Suck It

Dear World,
Stop asking me if my baby sleeps through the night. You don’t actually care about the answer. Your eyes fog over in boredom if I even say so much as “sometimes.” You are just waiting like little pouncing lions to jump on me whatever my answer. Let me save you the trouble.
If I say yes, without any back story then you jump on me that obviously she cries and I just sleep through it. That she is neglected and troubled and maybe doesn’t even BOTHER CRYING because I do not care about her. You tell me she is too small for her age and correct me when I assure you you are wrong.
If I say yes, explaining that to me a baby her age that sleeps in 7-8 hour chunks is definitely sleeping through the night, you tell me stories about how your child never slept ever and people like me aren’t even parents, not really, because babies like that clearly are not difficult ever and I have no right to be tired. And then you stomp off.
If I say no, then you start screeching about how babies this age SHOULD BE and I am failing as a mother. Obviously, I am waking her up at night with the vibrations of my neediness. Have I tried sleep training? You tell me stories about your two week old who slept through the night every night—the obvious implication that there is something defective about ME. If you are my mother-in-law you will repeatedly tell me about how my husband slept through the night right away—despite the fact that you told me I was unreasonable for wanting my baby to sleep in four hour chunks because her father didn’t until he was a year old. If you want to tell me I am unreasonable FABULOUS—just make up your mind why first ok?
My conclusion is that nobody knows anything. They are just having pre-arranged conversations with me that I am not interesting in having. They just want to tell me I am wrong whether I am listening or not.
But seriously. Suck it.

Finding My Way

I don't write about work here, for good reason, since I don't want to be Dooced. My job sounds much more interesting to others than it actually is and it pays my bills. That is the important bit. I am actually so paranoid about this that when I came over from Diaryland I went back and deleted anything that remotely was about the office (except in the most generic of terms).

Since going back to work I've come to realize a bunch of things. One, my job is not particularly family friendly. This is not the fault of my employer, entirely. I mean not all jobs are family friendly and mine is worse because of my commute. It is just a difficult situation to work out even if I loved my job which at one point I did. But the parts I love have been shrinking and the parts I hate growing every day. At the end of my pregnancy I thought it was my hormones that was making the situation feel so suffocating and I now know that no, it really wasn't.

I feel crushed under the weight of my life sometimes. I need to find a way to balance my work and my family and I know this is something that particularly mothers struggle with every damn day.

I read somewhere that young men plot their careers deliberately and have plans of where they are going. And that young women tend to drift more, grabbing opportunities and going wherever they go. I think that is an overly general statement but I find it interesting because that is precisely what I have done. I fell into my job and while I am good at it I am not sure it is what makes sense for me. It's an odd thing, because I helped J plan his career carefully. And I neglected to do the same for myself.

I am aware that this is such an entitled middle class white woman thing to worry about and that many women would trade with me in a heartbeat to at least have choices. I just hate my choices. I don't want to stay home--not only do I not feel like I would be good at that but I don't want to risk not being able to get a job again (at this level), I don't want my daughter to think that she has to choose between having a family and having a job and my mother in law moved up here to take care of the baby. That is just a lot against that option. And I am not having a lot of luck figuring out how to make this work for me. I am exhausted all of the time. The commute is hard. The job is . . .what it is.

I just feel lost. I don't know how will find my way.

Mission Control

I missed my early bus home by about thirty seconds this afternoon. Because it was early. This turned out to be lucky because five minutes later I was doing a butt-clenching sprint towards a bathroom to let my ass explode into a toilet.

I don't really believe in fate. I do, however, think it is entirely possible that my digestive tract controls the transit system in Seattle.

2021

I remember when I was all thirteen and convinced that I was the ugliest, stupidest, more horrible person on the face of the earth I went crying to my mother all full of woe and drama and shit. I think I was worked up because I didn't have a boyfriend and probably never would and would DIE ALONE. God you could not pay me enough to be thirteen again you really couldn't.



I give my mother credit. I was obviously being way to angsty and ridiculous and she didn't laugh in my face. But she really struggled to reassure me. And she looked at my awkward teenaged face and broken out skin and said, "Oh darling, of course you are lovely, you have beautiful teeth."



I remember sobbing over and over about how no one every married anyone for their teeth and GOD how ugly was I that my mother couldn't even fucking LIE to me and say I wasn't horrible looking.



I remember this now and I wonder how my mom didn't slap me silly or laugh at me and how on earth it didn't break her heart in two. Also I wonder if she will let me move in with her sometime in 2021.

Zen

I am sure it gets old to click here and read how very tired I am but . . I am so very tired. I feel it all the way to my toes. I came home from work today and J went to the Hulk and I took a hot shower and ate french fries for dinner. It is that kind of day.

The baby and I watched the Cubs game and she went to sleep without screaming at me for two hours which I appreciated so very much.

I spent most of the day trying to wrap my fingers around my life--trying to figure out how to not hang on so damn tightly that I snap it in half. A lot of shit has gone down here in the last couple of days, the usual work bullshit and existential mother guilt shit and my grandmother moving into a home shit and baby will not fucking sleep shit and I cracked a little on the inside yesterday. It is so very hard to feel like you are living your life right. That you will not wake up in thirty years really pissed off at yourself.

So I spent the day getting Zen about this stuff and forgiving myself for this financial stupidity that would have sent us into ruin a few years ago but now just means I feel bad and I was almost there when I got in my car to come home. And I noticed that no sound was coming out of the speakers on the right side of the car. I mess with a little and mess with it some more and go wild worrying about how now J won't want to drive this car when we buy another one this summer and how that means the car is probably falling apart (because the engine is controlled by the speakers somehow in this scenario) and wow I was off the cliff there for a moment.

Then I realized that the damn IPod adapter wasn't plugged in all the way and fixed it.

I think I have a ways to go before I am Zen.

Sleep Helps

Last night the baby screamed at me for forty minutes and then at J for half an hour before falling asleep. Tonight she screamed at me, inconsolably, for two hours. Perhaps we were spoiled because she never had colic but this is heartbreaking. She just howls and sobs and fat tears roll down her little chubby cheeks.

I am tired down in my bones. I feel as though the marrow has been scraped out of me and I am just a shell. A shell that types.

When you feel this way there is nothing really that you do well except list all of the ways that you are failing the people in your life. There are so many. It isn't just the baby's sleep, which is awful, but also this soul-crushing work problem (that shall not be named because I don't need a Dooceing on top of everything else) and the normal life shit. What I really need is a full night's sleep, a couple of days off, a bowl of ice cream and a good boinking. I won't be getting any of those things any time soon I am sure.

Poor J. It must be alarming to watch your wife just loose her shit completely and sadly, just rocking in a corner. Because that is what I am doing and I do not know how to stop.

I will just go to bed. That will help.

Important Lesson

Today as I was leaving work this guy on the corner grinned at me and shouted, "Girl you are wearing the HELL out of those pants. Every black guy around is loving that ASS. Aren't we brothers?!" (he then shouted to two men across the street).

Now those guys really had no choice but to agree (what were they going to scream that no my ass was FAT) and the guy was really more creepy then anything else (and possibly drunk it is hard to say) but my four months post partum self was a little cheered.

And we all learned a little something.

My ass is still kryptonite to black men.

Mixed Results

The sleep regression continues to kick my ass. The tooth popped through at least a bit (I think) last night so here is hoping that she goes back to her old self soon. J did his first night shift last night and judging by the bags under his eyes I don't think he handles the broken sleep any better than I do.

I sort of felt sorry for him, because man have I been there. But then I remembered that YEAH I HAVE BEEN THERE FOR FOUR AND A HALF MONTHS. Yeah, one semi-decent night's sleep doesn't really make me less of a bitch. Let's try for two honey.

Mo had her first solid foods (interesting that they call them solids since they are more like slime than anything else). The rice cereal seemed to confuse her. And apple sauce made her happy even though she spit it out. Since it's all just for fun at this stage anyway we're calling it a win.

Sometimes I look at her and I just think where did you come from? How do I have a baby? And how is she already old enough to spit apple sauce at me? Sometimes I feel like I am going to wake up and it is all a dream. It's hard, this being a mama to a little baby, but it is so good. So good I can tell I need to wrap up in it like a blanket--store this feeling for the hard nights ahead.

Shame Shuffle

In the past couple of months my post baby body has gone back to it's pre-pregnancy, pardon the pun, shitty digestive system. After the blessed blessed reprieve (which seriously was so nice because can you imagine alternating between debilitating constipation and explosive diarrhea while knocked up) of pregnancy well my digestive tract is taking it's duty to make me miserable rather seriously.

And this week, at work, what I have always worried about happened.

I had stomach cramps followed by an ass explosion . . .no biggie. And then I realized. There was no toilet paper in the stall.

Oh y'all. I was trapped in a stall with all the very fancy ladies of my office roaming around and all I wanted was to wipe my ass. I tried to peel any spare bits off the last roll. I even used a damn scrap off the floor (I know, but I was desperate). I finally waited it out until the ladies left the room and then did the shame shuffle a stall over and cleaned up.

You would think that shitting on a table in labor would make these things less humiliating. And you would be wrong.

Sandwich

The knock off of Chick Fil A that they have at McDonald's is freaking delightful and thank god I am not pregnant because I would have eaten my body weight in that nonsense (big time tangent but knockoffs, remember after 9/11 and all the designers kept saying that Al Queida was being funded by people selling Burberri, Fendy and Couch bags--double side note when I was in New York my favorite thing was to walk around and look at the misspelled fake bags, I wish I could have taken photos but the vendors get understandably nervous when you whip out a camera--because yes of course terrorism is about FASHION so you can imagine what kind of shit is being funded by all the crazies selling fakes outside of Sex in the City screenings**end tangent). Anyway that sure is a delightful sandwich. Basically the very best thing that happened to me today.

A lot of crappy things have been happening lately. Nothing that I can talk about here so much except that I know that I am fortunate. My marriage is solid, my baby delightful, we are not having financial problems. . .but being fortunate doesn't really help when I find myself sinking in a rather hopeless situation. One that is making me feel more depressed every day. I have to keep trying to keep my head out of this, my family doesn't deserve to have to deal with this crisis and I don't want to go through it.

So anyway, it's a great goddamn sandwich.

Just Kills Me

Y'all. I do not know how this has happened. My baby girl just keeps growing and growing--doing exactly what she is supposed to do--but I cannot help but miss it. I never truly understood the term bittersweet until I became a mom.

Since her first day on this earth my baby had to be wrapped tight to sleep. The tightest swaddle you can imagine or she wouldn't calm down at all. Then last week she suddenly didn't need it anymore. She was just fine without it.

She has always loved her pacifier. Sucks on it morning, noon and night. But now she doesn't need it anymore. Still at night, still for naps or when things go wrong, but mostly she doesn't need it.

She can laugh. Not the baby giggle but a full chortling belly laugh that shakes her all over and jiggles those hound dog cheeks.

I love this age so much. She just wants to sit and laugh and hang out--she is very good company--I just want to put her in my pocket and keep her this way all the time. But at the moment I think this, I keep thinking I cannot wait until she is big enough to sit up on her own. To eat a cupcake. To say Mama. To give me kisses. I want to hit fast forward and rewind and PAUSE like her babyhood is one giant Tivo.

And yes, that is totally baby barf on her face in the above picture. There is just something about how she is doing the full on Gerber Tyra Banks beauty shot with puke on her that I love so much. She just kills me.