Friday, October 14, 2011

GET UP. GET OUT! - Activities to Get You Out the Door (Top Five Friday)

Sometimes I stay inside for days. I moved into my new apartment a little over a week ago, and I've already managed to stay inside for two days straight at least twice. One might say that I am enjoying the new-found freedom of just being, as in being in my own space, but being inside for long lengths of time does not make me happy. During those days, I only saw sunlight through the solitary set of windows in my living room, deciding instead to organize the moving mess, take care of Baby Equis, watch television and eat.

As lovely as the view from my apartment is, I know that not going outside distresses me. I begin to feel frustrated and restless, yet I can't seem to motivate myself enough to just get up and get out. It is all too easy to fall into the routine of being a single stay-at-home-mother, waking with baby, feeding baby, changing baby's third pooped pamper, waiting for baby to nap so I can clean up after baby and repeating the steps as often as necessary until I crawl into bed, exhausted and anxious about doing it all again the next day.

I recognize that my tendency to remain in my home is an issue not only for my mental health but also my physical health: two years ago, I worked so much that I rarely saw the light of day, I became very depressed and suffered from a severe Vitamin D deficiency. I do not want to regress to such a state; besides, there is so much Equis and I do not see whe

n we stay indoors all day. Hence, I am presenting this week's Top Five Friday blog topic: "Get Up. GET OUT! - Activities to Get You Out the Door." This post is as much for me as it is for you.

READ TOP FIVE FRIDAY ACTIVITIES HERE.

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Long Days and Short Years: Life as a Stay-at-Home-Mom

“The Days Are Long and the Years Are Short --Stay-at-Home Moms and Sex Workers.” No, I am not a sex worker, but I had to laugh when I read this chapter title in Tina Fey’s memoir Bossypants. I do know that daily life as a stay-at-home mom, particularly a single one, is HARD. Wait here a moment while I look up synonyms of hard so I don’t bore you with redundancy in this post....

Ok, I’m back.

If you are a single stay-at-home parent, you know how difficult it is to spend 24 hours of every day of every week of every month taking care of a tiny human being who wholly depends on you for food, love, diaper changes, entertainment and education. You know what an arduous task ANYTHING becomes when you have a 21 pound 11 ounce little one attached to your hip and pulling your hair. Showering is basically impossible (or is my baby boy the only one who screams as if he’s just lost his mother once I step behind the curtain?). Eating? It’s complicated, to say the least. Every chore that I found frustrating to make time for before having a baby (e.g. cleaning the living room, washing and folding laundry, checking emails and pooping) has become that much more irksome to complete while Equis is awake. Let me tell you, I thank God for the Kindle: Equis can no longer pull my books’ pages apart before my very eyes! ...

READ MORE HERE!

Friday, July 8, 2011

On Being A Single Mom

I told my therapist a few weeks ago, “I HATE being a single mom!” After a few moments of silence, I added, “It‘s hard,” and my therapist thanked me for my honesty.

My honesty? I was surprised by her reaction to my confession. She wasn’t going to throw stones at me for admitting that, as much as I love my son, I am depressed with my current state of motherhood? She wasn’t going to report me to ACS for neglecting to read to him every day? ...

Read more here at my NEW AND IMPROVED SITE.

Also, follow me on Twitter @XAMaldonado

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

CHECK OUT MY NEW SITE!!! Mom Blog, Poetry Blog & More!

Dear Followers,

As you may have noticed, I have been MIA for about a year and a half... ever since I discovered I was pregnant in January of 2010. Well, my son is now 10 months old, and I have returned to writing with an all new website at www.xiomaramaldonado.weebly.com. Check it out now!

My site features a MOM blog, Poetry Blog, Photo Gallery and Parent Freebies. READ IT! LOVE IT! COMMENT!

Also, you can now follow me on Twitter: @XAMaldonado

I will love to hear your thoughts about my latest work. It's been a long time; and I have missed my writing/reading community. Thanks so much for your support.

Sincerely,
Xiomara

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Bedside Sojourns

A nurse wags her finger in my mother’s face:
“Do you know what your father did?”
(Grandpa had ripped the IV from his arm last night
and slunk to the bathroom bleeding.)

Her chastising words - “Young immune systems
cannot combat death!” then chase me into the elevator
and out on to First Avenue’s black-speckled streets.

I study the stroller canopy while I walk, fighting to replace
the nurse’s scolding eyes with those of a proud man smiling
as his great-grandson touches his shaking hand.

“You're my favorite grandpa.”
    “I’m your only.”

I am not there when he gasps he cannot breathe,
when residents rush a crash cart to his body.
I am not there until later, when one uncle cracks
jokes as he cries, another talks of sleep and work,
and the last insists we move Pop to the Upper East Side.
My mother consults her brothers before she decides
to sign to let the doctor prep his neck and put in lines.

We wait where the carpet is dull and the Bible passes
from hand to hand. We glare at the black television,
its Out of Order sign and at nurses’ aides who talk
loudly into their phones, excitedly slipping green
bills into the vending machine.

Two weeks later, in yet another ICU waiting room,
my son woos visitors with his lamp-like eyes
and his toothless giggle. He blows raspberries
from an oblivious mouth; and, as a magician
finds flowers in a sleeve, his coos cull sorrow
from our brows and wake our dormant laughs.

Soon it is my turn to sit at Grandpa's bedside.
I pass through automatic doors, then white bed
after occupied bed until I reach his threshold.

His thinly veiled chest inflates… collapses;
and between his teeth, a piece of yellow plastic lies
as still as a tree frog in hiding.
I had forgotten growing up means
the people I love get older too.

My mother has taped photographs of us to the wall.
In one my grandfather grins because it is his birthday.
He stands straight, his capable hands (that once counted
taxi fare change) gripping the top of an unseen cane.
Behind large glasses and below a New York
Yankees cap, his eyes crinkle for the camera.

I hold my grandfather’s swollen hand and slick back
 sparse unruly hairs to kiss his sweating forehead.

I try to hide the heaving in my eyes
when a nurse asks me to leave
in order to switch his lifted side.

Copyright 2011 Xiomara A. Maldonado