Heather B. Armstrong has never been shy about sharing the details of her life on her hugely popular personal blog, Dooce.com. For more than eight years she's shared her day-to-day experiences—through meeting and marrying her husband, having her first baby, and becoming pregnant with her second—with humor and brutal honesty. In her new book, It Sucked and Then I Cried: How I Had a Baby, a Breakdown, and a Much Needed Margarita, Armstrong chronicles her first journey into parenthood, including a battle with postpartum depression and a mental breakdown.
Q: What about your children makes you laugh?
A: My daughter has a wicked sense of humor and knows how to entertain a crowd. But it's her laugh, the sound of her giggle, that makes me laugh the most. It's a very contagious sound, one of the most magnificent things I've ever heard.
Q: What is your favorite family ritual?
A: Our daughter wakes up about an hour before we do every morning, runs into our room to her father's side of the bed and asks if she can watch SpongeBob. He will tell her to climb in bed, and while we doze for another 45 minutes or so, she snuggles between us and watches cartoons. More often than not I am jostled awake by the sound of the two of them laughing together. There is no better way to start the day.
Q: What was your most frazzled mom moment?
A: My daughter was in one of those moods where she had to fight everything: didn't want to eat, didn't want to sleep, didn't want to take a bath, etc. And after I had finally wrangled her into the bathtub and was preparing to wash her hair, she lost it, starting screaming and trying to climb out of the tub. I was so tired, and the only thing I could think to do was yell at my husband in the other room, "If I do not strangle this child, I will consider the next ten seconds a success!" That was a tag-team moment, one where he had to come take over so I could count to a hundred.
Q: What parenting issue do you and your partner disagree most about?
A: My daughter is very tentative and reluctant to try anything new, and I think it's a personality trait she inherited from me. It's something I've definitely grown out of, but I remember being frightened to the point of paralysis by new situations when I was her age. My husband wants to push her, thinks it will be good for her to embrace new things, and there are many times when I feel like inserting my body between the two of them to protect the frightened child that I was. Many times he's been right, and a little push has been all she's needed to jump over a threshold in her brain. So this particular issue is a constant give and take between us.
Q: What is your parenting role: good cop or bad cop?
A: I'm mostly the bad cop, but my husband and I are pretty good about alternating this role in order to keep our daughter on her toes.
Q: What do you wake up in the middle of the night thinking about?
A: Brad Pitt. No, wait, you mean ... when my daughter was just a newborn, I used to wake up whenever I heard the tiniest noise, worried that she had stopped breathing or that someone had broken into the house to kidnap her. My anxiety eventually calmed down, but now I'm always waking up thinking that we've slept in and are going to be late to school. Yet again.
Q: What do you wish you had done before you had children?
A: More drugs. Haha, just kidding, sort of. Slept more, traveled more, appreciated my prebaby body more.
Q: What is a typical Saturday morning in your house like?
A: Since I've been pregnant, my husband has been giving me those mornings to sleep in, and after he and my daughter watch an hour of cartoons they will get up and start their day while I stay in bed for a couple more hours. Then we'll all sit around in the living room reading magazines and books, watching television, playing games, and none of us will ever change out of our pajamas if we can help it.
Q: What was your mom most right about?
A: You mean I have to choose just one? I've never been more impressed or humbled by my mother's wisdom than in the 30 minutes after my daughter was born, when every look she had ever given me suddenly made sense. I feel like I could spend the rest of my life apologizing for what I put her through and still not ever be done making up for the nights she lay awake worrying about me. I now understand why she always had me go into her room and touch her face when I got home after a date.
WHAT'S YOUR...
...guiltiest pleasure?
When I'm not pregnant, it's the cocktail at five o'clock.
...ideal getaway?
A giant blanket on a warm beach, far away from any Internet connection.
...favorite clothing item?
My husband's giant white T-shirts that he lets me sleep in.
...current reading material?
Conscience of a Liberal, by Paul Krugman
What's your preference:
Chocolate or cheese?
When I'm not pregnant, it's cheese. But I'm pregnant, so it's chocolate.
Cook at home or eat takeout?
Eat takeout.
Coddle your tot or let him cry it out?
Let her cry it out.
