Holy Shit, Ma!

“Um, are we sure this is a good idea here, Mom?”

Every negative post like this that I write I swear to myself it will be the last

I feel like I’ll look back on my posts during this time and marvel and how insanely negative I was all the time. Like, even my happy posts have an undertone of, “Fuck this shit.” I feel like I’ll look back and feel sad that I didn’t work harder on being happy and grateful, that I didn’t see what I good thing I had going, that I didn’t stop and smell the rosy poopy diapers and see that life was good. But, each day ends with me sobbing my eyes out, exhausted from one thing or another, heartbroken, feeling like a failure, and dreading the next day.

It’s been three months with no days off, which I complain about a lot in my head. But, if I got a day off I would feel guilt and I would miss him. It’s been three months living in a series of interrupted dreams and naps and an alarm clock that screams you awake because it needs you to keep it alive. Logically, outside my head, it’s all fine. It’s all normal. It’s all the right things. Inside my head, though, it’s fail fail fail fail all day long. I did not anticipate that feeding quickly enough and he did that horrible cry that sounds like his leg is being sawed off. He did not want me to rock him to sleep so he beat his fists on my chest, kicked my thighs, and pulled my hair instead. He was drowsy and I didn’t get him down for the nap fast enough and now he’s on that second wind and he’ll be cranky. My back isn’t strong enough to hold him how he wants all day long. Fail, fail, fail. How is one supposed to deal with that? The failure. The constant heartbreak that you are failing this child. The feeling that you’re ruining these months for everyone in your home because you can’t fucking buck up and deal with it. The anger at your body for not working how you need it to. The tears that inevitably come and the guilt because the baby can see you cry, and is confused by it, has stopped smiling, and still wants to be picked up even though you have nothing left to give.

It’s hard to step back and say “It’s just because you’re severely under dosed and you are all out of fake thyroid hormones by 2:00pm.” It’s hard to say “I did this and this and this right today.” It’s hard to say, “Tomorrow will be better,” or “Next time will be better” because I’m sitting there dreading tomorrow and dreading next time. It’s hard to admit to yourself that the best part of the day is when he finally falls asleep and you can lay down and maybe have an interesting dream for a few hours. Guilt. Fail. He’s laying next to me in his little rocker and smiling and being excited and happy and kicking his legs with glee, and I just wonder if I’ll end up in tears again tonight. Joy does seep in when I smile back at him, but the dread is looming.

So, I feel like I’ll look back on this time and hate myself for hating myself so much. I’ll look back on this time and wonder why I couldn’t just get a grip, it was only one baby. I’ll look back and think that I should have been grateful for how lucky we are, how great he is at some things, how wonderful it is to watch him discover part of the world…but I just sat there pissed off that he wouldn’t nap. I can’t listen to others’ stories and feel better about my own life, just guilty that I’m complaining.

So how do I handle it? How do mom’s manage the overwhelming guilt and fail they feel all day every day? How do I see the positive without becoming just fake on the outside…because I tried the fake on the outside and it sucked ass. How do I not spend my days thinking, “I just have to do it all again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day forever and ever and then I will die” because that’s a truly depressing thought. How do I remember the good things and forget the bad as they say you naturally do? How do I get to the point where I will feel like I could manage two or three children? How do I get better at this?

Three months

Three months.

Depending on the day you ask me, I’ll either tell you that things are getting better, or that we’ll never sleep again and I’m going to burn the house down so that we can all be in hell TOGETHER. This month MM and I are trying to find a schedule that works, or rather I’m trying to figure out what schedule works for him so that he’s not a raging lunatic come 3:00pm every day. He’s sleeping in 30 minute power-naps 3-5 times a day, which means that I am learning how to get non-child friendly activities done (spray painting picture frames, picking at my face, showering, getting dressed, eating, blogging, ya know – the boring-to-babies stuff) in those precious 30 minute time frames instead of taking that opportunity to dick around online, which I can do with the baby sitting on my knee. He’s doing well at sleeping at night, never waking more than 3 times, and rarely needing coaxing beyond a bottle to get him back to sleep. We’re satisfied with nighttime sleep, and I’m sure he’s truly hungry when he wakes so I’m happy to get up and help. He holds my hand and caresses my fingers as he eats, often ending up with his little fingers around my thumb, and that little moment that happens each time he eats is the best part of my day

On the relationship end of things, we’re getting better. I said to Hubs today, “You’re making it very hard for me to be irrationally mad at you.” He’s getting it, he’s working really hard, and he’s being a great husband and dad. We were IDIOTS and decided to take a chance at …relations only a week into birth control instead of two (we ran out of the VCF too sooooon), but with a heavy sigh of relief we’re not pregnant. Funny thing is, the only part about getting pregnant again in an “oops!” scenario right now would be the fact that I’m currently climbing back up to my top weight at pregnancy, and I’d really like to get a handle on the thyroid/weight situation before adding on another jillion pounds with another baby. Both Hubs and I had our own private “meh, another baby right now’s just a-ok” moments after the risky relations, but both of us are just fine and dandy with the red river appearance.

As for me? This shit is hard and no matter how many times other mothers say that it’s totally normal and things will get better, it’s so easy to get trapped in a wave of shit’s never going to get any better and you’ll just have to do this all again tomorrow and the next day and the next day for the rest of your LIIIIIIFE. Which, ya know, is a hard place to claw out of. I absolutely adore MM, and I can say with all honesty (and for the first time in my life) that I love my job and I feel like it was meant for me. But, I also know that I’m still struggling, and will probably always struggle with a lot of different personal challenges – depression, anxiety, inexplicable social phobia, thyroid issues, stress and emotion eating issues, etcetera etcetera etcetera. I have a hard time with wanting to have the breaks that Hubs gets, but not wanting to see anyone or go anywhere or do anything. I have a hard time with losing my temper and controlling the desire to punch walls. I have a hard time not welcoming Hubs home to a sobbing wife with two-day-old mascara dripping onto the pillow. I have a hard time not feeling guilty when the baby smiles and I maybe raised my voice to him an hour ago in the most fruitless of all activities – loudly asking the baby what the fuck he wants from me. But, I’m working on it. I’m working on sticking to his schedule, because that makes everyone happier. I’m working on realistic expectations, so that I don’t get disappointed that I have done nothing but push “Clean” on Ronald the Roomba for the day. I’m working on deep breaths and walking away when needs be. I’m working on stepping back and trying to see what kind of a ball of crazy I’m becoming. I’m working on it. This kid is so fucking awesome that we actually want another one, so there’s that.

Nicknames:

• Milk Mouth
• Little King
• Monkah Boy
• Buggy Boy, Bugs, Buggers
• Goat Baby

Acheivements:

• Sleeping in crib all night
• Sitting up with little assistance
• Holding head up for extended periods with a lot of control
• Eating 5 ounces of food at a time
• Moving up to fast flow nipples
• Discovered thighs
• First blowout diaper (he’s ready to move up to 2’s but we just have a few left of the 1-2’s to use)
• Sitting up and sitting forward alone on the couch
• Squealing
• Beginnings of laughter, but not quite yet.
• Setting a strict schedule of eating and sleeping
• Sleeping unswaddled
• Looking in the direction of sounds
• Quit breastfeeding

Likes:

• Hanging out in the front carrier while mom walks around
• Sitting in the bumbo for short periods of time
• Power napping
• Lotion and massage time
• Bath time
• Eating hands
• Listening to Pandora
• Wringing his hands
• Sitting on mom’s lap while she’s on the computer
• Napping in the side rocker
• Laying on the changing pad, it’s the perfect distance for smiles
• Ocean sounds through the night
• Laying on the floor in the hall while mom gives a laundry tutorial
• Goat’s milk!

Dislikes:

• Being held over your shoulder unless you are walking around
• No longer likes the front to back swing
• Sleeping longer than 30 minutes during the day
• The projector (this one made me sad, I thought for sure he’d love it, but I think it’s too simple and boring for him to look at)
• Getting buckled into his carseat

One day, I got a whole hour to myself, TWICE

Aunt Flo arrived today, a mistress of darkness I haven’t seen in almost exactly a year, and only once, and then like three years before that. I had to blow the dust off my costco-sized box of tampons, but I’m happy to report that insertion is like riding a big, absorbent, cotton bike.

Now I know why I spent yesterday alternating between being really really angry, and sobbing uncontrollably, with extreme exhaustion sprinkled in.

______

We’re practicing the No-Cry Sleep Solution. Practicing, because baby is only 3 months old so he’s not very trainable, but hopefully when he gets trainable we’ll (as his parents) have good habits for naptime/nighttime routine. As I’ve mentioned, the boy has a difficult time going to bed at anything other than an ungodly hour. He’s also clingy and cranky most days, and this gets very old very fast. So I got the ebook from the library, and whenever I get a spare moment I read a page or two.

It’s rather “no duh” in its approach, but the no duh was needed for me. Make a routine, stick to it, put baby down when he’s tired, and all that jazz. It also teaches you how sleep cycles work, which I like because understanding shit makes it so much easier to deal with.

Thus far the thing that’s helped us, particularly me during the day, has been these little charts where you record naps, prebedtime routine, and night wakings. The first day I filled in the nap log, I was a little floored at how clueless I’ve been. This kid is fucking structured and I am not fulfilling my end of his schedule. He slept exactly every two hours almost on the dot, and he ate almost exactly every two hours on the dot. I sat there thinking, “Damn, am I that clueless to his cues?” Why yes, yes I am. So that was lesson 1 learned from MM:

“I love me some structure, momma.”

Lesson two was that he’s not sleeping nearly enough for his age. I suspected this, but thought maybe it was just me being selfish. Babies his age should get about 5-6 hours of naptime sleep and 10-11 hours nighttime sleep, which, HA. Yesterday, the day of PMS and bad babies, it was 7.5 hours of nighttime sleep and fucking TWO HOURS of nap sleep ALL DAY, and god he was horrible. And! The only way he would go to sleep is by mom’s shuddering sobs slowly bouncing him to dreamland. The book tells me that he’s not finishing his sleep cycles, and waking all the way up in periods of brief wakefullness, which I guess we’ll work on as we go forward. Lesson two:

“I’m not fucking sleeping enough.”

I’ve started paying a lot of attention to him to see signs of sleepiness that I missed before. I’m realizing that I would wait to put him down til he had his second wind and no longer wanted to sleep anymore, but wanted to play and be held and cling and get craaaanks. Now, when he starts getting glazed over and looking away and stops smiling I know to go take him to nappy time land. Lesson three:

“I don’t sleep because you don’t let me.”

We’ve also come up with a nighttime routine of lotioning down his poor, dry, Utah skin (or bath then lotion every other day), then bottle, rocking, and if Hypnos loves us, sleep. It doesn’t work this way of course, but he’s been sleeping earlier than 1am. Yesterday he went to bed at, like, 5….because he didn’t sleep ALL DAY. So, lesson four:

“I seriously love structure.”

Night wakings have never been a problem. He gets up, cries, we feed him, he goes back down no problem. We’re simply keeping track of this to see how much he’s waking and how long he’s sleeping at night.

We’re very lucky to have a baby who “slept through the night” or “five hours in a row” as apparently those are the same thing, at about 6 weeks. We’re also lucky to have a relatively adaptable kid. I was never comfortable with the cry-it-out thing, and have been dreading 3 or 4 months where I can’t use the “but he’s too young” excuse any more and I’ll have to lay there and listen to him scream out for me, literally scream out for me as one of his cries sounds exactly like, “MAMA!!!” So I’m glad this is going well for now. I’m a bit ashamed of us that we were semi-ready to just let him cry alone in the dark instead of looking to him for the cues we needed to help him rest easy. I know that what we do now and what we do in a week may be totally different, but at least now we know that we don’t have to make him cry to make him sleep, and we don’t have to be up all day and night either.

There was one part in the book that kind of struck a chord with me, the author is talking about how babies like to fall asleep in your arms. She says something to the effect of, “You fell asleep in your bed, and you usually will wake up a few times, turn to another side, pull up the covers, and go back to sleep. Now, what if you woke up in that semi-awake state and you were on the kitchen floor? You’d be kind of terrified about how you ended up there, it’s cold, you have to go all the way back to bed, and then you’d lay there and fret about how in the world you ended up on the kitchen floor. Same principle with the baby, he falls asleep in your arms and wakes up in an unfamiliar crib, possibly cold, it’s dark, it’s deafeningly silent, and terrifying.” Good lord, poor baby. Ever since I read that it’s been haunting me, and I’ve made sure that as much as possible, MM falls asleep exactly where he wakes up and he gets ocean sounds as white noise at night. Lesson five:

“Put me down when i’m drowsy, not sleeping.”

So, I’m sure we’ll learn a lot more. I’m having difficulty with, “Well, we’ve done the routine and he’s not even close to sleep, now what?” and “He won’t fucking nap no matter what I dooooo!!!!” but we, uh, work on those things instead of sobbing uncontrollably and making your husband come home early so that you can fall asleep crying in a scalding hot bath as far away from the baby as possible.  Right.

I don’t do well with crowds anymore

Out for a walk the other night, we see hububb out our front door. Appoximately a jillion cars were sitting on our little road, and winding along to the slightly bigger road next to it. There were police directing traffic, there were people wandering around, and we thought, “Hell, could they have built another soccer stadium that has zero parking in a state where everyone drives everywhere”

(Hubs says “there’s trash everywhere! It makes our city look ghetto” When in fact we’re just walking in an empty lot)

The FedEx guy informed me (because I’m friends with the FedEx and UPS man now that I’m a SAHM) that something happened down the block. Something that Hubs has been eagerly awaiting for months. Something that is sure to make it so that there’s “No chance of me ever not being fat” as Cuddles says.

In-n-out Burger opened in Utah, ya’ll.

I don’t care for In-n-out, it’s a California thing. But, since all them damn Californians have moved in and took er juuuuuubs, it was just natural to build a few more than the one in St. George. It just so happened that one was a couple blocks from our house. We walked there with baby, had the police people help us cross the street, and stood in line for an hour and a half in front of The Loudest Totally Gay Married Mormon Guy In The World. It was fucking cold outside. Inside there was this:

That says “Capacity, 75 guests.” HA

Baby: “WTF?!”

MM and I went home as Hubs waited another hour for our food, and then got a ride home from the loud mormon married gay. By the time he got home it was all cold, but he still loved it, like a true Californian should. There’s been a constant two-blocks long line to the drive through since the opening, which is annoying when you live around here and need to, ya know, go somewhere. I’m sure that the excitement will die down about the 10th of never.

Inked

I got my first tattoo when I was 18. I don’t remember those days very well….for some reason….but I would not be surprised if I did not go to get the tattoo the DAY I turned 18 to say, “Fuck you, Dad, and your willy-nilly rules that come and go depending on if you give a shit that day!” I wanted something with Superman, but I didn’t want to be like a little frat boy, so I “designed” this:

Do you see it?

You’ll have to pardon my plump self to see it further away:

A very large, biker dude sort of person did it at the tattoo place that my friend’s mother frequented. He had his forearm on top of my right boob for quite some time. I was surprised at how much it didn’t hurt, it felt rather like someone was dragging a staple along my skin, and that was all. Keep in mind though, that this highly disturbed young lady was slashing the shit out of herself in secret for years. I had several friends come to watch me get the thing (lord, friends that read this blog and are still in my life despite…everything). That was number one.

For number two, I saw Memento, and thought, “Hey, I could do that.” I think I did this one roughly around the time my “boyfriend” tried to “burn down his house with his family inside.” And by “boyfriend” I mean “Guy that I would awkwardly kiss in the hallways even though we were both interested in same sex relationships.” And by “burn down his house with his family inside” I mean “Jesus Christ, he was Disturbed.“

It’s quite faded now, but it used to be very awesome to me that I did this with a bic pen and a needle. Also didn’t realize how prominently that picture would feature Favorite Coffee Mug.

There was the one night, when we realized that drinking a shot every time they said, “Love!” in Moulin Rouge is a recipe for alcohol poisoning, and that lesb1an p0rn was kind of a strange thing to watch together, that Cuddles Kovinsky and I said, “Let’s join a cult!”

He told me of a cult that, in brief, believes that aliens brought us to earth so that we can clone ourselves to perfection, essentially. Once we clone ourself and our genetic memories get passed from clone to clone to clone ’til you become perfect, the jesus-looking alien will come and pick you up in his spaceship and take you back to the home planet. It’s a fun little cult, which may have gotten religious status at this point, who knows, it’s not any crazier than any other religion I’ve known. The sci-fi geek in me said “FUCK YES.”

Unfortunately, it was, like, $150 bucks to join, and then 3% of your income. While this is a bargain compared to the 10% of Mormonism, I needed my money to pay for cigarettes that I was making Cuddles’ mom buy me. I did like the religion’s symbol though. So, to cover a large “X” I had sliced into my wrist, I got this little ditty as number three:

I got a new tattoo artist after this point. One that was an actual artist. Biker John was simply not my style. I had to get this particular tattoo done twice, because no matter what I did it would always crack during healing from my wrist movements, and the color would flake out. Also, since it was on a bony area, it would always get inflamed and puff out about a half inch from my wrist. This one hurt like a bitch while it healed.

Let’s pause here and talk about tattoo’s and healing. Oh. My. God. it is so hard for me not to pick. If you pick, you pick out the color you know. There was always a lot of saran wrap and vaseline so that I could create a barrier of NO TOUCHEY but still see their loveliness.

Continuing along the theme of  ”I’ve stopped cutting myself and now I have all these embarrassing/nasty scars,” I got this friend on my right knee. It covers up a scar that says, “NO” ….or “ON” if you’re looking at it the other way. Ah the cry of the angry teen, “On, man… On.” Number four:

I don’t remember who it was, I can guess – but it doesn’t matter. Someone coined names for my boobs, Batman and Robin. So, I was going to go in and get little batman and robin tattoos on them. Little tats. My tattoo artist talked me into something slightly different, though: a style called “Huge, with flames.”

It hurt when it got close to the sternum, and there were moments where there was gonna be a nip show, but after hooooours they were done.

They are always a great conversation piece, number five

And I think they bring a little oomf to any outfit

MM certainly enjoyed looking at them and touching them as he nursed, and no, pregnancy and breastfeeding did not make them sag and make the batman symbol more like a tie fighter, thank god.

The batman and robin tattoos may be my favorite. Well, it’s a toss up. The final tattoo I have is just awesome. It took three sessions of three hours apiece, and thank god I got the established customer price with my artist because WHOOO it was expensive. It covers a lot of past pain though, and I had just finished the final session a couple of days before I met Hubs for the first time.

It certainly could use a touch up nowadays, most of the shadowing peeled off originally, and some of the depth of the colors is not so great anymore. My artist does touchups for life for free, but I just simply don’t have the time to go in and get it done. I usually read while she works, so I guess I could read my no-cry sleeping baby book while someone else gets “Hardcore” tatooed on their inner lip in the next seat, and maybe someday I will, but for now there are bottles to be warmed and moons to wish goodnight to and laundry to be done and true joy to be felt.

I only regretted having tattoos once, and only the first tattoo I ever got. I found it yukky to have the color above the gorgeousness of the dress at my wedding. I would have preferred a nice, tan chest easily and naturally, but makeup had to suffice

So, do you have any tattoos? Do they have stories? Do you have pictures? I would love to hear it

Little updates

My boobs:

After I let some cabbage leaves get to second base and become like Ariel’s clamshell bikini on me, any semblance of uncomfortableness went away. Started sleeping on my stomach night one, slept without a bra – oh blessed braless sleep – on day three. I lose a drop or two every once in a while, but all in all, Batman and Robin are just about back to being the dynamic duo of sexy instead of the dynamic duo of nom.

Ronald:

The roomba was not going home because I wouldn’t let it, apparently. I watched Ronald this morning repeatedly try to go home, then a foot away from the base he’d grumble, turn around, and try again all pissy-like. It hit me at that moment. My superior brain put the virtual wall right next to the charging dock, and the virtual wall puts a wall around itself to protect itself, so….it’s like plastic wrap on the toilet seat I guess.

Work Situation:

Without going into detail, I will say that I got exactly what I had wanted…but better…and without having to go back to work. Instead of getting frustrated at the insult of a job offer and saying, “Fuck you guys, I quit!” I quoted the law,  compromised with the company and was laid off with severance. Awe. Some.

 

That is all, anything else I have left up in the air?

It doesn’t get any less schizo

The good: Another successful baby nail clipping. Only once has one fingernail been cut too short causing the unhappies

The bad: The same old fight. Saturday seems to be explosion day for the fighting

The good: Baby loves him some goat’s milk.

The bad: Poops are two different distinctive colors and two distinctive thicknesses at the same time, and this morning caused some “Ow my bum!” screaming

The good: I describe the poops as “thick, dark cheese with spinach mixed in” to Hubs whenever he’s eating something just for the grossed out look

The bad: Baby was so difficult the other night that I had to go into the bedroom and silently debate about whether to punch the wall until my hand broke or scream into my pillow until I went hoarse

The good: On that day, I turned to Hubs and said, “THIS is why sometimes I can’t be excited when you come home and I just say, ‘oh my god take the baby right now‘” and he finally fully understood

The bad: Baby still needs to be held almost all day, sometimes not just held but looked at, sometimes not just held but sitting up leaning against me, sometimes not just held but standing and walking, sometimes not just held but getting his back patted, sometimes not just held but held over my shoulder and looking at my face in an impossibility of physics.

The good: He  often ends up like this:

The bad: I got poop on my finger

The good: We’ve never had a blowout

The good: He’s successfully unswaddled and sleeping fine

The good: He’s moved out of the bassinet and out of our room

The good: As I held him, he fell asleep. When I layed him down in the crib, his eyes popped open and he looked up at me. I said, “no?” and he sighed, closed his eyes, and turned his head away.

 

It is still hard, I still spend many days asking myself when it will get easier and cursing the 8 week date that came and went, the 10 week date that came and went, and the fact that he’s still quite a challenge. Then there’s a night where he’ll cooperate and go to sleep at a more reasonable hour with little to no horrible, blood curdling screams, and he’ll sleep for 6 hours. There are still days where nothing will please the little king, but there are days where everything is pleasing. What I do know is that even though there are difficult times, difficult hours or days or weeks, when he lays down in his crib and looks up worried that he’ll be alone in the dark, he can know that his mommy will be there for him and he can rest easy for a few moments with that knowledge. I hope he dreams well.

Twelve Weeks!

Four Weeks
Six Weeks
Eight weeks
Ten Weeks

Check out the cross between Jim Halpert and Einstein hair in this week’s session

How many chins can you count? I count 4

“Hello ladies, and/or gentlemen, depending on who I become”

At least it wasn’t shit

Last night was the one night where the baby goes to bed at a reasonable hour, so obviously Hubs and I had to have an hours long fight about the same shit we always fight about with a few extra still enraging spices. Between that and the early evening caffeine I pumped into myself so that I could survive two extra hours of single parenting on a cumulative total of about 20 hours sleep for the week, I didn’t get to sleep yet again until about 1:30. Baby got up three times throughout the night, and though Hubs took the feedings, I lay there awake each time myself. Ah, to be able to sleep at the drop of a hat.

I went in to get the baby at 7:00am, picked him up out of the crib, and realized that he was literally drenched in piss. So! I got to change the crib sheets, clean the mattress, change the changing pad cover, give the baby a bath, and deal with the morning screamies all before 8am! He also had his first goat milk shit, which was excessively thick and made him scream like the fires of hell were coming out of his ass. I’m going to go ahead and dilute the milk to 1/2 and see how we do on that. Then! I spilled coffee all over the office floor! Then! The fucking roomba (the Big Gift that Hubs got early because the surprise was ruined) refused once again to go home to his dock before the battery died and WTF Ronald the Roomba? Go HOME. Fuckin’ robots. Hubs amazingly slept through all of this and his alarm to end up late for work which somehow makes me feel guilty and get the knotted stomach “there will be a fight about this come evening” feeling.

Its sure to be a day of the infant version of, “Mom! Mom! Mom! Mom!” which is, “WHaaaaaaaaAAAAAHHHH!!!!” and 10 minute cat naps only while in constant motion and on a warm body. I have to say, if I wasn’t stuffing my face with clearance Halloween candy (3.99! Down from 12.99! Reese’s and KitKats, no other crap!), I would have the most toned arms on the planet. But, candy is readily available and can be opened with one hand, and a nutritious sandwich for lunch just isn’t going to happen most days as it is his mission in life to get really fucking pissed when mom wants to eat/shit/sleep. I’m back to surviving, and waiting for the thriving part to happen in this Mom role.

On the plus side, MM happens to be wearing baby camouflage today with the new sheets