HiddenChicken

Back in the saddle.

2012-01-15T06:53:00.000-08:00

Finally, I've started writing again. It took me long enough. Just, what? Five years? A tad more? Ah, well - better late than never. So I have to figure out now what I'm going to do once I finish my newest novel. I had been keeping up my relationship with my editor, but she's dropping out of the business so I may have to bite the bullet and go to a conference. It probably wouldn't be a bad idea to go to one anyway.

One of the funny things about my previous writing career was that I typically attended business writing conferences (because that's how I made the other half of my business), so my relationships within the fiction writing community, particularly my own genre, now are somewhat limited.

I stopped writing five years ago when my son was born and swore I pick it up again. Then my daughter was born and I once again swore I would pick it up again. Then she decided that sleeping was optional, making writing less likely. Sleeping for her is still somewhat optional, but not as much as it used to be, so writing is more doable. I can squeak out a couple thousand words a week if I'm lazy and five thousand if I'm not, so I suppose that's something.

I'm not terribly worried about having something finished to shop. It's the shopping part that I haven't done in a while. I hate that part. Which is probably all the more reason I should do it.

Things you wish you didn't know.

2012-01-14T12:36:00.001-08:00

Ever have a friend tell you something you really wish you didn't know? And, no, has nothing to do with anyone who would read this blog. I just ran into someone I used to be friends with in middle school virtually last night and got an earful (or eyeful - it was IM) and really wish I hadn't.

This is exactly why I avoid news about train wrecks and car accidents. All they do is get stuck in your brain and you can't do anything about them but let them take their course and try not to get brained by debris.

I'm an aunt!

2012-01-08T19:52:00.001-08:00

Yay!!

My sister had a baby boy. He was more than 10 pounds, so had to be removed via c-section. I'm so happy for her!

Welcome, 2012. Suck it, 2011.

2012-01-02T13:19:00.000-08:00

I shouldn't be so negative. Really, I shouldn't. But still, I am SO glad it's a new year. Not that a day really makes a difference. Still, I've never really understood why people think that New Year's Day is such a big deal. Now I do.

In 2011, I started my new year off by finding out I was pregnant then promptly almost dying due to internal bleeding and losing the baby because it was an ectopic pregnancy that he begun to burst and bleed into my abdomen. Work sucked in 2011 because we had a hefty dose of the crazy and miserable and I spent what felt like half the year (but really was only a few weeks) traveling way too frequently. A good friend of mine discovered that her breast cancer had progressed to stage 4. The kids were stressed, my husband was stressed and I was about to tear my hair out, curl up in fetal position and cry or lock myself in the bathroom and scream. I think I even did one or two of those things at some point.

Now it's 2012. Unless I'm the Virgin Mary, I probably won't get pregnant again. Then again, I didn't think I'd have eclampsia or an ectopic pregnancy (I was on birth control and breastfeeding at the time, too). Proved myself wrong there, though, didn't I? I didn't think I wanted to have more children. Now I know that I wouldn't mind having another baby, but I don't think I or my family could take the potential consequences.

Anyway, work is getting (slowly) better. The crazy has left the building, for now anyway. Or rather, both crazies have left - the one with the flammable materials hasn't come back, either. And apparently I'm going to have some modicum of control, or so they tell me.

Ragsy is doing better in school right now, Evelyn is in the terrible twos which isn't great but it's a sign of progress and my husband's business is going well. So 2012 does bring with it a certain amount of opportunity and optimism that 2011 just didn't have.

So, bring it, 2012. Make this year better than the last. Make me thinner, calmer and more sane. Make me more successful, more methodical and a better parent. Or at least help me get through 2012 without great loss, without messing up my kids too much and with a stronger relationship with my husband.

Stranger than Fiction

2011-12-29T19:14:00.000-08:00

My work sometimes gets...weird. The last couple of weeks have been unusually so. Last week we had an incident with a contract employee who was apparently considering harm to one of us at work or himself and was apparently keeping flammable materials and many lighters in his desk. Just in case.

Then yesterday we had to "fire" one of our clients. Apparently, instead of the profession she claimed on her paperwork, she was a prostitute. And she hadn't quit working, so she was an "employed" prostitute not living anywhere prostitution was legal.

There have been a few other incidents as well, one involving a client who claimed that aliens visited him and that alien abduction was actually quite nice and he looked forward to the probes. No, seriously. That's actually what he said.

I'm very, very ready for this year to end.

The road to hell...

2011-11-23T20:35:00.001-08:00

Okay, not hell. It has just been a very strange week, most of it a direct result of my sometimes successful attempts to be a nice person. The most recent event was when I saw a car fishtail off an exit on my way to work in the rain. The man just drove right off the road, so I pulled over to see if he was okay. I leaned out of my car and said, "Hey, you ok? Can I call someone for you?" To which he said, "HUH?" Fine. I'm being lazy. I know it. I'll get out of the car and make sure he's ok. So I do.

I get right out into a bloody bog masquerading as solid ground right next to my car and am promptly to my knees in mud. I managed to get to his car but lost my shoe and was coated with goo that squished between my toes and splatted off my legs in blobs onto my car mat all the way home.

Procrastination

2011-11-17T07:43:00.000-08:00

I am seriously procrastinating. I'm going to San Jose in 3 hours and have yet to pack. I have work I'm supposed to be doing and I'm not doing it. The house is a disaster and I'm sitting in the wreckage. Oh, well. That can be taken care of when I get back.

I took a couple of days off last week and this Monday and discovered that I actually like to stay home, clean the house, cook and pick the kids up early. I never pictured myself as the Martha Stewart type. But it was actually a lot more satisfying than my work has been lately. Sadly, if we would like to retire comfortably and put the kids through college and have any form of healthcare, work will have to be a must for me until we will the lottery.

I've toyed with the idea of staying at home more seriously this year, mostly because my work has been so busy I'm getting burnt out. I'm sure that I'd get burnt out staying at home, too, and I don't want to have to fight my way back into the work force if I leave. I hate that women are essentially penalized for having children, especially since the logistics of having a kid in school, plus running a household seems to be a full-time job that my husband and I share in the evenings and on weekends. Oh, well. I always want to have my cake and eat it, too.

Over & out.

2011-10-26T09:04:00.000-07:00

I haven't been blogging much lately. Obviously, which is why I start almost all my posts that way. I start a post, then I erase it. I think of something somewhat interesting, then it's gone. I still have nothing interesting, but I'll post anyway. I'm feeling parenthetical, so you'll have to excuse me. Anyway, I'm going to San Francisco today and I really don't want to. It sounds fun, but my son is having some trouble in school thanks to a bit of conflict with his dad at home, this is the fourth trip I've made in six weeks (and I have two more) and our fridge has been broken for three weeks with no known repair date because apparently the parts are backordered for about a zillion other people besides us, with no idea of when they'll be available.

Yes, yes...in the grand scheme of things not a big deal. My son & husband will likely calm down (they usually do), kindergarten will likely become easier for him, hopefully the policy workshop I'm giving will go well (plenty of time to review the presentation on the plane) and the fridge will be eventually fixed, hopefully for free.

But I can whine. And whine I shall. Plus, there's a huge upheaval at work. The person who was causing the most problems decided to leave abruptly, which unearthed a whole bunch of other problems she hadn't told anyone about. In other words, she left before someone found out how ineffective she was and fired her, leaving the mess for someone else (me) to clean up.

So our product is somewhat screwed up at the moment, as is the process that goes into producing it, I suddenly find myself the overseer of 8+ people (luckily I have only 1 direct report, but all 8 report to her, making them my problem) and I'm going to be out of the office a lot giving presentations during the busiest season of the year and our planning/budgeting quarter during which I must not only plan product enhancements, develop a plan for a new product plus marketing and sales plans for each, now I must also develop a staffing plan and incentives. Bloody hell. I often wonder if I should quit. Not because work is too hard. It's hard, but not impossible. And not because the logistics of raising two children while working full time is too hard. But, Jesus Christ on a cracker, just because I can do it doesn't mean I have to like it.

I often wonder if Rags would have the trouble he does if I were at home. Given his personality, he probably would. He's too intense by half - definitely his father's son. Anyway, I'm just rambling at this point. I'd like things to simmer the hell down. And I'm not looking forward to agonizing over this in San Francisco. But I guess it's inevitable. And I'll have four hours on a plane to think it over. Ciaoito, baby.

Interview

2011-09-27T06:59:00.000-07:00

Long time, no bloggy. In case you're terribly concerned and waiting with bated breath to hear what adventures I've been up to, I've been really busy - have had a few speaking engagements, interviews with reporters, travel, networking, year-end planning, etc. Today, though, is special. Today I have an on-air interview with a conservative radio station about Medicare. This should be painful.

If you know me, you know that I'm far from conservative. I'm not far to the left, but at the same time, I strongly believe that many conservatives have decreased our country's IQ. From anti-science viewpoints to startlingly uninformed speeches on health reform and deficit reduction (they clearly haven't read any of the bills or proposals, something I've had the unfortunate pleasure to do, including the Jobs Act) and general shit-stirring, sometimes doing my job makes me want to scream for reasons other than the jackasses I work with.

I'm sure that I have my jackass moments, too, though. Still, I'm really not in the mood for this crap. I had a very long weekend that would best be turned into a sitcom. It involved an argument with a guy who was convinced that Poland was right next to Indonesia, a shuttle ride squeezed between people from an aromatherapy convention (apparently a pyramid business). These people reeked of tea tree oil and sandalwood. Then there was the three-hour wait in the airplane on the tarmac at Orlando, missing my connection back home, then being trapped in a shuttle at 12:30 a.m. with regional managers from Staples who were apparently so enamored with the Brady Bunch they felt it necessary to sing it all the way to the hotel.

Still, I consider myself lucky. When I was younger and going to school in South America, missing a connection (which would've been a bus connection, not a plane) probably would've involved sleeping on the concrete or dirt floor of a bus station with nothing between me and the ground and trying to scrounge up enough cash to afford a mango from the fish market, which reeked to high heaven and drew a thick curtain of flies. The last time that happened, we had to split the mango four ways and didn't have enough money to afford anything else until we reached Santiago 20 hours later. At least I had the benefit of a bed, food and money. Hell, I even had the benefit of a bed, food and money back then when I got back to where I was going.

So there. That's what I've been up to: talking about shit no one believes in, getting heckled occasionally because I happened to remain neutral about legislation I'd actually read, being nausteated by people who would've otherwise smelled at least decent, stuck in an un-airconditioned airplane for a few hours (I know - poor, poor me...right) and subject to additional torture by bad sitcom soundtracks. Next: restraining myself from smacking the ever-loving hell out of an ill-informed douche bag. Joy.

Day One

2011-08-16T19:32:00.000-07:00

Rags started kindergarten at the "big" school today. It went better than I could have hoped. We got there, he carefully examined his cubby where he had to hang his backpack and, after he'd confirmed several times that, yes, it was his name on the cubby, he hung his backpack up, put up his lunchbag, walked in and started coloring with a little girl.

When I picked him up, he was energetic, happy and clearly enjoying himself. I'm sure that things will get harder when he actually has homework and "real" class begins, but this is much, much better than I thought it would be. I really didn't give the kid enough credit.

Hopefully I can let go of some of this guilt now. Having him in aftercare has been eating away at me - I don't like that his day is as long as mine is. But, I guess that's one reality we'll just have to deal with. And he seems to be dealing with it better than I am.

Irony?

2011-08-11T06:44:00.000-07:00

I haven't written for a long, long time. I've started and stopped and erased. Work is ridiculous and I figured if I posted everything going on at work it'd take up too much space. So I didn't. But this is...perhaps ironic.

Today I may be giving a two-hour long radio interview. If I don't actually give the interview myself, I'll be supporting my boss, who knows nothing about the subject matter but has more radio experience than I do. I'll be the one in the background, writing frantic notes and passing them to him so he doesn't make an ass of himself. I hate this part. While I don't want to talk on live radio, it's much harder to stop a live train wreck than it is a train wreck with a reporter. Even my boss's boss has noticed how poorly he handles interviews, which is why I've taken over most of the press, but this... Ugh.

What's ironic about it is the radio show is on conservative talk radio. Yes, conservative talk radio. I believe we're being followed by Rush Limbaugh, which both makes me laugh and want to scream. If you know me personally, you already know that I am in no way, shape or form a conservative. Given that part of the material will be debt ceiling, budget deficit and all entitlement programs, all the time, I can see no good coming of this. Especially because my boss is conservative enough he makes the tea party look sane.

If I could, I would hide in a corner. On the one hand, I almost hope I wind up giving the interview, if only because there's so much BS out there about the debt ceiling, deficit, health reform and Medicare. On the other hand, answering questions from belligerent, right-wing callers who get all their news from Fox doesn't appeal. Damn. This sucks.

Testing

2011-06-01T12:07:00.000-07:00

Today was Ragsy's screening for kindergarten readiness at Parkway. It went pretty well - he tested off the charts for math, but unfortunately his writing is behind. His problem is three-fold: (1) he is a perfectionist. I've seen him start letters 10 or more times, only to re-do them the moment he hits a stumbling block. (2) He doesn't like doing things he doesn't feel competent at. In fact, he hates it. So he avoids doing it, which means he avoids practice, which means it doesn't get better. Can't blame him there - I hate doing things I'm not good at, too. (3) He's left-handed. No one else in his class (teachers included) is left-handed. I'm not left-handed, and neither is anyone else in my family except my brother-in-law in Charlotte, NC. Unfortunately, he tries to copy people who are right-handed in the way they hold their paper and pencils, which makes him a little slower, more uncomfortable and less precise, which makes him frustrated, which makes him not want to do it.

Ah, well - there's always a give and take. We're practicing, I'm helping him learn to position the paper more comfortably and hold the pen in such a way that gives him a more precise, smoother result. Just a week and he's already begun to improve. I don't blame our preschool for the problem, but it would've been nice had they told us that there was one to begin with. They were telling me everything was hunky dory as recently as the beginning of May while our pediatrician and school administrators feel otherwise.

It sucks seeing your kid get frustrated about something other kids can do with little effort. Oh, well - with practice, it'll get better. And if that's the worst of my worries, I think we're doing pretty well.

I confess...

2011-05-19T18:57:00.000-07:00

I am a very weird person. But you knew that, right? I was at Target today during lunch, wandering around near the books. I was browsing, then realized someone was close by. I was looking at a cook book. I quickly put it down and went to look at something else. Why?

Well, I'll tell you (can't get more mundane than this, right?). I'm embarrassed to be looking at anything to do with food. This includes eating in front of people (especially those who aren't eating), looking at food, looking at pictures of food, looking at and purchasing fattening food at the supermarket (it's not for me, I swear!) and, clearly, looking at cookbooks, which usually contain pictures of food. Strangely, however, I'm not embarrassed to be seen cooking food. Unless caught tasting it, of course.

I don't think I'm enormous, but I always think that looking at food or being caught looking at pictures of food will somehow make me look fat. Yes, I know that this makes no sense. For one thing, the size of my bottom tells the tale: I could stand to lose a few, but it could be worse. For another, no one but me cares. Like most people, I assume that everyone is looking at me. Fortunately, everyone else is usually thinking the same thing. I wish I'd known that in high school.

Anyway, this is just another one of those random, useless confessions you can't do anything with and that makes me look like a lunatic. Still, it got my mind off something that was concerning me, so the crazy was well worth it. You're welcome.

Haz mat, anyone?

2011-05-08T13:28:00.000-07:00

The past three weeks have been awful health-wise for my kids, Evelyn in particular. She had roseola on week, which involved temperatures of 105, a terrified mom and eventually a terrified daycare when she broke out in a purple rash about 48 hours after the fever had broken. Then last week another high fever for a few days. Now we're trying to figure out if she has pink eye or just allergies.

So far I have no idea what to believe. With Rags it was so easy to tell. With her...well, they're totally different. The goo gets really bad a half hour after coming inside, fades away overnight along with the swelling, only to return (but only a tiny bit) after going from the house to the car. I'm stumped.

If she wakes from her nap with goo, we'll just go to the pediatric urgent care clinic - I don't want her to have to deal with it any longer than necessary, and I'm going out of town next Wednesday, which will make her miserable anyway. This is probably the worst thing about parenting (other than meting out discipline, a necessary evil, though I understand why some kids are spoiled).

Oh, well. Given my last year, if this is the worst of my problems, I'll take it. But I'm so tired of being covered with bodily fluids. I'm also done with feeling like I need a shower more often than not. Ick.

Fight!

2011-04-20T16:55:00.000-07:00

You may or may not know that I'm extremely insecure. Underneath the erotica-writing, legislation-reading, public-speaking exterior, I'm still the sniveling little girl on the playground running around asking, "Why don't you like me?" Which is why, every time I get into a "discussion" (code for argument) with my husband, we have this extraordinarily awkward period afterward where I have no idea whatsoever how to approach him.

I have this completely irrational fear that he'll stop liking me, stop loving me, wonder why on earth he married me in the first place. If I were to play armchair psychologist, I'd say it's because my dad ran off with his secretary when I was 2 and I'm terrified that my husband will leave me similarly. Perhaps that's it. But that doesn't matter.

He's never given me any indication that he'd do such a thing. I have absolutely no reason to think that he might. But that sniveling little coward in me still takes every single argument we have as a commentary on the strength of our relationship. It takes a lot of thinking to realize that the fact that we're still together, even after all those stupid little fights that come out of nowhere, is a better testament to our marriage than the fact that we have those arguments at all.

Phases.

2011-03-03T19:44:00.000-08:00

When Evelyn was born, my son became Baby Bear, of Three Little Bears fame. Mostly it was an exclusionary measure - she was only given the honorary title of Little Bear when she was 5 months old and it became clear she wasn't going away. It wasn't until three months after that that he stopped making us call him Baby Bear and stopped calling me Mama Bear. And it ended rather abruptly. We were visiting friends at their house and their son called his mother "mommy." I guess peer pressure is a powerful thing, because I was suddenly mommy again, too.

Now my son is apparently Superman. And his "home" voice is now a Western drawl. He sounds like a cross between Elvis Presley and a drunken John Wayne (he's still learning how to do accents well). I know I have a bit of an accent sometimes myself. But mine is pure southern Indiana hay seed. So I'm not sure where this one comes from, except perhaps me mimicking a Western accent once when reading him a Scooby Doo book.

Oh, well. Unless I speak drastically differently than I thought I did, I'm sure this is just another phase. Could be worse.

Planned Parenthood.

2011-02-20T09:03:00.000-08:00

I have always supported Planned Parenthood; however, I never thought their services would be so near and dear to my heart. But life rarely goes the way you expect and I had what is technically considered an abortion about three weeks ago. Yes, removal of an ectopic pregnancy is considered an abortion. But I had two choices: have the surgery or die.

I think it's disgusting the way a portion of our Congress deliberately misunderstands the purpose of Planned Parenthood. It provides important services to women who would otherwise not have access to basic obstetrics and gynecology, plus family planning including contraception and, yes, abortion, though that's a very small part of the services they offer.

Now I'm torn between two thoughts: wishing I were more of a political activist and wanting to move to a different country. Unfortunately, the former hasn't seemed to work, so my husband and I are giving serious thought to leaving the country. For what it's worth, we probably won't. But we have been considering our options - India, Australia, New Zealand or Sweden. Perhaps we would retire there rather than uproot our children. But it's more and more attractive given our current political climate where ignorance seems to be encouraged to the detriment of its citizens.

Sleep!

2011-02-16T20:29:00.000-08:00

I used to complain that neither of my children sleep (and sometimes still do). But now I'm irritated with myself. I don't sleep when I should. I get up at 5:30 or 6 a.m., work all day, come home and manage the house, work out, clean, prep for tomorrow and fall into bed somewhere between midnight and 2 a.m. I should probably get to bed closer to 9 or 10, but I can't seem to make myself. It's so aggravating.

Now I'm wiped out from too many days this week of not sleeping enough, but it's already almost 11 and, guess what? I'm not asleep! Grrr.

2011-01-31T08:40:00.001-08:00

We lost a baby on Friday. I hadn't even known I was pregnant until Tuesday. It wasn't something we were trying for at all. I was on the pill, for God's sake. But even I know that the pill can fail and that PMS doesn't last for three weeks, so I took the test. And it was positive. And I was terrified. After Evelyn, we had decided that we were done having kids. Still, my husband laughed, pounded his chest and we were both settling into the idea by Thursday when I started bleeding.

I went to the doctor to get checked out and had a blood test. Then the bleeding got a little worse. I woke up to more pain Friday. When the nurse called me at work, she said I was six weeks along and congratulated me. She was in a hurry to go until I told her that I was bleeding and having cramps and had been for a couple of days, only it was getting worse. I was worried I was having a miscarriage. So they told me to come in for an ultrasound that day. They looked for the baby and they found nothing. Except for that cyst in my fallopian tube that they suspected was the pregnancy, about to rupture. That was at 2:30 p.m.

They didn't let me go home. They had someone escort me to the hospital, then from admitting to a private room where I was scheduled for surgery at 9. I spent most of the evening by myself - I wanted to make everything as normal as possible for the kids, so after my husband came by with some underwear and my toothbrush, I sent him to get the kids and put them to bed. My friend (who deserves anything from me she could ever ask) came over and helped get everyone fed and into bed, then stayed while my husband came to wait through my surgery.

The room where they performed the surgery was freezing. I was so cold I was shaking on the table. The hot blankets they piled on top of me were as close to heaven as I could get in that place. An hour and a half later, I woke minus the baby and a fallopian tube. The tube had started bleeding while I was in surgery and wouldn't stop, so they had to take the entire thing out. Anyway, I woke up next to a guy who'd had surgery on his arm. It was 12:33 a.m. He grinned and called out, "Hey, recovery buddy!" I couldn't talk because my throat was so sore from the breathing tube they'd put down my throat.

My husband stayed with me in my room until I kicked him out around 1, then went home to sleep. I know the nurses checked on me a few times throughout the night and finally helped me to the bathroom, where I checked out my incisions - one in my navel, one a few inches to the left of my right hip and another larger one just above my uterus where the baby and my tube were taken out.

Anyway, I'm tired. I didn't realize I was actually looking forward to the baby until it was gone. I'm not as upset as I might be had it been something we'd been planning for, that had been known for longer. But I'm still sad. And sore. I wish things could have been different. But they weren't, and there you go. I'm glad I took the test early. I wanted to wait until this week. By that time I would've been bleeding and would've assumed it was my period. I wouldn't have done anything, possibly until the internal bleeding was more severe. So for that, I'm grateful. I'm glad my kids haven't been too disrupted. Unfortunately, Evelyn had to wean unexpectedly - percocet in your bloodstream and a nursing toddler does not a good combination make.

Food Matters?

2011-01-11T10:20:00.000-08:00

So my husband and I watched the documentary Food Matters last night. It was...disorganized. I really wouldn't recommend it, though it had some valuable ideas in it. My primary issue was that it used a very broad brush to set up pharmaceuticals - any pharmaceuticals - as bad, bad, bad and nutritious food as the magic bullet to cure all ills.

At first, I was a little confused, but on board. The film opened with a discussion about how few doctors (under 6 percent) have any training whatsoever in nutrition and that nutrition is not a requirement to become a physician. Then it moved on to discuss how we under-nourish our soil, and therefore the plants grown on large, industrial farms may be lacking in some nutrients. Okay, so far so good. I think all doctors should be required to be able to answer basic questions about nutrition and that buying local is best when possible.

Then the movie went on to discuss that organic is best. Okay, still on board, but this assumes a lot about the viewer - mainly, that you can afford organics all the time, then moved on to discuss the "superfoods." Right...I know there are "superfoods," which are supposed to be excellent sources of nutrients. But at the same time, if your focus is on buying local organic food and the superfoods don't grow in your region, then what?

So the film continued to food as a cure-all for all illnesses, including cancer, heart disease, diabetes, even brain damage. Okay, I can buy that healthy eating would help prevent and even in some cases counteract the effects of heart disease and diabetes. And evidence shows that it can prevent cancer, too. But brain damage? Epilepsy? Most, if not all, disease as the movie claimed? If that were true, and we've moved away from the healthy eating we did before as the movie claimed, then why do we die? Why do we live longer? After all, the movie eventually states explicitly - "your food is killing you," and "your body will always repair itself if you ingest the right nutrients." Riiiight.

Sounds too easy. My take: the movie brings up some good points. You should eat healthy to avoid chronic, preventable illnesses. However, I think it's irresponsible to set up an us and them mentality with the medical profession. Sure, they're there to make money. But I don't think most physicians have it as part of their annual plan to make X amount of patients sick so they can make more money off them. Our health system is clearly flawed, as is the way we eat. But I don't think that everything can be fixed by healthy eating, just like I don't think that everything can be fixed with a pill.

Today's the day I get everything done.

2011-01-02T18:09:00.000-08:00

A very good friend of mine was diagnosed last summer with breast cancer. She had surgery, was in remission. It came back - in her bones, her thigh, her liver and her brain. So now she's having a combination of radiation therapy and chemo.

I saw her today. I don't think I've ever been so afraid for someone in my entire life. I know it's normal when you're undergoing chemo, but she's lost most of her hair and is now using a walker. If she puts too much weight on her legs she might break one because the bone is so thin. She had taken an anti-nausea pill, but it didn't work, so she had to leave early because she couldn't stop vomiting (I'm never going to be able to go to a Bread Company now without thinking of vomit when I smell asiago bagels). Once we had cleaned her up as much as we could, we helped her to her car, but she started throwing up again, so we called her husband, who came to drive her home.

Anyway, I didn't like her at first because she was so nice. It's not that I don't like nice people, but I couldn't figure out what her angle was. It took me months to realize that she didn't have one. She was always the person you could go to for really good advice, who knew everything about the company we worked for and had done everything. She was so energetic, and I still remember her saying to me almost everyday, "Okay, Adrienne. I'm gonna do it. Today is the day I get everything done."

She said it again today. Right after she whispered (her meds have screwed up her hearing, so she often whispers because she's worried she'll shout), "Goddamn it, Adrienne. I am so pissed. This whole goddamn cancer thing has me so pissed."

I had typed earlier that I hope everything will be okay. But I don't think it will. I don't blame her for being pissed. Of all the parties affected by this, I'm probably impacted the least, but I'm pissed, too.

Office space?

2010-12-03T10:36:00.000-08:00

So, if you've been reading, you probably know that my workplace has some...uh, challenges. Mainly our boss. In an interesting turn of events, an organizational expert has been hired to "help" us. We think this was mainly HR's idea because my boss's boss isn't very objective where my boss is concerned. You see, she convinced the company to pay all his relocation expenses and to pay the rent on his apartment for him when he was staying in the area. This went on for about two years. So I guess she feels pretty defensive over her position and his, to the point where, if he sexually harasses an employee he gets a stern talking to - off the books, of course. Nice, huh?

Anyway, HR was getting so many complaints about him that I think they "recommended" this particular path. I had an interview with the lady yesterday. It reminded me so much of the movie Office Space it was hilarious. It started out with me providing an explanation of what I do. After that, it was, "So, what do you you think contributes to the issues in your department?" It was spectacular. And almost everyone who had to do an interview gave the same answer: our boss.

I have no idea where this will go. Maybe he'll get an even sterner talking to after this. My guess is that they'll get us all involved in a BS teambuilding exercise where we're forced to role play. Anyway, after yesterday's fun and games, it's nice to be home today, even if it's only because Evelyn has a wicked cold.

35

2010-11-12T06:44:00.000-08:00

So today I turn 35. Interesting. I don't feel any different than I did when I was 11 or 12. Maybe a little more tired and definitely more clueless. I remember thinking 26 was old and that I'd somehow know what I was doing. I don't feel rudderless or anything, just a lot more like the village idiot than I used to.

I can pinpoint exactly when I realized that I could never possibly know everything about any one thing. It took a long time - I was in grad school, in the middle of an Eastern European History class and writing a paper on "The Albanian Question" (for the curious, the question(s) is, is Albania a country? Does it exist? Who lives there? Caught between Serbia and Bosnia, it's a little like Kashmir, but more ambiguous. In case you want to know, the answer is sometimes yes, sometimes no to the first two and to the second, it depends on whether you ask Albanians (when it exists), Bosnians or Serbians or other Eastern Europeans.). Anyway, I was wishing I hadn't picked something so darn complicated. Maybe if I chose something else it'd be easier.

So I sat in class and thought about looking into something else, then the professor started talking about the significance of economic theory and its role in various countries and suddenly I was thinking, "Holy crap! The sum total of everything I know isn't even a drop in the bucket." I was in grad school, had traveled and lived in other countries and suddenly I felt like I knew absolutely nothing. Even worse, I didn't know squat about what I didn't know.

It's kind of nice, knowing nothing - it makes me want to know more.

Other than feeling more clueless, I just have a few more visible lines, but at least they're laugh lines. Oh, and my butt is bigger, my stomach headed slightly south thanks to children, but it's better than it was two years ago (I'm leaving out last year since I was pregnant). So that's progress. And tomorrow I celebrate the birth of my second, the best birthday present ever.

But for today, I have the day off work, though I'm technically on call. My sister is coming from Charlotte, so I pick her up in a couple of hours. The kids are in preschool and daycare for part of the day - Rags has a field trip he didn't want to miss and Evelyn gets cranky when her schedule is messed with. So the plan today is eat, spend time with the kids, probably eat more, then take a walk after they're asleep tonight. All in all, more than I could've hoped for for a good birthday.

Who's hiring?

2010-11-02T21:36:00.000-07:00

No, I'm not out of a job. Well, not yet anyway. If you know me, you know my boss is a douchebag. A big one. After a few months of relative quiet (well, except that particularly disgusting comment about white shirts, band-aids, women in our department and the fact that it was raining), I got the smackdown today. I used to call it the Friday night smackdowns because I tended to get some sort of talking to every Friday until he apparently became afraid I'd leave when I got pregnant.

You'd think that getting insulted would be upsetting. But the thing is, when it happens so frequently for so many stupid reasons, it really starts to roll of your back. I wonder what would happen if he actually had a good reason for giving me the smackdown. Would it even make a dent?

Anyway, the last time I got a talking to it was because I left my computer on. I thought I was in Office Space. The cause of today's smackdown was... Wait for it... I had the unmitigated gall to e-mail his boss and ask her a question about a product. The issue wasn't the product I recommended we develop. It wasn't the price I recommended. And it had nothing to do with the policy behind the development of the product. Nope - the problem was that I hadn't followed the "chain of command," even though his boss had asked me to go direct to her. So, the very fact that I had e-mailed her was the problem. The horrors!

So, I'm done. Just done. I'm going to work there as long as it takes me to find a job unless I go postal one day. Then I'm leaving. I hate it there. It's soul sucking and actually makes me miss my previous job where they wanted to give me a Blackberry to take with me on maternity leave.

This might actually be pretty decent timing. Unless healthcare reform gets repealed, I know something about the changes that are supposed to take effect. Anyone need a senior product manager for government entitlement programs? A regulatory affairs manager perhaps? An editor? Writer? Anybody?

Perhaps I need some Prozac.

2010-10-23T15:03:00.001-07:00

I have been soooo uptight lately. I got upset again today, though not very much. Still, it bothers me when I lose my cool, mostly because it hardly used to happen, but it's been happening a lot now. These things always have multiple sources. I know what things are probably causing the problem, but I'm not quite sure what to do about it. I can talk 'til I'm blue in the face, but that usually isn't a solution because it doesn't generally accomplish anything. So I type 'til I'm blue in the fingers instead. Aren't you lucky?

Anyway, getting upset is annoying. I don't like to be that person. So I'm going to try not to be. I especially need to calm down because my birthday is coming up, as is Evelyn's first, so the house is going to be full of people coming to celebrate her special day with us. My mom, particularly will be here. I've suggested she stay in a hotel because she gets extremely tense lately because my house is so chaotic just with the two kids and me and my husband. But of course, she's insisted, "Oh, I have so much fun when I'm there!" That's news to me. What will really happen is that she'll hang out here on my couch, asking pointed questions about when I'm going to cut out the breastfeeding already ("I mean, really, Andi, she just doesn't need it anymore. You were on skim milk at six months. And you were just fine. Besides, it's really...de classe.") and getting more and more upset about the noise and activity until she throws up her hands, declares, "I just can't do this anymore!" then, sobbing, flees for the guest room downstairs.

Oh, well. Guess it's time to stock up on tissues. I'm not sure who needs the Prozac more - me or my mom.

Workation?

2010-10-22T14:31:00.000-07:00

Or should I call it workaday? It doesn't matter. Whatever you call it, despite taking the day off, I wound up working just as much (if not more) than I would've had I just gone in to work. The day started with an Early Childhood Education screening, courtesy of the Parkway School District. It's a free screening to everyone in the district for kids 3-5 so they can make sure that kids are where they need to be prior to starting formal education. If they're not, they can refer you to an occupational therapist or counselor or whatever type of specialist your child might need. Anyway, other than some minor issues that are common for kids (especially boys) his age, Rags was normal, which is really all I ask for. Excellence we can worry about later. Right now I just want him doing what he's supposed to be doing when he's supposed to be doing it.

After that, we took him out for a snack, I went to the bank, met the husband for lunch, dropped off the kid, went to get an oil change, came back to pump, got my license renewed then came back and did laundry while monitoring a situation at work from home. I haven't figured out yet whether I should be happy or upset that I didn't go to work today.

After the scant four hours of sleep last night, I'm kind of glad I didn't, especially since I wound up having to forfeit my last planned day off. I'm not sure I could've stayed still if yesterday was any indication of how today went. We have multiple personnel issues and some other problems that evidently all came to a head today. Yesterday was just brutal, but I hear today was even worse. It makes me glad I'm not a manager.

So, that's that. Still to do: do more laundry, go to the grocery, pick up the kids, make dinner and start the slippery slope to bedtime. What I'd really like to do, though, is crawl into bed.

And, since you asked, there really wasn't any point to this post. If you've read this far, your life might be more boring than mine (unlikely) or you could be a glutton for punishment.

I'm done.

2010-10-11T20:05:00.001-07:00

One of the dangers of being online is that you can have a meltdown in private and online. If you haven't noticed, my blog is just another venue for self-indulgent ranting. It was bad, but it felt oh, so good.

Hopefully you haven't found out that I'm secretly a terrible person. Oops - did I type that out loud?

Anyway, today is better. Not fabulous, but at least I'm not falling apart.

Torn.

2010-10-10T11:01:00.001-07:00

Another day, another meltdown. Ever feel really guilty when you're mad, even if your upset is completely justifiable? That's exactly how I feel, which makes feeling this way even more uncomfortable.

I don't know if it's a woman thing or just a me thing, but I normally deal really well with the crap-ton of stuff that needs to be done around here, but I just lost it today for some reason. Maybe it's the dishwasher being broken, resulting in about four times the dishes I usually wash. It could be that my husband was planning to work all day - again - leaving me alone with children all day. Again. And he slept until 11 a.m., which pissed me off because I'm sick and I only got to sleep until 8 yesterday, even though that was the worst I've felt in a long time.

Which leads me to another possibility - it could be that I feel like hell from a cold. Or that everyone seems out of sorts, resulting in lots and lots of yelling and backtalk today, which results in consequences, which results in more backtalk, then tears when Ragsy realizes that, no, it's really not okay to throw things in the house. Or maybe it's knowing that we have a deadline to keep today since there's a party to go to and a gift to buy before.

I'm sure it's a combination. But I really, really lost it today and I feel very, very guilty. My husband announced that he's not going to work, which makes me feel additionally guilty. And I scared the crap out of the kids, which makes me feel even worse. But I still feel torn - did you know that I feel guilty? But another dirty little part of me feels a tad bit satisfied that I finally got my family's attention. Since I raise my voice so rarely, even Ragsy finds me losing it very, very memorable. The Borders incident a month or two ago gave me so much traction, Ragsy still uses it as an example of what could happen if he doesn't listen and I didn't even raise my voice above a whisper then.

Urgh. I hate this. I hate directing everyone sometimes - deciding when people will get up, what will get taken and where, what our plans are, what we're eating, where we're eating it and when. And who's going to which event and what the other person who's not going to the event will be doing. Today is a good example - there's a party at 4 p.m. For some reason, I'm supposed to decide what we're getting this kid (don't know him), what we're bringing it in, when we have to leave, who's going and what the other person who's NOT going will be doing? Then there are the questions: what are we doing? Why? When? Why? Where? Why? Why? Why? Why? And this isn't just from Ragsy.

And the thing is - I don't give a rat's ass. I really don't. So I'm torn: do I feel terribly guilty for flipping out and just suck it up and deal with it or do I hope to God something changes so I'm not somehow the boss?

Nightmare.

2010-10-01T20:19:00.000-07:00

Work today was...rough. No interpersonal issues today (okay, some, but they were overshadowed). But given what I do, every day the importance of good healthcare is really hammered home. Today we had a suicidal caller. Given the fragile state many people are on by the time they file for SSDI, it's not uncommon where I work. People run out of money, can't pay their bills, can't go to the doctor, etc. Unfortunately, you kind of get used to people being in dire straits, especially people without long-term disability.

But today, all I can say is fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I know - bad language. But this person is in hell, about to lose everything she ever owned, all for want of decent healthcare.

Ain't life grand?

Waiting...

2010-09-27T07:50:00.001-07:00

Until I had kids, I wasn't a type A personality. But my tendencies seem to have run amok with all the logistics that having children entails - getting up, showered, bags packed, kids fed and changed, etc. in time to leave in the morning, dropping kids off, talking to teachers if necessary, making a ridiculously long drive to Belleville to get to work (usually late), only to hurry home at the earliest opportunity at 5 or later to make dinner and start the slippery slope of evening routines. When something breaks my schedule, I get ticked. Which is why the past week has been especially painful.

Over the past week, my husband needed minor outpatient surgery. So I went (what - I'm selfish for complaining about it, but not so selfish I'd leave him on his own). Said surgery is in a location he cannot easily reach, and even if he could, he couldn't clean it thoroughly. So I do it twice a day, which again breaks into my carefully constructed schedule. It's also extremely painful for him since you're required to keep the wound open so it heals from the outside in and doesn't create another cyst.

Then there's the broken fridge, which requires daily trips to the supermarket for ice and fresh food (because I think I'm going to hurl if I eat much more takeout - I've certainly gained back two pounds). And now I'm waiting for the fridge repair guy to show up, which almost never turns out well. I'm hungry - since the fridge is broken, we haven't been keeping food overnight, and I've been giving the kids whatever healthy, fresh food we have - and so hopped up on caffeine I think I might explode. Which doesn't help my tension levels.

This isn't a big deal. I know this. And I should consider the quiet time I've had, both Wednesday while my husband slept after his cyst was removed and now while I wait, a gift. After all, when do I get to enjoy quiet, alone time? I could clean - I never get to do that without getting swarmed by children, and I actually enjoy cleaning up when I'm by myself. I could also work. At my job, since I create products that are used in a call center, I'm pretty much smack dab in the middle of a call center so I can hear what's going on. It's unusual and heavenly to have it quiet enough to read new legislation without having to put my fingers in my ears. What's getting to me, though, is that I know I should be somewhere else. This wasn't on my schedule, blast it.

And I keep going through what I need to do after the fridge is looked at. And what happens if it can't be fixed today? Then I'll probably have to do this all over again at some point this week, and dammit I still have some condiments in there that need to be tossed and it'll take forever to get to work if this guy ever gets here, and once I'm at work I've got a dozen meetings and an interview with a national publication if I can make it and what the hell are we going to do for dinner? Then there's the wound to clean, the kitchen is filthy and, bloody hell, when was the last time I worked out? *pant, pant, pant*

Did I mention that I hate waiting? The only thing I hate worse is schedule changes. I need a set schedule almost as much as my four year old.

Bad Mommy.

2010-09-15T20:19:00.000-07:00

Ragsy has been trying to play me for several days now. It'd be really irritating if it weren't by turns funny and guilt inducing. Funny because he comes up with the most ridiculous requests to cure his crying and guilt inducing because it feels wrong to have to try not to laugh at someone who is crying, even if they're crocodile tears.

Case in point: two evenings in a row I've put him to bed. Both nights, just as I'm about to leave the room, copious crying ensues. I mean, he really worked himself up. But when I asked him what the problem was, his response was, "I want to go to the Pirate Festival!"

Ok. Normally I'd say yes, provided that going was convenient and the request made politely. After all, I like pirates as much as the next guy. Unfortunately, after an incident at Borders, the Pirate Festival has since been removed as an option. So, after quietly explaining to him that we can't go to the Pirate Festival, I made the mistake of asking, "Is there something else wrong?" After all, after I had to carry him screaming out of Borders, once I got him calm, I was able to draw out of him that he was hungry.

Silly me. So, crying ensues again. This time, "Yes, Mommy."

"What is it, sweetie? How can I help?"

"I also need to go to the zoo!"

Right.

"And I need to go to the India food shop (Taj Palace) and the Big Red Food Shop (Bread Company) for breakfast. Then we need to go to India."

Why do I even ask?

Awkward.

2010-08-27T20:40:00.000-07:00

At work today I gave another presentation on healthcare reform and had an interview with the Wall Street Journal. And, no, I'm not particularly special - it was a transitional interview, so I really didn't do more than sit there and pass notes across the table to my boss, who was doing the talking. The idea is that I'll eventually take over all public speaking for our product - our VP has asked my boss to relinquish all media interviews to me, so I sat on this one with our PR director and observed, I'll do the talking next time and after that, it'll be just me and the PR director.

The whole situation is really odd and uncomfortable, but apparently while I was on maternity leave and my boss gave interviews to certain well-known publications, he let some of his ignorance and political views seep into the discussions, so he was barred from interviewing without me, the PR director or both to serve as chaperon until I received more formal media training to take over the interviews entirely. I was also given three of his speaking engagements for next month and October and asked to attend the AARP conference to exhibit. I don't know what to make of this. I'm flattered, but it's weird and I don't like it.

Long time, no write.

2010-07-12T07:39:00.000-07:00

I need to get my act together again. I'm gaining weight, falling back into disorganization and not writing again. It's funny how when one area of discipline falls apart, the rest follows in short order. I don't think it's about to get any better in the next few days. Evelyn has a sore throat, complete with oogey red tonsils. It doesn't look like strep, though.

One thing I have to wonder about sick babies - why is having an illness akin to feeding them rocket fuel? They wake every 30 minutes at night, won't nap during the day, yet somehow are cheerful and can run circles around their parents despite having a relatively high fever. I'm exhausted and, though she has the runs from all the mucous and won't stop rubbing her eyes, every time I try to put her to sleep, she starts playing with my breast, eating my arm or trying to climb out of her crib. How is she not at least crabby as hell? Not that I'm complaining. Ugh. I'm jittery from all the coffee, but think I need more caffeine to stay awake.

Love, luck and blight.

2010-06-30T18:08:00.000-07:00

My sister called a few days ago, asking all kinds of questions about how I'd felt and what happened when I was pregnant, when I asked if she was pregnant. There was total silence on the other end of the phone. I was so happy for her. Unfortunately, just a few days can change everything. She is in the throes of a miscarriage now. Her gestational sac was empty, something they also call a blighted ovum. Interesting choice of words. Blight. It's a much larger word than the object it describes. Her pregnancy hormones are falling and she now has to take Plan B or have a D&C to flush her uterus. She has chosen Plan B.

I have no idea how to describe how awful I feel for her. During Christmas, she held Evelyn and cried because she said she didn't know when she'd be able to have a baby herself. There was no end in sight - her husband hadn't been employed in more than two years, they had student loans to pay and a mortgage and she was trapped in a job she hated because she was carrying everything financially and had been for two years.

Then, like magic, things began to come together over the last six weeks. Her husband got a job, which allowed them to feel comfortable starting a family. She discovered she was pregnant, got a new job and quit her old one. Then the part that meant the most to her was taken away.

I know miscarriages are very common in early pregnancy and that she will probably go on to have a healthy pregnancy. And if she was only five or six weeks into the pregnancy, but still. It represented a lot to her and now it's gone. And it sucks.

Breathe in, breathe out.

2010-06-07T19:07:00.000-07:00

I totally forgot how much this part of motherhood sucks. Our daughter just got tooth #2. With it apparently comes a remarkable desire not to sleep. It's not only pain (only from the shrieking in there, it's probably partially pain) - it's also that switch that went off in her head that prompted her to wake me at 3 a.m. to have a three-hour long attempt at a discussion. Sadly, I haven't slept since.

What's worse for me, though, is the guilt. Yeah, I really can't do anything than give Tylenol to make the tooth feel better. But, the muscles in my back are aching, burning and just generally not in the right places. I had to hand her off to my husband for a few minutes. My husband, lucky man, doesn't have the same visceral reaction I do to my daughter's crying. I want to find what's causing it and obliterate it. He calmly puts on some muting headphones (he can hear her, but it's not as piercing) and carries her around until she's done crying and ready to sleep. Unfortunately for me, she cries a lot more with him.

So, while I'm out here feeling miserable, guilty, exhausted, frustrated and sore, I'm also treated to her shrieking, something I know I could alleviate just by walking in there and taking her from my husband. Seriously, I pick her up and it's like someone hit the off switch. God, I hate this. It's even worse knowing Ragsy is probably laying in bed with his hands clamped over his ears.

I know I should let the two of them figure it out. After all, it's not like I left her all alone. Someone who loves her is carrying her and quietly talking to her. Ugh. How sad is it that I'm trying to rationalize taking a much-needed break to avoid screaming myself and scaring the daylights out of a baby and setting a stellar example for my son? Oh, well. I hope she stops crying soon. I'm tired, sore, have an incredibly bad headache and I think my blood pressure is probably sky high by now.

Long time, no write.

2010-06-03T19:22:00.000-07:00

It's not that nothing interesting has happened to me. It has. I just forget what it was by the time I go to make a blog post, so I haven't written in a long, long time. But, since I'm rapidly forgetting how to string two sentences together, I thought I'd write.

Not much is going on. Like I said, I forgot all the interesting stuff than happened to me. At the moment, the worst thing that's happened this week is that Ragsy's been a bit out of sorts and there's been a tuition hike at preschool & daycare. Fantabulous. I love having children, but they're so freaking expensive.

The best thing that has happened this week is that I was asked to serve as an expert on healthcare reform for two magazines who found a white paper I wrote for my company on managing retiree healthcare costs. But this is a mixed bag. I'm still waiting for people to realize that I'm not an expert. I'm just some chump who read all 2500 pages of the healthcare reform bill and was fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to retain some of it. Oh, well. At least I get the credit for these.

Other than that, I'm still completely sleep deprived and feel a slight malaise (that only the genius possess and the insane lament). You know how you've achieved one goal, then you're in between goals? Yeah - that's about where I am. Both Adit and I are pretty sure we're done having children, so we're both struggling with ideas on what we do now. Of course - raise the kids. But what else? We'd both like to be rich. Wouldn't everyone? But how do you do that? And is what we would have to do something we'd be willing or even interested in doing? And if we decide not to do that, then what?

Ugh, anyway. So tired. Too bad Evelyn woke up three times last night. I was up way too frequently for my well being. Thank goodness she's begun to eat some solids. She still eats every hour and a half during the day (even with a meal in the middle of the day and the evening), but she's finally accepting something that's not me. Cereal of any sort really hurts her stomach, but the fruits & veggies are finally starting to have some appeal. I swear, by the time she's actually eating solids reliably, she'll be on finger foods. Not that that's a bad thing. So far when she does eat solids, she eats what we do anyway, so she's usually a cheap date.

Lazy Thursday.

2010-05-13T10:41:00.001-07:00

Well, not really. Evelyn is sick. She cut a tooth last night (or rather, around 4 this morning) and is in the beginning stages of an ear infection, thanks to all the tooth-related congestion. We're not doing a whole lot, but sometimes not doing a whole lot takes a lot of time.

First, there was a half hour wait before we got our things together to go to the pediatrician. Then there was the visit itself. Then the trip to Schnucks (did you know they have free generic antibiotics?), then we got home around 11. Evelyn's been sleeping in roughly half-hour intervals, but even that sleep isn't particularly restful. It's punctuated by coughing and snorting. Then when she wakes up enough to fuss, I nurse her because she hasn't been eating much. Then she falls back to sleep because she can breathe at last and we do the whole thing over again.

Her pediatrician told me that she was healthy enough to go to daycare, but I made the decision early on not to take her. It seems silly for her to be miserable at daycare when I can give her my undivided attention, time at the breast and carry her around as much as she wants and get her to sleep more frequently (if not better) than they can at daycare.

I think I'll try to take a nap. Note that the operative word here is try. I'm smart enough to know it ain't gonna happen, but hopeful enough to try.

This boring post brought to you by the letter S for SLEEP (I need some) and the number 4:30, which is when I went to bed last night/this morning.

Attach this.

2010-04-13T19:40:00.000-07:00

So, for the first time, I read Attachment Parenting by Dr. William Sears. I wasn't impressed. It wasn't the ideas I had a problem with them. Actually, I think that attachment parenting makes a lot of sense. But the whole book could've been summed up with:

1. Breastfeed if you can for as long as you can.
2. Bedshare if you want to.
3. Carry your kid a lot.
4. If something's not working, try something else or get help.

I suppose the above wouldn't have sold well, but my problems with the book were as follows:

1. As with any book advocating something "unusual," it's preachy and defensive.
2. Much of the "evidence" it referred to was anecdotal, taken from Dr. Sears' practice. I think that some amount of this would've been helpful, but I know from prior research that a large and growing body of actual, scientific data backs up most of the ideas in the book. That was very frustrating because it seemed as though the author was too lazy to do any external research himself, almost as though he had all the answers already, or thought he did.
3. The suggestions Dr. Sears gives for decompressing are irritatingly stereotypical. For example, in several sections, he recommends that to relax, the mother go take a bubble bath or sew. I actually enjoy sewing and it does help me decompress when I think to do it, but... Honestly? Sew?
4. Some of the anecdotes in the book were completely unbelievable.
5. It was way, way, way too long for a book that offers just a few ideas and only anecdotes to back them up. I felt like the same thing was being pounded into my head over and over.

So there. Love the ideas in Attachment Parenting, hate the author's style.

So very tired.

2010-04-06T20:01:00.000-07:00

I'm just about wiped out. Evelyn either had a really weird cold that involved only congestion, or she's teething. Regardless, in addition to lots of hand gnawing, said stuffy nose coincided with another little *click* in her brain. Normally that's delightful, but I've noticed that as children get older, clicks also mean that whatever you'd been doing before that was guaranteed to get them to sleep suddenly doesn't work anymore. Seriously - one day it works, then the next day it never works again ever. So frustrating!

Anyway, until Thursday night I've been able to just carry her around for five minutes, jiggling her gently, to get her to sleep. Then Thursday night, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, yesterday and now today, I've spent two hours or more alternately carrying her and gently laying her down while I walk away for a few minutes so I don't get too tense from carrying around a screaming baby, then coming back to pick her up. Only after she's wiped herself out a bit will she sleep. It sucks because she's never been a screamer and she doesn't get upset about anything else. She screamed so much yesterday, I was convinced that she had an ear infection from all of last week's congestion and took her to acute care, only to be told that she was completely healthy.

Anyway, none of this is particularly important. I'm really putting this here because it bothered me that every time I come to this page, the first thing I see is the post about having to put my cat to sleep. I really ought to be going to bed. Last night I got the most sleep I've gotten in one stretch in a week and that was only four hours without interruption. Sad, isn't it, when four hours of sleep is cause for celebration? Huh.

Or not.

2010-03-15T17:38:00.001-07:00

I had to put Cricket to sleep a couple of hours ago. She would eat, but not drink. They think she probably had cancerous tumors. They said I could wait two or three days if I wanted to, but she was losing weight so quickly and hardly able to breathe, so I asked them to do it before she got truly uncomfortable.

Back from the dead?

2010-03-14T14:02:00.000-07:00

So, I had made an appointment to euthanize my cat after she refused to eat or drink for almost 24 hours (the statute of limitations I was given by the emergency vet - basically, if she's not eating or drinking after 24 hours, it's time to consider euthanasia or surgery). Then, as though she understood what I was doing, she began eating the tuna I left out for her and drinking the juice. She still refuses water, but will drink tuna juice or chicken broth. I think she's getting a bit dehydrated, but not as dangerously so as she was last week. I guess I'll give her another day or two and see what happens.

My weekend has pretty much been spent watching the cat for signs of imminent death and trying to get a growing infant to sleep. I think she must be on a growth spurt or something clicked in her brain again. She ate for a good three, almost four hours last night, woke for maybe 30-60 minutes, then ate for another two. I'm glad I'm no longer shy about bringing a baby to bed with us. Last night could've been a lot more uncomfortable. It doesn't help that she's got her first tooth coming already. It's one of her upper eye teeth. Go figure. Now we'll have a vampire baby.

Her four-month checkup is tomorrow. I can't wait. I used to think, "Jeez - how many doctor's appointments can I justify anyway?" I no longer care. Just like with Ragsy, it's exciting as heck to go and see how much weight they've gained, what someone else thinks of what they're up to, etc. Oh, well. Such a boring weekend, but exciting to me. So far, the only thing "major" we've done is go to lunch and Babies R Us today. Whatever. It didn't involve animal hospitalization, screaming, vomiting or snot. So I'll take it.

Silver lining?

2010-03-10T19:36:00.000-08:00

This week has been...almost indescribable. I may need to put my cat down. Actually, she's doing much better, but I'm still trying to decide what kind of quality of life a cat with pancreatitis, kidney failure and high blood pressure can have, even though the kitty version of the intensive care says she's doing much better. Did you know that high blood pressure can make a cat hemmorage behind her eyes? I didn't. I didn't want to know, either. On a more practical note, I'm also wondering how much cash I can legitimately shell out to keep my cat alive. Not a whole lot more.

Unfortunately, the near demise of white cat had an impact - a bad one - and Ragsy hurt a kid at school. Not intentionally, but his habitual throwing led to someone else getting injured. Then, instead of being remorseful, he apparently tried to hit a teacher, started spitting (thank God the only way he knows to spit is blowing raspberries) and screaming.

Anyway, things are not necessarily better. But they seem to be stabilizing anyway. While I was stressed out over the past few days, I managed to misplace a check from my FSA for a substantial amount, so right now I'm ticked, feel really stupid and am ready to pass out, all at the same time. But maybe there's a silver lining. Maybe. Right now I just want to go to bed and pretend this week never happened.

Keee-rap.

2010-02-13T19:31:00.000-08:00

Week 1 after maternity leave was...anticlimactic. At best. Day one was nice. I was provided with a really nice lactation room, which was an absolutely wonderful surprise. I was seriously considering whether I wanted to quit sooner rather than later over it. It may sound stupid, but I really don't want work dictating how I can feed my baby, and I'm not a huge fan of pumping in public bathrooms. I was planning to buy Whisper Wear so I could just do it in my car, but they went out of business.

Anyway, the lactation room was a huge load off my mind, and the place they set up for me was really nice - two comfy chairs, a desk, a fridge, a bookcase. Much nicer than ESI. Unfortunately, though, that was the best thing about coming back. All my work was waiting for me. How is it possible that someone is gone three months and nothing gets done? I was gone during the single busiest time of the year for my product. Plus, I woke up Tuesday to two flat tires. I only found out they were flat after I realized I'd lost my security badge and got into my car late. So, here I am stomping around, I get in my car, drive about two blocks and pull over, check my tires and drive home. I'm waiting for the tow truck to arrive and searching the whole house for my badge when I decide to just drive on my rims to the tire place down the road. I go to my car door and there, frozen in the ice, is my badge. On the street. So I break the ice with my shoes, pick it up and go on my way.

So that was Tuesday. Now Evelyn has RSV. Well, I guess she's had it for a while - it just took a while to show up. It's not as terrifying as it was with Ragsy. She hasn't stopped breathing, thank God. Though I think she might have yet another ear infection. Anyway, I think the RSV peaked last night and is subsiding. Unfortunately, if she won't nurse on one side tomorrow, I'll probably have to call the doc or go to the pediatric acute care center for an ear infection. And did I mention that I now have RSV, too? I'm sure that being up for nearly 24 hours two days in a row didn't improve my chances for holding out.

I hope this week isn't going to set the tone for things to come in the future.

Speaking of health insurance...

2010-02-03T07:44:00.000-08:00

Ours is going to get a workout this year. Already Evelyn has had conjunctivitis, an infection in each ear and Ragsy has also had a double ear infection. This morning, he woke with a fever of 104, stating that he was really tired, which is always a huge warning flag for us. He's never tired. Ever. Anyway, after a visit to the doctor, he was proclaimed healthy, even though I couldn't get his fever to go down earlier, which figures.

The way his illnesses usually work: he wakes up, burning hot with chills and acting really off - super whiny, exhausted, clingy, not hungry, etc. I take his temperature and find it's some ungodly high number, so I dose with some Tylenol and, if it doesn't got down, call the doctor. They tell me to bring him in. I bring him in and, by the time we get there, the fever is gone, he's happy and well rested (because he slept late that morning since he was feverish), and proclaimed healthy as a horse and I'm advised that he can go to preschool. Then I have a kid bouncing off the walls all day. The next morning rolls around, I'm excited because he can go to preschool, and his fever is back, along with weird behavior. Rinse, repeat until late Friday morning when it all goes away and he makes like the Road Runner in Wile E. Coyote cartoons until Monday when he's out the door. Good times.

Time.

2010-02-02T08:22:00.000-08:00

The more I contemplate going back to work, the more depressed I get. I can't believe maternity leave is almost over. It's as if just a few weeks ago, it was just me, my husband and Ragsy and now we have this other little life enmeshed in ours and it's wonderful and I don't get to spend nearly enough time holding her and watching her play and grow. Dammit.

I'm still going, but I'm not going to like it (not that I did beforehand, but I think I'll like it even less this time around). Unfortunately, between me and my husband, I'm the only one of the two of us whose employer offers reasonably-priced insurance, so quitting is not an option right now since I have a pre-existing medical condition. We've worked it out and found that we save about $700-$800 per month on insurance alone if I work. Then there are the investments we're hoping to build up, education to pay for, bills, etc. I think I need to work harder on a longer-term plan and my own business. What that business will be is so far up in the air. Medicare or writing? If writing, what type? If I do that, who takes on insurance? So far, my husband really likes consulting, and since I freelanced already, I'd like him to have the opportunity to build up his own business.

Yeesh, being a grownup sucks sometimes. I really miss not having to worry about all this crap, but I sure as hell don't miss not having children. I still remember when getting up at 7 a.m. was ungodly early. Now I find I need to get up at 5:30 when I go back to work to make sure I get a workout in, a shower, kids up and dressed and fed and ready to go so I can leave them with my husband with a clean conscience. And bedtime isn't usually before 12 or 1 a.m. because, once we've gotten everyone into bed, it's 9 p.m. Once everyone is actually asleep (I'm looking at you, Ragsy) it's 10 p.m., leaving us precious little time to talk, relax and get ready to do it all over again the next day. Still, it's worth it. I hope working turns out to be worth it, too.

Good grief.

2010-02-01T10:56:00.000-08:00

So, I admit it. I was completely irresponsible. While I renewed my license plates in December, I kept one of the old ones on until today. But I had a somewhat good reason: the screw was so stripped I couldn't get it off without a mechanic's help (it needed bolt cutters and a few other specialized tools I don't have and don't want to buy) and, with all the illness in the house, got distracted. Nonetheless, I did have some time in which I could have gone to the dealership and had the offending plate removed and the new plate attached. Anyway, I had attached the front plate and put the rear new plate in my rear window so at least it was visible. But I get it - I didn't meet requirements. So I wasn't terribly surprised when I found a ticket on my windshield last week citing me for failure to display two current plates. Okay, I thought - Evelyn's first day at daycare is Monday, so I can get the rear plate replaced then.

So, today after I dropped her off and made a belated visit to the dentist for a teeth cleaning, I headed to Starbucks (have to have coffee while I wait) and was turning into the dealership when a cop flipped his lights on behind me. I knew exactly why - expired plates. But still, what timing! What...I don't know what. I was lucky he didn't give me a ticket, but I'm sure he stayed in the parking lot to make sure I actually drove into the dealership.

I should've expected it. After all, today was a day for expected unexpecteds. You know, those things you talk about, then say, "That figures." Getting pulled over for the very thing I was on my way to fix was one. The other was how happy Evelyn was when I dropped her at daycare. No, I didn't want her to be upset. But she usually does her scalded cat impression when anyone else but me or my husband holds her. Instead, when Tina pulled her from her car seat, she cuddled up to her, let Tina swaddle her without a peep (I suggested a nap since she'd gotten up early), then lay in her crib grinning and kicking her feet. I called to check in - surely she'd gotten upset when she realized I'd gone. Nope - the only time she'd gotten bent out of shape was when she was hungry and was offered a bottle instead of a breast. I was completely nonplussed. Even now I'm still going, "huh?" When I called she was sleeping, so I decided to give her a little longer before I pick her up. Good grief.

Is it over yet?

2010-01-28T08:09:00.000-08:00

I'm hoping against hope that our bout with illness is at least temporarily over. My husband feels better, the pickle in Ragsy's ear is gone (for some reason, an ear infection somehow equals having a pickle in one's ear) and Evelyn is not sick. Yet. But she starts daycare part time on Monday and I go back to work a week from Monday, so Murphy's Law would indicate that she'll come down with something spectacularly bad by Sunday, so I'll have to stay home all the following week. Oh, well - things could be lots worse.

Anyway, everyone is getting healthy just in time for a couple of people to drop by tonight. On the one hand, I'm very much looking forward to it. I love having people over. I'm a lot like my mom in that I'm a feeder. I like to feed people, though I try not to be as persistent about it as she is. With my mom, if you don't eat what she makes, you don't like her. I've never taken not eating something personally, especially now since many of my friends (me, too!) are making efforts to have a healthier 2010.

On the other hand, having people over means I have to clean. This is actually not a negative since I need to organize the house and would like it to be in such a state where it's not hard to have people over with short notice; however, it does highlight two things for me: a) we're slobs and b) Evelyn really doesn't sleep that much. We haven't read the same books apparently. No matter - that's what slings were created for, I suppose. She'll just have to get acquainted with the vacuum cleaner.

Only tangentially related, I've found that our Parents as Teachers educator, combined with Evelyn and Ragsy's pediatrician together make the perfect childcare advisor. I think I'm in love with both of them. We had a visit from our PATNC educator yesterday and she actually helped me a LOT with some of Evelyn's sleep issues (i.e., that she would refuse to sleep during the day, making her so tired she'd stay up until midnight and crash for seven hours).

Although Evelyn is still not a fabulous napper, some of the suggestions I've received have already begun to pay off, with no tears necessary (on either side). And she delivers them in such a non-judgmental, calming way, which is worth its weight in gold. Then there's our pediatrician who always makes me feel like I'm making good decisions, even when she's somehow getting me to change my mind or when everyone else tells me I'm a whack job or spoiling my kids. Hats off to you, ladies.

Underwear.

2010-01-26T10:21:00.000-08:00

I forgot how depressing post-pregnancy can be, and often for ridiculous reasons. My new gripe is that I not only have to shop for clothing, I also must buy new undies. I hate clothes shopping, especially after having given birth. The waist of everything is tight, while the butt and thighs are disproportionately loose, and spending so much money on good professional-looking shirts is a bit painful, given that my breasts are Pamela Anderson sized, so I'll need something large enough to accommodate them; however, anything large enough to do, unless it's fitted, will make me look like a tube from the boobs down.

Buying new underwear, however, is even worse. My current undies are all stretched out from accommodating an unwieldy belly. My midsection is still unwieldy, but it's even more bizarrely shaped than it was previously, thanks to all the stretching. Grrrr... This is something only plastic surgery can correct, too - snapping back into shape after pushing something the size of a watermelon out of your body isn't as easy as it was only three and a half years ago. Oh, well. Hopefully my acquisitive side will come out to play. Sadly, I only get acquisitive when it comes to things for my children and facial cleansers (I'm a junkie).

Sicko.

2010-01-25T08:55:00.000-08:00

My husband has now come down with whatever it was that Ragsy had. I also have it, but to a lesser degree - just a mild headache, scratchy throat and tiredness, but I'm always tired, so it's tough to tell whether that's illness-related to just normal motherhood. Plus, I seem to have a stronger immune system than everyone in the house, unless, of course it's a serious self-induced illness like shingles where my body decides to attack itself. My body is its own worst enemy. Maybe fate has decided to give me a break on external illnesses because of it.

Anyway, my husband is home with me and Evelyn today. He feels "weak," has a sore throat, headache, cough, snotty nose, etc. Normally I'd giggle at him for his choice of words, since whenever he says that it reminds me of Scarlett O'Hara, but in this case, I'd buy it. I just hope that this is what Evelyn had two weeks ago, but I'm not usually that lucky. So if she's going to get sick, hopefully she'll do it before I have to go back to work. I'd feel more sympathy for my husband than fear for her normally, but he's an adult and she's not.

The weekend went well, though moreso for me than my husband and Ragsy. While my method of getting Ragsy to sleep worked, it didn't help that I went out for the first time on Friday night. I had a great time (it was our holiday party - a tad belated) and awesome food, but came home to find that Evelyn had been up the whole time, alternately fussing, dozing and outright crying. The next day, Ragsy was irritable and out of sorts from having to be so patient while Evelyn gave her dad hell, so he spent a lot of time in time out. I've read books that say you're supposed to be tender and patient with your kid if they're acting out, but I disagree that I'm supposed to avoid discipline when my kid starts hitting his father.

Anyway, yesterday was a bit better and this morning even better, probably because we all got up, had breakfast together, then I took Ragsy to preschool instead of his father. My next experiment will be to start getting Ragsy out of bed earlier. His dad likes to stay in bed until the last possible moment, then rush out the door. I had been getting Ragsy up at 7, sometimes a bit before, so he'd have time to have breakfast, play a little and get dressed, but he'd been sleeping until 7:45 or 8, getting stuffed into his clothes and rushed out the door. I'm pretty sure that has something to do with his inability to sleep at night. We'll see.

Urhg. Evelyn's up again. So much for her sleeping better in her own room. I put her in there so my husband's coughing wouldn't wake her up. I guess she's just wired to wake up, probably because she sleeps so well at night.

Parenting experiments gone wrong.

2010-01-21T08:31:00.000-08:00

Every parent performs certain experiments on their children. I'm not talking about injecting them with things or seeing what happens when you throw them in for a cage fight. I'm talking about what you do when something clearly isn't working. Case in point: bedtime at our household. Things go well from dinnertime to bathtime to book reading to lights out. But after that? That's when things get bumpy. Not only does Ragsy not want us to leave, he won't go to sleep after we're gone. For two hours. This doesn't particularly bother me. After all, he's in bed. He'll pass out eventually. But it bugs the crap out of my husband. It's one of those things that eats at him and eats at him until eventually he goes back and demands that he close his eyes, relax his arms and legs and, for God's sake, go to sleep so he can feel good in the morning. He'll go back again and again and eventually get so frustrated he sits and simmers. It can't be good for him.

And it never works. Now it's a control issue. Ragsy is wonderful and very well-controlled with Evelyn, and though he throws intense tantrums with us, everything boils down to us being bigger and therefore able to control the situation until he gives. So, when he falls asleep is really the only thing he can control absolutely, which makes me feel awful.

I talked about this with my husband and we decided we'd experiment with a couple approaches - he would suggest one and we would try it Tuesday. I would suggest one and we would try it tonight. Yes, yes, I know - you have to give an approach longer to work. But we're impatient people, which probably doesn't help the whole situation. Anyway...

My husband's: let him tell us when he's tired. I wasn't a huge fan of this approach, but it's really common in India. Most children don't go to bed until well after midnight when the whole family goes to sleep together. That's just the culture - dinner is usually at 9 or 10 p.m., then people sit down to chat for a while, get ready for bed, etc. and by the time people are winding down, it's usually around 12:30 or 1 a.m. Putting children to bed at a time other than when the parents sleep is virtually unheard of. Many kids simply pass out wherever they happen to be after a while and are carried to bed whenever the parents go to bed. I'm pretty sure that's why a siesta is built into the day. Everyone's so tired from staying up so late.

Mine: more textbook, but with a later bedtime to accommodate more transitions from one activity to the next. So far, he has a really tight schedule. Get home, play for 10 to 20 minutes, dinner. Immediately after dinner, bathtime. If he's lucky, he might get to play for 5 minutes between dinner and bath. After that, bedtime. So I'd like to try something that'd hopefully benefit both kids, with dimming lights, longer quiet (emphasis on quiet) playtime and, once Ragsy is in bed, informing him that he can sleep when he wants but needs to stay put (what? it worked with toilet training).

Last night's results were not that great, though I did cut things short. I probably shouldn't have - presenting other than a united front in front of your child is just not cool - but, dammit, I'd been trying to get Evelyn to sleep for two hours. She was starting to get upset and I was tired of laying in a dark room with a baby whose eyes snapped open at every frenetic shriek. At 10:30, I had to call it quits. When I finally went to the living room to tell Ragsy to go the heck to bed, I found all the lights in the house (other than the dark room where I'd been putting Evelyn down) blazing and Ragsy, looking a little wired and with dark circles under his eyes, helping his dad do laundry and take down our Christmas tree. Anyway, after he got into bed, Ragsy stayed up singing for another hour anyway and was impossible to get up this morning and once he was up, was stumbling a bit for a few minutes. He was also whiny and had very little time between waking and getting out the door.

Sometimes I feel like we're torturing our child. Oh, well - I guess trial and error is how you get to what works. I really, really hope my approach works. I don't care about being right. All I want is a little freaking peace, fewer tantrums and better quality sleep for everyone.

So, it's going to be one of those weeks.

2010-01-19T08:07:00.001-08:00

Ragsy spent the weekend alternating between angel and demon. It seems that the rest of the week will be the same. And it sucks, for him (lots of time outs, and I can't imagine being that upset for so long feels good), for us (I've begun grinding my teeth at night again from the stress and have raised my voice far more than I like) and for Evelyn (who isn't a huge fan of noise to begin with; she'll just have to get used to that, though). Anyway, on Sunday for about a three-hour period, every time me or my husband addressed Ragsy, he would fall apart and begin these ear-shattering screams. We talked briefly to the pediatrician about it yesterday and his teachers, who advised us that yes, it's normal, no, he's great at preschool and to be calm throughout. I'm trying. Really, really hard. I know that raising my voice does not magically make him listen better. It scares him and all he hears is yelling. But, Christ on a cracker, I sometimes understand why people spank their kids, even if I'd never do it.

I'm glad that Ragsy chose preschool instead of us yesterday, even though he had the option of staying home. I was initially depressed, but after this morning, I got over it. Oh, well. I guess I don't always have to like my kid as long as I always love him.

Where is the sun?

2010-01-15T07:59:00.000-08:00

This is such a stream of consciousness post, but... I can't wait for spring. Cannot wait. I don't have SADD, but I still feel much more alive in sunlight. I used to be a night person, but I love watching the sun come up. Which is a good thing, given Evelyn's appearance in our lives.

I'm so excited to start running with my son in the evening and to show Evelyn the garden. I can't wait to start planting, Evelyn permitting. One thing I can wait for is going back to work. At least it won't be in the dark - I was fortunate enough to miss the crappiest part of winter at work, where everything is black when you walk inside the office and again when you leave - but, I really, really don't want to go back.

I never thought I'd say that. With Ragsy I couldn't get back fast enough. I loved him then and now as passionately as I did Evelyn, but there was definitely some resentment, both from labor and also just adjusting to the idea that my body was no longer my own, even less so than it had been during pregnancy. Going to work was like regaining my old self. Coming back was like losing myself again. Horrible way to look at things, isn't it? But after a while, I grew to need him - he was something we never knew we were missing until he was born and my husband and I settled into our roles as mother and father and husband and wife.

Having Evelyn has been the same, both in roles and in just her integrating into our family. There have been some moments when I thought, "What have we done to ourselves? What about our son?" But then Ragsy makes some offhand comment and I realize that, in some ways, he's integrated her into the family better than I have and I need to calm then hell down because he's taking the addition better than I am, even though he's letting us have it.

Another unexpected side effect of parenthood was that I started to assume not just the one role, the one I played with my husband, but three. I'm one person with my husband and another alone with my child. Then there's that other person I am with my husband and my child. They're all very similar, but subtly different.

Oh, well. Blah, blah, blah, right? No matter how much I ramble, it doesn't change that I have to go back to work. I can change what I do and where I go, though. I guess I ought to work on that instead of complaining about it and waxing philosophical about parenthood. It is what it is. Sometimes it really, really sucks. Strangely, the endless walking at 4 a.m. is the least of the suckage. But sometimes you have a transcendent moment that just makes it all worth it.

I think I'm going to hurl.

2010-01-13T21:45:00.000-08:00

I haven't overeaten in a long, long time, probably six or seven months. And you wouldn't imagine that, with a dinner of fruit and cheese, I would. But I crammed myself full of brie, manchego, strawberries and cantaloupe, then indulged in some chocolate cake afterward and now I feel like I'm going to explode. I'm glad I wore my maternity jeans today. Oh, well. It was really, really worth it.

Sadly, that was the highlight of my evening. Ragsy pitched a fit today. Well, two fits, which set Evelyn off - once in the car and again when I had to hand her over to her dad so I could deal with said fit. Blargh. What a day.

I'm still a little unsettled from a dream I had last night, too. I think I must have been partially awake, too, which made it all the more weird. In the dream, I was walking Evelyn to sleep after a feeding. Not too weird. The weird part was that I knew that I was dead and that my reality overlay someone else's who was living in my former house. I was the ghost they heard pacing up and down the halls, into their bedroom and through the family room. My footsteps and Evelyn's cries were keeping them awake and afraid. I couldn't see them, but a couple were laying in a bed right where ours used to be, huddling in fear. From me. It was very much like the end of The Others.

And so it begins.

2010-01-12T10:31:00.000-08:00

We'll need to start transitioning Evelyn out of our room sooner than I had originally thought. She detests her co-sleeper and has grown so long her feet touch the end of the bouncinette, even when her head is where it's supposed to be. Plus, she's already kicking out of her swaddle and trying to sleep on her side. By the time she wakes up for a feeding or in the morning, her butt is where her feet should be and her legs are dangling over the edge of the bouncinette. Funny, yes. Safe or comfortable? Probably not.

We had also thought that we'd found a way to comfort her when she'd really lost it in the form of a pacifier. Not so. Yesterday I was completely frazzled after a long day of dealing with her. Then Ragsy came home and began screaming bloody murder - you know, the type of shriek that makes you wonder where you've gone wrong as a parent and makes your ears ring and causes temporary hearing loss. Anyway, that freaked her out further, her dad started yelling to get Ragsy's attention and I just needed to put her down and leave the room temporarily before I began screaming, too. So I tried to give her a pacifier because I didn't want to leave her panicking. Yeah, right. How she managed to spit a pacifier out of her mouth, over the edge of her bouncinette and six inches away onto the floor will always remain a mystery.

Worse was that she calmed down and laughed at me, then blew a raspberry at me. Good grief. Someone save me.

Work again, work again, jiggity jig.

2010-01-11T07:26:00.000-08:00

I need to face it: I'm going back to work in less than a month and starting Evelyn in day care in less than that. Bleh. I'm really not looking forward to it. Not only has this maternity leave been night and day compared to leave with Ragsy when I was so sick when my husband went back to work, I'll be going back to a long commute without the anticipation of a mental challenge and will be thinking about my kids while I'm there. I've actually grown to like my boss kind of, but I really need something more difficult if I'm going to stay, or he'll need to let me work from home sometimes.

Plus, the cost is just astronomical, but I really like our day care and preschool. Oh, well. Time to create that budget.

And, of course, Evelyn is waking up because I had the unmitigated gall to get online. Contrary little girl. I like that, but it'd be nice if she'd resume her predictable napping schedule. At least she's feeling better. The seepage is gone and nursing is going smoothly again, so I can only assume her ears feel better. Here's hoping it lasts.

Oh, hell.

2010-01-08T18:54:00.000-08:00

I bring disease and pestilence to whosoever shall come into contact with me. And here's why:

So, I put Evelyn down for her nap today at 9 a.m. She was clear-eyed and calm. She woke up screaming at 10:30 with her left eye sealed shut and seeping. I picked her up, called the doctor's office and went in, knowing already that it was pinkeye. So they prescribed some drops and I picked them up and went home. I tried to eat lunch, but Evelyn wasn't having any of it. So, I chucked my sandwich and we played for a while (like Ragsy, she's apparently a happy patient when alert) and she seemed...off. You know that feeling you get where your spidey senses start tingling? I kept putting it off, thinking, "I've already been to the pediatrician. They're going to think I'm insane." So I waited, then thought, "I really don't want to have to go to urgent care. I'd rather they think I'm nuts than want to kick myself when she's really in pain and shrieking on Saturday." So I called and they patiently made room for me and I brought her in again.

My pediatrician, who I love, told me not to worry, that she understood (and would happily bill our insurance). She took a look at Evelyn's ears and, lo and behold, fluid and redness in both. More antibiotics, this time oral. And now she has diarrhea. And she can't sleep because her ears hurt, her eyes burn and she can't nurse for comfort because, well, her ears hurt. I'd give her Tylenol, but I can't remember how much the doctor said to give, so we (or mostly me since she won't let anyone else touch her) are up a creek without a paddle. Tonight is going to be a fun one. Still, I can deal with diarrhea and sleeping on the couch for a night or so as long as the antibiotics kick in soon.

Mental miscellany

2010-01-05T08:55:00.001-08:00

I have so much random stuff floating around in my head, in part because it's my nature and also in part because I don't get much adult company during the day and I'm too much a coward to leave the nice, warm house with my seven-week old to go somewhere more exciting like, say, the mall or Babies R Us (I'm thinking of getting a baby seat for the kitchen; the stroller takes up way too much room). Sad when that's my idea of excitement.

Right now, I've got a kid on my chest and have for, oh, about two hours. I think my butt is creating a trough in this chair. Ah, well. I guess that's what maternity leave is for. Partially, anyway. Maybe I can watch Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog again. I'm really glad a friend suggested I buy it rather than borrow it again (you know who you are) - I got two copies and gave one to my brother-in-law instead of having him watch it over the holiday. He loved it.

This'll tell you how lame I am: did you know that they now make Snuggies for dogs?

Holiday!

2009-12-28T08:04:00.000-08:00

Christmas this year was fantastic - at least, it was once I unwound a bit. Ragsy got what he wanted (mostly) and behaved really well (mostly) and Evelyn slept somewhat well (kind of). The only black spot on the whole thing was me, and I made Christmas Day a lot harder on myself than it needed to be, but fortunately didn't impede anyone else from having fun.

I was wound tight as a spring, waiting for Ragsy to misbehave and spending way too much time trying to calm Evelyn, who was overstimulated and under-rested most of the day and night on Christmas Day. She was having a typical baby meltdown, which occurs when she gets way too stimulated. Ragsy went through the same thing the first time we took him on a trip. I should have expected it, but I must have blacked it out. I was trying to be everything to both kids, which just wasn't necessary.

It took my brother-in-law commenting on it the next day to make me realize that I was unnecessarily tense. His exact words were, "Wow, you were so laid back, but you've done a 180 since you had kids. Why? I hope Missy and I don't do that when we have kids." I'm lucky he's so candid; I think everyone else was afraid to tell me I was being too anxious. Anyway, once I relaxed, I had a fabulous time.

We did very little - mostly ate and talked. We also came to a couple of conclusions: next year instead of going out to a dress-up dinner at the country club on Christmas Eve with young children in tow (Missy will hopefully have some then, too), we're going to heat up some strombolis, make a bit salad and watch movies all night. Also, we're going to limit gifts to each other to one, possibly just drawing a name out of a hat and giving that one person and our own SO if we like a gift. All of us have the means to buy what we want and none of us wants more stuff, so excessive gift giving among us really doesn't make much sense. That will take a lot of pressure off.

Another thing I learned is the value of pacifiers. I had sworn up and down that I wouldn't use one. Until I had Evelyn. She needs to suck a lot more than Ragsy ever did. With him, if it wasn't food and he wasn't hungry, he refused to keep it in his mouth. Evelyn will nurse to the point of vomiting when she's stressed, which upsets her even more. Or she'll mistake her stress for hunger, start rooting, then get upset when she nurses too aggressively for simple comfort sucking and gets actual food. Then she'll rear back, shrieking, more upset than before.

Finally my sister went to Target and came back with a pacifier. I was dead set against it until Evelyn lost it for a few hours unless something was in her mouth. We tried it and her eyes rolled back in her head, her entire body relaxed and she fell asleep for the first time in hours and hours. As soon as she was under enough, the pacifier fell out and she kept sleeping. She just needed it enough to calm down. So, yeah - pacifiers? Totally worth it. She won't take one unless she's actually upset. Plus, breastfeeding has been solidly established, so I really don't have any reservations about using one in moderation. Once again, I eat my own words.

All in all, a very successful, fun and educational Christmas.

Great. Now what?

2009-12-21T21:55:00.001-08:00

Okay. So I've had a baby. But what's next? Despite all my whining, I'm delighted to have Evelyn here. She is so much her own person, just like her big brother. Like Ragsy, it'll be completely fascinating to watch her grow. But, while I was pregnant, there were a lot of things that I set aside for "after the baby is born."

So, I'm making a list of goals that I want to achieve in the next six to 12 months or even longer, not because of the new year, but because a) Evelyn is here and b) I need to actually write these things down and a plan to achieve them, particularly since life just got more hectic, but in a good way.

So far, I have:

Lose 25 pounds. It's great that I already fit into my pre-pregnancy work clothes, but I was planning to lose weight to begin with. I should probably lose more than 25, but that's a good start. And now I have nothing to stop me. Back to Weight Watchers jiggity jig.

Find a new job. I'm bored senseless where I am now. So it's either get used to boredom, make my current job something interesting (not possible unless I take my boss's job), find a new job or make a new job. I think that latter two options are the best and most likely.

Get a financial plan. We have estate planning done, but now we need to figure out how to pay for college for two kids while still being able to retire when we want (when we want not meaning now, even if that really is when we want). I also want to put ourselves on a budget. Just because we have two incomes doesn't mean we need to spend all of both.

Get organized. We live like pigs. Every time someone comes over, you'd think we were in college, cleaning frantically before our parents show up. We can't keep doing this. It's ridiculous. We have to pick up all our crap just to scrub things. It shouldn't be this hard to clean the kitchen or vacuum the floor. And we can't have nice furniture in our bedroom or dining room until we get this clutter under control. Even more, I like having people over, dammit. It's fun.

Find more time for each other. Even before Evelyn was born, we rarely hired a sitter. We need to find one and take advantage of one more regularly.

Find more time for our friends. We both wish we were more social people. We're such hermits we hardly see the friends we do have. It's crazy because we really, really like our friends and every time we see them, we say, "Wow, why don't we do this more often?" The answer is that we perceive ourselves to be busier than we actually are. Okay, with Evelyn maybe that's not necessarily true. Also, our pediatrician said we need to keep her to ourselves for six weeks before we can take her out and about, but even so, it's not like she's not portable. She's easier to cart around than Ragsy (I usually win when I wrestle her).

Write more. I write all the time at work, but it's boring as hell. I need to keep up with my creative writing or I'll keep having this feeling that I'm wasting time.

Enjoy active time with our family. While I was pregnant, I tried really hard to spend a lot of time walking and doing outside stuff with Ragsy. And it was a lot of fun. Plus it's the only reason I fit into my work pants now. I want to make that standard.

Start researching schools. I have no clue what Ragsy will be doing for kindergarten and elementary school. We need to start thinking about it now.

Hmmm... Now for a plan of attack. But first, sleep. Why am I still up when I could be sleeping? Especially with a kid who's not even six weeks old?

Weekend.

2009-12-21T18:58:00.000-08:00

This weekend was good. We were really busy and completely disorganized and, much as we hated it, had to turn down an opportunity to spend the evening with friends. Oh, yeah, and I turned the answering machine message indicator back on - my son had turned it off at some point. So if you called on Friday and I didn't get back to you, that's why. We really need to just get our voicemail electronically. It's too easy to screw with an answering machine.

Regardless, my combined total hours of sleep for the weekend was approximately five hours, which made me less than coherent, especially after a busy Saturday and Sunday morning/early afternoon. Hanging out with me would have been a bad idea, or really boring at best.

Getting Evelyn to sleep for her weekend naps wasn't quite as frustrating as it was the weekend before, not because the noise level in the house was any less and not because I was being hunted down less, but maybe because she's getting used to it. Maybe. Every time I make an assumption about this kid she changes, blowing whatever I said completely out of the water. I guess if you're developing that fast, it makes sense.

The best thing about having her, though, is that I'm a lot less resentful than I was when I had Ragsy. Isn't that horrible? But it's true that the first one is a huge shock. The second one makes things exponentially more difficult, but at least I know what to expect or, rather, not to expect (i.e., sleep, personal space, coherent thoughts), so I don't have to deal with as many mental challenges.

I also got to bake cookies with Ragsy, an activity I've been promising but incapable of fulfilling for a couple of weeks now. He loved every minute of it and ate almost an entire batch by himself in under ten minutes. It was kind of disgusting, but I swear I just turned away long enough to get some out of the oven and cut two or three new ones.

What else? I took Ragsy shopping at Ulta to get a gag gift for my sister. He almost knocked down a 10-foot halogen lamp, which, if knocked over, would have taken out several displays and potentially gone through a window. After that it was time to leave.

Other than that, the whole thing was still a blur of get up, nurse, walk walk walk, put baby down and pray to the powers that be that she'll sleep then get in bed and pass out, only to be awakened by Ragsy, who has taken to stripping the covers off me as soon as he gets in because he knows I'll doze off mid-sentence unless I'm cold. Oh, well. Whatever works, right? After that, it was feed everybody and bemoan my lack of personal hygiene.

Now that that's out of the way...

2009-12-18T08:52:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I'm posting twice in quick succession. But this post has nothing to do with the previous post and, yes, I'm a dork about separating my subjects. It bothers me when there's no clear delineation, even in those posts where it's just stream of consciousness.

So, the subject of this post - Evelyn, of course. I'm going to freak out about my baby. She woke up this morning smiling her little face off. Every time I looked at her and smiled, she gave me this absolutely huge grin that lit her whole face up. Then she just lay there, kicking her feet and snorting with a huge grin on her face like she was trying to laugh but didn't quite know how.

Just when I'm getting frustrated from being stuck in this chair for marathon feedings and cluster feedings and just as I'm getting broken from so little sleep, she has to go and do something like make my day.

Surely you must be jesting.

2009-12-18T08:41:00.000-08:00

And now for something only tangentially baby-related. Okay, probably not so tangential, but anyway... I was just contacted by my former employer for freelance work in case I needed something to do on maternity leave. Huh. Interesting.

I'm intrigued - mostly because, while I do have a bit more free time than I did previously, someone assumes that my brain is working well enough to do freelance work for them at a very high billing rate (because I have no compunction about raking them over the coals). I'm tempted to say yes because it'd be a lot of money doing something I spent years doing, so it'd be second nature. But at the same time, I've got a new baby, am sleeping about 3-4 hours a night on a good night and am right now unable to think of anything beyond a sleep-deprived "Bwuh?" The only coherent thought I've got right now is that I won't talk about it on Facebook. I probably shouldn't talk about it here, either, but my boss doesn't have a link to my blog, but he did friend me on Facebook.

He's a very nice guy, but at the same time, where is that line between friends and employer? Also, his boss friended him, so anything I say there could easily go up the chain to the senior VP of our company and right up to the CEO/owner. Ah, the Age of the Internet, where information is too available and you have to watch your back with your online friends.

Sensitivity my butt.

2009-12-17T07:53:00.001-08:00

I've been having more than my usual number of brain farts and senior moments lately, likely induced by Evelyn's interesting choice in sleep patterns. Like an idiot, I had been patting myself on the back for having a baby that slept so well. Now I know better.

Those first few weeks were awesome. Heck, the beginning of this week was pretty good, too. We had a couple of nights where she'd be out for five hours, wake up to nurse, then out for another four. What bliss! But something happened in Evelyn's brain making her more alert during the day (wonderful!), more interactive and generally calmer because now she's interested enough in her surroundings that she wants to hang out and look at them. She's also smiling (it's not gas, dammit!) and cooing, welcome changes from earlier.

But... Her interest in her surroundings is making her more alert. All. The. Time. Unless, of course, someone is holding her or she's sleeping somewhere considered unsafe. I say considered unsafe because I really disagree that sleeping on our bed, particularly while we're not in it is unsafe; however, it's been pounded into me enough by everyone else other than her pediatrician that babies sleeping on the bed = bad, bad parent. Funny, though, that my pediatrician is so accepting of getting babies to sleep however you have to, co-sleeping and sleeping alone in the parents' bed for naps included, but many other people are not. My kid's pediatrician has made me feel good about every single decision I've made so far about my children while others have often been less than supportive. Go figure. I think it's largely cultural. She's from the Middle East where family beds are more common. My husband's family is the same - beds are usually custom-made depending upon the size of the family.

Anyway, Evelyn is also suddenly extremely sensitive to her tactile environment. She refuses to sleep without a hat, will not sleep without a swaddle, a particular blanket has to be placed in a certain location, etc. Unfortunately, what she's "sensitive" to changes every day and only unveils itself after several sleep deprived nights of wondering what the hell is going on. One day it was the hat. Another day we found out about the blanket. A few days ago it was the absence of white noise. Today I figured out that a seam in her bouncinette had been keeping her awake the past day. My opinion? We've given birth to Stewie #2 and she's screwing with me.

Babies, to wake:

2009-12-15T07:15:00.000-08:00

Following are some fool-proof instructions on waking a baby. Many of you are likely aware of the following; however, I'm putting together a manual (okay, not really - I'm just strung out on sleep deprivation again). Anyway...

1. Brew a pot of delicious coffee or get whatever your morning crack happens to be. Whatever it is, it has to be hot.
2. Smell your cra... uh, that just sounds wrong. Smell your beverage or food. Doesn't it smell perfect?
3. Sit down and relax. Relaxation is key. It won't work if you're not relaxed.
4. Lift the cup or fork slowly to your lips, breathing deeply.
5. Tilt the cup or slide the food past your lips and...

Hah! Works every time. The above instructions can be adjusted for evenings, particularly mealtimes, or really any other time of day. Keep in mind, they don't work quite as well if you're contemplating something you theoretically could do with a baby in one hand or with the baby present (i.e., bringing a baby in its bouncinette into the shower, drinking a beverage or eating food that won't scald the baby if accidentally spilled or cramming food down your throat while standing up in the presence of a baby, screaming or otherwise).

You've got to be frakking kidding me.

2009-12-13T20:05:00.000-08:00

Last night was bad. As in BAD. We haven't had a night quite like last night with Evelyn. Most of it is attributable to her not napping yesterday. The rest? Turns out she's a ridiculously persnickety kid. The not napping was bad, but after I put her down in the evening, she was up every 5-10 minutes unless someone was holding her. It was so bad that we just took turns holding her in the dark while the other finished their dinner around midnight. Finally, we got her to sleep around 1 a.m. and she woke again at 3:30 wanting to be fed. I both nursed her and, because she didn't seem satisfied with me, gave her some expressed milk to tank her up in the hopes she'd get some much-needed rest. I handed her over to my husband, who was apparently up with her until 7:30.

After she was fed this morning, I went to put her down for her nap. She would pass out every time I touched her, but wake immediately when I took my hand away. I was so strung out from sleep deprivation, my internal monologue went something like this:

Okay, okay. So she falls asleep when I touch her head. Okay. I have to figure out how to get something to touch her head all the time. What would do that? What? I could strap a washcloth to her head. No, that might slip and smother her. I need something that starts with the letter H. Um, helmet? Hand? No, no - the point is not having my hand on her all morning. Um... Ham? Wait, what? Oh! I know! A hat! Now where would I get a hat? And so on until I finally located a hat and put it on her. As soon as her ears were covered, her eyes rolled back in her head and she passed out for three hours.

Fast forward to just now. She's been sleeping more or less all day as long as she's being held. That's fine. She needs it - we're happy to help her to get her rested enough to sleep well tonight. So, I just went in to put her to sleep after tanking her up again to make sure she's not hungry. I put her down with her hat on, but now she won't sleep unless she has pressure on her chest. Otherwise she becomes a miniature Houdini, managing to escape from even the tightest swaddle. Other than my hand, it took me a while to think of a heavy blanket to put on her and tuck in. But I did, and she's asleep - for now. I wonder what it'll be tomorrow? Sound that bothers her? My very existence? Who knows? All I know is that she is anal as hell.

So much for schedules.

2009-12-12T13:46:00.001-08:00

I had worked out a good schedule for weekdays with Evelyn: feeding in the morning followed by her blissed-out morning nap in the bouncinette for about two-ish hours while I eat lunch, shower and work out. Then more food, play for a while, more food and eventually we pass out together with her on my chest in the chair because nursing makes me incredibly sleepy, thanks to all those hormones. I can fight them in the morning, but can't in the afternoon. It doesn't help that Evelyn refuses to sleep anywhere but my chest in the afternoon. Already she has her preferences. Most involve being held by me. So after that, we nurse some more and get Ragsy.

Anyway, the whole point of this post is that, obviously, on weekends schedules go out the window. Mine, my husband's, Ragsy's and Evelyn's. Gone. Evelyn's schedule so far is key, however. But I'm not about to try to explain that to Ragsy because I don't want to create sibling rivalry where it's not necessary. But still... I have never been so tempted to throttle him as I was today. Every time I would get Evelyn almost down for her morning nap (eyes drooping, mouth starting to go slack), he would hunt me down and bellow something along the lines of, "See my train, mommy! Come see!" Evelyn's eyes would snap wide open like a doll's, creating yet another half hour of put-down time, which was unfortunate because Ragsy had asked to decorate the tree with me and my husband while Evelyn slept. Well, guess who never slept? Well, until now, of course, when she's in her afternoon nap mode and apparently must sleep on my chest. Grrr.

I even tried hiding in the basement. I was successful until I got into the bedroom. Just as I was leaning down to put Evelyn to bed, a madly giggling Ragsy rocketed by, waking Evelyn up. Again. So we've been tag-team parenting all day. Tag-team parenting meaning me putting Evelyn down and running out to spend time with Ragsy and my husband, then my spidey senses tingling only to have to pick Evelyn up yet again, put her down, rinse, repeat because Evelyn refuses to let anyone but me get in a 10-foot radius because she's so tired since she missed her morning nap.

Anyway, at least we finally got lunch. At about 3 p.m. I crammed a tuna sandwich down in about 10 minutes while nursing Evelyn and trying not to create a fishy-smelling baby. She's been permanently attached to my breast lately when she's not sleeping, unless I get really tired when I hand my husband a bottle of my stash and pass out.

Oh, well. The Christmas tree is up and Ragsy got to spend time with me. And to my shock, my husband managed to make box-mix cinnamon muffins by himself without asking me any questions, even, "What should we have?"! This is exciting because it has never happened before in our 8 years of living together. Even takeout has been preceded by multiple questions about what we should have, when we should have it and what method we'll use to get it. This was just...awesome.

Snarl.

2009-12-10T09:14:00.000-08:00

It sounds like a lot of people had a crappy evening yesterday. Unfortunately, I was no exception. And, as usual, I'm prepared to vent. The day started out with me getting about an hour and a half of sleep. Then I had to drag Evelyn along with me to get a blood test, during which she shrieked most of the time unless I was holding her car seat and swinging it back and forth. When I had to pick up Ragsy at preschool, Evelyn in tow in her seat (apparently I'm still only supposed to lift 8-12 pounds; yeah, right - what idiot came up with that rule, especially when paternity leave doesn't exist in the U.S.?), Ragsy decided that it'd be a good time to start running down the sidewalk in the freezing cold. Normally I'm pretty calm, even during discipline. Today was not one of those days. I had to put Evelyn down briefly (protected from the wind only by a blanket), run after my kid whose hysterical laughter turned quickly to screams when I grabbed him by the arm, tucked him under one arm and picked up the car seat, hauling everyone to the car. It's not easy to get a screaming kid into the car while carrying a car seat in the other hand. I managed.

So, we got home. My husband forgot to call and tell me he would be late, so I was stuck again, with a starving infant at the breast while I hurried around to get easy-to-make food for a starving preschooler, not easy given that we were so out of staples we didn't even have bread, eggs or milk. Finally, everyone was fed, my husband got home and helped with Evelyn while I took care of Ragsy, who began shrieking while brushing his teeth because he was taking too long and I finally decided to put an end to it (yes, I know you're not supposed to hurry a kid, but I'm sure anyone would agree that 20 minutes to rinse one's mouth out is way too long). That wasn't received well.

Anyway, finally everyone got to bed, Evelyn included. It was 9:30 and time to go to the grocery. I got home around 10:30 and on the way received a voicemail from my husband, Evelyn shrieking in the background, who was apparently irate that I hadn't answered (I hadn't felt it vibrate even though it was in my back pocket). I got home and was snarled at, handed the kid who immediately calmed, then my husband unpacked the groceries. Finally, Evelyn was done nursing around 11:30 or 12 and it was time for me to get some dinner. I didn't want to bother, but I hadn't eaten since 11 a.m. The whole time this was going on, there was some palpable tension in the room with both of us mad at each other, and mad that the other was mad.

Finally, after my delicious bowl of cereal, we decided to go to bed. Of course, newborns being what they are, Evelyn chose the moment my head finally hit the pillow to wake up and begin shrieking. She was immediately handed to me. What did I do? I began to cry, of course. I guess the sleep deprivation had really gotten to me. My husband kept demanding to know what he should do. How the heck would I know? I'm hysterical! Finally, he took her and paced around our bedroom while she screamed - sometimes I think he does that deliberately so I'll take her - until I couldn't take it anymore and took her back. What did I do? I began crying again. That's the only logical thing to do, right? Finally, I decided that he'd change her and feed her a bottle of expressed milk because she usually nurses for at least an hour and I just didn't think I could take staying up until 2 or 3 a.m. My husband got a bottle and took over - not nicely; he decided to storm out of the room to get the bottle - and, since something was in her mouth, she quieted. I passed out.

I woke up and all was better. Of course, Ragsy was back in bed with us (Humpty Dumpty made yet another appearance - sometimes I wish he were afraid of monsters instead), but Evelyn, once fed well, often sleeps for 5+ hours, so I woke up at 7 a.m. when Ragsy grabbed my nose. Yes, he likes to hold my nose. Today is much, much better so far. It seems that Evelyn's growth spurt and the marathon nursing sessions associated with it have slowed down and my husband and I aren't mad anymore. And, even though it's not a habit we'd like to encourage, Ragsy is in a good mood from sleeping with us. Now I plan to get a workout, shower and eat lunch. A pipe dream? Absolutely. I've got to try anyway.

Which came first?

2009-12-08T10:50:00.000-08:00

It occurred to me as I was getting out of the shower that nursing bras very closely resemble cut-out bras that you'd normally get at sex shops and Fredrick's of Hollywood. So I'm wondering which came first - the nursing bra or the cut out? I'm guessing it's the latter rather than the former. People tend to be much more interested in boobs for sex's sake rather than functionality, though I guess there is a nursing fetish (don't ask how I know - I don't want to go into it; let's just say I know and I've been scarred).

Anyway, I obviously have too much time in my head on my hands. I've been watching almost as much television as my mother typically does and nursing about 6-7 hours a day, giving me ridiculous amounts of time to think of this stuff. Yikes - Evelyn is waking up again. I just got her off the breast long enough to get some food. Too bad I wasted that time eating croutons and a handful of chocolate chips for lunch. Something tells me I need to plan some meals and get to the grocery - not easy with a kid on a growth spurt. Good thing I found my sling. Maybe we can even eat as a family one night this week.

Another day, another... well, another day.

2009-12-07T13:04:00.000-08:00

I'm pretty dull at the moment, in two senses: I'm boring and I'm brain dead. Boring because I need to start reading news and actually doing stuff. Brain dead because it was another night of congestion. So, we found ourselves at 4 a.m., in a super steamy bathroom, bulb syringe in hand, baby in the other. What was really freaky was that she didn't struggle at all - she just laid there and allowed my husband to suction her. However, when I did it this afternoon, she screamed bloody murder. She's daddy's girl already.

I should feel rested, though, considering I got a whopping four hours of sleep tonight versus the hour I got the other day. Whatever. I guess this is something that just comes with the territory, especially when one kid is in pre-school.

I would've gotten two more hours of sleep had our son not shown up in our room at 4, letting me know that Humpty Dumpty was there and that he was scared of him. So, I went in to tell Humpty Dumpty to go away. That worked for all of 15 minutes. So I had to go threaten Humpty Dumpty with time out. That lasted 5 minutes. Once again, a demand for Humpty Dumpty to sod off. Finally, we caved and let Ragsy get into bed with us. By then it was 5 and Evelyn was waking up (thanks to our efforts to get Humpty Dumpty to leave), so the idea of sleep was basically a pipe dream.

Oh, well. Right now I'm sitting here, looking forward to the possible visit of a friend and listening to Evelyn start to wake up even though I walked her down for more than an hour and put her down maybe a half hour ago. There's just no sleep return on investment with this kid.

A mystery explained.

2009-12-03T07:04:00.000-08:00

Last night it took me about an hour to get my daughter back to sleep after one of her marathon feeding sessions. I was getting really frustrated. Full stomach? Check. Dark room? Check. Limited interaction? Check. Dry butt? Check and check. What the heck was wrong?

Finally I decided it was time to leave the room and slowly swayed down the hall, holding her in the newborn straight jacket (a ridiculously tight swaddle - she's very strong). As I went down the hall, her eyelids immediately began to droop. By the time I reached the kitchen (maybe she wasn't so full), her eyes were rolling back in her head in an effort to remain conscious. By the time I'd reached the fridge, she was out and grinning in her sleep. So I slowly began working my way down the hall again. By the time I got to the really dark part outside our room, she began to scream. She's surely not old enough to be afraid of the dark, I thought.

So I turned around and walked away again. Again, she dropped off. Again, I began working my way toward the bedroom. And again she woke up and began screaming. So I decided to test a theory. I went to the end of the hall, walked back. Fall asleep, scream. I repeated a few times with the same results. What about our room was bothering her?

Then I heard a particularly loud snort and snore coming from the bedroom, followed by the sound of a buzz saw, otherwise known as my husband. Aha! Mystery solved. So I went to the family room and sat until she was fully asleep, then brought her into the bedroom during a break in the racket. Success! And she woke just once at 5 and she's still asleep. I guess I'll have to poke her soon, but first I'll enjoy a cup of coffee.

Narcolepsy.

2009-12-02T12:15:00.000-08:00

I have newborn narcolepsy. I was lying in bed with my son this morning (he came in to snuggle) and he asked me to tell him the end of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, which we'd stopped last night because he was so wired he couldn't lie still.

Anyway, this morning I kept trailing off and falling asleep in the middle of sentences. He'd then wake me up to remind me that I'd promised to tell him the rest, only to have me doze off mid-sentence again. Poor kid. I'm going to offer to do it again tonight when I get him from pre-school. Hopefully I won't fall asleep mid-story this time.

Talking on maternity leave.

2009-12-01T13:49:00.000-08:00

I forgot how many people call you "just to chat" when you're on maternity leave. I wish I liked talking on the phone more, because then I wouldn't mind that my mother, my brother-in-law and a few other family members have apparently determined that I'm not doing anything and would therefore like to spend an hour on the phone.

Okay, so the first part of that is true - I'm really not doing much. I've got Evelyn on my chest and obviously enough time to write two blog posts in one day. But still... My brother-in-law has called me twice (I've been screening) to tell me something "important," which means that Target has an electronics sale. My mom has called me asking me to call her back as soon as possible, again related to a retail purchase.

Now that's multitasking.

2009-12-01T13:15:00.000-08:00

This whole post is going to be pretty much stream of consciousness. I've been watching too much TV. Anyway, I think I've finally joined the ranks of women who can do other stuff while breastfeeding. Last night, I found myself herding Ragsy around the house with Evelyn at the breast and talking to my husband on the phone (he was late getting home from work and has finally been trained enough to call me if he'll be late). I was stupidly proud of myself, even though I don't generally like talking on the phone while Ragsy's around.

Anyway, now I'm typing with a baby on my chest because my brain is rotting from the amount of TV I've been watching while parked in this chair. I've seen a movie, watched an episode of the Haunting and now, for some incomprehensible reason, I'm watching My Super Sweet 16. This must end.

Other than that, I had a temporary freak out today. This kid slept through the night last night, then took a three-hour nap this morning from which I could not wake her, even with diaper changes, clothing changes and generally pestering her. It was bad enough I actually called the doctor, who called me back and told me, "I think you just have a good baby. Most people would kill for a kid like that, but people who have them can't believe it - it makes them nervous instead. Enjoy it and feel free to call me if you still have questions." I love our pediatrician. Ok. I'm off. Evelyn reeks.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2009-11-26T07:04:00.000-08:00

We celebrated our Thanksgiving on Tuesday, which created a surprisingly low-stress holiday, except managing my mom, who always gets very tense over holidays (even though my sister and I take care of the cooking and cleaning). But that's neither here nor there - there's a lot to be thankful for. After all, she was good enough to spend an entire month with us helping us with our pre-schooler and then our newborn.

I won't go through the list of things I'm thankful for - that'd take forever. Suffice to say that life is good and my complaints in comparison are pretty petty and lame.

I don't know many people who get a brand new baby for their birthday, and today we get her all to ourselves. And next week, she's mine - all mine! With Ragsy, I was terrified to be left alone. This time, I'm a little confounded as to how I'll stimulate this baby until I can take her more places (she's ridiculously alert), but at least I don't want to beg my husband not to leave. I'm sure I'll think of something.

Oh, well. Speaking of stimulation - I've let Ragsy watch way too much TV already this morning in celebration of regaining control of our remote (no more daytime TV - yay!). Time to turn it off, feed him and poke Evelyn awake for her breakfast. It's great that she sleeps so well, but it can take up to an hour to wake her - like her dad, she's pokey waking and pokey eating.

I should have expected that

2009-11-21T19:14:00.000-08:00

There are several things I expected from having another kid: dealing with a certain amount of pain initially, exhaustion (especially at the start), defiance from my current kid. What I stupidly didn't expect was the complete lack of privacy I've experienced in the last few days. Not only has my husband and my mother (who refers to women who breastfeed as "those" people or "mother earth") seen me sit around topless trying to figure out the best way to get as much boob as possible into another human being's mouth and not only has my three-year old become intrigued with the fact that someone else is getting all their food from my chest, people keep freaking walking in on me while I'm pumping. No amount of door locking, telling people to leave me alone for just 15 minutes or outright hiding seems to do the trick.

I'm pumping because I seem to have a bit of a supply issue. I just can't keep up with this girl's appetite. So I pump and I pump and I pump some more. When I'm not pumping, I'm breastfeeding. I don't really mind people seeing me breastfeed so much, but must my family really see me hooked up to a contraption that's so similar to what they use on cows?

Never wake a sleeping baby?

2009-11-21T07:38:00.000-08:00

I have a conundrum: every bit of wisdom I've received from lactation consultants says to get your kid up for feedings at least every 3 hours, even if it's the middle of the night, regardless of how deeply they're asleep. Four hours is apparently the absolute outer limit. However, I've also read articles that you should never wake a sleeping baby, especially one in the middle of a growth spurt because when they're asleep their body is releasing the hormones they need to grow (most of which happens while they're unconscious). So far, I'm going for the latter since she'll nurse for three hours at a time. It seems silly if she's already actively eaten for so long to drag her awake and force her to the breast, particularly when it can take up to an hour to get her fully awake and ready to eat.

Hmmm... So, never wake a sleeping baby or wake her up for a feeding? I've never, ever had a good sleeper, especially at such a young age, so this is completely new territory to me. While we were at the hospital, she'd wake every 3 or 4 hours at night, waking a bit more frequently during the day. Now, she's awake and eating most of the time (or sleeping on the breast and eating) and sleeps 5 hours a night starting 1 a.m. or 2 a.m., which is almost a full night. We're taking her in Monday to make sure she's gaining weight appropriately. I guess that'll tell us if we're doing the right thing or not. She has long periods of quiet wakefulness where she just hangs out and takes in the world. It's awesome. Again, I have no experience with a newborn who's actually happy and alert but not shrieking.

By the way, I'm hoping not to make this blog all about my children. Believe it or not, I plan to write something that's of interest to someone other than me. However, this is really all I can think about now, and probably will be for several weeks until we settle into a pattern. Then I'll be complaining that she's broken her pattern. So there.

On the subject of boobs...

2009-11-19T13:36:00.000-08:00

I'm sure you expected this, but I'm going to talk about breastfeeding. Since this blog is all about me (you knew that when you found it), it'll be about my experiences with it. I know she's only six days old, and I have no expectation that any pattern she gets into will be one she continues, but... For the last two days, Evelyn had been nursing for two hours at a stretch, almost every single time she nursed. Yesterday I spent a total of eight or ten hours nursing. The previous day was even more because those two-hour periods were interspersed with shorter cluster feeds. Having never breastfed exclusively before, I never realized what a total drain it is. Yeah, I got sleepy with Ragsy, but I didn't feel like I'd been fed off of by a vampire. Thank God for lactation consultants.

I had been concerned that I was having a latching issue, but apparently the issue was that she had lost enough weight after birth that she was making up for lost time and just needs to become more efficient. Today was a vast improvement - she spent an hour at a stretch, but that's a heck of a lot more doable than two, particularly given that her nursing sessions were interspersed with an hour of naptime and quiet wakefulness where she lay fascinated by the patterns of sunlight and shadow on the walls. So, basically textbook breastfed baby behavior. I can handle that. And so can my boobs. Ta-dah!

Number Two

2009-11-17T14:39:00.000-08:00

If you haven't heard already, kid #2 is here. Evelyn was born November 13 at 4:58 a.m. She was 7.7 pounds and 20 inches long. I couldn't be more excited. The kid already has a distinct personality - she's a LOT like Ragsy so far. Unlike Ragsy, she was born after just over five hours of hard labor. I began having really strong contractions on the night of my birthday. Finally at 11:43, I threw in the towel and called the doctor, who suggested I go in for evaluation, saying it might just be showtime. And it was.

There was actually a very funny part of the whole evening: apparently the bed I was laboring on had a bubble in the lumbar area. I couldn't tell - I was 8 cm dilated and had not yet had an epidural. So, here I am, in just a hospital gown, with two nurses banging on this bubble in the middle of the bed, bouncing me up and down. After a while, they found the janitor, who came in to try to fix it. Then the woman who's in charge of facilities came in and she tried to fix it. So everyone's staring at my naked bum while I'm bouncing up and down because everyone's trying to press the bubble and is moving the bed up and down.

Finally, everyone left, I got some pain medication (which conveniently wore off while I was pushing - that really burned) and managed to get Evelyn out about an hour later after just five minutes of pushing.

This whole experience (despite being seen by an audience and despite the pain meds wearing off) was just awesome. No seizures, minimal elevation in blood pressure, and a fast, fast, fast labor, topped off by the birth of a beautiful and somewhat curmudgeony little girl. You can't get any better than that.

Something chocolately, something blue...

2009-11-12T18:57:00.000-08:00

My birthday has not sucked. I don't know if it's luck or what, but today was actually kinda good. My son woke up happy and told me I was pretty and said he thought I was great. My husband got up with both of us, so we all got time together and I got a hand in the morning ritual, which is almost unheard of.

My mom got up shortly after and was also in a good mood. I got to work on time for a change, to find a decorated cube. I went to the doctor to find that I'm 4 cm dilated (how does one do that and not go into labor? Aren't I supposed to have a baby by now? I've had contractions all day, but anyway...). By this time last time I was nearly screaming in pain. I'm almost enjoying the mild discomfort in comparison.

The sun shone all day. I got home with a cake with blue icing and my son began to dance and sing like I'd just handed him a piece of the sky. We had cake and the night was topped off by one of the best things ever - this quiet time I'm enjoying right now. Even better, I'm enjoying it with minimal contractions. You know how sometimes internal exams can trigger contractions? I had had them from about 11:30 until I began lounging on my left side to de-puff my feet. I'm finally, finally comfortable for the first time in nearly 6 hours. And tomorrow is my last day at work until I'm back from leave.

I'm not sure how today could be better. Talk about the little things: family, friends, absence of pain and quiet.

Oh, crap. Another contraction. That one actually hurt. Well, three out of four ain't bad.

Did I just bake my own cake? Again?

2009-11-11T19:17:00.000-08:00

I've gotten into the habit of baking my own birthday cake. It may make me a control freak, but I've found that that's the best way to ensure I get what I want, which this year was a rich, chocolatey, gooey dessert capable of being warmed and served with ice cream. So I made brownies with chocolate ganache.

I got into this habit when it became clear that, unless given a very compelling reason not to do so, my mom will visit every single year. And every single year, she will make me a birthday cake that she says is my favorite but is generally something she's been hankering for for a while. It doesn't bother me - it's one of her quirks. Kind of like ignoring what I say and pretending I didn't tell her that I'd already ordered a blue cake for my son and instead going out to buy cupcakes with blue icing like she did today. Oh, well. The more blue icing the better, I guess. Some of the cake or cup cakes can be shared with pre-school when the baby is born.

Though I guess the birth of this baby means that I will never, ever have another mom-free birthday again unless I leave the country. Ah, well. That can be arranged.

I've been complaining too much about my mom lately. I'm glad she's here. She's been picking Ragsy up from pre-school every evening and generally handling dinners, which I certainly can't complain about. And unlike my husband, she also cleans. It's a huge load off my shoulders and I know that, once the baby comes, I'll appreciate it even more. So, when I complain about things like cakes and table manners (she keeps demanding my son get his elbows off the table and wait to start his meal until others are served - given that he's 3, he's not too keen on waiting) I'll have to at least temper it if not shut up entirely since she's helping incredibly.

It's not news, it's me.

2009-11-10T18:12:00.000-08:00

I just had an entire discussion with my mom about her best friend's arm pits. Ugh. I won't go into the nitty gritty, but I can tell you that boils were involved and I feel violated and dirty now.

How's that for news?

Now that I've grossed you out, I have good news - they're not going to induce me until next Tuesday. Why on earth they're going to induce me the day before my due date is beyond me, but I assume it has something to do with a combination of scheduling and wanting me to carry as long as possible. I must admit to being disappointed. I was looking forward to not being pregnant sooner rather than later; however, I like that nature's being allowed to take its course longer than originally planned.

In other news, well... I have no other news. Just someone else's arm pits. Sorry 'bout that.

Kid = divining rod.

2009-11-09T19:07:00.000-08:00

Have you ever noticed how freaking intuitive kids are? I mean, seriously - Ragsy has always been like a dousing rod for my emotions, but it seems like the more contractions I have, the more drawn to my lap he is. It's amazing. I feel like I'm being turned inside out from the nether regions up (oh, did I forget the too-much-information warning?) with each hardening of my uterus and tightening of my back and almost every time it happens unless it's late at night or at my desk at work, I wind up with a kid perched on my lap, leaning back and putting pressure against my very large, low stomach, demanding that I help put shoes on or assist in some other task that involves leaning over a gargantuan boulder that happens to be lodged in the middle of my gut. Scary.

Birthdays.

2009-11-08T20:14:00.000-08:00

My birthday is coming up this Thursday. Don't worry - I'm not fishing for gifts. In fact, that's one of the problems I'm having: my husband and mom are pestering me to tell them what I want. So far, I've come up with the following things that I would really love from my husband:

1. A birthday cake with blue icing for Ragsy
2. Something chocolately and hot for me with vanilla ice cream
3. Time - time to take a workout class, if only for once a week, at the Y after I've recovered from childbirth and the baby is about 3 months old or older
4. Help - someone to help us keep the house tidy once or twice a week, backing off to once a week to every two weeks after we've gotten into a routine

I suspect I'll get 1 and 2, but my husband is confused by 3 and 4. Ah, well. We'll see. My birthdays don't mean nearly as much to me as they used to. My last truly wonderful birthday was when I was 30, just before Ragsy was born. Adit threw me a surprise party at a friend's house. Actually, that was the best birthday I've ever had. Subsequent birthdays were more trouble than they were really worth - you know, when you feel obligated to have fun because it's your birthday, but you have other things on your mind, such as a sick kid, crying kid, a parent who insists on visiting every birthday, preventing you from doing anything other than what she chooses.

Last year, I wound up dealing with a two-hour tantrum, being late for work, falling in the parking lot once I managed to get to work, then spilling coffee all over my already-wet pants and having to do my work standing up until my pants dried, only to go home to have to make dinner and get into an argument with my mom (who was visiting) when she said something particularly thoughtless to me. So at this point, I'd settle for tolerable. But most wonderful of all would be me having a new baby. I'm not convinced this thing is ever coming out, and I can't wait to meet him or her. Earlier I didn't want to share my birthday with someone else, but I think that would be nice. Knowing how much I enjoy how Ragsy reacts when I do something special for him, no matter how small it is (like him dancing for joy the first time I took him to a bakery), if I could have that on my birthday most years, or even have a year of firsts every year, that'd be enough.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record...

2009-11-06T20:06:00.001-08:00

Will these freaking contractions ever end?!? For two weeks, I've been awakened occasionally to anywhere from 20 minutes to two hours of contractions, then...nothing. Then yesterday afternoon, I woke at 5:30 a.m., had two hours of contractions, which went away, then had another two hours in the middle of the day and they were 7-10 minutes apart. Thankfully I was at my OB's office, so they checked me and not much progress.

The good news - I should have a new baby in my arms by the end of next week. The bad news - because my mom has never had Braxton-Hicks contractions and both her labors were well under 6 hours from her very first contraction, she keeps telling me that I've "read too much" and acting as though I'm making this stuff up. She also told me that she really doesn't care to hear more - she was just being nice. Wow. That's super supportive. Regardless, she's been helpful so far with Ragsy, so my worst nightmares have yet to come true. If this is the biggest complaint and no life-threatening complications pop up, I think I'm doing pretty well.

Still, I'm tired, irritated and may have to be induced, which wasn't really what I was wanting, but I understand why they'd recommend doing it. But that's contingent upon me making it through the weekend.

Urgh. My legs, hips and butt hurt like I've been doing squats and my gut feels like I've been doing crunches for days. Probably because, in a sense, I have.

CRRRRUUUUNNNNCH!

This rant brought to you by the letter H (for help me not hurt someone) and the number 2.

Getting to sleep will be interesting tonight.

2009-10-30T19:17:00.000-07:00

Today was great. I got to keep my promise to Ragsy and watched him in his Halloween parade. He was so proud of himself, but he's completely keyed up. He's still laying in bed singing pirate shanties (he's moved on from one of the dirtier one to a man with a monkey named Scurvy Pete) and will probably be up at 2 a.m. - again - demanding to put on his pirate costume. Just like last night.

After the Halloween parade, it was time for my doctor's appointment. I swear, those internal exams drive me nuts. I've been having contractions ever since, right on top of each other. They're not painful, but good grief, they're irritating. I never realized how uncomfortable it was to laugh and have a contraction at the same time until this evening. It's like trying to giggle around a rock. I should enjoy it - my stomach will never be this hard again.

Is it normal?

2009-10-28T18:40:00.000-07:00

Am I a horrible person for being slightly uneasy about having a new baby in the house? Yes, yes - if you felt that way, you shouldn't have gotten pregnant. But seriously, it definitely is the end of an era and I can't help feeling both extremely joyful that we're about to welcome a whole new person into the world, but at the same time a little melancholy that Ragsy will no longer be our only child and a little uneasy about all the things that having a second will impact.

Don't get me wrong. I wouldn't change a thing. Well, except the complications with Ragsy. But, as I was lying in bed last night, I began having some really fierce contractions. They were painful enough to wake me up and lasted for about two hours and the only reason I didn't call the doctors' exchange was because they went away whenever I laid on my left side, so I think it was a nerve issue combined with working out last night (I think I pulled something in my butt because I was limping today). Unfortunately, I'm far more stopped up when I lay on my left side, so I was up rolling around and giving myself more contractions while I tried to find a comfortable spot.

Anyway, as I was laying there having contractions, I was thinking, "No, no, no! Not yet! Not yet! I'm not ready!" as if my opinion mattered in this. Then this afternoon, during one of the many times it felt like the baby was just going to drop out of me, I would find myself thinking again, "Not yet. Just a little longer, please..."

I think I felt this way with Ragsy, too, but was so focused on the post-labor complications that I forgot how unsure you can feel right before having another kid. You know you'll love the kid come hell or high water - that's your job. And you'll take care of him or her because that's what you do. But all of a sudden, it's becoming very real that you're actually about to bring forth another person you'll be responsible for and you know even more than you did the first time around, enough to realize that nothing about it is going to be easy.

That includes all the emotions you'll experience (post-partum nuttiness, PPD or not; the absolute terror you feel when they first get sick; that freaked out feeling when they first sleep more than two hours at a time; the frustration and guilt as they get older; and much, much more), all the sleep deprivation - the whole package - and a lot of other stuff you probably didn't think about. Parenting makes labor seem easy.

The worst part of this is I don't know how it'll affect the way I parent Ragsy. Will it make me worse? Better? The same? And what about how I parent this other kid? Will he or she feel hosed? What happens to my marriage? Having a kid was the hardest thing on our relationship; now we'll have two. Will I completely lose my sanity? I mean, I thought about all this beforehand, but now it's about to happen and... God, I really hope I don't screw this up.

Mealtime.

2009-10-27T20:02:00.000-07:00

It's stupid the things you worry about when your parents visit. My mom will be arriving (again) next week to help us out with Ragsy while I'm in labor and afterward. We decided that she might as well stay until Thanksgiving, which is going to be a ridiculously long visit.

What's strange is that the part of the visit that bothers me most is mealtimes. Actually, maybe that's not so strange given how much mental energy my mom expends on cooking, and therefore requires me to spend on cooking. My mom was brought up in a household where kids ate early, went to bed, then adults ate a full dinner afterward. She brought us up the same way until we were in high school, when we all ate in separate rooms in front of our separate televisions. I'm sure it's obvious we didn't really bond as a family until we were well away from each other.

Every single time she visits, mealtime for adults occurs no earlier than 8:30, but usually around 9. This annoys me immensely and I never realize how important that time is to me until she's here and I don't get it anymore. It's not necessarily because I'm starving before then (though I often am), but because a) I think that mealtime is an important time to connect with your family and b) I hate having to fiddle with two mealtimes. It's inconvenient because it's a lot of work and forces you to stay up later than you might have otherwise. And c) I loathe going to bed on a full stomach. If I eat that late, I wake up still feeling full, which is code for slightly nauseated because I'm not supposed to have food still in my stomach by the time I wake up. Oh, and it doesn't help that Ragsy still wakes up at 6:30 to announce to us that it's daytime (no, really, it's not daytime at 6:30 anymore, but potato, po-tah-to).

Oh, well. Since having Ragsy, I've become a definite creature of habit. Having my routine thrown off for a prolonged period irritates me, so in a way I've become as reliant on our evening routine as our son has. Weird. Now I throw tantrums, too, when my routine is messed up.

I probably shouldn't have done that.

2009-10-24T12:29:00.000-07:00

I just ate way too many cookies. Waaay too many. In fact, I ate so many, I'm not sure how many I ate. And I'm not even full. Yikes.

Ah, well. All is not lost. Ragsy took me and my husband on an hour-long jaunt in the park, so at least I'd already burned off some cookies by the time I ate them. My husband has never believed me about Ragsy's predilection toward running. I'm not sure why, since he's actually seen our kid in motion before. I felt really vindicated when my husband came gasping up to me saying, "Oh, God. He's still going." Luckily I didn't have to run after him this time - I got a nice, sedate stroll in. I was afraid that if I bounced around too much, my water would break. After my doctor's appointment Thursday, that might be a fairly valid fear.

With that in mind, my goal (not that I really get to have one when talking about labor) is to get this kid to stay put until a week from Tuesday. It'll be win-win all around: the kid will have an extra week and a half to bake, my mom will be in town so I don't have to impose on a friend and I'll get to see Ragsy in his Halloween parade at pre-school, take him trick-or-treating for the first time and enjoy a last party before D-Day. Now if I can just get these pesky contractions to stop. What is it with these impatient babies?

Four weeks and counting...

2009-10-19T18:03:00.000-07:00

Well, since my due date is November 18, I guess that means I technically have slightly fewer than four weeks. However long I have, now that I'm getting closer to labor, I can't hide from myself anymore. I am terrified, sometimes so much it makes me a little nauseated. Funny how that works, isn't it? Stupid that I'd be scared of something I can't control or prevent.

At odd moments, I remind myself: the chances of it recurring again are very, very low. And if it does, the chances of actually dying are even lower than recurrence. If it happens again, there probably won't have any brain damage, even. The likelihood of the baby being injured is even lower than me being injured, which is certainly something.

Were my husband and I totally selfish to decide to have another kid? Probably - it's hard to tell until after labor. Stupid? Again, hard to tell until after labor. Just knowing that doesn't make it any easier to mentally prepare myself for labor. I remember getting ready to have Ragsy, thinking that I didn't need to worry about complications because they couldn't happen to me. After all, eclampsia is supposed to happen to less than a percent or two of the population. Then I had it and, well, I always manage to prove myself wrong in the most drastic ways. Hopefully I prove my fears unfounded in as drastic a manner as I proved myself wrong when I had Ragsy.

Just like Ragsy was worth every damn minute of that 32-hour labor and two and a half weeks of migraine, this new baby will be worth it. I know that. I saw it blink today on the ultrasound. It has a face now, one that I can see. I can't tell if it has chubby cheeks because it's so scrunched up against my cervix or because it actually has chubby cheeks. Will it have Ragsy's dimples? That sweet little divot in the chin that I love to kiss? What other defining, unique features will it have? I guess I have to keep my eye on the prize, even if that prize is another 32-hours away from onset of labor.

Hello, darkness, my old friend.

2009-10-14T19:37:00.001-07:00

I hate that it's now dark when I wake up. Hate it, hate it, hate it. Plus, my son has begun to wake up in the middle of the night again. On the bright side, he's waking up because he feels the urge to pee, not because of continued sleep issues. Unfortunately, he wakes up after he's peed, but it's a sure step in the right direction. Too bad he wants to play after I've cleaned him up. When he woke up this morning at 3:30, once he was clean again, he insisted it was daytime and therefore time to get a pirate costume. Right.

Thanks to a combination of getting kicked, my son singing to himself rather loudly next door and general discomfort, I didn't fall asleep again until almost 5, about an hour before my alarm went off. Then I got up in the dark - again - while everyone else was asleep.

The crummy, wet, gloomy weather isn't helping, either. And I need to rip my tomato plants out and mow the lawn and rake our leaves off the neighbor's lawn and do a zillion other things to get ready for the fall - oh, yeah, and there's the small matter of having that baby - and it's dark and raining all the freaking time. Grrr...

At least I have a changing area together for the baby. That's a step in the right direction. Now if I can get myself on the treadmill tomorrow in addition to the 30 minutes during the day that I force myself to walk in the parking lot at work, I'll be golden.

What's on the menu?

2009-10-11T12:50:00.000-07:00

My cooking frenzy is off to a good start this Sunday. So far, I've managed two firsts: stew (inspired by a friend's comment on Facebook) and chicken fricassee. Like I said, I've never made either before. I don't know about the stew yet - apparently it's supposed to cook in the slow cooker for eight hours - but the fricassee turned out really well. I mean, the stuff is falling off the bone. I think this is the first time I've ever cooked bone-in chicken on my own that wasn't a roast chicken.

I'm a food snob. Usually if it's not super-spicy to the point where my lips burn for several minutes after the meal or if the dish doesn't have really bold flavors, I don't bother with it. Any form of subtlety tends to be lost on me. It doesn't help that traditional food really isn't my forte. Much like rice krispies treats, which to most are the easiest thing in the world but somehow I manage to burn every time, when I make something that has roots west of India or north of Mexico, it turns out...funky.

Maybe my taste buds have been burned off with all that Indian food. But, since Ragsy's getting to the point where we really can't feed him quesadillas for even half his dinners with us and I keep forgetting to take the spice out of our standard Indian fare, I thought that combining something a little more traditional with our usual would be a good idea. And so far, I've been really pleased. And I'm realizing that I left a lot behind when I cut out the more traditional fare.

So, this week's menu is a choice between beef stew, chicken fricassee, aloo matar (spicy tomato & potato curry) and rava uppuma (a spicy South Indian semolina dish loaded with vegetables and three kids of chili). If I get really brave, I might even try a casserole again.

That's a new one.

2009-10-05T11:49:00.001-07:00

Everyone has gone back to their corners today. Probably because there was no time for anyone to get on anyone else's nerves this morning. I can't wait until these blasted fans are turned off and my mom is gone. Other than that, things are better today.

Mom went with me this morning to fetal monitoring. One thing I often do while there is give the baby a little nudge to move things along. Unfortunately, my plan backfired today. The baby wouldn't stop moving long enough for them to get a baseline reading of its heartbeat, so I was there for an hour. Foiled again.

Oh, well. We were out of there shortly after (after the ultrasound, that is) and got to go to lunch. Now we're stuck in this hot, loud house and we can't open any doors or windows because it's supposed to be as dry in here as possible to make sure the carpets and the pads underneath them get dried. I get to escape in about 20 minutes, though, when I go to my perinatologist.

I'm looking forward to that - I can't even go to the bathroom without my mom asking what I'm up to. Yikes.

I hate just about everything and everyone right now.

2009-10-04T11:46:00.001-07:00

It's official - I'm going to murder someone. My mother and my husband are subtly "disagreeing," which means my mom is making obnoxious, thoughtless comments and I'm getting flack from both sides. My mom doesn't understand why her efforts to "help" are falling on deaf ears. My husband becomes more livid every time she opens her mouth. I'm the only one watching the kid here, who is understandably upset because he knows I'm frustrated and, despite my best efforts, it's spilled over. Every damn person in this household is following me around, too, talking, talking, talking. In fact, I've just managed to disengage from my son (who's not sleeping, though God knows why since he was up half the night thanks to the fans), only to be followed into my bedroom by my mother. Twice. Luckily, she's informed me that she's leaving, but my husband, who left to get a hair cut, just got back. Oh, great flipping joy.

Why the hell can't anyone shut up? Or at least just go the hell away from me? Or maybe just stop complaining so I don't have to feel like some sort of referee?

Yes, yes...poor me. Another person will be following me around in a little while, but dammit, at least that little person won't be able to talk for a while.

Does your carpet splash?

2009-10-03T19:58:00.000-07:00

Because mine does. I thought that having to take my husband to the ER was a fluke (he's fine by the way, though we had a scare). Then when Ragsy's daycare caught fire and was closed all week, I became suspicious. Now I'm certain of it. The world is laughing at me. Hard.

Today we had a handyman install a new in-line water filter for us. A simple enough job - it only took him 45 minutes. We just hadn't had the time to do it ourselves and didn't see us making it a priority, so we decided to have someone else do it. So, he completed the job, I wrote the check and we went to lunch.

We got back about an hour to an hour and a half later. The first thing we heard on returning was the sound of water gushing. Water is not supposed to gush unless the faucet is on. We don't generally leave the faucet on when we're leaving. And even when the faucet is on, it's not supposed to gush from two places at once in the house. So, I ran into the kitchen directly into about a quarter inch of water. I could have floated a boat.

So, after I found the valve and turned it off, we immediately began mopping up the mess. As I was running down the stairs, though, there was more water gushing. Oh, holy hell. The ceiling. Water was pouring out a vent and through all the electrical fixtures in the basement ceiling, flooding the carpet in not just one, but three rooms and most of the hall downstairs. And the closet.

So we called the handyman back, someone came over and it was determined that the filter was incorrectly constructed and must have popped off due to water pressure, spewing water everywhere. They're going to fix it anyway and get settlement from the manufacturer (by the way, don't buy an aquasana filter unless you want to be able to float a boat in your kitchen), but we still have four or five fans going 24/7 for the next five to seven days. And the cats are living in the garage since my mom's here in the baby's room. Luckily we haven't lost anything.

I'm hoping that this will be the last thing to happen. You know how they say that bad things happen in threes - I think this qualifies as both bad and number three. I'm still going to check on the cats, though. I'm a little afraid to think of them in the garage by themselves given our recent spate of "luck."

Fire!

2009-09-29T13:28:00.001-07:00

Our son's pre-school caught fire last night. Fortunately, no one was hurt. Unfortunately, we have no idea when our son will be back in school, which means we probably won't be back to a regular work schedule until at least next week.

Talk about frustrating. It's not all bad, though. My mom's getting into town tomorrow, so at least she'll get extra time with Ragsy. Plus, if pre-school is closed Thursday, I might be able to get her to watch him that day. Did I mention that my mom isn't the most grandmotherly person? If she watches Ragsy Thursday, he'll probably lose brain cells. Mom's a huge TV addict, to the point where she's actually purchased her own television for the guest room downstairs and intends to bring an older one for our kitchen. I've put my foot down that it'll be off when Ragsy is here, but that's not likely to work if I ask her to watch him.

Oh, well. Guess we'll just have to crack the whip when we get home. Grrr...

You know your house is messy when...

2009-09-25T07:16:00.000-07:00

Your three-year old looks at the clutter, looks at you and says, "Mommy, I don't like this." Yikes. In our defense, the clutter has been created by organizing every closet, flat surface and room in the house. Unfortunately, this means pulling things out, putting them on the floor so we can see them and sorting them into piles: junk, recycle, donate, keep. But, since we have very little time in the evenings and so bloody much stuff, our organizing projects tend to languish on the floor overnight until the next day when we do have time. Then there's the regular day-to-day maintenance work of cleaning the dishes, folding the laundry and so on that eats away even more time.

Even more unfortunately, my husband has so far been uninvolved in the organization process, meaning that it's going much slower since you have someone with limited energy reserves and increased sleep needs doing the work. That's going to change. Tonight.

I had hoped to meet some friends for drinks and dinner, but I don't think we'll be able to get a babysitter, so we might just stay home and clean. My husband will hate it, but he'll do it because he wants this place organized just as much as I do, but is often stymied by indecision on where to start. I can take care of that.

Anyway, you may wonder what I'm doing writing a post in the middle of the morning. Or you may not care. Sadly, I have not quit my job. But on the other hand, I'm working at home before I do a seminar on Medicare at a local community college this afternoon. I desperately needed a break - I'm reading the Senate Finance Committee bill that was released on the 16th. It's slow-going. With the proposal (220 pages) and the actual bill (600-odd pages), it's enough to cause instant insomnia. So I stopped for food and to make some coffee.

I was also really glad to stay home this morning because I got to see Ragsy before his apple-picking field trip. He's been waiting impatiently all week to wear a shirt that he designed at pre-school (apple-shaped sponges dipped in red paint on a white shirt) specially for the field trip. He also loves apples. I was thrilled because he's so passionate about the things he likes. He woke up late (8 a.m., the equivalent of him sleeping 'til noon) because he kept trying to climb into bed with us at 1 a.m. As soon as I went into his room to get him out of bed and reminded him what day today was, he threw his hands up in joy, then threw himself at me for a huge hug, all the while yelling, "Yay! I'm going apple picking!" Then he danced down the hall, delighted to get his clothes and shoes on (another rarity - he loves pajamas) and couldn't stop dancing long enough to drink his milk. He then danced out the door with Daddy, granola bar clutched in one hand, the other hand (and his hips) doing a pre-schooler's version of the Charleston.

I love that. It's moments like those that I live for. That and those rare minutes I manage to snatch with my husband alone in a quiet room. Anyway, back to work. This bill isn't going to read itself, though I wish to God it would. Yuck.

Constant craving.

2009-09-20T19:15:00.000-07:00

I am hungry even when I finish eating. It's very frustrating. I just had dinner (about an hour after a snack) a couple of hours ago - a pretty substantial one: about a cup of a BBQ chicken mixture I made and some corn casserole. I was still hungry when I finished, but out of principle refused to eat more. I think I'll have to have a snack before bed, though, or I'll wake up at 2 a.m. again, starving and unable to sleep.

A pattern has developed in my weekends: wake up, eat, sleep. Wake up, eat, sleep. This interspersed with hours of cleaning and playing with my son. But that's the primary theme - when I'm not cleaning or running with Ragsy, I'm waiting until such time as I can go to sleep or eat something again.

What's really aggravating is that Ragsy has unfortunately decided that he no longer wants to sleep. That includes naps and bedtime. He's still up now, at 9:30, yammering at black cat. The thing is, even if you take away all his props (animals, any toys he might be permitted to take to bed), he's imaginative enough that he manages to somehow act something out, even laying down. Right now, he and black cat are apparently having a full Mexican meal, laying down, complete with mariachi music (which he's creating himself, of course), chips, salsa, three different types of beverage, an entree and a basket of something. He'd be doing it with or without black cat, so, short of shutting off his brain, there's no stopping it. Ah, well. It's good to know that I'm not the only one fantasizing about food in bed. The only difference is that he's not actually hungry or he'd make it abundantly clear.

Upkeep, Caddyshack style.

2009-09-18T04:55:00.000-07:00

Over the last few months, I've been visited by fire-breathing bunnies who insist on nipping just the tips of my serrano peppers. I took care of those guys, strangely, with a mixture or water and cayenne. Now we have a woodpecker stubbornly boring itself into a wall or our roof. Every morning we hear it, a staccato drilling sound, not unlike a teeny jackhammer. I'm about to blow up the wall.

Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face. But, woodpecker, it's on. Don't settle in. You're not going to be living in my house that long. I won't try to kill you, just scare the bejeezus out of you until you go away. Or I'll move your nest. Yeah, take that!

Timing is everything.

2009-09-17T18:14:00.001-07:00

Not only is my baby somehow going to be born smack dab in the middle of the earliest time of year for my particular profession, I recently started getting calls for more freelancing. Starting, of course, in mid-October. It's incredible how everything always happens at once. Blast, this could have been useful last year.

Anyway, speaking of timing, I'm looking forward to having this baby. Carrying him or her has been a delight, but I'm getting heartily sick of doctor's appointments. I'll be at appointments every two weeks with my regular OB next week, plus I'm supposed to go in for weekly non-stress tests and then there's the perinatologist, who loves to see me. So that's a minimum of one appointment per week (for now), with the potential of four per week, if you count my neurologist (who fortunately doesn't need to see me as often) and not including all my blood work.

Anyway, so I go in for my first fetal monitoring session next week. I was all bent out of shape about it earlier, but my husband made an excellent point. Trust him to be the voice of reason. Grr, I hate that.

Husband: Andi, what's wrong?

Answer: *why, yes, I was in quite the diva-like snit* My doctor says I have to go in for fetal monitoring every week! Dammit, I have a job. How can I expect someone to keep me on staff if I can't even guarantee that I'll be there!

Husband: Well, have you been told there are complications with this pregnancy? What questions have you asked?

Answer: If anything I'm doing better with this pregnancy, not worse. My weight gain is less, my blood pressure is better - everything's better so far.

Husband: And, what questions have you asked?

Answer: Ummm...

Husband: So this is precautionary. They have absolutely no reason to suspect something might be going on with the baby.

Answer: Correct...for now.

Husband: Okay, why haven't you asked more questions about why they want you in so often?

Answer: Well...

Husband: You know they can't force you to go, right? Or you can at least ask for more information. I mean, if nothing is wrong and everyone knows it, even your doctor, why would you agree to possibly unnecessary tests without asking more just because they say so?

Answer: Ahhh.....

Husband: When you get closer to delivery, it probably makes sense, but you can disagree or at least get more information, you know.

Answer: *crickets chirping, Andi sniffing* Oh, yeah.

So I called, talked to the doctor who said that it was just standard policy for high risk pregnancies and she agreed that it was probably unnecessary but that she wanted me to go in next week if possible to get a baseline to start from and that, if I could, she'd like me to go in weekly, but if it wasn't possible, as long as my tests were normal, I could have a pass.

I wish I'd thought of that earlier instead of going into an "I can work like this!" diatribe. I'm lucky enough to have that luxury where many women experiencing a high-risk pregnancy don't. So I should shut my pie hole and take advantage of it already.

And they're out!

2009-09-13T13:06:00.000-07:00

Everyone's asleep. At last. My husband and Ragsy went on a morning jaunt to the zoo that wound up lasting way longer than it was supposed to. Since I do most of my cooking on Sundays, that left me with plenty of time to whip up an enormous lunch, of which only I have partaken. Go figure. But at least I get some time alone, right?

By the time he got home, my husband had managed to wear our son out so much he actually asked to go to sleep, something that's completely unheard of. Unfortunately, my husband also insisted my son eat something before bed, resulting in an hour-long eating marathon that involved very little eating and a lot of attempting to play, culminating in threats for him to sleep or he would have to stay home from a friend's house this evening. Now that I think about it, that's a stupid threat since I'd be shooting myself in the foot, too.

Anyway, yesterday was a blast - we went to Eckert's for a work/family event my husband's company put on and came home with eight pounds of apples. Fortunately, Ragsy really likes apples and has managed to eat two already. I guess we'll be eating lots of applesauce, apple pie, compote and cake in the coming weeks. If you like apples, you're definitely invited. I'm already tired of them.