Sam was born last week.
Lately, I’ve been wishing I were back at the hospital. At the hospital, my friends were there. People were there to take care of me. I felt cared for, cared about. And I liked that they were as worried about my health and Sam’s health as I was. Now that I’m home I’m questioning every little thing, my bleeding and cramping, his circumcision and sleep patterns. I need someone to tell me it’s all right, someone preferably with an RN or MD after their name.
At the hospital, I didn’t sleep much. That’s what happens when you have a baby at the same place you work. But I liked the stream of visitors that came through, recounting my birth story again and again. At home, I’m lonely. There is no one to talk to when Sam sleeps, and I know I should sleep too, and I do, but to be honest I don’t need as much sleep as a newborn baby does. So I play on my phone, stare into space. Or I watch HGTV and imagine my life was different, that I could be a stay at home mom looking for a bigger house for my family, or have enough money to buy a vacation home in the Dominican Republic, or have the guts to up and move to Paris because I had a great time there during my study-abroad semester.
I have made a cocoon for us, for me and Sam, in my bed. We eat here, we sleep here, we stress over how long he’s been awake here. My bed has long been my safe haven, it was during my pregnancy and even before. I feel like as long as I’m here, in my bed, we’ll be OK.
It’s when I have to get up. When I have to get CJ his cereal or drive him to school. (I left Sam for the first time today. For 30 minutes. It was freeing. But it was too soon.) When I have to answer the phone or the door. When I have to turn off HGTV. That’s when life is scarier. A new day brings a fresh start but I yearn for the evenings, when CJ is in bed and Sam and I are in my room, winding down, watching Property Brothers for the millionth time. Even in the wee hours of the morning, when it’s just me and him, I feel like I can do this. Like I can keep him safe and happy and healthy and fed. It’s when the other people in my family wake up that I’m not so sure. There are four of us now. And some of us aren’t adjusting to our additional person very well. There is still so much to figure out.
So I wish I was back there. In the hospital. Where Sam was fresh and new and someone brought me water when I asked and food when I asked and told me that we were both healthy and doing fine at least three times a day. I was safe there. Chris was there with me. We were safe and I wasn’t scared the way I am now, every night, about what tomorrow might bring.
For those of you wondering, yes, I’m taking my meds and yes, I’m sleeping—I get about two naps a day on top of my broken nighttime sleep. But it doesn’t mean it’s easier, it doesn’t mean I feel better about how things are going. Sometimes I feel OK, but mostly I’m scared, and I long for the time when things will get easier.
Friday, July 27, 2012
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
For everyone who's promised to be “on call” for my delivery...
Dear Participant,
CONGRATULATIONS! You have been selected to be a member of my labor team. As a team member, you’ll be responsible for my ongoing happiness from now until at least 12 months postpartum. Please review your responsibilities* below:
Pre-delivery
During delivery
After delivery
Please know that I appreciate everything you’ve done for me throughout the pregnancy, and everything you will do for me in the next few weeks. Even if I never say it to you again, your participation in this important event means more to me than anything else you’ve ever done for me, ever. Thank you!
Now go start getting ready. ONLY FOUR WEEKS TO GO!
Pam
*These responsibilities are subject to increase or change without warning.
CONGRATULATIONS! You have been selected to be a member of my labor team. As a team member, you’ll be responsible for my ongoing happiness from now until at least 12 months postpartum. Please review your responsibilities* below:
Pre-delivery
- Please keep your phone on HIGH VOLUME from now until the time I deliver. When the time comes, I will need to be able to reach you NO MATTER WHAT.
- I may or may not desperately need you when I call, so be prepared for the instance when your phone rings at 3 AM and all I need to tell you is that I got sent home from the hospital because I wasn’t really in labor and how could they do that to me I’m a labor nurse and I really need a shoulder to cry on, specifically, your shoulder, so come over this minute.
- Also from now until the day I deliver, whenever I’m within earshot, please keep up a running commentary of how good I look pregnant and how my face is just glowing from the 30-plus pounds I’ve managed to gain. When I tell you how fat I feel, just lie to me and tell me that it’s all baby and I’ll lose it as soon as I deliver.
During delivery
- Never leave my side
- If I tell you to go get me some ice, get someone else to do it
- If you get hungry and didn’t have the forethought to bring a snack, TDB
- Don’t complain about how tired you are, or how I’m squeezing your fingers/arm/neck way too hard
- Be prepared to remove any unauthorized visitors from the room
- Be prepared to tell me any and all of the following:
- “Since you’re crying with every step you take, I think it’s OK to stop walking and rest.”
- “You’re halfway through this contraction, would you please just stop screaming?”
- “Pam, I really think you should let them break your water. Seriously, how much longer do you want this to go on?”
- “Please get out of the bathroom and come back to bed. You told me yourself, you don’t want to have your baby on the toilet.”
- “I know you don’t really want me to f**k off, why don’t I rub your back instead?”
- “I think it’s time for your epidural. Seriously, Pam, you told me to tell you and I am. I’m calling the CRNA now.”
- “Stop freaking out. You don’t really have to poop, that’s the baby’s head. Now PUSH!”
After delivery
- Be prepared to wipe me down with hot towels because even though it’ll be my own, blood and vernix kind of skeeze me out
- Convince me to wear the placemat-sized pad I’ll need to keep my bleeding in check even though it crinkles with every move I make
- Find a way to get me a pizza from Papa Del’s without leaving my side
- Stay with me until I fall asleep and then come back before I wake up the next morning. Repeat until I come home from the hospital and 1-2 weeks postpartum as needed.
Please know that I appreciate everything you’ve done for me throughout the pregnancy, and everything you will do for me in the next few weeks. Even if I never say it to you again, your participation in this important event means more to me than anything else you’ve ever done for me, ever. Thank you!
Now go start getting ready. ONLY FOUR WEEKS TO GO!
Pam
*These responsibilities are subject to increase or change without warning.
Thursday, June 14, 2012
Desperation
Dear Ms. Smith,
In response to your email regarding TWIX PB COOKIE BARS.
Thank you for your email.
We're sorry to hear of the difficulty you are having trying to locate TWIX PB COOKIE BARS.
For a listing of stores in your area which carry the product, please log on to http://www.storefinder.mmmars.com.
Have a great day!
Your Friends at Mars Chocolate North America
Monday, May 21, 2012
Lazy
I’m too lazy to keep my promises on this blog. I may as well tell you now, so you know not to expect great things from me. I thought really hard about uploading the pictures of our new floor to my computer, then transferring them onto Blogger, then making sure they were the right size and the borders looked OK. And I thought of funny captions and whether or not I should put them before or after the pictures, and whether or not I should include any additional commentary in the picture post. But the more I kept thinking about it the more it seemed like too big a job for me. Plus, my hard drive crashed a couple months back and I can’t find iPhoto and say what you will about how annoying/crappy/not user-friendly iPhoto is, I like it, I used it, and I’m lost without it.
So maybe this’ll be a blog without pictures. At least for a while.
And I have nothing, nowhere, not much else to say. I thought I did, but I needed to tell you about how useless and lazy I am so that maybe now that you know, I can move on to bigger, better, more depressing things.
Until then—
So maybe this’ll be a blog without pictures. At least for a while.
And I have nothing, nowhere, not much else to say. I thought I did, but I needed to tell you about how useless and lazy I am so that maybe now that you know, I can move on to bigger, better, more depressing things.
Until then—
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Out with the old
It was no secret that we needed new flooring. We knew it the first time we saw the house, the day we moved in, and have thought about it every day since. Our house was built in 1995 and the carpet—the once white, now disgustingly gray carpet—was never replaced. Add that to the fact that a family with four boys lived here before we did and we had all the evidence we needed to plunk down the cash to update our downstairs flooring ASAP.
But we languished on the decision. We thought, oh, we’ll wait til CJ’s a little bit older. We’ll wait til we have another baby. And all that putting off meant that in the mean time, we could get the carpet as messy as we liked, because who cared? We’d be replacing it eventually, right?
After an initial steam clean of all the carpeting in the house before we moved in, we reserved vacuuming for special occasions, like Christmas. Or if there was an inordinate amount of crumbs on the floor because someone ate cookies on the couch. The creaminess of the carpet began to fade, and the Pollock-esque stains of the previous owners became ever more prominent. When I could no longer stand to have my crawling baby eat his cheerios off of one particularly nasty black stain in front of the TV, we bought an area rug and covered it up. When I inadvertently spilled an entire cup of coffee over the back of the couch one morning, I blotted it with a couple of baby wipes and then ever so discreetly moved the couch back a couple of inches. No one was the wiser, I’m telling you!
Chris and I like to dream big, and we tossed around ideas about what to replace the carpet with for a long time. I was in favor of hardwood for the entire downstairs. He liked the division of tile, carpet, and hardwood that we currently had. I wanted wood on the stairs with a chic carpet runner in the middle, ending in a wooden landing and a neutral area rug. I think I lost Chris at “runner”. We both agreed on broadloom in the bedrooms, more for comfort when playing on the floor than anything else.
Eventually all our talk led us to a flooring store, which led to an estimate of what we thought we wanted (wood wood wood!), which led to us putting it all on the back burner for a while. We had dreamed big, all right—right out of our budget.
Until about a month ago, when we got a flier in the mail from our floor store for 50% off plus free labor (or something else equally enticing). Suddenly our flooring radar was up and decisions came more quickly. We’d just do the downstairs, and wait a while longer on the upstairs (I just couldn’t fathom having my entire house turned upside down and being pregnant at the same time). We’d pick a quality carpet but would be OK with laminate if the price and color were right. And we’d act fast—fast enough that the downstairs would be done in time for CJ’s birthday party at the end of May.
Our builder basic house is laid out in an O shape. The entryway is at the base of the O, and the floor there was a shellacked hardwood. To the right of the entryway is the dining room, which was carpeted, and to the left, the playroom/living room, also carpeted. The breakfast area is at the top of the O and it’s tiled, as is the kitchen, laundry room, and bathroom, which make up the rest of the downstairs. I conceded to Chris’s request to leave the tile where it is—he brought up washing machines and toilets and water damage and my argument for wood just didn’t hold up. Plus, he promised a future kitchen remodel replete with new tile and I couldn’t say no to that. But I could never understand why the dining room was carpeted, and we decided to put wood down in there and in the entryway. We’d keep carpet in the playroom/living room, but update it to suit our taste. And when it was all said and done, our downstairs flooring would be divided into three materials: tile, carpet, and wood.
On Decision Day we found a laminate at the floor store that was everything we wanted in a wood but about a third of the price, so we bought it. We stuck to our guns on the carpet though, picking a neat, burbur-esque pattern that it turns out, is the EXACT same color of our couch. You can take two things away from this, people: (1) When it comes to color, my tastes don’t really ever change, and (2) when Martha Stewart talks about carrying around a swatch book with all the paint colors and fabric patterns you have in your house, listen.
The floor was delivered last week so it could “acclimate” to our house, which admittedly, was kind of a joke, right? I mean come on, people, it’s laminate, which I think also means PLASTIC. Chris and his sister spent Saturday demoing the downstairs floors. Most of the laminate went in yesterday, and today I’m home “supervising” the carpet install. Currently they’re gluing two short pieces of carpet together to make one longer piece, and the fumes from the glue gun are just wonderful.
So I’m going to go continue “supervising” and maybe take a nap. They promised to be done with everything today, so hopefully I’ll have some gorgeous pictures of our brand new flooring for you soon!
But we languished on the decision. We thought, oh, we’ll wait til CJ’s a little bit older. We’ll wait til we have another baby. And all that putting off meant that in the mean time, we could get the carpet as messy as we liked, because who cared? We’d be replacing it eventually, right?
After an initial steam clean of all the carpeting in the house before we moved in, we reserved vacuuming for special occasions, like Christmas. Or if there was an inordinate amount of crumbs on the floor because someone ate cookies on the couch. The creaminess of the carpet began to fade, and the Pollock-esque stains of the previous owners became ever more prominent. When I could no longer stand to have my crawling baby eat his cheerios off of one particularly nasty black stain in front of the TV, we bought an area rug and covered it up. When I inadvertently spilled an entire cup of coffee over the back of the couch one morning, I blotted it with a couple of baby wipes and then ever so discreetly moved the couch back a couple of inches. No one was the wiser, I’m telling you!
Chris and I like to dream big, and we tossed around ideas about what to replace the carpet with for a long time. I was in favor of hardwood for the entire downstairs. He liked the division of tile, carpet, and hardwood that we currently had. I wanted wood on the stairs with a chic carpet runner in the middle, ending in a wooden landing and a neutral area rug. I think I lost Chris at “runner”. We both agreed on broadloom in the bedrooms, more for comfort when playing on the floor than anything else.
Eventually all our talk led us to a flooring store, which led to an estimate of what we thought we wanted (wood wood wood!), which led to us putting it all on the back burner for a while. We had dreamed big, all right—right out of our budget.
Until about a month ago, when we got a flier in the mail from our floor store for 50% off plus free labor (or something else equally enticing). Suddenly our flooring radar was up and decisions came more quickly. We’d just do the downstairs, and wait a while longer on the upstairs (I just couldn’t fathom having my entire house turned upside down and being pregnant at the same time). We’d pick a quality carpet but would be OK with laminate if the price and color were right. And we’d act fast—fast enough that the downstairs would be done in time for CJ’s birthday party at the end of May.
Our builder basic house is laid out in an O shape. The entryway is at the base of the O, and the floor there was a shellacked hardwood. To the right of the entryway is the dining room, which was carpeted, and to the left, the playroom/living room, also carpeted. The breakfast area is at the top of the O and it’s tiled, as is the kitchen, laundry room, and bathroom, which make up the rest of the downstairs. I conceded to Chris’s request to leave the tile where it is—he brought up washing machines and toilets and water damage and my argument for wood just didn’t hold up. Plus, he promised a future kitchen remodel replete with new tile and I couldn’t say no to that. But I could never understand why the dining room was carpeted, and we decided to put wood down in there and in the entryway. We’d keep carpet in the playroom/living room, but update it to suit our taste. And when it was all said and done, our downstairs flooring would be divided into three materials: tile, carpet, and wood.
On Decision Day we found a laminate at the floor store that was everything we wanted in a wood but about a third of the price, so we bought it. We stuck to our guns on the carpet though, picking a neat, burbur-esque pattern that it turns out, is the EXACT same color of our couch. You can take two things away from this, people: (1) When it comes to color, my tastes don’t really ever change, and (2) when Martha Stewart talks about carrying around a swatch book with all the paint colors and fabric patterns you have in your house, listen.
The floor was delivered last week so it could “acclimate” to our house, which admittedly, was kind of a joke, right? I mean come on, people, it’s laminate, which I think also means PLASTIC. Chris and his sister spent Saturday demoing the downstairs floors. Most of the laminate went in yesterday, and today I’m home “supervising” the carpet install. Currently they’re gluing two short pieces of carpet together to make one longer piece, and the fumes from the glue gun are just wonderful.
So I’m going to go continue “supervising” and maybe take a nap. They promised to be done with everything today, so hopefully I’ll have some gorgeous pictures of our brand new flooring for you soon!
Thursday, May 3, 2012
Just stop talking
I know we’ve all read posts about this before, but I have to say something about the amount of comments I’ve been getting lately on the size of my belly. I think I would be more understanding if I were, say, 37 weeks pregnant, but people, I’m 27 WEEKS PREGNANT. My baby is barely viable, and the fact that people think it’s OK to comment on my inevitable hugeness at this point is really upsetting, never mind completely inappropriate conversation for a depressed person!
I tweeted this earlier today: “Someone asked if I was pregnant with twins today. This is why pregnant women hate people.” The part about pregnant women hating people is something one of my other pregnant friends said a couple of weeks ago, and at the time, I thought it was a little extreme. But not anymore. My tweet was immediately retweeted by chambanamoms.com, and the thought of it going out to an even larger community of moms hit home with me how true the sentiment is.
We tried hard for this baby. We planned and dreamed and tried and tried and it took us almost a year to get pregnant. During that time, I went through ups and downs with my depression: the intense, achy longing of wanting to get pregnant replaced immediately with thoughts of doubt about my body and my abilities as a parent (maybe I can’t handle two) when my period would come each month, red and angry. I sought out the help of my midwives and eventually, an infertility doctor. I was taking the most miscellaneous assortment of pills: baby aspirin to thin my blood, Mucinex to thin my mucous (sorry if that’s TMI), extra folic acid to prevent spina bifida—every time I saw someone new they would recommend something else, something they’d read a study about that had worked, something a friend had tried, something that wouldn’t hurt to try, since I’d tried everything else.
All of this is not to say that I was infertile and you need to feel sorry for me. I’m not, thankfully, and I know my journey was not as hard as the one infertile couples often have to take. I believe we’re only given what we can handle, and that seemingly infinite string of months that I couldn’t get pregnant was just about all I could handle.
I wanted to celebrate in this pregnancy, revel in it, really, but it has been so much harder than the first. Morning sickness was worse. Then, just when I started to feel better, my clothes no longer fit. I needed pregnancy clothes at 18 weeks with CJ—this time around I was wearing them at 12. Sooner than I expected, my pelvic joints started to ache and before I’d reached 20 weeks, walking had become painful and I started to waddle. At 23 weeks I bought a pregnancy belt, after much hemming and hawing and disappointment over the fact that somehow, my body had failed me.
Reading over this it sounds petty, and I know I could have it so much worse. I really do. I work in labor and delivery at a high-risk hospital—I’ve seen pregnant women with cancer, who’ve suffered a stroke, who’ve been in a coma, who’ve miscarried so many times you wonder how they have the strength to keep trying. The point I’m trying to make is, now, finally, I’m enjoying my pregnancy. I’m used to the daily aches and pains and no longer resentful of my little belt. I’m happy my baby is healthy and growing, and so what if that means my stomach is getting bigger? Gaining weight has always been difficult for me, and at 27 weeks I can truthfully say I’ve never weighed this much in my life, but it is what it is, and it’s what I signed up for. And after everything, after the trying and the waiting and the four thankfully normal ultrasounds I’ve had to date I have to say, it’s been worth it.
So the next time you see me on the elevator at the hospital, or at Target, or wherever, I challenge you to not say anything. Just smile. That is all a pregnant woman needs: a smile. I don’t need to hear that you think I could be due any day now, I don’t need to hear that you think I’m having twins, I don’t really need to hear anything about the size of my belly, whether you think it’s grown a bit in the last week or I’m looking pretty good for my gestational age. I just need a smile, maybe a nod of acknowledgement, and that’s it.
Really.
Just stop talking.
I tweeted this earlier today: “Someone asked if I was pregnant with twins today. This is why pregnant women hate people.” The part about pregnant women hating people is something one of my other pregnant friends said a couple of weeks ago, and at the time, I thought it was a little extreme. But not anymore. My tweet was immediately retweeted by chambanamoms.com, and the thought of it going out to an even larger community of moms hit home with me how true the sentiment is.
We tried hard for this baby. We planned and dreamed and tried and tried and it took us almost a year to get pregnant. During that time, I went through ups and downs with my depression: the intense, achy longing of wanting to get pregnant replaced immediately with thoughts of doubt about my body and my abilities as a parent (maybe I can’t handle two) when my period would come each month, red and angry. I sought out the help of my midwives and eventually, an infertility doctor. I was taking the most miscellaneous assortment of pills: baby aspirin to thin my blood, Mucinex to thin my mucous (sorry if that’s TMI), extra folic acid to prevent spina bifida—every time I saw someone new they would recommend something else, something they’d read a study about that had worked, something a friend had tried, something that wouldn’t hurt to try, since I’d tried everything else.
All of this is not to say that I was infertile and you need to feel sorry for me. I’m not, thankfully, and I know my journey was not as hard as the one infertile couples often have to take. I believe we’re only given what we can handle, and that seemingly infinite string of months that I couldn’t get pregnant was just about all I could handle.
I wanted to celebrate in this pregnancy, revel in it, really, but it has been so much harder than the first. Morning sickness was worse. Then, just when I started to feel better, my clothes no longer fit. I needed pregnancy clothes at 18 weeks with CJ—this time around I was wearing them at 12. Sooner than I expected, my pelvic joints started to ache and before I’d reached 20 weeks, walking had become painful and I started to waddle. At 23 weeks I bought a pregnancy belt, after much hemming and hawing and disappointment over the fact that somehow, my body had failed me.
Reading over this it sounds petty, and I know I could have it so much worse. I really do. I work in labor and delivery at a high-risk hospital—I’ve seen pregnant women with cancer, who’ve suffered a stroke, who’ve been in a coma, who’ve miscarried so many times you wonder how they have the strength to keep trying. The point I’m trying to make is, now, finally, I’m enjoying my pregnancy. I’m used to the daily aches and pains and no longer resentful of my little belt. I’m happy my baby is healthy and growing, and so what if that means my stomach is getting bigger? Gaining weight has always been difficult for me, and at 27 weeks I can truthfully say I’ve never weighed this much in my life, but it is what it is, and it’s what I signed up for. And after everything, after the trying and the waiting and the four thankfully normal ultrasounds I’ve had to date I have to say, it’s been worth it.
So the next time you see me on the elevator at the hospital, or at Target, or wherever, I challenge you to not say anything. Just smile. That is all a pregnant woman needs: a smile. I don’t need to hear that you think I could be due any day now, I don’t need to hear that you think I’m having twins, I don’t really need to hear anything about the size of my belly, whether you think it’s grown a bit in the last week or I’m looking pretty good for my gestational age. I just need a smile, maybe a nod of acknowledgement, and that’s it.
Really.
Just stop talking.
Monday, April 30, 2012
Hungry, angry, lonely, tired
Have you heard of the HALT theory? I’ve only read about it relation to child rearing, and in an effort to not research anything further than I have to (I have a paying gig for that, yo), I’m just going to share the gist of the article I read. Basically, if you’re kid is upset for some unexplained reason, maybe he’s crying uncontrollably over a dropped cookie when you know he has no problem eating food off the floor, you can apply the HALT theory to figure out what’s really wrong. To do this, ask yourself, could he be Hungry? Is he Angry? Is he Lonely? Or is he Tired?
The idea is that once kids are beyond the baby phase, when you can rule out a dirty diaper as a possible cause of alarm, you can try HALT. Sometimes when CJ’s 18th fall off the couch results in tears, I just need to pull him onto my lap for a little snuggle time and he’s fine. Sometimes he needs an extra snack, or an earlier bedtime. But find a solution to HALT, and all is right in your preschooler’s world again.
I think the HALT theory applies to adults too, and even more intensely to pregnant women. When I’m hungry I get snappy, and Chris can do nothing right until he puts food in my belly (when I’m hungry I’m also incapable of producing an acceptable snack for myself). When I’m tired I’m unreasonable and while not as mean as when I’m hungry, I know if I don’t get a nap in I’ll be crabby for the rest of the day.
Today after work I was home by myself for an hour watching Lifetime Television for Women (The Client List is, rather unfortunately, a new guilty pleasure of mine) before Chris walked in the door with CJ. And the second he did I pounced on him (well, yelled, from my perch on the couch). He wanted ham for dinner, fine, but why wasn’t he making it? (Remember, I’m incapable of cooking at this point.) Didn’t he realize how hungry I was? That he had a child to feed who was hungry too? I yammered on in a similar vein, yelling more at the TV than my bewildered husband, until Chris started the painstakingly slow process of fixing dinner (the au gratin potatoes were first MIA, then once found, took a whopping 24 minutes in the microwave to cook).
Yes, I was hungry tonight and yes, I was probably tired, and both of those things contributed to my anger. Maybe I was lonely. I find I like being alone these days but maybe deep down I missed my family. Whatever it was, I think my anger was a cry for help. I was lashing out at Chris because I couldn’t find the simple words to say, “I miss you, talk to me.” Or “I’m sad, talk to me.” That, and I really WAS hungry.
My theory is that applying the HALT theory for adults is a nice quick fix, but it usually means there’s something deeper going on, like there was for me tonight. So the next time your friend or wife flips out over the fact that you plugged the food processor into the wrong plug (see month seven of my last pregnancy) ignore the crazy and ask what’s wrong. Go one step further and ask what you can do to help. Make her tell you, because she won’t want to at first. And then do what you can to make it better.
The idea is that once kids are beyond the baby phase, when you can rule out a dirty diaper as a possible cause of alarm, you can try HALT. Sometimes when CJ’s 18th fall off the couch results in tears, I just need to pull him onto my lap for a little snuggle time and he’s fine. Sometimes he needs an extra snack, or an earlier bedtime. But find a solution to HALT, and all is right in your preschooler’s world again.
I think the HALT theory applies to adults too, and even more intensely to pregnant women. When I’m hungry I get snappy, and Chris can do nothing right until he puts food in my belly (when I’m hungry I’m also incapable of producing an acceptable snack for myself). When I’m tired I’m unreasonable and while not as mean as when I’m hungry, I know if I don’t get a nap in I’ll be crabby for the rest of the day.
Today after work I was home by myself for an hour watching Lifetime Television for Women (The Client List is, rather unfortunately, a new guilty pleasure of mine) before Chris walked in the door with CJ. And the second he did I pounced on him (well, yelled, from my perch on the couch). He wanted ham for dinner, fine, but why wasn’t he making it? (Remember, I’m incapable of cooking at this point.) Didn’t he realize how hungry I was? That he had a child to feed who was hungry too? I yammered on in a similar vein, yelling more at the TV than my bewildered husband, until Chris started the painstakingly slow process of fixing dinner (the au gratin potatoes were first MIA, then once found, took a whopping 24 minutes in the microwave to cook).
Yes, I was hungry tonight and yes, I was probably tired, and both of those things contributed to my anger. Maybe I was lonely. I find I like being alone these days but maybe deep down I missed my family. Whatever it was, I think my anger was a cry for help. I was lashing out at Chris because I couldn’t find the simple words to say, “I miss you, talk to me.” Or “I’m sad, talk to me.” That, and I really WAS hungry.
My theory is that applying the HALT theory for adults is a nice quick fix, but it usually means there’s something deeper going on, like there was for me tonight. So the next time your friend or wife flips out over the fact that you plugged the food processor into the wrong plug (see month seven of my last pregnancy) ignore the crazy and ask what’s wrong. Go one step further and ask what you can do to help. Make her tell you, because she won’t want to at first. And then do what you can to make it better.
Sunday, April 29, 2012
She’s baaaaack…
I hate introductory posts. Or explanatory posts. Or any post that isn’t witty, insightful, and hilarious all at the same time. I hate them mostly because when this blog gets turned into a book (HA!), it’s these types of posts that really break the flow of the thing, you know? Blah blah blah I was living a great life over the summer but for whatever reason, I stopped blogging. Blah blah blah it turns out blogging was THERAPEUTIC for me, yes, THERAPEUTIC, and taking the time to put words on this website is actually what kept me sane all those months last year. Because now, now that things have HAPPENED in my life, now that I have a new job and a baby on the way and I’m out of that limbo place and into something real, things are much, much harder. Things that used to be easy, making dinner, playing with CJ, heck, even taking a shower, are now monumental tasks that it takes an incredible amount of help and motivation for me to overcome (OK, I don’t need help in the shower, but let’s just say it’s been at least six weeks since I shaved my legs, and I went swimming last weekend and DIDN’T EVEN NOTICE my hair growth until after I was done and drying myself off).
So, in lieu of taking meds that may potentially harm my baby—wait, that sounds bad. If you have depression and need or want to take medicine during your pregnancy I think that’s GREAT! If it’s what you need and it’s what you and your provider have discussed it will most likely be what’s best for you AND your baby in the end. But I…I, am more of an oscillator. I like to think about things, like, for a really long time. And if I don’t want to do something, I like to think about it for even longer. So long, in fact, that I wasn’t ready to talk about my potential need for depression medication til week 26 of my pregnancy. And let me tell you people, week 26 is the beginning of the third trimester, and the third trimester is too late for my best friend Zoloft to join me in my creation of new life.
So, blogging it is. And I’ll maybe talk to someone about how I’m feeling, IF I can get up the nerve to send her an e-mail. Her e-mail was on her card. Weird, right? Like, can I e-mail her at 4 AM on a Sunday and ask for an appointment? Is that appropriate? Hi, you’ve never met me, but I’m so depressed I feel I can no longer handle carrying this child and I’d really like to talk to you as soon as possible, thanks! But I don’t know, I’ve been out of the therapy game for a while so maybe this is what it is now. (Even so, I think I’ll e-mail her on Monday, during regular office hours, when she can be expecting such ridiculous things).
All this is to say, we’re hitting this newfangled form of my depression from two avenues—blogging and talk therapy. If this doesn’t work and I can’t make it to 40 weeks, Zoloft it is.
Not all of my posts will be this depressing, I promise. And I’m going to leave my posts from last year up here, because besides that OTHER introductory one I did (chronicles of my overexamined BARF), I think they’re just fine. So enjoy the five posts I have in the archives and maybe I’ll get something new out here sometime soon. If not, you know where to find me—at the drugstore picking up my prescription for Vitamin Z.
So, in lieu of taking meds that may potentially harm my baby—wait, that sounds bad. If you have depression and need or want to take medicine during your pregnancy I think that’s GREAT! If it’s what you need and it’s what you and your provider have discussed it will most likely be what’s best for you AND your baby in the end. But I…I, am more of an oscillator. I like to think about things, like, for a really long time. And if I don’t want to do something, I like to think about it for even longer. So long, in fact, that I wasn’t ready to talk about my potential need for depression medication til week 26 of my pregnancy. And let me tell you people, week 26 is the beginning of the third trimester, and the third trimester is too late for my best friend Zoloft to join me in my creation of new life.
So, blogging it is. And I’ll maybe talk to someone about how I’m feeling, IF I can get up the nerve to send her an e-mail. Her e-mail was on her card. Weird, right? Like, can I e-mail her at 4 AM on a Sunday and ask for an appointment? Is that appropriate? Hi, you’ve never met me, but I’m so depressed I feel I can no longer handle carrying this child and I’d really like to talk to you as soon as possible, thanks! But I don’t know, I’ve been out of the therapy game for a while so maybe this is what it is now. (Even so, I think I’ll e-mail her on Monday, during regular office hours, when she can be expecting such ridiculous things).
All this is to say, we’re hitting this newfangled form of my depression from two avenues—blogging and talk therapy. If this doesn’t work and I can’t make it to 40 weeks, Zoloft it is.
Not all of my posts will be this depressing, I promise. And I’m going to leave my posts from last year up here, because besides that OTHER introductory one I did (chronicles of my overexamined BARF), I think they’re just fine. So enjoy the five posts I have in the archives and maybe I’ll get something new out here sometime soon. If not, you know where to find me—at the drugstore picking up my prescription for Vitamin Z.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Wannabe
There are so many moms that I want to be. Here are a few off the top of my head:
But I try my hardest, and I’ve got to say, our library’s weekly story hour is a virtual melting pot for all of the mom types above (and probably a few more). I’m a visual learner, so when I’m there I mom-watch as much as I can without embarrassing my child or myself.
Today I witnessed The Carefree Mom in action. When she couldn’t find her three-year-old, she told her one-year-old, “I’ll be right back,” and left him in the story room so she could go get his brother. I was appalled. I could never just leave my baby in a room while I stepped out for who knows how long. It would only take a couple of extra seconds to scoop him up and bring him with me. Besides, if I left him, something could happen to him! To my BABY! On the other hand, I was a little jealous. Maybe I need to put my kid on a longer leash. Stepping 10 feet away from him (even if I walk through a DOOR!) will most likely not harm him. Although, the total meltdown and bloodcurdling screams he’d surely issue may bother some of our fellow library patrons.
What I’m trying to explore here is how I feel like I’m never good enough. No matter how many books I read, how many gallons of organic milk I bring home, or how I try to justify buying things on sale at Ann Taylor Loft as saving money, I’ll never be the mom I think I should be. And I think there’s only one answer to that: figure out the mom I WANT to be, and then do it. Be her. Don’t let anyone else’s opinions on child rearing get in my way. If I want to buy all organic, find a way in the budget to do it. If I want to save money on clothes, find a way to do that without hitting garage sales (I just can’t stomach the thought of where those clothes have been. Unless I know you, and you tell me where, and I use lots of detergent and the Sanitize setting on my washing machine). And if I want to do more things with my child (like baking and crafting, which I believe the Always-On Mom does) then I need to stop fantasizing about it and make it happen. Which involves deciding what craft I want to do, buying the supplies, and not feeling guilty about spending money on something that will probably only bring CJ joy for a couple of hours (heck, if that’s my logic, I’ve got four bins of toys for the consignment shop in my basement that blow it out of the water).
The bottom line is, for all my observing I’m not doing a lot of changing, but I want to. I’m going to try to figure out the kind of mom I want to be. I’ll pull what qualities I want from that list of moms above, add some new ones, and then I’ll be the best mom I can to my kid, a mom who knows what she’s about and who can feel confident in her choices, even if they don’t fit into the cookie-cutter version of the perfect mom we all wanna be.
- The Granola Mom, who feeds her kids a strictly organic diet, never lets sugar into her house, and doesn’t even own a TV.
- The Handmade Mom, who makes clothes for her kids, sews toys for them, and has a handy husband to boot.
- The Goodwill/Garage Sale Mom, who’s always on a hunt for a good bargain, who has no qualms about the people who may have previously worn her or her kids clothes, and who is saving her family a buttload of money on their wardrobes.
- The Skinny Mom. There are two types of Skinny Moms: the ones who have to work at it and the ones who don’t. I would be happy to be either.
- The Stylish Mom, who always looks put together, even when she’s clutching a potty-training two-year-old who’s just wet his pants.
- The Always-On Mom, who finds an opportunity for fun and learning even in the most everyday activities, like walking to the car.
- The Researching Mom, who has read every book about child rearing she can get her hands on and who, when she asks her 15-month old to use her words, actually expects her to do it.
- The Entrepreneur Mom, who has somehow found a way to work at home and make lots of money and still be with (and enjoy) her kids at the same time.
But I try my hardest, and I’ve got to say, our library’s weekly story hour is a virtual melting pot for all of the mom types above (and probably a few more). I’m a visual learner, so when I’m there I mom-watch as much as I can without embarrassing my child or myself.
Today I witnessed The Carefree Mom in action. When she couldn’t find her three-year-old, she told her one-year-old, “I’ll be right back,” and left him in the story room so she could go get his brother. I was appalled. I could never just leave my baby in a room while I stepped out for who knows how long. It would only take a couple of extra seconds to scoop him up and bring him with me. Besides, if I left him, something could happen to him! To my BABY! On the other hand, I was a little jealous. Maybe I need to put my kid on a longer leash. Stepping 10 feet away from him (even if I walk through a DOOR!) will most likely not harm him. Although, the total meltdown and bloodcurdling screams he’d surely issue may bother some of our fellow library patrons.
What I’m trying to explore here is how I feel like I’m never good enough. No matter how many books I read, how many gallons of organic milk I bring home, or how I try to justify buying things on sale at Ann Taylor Loft as saving money, I’ll never be the mom I think I should be. And I think there’s only one answer to that: figure out the mom I WANT to be, and then do it. Be her. Don’t let anyone else’s opinions on child rearing get in my way. If I want to buy all organic, find a way in the budget to do it. If I want to save money on clothes, find a way to do that without hitting garage sales (I just can’t stomach the thought of where those clothes have been. Unless I know you, and you tell me where, and I use lots of detergent and the Sanitize setting on my washing machine). And if I want to do more things with my child (like baking and crafting, which I believe the Always-On Mom does) then I need to stop fantasizing about it and make it happen. Which involves deciding what craft I want to do, buying the supplies, and not feeling guilty about spending money on something that will probably only bring CJ joy for a couple of hours (heck, if that’s my logic, I’ve got four bins of toys for the consignment shop in my basement that blow it out of the water).
The bottom line is, for all my observing I’m not doing a lot of changing, but I want to. I’m going to try to figure out the kind of mom I want to be. I’ll pull what qualities I want from that list of moms above, add some new ones, and then I’ll be the best mom I can to my kid, a mom who knows what she’s about and who can feel confident in her choices, even if they don’t fit into the cookie-cutter version of the perfect mom we all wanna be.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
What I bought at Target this week: Greenroom school supplies
I often think that even if I lived at Target, I would still need things from Target. I make it there about once a week, whether for toothpaste, ibuprofen, or to refill my stash of $1 toys for CJ. In this series of posts, I'll be featuring some of my favorite things.
Loving these new Greenroom composition books I found at Target this week. They’re perfect for journaling or jotting quick lists or notes, and at $2 a pop, they’re a steal! I bought a couple to have on hand—go out and get yours before all those back-to-schoolers snatch them up!
Also worth mentioning: the Greenroom 6” x 8” planner I picked up as I wandered down the school supply aisle (I bought the bottom one with the leaves). Separate month and week pages (they’re all lined! Love!), maps, conversions, even a space for important dates in the front of the book. This is the third planner I’ve bought this year and I think it’s a keeper.
Loving these new Greenroom composition books I found at Target this week. They’re perfect for journaling or jotting quick lists or notes, and at $2 a pop, they’re a steal! I bought a couple to have on hand—go out and get yours before all those back-to-schoolers snatch them up!
Also worth mentioning: the Greenroom 6” x 8” planner I picked up as I wandered down the school supply aisle (I bought the bottom one with the leaves). Separate month and week pages (they’re all lined! Love!), maps, conversions, even a space for important dates in the front of the book. This is the third planner I’ve bought this year and I think it’s a keeper.
Friday, June 24, 2011
Depression
She woke up with a start. Her husband’s alarm sounded exactly like a truck backing up, only loudly, and right next to her head. He snoozed his habitual three times before she kicked him in the shin in a plea for him to turn it off already. He complied, getting up and heading to the shower, but not before opening the door to their three-year-old’s bedroom.
Pad-pad-pad, she heard, the sound of little feet on the floor. He was running to her room now, eager to start his day. Mostly, eager to start talking to her. It seemed from the minute he woke up to the minute she put him to bed at night (his father was in charge of his bedtime routine, but he would call for her after he was tucked in, and she would go, she would always go) he was talking. He only stopped talking to eat, or to watch snippets of beyond-his-years cartoons, like Scooby-Doo or Iron Man. Why had she let him check that out at the library? Oh right, to get him to stop screaming.
She turned over before the little feet crossed the threshold to her room. Maybe she could pretend to be asleep. Maybe he wouldn’t bother her. The feet stopped next to her side of the bed. “Mommmmeeeeee, wake up…” he said in that sing-songy voice of his, the one he combined with a devilish smile whenever he was asking for something she didn’t want him to have, like marshmallows for breakfast or yet another bouncy ball (didn’t the kid have enough?)
He was turning into a spoiled brat, a phrase her mother had used with her, a phrase she hated, but nonetheless, it was true. Nothing made him happy anymore. He always wanted just a little more than she was willing (or able) to give. Just he day before he had demanded to go to the store:
“I want to go to the store, Mommy.”
“Oh really? What do you need at the store?”
“More bouncy balls.” (Again with the bouncy balls!)
“You just got four new bouncy balls yesterday.” This was, unfortunately, true.
“I. Want. MORE!” He shouted each word slowly, making sure she understood.
“No.”
And then the crying started. It always did. He could turn it on and off in seconds, a true pro. She was so sick of the crying. So sick of the manipulation, the saying no, the having to deny him what he wanted and the fits that came afterward. Why couldn’t they just want the same things? Better yet, why couldn’t he be a baby again, when he would take three naps a day and she would watch HGTV and everything was easy?
She alternately wished for the past or the future—he would go back to daycare in the Fall. She had thought she wanted to stay home with him for the summer, thought she was missing out on all his milestones and rearranged her work schedule to be with him. But it was as she always suspected. She wasn’t supposed to be a stay-at-home-mom. She didn’t have the patience for it. But most of all, she worried, she didn’t have the heart.
She knew she’d be bored this summer so she overscheduled him in activities, but repeatedly she found herself oversleeping for his daily swim lessons. He mostly hated it, so she was mostly fine with him missing them. But then she would think about the money she’d paid, the fantasies she carried with her about him being on the swim team one day, and she would feel guilty. Guilty was all she was feeling these days, it seemed.
She would make him nap, the one concession she had in her day, and often he would protest, yelling at her through the thin wall that divided their rooms. But sleep would always come, and after he was quiet, she would sleep too.
The thing she dreaded most was when he would wake up from his naps. A measly hour and a half and he would call out to her (the calling out was endless, it seemed), “Mama! Mommmmeeeeee! Mama!” He would make his cries last minutes, never seeming to need to breathe. Indeed, she wondered how he did it. How those tiny lungs filled up and held his voice just long enough to guilt her into getting out of bed.
She wore her pajamas all day, every day now. She didn’t shower, she didn’t see the point. She used to at least brush her teeth and change into those ubiquitous black stretchy pants all moms seemed to wear but now she wondered why she even bothered dirtying those. And a bra? Once a prudish girl who never wanted to be seen without one, she was answering the door to UPS men and the like with her lopsided, post-breastfeeding boobs sagging down to her knees.
Worst of all, she didn’t care.
She would see moms at the pool who seemed to have it all together. The perfect post-baby bodies, swimsuits with matching cover-ups, four kids and still they brought books to read! She couldn’t take her eyes off her little angel for a second, except when inevitably she did, and then she would frantically search for him in the sea of toddlers at the kiddie pool, her breath finally letting out when her eyes landed on his sandy blond mop, his toddler tummy sticking out from under his swim shirt.
She loved him, she really did. And that was the problem. All she wanted was to be worthy of his love, and deep down, she knew she wasn’t. She was too selfish; she wanted too much herself to really be able to be there for him. It wasn’t like she hadn’t tried. She had, in her way. She scheduled playdates and trips to the museum and lessons (so many lessons!) and if they were out of the house, she could almost handle it. But at home, when her computer was out and her bed was right upstairs she couldn’t help herself, she turned on the TV and she snapped at him to go play in his playroom, the one she had spent weeks decorating and getting just right. And then she retreated into herself, counting down the minutes until bedtime, when she could go back to her own bed, relishing in the quiet before sleep when she was completely, finally, alone.
Pad-pad-pad, she heard, the sound of little feet on the floor. He was running to her room now, eager to start his day. Mostly, eager to start talking to her. It seemed from the minute he woke up to the minute she put him to bed at night (his father was in charge of his bedtime routine, but he would call for her after he was tucked in, and she would go, she would always go) he was talking. He only stopped talking to eat, or to watch snippets of beyond-his-years cartoons, like Scooby-Doo or Iron Man. Why had she let him check that out at the library? Oh right, to get him to stop screaming.
She turned over before the little feet crossed the threshold to her room. Maybe she could pretend to be asleep. Maybe he wouldn’t bother her. The feet stopped next to her side of the bed. “Mommmmeeeeee, wake up…” he said in that sing-songy voice of his, the one he combined with a devilish smile whenever he was asking for something she didn’t want him to have, like marshmallows for breakfast or yet another bouncy ball (didn’t the kid have enough?)
He was turning into a spoiled brat, a phrase her mother had used with her, a phrase she hated, but nonetheless, it was true. Nothing made him happy anymore. He always wanted just a little more than she was willing (or able) to give. Just he day before he had demanded to go to the store:
“I want to go to the store, Mommy.”
“Oh really? What do you need at the store?”
“More bouncy balls.” (Again with the bouncy balls!)
“You just got four new bouncy balls yesterday.” This was, unfortunately, true.
“I. Want. MORE!” He shouted each word slowly, making sure she understood.
“No.”
And then the crying started. It always did. He could turn it on and off in seconds, a true pro. She was so sick of the crying. So sick of the manipulation, the saying no, the having to deny him what he wanted and the fits that came afterward. Why couldn’t they just want the same things? Better yet, why couldn’t he be a baby again, when he would take three naps a day and she would watch HGTV and everything was easy?
She alternately wished for the past or the future—he would go back to daycare in the Fall. She had thought she wanted to stay home with him for the summer, thought she was missing out on all his milestones and rearranged her work schedule to be with him. But it was as she always suspected. She wasn’t supposed to be a stay-at-home-mom. She didn’t have the patience for it. But most of all, she worried, she didn’t have the heart.
She knew she’d be bored this summer so she overscheduled him in activities, but repeatedly she found herself oversleeping for his daily swim lessons. He mostly hated it, so she was mostly fine with him missing them. But then she would think about the money she’d paid, the fantasies she carried with her about him being on the swim team one day, and she would feel guilty. Guilty was all she was feeling these days, it seemed.
She would make him nap, the one concession she had in her day, and often he would protest, yelling at her through the thin wall that divided their rooms. But sleep would always come, and after he was quiet, she would sleep too.
The thing she dreaded most was when he would wake up from his naps. A measly hour and a half and he would call out to her (the calling out was endless, it seemed), “Mama! Mommmmeeeeee! Mama!” He would make his cries last minutes, never seeming to need to breathe. Indeed, she wondered how he did it. How those tiny lungs filled up and held his voice just long enough to guilt her into getting out of bed.
She wore her pajamas all day, every day now. She didn’t shower, she didn’t see the point. She used to at least brush her teeth and change into those ubiquitous black stretchy pants all moms seemed to wear but now she wondered why she even bothered dirtying those. And a bra? Once a prudish girl who never wanted to be seen without one, she was answering the door to UPS men and the like with her lopsided, post-breastfeeding boobs sagging down to her knees.
Worst of all, she didn’t care.
She would see moms at the pool who seemed to have it all together. The perfect post-baby bodies, swimsuits with matching cover-ups, four kids and still they brought books to read! She couldn’t take her eyes off her little angel for a second, except when inevitably she did, and then she would frantically search for him in the sea of toddlers at the kiddie pool, her breath finally letting out when her eyes landed on his sandy blond mop, his toddler tummy sticking out from under his swim shirt.
She loved him, she really did. And that was the problem. All she wanted was to be worthy of his love, and deep down, she knew she wasn’t. She was too selfish; she wanted too much herself to really be able to be there for him. It wasn’t like she hadn’t tried. She had, in her way. She scheduled playdates and trips to the museum and lessons (so many lessons!) and if they were out of the house, she could almost handle it. But at home, when her computer was out and her bed was right upstairs she couldn’t help herself, she turned on the TV and she snapped at him to go play in his playroom, the one she had spent weeks decorating and getting just right. And then she retreated into herself, counting down the minutes until bedtime, when she could go back to her own bed, relishing in the quiet before sleep when she was completely, finally, alone.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Preparation
Near the end of my pregnancy everyone always told me that I should get as much sleep as I could. That I should store it up for the time after the baby came, as I would experience sleepless nights more horrible than even my giddy, first-time-mom brain could imagine. As if we can create a sleep store for ourselves and draw on it whenever we need it. I’d like forty-five minutes of REM during my afternoon nap, please. As if.
But that’s what I seem to be doing these days. Only, I’m not storing sleep, I’m storing weekends. I recently found out that I’ll be able to do a weekend option at work, which is wonderful in that it includes a premium pay rate but also slightly concerning because I’ll be working seven out of eight weekends in a row and my family time, my me time, heck, even my nap time will all but disappear.
I don’t know if it’s because it’s how the rest of the world works or because I worked in an office for years but weekends have always seemed like a gift to me. A two-day period with no work obligations where you could plan anything from a weekend getaway to an all-night movie marathon and nothing would get in your way. Even now that I work every other weekend I still look forward to Fridays as a night I can truly relax with Chris, watch Fringe, and veg out on the couch.
But lately I’ve been grieving the loss of my weekends. I know that sounds stupid, but how else can I say it? I’ve been savoring each minute of each weekend day, knowing that in less than two weeks my schedule will change and I’ll be giving up my weekends almost completely. I even cried a little over it Sunday night when I realized we won’t get to make a big Sunday dinner together again for eight weeks. I won’t get to take a Saturday-morning nap while Chris does kid-duty for EIGHT WEEKS. Eight weeks suddenly seems like A Very Long Time.
We had a good run, weekends and me. Sleeping in when I was single, going to church on the odd Sunday, visiting Chicago for major holidays. Then later, sleeping in with Chris, going to the gym on Saturday mornings, and running mundane errands together, like to Home Depot or the grocery store. And now, pancake breakfasts with CJ, spur-of-the-moment trips to McDonald’s to play in their PlayPlace, and all of us snuggling in bed together for afternoon nap.
I have, of course, being both a planner and a little bit OCD about my ever-evolving schedule, mapped out the weekends I’ll have off for the next year. We’re already planning big things for my first one, in mid-June. And Chris said we could try our best to make my weekends off special, maybe do some day-trips or even an overnight somewhere. But what I really want to do on those rare weekends off is nothing. I want to spend time with my family, in our house, together. We can sleep in til 11 and watch HGTV and eat our pancake breakfast and cook our big Sunday dinner and sit on the couch and just be. To me, a weekend with no plans would be the best plan of all.
But that’s what I seem to be doing these days. Only, I’m not storing sleep, I’m storing weekends. I recently found out that I’ll be able to do a weekend option at work, which is wonderful in that it includes a premium pay rate but also slightly concerning because I’ll be working seven out of eight weekends in a row and my family time, my me time, heck, even my nap time will all but disappear.
I don’t know if it’s because it’s how the rest of the world works or because I worked in an office for years but weekends have always seemed like a gift to me. A two-day period with no work obligations where you could plan anything from a weekend getaway to an all-night movie marathon and nothing would get in your way. Even now that I work every other weekend I still look forward to Fridays as a night I can truly relax with Chris, watch Fringe, and veg out on the couch.
But lately I’ve been grieving the loss of my weekends. I know that sounds stupid, but how else can I say it? I’ve been savoring each minute of each weekend day, knowing that in less than two weeks my schedule will change and I’ll be giving up my weekends almost completely. I even cried a little over it Sunday night when I realized we won’t get to make a big Sunday dinner together again for eight weeks. I won’t get to take a Saturday-morning nap while Chris does kid-duty for EIGHT WEEKS. Eight weeks suddenly seems like A Very Long Time.
We had a good run, weekends and me. Sleeping in when I was single, going to church on the odd Sunday, visiting Chicago for major holidays. Then later, sleeping in with Chris, going to the gym on Saturday mornings, and running mundane errands together, like to Home Depot or the grocery store. And now, pancake breakfasts with CJ, spur-of-the-moment trips to McDonald’s to play in their PlayPlace, and all of us snuggling in bed together for afternoon nap.
I have, of course, being both a planner and a little bit OCD about my ever-evolving schedule, mapped out the weekends I’ll have off for the next year. We’re already planning big things for my first one, in mid-June. And Chris said we could try our best to make my weekends off special, maybe do some day-trips or even an overnight somewhere. But what I really want to do on those rare weekends off is nothing. I want to spend time with my family, in our house, together. We can sleep in til 11 and watch HGTV and eat our pancake breakfast and cook our big Sunday dinner and sit on the couch and just be. To me, a weekend with no plans would be the best plan of all.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Honestly
Lately I’ve been feeling so unsure of myself, of who I am. I feel...not like I’m at a crossroads, but like I’m not even on the road to begin with. Like I have no choices, only dreams. I think I have that new Facebook Depression. I hear things about people and I’m immediately jealous: he’s going back to school, she has an amazing job as a travel writer, he lives in Seattle. At times I wonder if I will ever truly be happy, but mostly I just wonder if I would be happier doing something else. Anything else. Anything else besides working full time and raising my kid part time and living in the Midwest in a house we can barely afford.
It feels like I have three choices for my fantasy future: (1) be a stay at home mom, (2) go back to school and get my PhD in Nursing, or (3) be a writer. I can’t do any of these things with a small child, it seems (well OK, I could be a stay at home mom, but we depend on my income to buy said small child such frivolous items as food and clothing). So I feel like what I have to do is just wait.
I have an amazing opportunity at work to make a little more money, which will be absolutely wonderful, since we’re up to our ears in debt. We’ve started thinking recently about adding to our family, and again, wonderful. But I still can’t let myself be happy. Never mind happy, I can’t let myself just be. I can’t be happy for someone’s acceptance into a master’s program, their new job, or their big move cross country “just because,” without being a little bit jealous. Because I wish wish WISH it were me.
I was complaining to my best friend about the ugliness of our kitchen cabinets over lunch one day and she told me how important it is to appreciate what we have. I think I said something like, “I know, but if we could just paint them white my life would be about 1000% better.” Since then, though, I’ve thought about our conversation and wished even harder that my life could be different.
Just kidding!
Really, I’ve tried harder to appreciate our house and the fact that though it actually does look like it was built 15 years ago, it’s a spacious house we’re comfortable living in. I’ve tried harder to appreciate my time at home with CJ, and there are days when I feel really good about my abilities as a mother. I’ve always loved my work, and I’ve had more and more shifts recently where I’ve thought, “Hey, I’m actually good at this.” (As someone with the lowest self-esteem on record, this is a Big Deal.)
But then I have a week like this one, where nothing seems to be getting better and all I want is for the next chapter of my life to come, maybe the New Baby chapter, or the CJ Goes to School and I Finally have Some Time for Myself chapter, or even the Our Debt is Paid Off and We Can Go on Vacation chapter. But the reality is, all I’m headed for tonight is the I Need to Up my Dosage chapter and while that may do the trick, it just isn’t one I want to read.
It feels like I have three choices for my fantasy future: (1) be a stay at home mom, (2) go back to school and get my PhD in Nursing, or (3) be a writer. I can’t do any of these things with a small child, it seems (well OK, I could be a stay at home mom, but we depend on my income to buy said small child such frivolous items as food and clothing). So I feel like what I have to do is just wait.
I have an amazing opportunity at work to make a little more money, which will be absolutely wonderful, since we’re up to our ears in debt. We’ve started thinking recently about adding to our family, and again, wonderful. But I still can’t let myself be happy. Never mind happy, I can’t let myself just be. I can’t be happy for someone’s acceptance into a master’s program, their new job, or their big move cross country “just because,” without being a little bit jealous. Because I wish wish WISH it were me.
I was complaining to my best friend about the ugliness of our kitchen cabinets over lunch one day and she told me how important it is to appreciate what we have. I think I said something like, “I know, but if we could just paint them white my life would be about 1000% better.” Since then, though, I’ve thought about our conversation and wished even harder that my life could be different.
Just kidding!
Really, I’ve tried harder to appreciate our house and the fact that though it actually does look like it was built 15 years ago, it’s a spacious house we’re comfortable living in. I’ve tried harder to appreciate my time at home with CJ, and there are days when I feel really good about my abilities as a mother. I’ve always loved my work, and I’ve had more and more shifts recently where I’ve thought, “Hey, I’m actually good at this.” (As someone with the lowest self-esteem on record, this is a Big Deal.)
But then I have a week like this one, where nothing seems to be getting better and all I want is for the next chapter of my life to come, maybe the New Baby chapter, or the CJ Goes to School and I Finally have Some Time for Myself chapter, or even the Our Debt is Paid Off and We Can Go on Vacation chapter. But the reality is, all I’m headed for tonight is the I Need to Up my Dosage chapter and while that may do the trick, it just isn’t one I want to read.
Friday, March 11, 2011
Sick day
It’s sad how, when I think about it, CJ hasn’t fallen asleep in my arms since he was a baby. I still remember those nights when we first brought him home and even for months after, when I would sing to him and plead with him to please JUST FALL ASLEEP. Most nights I would cry, I was so tired. I would cry and sing and rock him and sometimes, magically, he would fall asleep as I held him. Each time it happened I would count it as a miracle.
So we did that again today. But I wasn’t crying, and I wasn’t rocking him. We were in his big recliner, reading stories before nap, and after I closed our book of fairy tales I told him how good he’d been at the doctor today, and how brave he was when the doctor had to swab the back of his throat, how it was amazing that he didn’t cry until after the doctor left and I wouldn’t let him eat the secret stash of marshmallows he found in my diaper bag.
CJ has Strep throat. I came home last night to Chris and CJ spooning on the couch, a rare position for them only because CJ’s not one to sit still for very long, definitely not long enough to spoon with someone. He said he was too tired to eat, and when I felt his head for a fever I marveled at how old the skin on my hand looked next to the young, porcelain skin of his face. Fever confirmed, I looked at his throat and saw redness and inflammation, and that telltale white pus they say to look out for with Strep.
As we arrived at the doctor today, I had mixed feelings. Part of me can’t stand to see my child sick and definitely hoped the fever was a one-off that meant nothing. But part of me almost wanted him to have Strep because (1) I’d have been right with my at-home diagnosis (and really, it’s all about me, isn’t it?) and (2) strep is TREATABLE. It’s not, “Well, this virus has been lasting anywhere from four to six weeks, and while we can’t recommend you give your child any cold medicine, try a teaspoonful of honey when his cough gets really bad,” which is what I heard at the doctor last month when I took CJ in. Instead, THERE’S A CURE: antibiotics! And not just antibiotics, the FIRST antibiotic, Penicillin!
So, CJ’s had approximately one teaspoonful of cherry flavored penicillin, half of which I had to force down his throat because the kid that, sick or not, asks for bubble-gum Tylenol and berry-flavored ibuprofen on a near-daily basis, somehow doesn’t like this. I tried explaining that there are some things in life that we don’t like but have to do anyway, especially if it’s for the good of others, which this is. Then I tried to talk about germs and not making other kids at his daycare sick and his eyes glazed over and he asked if we could go watch another episode of Max and Ruby.
For now he sleeps, and the part of me that hoped he had Strep also hopes he takes an extra-long nap. But the other part of me can’t believe that my tiny baby, the one I swaddled and rocked and sang to and cried on all those months ago, has his first bout of Strep throat and is taking his first round of antibiotics. This is one milestone I hoped we wouldn’t get to so soon.
So we did that again today. But I wasn’t crying, and I wasn’t rocking him. We were in his big recliner, reading stories before nap, and after I closed our book of fairy tales I told him how good he’d been at the doctor today, and how brave he was when the doctor had to swab the back of his throat, how it was amazing that he didn’t cry until after the doctor left and I wouldn’t let him eat the secret stash of marshmallows he found in my diaper bag.
CJ has Strep throat. I came home last night to Chris and CJ spooning on the couch, a rare position for them only because CJ’s not one to sit still for very long, definitely not long enough to spoon with someone. He said he was too tired to eat, and when I felt his head for a fever I marveled at how old the skin on my hand looked next to the young, porcelain skin of his face. Fever confirmed, I looked at his throat and saw redness and inflammation, and that telltale white pus they say to look out for with Strep.
As we arrived at the doctor today, I had mixed feelings. Part of me can’t stand to see my child sick and definitely hoped the fever was a one-off that meant nothing. But part of me almost wanted him to have Strep because (1) I’d have been right with my at-home diagnosis (and really, it’s all about me, isn’t it?) and (2) strep is TREATABLE. It’s not, “Well, this virus has been lasting anywhere from four to six weeks, and while we can’t recommend you give your child any cold medicine, try a teaspoonful of honey when his cough gets really bad,” which is what I heard at the doctor last month when I took CJ in. Instead, THERE’S A CURE: antibiotics! And not just antibiotics, the FIRST antibiotic, Penicillin!
So, CJ’s had approximately one teaspoonful of cherry flavored penicillin, half of which I had to force down his throat because the kid that, sick or not, asks for bubble-gum Tylenol and berry-flavored ibuprofen on a near-daily basis, somehow doesn’t like this. I tried explaining that there are some things in life that we don’t like but have to do anyway, especially if it’s for the good of others, which this is. Then I tried to talk about germs and not making other kids at his daycare sick and his eyes glazed over and he asked if we could go watch another episode of Max and Ruby.
For now he sleeps, and the part of me that hoped he had Strep also hopes he takes an extra-long nap. But the other part of me can’t believe that my tiny baby, the one I swaddled and rocked and sang to and cried on all those months ago, has his first bout of Strep throat and is taking his first round of antibiotics. This is one milestone I hoped we wouldn’t get to so soon.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Push it
As I sat on the floor with my son this afternoon, cheering him on as he pushed out a particularly constipated batch of poop, it occurred to me just how much time I spend encouraging people to push ridiculously large things through impossibly small holes. Why have I chosen this as my profession? Who am I kidding? It never gets any easier.
CJ was lying in the lithotomy position, his legs in the air (fashioning a pair of tiny stirrups out of shoeboxes and flip-flops did cross my mind), and I could do nothing but look at the tears streaming down his face and say stupid things like, “Good job, bud!” and “A tiny piece! You pushed out a tiny piece!” Some of the kernels he had early on looked like petrified chocolate chips, like his body had leeched every ounce of water and nutrition possible before finally allowing him to let them go.
CJ worked on this poop for literally 45 minutes, easily the longest he’s spent on any poop in his short, constipation-thwarted life (and incidentally, almost as long as it took me to push him out). I knew he was tired, I knew he wanted to be done, and it absolutely killed me that I could do nothing to help him. I mean, let’s be honest, the kid needed an epidural. (I did take a moment to imagine what that would look like: me running into the emergency room, flushed with fear and adrenaline, CJ limp from effort in my arms, naked butt hanging out for all the world to see, “He’s been working on this poop for 20 minutes and there’s no end in sight—somebody get him and epidural and let’s dig that sucker out!” But then I wondered how old you really had to be to get an epidural, wondered how small CJ’s epidural space must be, and ultimately decided it wouldn’t be worth the trip.)
Laboring moms get tired too. Sometimes they give up. They say things like, “I can’t do this anymore.” They say, “I want a C-section.” And sometimes I get in their face and tell them to focus, that they can do it, that they need to do it, because the baby hanging halfway out of their vagina needs them to do it. And then they do and then it’s fine and the pain is gone and in its place is a baby.
I couldn’t get in CJ’s face today, though. I couldn’t tell him to just push and it would be over, that the pain would be gone after the poop came out. I tried, I really did, but I just couldn’t. I had to step away after ten minutes and again at 40, when I couldn’t bear his cries or my helplessness any longer. The second time, I was in my room looking through a magazine while my kid was feet away in the hallway, whimpering. Sooner than I expected he called out, “Mommy!” and I rushed back to him, ready for another go-round. But instead there was an adult-sized log of poop on the floor, easily two inches thick, and CJ was smiling. “Mommy, I did it.”
We all have mommy guilt, and we all have kid issues we have to deal with. In the grand scheme of things, I realize it could be a lot worse than the occasional bout of constipation. But today was just awful, I felt just horrible for CJ, and I wanted to call Chris so many times over the course of those 45 minutes, if nothing else than to have someone with whom to share the pain. But I didn’t, I didn't give in. It was just me and CJ, and we did it, in his words. We did it.
CJ was lying in the lithotomy position, his legs in the air (fashioning a pair of tiny stirrups out of shoeboxes and flip-flops did cross my mind), and I could do nothing but look at the tears streaming down his face and say stupid things like, “Good job, bud!” and “A tiny piece! You pushed out a tiny piece!” Some of the kernels he had early on looked like petrified chocolate chips, like his body had leeched every ounce of water and nutrition possible before finally allowing him to let them go.
CJ worked on this poop for literally 45 minutes, easily the longest he’s spent on any poop in his short, constipation-thwarted life (and incidentally, almost as long as it took me to push him out). I knew he was tired, I knew he wanted to be done, and it absolutely killed me that I could do nothing to help him. I mean, let’s be honest, the kid needed an epidural. (I did take a moment to imagine what that would look like: me running into the emergency room, flushed with fear and adrenaline, CJ limp from effort in my arms, naked butt hanging out for all the world to see, “He’s been working on this poop for 20 minutes and there’s no end in sight—somebody get him and epidural and let’s dig that sucker out!” But then I wondered how old you really had to be to get an epidural, wondered how small CJ’s epidural space must be, and ultimately decided it wouldn’t be worth the trip.)
Laboring moms get tired too. Sometimes they give up. They say things like, “I can’t do this anymore.” They say, “I want a C-section.” And sometimes I get in their face and tell them to focus, that they can do it, that they need to do it, because the baby hanging halfway out of their vagina needs them to do it. And then they do and then it’s fine and the pain is gone and in its place is a baby.
I couldn’t get in CJ’s face today, though. I couldn’t tell him to just push and it would be over, that the pain would be gone after the poop came out. I tried, I really did, but I just couldn’t. I had to step away after ten minutes and again at 40, when I couldn’t bear his cries or my helplessness any longer. The second time, I was in my room looking through a magazine while my kid was feet away in the hallway, whimpering. Sooner than I expected he called out, “Mommy!” and I rushed back to him, ready for another go-round. But instead there was an adult-sized log of poop on the floor, easily two inches thick, and CJ was smiling. “Mommy, I did it.”
We all have mommy guilt, and we all have kid issues we have to deal with. In the grand scheme of things, I realize it could be a lot worse than the occasional bout of constipation. But today was just awful, I felt just horrible for CJ, and I wanted to call Chris so many times over the course of those 45 minutes, if nothing else than to have someone with whom to share the pain. But I didn’t, I didn't give in. It was just me and CJ, and we did it, in his words. We did it.
Retrospective
It has been recently pointed out to me that I’m an external processor. And rather than spew my problems at home, work, or to anyone that will listen, I thought it might be a good idea to reinstate ye olde blog. I stopped writing when CJ was 14 months old (notice I don’t say July 2009, because after you have a kid you cease measuring time with Caesar’s calendar and everything becomes relative to how long your precious offspring has been in this world), and then I tried to start again when he was 21 months old (February 2010), but that fizzled out too. So we can consider this my third attempt, or my triumphant return to Pammiecakes after an extended summer hiatus.
With this blog I hope to explore many themes. Themes in my life; themes like how it feels to split my time between work and home, mommy guilt, whether or not I really need a second baby, and what it’s like to deal with all of these home/family issues and be a labor and delivery nurse at the same time.
I’ll label these posts with tags, tags like PTSAHM, which will stand for part-time stay-at-home-mom, Splinched, which is how I feel when I have to split my time between work and home, and Mommy guilt, which while I could think of a cute way to label it, may as well be the title of this blog. 'Do you want seconds' will be for my second baby posts, and 'Just deal with it' will be the label I use when I attempt to talk about balancing it all.
So join me on this journey, won’t you? Join me as we explore The Chronicles of my Overexamined Life.
With this blog I hope to explore many themes. Themes in my life; themes like how it feels to split my time between work and home, mommy guilt, whether or not I really need a second baby, and what it’s like to deal with all of these home/family issues and be a labor and delivery nurse at the same time.
I’ll label these posts with tags, tags like PTSAHM, which will stand for part-time stay-at-home-mom, Splinched, which is how I feel when I have to split my time between work and home, and Mommy guilt, which while I could think of a cute way to label it, may as well be the title of this blog. 'Do you want seconds' will be for my second baby posts, and 'Just deal with it' will be the label I use when I attempt to talk about balancing it all.
So join me on this journey, won’t you? Join me as we explore The Chronicles of my Overexamined Life.
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