Bottles are Stupid

I'm not sure who told Mila she was allowed to have opinions about anything, but LIES. IT IS ALL LIES. STOP WITH THE OPINIONS, CHILD.

Ahem.

What I'm saying is this has continued.

I've been back to work for three weeks now and for three weeks, Mila has been all BOTTLES ARE STUPID, Y'ALL. She has yelled and carried on endlessly as she continuously chose to be hungry rather than eat the food that everyone was offering her.

Long story short, I think I've spent more on bottles and nipples the past three weeks than your average strip club owner does when stocking a bar and hiring dancers. We have tried EVERYTHING. Mila has rewarded my investments by being so kind as to eat 2 oz all day long.

TWO OUNCES.

By the way, do you know what happens when a baby who is accustomed to sleeping 7 hours stops eating during the day?

Yup. Bad things.

She totally flipped day with night. It happened very quickly. I went from getting an almost reasonable amount of sleep to hanging out with a baby all night long. Her total food consumption in 24 hours was rather fantastic, but she was saving all her meals for me. ALL OF THEM.

Until today!!!!!!!!!!!

All! That says "all"! Mila drank an entire bottle!

Sure, it was a small bottle and her total for the day still sucked, but PROGRESS! WOOOHOOOO!

For what it's worth, the bottle that she finished was a bottle that she has rejected no less than a dozen times in the past few weeks.

I'm being trolled by a 3-month old. It's a fact.

Please Don't Listen to Her, Mila

Sometimes I fail miserably, but sometimes I manage to get something to stick with Alexis. She most definitely embraces the concept that it's OK to be different.

She will often say exactly that -- "It's OK that he's different," she will say while we're walking down the street. She could be referring to clothing or shoes or even something that the person said. More significantly, I think, she also knows that it's OK that there are things about her that are different.

Her tiny leprechaun feet, for example. Alexis wears her tiny midget feet with pride. If you ask her, she will happily tell you that her feet never grow and that it's cool because she gets to wear shoes for as long as she wants.

She also wears her ability to get by on minimal sleep as a badge of honor. It's bragging rights to her. While everybody else loves sleep and wants to marry it, she often says, "Sleep is SO boring." She's wrong, obviously, but I don't even bother to tell her because she will call me out for not sticking to my OK is Different Mantra. So, I sort of embrace it while telling her that it's weird that she doesn't need sleep.

Mila agrees with me, by the way. She totally and completely agrees with me. Mila thinks that sleep is better than peanut butter and chocolate together. It's better than anything, in fact. Sleep is the greatest thing of all time. Mila says so.

Late last week, Mila was happily drifting off to Napland while I cleaned  up the kitchen. She wasn't actually asleep, but she was working on making that happen. As I swept the kitchen floor, I heard Alexis go into Mila's room. I quickly turned on the video monitor and watched as Alexis leaned over the side of the crib and gave Mila a kiss.

Just when I thought I was going to explode from all of the cute, Alexis started to talk to the baby who was supposed to be asleep. She told Mila all sorts of crazy things, but there is one statement that stood out more than anything else. The words she whispered will haunt my nightmares, in fact.

"Mila, you don't have to sleep if you don't want to. They can't make you, you know."

I Quit You, NFL

Amidst the dull roar of outrage, there is a question that has reared its ugly head over and over again today. It's a question that I asked once.

But just once.

"Why do they stay?"

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The question cuts like a knife for some people. If you need evidence, just spend two minutes reading the #WhyIStayed hashtag on Twitter.

Two minutes. If you are human and have a single empathetic cell in your body, that's all it takes to start to understand. You may still walk away thinking it could never happen to you, but maybe you will understand just a little bit more.

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I looked across the table at the strong black woman who ran an extremely successful non-profit agency. The wall behind her was adorned with certificates testifying to her intelligence and success. As we worked on a project, I asked the question.

"Why do they stay?"

She sighed heavily as she locked eyes with mine. She paused for a long moment then asked, "Could you leave? I know your husband would never do something like that, but if he were to just once make a bad decision, would you be able to leave?"

I thought for a moment and quickly assured myself that I could. But then she asked more questions. "Is your car in your name or your husband's? If you left, could he report the car as stolen?"

I didn't answer.

"Are your bank accounts in both of your names? Could you stop him if he changed the PIN or cancelled your debit card? Do you always have enough cash on you to pay for a hotel room?"

I sat silently.

"What if he told you that he would kill you if you left? Would you be willing to take the risk?"

That question seemed just far-fetched enough to snap me out of my silence, but then she said something that sent me right back.

"What if he seemed like a great guy 99% of the time and only hit you once in a while? Would you be convinced you could fix it? Because I always thought I could."

As I sat dumbfounded, she continued. "By the way, it's never a 'bad decision.' That's just what we tell ourselves when that guy we thought would never do such a thing does such a thing. It helps us not feel quite so stupid when it happens to us."

I've thought about that conversation a million times in the years since it took place. Every time I see or hear about a domestic violence incident, I think about the situation and wonder if I could easily leave if I were the one in it.

The answer is always no.

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There is a thing that has happened over the years, I suppose as a result of Christmas Crazy. Sometimes I find out. Sometimes I figure it out because of comments or tweets or seemingly unconnected emails, but mostly women bravely tell me their stories.

That's why I've read the #WhyIStayed stories before.

It's also why I've seen the answer to the question before. Still, when a strong, successful woman sends me an email asking me to post her words in this space, I do it. More people need to read the answer.

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"Why did she stay? Why did she apologize? Why did she still marry him?"

Those are easy questions to ask when you've never been there. Domestic abuse can often be hidden, because there is more to what we all saw with the Ray Rice video. Maybe the public hears more about the physical side because we are visual learners, but the psychological hold an abuser has on a woman is strong and long-lasting. 

I have had a man who I loved--and "loved" me--squeeze his hands around my neck after hiding the battery in my flip phone. I had to promise I was sorry for what I said and did that set him off (I forget what it was now), and promise that I wouldn't call anyone before I was allowed to have my phone back. I have been held down and hit in the head, while kicking to get him off of me. After my kicks left bruises on him, I was threatened to have the police called on me for abusing him.

Every single time I was the one apologizing through tears. Begging him not to go. Never telling anyone, because for some reason, I didn't want my friends and family to judge me for screwing up. "How could she pick such a loser? Why did she stay with him? How is she so weak to not fight back?"

I'm safe now. But my advice is this: If you have a friend or family member experiencing abuse from an intimate partner, listen to her, but don't push. Let her make the judgments on her partner and don't say yours out loud, because she may take it as a judgment on herself too. The whys and how could yous--let them stay in your head--because psychological abuse and physical abuse are often hand in hand, and a victim never turns into a volunteer no matter how long she stays.

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Thank you for sharing your words, M.