Effective Nancy

woo, gosh, complainy!

2008-07-23T03:58:00.002-10:00

I'm pretty sure that's not a word, but it sure is what I have been here, isn't it? I don't know, I just guess I wish I weren't so aggravated by my life, that it was as serene and lilac-scented as the commercials would have one believe. I love my baby, I'm lucky not to have to work (though let's face it, if I made enough money at my job for childcare, I'd be working right now, yes, YES I WOULD), and I'm grateful for all the help and support I get. It's just that I watch other moms and their "normal" babies, the ones who don't seem to scream nearly so much, and I think, oh, yes, that's where the grass is greener. Because the screaming, it's crazy-making. I really GET how Dooce would need to check in (check out?) for a little while, because it's enough to push a person RIGHT OVER THE EDGE.

In the meantime, I have decided it's going to be a lovely day. The weather is gorgeous, perfect, stunning (because I do not live on Texas's gulf coast), and we are going to the zoo with my high school friend and her two kids. It will be all sunshine and light. Tinkerbell actually let me eat my breakfast and have my coffee (decaf, but coffee nonetheless) without fussing over it, and actually ate her breakfast of solids without excessive horrors. I will not mention my shower. Even her poops have been spectacular, and now she's taking a nap, wonderful wonderful!

I fully expect rainbows and unicorns to radiate from her next dirtied diaper. Okay, maybe not, but I'm trying for a big attitude adjustment, even as I acknowledge the challenge of it in the face of my still-wild hormones. Becoming a mother is like having a brain transplant.

watching and waiting

2008-07-19T05:20:00.001-10:00

I've fed her and cuddled her and it's been three hours she's been up
which is her absolute limit in the morning, and guess what? Tinkerbell
is just screaming her head off in her crib no matter what. So I'm
watching her on the monitor, helpless to make it better because I've
learned that the things she needs most she's got to do for herself. I
can't MAKE her sleep. How I wish I could. I'd bet 75% of our trouble
comes from her unwillingness to sleep when I can see she's tired. On
the other hand, she's getting in a lot of practice on her hands and
knees; maybe anger will propel her into crawling where gentle
encouragement and patient words haven't.

Seriously, sweetheart, I'm out of tricks. Please sleep. Please. You
need a break from being awake.

productive

2008-07-11T17:54:00.000-10:00

Got the Mirena out. The persistent, angry rash on my neck no longer
itches, and when I touch my neck, the skin is dry and...normal. I
think that, at least, was an allergic reaction. We'll see about the
rest. Interesting note: though I thought I had gained loads of weight
since my 6-week postpartum visit, I've actually lost, and am now only
a kilo above where I started. This strongly suggests to me that the
increase in belly flabbiness is either 1) imaginary, or 2) bloating,
which I hope will recede. I feel more inclined to crunch at it now,
though.

Productive: put Tink to bed, and with Mick gone to the heartland for
the weekend to reunionize with his sibs and mother at the family
compound in Suburbia, USA, I found myself alone with a shedload of CSA
vegetables that I could finally process. I chopped up a pint of
mushrooms, two heads of different Chinese cabbages, three zucchinis,
two yellow crookneck squash, about 2 pounds of snow peas, five baby
onions--all from the CSA--and added some shiitake mushrooms from the
freezer, garlic, carrots, and cans of bamboo shoots and water
chestnuts. Heated up some oil in my largest pan, which wasn't really
large enough for the job, and pan..steamed...all of it. No added
seasonings. I then packaged my awesome veggie medley into several
hoarded carryout bowls, labeled them, and stashed them in the freezer:
four meals' worth of vegetables ready to go! The rest--yes, more!--I
added to the leftover Thai from Wednesday night (we ordered extra so
I'd have three meals' worth of easy while Mick was away (on call last
night, gone now through Sunday night with family)) and had a really
good, if late, dinner. Funny, I hated reading Faulkner in high school
because of his damnably long sentences, and now look where I am?

More productive: am draining yogurt to add into some tzatziki sauce I
made, and for whatever other purpose; can eat with crudites, I
presume. Even more so: tomorrow night I have slated myself to make up
an Italian version of what I did tonight, but with protein already
added in form of sausage. I need to get lentils tomorrow, hmmh. I
think my creative impulses are finally emerging again after going so
deeply hidden during a survival-only phase of new parenthood. I hope
this is a bit of corner-turning altogether. Either that, or my idea of
going wild when my spouse is away is to hoard healthy food for times
when no one wants to do the heavy lifting of cooking, and that's all
it is.

Tinkerbell was a bit dry today, and I'm using that as my excuse to buy
her sippy cups. That alone is not so much of a thing, but I happened
to get them from a store that sells reusable bags (hint: name of
store!) for shopping, lunching, etc. I have a terrible fetish for
shopping bags (not purses, weirdly) (also, I hate in-person shopping,
so what's with this?) and lunch bags, and I must admit I indulged. On
the other hand, I feel terrific showing up to stores with my own bags,
and not having to deal with yet more disposable crud I never wanted,
so this is fun. And the lunch bag matches the splashmat under Tink's
high chair, so she'll be able to have a kickass coordinated picnic
someday. (Or I will!) In the meantime, the extra nursing dried ME out.
Better knock back another glass before bed, lest I fail to float away
on a swell of my own hydrationary paranoia.

dairy fairy

2008-07-10T17:26:00.001-10:00

After all the challenges we had getting the nursing thing down to a
manageable affair, Tinkerbell and I really deserve to have it easier
on that front. We did for a little while, but it's shaky again,
especially this week. I suspect that even as she's getting more
nutrition from solids, she's still needing a bit more milk--yet eating
more solids tends to cause babies to let their moms' supplies
decrease, according to the interwebs. I nurse 5-6 times a day these
days, very typical for seven months (SEVEN MONTHS?! When did that
happen?), but I also pump as dry as I can before bed so I can
luxuriate in the prone position for at least part of the night.

Well, last night I was pumping and felt that I had blocked ducts on
both sides. I guess Tink wasn't working it quite hard enough, and here
I was with a real problem. So I thought about it. Seems I'd read about
power pumping techniques, so I decided to pump like normal, try to
work out the kinks manually, and then have a quiet 15 minutes' rest. I
went back to both sides and got quite a bit more worked out from the
plugged areas, resulting in a net 1.5 oz more than I'd have had had I
stopped with the usual. Great! Tried it again tonight, and topped last
night's total by an ounce, though the timing of Tink's bedtime and my
pumping probably had more to do with it. Anyway, I'm thrilled to have
found that this little stop-start technique is getting me emptier
before bed, because yes I'm still stockpiling (Depression mentality,
anyone?), and I also want to maintain as much supply as is possible as
long as we're nursing.

Ah, the magic of the electric pump. I feel such a kinship with Jerseys
these days, and not just because I was born in NJ.

ain't too proud to beg

2008-07-06T11:15:00.002-10:00

My parents left for a vacation on 6/21, and since that day, I've been with Tinkerbell pretty much nonstop. Sure, she goes to be before me at night, and she does take an occasional nap, and Mick has played with her for up to an hour at a time and changed a few diapers, but other than that, it's been unrelenting. Thinking back on the last 16 days, the only time she's really been in a different place from me is when I had to run to the garage to get something and left her on the playroom floor for three minutes. We've been together, together, together, and I've been responsible (or co-responsible) for her every minute.

On the way back from family lunch today, I suggested that Mick might take Tink for a stroll this afternoon since the weather was pleasant. He's like, sure, whatever. Just now, though, when I pushed that idea again--Daddy and his little girl head out for a little one-on-one time--he's all, well, I feel a cold coming on. And I'm thinking, yeah, so? Because I've been mommying through aches and pains and exhaustion and no-fucking-breaks for a while, now, and how sick can you feel? So I said that I hadn't been away from her in 16 days, and I'd really like not to feel like I was on duty, and he says, you don't have to beat me up about it.

Of course I immediately felt terrible. I mean, the guy works so hard to keep us going, and he's the sole provider these days, and so much rests on his shoulders. And when does he really have time to recuperate, because he's going to be on the road to work again at 6 am tomorrow, and he'll work who knows how long, and it's high pressure work, and if he's feeling foggy it's that much harder. So I cried. And after I'd nursed Tink, Mick took her out in the stroller anyway.

I know I'm glad not to be on duty for a moment, but I miss her, and wonder how much fun they're having, and I feel SO rotten for having had that acrimonious conversation and it sours what pleasure I might have felt, sitting quietly on my porch and looking at our backyard lilies waving gently in the breeze. There's no winning with me.

third anniversary

2008-07-05T06:18:00.002-10:00

Tinkerbell seems determined not to go gently into that good nap today. She's never been that willing to go to sleep, and naps are harder than overnights, but today she's managed to stay awake from before 6 am until 10:55 am, when she finally, finally surrendered. Some of this is working on developmental progress, with three areas getting lots of action these days: crawling/mobility, pincer grasp, and babbling. Some of this is because she's having symptoms of an upper respiratory ick, which may or may not be allergies, but what does it matter? The challenge for me is that it's my third anniversary of not-dying-exotically and guess what? I'm still easily triggered. Combine that with preparing for guests later, and I've been hiding out in the kitchen while I let the baby cry.

I'm grateful she's asleep now, though, because she needs it more than usual when she's feeling crummy like this. I wish I could comfort her down to sleep, but I ran through my arsenal and found no action I could positively take to get Tink soothed down. We've worked on the sleep training techniques, though, for some time, and I can see that ultimately she does manage to get herself to sleep without my intervention--it just takes time, and on a day like today, time is very, very long. We're both working through a lot, I guess.

Just like for 9/11, I have worse flashbacks and triggers on my PTSD when the weather is a startling and lovely mild day, with white fluffy clouds scudding idly through the blue bowl of the sky and soft breezes rustling the leaves. Odd how a lovely day on a certain date can recall the roar, the shock, the stunning slow-motion realization that This Is It.

more on mirena

2008-07-02T04:07:00.001-10:00

OneHappyCow brings up some important issues in her comment on the last
post, and I gotta say, it's tough actually sitting here knowing how
the thing is supposed to work (instead of taking it on faith) and
dealing with the symptoms that shouldn't be happening. On the other
hand, do I want to take how many more meds to treat increasingly
limiting chronic pain, possible depression, fluid retention, acne,
etc.? Or would I rather flush the rather high price of the IUC down
the toilet and use condoms in order to try to address everything
that's not right about my body in the last six months in one solitary
action? OHC, please keep me posted on your progress. I thought I was
imagining things, that all this was happening, maybe it was normal. I
just don't see how it can be.

mirena

2008-07-01T11:00:00.000-10:00

SO getting it out. I believe it's the source of so many of my problems. Muscle and joint pain and stiffness, moodiness, obviously the incessant bleeding, violent rashes, acne, fatigue, malaise, weight gain, bloating, and the complete loss of my libido. Do you know how much effort was put into having this kid? And to go from that to no inclination whatsoever (because I am, of course, pain-averse as well as hormonally uninterested and fucking exhausted) is making me miserable. All I want is connection and I can't even get that.

Plus Tink just screamed for half an hour...more...the second time I've tried to put her down for this nap. Last time was two hours ago, and I had to take her on an hour-long walk just to stop that screaming. And now again? I better check the monitor to make sure she looks alive.

Mick better come home soon so there will be an adult to provide supervision. I'm such a wreck with my parents on vacation and no break from the little one in two weeks already. I just hope taking out the IUD will be the magic bullet I need it to be.

oh, please, I beg you, child

2008-06-26T09:30:00.000-10:00

Stop screaming. Stop screaming, please. PLEASE. Please stop screaming. I hear you. I know you're screaming. I'm not in the same room with you because I couldn't stand it anymore. Please stop. Please. After you whined for more than half an hour, including during a nursing session, and then screamed inconsolably despite my trying to entertain you, amuse you, anything, I didn't know what else to do. Your diaper has been changed. Your belly is full, or at least, my breast has been emptied. You're not napping well. What am I to think other than, this wretched behavior is because you're tired?

Please, baby, please. I love you. Please take a long, refreshing nap. Please.