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.

Things That Bug

Dear Women In My Office,
If it is warm enough for shorts, it is too warm for your Uggs. If it is cold enough for Uggs, it is too cold for shorts. And neither of those things are office wear you fucking morons.

Love,
AB

Dear Woman I See Walking Nearly Every Day,
Your baby is beautiful and bald. Stop gluing that fucking disco ball thing to her damn head. It looks like a sparkling tumor. SHE IS A GIRL WE GET IT.

Love,
AB

Dear Baby Girl,
Oh you are the apple of my eye. Now let me fucking sleep. Getting Mama up every two hours is a good way to get yourself written out of the will which is tough to do when you are the sole heir and yet? You are managing. Get it together.

Love,
AB

Dear Head,
I know you are tired. And people are wearing seasonally inappropriate clothes and gluing weird shit to baby heads. But this migraine shit has got to stop. Six days straight you have been all hurty. Please stop. I beg of you.

Love,
The Rest of You

Dear Hair,
Please stop falling out everywhere. I find you on the floor, in the toaster, in my shoes, in the baby's diaper. It is all very upsetting. I am pleased that you are falling out because the thickness was asinine but could you do it in efficient chunks? Perhaps that fall automatically into the trash? Thanks.

Love,
Me

Four AM is Early Yo

Oh y'all.

I was doing so well. Not freaking out about being back to work (now work sucks but meh that is something else entirely), juggling the family, sharing baby duty with J. I was cruising. It was hard but I could do it.

The baby isn't sleeping. I mean she isn't not sleeping. But for a while now she has been sleeping in long chunks and getting up once during the night. But when I hit the wall yesterday I realized it has been a couple of weeks since she fit that pattern. Instead of getting five or six hours straight I have been getting three hours and it is melting my brain.

Crazed googling leads me to believe she is just having a four month sleep regression. And with any luck this will be over in a couple of weeks. But in the mean time my brain is hot molten liquid and I have a migraine that could take down an elephant. I would do just about anything to get eight hours at a time.

This is a lonely feeling. Even though J is going through it with me (he takes the early morning shift when I leave). Even though parents everywhere are all going through this right now. I just feel hopeless and sad and I know I just need to tough it out. But that would be easier with some goddamn sleep.

Wild Life

Mo and I spent last night with my parents. My mother was thrilled beyond measure to have the baby in the house (I am but a necessary accompaniment). I have to admit that the kiddo was in full charm mode--she can give a full bodied laugh now that is impossible to ignore. She wanted to stand stand stand all the time and belched like a trucker for my dad.

Of course she didn't want to nap all day (too much fun) and melted down hard core on the way home. At least she will sleep well tonight.

J is camping out at a concert festival this weekend. He has sent text messages and called earlier today and is having a grand time. Honestly, his squeeing about REM has pretty hilarious. He thinks that I should go with him next year, not believing me as usual that I have been to many many concerts at the Gorge and have no desire to camp out there again. It's hot, the porta-potties are always full and I do not need to be pretending to be in high school again. Those festivals are for serious music fans and kids who want to get drunk. I can get unburned and dehydrated at home for free.

Just the same I have had a lovely weekend so far, the weather has been beautiful and the baby charming. I am glad J will be home tomorrow and we can have a little family time. I have a feeling Mo and I have a baseball watching date in the morning. And possibly a walk around the neighborhood. After she milk-bongs her bottle in the morning.

It's a wild life.

Something No One Really Needed To Know

I am going to cause some people to shudder in horror but I don't use toilet seat covers.

I know. But I really can't get too worked up about germs on my butt. Many public space bathrooms are cleaned many times in a day and those that are not . . .well they are likely the kind of places that the Hover is required anyway. I don't know what kind of disease and filth is really intimidated by a little piece of paper. I wouldn't want to eat off of any of these seats but you know, it's not like my ass is germ free.

But what really skeeves me out is when I walk into a stall and the toilet seat cover is still there. Obviously no one cleans the paper and ew some one's butt was just on that.

I realize this makes sense to no one but me.

Changed

I don't think I am alone in the panic I felt while I was pregnant. Beyond all the Oh my god my baby is going to die panic, I also had a healthy case of the freak outs about never having a life again. There is nothing that people love to tell pregnant women (and their partners I assume) about how awful having a baby will be. How you will be fat and ugly and let yourself go. How you won't ever go out again, that you won't get any sleep. How life as you know it is over.

What I've found is that they were right. And wrong.

Life as I know it is over.

But the list of things about my old life is actually fairly small.

1. Sleep. Nobody was shitting about that. Sleeping in is seven am. There are times when I am tired down into the marrow of my bones and I am well aware that my baby is a good sleeper.

2. My weight is basically the same as it was pre-pregnancy. But nothing is in the same place. Suddenly I have the boobs I have been waiting for since seventh grade and well, the experience is over-rated. I can't figure out exactly how to dress this new body of mine without looking heavier than I am. Also, the stretch marks, they are not going to fade. I've seen my mother's stomach and EEEP it is on my damn body.

3. Eating in peace. Baby girl is good but she likes to be paid attention to and that includes during meals. J and I do the whole take turns bit and works out ok. But it's not leisurely by any means.

And that is about it.

I am a homebody by nature. J still goes out frequently for Happy Hours and golf days with his friends. This weekend he is going to a concert on the east side of the state and wow being alone with the baby for three days seemed a lot easier when I agreed to this months ago. But being a homebody has the advantage that J can keep up his social life without it being a huge deal.

I love my daughter. Love my family. There are many things that are not perfect about my life. I am struggling with the same work/life balance shit that every family in America struggles with. J and I rack our brains each night trying to find something. But we are lucky, our situation is actually pretty good and we will figure something out.

My life isn't the same. The little raisin sucking a purple binky down the hall made sure of that. And thank god she did.

One of Many Things I Have No Patience For

Today I was at Subway, just trying to buy a sandwich, when the cashier starts in about the Subway card. I don't have one, and despite her efforts to sell my on the benefits, I do not want one. Mainly because I never end up using them and I have a small wallet.

Of course she has to keep pushing and I finally tell her I will just lose it. She comments that I don't lose my credit card and I tell her that I do, that I am irresponsible.

Why the fuck did I do that? One, it's not true. Two, wtf really? I have no idea. I think I was trying to be polite? Or offer a reason that didn't say anything about her salesmanship? Whatever, it's just dumb.

Side note, I was in sales long enough that I have zero patience for pushy tactics of any kind. J was pricing windows the last few weeks and I made it through one demo. I just wanted to scream. Don't give me your speech just show me the window and tell me the price you ass!

This may be the reason that J got to sit through about ten presentations alone.

Happy Mother's Day

Tomorrow is Mother's Day and I am not going to pretend that this one isn't different for me.

Last year my heart broke a little. I had had a miscarriage and didn't know I was pregnant. I just kept thinking and spinning around in my head. I worried that J and I would never be a family.

This year I feel so lucky. There are a lot of things in my life that are not perfect but there is one thing that is. And she is sleeping down the hall from me right now (oh the cheese, it is like Wisconsin in here).

Now I understand my mother so much more. I understand how much she loves me, how much she loves my sister, all the things she did for us and why. I feel lucky to have my daughter, to be her mother.

Family Recipe

Buster and I are holed up in the bedroom. He is intermittently napping and fretting and I am eating stir fried green beans. The baby is (finally) asleep, the husband is playing softball and Darla is at the vet recovering from surgery. Fortunately, Darla will be fine, she had a non-cancerous tumor removed but yeah . . .he needs to fret and I deserve my green beans.

The first week back at work has been . . .work. Mostly it is fine, some things have been a disaster. Luckily, the baby has been just fine. My getting up at 4am means that I get home in time to spend some real time with her. I am tired as all fuck but then again I would be anyway. Spending four hours with her each night vs. one helps with the crushing guilt. If I had only one hour with her I would feel like I need to be at my very uber-Momness--something that can hard to do right after work (or ever). But with four hours, well no one's perfect Sunshine.

Mostly I just feel relief to be getting more of me back. I think that comes with an older baby in general. Your body comes back a bit, so does your brain. At this time last year I was already pregnant so . . .just being able to have a drink and some sushi once in a while feels like a vacation.

I didn't know what motherhood would be like. I suppose no one does, they just think of fluffy wings and fling themselves off a cliff. The first weeks are hard and you feel exposed and raw and flayed. Like a naked chicken being dipped in batter over a fryer. But now you are sleeping a little more and having adult conversations and wearing shoes with heels and the baby is smiling and laughing and it's still hard and you are still raw but it's not so scary. You get used to hanging precariously over hot oil.

I am not the same as I was. My body is different, my hair is oddly curlier, I care less what other people think . . .and I can't really remember the time before. It feels like a long time ago. J and I keep adjusting, fiddling with the recipe to get things just right. And I think we will get there someday. And hope that someday is soon.

Missed Her

Today was my first day back at work from leave. I survived. That is how it went.

I was smart, and started on a Thursday. Everyone was just glad that I actually came back (if they only knew) and it made it a little easier.

Of course after the three am feeding this morning I cried for an hour and then just gave up and went to the office. J was impressed because he thought I would cry all night. I guess I should stop making room for that badass badge on my Mama Sash because I am fooling exactly no one.

I feel so incredibly lucky to have had this time with her. I am not built for stay-at-home momhood, which I think is so hard, even if it were financially workable for us (it isn't) so I am glad to have this to remember. She needed me these first few months and I needed to do this to become a mom. It wasn't natural to me--I needed the bootcamp. I know that not everyone is able to afford this luxury (which is a commentary on our country, we honestly expect people to go back to work immediately after birth? this is good for anyone?). Mo won't remember any of this but I will.

The guilt is crushing though. My job is not family friendly. It is high stress. I has a long commute. It sucks my soul. And I can't do anything about it except bust ass and hope the recession never really hits us.

And cry. I suspect I will do a lot of that.