing table. I always use the trashcan because, let’s be honest, the diaper genie is one giant hassle. So my husband was changing our son’s diaper yesterday and he takes the trash-bag out of the trashcan to take it outside and as he was walking out of the door he says “His diapers are starting to smell, maybe we should start using the diaper genie”. This made me so angry as I figure that any comment is a judgment of my parenting. So of course I fly into a fit of rage, and then afterwards have to apologize because, really? Did his comment warrant that wrath. Anyway, my point is, I kind of know how that woman felt when her husband mentioned the clippers. I was, and still am, that woman. I can’t wait to have the second one. But for some reason I think I’ll be just as bad with the second one.
I bit my son’s nails off too. But I was also a bit like the nervous mother. I love your title for this one!
My husband is like the hovering mom. I am (always) slightly more laid back (or, more likely, my neuroses manifest themselves in other ways). But, he clipped our daughter’s nails with the clippers and caught some of her skin and drew blood. Now, I’ve done that to myself before and I know it doesn’t really hurt, so my main feeling was relief that SuperNeuroticDad was the first one to break the baby.
Wow. So much in that moment. I don’t even have kids and I see Moms like this and am just at a loss. I LOVE the perspective you bring to situations like this one!
My husband and I are TTC. I so WANT to be laid back and easy spirited when a little one comes along. I’m going to put this in the “this will be useful one day” brain file.
My mom trimmed my nails with scissors and cut me when I was infant. This terrified her. OMG SHE KILT HER BABBY. So she bit off my nails from then on, and my brothers’ nails when they were born. I don’t know that anyone told her to, either.
When she told me that, I was all “lolwhut” but I guess a lot of people do it.
Oh my.. That was soooo me. I remember not sleeping for weeks because I was so afraid that she’d stop breathing if I closed my eyes for more than ten seconds. Hah. How far we’ve come. Great post!
Hmmm….I never considered biting off my baby’s nails–maybe because I never bit my own? I wish I would have thought of it though–would’ve saved us both a lot of tears after those stupid clippers made her bleed.
Love the nail-biting. Nail clippers with my three month old terrify me! And I love hearing how relaxed you are with #2. I’m on #1 and when I have moments of uptight-ness, I say to myself, “Would you be this way if you had TWO kiddos to care for??” The answer, of course, is always “NO.”
Oh that new mom will still have that horror-stricken expression on her face a few months down the line, except the horror will be expressed at herself for acting like such a crazy person. I do feel bad for her, I remember that time of feeling helpless and clueless but wanting to show everyone who was around me that I KNEW what I was doing and that I was NOT one of those pathetic petrified clueless moms. Oy, little did I know, they saw right through me….
Yup, so glad I’m about to birth #2 and not #1 all over again. The joys of knowing that it will all pass by so quickly that my mistakes won’t matter tomorrow is very liberating.
only people who have one baby can even find the nailclippers, i imagine.
Truly, I don’t get the nail biting. I tried it but then the nails are scraggly and scratchy. Clipping is so much neater!
God! The fear that every tiny thing could be potentially harmful was so bad. I think (ha ha) I am over it now that my daughter is 15 months, but I can totally remember wanting to cry. A lot. It’s blogs like this and amalah.com that have given me so much relief. Imagine! You are not alone in NOT being perfect! A new mother’s dream come true
Congrats on biting your tongue!
She’ll learn, hopefully sooner than later! LOL!
Exactly! Whattaya gonna do?
My first son was premature, weighed only 1 lb 5 oz at birth and spent the first four months in the NICU. We had to be obsessive about germs and hand washing when he came home because his immune system was so fragile that one illness would land him in the hospital for weeks. Yes, first time moms can be wound tight, but sometimes it IS for good reason.
Kudos to you! I find myself being not even able to make eye contact with other parents in the waiting room because I am a parenting FAIL.
I’m more afraid of biting my baby’s fingernails (off) than clipping them with baby clippers…
hormones. sleep deprivation. a very sore body. and, hey look, here’s a helpless squalling tiny little baby to take care of 24/7! Such a cruel joke that nature throws it all at you at once. Now on baby number two, i always try to (gently) share my own parenting FAILS with new moms who look like they need it– it helps when you slowly realize that no one is perfect
Love your insight, Amy, keep ‘em coming!
hysterically true!
Sending up hope and patience for the father, who sounds like he is trying!!
By the third kid, it’s you sneezing on the baby!
Most of my friends were on their second or third kids when I had my first, and they all told me how uptight they were the first time and so much more relaxed the next time around. So I just sort of decided to not be so uptight the first time.
Sure, I was nervous and scared and all that. Don’t get me wrong. I hardly ever left the house with the baby alone for the first few months.
But I never sat in the backseat while my husband drove like one friend did. I didn’t freak out and immediately rush to buy a new carseat because some random stranger commented that my baby looked too big for the infant seat. (My friend did that, and then found out at a check-up a couple of weeks later that her baby was still fine in the infant seat).
But I’m a pretty laid-back person to begin with.
our peds office has a sick side and a well side. keeps those “vulnerable” newborns (and their parents) away from “the others.” one of the many reasons i love, love, love our peds.
I wish I could go back to my “first baby mama” self and help me relax. You miss all that fun stuff with all the worry. 2nd baby mothering is crazier because of that pesky first baby running around, but the whole “less worrying” thing is so much nicer.
My daughter is 11 months old and I still bite her nails, thank god I’m not the only one! After seeing my dad take a chunk out of my sister’s finger with a clipper when she was a baby, I can’t bring myself to get those things near my kid.
I think the hardest part – which you evidently mastered, kudos to you – is to not give advice the other mother is not asking for, even when its on the tip of your tongue.
I just had my first baby in July, but in April before my son was born I got custody of my three and a half year old niece, so I never did the mom with one kid thing, we went from 0 to 2 in no time. I am sure that I make (and will continue to make) mistakes, but I am glad that things have worked out this way. My son is a very easy going baby and I think a big part of it is that he was never theonlyfocusofallmyattentionsforeverandOMGwhat shouldweusetocuthisnails. It’s not that I don’t care it’s that I don’t have time to obsess. And I think it’s a good thing. However quckly it happened I wouldn’t trade my two-kid life for anything in the world.
I’ll be having my first in a few weeks. Before I was even 20 weeks I’d assigned my boyfriend the future task of filing/clipping baby’s nails. I have been a chronic nail biter my whole life (yeah, disgusting, whatever) so I don’t have experience filing or clipping my OWN nails, I’m not going NEAR a baby’s (!!!).
So funny! I’m 36 weeks w my 2nd, so I hope I am as laid back as you! I remember those stressed out times oh so well…..