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Had a most wonderful day today, and evening last night. My parents came last night, we all went to dinner. There was a Gallery Walk downtown so the area was rather hoppin’. Went to a new restaurant for dinner, Adelino’s I think it was called. Sorry to say not my favorite…the atmosphere was nice, the food average. Kept Nyima up to late so she refused to go to bed, didn’t actually fall asleep until almost 11. That was fun. Not.
Today went to breakfast with some friends, then Nyima refused to take her morning nap and so we went to another friends’ house sans nap. Oddly enough, they have a little girl who is about 5 months or so older than Nyima, and their daughter refused to take her morning nap today too! So we got there and they played, and then they both got sleepy so we put them down for their naps and they fell asleep at the same time. Then they both woke up at the same time. Then they played together some more, and a couple hours later they pooped at exactly the same time! It was very funny, cute, and stinky.
Got my digital scrapbooking software today, have spent the last several hours messing around with it. Got my pictures fairly organized, and made my first page that is now wallpaper for my computer! So very exciting. This could get addicting. But my computer is so freakin slow it gets frustrating, I may need to upgrade computers if I ever find some extra ciznash.
So – Nyima is doing prettygood in her crib. She is starting to fight going to sleep, though. We give her her bottle, and where she would normally fall asleep right away after finishing she now finishes then starts messing around, playing with her pacifier, babbling. Not sure if it’s the crib or if we keep missing her nap windows. Either way it’s getting frustrating, and I’m finding myself letting her sit by herself in the crib and mess around or cry, where as before I was staying with her until she fell asleep. She actually seems to do better with out me there all the time. Go figure.
Time to go veg out for awhile before bed…
I needed to write this yesterday, but my wee one did not cooperate.
I spoke to my boss yesterday about my return to work on the 16th. I had hoped that I wouldn’t be assigned to a project yet, that I would have a couple months to help on random projects and just get used to being back at work. Alas, ’tis not to be. She said I’m on a bid for a project we’re supposed to hear about this week. Which means I’ll be starting up at the start of a study, which is always insane. Which means I’ll have to travel to the sponsor’s office for a meeting probably within the next couple of weeks. Which means my time lines for, well, everything, have been drastically shortened. I told her my morning sitter for next week is on vacation so I’ll be juggling things a bit, and she suggested I have a back-up plan in case we get the project and things get going right away. Back up plan…so I’m supposed to be able to create a magical sitter that I feel comfortable with in three days? My wonderful mother said she would help if she could. So I do have a back-up plan. But she’s busy too, and I’m already feeling guilty that my needs will be making others’ lives more difficult. I’m supposed to be responsible for everything, and handle it perfectly, and never get upset, remember?!?!
Positives:
- The study I’ve been assigned to is with the same sponsor and the same indication that I was on before I went on leave, so there won’t be nearly the learning curve there was last time
- I’ve learned how to delegate since my last project
- I’m no longer a newbie at this – all of the stress and “I have to get this done NOW” is reduced, and I understand how to keep myself sane much better.
Negatives:
- All of that above is a load of crap I’ve been telling myself to keep from flipping out. Work sucks!
Actually, I do believe the positives. But it doesn’t make starting again any easier. I would feel more comfortable about the whole thing if my child would take a freakin’ bottle. She has decided recently that a bottle is NOT what she wants, she will not have it, and she will scream and hold her breath and wail and wail until said bottle is thrown to the wolves. I’ve tried different bottles, nipples, positions, times of day, persons giving the bottle, all to no avail. She’ll be fine with it one day, then the next day refuses it all together. I had decided earlier if I have to travel I’ll just take my mom or Jason with me and also bring Nyima – she could take a bottle during the day while I’m working, and I’ll still be there with her at night for feeding, sleeping, etc. Which would be great, except for the bottle part. So my next few days will be spent having a battle of wills with my child and trying to get her to take a bottle, so that one stress will be aleved. Because not only does that cause me stress about work, I also would like to be able to leave the house without her sometimes.
I’m afraid of my desire to feel like I have to do it ALL – be the perfect employee, the perfect mother, the perfect housekeeper, the perfect wife. It won’t be possible…in theory I know this, but experientially I may fall short of this awareness. I don’t like letting people down. I’ve told myself that Nyima will always come first, and I think that will stay true, but learning how to shuffle everything so she does stay first is going to be very hard.
Luckily my boss is very understanding – she has 2 kids of her own and works from home. She said she would let me know if it looked like my performance was being affected before it became an issue. So that’s good. And she knows the struggle of trying to do it all, we talked at length about it yesterday. But it’s still scary.
I wish I had written this yesterday, I feel like all of the things I was feeling are distilled now, things aren’t ringing as true.
On a different note, my afternoon sitter took Nyima for a walk in the stroller for the first time yesterday. I thought it was a great idea until they left the house. Then I suddenly realized the baby was not in the house, and me or Jason were not with her. It was a very strange and scary feeling! I called Jason to share my fears and we ended up just working each other up, so in the end I called my mom so she could talk me down. It’s not that I don’t trust my sitter. It’s just that she’s not me!!!
Time for lunch and then a walk – it’s going to be almost 60 today. Spring would be good right about now.
So I was reading some more stuff about this chick from CA who had the octuplets. When I first heard about the 8 kids at once I thought ‘dang, good luck with that! I can hardly handle one…’. Then I hear she already has 6 kids, and I’m like ‘whaaaat???’. Then I hear not only does she already have 6 kids, she doesn’t have a job, there isn’t a father around because all of the kids were from a sperm donor, and she’s living with her mom off of disability. But she won’t do welfare! That’s beneath her! But I doubt she’ll have to worry about welfare, since she’s already got book and TV deals in the works.
All I can say is bull-freakin-shiznat. Here is some nutjob that has a complex because she was an only child so she decides to have a boatload of kids, kids that are likely to have all sorts of developmental issues. Not only because they were so premature, but because there are 14 freakin’ kids! And it’s not like she said ‘whoops, guess I’m just really fertile’, she WORKED to have that many kids. She’s only 33. Can you imagine her Match.com ad? “33 year-old single mother of 14 looking for…well…anyone!”. She said when she finishes school she knows she’ll able to support her family. So, in all her spare time raising 14 kids she’ll also be finishing her degree in…wait for it…counseling psychology! Now, I have a husband and many friends who are therapists, and none of them make enough money to raise 14 kids. Unless you’re Dr. Phil. And perhaps I’m picky, but some wacko who is so jacked she thinks having 14 kids is somehow going to resolve her childhood issues is not going to be my first choice to help me in my road to self-discovery.
I’m soap-boxing. But as someone who tried so hard to have just 1 child, and who struggles daily hoping that I’m providing everything she needs, it is infuriating to see someone do this on purpose. And it sickens me that our society will reward her for this – book deals, TV deals. I know, let’s reward those people who act irresponsibly and unconsciously. The rest of us are just boring! Who wants to hear about the struggles of everyday people??? Sheesh.
But perhaps I’m a hypocrite. I have watched “John and Kate Plus 8″. I’ve also watched the show about the family who has 18 kids (and counting…ugh). I guess the difference for me with the ‘John and Kate’ show is they didn’t PLAN on having 8 kids. It just sort of happened. And the family with the 18 kids…yeah, it’s nuts, but they have a seemingly stable family and somehow they’ve made it work. The problem with those shows is they have now upped the ante for what is ‘worthy’ of television. Jason and I have 2 embryos left – when we implant those, theoretically we could have 4 kids if they both turned into twins. But that would only be quadruplets and only leave us with 5 kids – hardly newsworthy. Forget the fact that it would send us into a tailspin of trying to figure out how to pay for diapers, childcare, college, how to give enough attention, etc. That my body would get pretty wrecked birthing 4 kids. That the hospital bills would be huge. We wouldn’t get those lifetime supplies of diapers, formula, bottles, donations, TV shows, book offers, etc.
Well, now my one child has woke from her nap and I must tend to her. How boring!!!
I’m annoyed. I spent last night laying in bed worrying about whether or not I was doing everything I could to help Nyima meet her developmental ‘milestones’, when I should have been getting some sleep. She slept great! Me, not so much.
I’m finding that my my need for perfection has migrated into the care of my child. It’s not even perfection I’m after, but the lack of regret. Is that perfection? I’m not sure. And it’s not that I expect HER to be perfect – in my eyes she’s already perfect. But I expect ME to be perfect in raising her. Which is completely ridiculous and impossible. I’m gonna screw her up somehow, there is no way around it. But when I read the books and the websites about milestones she should be meeting, how much tummy time I should be giving her a day, what games she’ll like, it’s ALL I can think about! Oh no, I only gave her a few minutes of tummy time today – she’ll be sliding on her stomach forever! Oh no, she hasn’t laughed yet – is something wrong? Am I not stimulating her enough? Call CPS!
It’s so dumb. And I know it’s dumb. She is perfect, and this morning I was watching her play and realized how completely dumb it is. She is doing everything she needs to be doing – she’s happy, she’s healthy. I have to get over this parenting pressure I’m putting on myself, because it will sap all the joy out of it! My parents didn’t have set rules for tummy time, games, milestones, and other nonsense. And I turned out fine! So did my sister! I need to learn to look at those for general guidance on what I can help her with or look for, but not things that HAVE to happen.
My fear is eventually these pressures I put on myself would be transferred to her. I don’t suddenly want to discern my parental abilities from her success or lack thereof. That would be so not cool. She’ll develop as she develops, and I’ll love her every step of the way.
A note about tummy time – I hate it, and she hates it. She cries everytime I do it, so I know I don’t do it as much as I ’should’. She cried so much the first six weeks of her life, I’ve really enjoyed the last few weeks of significantly diminished screaming. So to put her in a position that I KNOW will make her cry is something I really don’t enjoy. I do it. But I don’t like it!
Went to an inauguration viewing party this morning with Jason and Nyima. I am so grateful that my daughter was born during this time of hope and unity. I hope it continues, and the lessons we have learned actually stick and the world and our nation become a better place.
Barack and Mrs. Obama are walking up a street right now. That doesn’t seem very smart…
Anyway. I was still pregnant when Obama was elected. I avoided putting too much hope in this election. I was WAY into the 2004 election, and my heart was so broken when Bush was re-elected I had a hard time letting myself get too hopeful this time. It’s a pity I guarded myself that way, because the joy I could have felt would have far eclipsed the depression of the previous election. Not that I’m not happy, but it’s more subdued than it could have been. That being said, I’m still so relieved and hopeful that we are finally going in the right direction, not only as a country but as the human race.
Obama got back in the car. Thank goodness. That was way too stressful. A secret service agent I would not make.
Took the weekend off due to traveling – went down to Indianapolis to visit my sister and her crew. We hadn’t been there in awhile, it was an awesome visit! And Nyima did great on the trip, slept the whole way there and back, and hardly cried at all while we were there. She was too busy looking at all the new faces and listening to our conversations!
I think the childcare thing is set, our friend is going to watch her in the mornings and we have the girl from the Child Development program coming in the afternoons. We’ll see how it goes! I keep telling myself that my boss works from home and has kids, and so do lots of people that I work with. So if things don’t work out for some reason and we have issues with childcare that would mean I’m taking care of the baby and working somedays she’ll understand. I’m also hoping I don’t get put on a project right away so I have a few weeks of downtime before the insanity starts.
I feel bad for my sister, she’s going through infertility issues too. It seems her issues are more on her end, which I think makes it more difficult. She’s going to the same fertility clinic that we went to to have Nyima. I hope things work out for her…she has a 3-year old daughter, but would really like for her to have a sibling. We were talking this weekend about our expectations for how our lives are going to be, and when a wrench gets thrown in those plans how disturbing it can be. I totally understand…I always thought I’d be the 2.5 kids stay at home mom. I never thought we’d have fertility issues, that I’d be the main breadwinner. For awhile I had a very hard time dealing with it, and Jason and I seperated for awhile in part so I could hash out my new life roles. But I wouldn’t change my life now for anything, so it all works the way it’s supposed to in the end.
We’re going to a place downtown that is showing the Obama inauguration tomorrow. That should be pretty fabulous. I’m very happy that Nyima was born in such a period of excitement after he was elected.
I’m not feeling very write-y today, this all feels forced. But I did it, so I’ll count that as a plus.
So today, in about an hour, we’ll be interviewing someone who could potentially be providing childcare for us. I go back to work around Feb 16th, and I work from home, but I need someone here during the day because there is no way I can focus on the kid and the job. This person is in the Child Development program at Purdue, so I’m hoping that’s a good sign! We also have a friend who is interested in helping us out as needed, so if this person we’re interviewing works out I should have someone who can fill in while she’s in class. I think there’s a little less pressure on finding someone since I’ll be home, but it’s still nervewracking. I’d love to not have to do the childcare thing at all – would certainly help the bank account! – but it’s probably for the best. This will help her get used to being around other people. Right? And will also give me a break, which frankly, sounds sort of nice. It’s the best of both worlds, really. I’ll be working, but I’ll be home so I won’t miss anything big. And I get a break from the 24/7 baby care and get to have some adult conversation during the day. I’m nervous about this because why again???
On a different note, my little girl had a great sleeping night last night! There is usually about a 1/2 hour crying (screaming) jag before the final feeding prior to bed. Not last night! She fussed a little, so little that I was afraid she wasn’t tired enough to go to bed. But I fed her, and out she went! She then proceded to sleep 6 hours STRAIGHT! I current record. Then she woke up to eat, and I had to change her diaper. Typically if I have to change her diaper after I feed her, I have to nurse her a little more to get her to go to sleep. Not last night! After we got back to bed after changing her diaper, I laid her down while she was still awake and laid down next to her. She played with my shirt a little bit, then went to sleep on her own and slept FOUR MORE HOURS!!!! It’s a miracle! My little baby is getting so big. Sniff!
I never thought I’d be blogging about childcare and how much my kid slept through the night. My world is so surreal.
Before I had Nyima, even when I was pregnant, I swore I wasn’t going to become a ‘mom’. I was going to have a life, I wasn’t going to suddenly lose my fashion sense, walking around in sweatpants and shirts crusted with baby puke. I was going to keep ‘me’, but still take care of this litte being.
Right.
What I didn’t anticipate, is when Nyima was born all of those things dropped so far down on my priority list that they didn’t even enter my mind. When I headed to Target in my nursing sweatshirt that was still damp from the morning’s drenching of spit-up, I didn’t think ‘oh, I should do my hair before I go’. I thought ‘I hope I can get back home in time before she starts crying’. Not only is there no time for worrying about such trivialities as make-up and matching socks, they simply aren’t important anymore. What is important is my baby is healthy and happy, and that I’m providing her everything she needs to stay that way. If I get a break when she’s sleeping or playing on her little mat, it’s to throw in laundry (which has exponentially increased thanks to the previously mentioned spit-up) or do the dishes, or, on a really good day, take a nap of my own.
My transformation has even gone so far as to get my hair cut, something else I swore I would never do. I have been blessed with dark, curly hair, and I’ve kept it long for years. It’s been my ‘thing’, my one feature I could count on when I felt crappy about the rest of myself. But when you have a baby, those long locks get in the way. I was always wearing my hair up, and it wasn’t nice-looking updo. It was a ‘holy crap I have 2 minutes to brush my hair and get out the door before she really wakes up and starts crying’ look. I walked by a mirror in a store one day, saw the sleep-deprivation bags under my eyes and my fly-away ponytail, and realized I WAS a mom. I looked the part, I was playing the part, and there wasn’t a thing I wanted to be different. I was comfy in my yoga pants and nursing shirt. I also noticed that my hurried hair do pushed me more into the ‘mom’ category than anything. So when I went that week to get my hair cut, I told her to cut it short. I have just enough for a nubbin of a ponytail when (if) I workout. And what was amazing about the whole thing was something that once would have taken weeks to deliberate on, survey friends about, and get the ultimate permission from my husband for, I decided on pretty much spur of the moment and haven’t looked back since. There was no mourning for my lost locks. I felt free – no more searching for my ponytail holders while the baby was crying. No standing in front of the mirror with baby in one arm and ponytail holder in the other and wondering if it is possible to do my hair with one hand (it isn’t). I still have my dark curly hair. It’s just shorter. In the past I would have called it a ‘mom’ haircut, basically because it was short. But I feel less ‘mom-ish’ with my cute, short hair than I did with my frenzied ponytails.
I bought some picture frames and was looking through old pictures to figure out which ones I want to hang up. It was odd looking at those pictures of me before all of this. It was a completely different life, Not better, not worse, just different. When I put away my maternity clothes I went through my old clothes to see if there was anything I wanted to get rid of. The ones I got rid of were my ‘past life’ clothes. Things I looked at after having Nyima and knew there was now way I was going to ever wear them again (basically anything with a Charlotte Ruse (sp) tag). I’m a mom now. Gotta look the part.
I posted this blog to myspace the day we put Chief to sleep. It still makes me sad when I read it, even though I know it was the right decision and he’s not suffering anymore. But I miss him. 
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It’s hard to believe in all of the happiness and excitement of getting ready to have a child that it’s possible to feel such profound sadness. But today I learned that it is indeed possible.
We put our dog Chief to sleep this morning. He was the most wonderful dog. We got him when he was 5 weeks old – he fit in my coat pocket! We took him everywhere, he was filled with such life that everybody loved him. He looked like he had a permanent smile on his face, and was always healthy and happy. He would come into the room, and no matter how you were feeling before you couldn’t feel bad when he was around. He would snuggle in bed with us, wiggle up close until he was comfy and then give a nice big sigh and a groan to demonstrate his snuggle satisfaction. When we would pet him and he felt particularly lovey his ears would drop down and he’d look up at us and get a cute little lump on his head that we called his ‘love bump’. He chased flashlight beams on the floor and up walls. He loved to chew sticks. He would obsess over squirrels and rabbits, and if he saw one the next time he got let outside he would burst out the door and run full speed until he got to where he saw them last. I don’t think he ever actually caught one…
He was the same wonderful Chief until a few years ago. He had a sort of stroke, and from that point on never quite recovered. We nursed him back to health as much as we could, but his old spark was never quite there. He had a hard time balancing, and as he got older and his hips got weaker his spark got a little dimmer, but every once and awhile you could see in his eyes that he was still there. Last weekend he had a seizure and stopped wanting to eat. I was able to coax him to eat for a few days, but for the last few he had no more than a handful of chicken pieces and some rice every morning (yes, I cooked him rice and chicken….). His kidneys were shutting down, he could hardly get up to go outside, and when he did go outside he would lose his balance or strength and have to sit down after a few minutes. This morning we decided we couldn’t let him suffer anymore, and took him in to be put to sleep. When we get his ashes back we’ll sprinkle them in all the places he loved to run.
I thought the hardest part was going to be making the decision about when to take him in. After it was done, there was a brief moment of relief, both from us worrying about him and from easing whatever pain he might have been in. I was fine for about an hour, feeling sad but okay, but as the day went on my heart broke more and more. Our Chiefers is gone! We’ll never be able to pet him again, snuggle with him, take him for a walk. He was our best friend for almost as long as we can remember, and not having him around has left a huge hole in our lives that will never be filled quite the same way.
As sad as I am, though, I feel like this all happened the way it was supposed to. We are having a little girl, and naming her Nyima June (Nyima is pronounced ‘neema’). Nyima is the Tibetan word for sun, and possibly the Hopi word for moon, and we’re decorating the nursery with a sun and moon. When we took Chief in this morning to have him put to sleep, they had a blanket laid out for him that was covered with suns and moons. Him leaving us is so painful, but it’s also freeing us to focus on getting ready for our daughter. I’d like to think that he chose this time to say goodbye because he knew his time with us was done, and it was time for the new center of our universe. I would have liked Nyima to be able to know him, though. They would have been great friends.
Goodbye, Chief. We love you, and will miss you so.
Wow. I knew it had been a long time since I blogged, but I didn’t realize it had been THIS long. Time flies, eh?
Well, the past almost year has been pretty nuts, which I guess is why I didn’t blog. But I should have. Would have been nice to capture everything as it happened, instead of in the brief recap. Oh well, I don’t have enough time or energy to worry to much about it!
After the horrors of April everything went fine with the pregnancy. We welcomed our daughter Nyima June (Nyima is pronounced ‘neema’) on November 2oth – her exact due date! I’ll probably blog about the labor later just to have that in writing somewhere…but in summary, it was 24 hours of hard work. But worth every minute.
We had quite the year, even without Nyima coming into our lives. We had renters in our old house that finally left, and when the left they left their filth, destruction, and a housefull of cockroaches. We spent the next month working every spare minute into getting that house ready to sell. I actually think it was right after we got home from that Smokey Mountains trip that the renters left, which explains why I wasn’t blogging and got out of the habit. We painted, did repairs, Jason planted an entirely new lawn in the front yard, and we had to have an exterminator come 3 times to get all the roaches. But in the end the house looked better than it ever did, and after 3 years of trying we FINALLY sold it! With all the repairs and all of the money we had put in we didn’t make a penny, in fact lost tons of money on that house, but it is no longer our responsibility and that’s all that mattered. Considering the current economic situation, it was perfect timing. Looking back it’ hard to believe I did all of that work while pregnant. Anytime I think I’m a wuss I just need to remember being almost 5 months pregnant and crawling under the crawlspace with Jason to make repairs to joists that had been damaged by termites. (Did I forget to mention the evidence of termites during the inspection? Yeah. That was awesome.) I might have to blog about that seperately at some point also. Would have been great to do a daily blog to show all the work we did. I don’t know that it will be possible to capture that in retrospect…
One very sad part of this year was the loss of our dog, Chief. I had blogged previously about how he was doing worse and worse. Well, it got to the point where his hips were so bad he could hardly walk, and he finally stopped eating. I managed to get him to eat by hand-feeding him for awhile, and we would carry him or help him walk to go outside. I kept telling him he had to let me know when he was ready to be done with this whole thing, and one morning I woke up, went upstairs to let him outside, and knew it was time. He barely picked up his head to look at me, and when he did there was no joy left in his eyes. He had also soiled his bed, and I think he had been having seizures as well. We took him to the vet and had him put to sleep…I did blog about that on my myspace page, I think I’ll copy that here. It was very hard, and we grieved over him for a solid week. We had a little shrine set up, and burned candles by it for 3 days straight. Tibetan Buddhism says that 49 days after a being dies their soul either reaches enlightenment or goes on to their next life. At one point Jason and I both starting having very vivid dreams about Chief, and when we looked to see how long it had been it was right around the 49 day period…it was very moving. So Jason chanted and did a ceremony for Chief by our family altar on the 49th day after his death, and sprinkled some of his ashes out in the yard. There are still times we definitely miss Chief. He was a good dog.
It seems like so many other things happened this year, but I think those are the biggies. Jason got his private counseling practice going, and is also working part-time at a counseling group here in town. He took the month off after Nyima was born, and just went back to work last week. I start work again February 16th….very nervous about that. If we didn’t need the money to pay bills I would not be going back to work.
Well this is good for now. I think I’ll try to make this a practice again, blog in the mornings while Nyima is taking her after-morning-feeding nap. (She’s asleep on my lap right now.) I’m feeling a bit clausterphobic being cooped up in the house all the time – having a baby during the coldest months of the year makes it a bit difficult to get out. Perhaps this will help ease some of my stir-craziness.
Good to be back.
