Hold Me Back

 

Wasn't it just a few weeks ago, in this post, that I was rejoicing over our decision to take a break from potty training Addie?  Wasn't I saying that I had learned my lesson, and that I wouldn't try to push her into it, and that if there was going to be a battle of the wills, she would win?  Wasn't I?

And yet, that old itch is back.  That itch to control and schedule and cross off the list.  That fear of inadequacy:  why isn't my perfectly delightful, intelligent, wonderful child potty trained yet?  Why do I care so much?  Am I really this obsessed with poop?

A few nights ago, Eric had to remind me why we were taking a break from pottyland.  He looked at me, quizzically, and said, "Wasn't it just last week that we decided not to worry about it for a while?"  Yes.  It was.  "Let's just give it a rest, babe," he said.  "It's driving us all crazy."  Right.

But here's the problem.  All of these stories of other people potty training so easily come to mind.  My mom potty training me in the blink of an eye when I was two.  I just saw other kids in daycare doing it, and voila!  For a few measly m n' m's, I was potty trained.  Some woman in the mall told me she had both her kids trained by the age of one.  One, for God's sake.  Then, all the women on Babycenter who are "so proud of my little guy" for pooping in the potty after just one weekend of training. 

Then there's this problem:  I hate pull-ups, in case you haven't noticed.  They're expensive, and Addie can pull them off when she has a big poop in them, and they're horrible for the environment, and they blow up and explode into a million pieces when you accidentally wash them with your laundry.  But we seemed to be locked into pull-up mode.  I wouldn't hate them so much if they weren't just glorified diapers.  But that's all they are, and they're not helping with training anything. 

Well, I guess we're trained to buy them.

And then, of course, there's the small, grinchy, Gollum-ish part of me that would like to win just one frickin' war with my toddler.  I'd like to be able to point down at her, like Zeus on a mountaintop, white hair blowing in the gathering storm, long robes fluttering about me, and command her to use the potty.  Because she can.  She's physically able to do it.  She just won't. 

This pisses me off.  Which is probably at the core of my potty training issues (and, let's be honest.  They're really my issues--not hers).  It makes me mad that this child could make things so much easier for everyone by just using the potty, by at least trying to use the potty, but refuses to do so.  And I'm completely powerless in the face of her awesome obstinacy.  I am completely bowed before the awesomeness of her expression of individuality.

I am, in short, floored by the fact that she is a different entity from me, individuated and whole, with a will of her own.  Maybe that's why I'm having such a hard time giving this up.  Her saying no when I want her to say yes is a pretty good expression of the fact that this kid--whom I love so fiercely and dearly--is her own person.  And will someday leave me.  Let's just hope she's potty trained when she goes.

Lessons Learned in Poop School

1.  Your 3-month-old has a history of only pooping every 7-10 days; when she does poop, it is as if a mustard bomb has exploded.  You are sitting with her propped in your lap, busily firing off emails.  You hear a wet, farty sound that suggests a poop has arrived (it has been eight days).  Do you:

a)  Get up immediately to change the baby's diaper; you know if you don't, the mustard will, literally, hit the ceiling fan;

b)  Answer just a few more emails.  Hey, if she's not bothered, why should you be?

c)  Give the baby away to the church down the street.  Only a man of God can deal with a disaster of these proportions?

Answer:  B.  When you get up, poo is seeping out both sides of the diaper, front and back, and you are covered in poo.  But, hey, your emails got answered and you get to keep the baby.

 

2.  Your 2 1/2-year-old toddler has surreptitiously snuck a full pull-up into the laundry basket, and you run the load without noticing.  Do you:

a)  Express astonishment at the gigantic balloon that emerges from the washing machine after it has finished running, shaking your head in disbelief that the pull-up is able to hold SO much water, and fretting over what these things are doing to our landfills;

b)  Curse at the million little particles of disintegrated pull-up collected in the bottom of the washing machine;

c)  Continue to run several more loads of laundry without cleaning out the particles, so that all of your clothes and linens for the week are coated in pull-up pustules, which itch and chafe;

d)  All of the above?

Answer:  D.  Goddammit.

 

3)  Your toddler has yet again reached into her diaper and touched her poo.  Do you:

a)  Silently gag, taking her to the bathroom to wash her hands, reminding her for the gazillionth time that touching our poo can make us very, very sick, as you try not to overreact because you don't want to give her Freudian scat issues for the rest of her life;

b)  Poop in your own pants, modeling for her how you don't touch your poo, and neither should she;

c)  Reach into her pull-up, screech like a monkey, and throw the poo on the wall?

Answer:  A.  PhEW.

Disaster Fantasies

I used to have a lot of disaster fantasies after Addie was born--horrible imaginings that she had died in her crib, that she was going to fall and hit her head and be killed, or that someone was going to snatch her.  Every episode of Oprah or the evening news or Law and Order that I had ever seen featuring the abduction, abuse, or death of a child seemed to replay itself in my head, over and over again.

These scenarios got so bad that I began to have mini panic attacks with them, and they got worse over time, particularly after news of horrible disasters, like the tsunami in South Asia, the war in Iraq, or the earthquake in Pakistan.  Just the thought of all those families and babies suffering and dying would trigger an out-and-out anxiety attack. 

I didn't have good ways to express these fears at the time.  I tried writing some poetry, and that worked some.  Sometimes I would try to talk to Eric about the fears, but when I actually verbalized them, they sounded ridiculous, and I didn't want anyone to think I wanted anything bad to happen to Addie.  In fact, just the opposite--I think I was having them because I wanted to play them out in my head in order to ward them off in reality.  Sort of like, if I could put myself through the crisis in an imaginary way, it wouldn't happen to me in real life.  I know--this doesn't make a whole lot of sense logically, but emotionally, it seemed to at the time.

Eventually, this anxiety built up so much that I would explode into intense crying fits, or outbursts of rage that typically got directed toward Eric.  One night, I broke down in front of Eric, and Addie was there.  She saw me yell at him, them collapse on the floor, manically upset.  At that point, I decided I probably needed to get some help so that I wouldn't do that again.  I suffered a lot of guilt that she had to witness the outburst, and I knew I didn't want to pass on those behaviors to her.

So, for the first time in my life, I got into some therapy, and Eric came to sessions every other week with me to help me understand the anxiety.  We were so, so lucky that we ended up with an excellent therapist, who was in tune with my desire not to go on meds and to use the tools I already had--yoga and mediation, primarily--to help me understand and overcome the panic.  And, of course, we were lucky that our insurance covered the sessions:  we couldn't have gone otherwise.

The two main insights I arrived at through that work were that I felt anxiety most of the time.  In fact, I couldn't remember a time when I didn't feel anxious, didn't know there was any way else to be.  And so, historically, I used a variety of behaviors to avoid feeling that anxiety--shopping, eating, cleaning, working.  Things had become so much worse lately because having a child was forcing me to just sit a lot of the time (in order to be with her and care for her properly).  That meant I was having to actually feel the anxiety, experience it, and it was coming out in the form of these fantasies and violent outbursts. 

We worked a lot on my just experiencing the anxiety, on locating it in my body, and on noticing it without judging.  I still work on this, and am not able to do it all the time (see my post on the tires going out on my Subaru).  But a lot of times I can do it, and just experiencing it and noticing it will, paradoxically, lessen it.  I don't even have to figure out why it's there--just feeling it helps.

The second insight, which links to the first, is that I need to focus more on the present.  If I continue to tamp down my anxiety through diversions rather than being with it in the moment, it will result in behaviors or feelings I don't like. 

For example:  have you seen that movie Crash?  It's awesome, but there is a scene in it where a child is threatened--in fact, you're led to think she has died.  Well, this made me completely freak out.  Talk about disaster fantasy.  I was totally hysterical during that scene--weeping like someone had cut off my arm!  I literally felt as if I left my body from grief, would do anything to make it go away because it just felt like more than I could bear. 

And it was just a movie.

So, my therapist suggested that what I might need to learn to practice is present observation.  In other words, the ability to see the horrors of the world, watch them pass before me, but not to be swept away by them.  This is compassion:  to see crisis and distress and not become numb to it, but not let it overcome you with grief or hopelessness, either.  This is so not easy.  But I've been working on it, and have been able to do it some.

For example, a friend sent me a link today about a Denver man whose wife and two toddlers were killed in a hit and run over the weekend.  He was crossing the street with them, the kids in their stroller, and the next minute, the three of them were gone.  I think a year or two ago, this story probably would have sent me over the edge, the fear and anxiety of it.  But now I know I can give this tragedy only a little of my heart, and then watch it pass on.  Because my family needs me here, now.  My family is not gone.  And excessive grief over a stranger's tragedy will not protect my family from harm, either.  What will harm them is my exploding into a million little pieces.

Of course, this doesn't relieve me from my responsibility to act when I see injustice, and it doesn't protect me from outrage at violence and tragedy.  But it does force me to focus positive energy into the universe, and to make sure my own garden is tended, too. 

Watch Out Marty Stewart

 

I have become a domestic goddess.  Yesterday, I baked bread.  Shout it from the mountaintops, Maria!  I MADE BREAD!  I just went on line, got a recipe, bought some flour, and voila!  Bread.  Bring on the bird flu.  I can keep my family alive with...bread!!!

You have to understand the context here.  Not more than a year ago, I swore that I would never be a cook, couldn't cook, didn't want to cook.  Oh, I made the occasional batch of cookies and, if pressed, could conjure up some Kraft Mac.  I've since then gone through a bit of a kitchen revolution.  But back then if someone had told me that on a cold, snowy November Sunday in 2006, I would make loaves of bread that came out smelling good and tasting delicious, I would have scoffed at them.  Loudly scoffed. 

I hardly recognize myself.

Because, friends, I ALSO made a delicious Strawberry Cream cake!  OH MY GOD was it good!  And I'm not the only one who thinks so.  Because sometimes when you make something, it doesn't really taste that good, but because you made it, you think it tastes good?  But not this time!  Eric and Addie shoveled it in like the apocalypse was coming, and we served it for dinner at our friends Chris and Toni's, and they shoveled it in, too.  Shovel, shovel, shovel. 

So, yesterday, I made three loaves of delicious bread and a beautiful, tasty strawberry cream cake.

AND--this is the kicker--I found a used pair of Citizens of Humanity jeans at Buffalo Exchange for a fraction of their retail value IN MY SIZE.  (I know I'm overdoing it with the caps, but I want to make sure to adequately communicate my enthusiasm).  Somebody can put me down now, and I'll die happy.  But not before eating more bread and cake and wearing my new jeans!  Whoopee!  Except if I eat too much bread and cake I might not fit in my new jeans.  Oh, no!

Right.  This is a parenting blog.  Well...

One dark cloud on the horizon appears to be that Addie may be giving up her afternoon nap.  I stick her in her room at the appointed time, but she is just not sleeping.  She is busy in there, singing, playing with toys, reading books, drafting executive orders.  But she is definitely not sleeping.  Which means that from about 4pm on she is a raging lunatic, crying at every little thing, and watching herself cry in the mirror, and forcing us to watch her cry in the mirror.  And, dammit, I need those few hours of toddler quiet.  Sigh.

Any ideas? 

The other huge dark cloud (and this is a biggie--so big I don't really even want to write about it because it's freaking me out) is that Addie's preschool might not be able to take her on Mondays next semester.  And I work all day Mondays.  So that's a huge bummer.  I'm going to think positive and hope that a solution becomes available.  But stuff like this can really shake me up. 

I need cake.

Someone Remembers

Someone, who shall remain nameless, came home last night with flowers.  This someone also told me that he (or she) will always think I'm beautiful.  All this in response to said person finally reading the blog, especially the post on my hair issues.  Score many points for this person. 

This person also wondered if our entire lives were now going to be freely available to the world via toddlerspit.  I assured him (or her) that there was much that would remain off-limits, and he (or she) was much relieved.  There will be much teasing, however:  anytime one of us acts up, the new threat will be "Blog fodder!"  I wonder how long that will be funny.

As we were settling into bed last night, we were talking about some of Addie's recent quirks, and how we don't want to forget them, and that maybe this is the best thing about this blog.  It might keep us from forgetting the wonder these children bring us.  You never think you're going to forget the amazing things they do, but then life gets going so fast, and before you know it, you've forgotten what Addie smelled like as a baby, or how she feels cuddled into the crook of your arm, or how Nolie makes the most amazing squeaks as she smiles and has such fabulous fat rolls that it's all I can do to keep from nibbling at her.

I feel like I'm much more cognizant of the time passing with Nolie, since we're not going to have any more kids; I'm really appreciating her baby-ness and not worrying too much about her reaching milestones or getting to the next stage, like I did with Addie.  I'm trying to just be with her, to enjoy these whisper-fast moments.

And Addie's growing so fast, too.  She's doing things now she'll never do again, and which are charming and weird and uniquely her.  Her latest fascination is with mirrors.  She likes especially to stand in front of the full-length one in our room and spit on it, so that I will come in hours later and the entire bottom half of the glass is totally coated in dried goo.  I find this completely disgusting.  But she thinks it's hilarious.

She also likes to go to the mirror when she's having a tantrum to watch herself cry.  She will say something like, "Mommy, sing me a song while I'm cryin'!"  That song always has to be the theme from Sesame Street.  So, you're standing there in front of the spit-soaked mirror while your toddler watches herself cry, singing, "Sunny days...sweepin' the clouds away...."  Whoa.

Other than that, though, Addie doesn't worry too much about how she looks.  She's pretty much function-oriented.  If her clothes are uncomfortable, she takes them off.  She's not keen on having her hair brushed or her face washed.  Sometimes she'll scream, "Mommy, move my hair!" just because it's falling into her face and keeping her from doing whatever it is she's doing.  But mostly she's utterly unconscious of how she "should" look or what she "should" wear.  It reminds me of that Sweet Honey in the Rock song about there being "no mirrors in my nana's house, and the beauty that I saw in everything was in her eyes."  I know there will come a day soon when Addie will lose this lack of self-consciousness, and I will mourn these easy moments of just being and doing.

In the meanwhile, and with "someone's" help, I hope that I learn more from Addie about mirrors than she learns from me.

The Tautology of Two

 

Two is an excellent age in so many ways.  It's also the age when you want to ship your children off to distant planets because they are so incredibly maddening.  But it's also really, really excellent. 

One of my favorite things about hanging out with Addie right now is the adventure she is having with language.  Being two allows one a delightful level of creativity with proncunciation, meaning, and logic without self-consciousness; this makes communicating with Addie particularly exciting.  For example, she's been singing this version of "Twinkle, twinkle" lately, which she made up all by herself:

 

Twinkle, twinkle, little moon

How I wonder why you spoon

Up above the world so high

Like a giant pizza pie

Twinkle, twinkle, little moon

How I hope to see you soon.

Cool, huh?  Brilliant little genius, she is.  She also says things with such a sweet little lisp--a bird's nest is a bird's "nesthsh" and so on.  So, this is all endearing and wonderful.  When it's not particularly frustrating, that is.

We're doing a lot of talking about emotions lately.  I was getting fed up with Addie's pretty much constant tantrums a while back, and when I get frustrated, I read.  A discussion of parenting books on my favorite-ever parenting website, Parenthacks, led me to a 1961 book by Haim Ginott called Between Parent and Child.  It's written in this old-fashioned, Cold-War-civil-defense-manual tone and there's a whole lot of sexist stuff about what mommies and daddies do and don't do, but if you can get past that, I think it offers some pretty good advice.  For example, it recommends offering simple, clear answers to kid's complex questions (I know, duh, but for some reason I had gotten into the habit of giving Addie some long-winded answers lately, and this was a good reminder to shut up a liitle).

Ginott's book also reminded me to simply acknowledge Addie's feelings as they were happening rather than try to fix them, interrogate them, or teach her to suppress them.  For example, these are the types of conversations we were often having, typically precipitated by my asking her not to do something such as, oh, I don't know, sticking peas in her nostrils:

A (lower lip protruding prominently):  Mommy, I'm sad!

M:  Why are you sad, Addie?

A (now kicking and screaming, peas flying everywhere):  Because I am!

 

Nowhere to go from there, right?  I mean, how do you explain the problems with circular logic to a toddler?  So now I'm trying something that looks like this:

A:  Mommy, I'm sad!

M:  It's okay to feel sad, Addie.  We all feel sad sometimes and it's good to express it.  But peas should usually go in our mouths, sweetie, not in our noses. 

A (lip still protruding but no kicking and screaming):  Okay, mommy.  Mommy?  I can't breathe!

M:  I know, my darling girl.  Let's get those dang peas out of your nose.

 

Not exactly Jedi magic, but the whole "It's alright to cry" thing seems to really work with her.  This makes a lot of sense to me.  In fact, my therapist really helped me to feel my feelings, too, to the tune of a couple hundred bucks a month.  But it worked--I don't stick peas up my nose anymore, and I know it's okay to feel a liitle sad about it.  Whatever--the idea is that you teach your children to identify and express their emotions in appropriate ways.  Pretty healthy stuff.

The other Ginott gem that Eric and I have been using with Addie for a while is the old giving lots of choices trick.  The key is to make sure you provide manageable and acceptable choices.  In other words, the choices have to be simple enough to not overwhelm a two-year-old, and also contain alternatives that are acceptable to you as a parent. 

For instance, asking a toddler what she wants for dinner is a bad idea (she might say "marshmallows" or "bats' eyes," neither of which is on the menu around here).  Asking her if she wants a hot dog or a quesadilla is a better alternative--at my house, anyway.  At your house, feeding your kid a hot dog might be as bad as the bats' eyes.  The point is that you provide a range of appropriate choices for you.

This is particularly useful when you get the ubiquitous "no" response.  Addie won't even hear your question before her ruby-red lips are forming the word "no," so we've had to develop some creative strategies around this.  Of course she doesn't want to change her pull-up!  She likes lugging around three pounds of pee-soaked cotton between her legs!  But the choice she has is not really whether the pull-up is going to be changed.  It has to be.  Her choice is whether she wants it changed in the living room or in the dining room, or whether she wants to do it herself or with my help.  Acceptable choices. 

Ginnott also talks about why bribing and threatening are bad, though those habits have been a little harder for us to break.  Still, we're working on it.  And his strategies are certainly making my life with Addie more excellent than frustrating. 

Hardy Har Har Hair

Note to reader:  This is a long-ish post, with lots of self-indulgent rambling.  Apologies.  Then again, this is a blog.  What do you expect? 

 

Like many women, I have a long and sordid history with my hair.  I've had perms and mullets; I've been dyed maroon and fuschia (and not on purpose) and have had blonde highlights so often that my hair has fallen out; I've had mallbangs and layers and bluntcuts and pixiecuts and bobs and shags; I've had anchorwoman helmets and feathered sides.  I'm the kind of person who will wake in the middle of the night feeling that something is missing in her life and, deciding that the missing thing is bangs, I will cut them, only to wake the next morning horrified and regretful.  This happens every six months or so.  I dye my hair at home because I'm too cheap to have it done at the salon, and I only have my hair cut every few months for the same reason.  I have no idea what my "natural" color is anymore.  And I am rarely satisfied with how my hair looks, which usually results in it being pinned back with a bobby pin or put up in a ponytail.

Part of this dissatisfaction is a result of genetics.  I have what I call hybrid hair, meaning that the bottom layer is naturally curly while the top layer is bone-straight.  So, unless I dry my hair straight or get it permed (and who does that anymore?), it looks like a disaster when I leave the house.  Have you seen Being John Malkovich?  Do you remember Cameron Diaz's hair in that movie?  That's what I look like when my hair is left to its own devices.  I also have a crapload of premature gray.  I started graying when I was 20, in fact.  And we're not just talking a few stray hairs.  My ex-boyfriend used to teasingly call me the "gray fox."  Which I suppose is sort of a compliment.  When you're 50.

All this means that my hair looks and feels rather tortured.  It longs to be curly where it is straight, longs to be straight where it is curly.  It is dry, over-processed, and split-ended.  It is mad at me, and I am mad at it.  This also means that I can freakishly remember everything, positive or negative, that anyone has ever said about my hair.  Ever.

The other source of torture for me is that I am the most hopelessly unphotogenic person on the planet, with the exception, perhaps, of William Hung.  I would say that out of every 100 pictures someone takes of me, I may sort of, kind of, only really half-like one of them. 

This has created a self-image crisis for me.  See, I'm pretty satisfied with my life most of the time, despite the incessant complaining featured on this blog.  I have a great family, a job I love, good health, things I enjoy doing and feeling and learning, on and on.  In short, my life feels like I should look like Christy Turlington. 

And yet.  Somebody snaps a picture, and I don't recognize myself in it.  I honestly expect to see Christy Turlington in my picture.  Instead, I get...well...somebody else.  Somebody not-Christy-Turlington. 

My sister says the same thing happens to her.  She does her hair all nice and puts on make-up and leaves the door feeling like, "All right.  I'm looking pretty good.  I may not be drop-dead gorgeous, but dang, I look pretty good."  Then someone somewhere takes a picture, and she sees it, and wonders what the hell happened.  Because it won't be a good picture.  And my sister is a beautiful woman.  But her odds of taking a good picture are sort of like mine:  not good.

In other words, we have learned not to trust our perceptions.  I look in the mirror and think, Dang, I look pretty good.  Then some sort of metamorphosis happens between the time I'm in front of the mirror and the time I get in front of a camera, and out comes a picture featuring not-Christy-Turlington Jen but this other being, who has a squarish, long face, and hair that looks like someone lacquered it into a cubist sculpture, and two squinty, not quite the same-size, almost-lazy eyes.  Like my sister, I wonder WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED.

This raises some horrible self-doubts, of course.  One has to wonder if one is just horribly un-photogenic, or horribly unattractive.  And if one stands before the mirror and finds one's self fairly attractive, but then takes horribly unattractice pictures, one must ask one's self:  Am I horribly unattractive and just don't know it?  Have I fooled myself into seeing something in the mirror that just isn't there?  The result of this schism is often that one seeks lots of affirmation from others.  Which, of course, is a very, very risky mode of operation.  Notice that I am referring to this anonymous "one" as if it might not be me.  Schisms galore.

All this is a preface to a conversation I had with Eric last night.  I am on a "growing-out" cycle at the moment.  My hair has been bob-short for quite a long time, and now it's about shoulder length, which is a demonstration of epic discipline for me.  I've been thinking the long hair looks kind of good, is kind of feminine and versatile.  And when we first got together, Eric admitted to me that he liked longer hair on women (an example of my freakish hair-comment memory).  In other words, I have been almost, sort-of liking my hair.  And, unfortunately, I thought I'd seek a little affirmation from the old man to double-check this perception.  You know, because "one" has reasons for not trusting one's perceptions.

So, we're crawling into bed, all sleepy and bone-tired like the parents of two little kids that we are, and for some mis-guided reason I think this would be a good time to ask Eric what he thinks of my long-ish hair, since he's never said anything about it.  The reaction that I wanted, of course, was this:

Eric (burying his face in my hair and luxuriating in the shoulder-length glory of it all):  "It's gorgeous!  You're gorgeous!  It's so feminine and sexy!  Let's get it on!"

Me:  "I'm so glad you like it!  I've been growing it out just to hear you say that!  Rock my world, big boy!"

 

The reaction that I got in real life, and which eventually led to me sleeping in the guest room, was this:

Eric:  "Um, I don't know.  Really, I guess, it's fine."

Me:  "Oh."  (Totally, totally shocked at the utter blandness of this reply.  Rolling over and trying not to cry).

Me (five minutes later):  "Sorry to obsess over this, but is that all you have to say?  I mean, do you like it better short, do you think?"

Eric (almost asleep and wondering what the hell he'd gotten himself into):  "Well, I just want you to feel good about yourself.  So whatever makes you feel good."

Me:  "Oh.  What?  I mean, what?"

Eric:  "Well, I can think about pictures of you with long hair.  And I can think about pictures of you with short hair.  And they're both fine with me."

Me:  "What?"

Me (five minutes later):  "I think I'm going to go sleep in the other room."

Eric:  Snore.

 

Have I mentioned that Eric is an understater?  Well, obviously, he is.  And these sorts of conversations make him extremely nervous and clam-up-ish.  If he ever read this blog, I'm pretty sure it would make him glaze over because of all the "processing" that goes on.  Eric hates "processing."  And my seeking approval dangerously approached "processing," I think.  I mean, he probably doesn't really care about my hair at all.  Whether it is long or short probably, objectively, doesn't really matter to him.  Cognitively and rationally, I understand that.  At an emotional, rational level, however, this not caring is the equivalent of being suckerpunched.

Because my relationship to my hair, as I think I've demonstrated, is not cognitive or rational.  My relationship to pictures of my hair is definitely not cognitive or rational.  Thus, the need to sleep in the other room.  It was either that or hit my husband over the head with a frying pan.  Because I need him, sometimes--as pitiful as it sounds--to be my mirror for me.  To sync up the satisfaction I feel with my life with the distorted view I have of how I look on the outside. 

Maybe next time I should just ask for that straight out.  I went with a girlfriend the other night to a party, and as we were walking in, she said to me, "Okay--my ex's new girlfriend is here, and I'm feeling a little insecure, so I might need a lot of affirmation tonight."  And I affirmed her.  I reminded her of how beautiful and smart and funny she is, and none of it was manufactured.  I just told her what I knew to be true.  Maybe that sort of priming is what I need to do for Eric.  It could go like this:

Me:  "Honey, I saw a picture of myself today in which I looked like an overgrown werewolf.  I need you to tell me that my newly grown-out shoulder-length hair is gorgeous and luxurious and that in real life my eyes look like they match and are full of lively mirth.  Tell me my skin is like porcelain cream and my cheeks are preternaturally rosy, and sound like you really, really mean it.  But do it in, like, five minutes, so it sounds like you thought to say all this on your own, without prompting.  Okay?"

Eric:  "What?  I mean, what?"

 

Hmmm.  Riiight.