The Swine of 09

If you follow me on Twitter, you already know that at the end of October, Goose had H1N1. Ugh. The tiny margin of togetherness I'd managed to accrue went out the window when I had to take time off of work to share in sick baby homecare duty. Couldn't get anything done at work; wasn't there. Couldn't get anything done at home; was spending all my time comforting a sick, fussy baby. Up until then, I barely had a moment to catch my breath between my 5 a.m. wakeup and my 11 p.m. bedtime, my days a crazy mash-up of work, childcare and housework. Everything fell behind.

Then I got kidney stones. I'd always heard that they were as painful as childbirth and let me say, that's a very accurate description. The pain was almost exactly like labor pains. Two caveats. One, whereas you can sometimes kind of "ride the wave" of labor pains if they come in spaced contractions, kidney stones aren't like that.* Two, there's no baby at the end of it all. When I went to the ER my second night in pain, they admitted me! I had to take off another day from work, at the end of the quarter when grades are due.

And so my hectic, sucking autumn became even more hectic and sucking. (Eloquent, huh?)

Luckily, there have been a few positives. Goose was the only one who got swine flu in our house. Amazing. After he'd been sick a week -- involving a doctor's office visit, an emergency room visit and two(!) chest x-rays -- one of my doctor-friends offered to put Monk on a prophylactic dose of Tamiflu. (The hospital had already prescribed it for Goose.) Normally, I'm not for unnecessarily medicating children, but after the experience we'd already had with Goose -- the high fever, the breathing difficulties, the associated fear, not to mention that healthcare providers treat you like you have Ebola when you get treatment for H1N1 (no joke) -- we thought it was a good idea. My kidney stones passed on their own, although I live with a cold, nagging fear that it will happen again someday. But, best of all, this Thursday Hub and I are GOING TO MEXICO with friends.

We rarely get to go on fun grown-up trips with each other and without kids. Our group of friends does a long, couples-weekend in the Caribbean every other year, but I've always been saving days for maternity leave, or pregnant, or breastfeeding. Not this time. My mother-in-law is flying in to care for the kiddos while we fly out to laze on the beach and relax. For four days I want my only concern to be: frozen or on the rocks?



*Although, childbirth isn't always like that, either. With Monk I didn't have any space between contractions, so it was a lot like kidney stones. Until I got an epidural.

No More Good Days

After thirteen years, we are now dogless. On Friday, we had to euthanize Marley, our remaining dog of the three who were once part of our family.

After years of extraordinarily good health, about six months ago she developed osteosarcoma. We were unwilling to put her through surgery (amputation) and chemotherapy/radiation/other painful treatment at her age. Twelve years old is the equivalent of about 95 for a Giant Schnauzer. Instead, we opted to keep an eye on her condition and medicate her to keep her comfortable. For a while, she was the same as always. She ate and drank. She played with the boys (as much as a 95-year-old would). She greeted us at the door after work. She could still use her dog door to go in and out on her own. She ran the fenceline and howled like the Hound of the Baskervilles at the deer in our woods. She wagged her tail and perked up her ears. And so we worried about how we would know it was time, when the time came. We didn't want her to suffer. Our first two dogs each just died; no terrible math was required from us. Everyone we talked to gave us the exact same advice: When the time comes, you will just know.

Last week, it became obvious. Without going into agonizing detail, it's simplest said that she stopped having good days. We're lucky that since we got our first family pet thirteen years ago, we've become good friends with our vet (seven pets means a lot of vet appointments). Hub and I have never had to have a pet put to sleep before; Doc was there for us as both a vet and a friend. But it was still probably the hardest thing I've ever done.

Now it's constantly obvious that something is missing. It's still at our house in moments when it shouldn't be.* After the kids go to bed, no dog stirs in the great room when we pass through it or sighs softly on her bed in the corner of our bedroom when we go to bed. No eighty pound dog blocks the front door and refuses to budge. There's no click-click of dog nails on the hardwood floors. No dog comes to lay their head in my lap. There's one less being that I have to think about feeding and caring for, yet I still find myself thinking about her before I remember that she's gone.




*Yes, we still have four cats, but two stay mostly outside and besides, cats are silent ninjas compared to dogs.

New School Year's Resolution

I don't generally make New Year's resolutions, because I find I never keep them. The reason for this, I figured out a few years back, is that I track my years from August to August (which is when school starts around these parts).

I've spent most of my life circling the school year. The elementary-junior high-high school track flowed seamlessly into college and then, with only a two year break, graduate school. Overlapping with grad school was my teaching certification program which launched immediately into my teaching career. For 32 of 39 years, my year has "begun" with the start of the school year.

The last several years have been a blur. Thank gah I knew what I was doing at work (and could do it blindfolded), because I certainly haven't felt very sharp. There's nothing like a near constant round of fertility treatments, pregnancy, breastfeeding/infant care, fertility treatments, pregnancy and breastfeeding/infant care to make a woman feel like she's drained of her very essence. I knew there was a light at the end of that tunnel, but there were days that it seemed very small and far away. I can't say I've walked out of the tunnel yet, but the opening is definitely closer and now looks human-sized.

I feel like I finally figured out to slip the pills under my tongue, rather than swallow them, when the insanity-ward nurse brings them 'round.

So now that I feel like I'm awake, alert and getting a grip on things, what do I go and do? Change teaching positions. I'd been teaching the same subject and grade for the past seven years. I didn't have to do any planning. I didn't have to do any preparation. I could walk out of school one day and back in the next and not have to think about it in between. I was at the top of my game with minimal effort.

Uh, wait a minute. What part of "I have two young children, a husband who takes more than twenty business trips a year, no family to help within a 90 mile radius, five aging pets, a daily hour-long commute (two hours when the Hubster's out of town and I add the daycare run), a car on its last legs that I can't afford to replace, a mammoth landscaping project underway, a house renovation project about to start and a shamefully low level of household management and organization going on" made me think I needed a change from my easy, predictable, mindless job?

Oh, yeah. The easy, predictable, mindless part.

So, I've left the middle school world behind and have returned to high school (11th grade, mostly). I've left the field of American history behind and have moved back into what is my original field, European history. It's exactly where I wanted to be when I originally decided to leave academia and teach high school. But it means starting from scratch. I haven't been this swamped at work in years.

I'm still making a New School Year's Resolution, though: This is going to be the year that I get my shit together.

For starters, I'm talking about my shamefully low level of household management and organization. Part of the problem arose when we had two kids before adding on two bedrooms for them (our plan when we bought the house before they were born), so we lost our guestroom with storage closet and study with storage closet. The main problem, though, is that there is no realistic way two people can work full time, raise children, maintain their relationship and effectively care for their house and property if they have any interests or hobbies other than those things alone. And the Hubster and I do have hobbies. Many, many time-wasting -consuming hobbies. They make us the people we are and keep us sane. (Well, okay... sane-ish.)

But I have a plan.

Step one: Hire a cleaning person. My friend, Frieda, quit her job as a social worker to return to school for a more lucrative career and has decided meanwhile to clean houses to make some side income. She's the amazing combination of trustworthy with mild OCD (no joke) which makes her perfect for this job. This won't actually free up any of my time -- Come on, like I regularly cleaned? Get real. -- but it will mean that basic household cleaning tasks will be taken care of. Before they become our own personal Augean Stables requiring an entire weekend to get under control.

Step two: Start the house renovation project. Even if we have to eat mac and cheese for a year, we will launch this project which has been in the planning stage since we bought our house five years ago. We need more room. Everything that once resided in the rooms the boys are using is currently in boxes. Two rooms worth stuff in boxes: boxes that are now in my bedroom, in the attic, in the basement, in the dining room... you get the picture. It's making me crazy not to be able to find anything or put anything away. (Well, okay... crazier.) In the classic "things are always darkest before dawn" scenario, this will raise the level of chaos before lowering it, which is one reason why we've hesitated. But the time has come.

There will be more steps in the "getting my shit together" project as it unfolds, no doubt, but so far I'm being cautiously optimistic that I can actually do it. Right?

One

So, Jen over at Une Petite Raison tagged me on this meme and I was all Thank gah, I haven't posted anything in a while. (Not because the well has dried up; because I'm too scattered.) I can do this. And the one-word thing? Brilliant. Even in my diminished capacity, I can focus for that long. Then as I started, I was all, Hey...this seems familiar. But that was six months ago. Can you blame me for hardly remembering? I don't even remember my answers. And it looks like some of the questions are different. So I'm doing it anyway. And I'm not tagging anyone. Because that's how I roll these days.

1. Where is your cell phone? Table

2. Your hair? Up

3. Your mother? Home

4. Your father? Work

5. Your favorite food? Chocolate

6. Your dream last night? Work-related

7. Your favorite drink? Pepsi

8. Your dream/goal? Ph.D.

9. What room are you in? Dining

10. Your hobby? What?

11. Your fear? Sharks

12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Here

13. Where were you last night? Home

14. Something that you aren’t? Awake

15. Muffins? Meh.

16. Wish list item? Hot tub

17. Where did you grow up? North

18. Last thing you did? Nap

19. What are you wearing? Comfy

20. Your TV? On

21. Your pets? Asleep

22. Friends? Far

23. Your life? Busy

24. Your mood? Anticipatory

25. Missing someone? Oz

26. Vehicle? Old

27. Something you’re not wearing? Jewelry

28. Your favorite store? Target

29. Your favorite color? Blue

30. When was the last time you laughed? Today

31. Last time you cried? Today

32. Your best friend? Hub

33. One place that I go to over and over? Shopping

34. One person who emails me regularly? Spam

35. Favorite place to eat? Mexican*

I'll be curious to go back to the old post and see how my answers compare.


*I know it's not a "place," but around here there are several real Mexican restaurants, each about the same and each fantastic.

Couldn't See the Forest For the Trees

I've mentioned before that we live in the woods. Our house is remote, in the sense that it's difficult to get to (our driveway is half a mile long, steep and unpaved; UPS won't attempt it) and very secluded (we have no curtains or window coverings in any rooms except the kids, and there only because they nap and go to bed before dark half the year; we don't need window coverings because no one can see our house).


But it's also not remote (what the hell is the antonym to "remote?" for Pete's sake?), in the sense that we are minutes from a grocery store, from a nearby highway, from "town," and not even that far from a mall. I drive only half an hour to work. The Hubster, less than ten minutes.

So we have a great balance between rural and suburban (I won't go so far as to say urban, although I can get to urban in under an hour). We're remote enough that people are surprised to find that we don't have a septic tank or a well, but we are just connected enough that we don't have a septic tank or a well.* (In fact, the only public utilities that we are too far removed to get are cable and non-wireless broadband.) I like to call it the best of both worlds.

My point -- and I do have one -- is that this summer we've been trying to carve just a little more civilization out of our woods. We've been in this house just over five years, but haven't been able to really garden, or do any landscaping, or much outside at all, because our acreage has been, from my inexpert calculations, 98.666666666666667% wooded. However, a couple of weeks ago we (finally) paid an excavator to clear about an acre of the woods close to the house, so we are now only -- again, I'm not a math teacher -- about 93.33333333333333% wooded. But that, as Robert Frost said in one of my all-time favorite poems, has made all the difference.

Anyway, my sub-point here is that the past few weeks I've been busy dealing with a) mud, b) dirt, c) sticks, d) branches, e) felled trees, f) other organic debris, and g) yard work (like roto-tilling, grading, raking, seeding, watering, etc, etc.)**, which has resulted in h) lots of beer drinking after dark and i) being too bloody j) busy or k) tired to post.


* We don't have septic or a well because of the crazee people that built our house, spared no expense, and then lived here only two short years before they sold it to us. Maybe someday I'll tell you more about that wackiness.
**And ohsweetmotherofarnold we have about two more years of this to do.

Saddened. And a little spooked.

I usually maintain radio silence on the weekends. Too much to do with the real people in my life to have time for those that live inside my computer. Yesterday, I logged onto Twitter and discovered that another baby had died.

I know I'd never visited his mother Shana's blog before, although her online name rang a bell (I've probably just seen it on Twitter @'s), so I don't know much about Thalon. What I do know is that he is too young to be gone so soon.

And that the Universe can knock it the fuck off right now.

Have you heard the expression "deaths always come in threes?" I first learned this in a novel I read as a teenager. The title escapes me right now, but the same novel can also be credited for giving me an almost unnaturally high fear of SIDS. So, thanks, novel of unknown title. Glad to have known you. Not.

What is spooky, and a bit terrifying, is that this saying has held true for me in most circumstances. I've developed my own canon for this superstition; the group of the three deceased in question all usually fall within the same category or classification. If a close relative of a distant friend dies, then before too long, two more close relatives of distant friends will die, too. Or the pet of someone with whom I work. Or whatever.

I really hope it doesn't happen this time. Hoping against hope that my stupid, stupid superstition doesn't come true.

My deepest sympathies to Thalon's parents and the Myers family. I am keeping them in my thoughts. Sarah at Whoorl has a PayPal link on her site to donate to Thalon's family. Which I'll be doing. Again. And then hope to never have to do anything similar again.

In memory of a little girl I didn't know

The blogosphere is a big place and -- even though I've tried -- I can't read every blog out there. (Hell, right now there are probably a thousand unread posts in my feed reader spread among dozens of various blogs; this is even after the devastating "mark all read" incident of a few weeks ago.) However, when I'm out there reading, commenting and twittering, my path often crosses that of other bloggers who I become familiar with, at least by name.

Yesterday in my Twitter stream, many of those I follow posted their sympathies for Heather Spohr of The Spohrs are Multiplying and Mike of The Newborn Identity. I think I'd visited their blogs a few times each, but as of yesterday about all I could remember were the titles. (How could you forget those blog titles? Those are great titles.) With a sinking feeling, I realized that the Spohrs had lost their daughter Maddie.

Although I knew they had a daughter who was a former preemie, I didn't know much about her story and so -- like apparently everyone else on the planet Earth -- I tried to visit Heather's blog. But the excessive traffic had crashed the site and Bluehost suspended the account. Just when they most needed the support of the Internets. Nice one, Bluehost. Remind me not to consider your services when I finally decide to get my own domain. (Thanks to other helpful blogwizards, most of her blog is back up at a different host.)

One thing motherhood does for you is turn every baby into your baby. (Or your baby into every baby. I'm not really sure how this process works.) I love even fictional babies on ER* like they were my own. I empathize with every mother when anything, good or bad, happens to their children. I could not stop thinking about Maddie. I could not stop thinking about her parents. I felt physically ill.

Last night I rocked Goose to sleep an extra long time. Just so I could hold him. Just because I could. Today I wanted to see if I could find out any more information and if there was anything I could do. Finally able to access her blog, I discovered that Heather had pPROM at 19 weeks. Anyone who's read this blog knows that, having suffered pPROM at (a thankfully relatively safe) 34 weeks, it's still one of my biggest pregnancy fears. There's so little doctors can do to predict it, so little they can do to treat it and the results are so often devastating. I felt a further connection with the Spohrs, muddled together with a there-but-for-the-grace-of-fate sentiment. I wanted to reach out to them, but as a stranger, what could I do?

Then Alexa at Flotsam wrote this today:

A Paypal account has been set up to help cover Heather and Mike’s expenses, because on the list of “Things No One Should Ever Have To Do,” “Pay For Child’s Funeral” comes right after “Have Child’s Funeral In First Place.”

Boy, that hit home. I couldn't agree more. As of this moment, there have been more than $18,000 in donations made to Maddie's March of Dimes page. Since I already donate to the March of Dimes in the Monkeyboy's name, I made a PayPal donation. If my small donation can do anything to alleviate even a few seconds of pain or slightly ameliorate the insult of having to pay for a funeral being added to the injury of losing their daughter, then the Spohrs are welcome to it. I will be keeping them in my thoughts.

And I keep thinking about Maddie. For a little girl I never knew, I'm sure I'll never forget her.


*I stuck with it for fifteen years until the bitter end. But I'm only 2/3 of the way through the DVR'd finale, so don't tell me how it ends.

Influenza

I hereby vow that next year I will get a flu shot.

Incommunicado

I've been darn near wholly-absent from the virtual world the last couple of weeks. Let's recap:

• Goose had a fever of 103.9 at 4:00 a.m. one morning. Anyone who knows body temperatures, like a recovering infertile knows body temperatures, knows that a person's body temperature should be at its lowest point in the early morning.
• The Hubster and I played Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock to see who was staying home from work to take him to the doctor.
• Guess who lost won?
• Not ten minutes before we left the house for the doctor's office, our water went out.
• Right after I dealt with a diaper explosion.
  
• Our "neighborhood," and I use that term loosely because we live somewhat off-the-grid, regularly has water main breaks.
• Usually four to six times a year.
  
• Yes, we're somewhat off-the-grid, but we still manage to have public utilities, like city water instead of a well.
• That's why we bought the house. It's the best of both worlds.
  
• The doctor's verdict? Double ear infection. Which is kind of like Mardi Gras and Christmas rolled into one. Except not.
  
• The doctor also did a swab for RSV. Do you know how they do a swab for RSV? They take the world's longest q-tip and snake it up the baby's nose into his brain sinus cavity.
• Babies love it.
  
• We never had RSV at our house before, as Monk had Synagis shots.
  
• Luckily, we still haven't had RSV at our house. Negative!
• While I was rocking/nursing Goose to sleep one evening, the Hubster was supervising Monkeyboy. To use a Bossy-style-ism: where supervising means letting him click "Mark All Read" on the open Bloglines window on my laptop. Goodbye, 89,752* unread posts! I hardly knew ye.
• Monk also decided that his "Sit 'n Spin" was really more of a "Stand 'n Spin." Which became a "Spin 'n Throw-you-face-down-on-the-ceramic-tile." Result: bloody lip and bitten tongue, but no lasting or serious damage. Minor hysteria at no extra charge.
  
• When I have emailed any company's customer service department in the last month, their response has been "Our solution to your problem is to treat you like you're stupid. Not only that, but we also suggest several possible solutions that you mentioned in your email you tried already and they didn't work. However, we clearly did not read your email and are merely trying to give you the brush off, so... your problem? Good luck with that."
• Our ancient dog has been limping which the vet says is either a) a soft tissue injury or b) something deadly. We're waiting to find out.
• Although I fought the good fight, I finally had to start supplementing Goose's daycare bottles with a little formula. My huge freezer stash took a fatal hit during Ski Weekend. I haven't been able to build it back up partly because Goose sleeps all night, which has k-o'd my supply and partly because, like last time, I have come to hate pumping with a white-hot intensity.
  
• In fact, I should be pumping right now, but? Not.
• I am unreasonably disappointed by having to supplement.
• Unreasonable because a) It's less than four ounces a day, b) Uh, I could be pumping right now if it was that big a deal, and c) I should get over myself and my self-absorbed desire for hippie mama bragging rights that at least one of my kids never had a drop of formula (that ship has sailed).
• One of our cats has something going on with the toes on her front driver-side foot. It may be cancer, it may not. Again with the waiting to find out.
• One of our late dogs had to have a toe amputated about five years ago because of toe cancer.
• Is that as freaky to everyone else as it is to me?
• Seriously? Two pets with toe cancer? If that turns out to be true... I just don't know what.
  
• I think I am getting sick now. I have that scratchy throat feeling.
  
• There are now 50 days of school left. The Hubster will be out of town for 20 of them.
• Are you any good at math? Because to me that seems like half.
• No, it doesn't. I'm not that bad at math. I just like hyperbole.
• Except, really? It kind of almost is. Half I mean. Not really so much with the hyperbole.
  
• So, what's new with you? Because I lost like 2,766,543*** unread posts in my feed reader and I feel so out of touch.
  

*An estimate.
**Ironical. I'm a girl who battled oversupply and overactive letdown for the first six months and then dwindling supply and eventual supplementation the last six months with each baby.
***Revised estimate.

Up all night, sleep all day (the second part I only wish)

In which the Soundtrack of my Life is a hard rock album.

When, in the middle of the night, the Monkeyboy summons me into his room and says, "I wanna rock,"* he's not talking about an 80s heavy metal anthem. It means he's getting sick, which is the only time he wants cuddling. And that he wants me to rock him in the glider and sing to him. Until the end of time. And therefore I will be getting no sleep.

Ugh. As a baby this kid was a terrible sleeper and even now? The song remains the same.

Second Verse, Same as the First

The Hubster's on another business trip and true to form, the kiddos are sleeping like shit. This happens without fail whenever he goes away. It's like the boys know I have no backup and try to see how much I can take. If I had any money, I'd think they were gaslighting me. This morning, I'm running on a mere 2 1/2 hours sleep. That's damn near empty.

Last night I started the bedtime preparations at 7:00 p.m. It took me an uncharacteristic two hours to get Goose to stay down, then it was nearly 10:00 p.m. before the Monkeyboy finally drifted off to sleep (although he went to bed not long after 9, after half an hour or so he summoned me back with plaintive cries of "I want my mommm-meeee." Gets me every time.) By the time lunches were packed, bottles were prepped and I was finally ready for bed, Goose was back up, having peed through his jammies and onto his sheets for the first time since, well, ever. At 1:30 a.m., I was still rocking him, not able to get him to sleep anywhere other than my arms for longer than the fifteen seconds it took me to gently place him in his crib, his eyes to pop open, his arms to flail around in the wait!..where?..what the?!... motion, and the yelling to begin. Someone else has learned to say mama now too. I. am. a. sucker.

When I finally had him soundly asleep -- at least I think so -- I heard the click-click-click of the dog's nails on our hardwood floors. She had woken and, finding me not in my bed, came looking for me. My blood ran cold as I realized I had left the baby's door open and knew that she certainly would search me out there. It was no use. Slowly she crept into his room and although I tried whispering for her to go lie down, she sniffed us both up and down, making sure we were okay. At her height her face is right at lap level. In case you're wondering, a ticklish dog beard will wake a baby every time.

At least Goose is happy when woken at night. However, I'm not. At 2:00 a.m., my Hail-Mary move was to stuff him in his swing and hold his hand until he fell asleep. I crept into bed and slept like the dead until 3:30 a.m. when Monk awoke again, this time calling "I want my daaaadddd-deeee." Thankfully, all he wanted was a cup of milk. I willingly would have given him a gin and tonic if that's what he would've asked for, as long as it meant he'd go back to sleep.

I should have taken the day off, but I expect that tomorrow's predicted snowfall will leave me and the kiddos trapped up the Winding Driveway of No Return since we have no menfolk to clear the way for us. I'd rather stay snug in my house at the top in the morning than trapped with two children at the bottom after work if that's how, weather-wise, things are going to shake down. So I'm gambling that I''ll catch up on my sleep tomorrow.

The one bright spot in my day? I'm still working on the Great Coffee Experiment (sporadically though, as needs warrant). This morning I finally cracked open the Starbucks Mocha Powder. (Can't remember who told me you could buy it. Jen, maybe?) . Finally I give a homemade brew the thumbs up.

Sleep Deprivation is my Kryptonite

Ugh. The Hubster was out of town all week (he left at what my brother-in-law would call the "butt-crack of dawn" on Sunday) and I am running on fumes. The routine working, commuting, childrearing, breastfeeding, laundry doing, and pumping coupled with the routine-breaking deer hitting, car repairing and single parenting (with the added duties of lunch-making and bottle-washing, among others) means I. am. beat.

All of these things take me until 11:00 p.m. or later to complete. Then I have to get up around, oh, about 4 o'freaking-clock to get us all out of the house and where we need to go on time, since I'm doing it all alone.* And just to spice things up, Goose decided to get up at 3:30 a.m. three days this week. (Not to be shown up, Monk got up at 5:30 one morning, but Goose and I were all like, Whatever, dude. Try again.)

At this point, I'm damn near hallucinating from fatigue.


*Any and every use of this word makes me think of the Northern Exposure episode ("Lost and Found" 3.17) where Joel discovers a previous occupant of his cabin killed himself, but wrote "alone alone" on the wall in his own blood before expiring. But I can't find the actual quote and am too tired to bother to watch my DVD and quote it myself.

Duck, Duck... Goose

Here's where I confuse and alienate both of my readers.

The Duck is now Goose.

If you've been paying attention recently -- and really, who has? -- you've noticed that I've been referring to the baby as just that. "The baby." His original nickname, "The Duck" never really stuck at our house. After a few weeks of insisting he was the Duck, Monkeyboy decided that the baby was a pig. Then another monkey. Then not a monkey, but a puppy. You can see where this is heading.

I, however, have always told the baby he is a "Silly Goose" since it was a sure-fire way to get a laugh. He's a very happy baby, always smiling, giggling and talking. I know it's dorky. (I will also take this opportunity to admit that I often sing him "Close to You" by the Carpenters -- albeit more in the self-deprecating Rick Moranis kind of way than with any seriousness -- because it gets him laughing). Long ago I learned to embrace my inner dork rather than fight her.

So, Goose is how I think of him and what he will be called from now on. Yes, it's true. The pseudonyms I use here are usually the actual nicknames I call these people in real life. It's called hiding in plain sight, people. And it's so much less confusing to me that way.

Why I hate NaBloPoMo

I know, I know… from the point of view of so many people it’s fun, it’s a challenge, it will change the way you blog, but I have come to hate NaBloPoMo.

From where I sit, it’s not that much fun. I have a just large enough list of favorite blogs that NaBloPoMo wears me out from a reading standpoint. Every time I open my reader, it seems that dozens more blogs have updated. It’s just too much to read every day. I try to keep up, but if I don’t read blogs for one day, I’ll fall behind. Far behind. It sort of makes me feel like blog reading is homework. I don’t want to feel that way.

Of course, the real truth about why I hate NaBloPoMo is that makes me face my own shortcomings. Last year’s NaBloPoMo? A bust by day ten. I discovered that it is virtually impossible for me to post on the weekends. (I’ve since come to accept that.) Also, November contains the Monkey’s birthday, Veteran’s Day, Parent-Teacher Conferences and Thanksgiving (which extends the normal weekend to six days!). NaBloPoMo? For me, it would be more like NaBloPomostweekdays butcertainlynotallofthem althoughItry thankyouverymuch. So I didn’t make even the pretense of trying this year. But the reality is that I do need to set some sort of blogging goal, because it seems that since the baby was born, I’ve lost my way. I’d really like to do a little housekeeping around here, upgrade my design, personalize my header or get a new template, maybe move to my own domain. Lots of things I need to learn a little more about.

(Wow. A post about blogging. What could be more boring?)

Togetherness

For the life of me, I cannot get my shit together these days. Or keep it together for very long, on the rare occasions where I do feel like I’m on top of things.

Over the summer, I never really felt I got a handle on the situation: the new two-child family situation. By the time school started in August and I returned to work, we still didn’t have a schedule and were only functioning with a bare bones routine. Since then, we’ve hammered out a routine, the child portion of which starts around 4:30 in the morning (sometimes earlier) and doesn’t end until 9 p.m. This leaves very little grown-up time. On days when the Hubster works late or is out of town, I usually don’t eat dinner until after nine.

Luckily, the baby still sleeps through the night nine out of ten days. (He will be thankful he did this when he reaches the teen years and I exact my revenge on his brother for not doing the same by waking him every four hours repeatedly over a two-year-span.) Though I am short on personal time, I should feel reasonably well rested and mentally acute enough to greet the day. Inexplicably, this is not the case. For some reason, I am exhausted. Exhausted like I was last year, but with no handy pregnancy excuse. The new-baby-excuse works well when talking to other people (hey, as far as they know I could be up two, three, seventeen times a night), but I know that it’s bullshit. Still, I’m dragging myself out of bed like I spent most of the night cramming for a Poli Sci exam. And, some days, nearly falling asleep on my drive to work. (Because of this, I really am thinking about taking up coffee drinking.)

Mentally, I’m also struggling. While pregnant with the Monkey, I commented to a friend that I felt I’d dropped ten I.Q. points. She agreed and said that for her, the feeling lasted until her youngest child turned five. Five? Sweet Holy Moses. I don’t have five more years of this in me. But my physical exhaustion is translating to mental exhaustion. I can’t concentrate. My memory sucks (in fact, I thought of a much wittier title for this post, but by the time I got my draft open again, I’d forgotten it). And often I’m barely able to form coherent thoughts or hold a lucid conversation. Sometimes I lose focus in the middle of a topic and start a new thought with no rational segue. This has made teaching my history classes all the more an adventure. Every day, it’s a gamble as to what will come out of my mouth. Either my students think I’m a fun, fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of teacher or they think I’ve completely lost my mind.

There are other physical symptoms, common to the post-partum hormone plunge, that are dragging my spirit down. My hair, so long and luxurious during pregnancy that I only had it cut once in all that time and it nearly reached my waist (it’s never been that long before and never will again), has been falling out. In clumps.

I haven’t lost any weight since my post-partum checkup at eight weeks. Which was two months ago. In fact, I think I might actually be putting weight back on. Not long after school started I had to bite the bullet and buy new work clothes, because I still didn’t – and still don’t – fit into my “fat” clothes.

Because of all of this, my attitude stinks. I’m feeling understandably blue. My self-image is suffering. I feel fatigued, chubby, unattractive, slow and generally overwhelmed. Wasn’t it Ozzie who said, “I’m sick and tired of bein’ sick and tired?” I could triple the length of this rant listing all the things I’m tired of, but I’m too fucking tired to do it. And in truth, if there’s anything at all I learned from reading Prozac Nation, it’s that the only thing more depressing than being depressed yourself is reading about someone else’s depression.

Last weekend, I mentioned all of this to Dr. Friend (actually, I have three doctor/friends, so I suppose I should come up with a better pseudonym for her, however she is the only one who is my actual doctor in addition to being a friend) and she said it wouldn’t hurt to check my TSH. (Actually, I mentioned it and she agreed with me, since you know I’m all about diagnosing myself for these things, what with my degree from Google School of Medicine and all). Rather than have me make an office visit just to get the test order, she mailed it to my house (a little friend-courtesy; it helps to know people). I noticed that she ordered not only a TSH test, but a complete CBC and further tests for anemia.

This morning on my drive to work she called me about my results. Everything is normal, except that my iron is a little low, but not enough to classify me as anemic. While I’m glad that there isn’t anything medically wrong with me (well, nothing new, that is), this still leaves me with absolutely no fucking reason for being fat and tired. Or more accurately, no excuse.

I think I keep hoping that somehow these issues will work themselves out. That isn’t happening. Apparently, I’m going to have to be more proactive. I must stop looking for excuses and figure out how to carve an actual life out of my days, one with a workable schedule of job, family-time, meals, laundry, and the ever-popular etc. (It’s the etcetera that’s killing me). Hopefully then I can whittle out some me-time. Maybe start running again. Get it together.

But first, self-medication. Does anyone have advice for a non-coffee drinker on starting to drink coffee?