Changes

I realized this weekend that I need to raise the seat on Caetlin's bicycle. And that she doesn't need the stepstool to brush her teeth anymore.

She was a really good girl today at school, so I let her stay up a few extra minutes and watch a little bit of "Curious George 2: Follow That Monkey!" which she proclaims is "hilarious." She sounds just like me when she says it. So there we were, me folding laundry, her watching TV, and I started asking her about her day at school. It's been chilly and rainy and I asked what they did for recess when it rained. She said, "You mean for PE? We went with Coach Jackson to the gym because none of the other coaches were there yet."

This is my public-school big kid. She's not my baby anymore except in my mind, when I remember how tiny she used to be when she would sleep on my chest. She's not my toddler anymore except in my mind, when I remember her learning to talk and asking to be read "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?" for the eleventy-millionth time. She's not my preschooler anymore except in my mind, when I remember her more or less teaching herself how to read and write and learning how to be real friends with other kids. She's the kid she's going to be for a long time, and I know that she's going to keep growing and changing and becoming ever bigger, and while I can't wait to see how she turns out, my heart almost can't take the thought of her not being exactly how she is. It's not that I want to hold her back. It's more that I regret the haze that falls over my memories, the clarity of every detail about her that I think I will retain forever that creeps away when I'm not paying attention. I remember her as a baby because I see the pictures; I remember her as a toddler because I can read my old blog posts. I remember her as a preschooler because that was just last year, but how she was then is already blurring and shifting in my memory, into the kid she is now.

So after we talked about her day and the extra reading instruction that she has in the library once a week, and after we talked about how they learned about the color purple and the fact that the daily temperature chart had been in the blue, we just hung out, her watching her movie and me folding clothes. We hung out the way I do with grownups with whom I'm comfortable, together but not talking. She's big enough to be my hangout friend.

And then she broke the spell when I told her it was time for bed and she pleaded for more time. She tried to argue that it wasn't actually late at all, and became again my 5-year-old who doesn't like to go to bed. After we brushed teeth and went potty ("But Mommy, I don't have to go potty. Oh, I guess I actually did."), when I tucked her in, she asked me to sing to her. She has always liked me to sing to her; when she was a baby I'd sing the songs from the TV shows she watched, or pop songs that I liked, or really whatever was in my head. She loved Ingrid Michaelson's "The Way I Am" and it was her lullaby for a long time- I'd sing it to her every night.

She asked for Katy Perry's "Friday Night" (which, !!!) and I told her I didn't know the words (even though I totally do, and I feel a little embarrassed admitting that), and she asked for suggestions. So I turned out the light and in the deep dusky darkness sang Paul Simon's "St. Judy's Comet" to her, which was Phoebe's lullaby for a long time. She told me her favorite part was the part about the comet sparkling in her eyes, and I had to admit it was my favorite part too.

"Mommy, I wish I were a comet."

"I don't, baby. Then you wouldn't be my big girl."

"But I'd spray diamonds! That would be awesome."

"I know, but you wouldn't be my big girl. I'm not a comet, so if you were, you wouldn't be my Caetlin."

"But comets have mommies."

"Maybe so, but it wouldn't be me."

"Mommy, if there were a bigger comet than me, and then a bigger comet than that, and then a teeny tiny comet, it would be a comet family!"

"Maybe so, sweet girl. Time for sleep. I love you. Sweet dreams."

"Mommy, maybe I'll be a girl who turns into a comet just to spray diamonds and sparkle, and then be a girl again."

"You sparkle for me just like you are, sweetheart. Night night."

"Night, Mommy. I love you."

"I love you too, sugarplum."

Things are always changing. I guess that's all we can count on out of life, that it changes and changes. She's growing up, I'm getting older, autumn approaches, literally and figuratively. I don't mean to be all Fleetwood Mac doing "Landslide" on you here, but sometimes it strikes straight to the heart of me that I'm failing to remember every single second of my children's brilliant lives. I get so caught up in the day to day, managing clothing and signed behavior sheets and healthy snacks and being Room Mom and making sure she doesn't watch too much TV and brushes her teeth and learns to be polite and good-hearted. I fail sometimes to just notice who she is. She's my beautiful comet, flying away from me every second of every day. At least I get to watch her sparkle as she goes.

Overcoming

I sang my first solo at church tonight with the choir. It went okay; I was generally on beat and on pitch, though there were a couple croaky notes and the musicality left a lot to be desired. There is definitely room for improvement, but it wasn't a disaster. Not as good as I hoped but better than I feared, so I suppose that's something.

I sang it for Caetlin, though she wasn't even there. Not because she particularly likes my singing (I suspect she does, but she's in a controlling phase right now and always orders me to stop singing unless she has specifically requested something). Not because it was a song I thought she might like, especially.

A recent Facebook status update of mine went like this: "Patricia is always sad and disappointed to see the things I like least about myself reflected in my children." My least favorite characteristic of mine, the part of myself that I most actively dislike and am dismayed by more or less on a daily basis, is my fear of not being perfect. I'm not talking about OCD-style perfectionism, but more like I'm afraid to screw up. I don't want to look stupid. It's maybe my biggest fear, and it is pathological. I don't want to appear lacking in any way, whether to friends, family or complete strangers.

Let me give you an example from when I was a kid. I started playing the trumpet when I was 12, in 6th grade. I had remembered my sister practicing her flute in her room when I was younger and she was in high school; I had this fantasy that I would do the same with my trumpet. Not long after I began learning, I was practicing one evening and hit a bum note, and my dad said something from the other room about me "hitting a raw one" or something equally innocuous about my wrong note. For the first time, it dawned on me- my family could hear me! In the small home in which I grew up, it would have been impossible not to, but for whatever reason, it had never crossed my mind to think they could. And they could hear me make mistakes!

I almost never practiced at home after that. For a long time I blamed my dad, for commenting about my screw-up, or for making me self-conscious. But the real problem was not his comment; it was me. My home was where the people who loved me best lived; if anyone was going to tolerate bum notes, it would be them. This went deeper than one offhand teasing comment by my dad.

If I could have ever found a place where no one could hear me, I would have practiced. I grew up in the middle of nowhere, on the outskirts of the back 40, and I couldn't get comfortable practicing even in the middle of the woods that surrounded my little neighborhood. Because someone might hear me make a mistake. I wish I could have gotten over it. It weakened me as a musician, this failure to practice at home. I look back now and realize that I squandered some real talent. I would never have been a professional; I never wanted to be. But I performed at a truly high level, particularly for a high school student, on the basis only of whatever class time and after school rehearsals I might have had. My band program was of high quality, so that meant probably 8 or 9 hours a week, but still. Nothing on weekends unless there was a performance. Nothing over the summer.

It haunts me. I could have been so much better even than I was. My senior year I lost my first chair (yes, I was first freaking chair and I never practiced) to a kid who wanted it so bad. He was so good, and he clearly put a lot of time into his music. Then I lost second chair to another kid, and then I lost third chair because I didn't care at all. I didn't practice my scales for the challenges, see, so it almost wasn't even worth showing up to them. In one case I didn't.

The main criticism of me was always, play out. More volume. I was afraid to let anyone hear me. I was afraid to fail, to sound anything less than perfect.

A more recent example is that I am afraid to live in country where I don't speak the language. I'm afraid to sound dumb. Not just by not knowing the vocabulary, but even by getting the accent wrong. I realize how ridiculous this is by seeing my own behavior with a non-native English speaker- do I laugh when they struggle for a word or don't get the grammar quite right? Nope, of course not. But the fear is petrifying. And I hate it in myself.

You can imagine how dismayed I was when I realized I was seeing some of the same things in Caetlin. She may not have that fear to the same degree I do, but I see it in her. She won't try to do things I know she can, preferring to say, "I can't do it." She won't guess at questions- if she doesn't absolutely know the answer, she'll say, "I don't know." Even when she does know, and I know she knows. She just doesn't want to be wrong, I think.

This makes me so incredibly sad. Of everything that is who I am, I wish I could have not passed that part on to her. I hope I didn't pass it on to Phoebe, and I pray I will not pass it to any future children I may be blessed with. Because if Caetlin is anything like me, she will live parts of her life in paralyzing fear. She will miss out on opportunities to have fun, to improve herself, and to experience wonderful things because of this trait, this issue, this shackle that weighs me down.

I can't let that happen to her, not if I can help it. I realized recently that I have the chance to try to combat it now, while she's young, and that I must do everything I can to counteract this in her. So I try to push her, gently, to try new things, or to answer questions of which she is unsure. I hope her teachers at school do the same. I try to make home a welcoming environment, making it explicit that she can screw up without fear of failure or judgment. She's too young to get all this, of course, but I hope it will sink in over repeated interactions.

But one other thing I must do is model for her the behavior I want to encourage. And that means facing my fears and doing things that scare the shit out of me. And making myself do them even when my whole being is screaming to stop, I'm going to look like a fool, everyone will laugh at me or worse they will just smile and say nice things to my face and then behind my back will talk about how terrible I was (something I'm working to convince myself my choir-mates aren't doing even as I type this...).

So, tonight I sang mediocrely in front of my church congregation. I could have asked the women to sing my part, or asked someone else to take the solo. The pianist could have sung it beautifully on no preparation whatsoever, and knowing that I have those kinds of alternatives makes it easy for me to consider running away again. But I did it. I did it for my daughter. In doing it for her, I ended up doing it for myself far more than I could have ever imagined. My choir-mates (whom I respect so tremendously and I'd hate for them to think I'm not a good musician, oh, God, they all think I suck now) all said nice things because they knew how ridiculously nervous I was. I pooh-poohed them a little, because it really objectively wasn't that awesome, but a part of me didn't want to soft pedal the praise at all, because it is such a HUGE deal that I did it at all. My choir-mates don't know me well enough to know that, so it would have come out wrong.

But I did it. Croaky, trembling, shaking almost uncontrollably. I sang into a microphone in front of a few hundred people, and if I looked stupid, or sounded terrible, well, that matters less than that I did it at all. I did it for Caetlin. Maybe, in trying to be a good role model for her, I can make the tiniest of starts on fixing the thing I like least about myself. Maybe we can help each other that way.

Love Song at One Year

She burst into our lives precipitously, without waiting for the doctor. I guess I should have known then that she waits for no one. Her determination and fearlessness amaze and terrify me daily.

She has, from the moment of her entry into the world, been her own person. She does things in her own time, whether fast or slow. I don't remember her as an infant much, though I know she didn't crawl until almost 6 months. Somehow in my memory she is always the active force of nature that she has become. I look at pictures of her early days and I don't remember her being that small or that helpless.

She has my features, or so I'm told. Why can't I see myself in her like other people can? I want to see myself in her personality too, not just in her physical features. I admire her persistence, her insistence on getting what she wants. I wish I could be more like that.

This might make her sound difficult, but she's not. She's a sunny, happy girl. She gets this look on her face when she's interested in something that delights my heart; she looks with naked curiosity at whatever catches her eye, and a certainty that she will investigate. Baby isn't the right word for her, anymore, even though she's not quite walking (unassisted) yet. She's a bright light, the sunshine of my day.

March 6, 2009, 7:10 p.m. I can't believe it's been a whole year. It's gone so fast! Happy birthday, my dearest Phoebe.

Gah!

So, I blogged at the end of January, completely intending to resume writing a couple of times a week. And it just...didn't happen. For some reason, blogging is not something I feel compelled to make time for. Part of the problem surely is that time for blogging is relatively limited, once you subtract work, sleep, boot camp, eating, church obligations, and hanging out with the family. But the other issue is that I haven't felt moved to write. It feels almost like a muscle that has atrophied; as my body has gotten stronger, so my writing muscles have weakened.

So, this time, no promises, but I hope to resume posting a couple times a week again. Starting with today, of course, and not just this mea culpa.

So...Pumping

To the staggering news that Phoebe is almost an entire year old, I also add that I continue to nurse her. I am so proud of that! I struggled with Caetlin, for a variety of reasons, and I was hopeful of it being easier this time.

Caetlin essentially stopped nursing from me when I went back to work when she was 12 weeks old; I pumped for another three months or so, but I nearly made myself crazy in the process. I couldn't seem to make enough milk pumping, no matter how often I pumped, no matter what I ate or drank, no matter what I tried. I at some points was pumping something crazy like 8 times a day. During a work day. In a place where I had to leave my office to go to a different office to pump (because I had a glass door that didn't lock or even latch). Can we say completely unproductive, of either work or milk?

And I agonized over stopping. I really thought I was a bad mom for considering it, for hating pumping so much, for falling short of my goal of 12 months. Even though I was only making maybe 40% of her daily nutritional needs of milk (the rest was formula), I felt like I would be depriving her of something significant by stopping, something she needed that only I could provide. I'm sure there was more than a little insecurity there over having gone back to work, over not feeling like I was around her enough to truly parent her. And too- I think most new moms (maybe new dads too, though I can only speak for the female half) go crazy for awhile. Like, certifiable. Worrying over the smallest things that mean, in the grand scheme of things, absolutely nothing. There is a sense of perspective that comes with time, that perfectly well-adjusted adults might have in every other aspect of their lives, that goes out the window when faced with one's first child. And I think that perspective only comes back gradually. I am sure that I still don't have the sense of proportion that I need regarding Caetlin, but I'm better about it than I used to be. And I'm miles more relaxed with Phoebe.

When Caetlin was 6 months old, she had her first seizure. I randomly had her in daycare that day, instead of with her nanny, and happened to actually be there when it happened. It was the most frightening thing I've ever seen- this tiny baby convulsing, with blue lips and staring eyes. She turned out to have pneumonia and a penchant for seizures when she has a fever. For weeks, I had been pissing and moaning in my journal about pumping and breastfeeding and how can I be a good mom if I stop and how is this impacting my work and I want to do right by the baby and on and on and oh my God STOP THE NAVEL GAZING. The seizure and the hours in the ER gave me a good healthy dose of that perspective I had been missing, and I quit pumping that very day.

So, with all that background, I will say that I was determined to try a little more intelligently with Phoebe. I would give it a good shot, spend a little time getting established at the beginning, and if it didn't work, it didn't work. Luckily, it did work, and here we are, nearly a year later.

And I am SO OVER pumping.

I nurse Phoebe first thing in the morning and right before I go to bed every evening. Otherwise, I pump, because she's so distractable and I prefer not to have her leaving my boobs hanging out in public when she decides to crawl away from me mid-feed. I pump on the weekends, for this reason, not just during the week when I'm at work. I'm down to pumping twice a day, which is a recent development, down from three times a day. And I'm so over it. So, so tired of the pump parts and making sure they are washed when I need them. Of lugging the bag around. It's not heavy, but then again, it kind of is, weighing me down with more than just its mass. I'm sick of the lost productivity, how it seems like every time I really start to focus on something at work, I realize it's time to pump. And while I love all the time I spend with my beloved internet, some days I really do need to get work done. I'm tired of the bottles, the fretting over supply, the physical challenge of getting half naked twice a day, in my office during the week and where ever I happen to be during the weekend (yes, I have pumped in the car, and no, I'm pretty sure no one noticed).

Most of all, I'm ready to have my body back. Once Phoebe turns a year and can have cow's milk, I'll keep nursing her in the mornings and evenings as long as we both can and want to, but the pumping will stop immediately, as well as the feeling that I don't quite have ownership of my breasts. They've been hers for almost a year, will have been hers for over a year at that point, and while that's a sacrifice I'm thrilled to have made for her, it's one I'm ready to let go.

I've been bitching about it to my girlfriends for a couple weeks, mostly to let off steam, and one of my friends is incredulous that I even bother to stick with it when it annoys me so much. The main thing about it now is that I set a goal. It makes zero sense to me to stop when I am five weeks short of the goal I set myself. I'm pretty sure- not 100%, but pretty sure- that I don't care about the whole good-mommy bad-mommy thing this time. I've made it far enough that I know I've done right by Phoebe, and I'd like to hope that if it hadn't gone so smoothly, I would have seen that not nursing her wouldn't have been not doing right by her in any case. But it would just kill me to have set a 12 month goal for myself and to quit with 5 weeks to go. I know myself well enough. I will regret it, no matter how much of a pain in the ass I find it right now.

Plus, my inner miser can't bear to have to buy a can or two of formula. That stuff is expensive! We've saved thousands of dollars feeding Phoebe over what we spent on formula for Caetlin.

So, here I am. 35 more days. Nothing in the grand scheme of things.

I remain so over it, as noted. The day I leave the house without the pump is the first day of my freedom. But, for the next 5 weeks, if you need me and can't find me, I'm probably the one behind a closed office door doing unspeakably weird things to my boobs (and not enjoying it, heh. I can't speak for what my colleagues might be doing). It's only 5 more weeks after all.

Unblocked

Uh, hi. Soooo...how are you? Glad to hear it. Me? I'm good, I guess. What? Oh, yeah, I'm really sorry about that. I meant to call, and then I thought you might be busy, and then I got really busy. And then I lost your number. But I meant to call! Really!

Okay, so it's been awhile. I'm not sure why. For whatever reason, I just didn't feel moved to write. And it turns out that writing is kind of like exercise- the more you do it, the more you want to do it, and the easier it is. Part of the lethargy is a result of spending so much time on Facebook, with its immediacy. Part of it is just life rolling on.

I think the main thing was that the last 5 months (eep!) have really been a trough for my family. 2009 was Annus Horribilis anyway, and this fall was really the low point. Bruce's severance ran out from the firm and while he started to have interviews, they never seemed to pan out. Caetlin started preschool in October, and as a result all of her behavioral issues seemed magnified. When the teacher meets you at the door in the morning talking about how Caetlin has a problem with listening, you feel like about the worst parent ever. You can tell yourself that she's the youngest person in the class, and that the teacher seems to have a stick up her nether regions, but when it's time for those little chats, all you hear from the teacher is, "You suck as a parent." I went back to work after maternity leave and had a hard time adjusting- the idea that going to work was somehow permanent seemed like an unbelievably heavy burden. Added to that was the fact that I had no work at all, many days billing nothing or 0.25 hours or on a good day 1.0. That's not a situation that makes one feel comfortable and secure. With Bruce being unemployed and me feeling uncertain and both of us dealing with major changes in our roles in the family, we went through a rough time together. It's just been a hard few months.

But then it all started to change. The beginning was when Bruce accepted an offer to teach at a local law school. He's going to be a law professor next year! I can't tell you how proud of him and excited for him I am. He was never happy in his profession, openly admitting that he did it for the money and security; this offers him a chance to really change gears. I think he's going to be a great teacher, and I envy the flexibility, the ability to do the research that he'll be able to do, the chance to study for a living, essentially, that the job brings with it. It's quite a step down financially, but it is higher pay than I expected, and we certainly will not starve, especially since my job seems a bit more secure at this point.

However, in the "When it rains, it pours" category, Bruce has also applied for and been accepted into the Foreign Service. While he still has to pass his medical and security clearances, and has to wait until they call him for a post, which would probably be at the end of this year at the earliest, it's a huge success to have made it this far into the process. If and when they call him, he and we will have a decision to make. Should he stay with his teaching career or embark on a completely new and different career as a diplomat?

The other comforting news is that we're planning to put our house in Charlotte on the market next month, at a price to make it move quickly. We are both ready to rid ourselves of the albatross that is that house. While it's been rented until this month, and that has defrayed the carrying costs, the time when the tenant was going to move out loomed large over us. Rather than trying to rent it again, we're ready to just sell it and move on, unencumbered. When it's sold, it won't matter what Bruce's salary at the law school is; we'll do fine on just my income, and his is just gravy- or more accurately, savings.

My job seems pretty secure at this point, at least as long as the firm remains committed to a real estate department here. We had an associate leave to go in-house at the end of the year, and that takes our numbers down to critical levels. We only have 3 associates to 2 partners; two big deals staff us up completely. So unless they plan to eliminate my department (and they have repeatedly indicated that they actually want to GROW my department), I think my job is safe for now. That's comforting, though of course I don't take that for granted. Stranger things can and have happened, and the upper workings of the firm are as mysterious to me as particle physics.

I've taken my health in hand and joined a boot camp at the beginning of December. You can see the program here. It's pretty intense and I'm pretty out of shape, but after two months, I can see real improvements, in my wind, my strength, and my body. I've lost inches off my waist, my tummy is starting to flatten back out, and most entertaining of all, I've got guns! I saw almost immediate definition in my biceps and shoulders. It's hilarious and encouraging. Most of all, it's something I feel like I can stick with. And, inspired by my rapid improvements, I had a few moments of temporary insanity a few weeks ago and signed up for a triathlon in late June. 600M swim, 14.2 mile bike, 5K run. Seriously crazy, but a fabulous and motivating goal to have. I've always wanted to be a triathlete (as opposed to doing a triathlon), but, alas, the only way to be a triathlete is to do the work. I'm at a place now where doing the work doesn't seem so incredibly impossible.

The other thing is that I joined a choir at church, here. I have always loved to sing, but have never had any training and the last time I sang with a group was 4th grade chorus (5th grade, as I recall, was the year they split us into advanced and not-advanced chorus, and when I didn't make the advanced chorus, I dropped out). Anyway, it's a wonderful group of seriously talented people, and I'm being a complete poser by joining them every week. So far they haven't caught on that I don't belong with them, so I'll keep going as long as they'll let me. I have so much fun being with a performing group again, and being a musician again (though in my case, I use that term somewhat more loosely than as it pertains to everyone else) is so uplifting for me. I missed making music (I was a band nerd for many years in high school but mostly put it down after that- I wanted to define myself as something else, and that has been a big regret of mine, that I didn't somehow continue to play even if I didn't throw myself into it completely), and to make music with a different instrument, my voice, brings so much joy to my life. I've also started singing lessons too, to learn some technique, so one day maybe I'll be worthy of my choir-mates.

The girls are great, growing as ever. Phoebe is nearly a year old- she turns a year in 5 weeks. How is that possible? She's showing no signs of being interested in walking, but knowing her personality, I have no doubt that as soon as she decides to walk, she'll be doing it within a few days. She is the most determined baby I have ever seen. When she wants something, she will stop at nothing to get it. Where Caetlin was and is easygoing and pliable, Phoebe is decidedly carving her own path. Because my own passivity, reflected in Caetlin, is something that I really dislike about myself (and by extension, about my daughter, I'm sorry to say), I'm delighted to see Phoebe's drive and determination. It makes her a challenge to care for, though, as she will inevitably beeline straight for the most choking hazard/nasty thing/dangerous thing in any room and immediately put it in her mouth. And she's fast! She's hard to keep up with as a crawler. She's got one word, cat. She says other things that we think might be words, but it's so hard to tell right now. I really look forward to her talking more, though.

Caetlin is also doing really well. We had kind of a rough start to 3- it was like the minute she turned 3, she went from being my sweet girl to this cranky, whiny, testing child that I didn't know- and really didn't like very much. I understood that it is totally developmentally normal, but holy cow was it a challenge! She seems to have mostly come through to the other side by now, though. And while we still have our tough days and tough afternoons and tough moments, she seems to have emerged as a fun and funny kid who is eager to please. She started preschool, as I mentioned, and that seems to be going much better lately too. She's deep into a princess/ballerina phase, and is the most girly-girl ever. I bought her one of these more or less on a whim, and we can barely pry her out of it. We've ended up buying her 3 of them, because she's going to wear it out soon and we better have replacements before Old Navy stops carrying them.

So, that's basically what's happened since Caetlin's birthday. It's only been five months, but somehow it feels like it went by in an eyeblink, and also that it was a long time ago. It's hard to remember when being back at work felt strange, when it was hot outside, before the rains came, before the snow and ice came, before the holidays were behind us. Before Halloween was distant on the horizon and everything was all "Back to School." So much has happened in 5 months and yet things have been strangely static. I feel like things have been moving in slow motion, and suddenly they have started back at normal speed lately.

There have been other things too, of course, but these were the highlights. I'll try to fill in more details in the future, of things like Christmas, and Caetlin giving up her pacifier, and the issues I have with Caetlin's preschool director, and the amusing things Phoebe does every day, and the Sunday School class I teach. I also am committed to posting again regularly. Like music, this has been missing from my life for too long. I miss sharing my thoughts and stories here, complaining and commenting and basically dumping my head onto the screen. It's the cheapest therapy around, and I miss sharing some of the details of my life with my friends and family, in more depth than I can accomplish through Facebook status updates. Basically, I'm unblocked, and ready to roll through 2010.

Roundup

Here are just a few things that have been on my mind lately:

1. I figured out the way to clean my closet. It turns out it is more or less like anything else; you have to do it one thing at a time. It took me an hour and a half and there is still a small pile of stuff I don't know what to do with, but my clothes are folded and organized and I can see my entire wardrobe again.

2. Phoebe is, I think, growing again. She's been sleeping more than usual lately. I've also noticed that her feet are flat against the bottom of her Exersaucer, and when we put her in it for the first time a month ago, her toes were just brushing the bottom.

3. Though things are starting to pick up a tiny bit at work, I am incredibly bored most of the time and have been for awhile. It leaves me in the soul-crushing position of hating every second I am there and wanting to quit on the one hand, and being terrified that they will fire me on the other.

4. I am tired all the time. I am tired when I wake up in the morning, and tired when I go to sleep at night, and tired every minute in between. I feel like I shouldn't be this tired; after all, I barely do anything besides sit on my butt and surf the internet and play Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook all day. Occasionally I'll make or receive a phone call. Not exactly expending large amounts of energy.

5. Caetlin is so adorable when she plays costumes (dress-up) with the variety of dresses and costumes we have for her. She puts her fairy wings on and "flies" around the house. Thank you, "Alice the Fairy." ("I have wings so I can fly! I can't fly very high yet, but I can fly really fast!")

6. I finally dragged my father-in-law onto Facebook, so he can see all the pictures of the girls that I post there.

7. I often wish I were 21 and in college again. I wish I hadn't sped through my college years. I was petrified of not finishing. Neither of my folks finished college, though they both made several stabs at it over my lifetime (and prior to my lifetime). Somehow I absorbed that to put off or even slow down school was to fail to finish at all; this despite my sister's model, who by the time I went to college had completed two undergraduate degrees. The same reasoning led me to law school immediately after college, when I could have probably used some time working in between. I really wish I hadn't completed college in essentially three years. I wish I had taken more time. Even though I am only 32, I begin to understand the cynical phrase, "Youth is wasted on the young."

I could go on like this all night, but see point 4 above.

Three

Yesterday at the indoor playground, her little voice calling, "Mommy!" rang through my ears, and I marveled that she meant me.

She made me laugh, too, being silly, a fake har-har-har that cracks me up every time. And then we jumped in the bounce house and collapsed in a pile of giggles.

Later she ate pizza and peaches like a big kid, went potty like a big kid, put her shoes on like a big kid. She is a big kid.

She is so competent, so mindful of herself. When did she become a complete person, entirely separate, with her own wants and preferences and destiny?

She amazes me daily, with everything she is and does and wants to be. She is more like me than not, these days, and by that I mean that at three years old, she is closer to being a grown up than she is a baby. I know that sounds hyperbolic, and I know she has a lot to learn still, but she's fundamentally her own person. She doesn't need me, not like Phoebe needs me.

I am so lucky to be her mom. Happy birthday, my wonderful amazing girl. Who is growing up far too fast. I can't wait to see what the next year brings.

Pack Rat

Tonight, I hated myself.

I have a closet in the bedroom that I share with Bruce. About 3/4 of the closet is my stuff, but there isn't enough room for my stuff even with that much space. What I really need are (big enough) shelves or drawers, because there is plenty of room for the hanging clothes, but the folded stuff- T-shirts, yoga pants, jeans- that's usually a crazy mess. Over the last couple of months, however, the crazy mess has gotten out of control. The closet may technically be a walk-in- even completely empty there's room to take about one step in- but lately, all I can do is peer in from the closet doorway and hope I can find what I need. There is a pile of clothes mixed with other things that is about as high as my hip on the floor in the closet, and it makes the closet almost entirely unusable.

This condition was born of good intentions. I had wanted to sift through my closet, reorganize and weed out and make everything pretty and accessible. I wanted to remove my maternity clothes and bring back my old wardrobe, and I wanted to be able to find everything. That required pulling a large amount of stuff out, off the shelves, off the floor, off the hangers. I got halfway through and got tired, so I shoved it all back in with the intention of finishing up another day.

And I never did.

I have hated the way my closet looks. I hate the lack of functionality. I hate that I wear the same five outfits every week, because it's what I can reach and find. I hate that there are things buried in there that I have forgotten I own, things I would find useful.

Last week I was determined to fix it, to clean it up for good. Bruce has been on a kick of reducing our stuff lately, and fixing the house up in general, hanging pictures and packing up books we've read and giving stuff to Goodwill. Inspired by his example and feeling continually ashamed of my closet, I pulled everything out of the closet and into a pile on my bedroom floor, thinking that if I could see it, I could make a plan of how to deal with it.

It sat on my bedroom floor for a week and a half, untouched, just getting in the way of my scale and dirty clothes hamper.

The ladies who come clean the house every two weeks are coming tomorrow, and it was unthinkable to leave it there for them. We don't pay them to organize my clothing; we pay them to clean the floors and bathrooms.

Rather than face the pile, I threw it all back into the closet.

I hated myself when I was doing it. Every armful of clothes I dumped into the shadows of my closet floor whispered my failure, my inability to take care of even the smallest things at home. My inability to hold it together when I am working and the rest of my family carries on without me, my failure to be useful for my family beyond my paycheck.

It was especially reproachful in considering the hour and a half my wonderful husband had just spent cleaning his parts of the room, while I sat and looked at a computer screen. As if I don't do enough of that at work, but somehow it was the only thing I could make myself do this evening, even as my daughters were bathed and dressed for bed and had stories read to them and fell asleep. If there were a time-lapse video of my evening, it would be Bruce and the girls swirling around me, while I sit on my bed behind a laptop, barely moving.

I barely move a lot these days, metaphorically speaking.

I don't know when I'll be able to deal with the closet. It seemed so symbolic, the packing away of mess behind a door, leaving a tidy exterior. I look like I have it together. I look like a good parent, like a provider, like someone "having it all" in the parlance of the feminism I was raised on.

I know the mess waits for me, even as the door is closed, though. It's not just that I don't know when I'll get to it. It's more that I don't know how to deal with it. In some ways, it's just about folding the clothes and finding a place for them. But the the folding overwhelms me. The finding the place for them overwhelms me. I just don't know how to manage it. I don't know how to unpack it, organize it, make it useful again. I just don't know how.

I'm Not Gone

Honey, I'm home! Did you miss me?

Seriously, I have not abandoned the blog. Funnily enough, I often think of things I'd like to write about, but by the end of the day, my writing time, all my thoughts and desires to put any of it to metaphorical paper have bled away. Part of it is Farm Town, the damnably addictive game on Facebook. I'm obsessed with planting my crops and growing my coins so I can buy stuff to make my farm pretty. Within the last week I've realized that the real money is to be made harvesting for others, so I've been trolling the chat rooms for jobs, like almost everyone else who plays the game (that makes it sound so seedy. See what I did there- seedy?? I crack myself up). This takes up enormous amounts of time, so it seems.

Part of my lack of motivation is that I am almost always tired, and for the last week I've been battling a nasty cold. It's been hanging on for over a week now, and it's knocked both kids flat on their cute little behinds. Phoebe has been hacking periodically, and Caetlin wakes up every night at least once crying because she can't breathe because her nose is so stuffed. I hadn't taken anything for my cold, because decongestants tend to dry up milk a bit, and I'm ultra-paranoid about keeping my production up. So it's been hot showers and the neti pot and lots of tissue. I finally gave in last night so I could get some sleep, and the medicine helped quite a bit. I haven't had a cold this bad for a very long time, and I have to say, I don't recommend it. Bruce has been lucky enough to avoid it, though he's clearly been fighting it off, as he's been extremely tired all week.

Anyway, you may note that the last post was dated July 24. That was when I started the post, and it's been sitting three-quarters finished since then. I'm not sure why I couldn't finish it, or why I finally did, but I hope I'm back on the blogging bandwagon.

The First Week Back

It felt strange to walk in after all these weeks, and see that everything was how I left it.

My big desk calendar was still on February. My cartoon-a-day calendar was on March 3. The chill of those days was long forgotten as I could feel the summer morning sun through the window, already hot. My last two-liter of Publix diet ginger ale, the soda that I was obsessed with in the last days, sits half drunk and probably mostly flat where I left it, and the large plastic green cup I used to sip it from still next to it on my rubber coaster. My pens still in the same place, unused legal pads stacked neatly on one corner of my desk.

I have been back since I had Phoebe, of course. I was in to visit Bruce, and take advantage of the printer (mine is kaput at home right now). I checked my mail and worked with Bruce and his secretary to submit our applications for admission to the Georgia bar. It's not as though I haven't darkened the door here in 4 months.

And yet it all felt strange, like an item of clothing that has shrunk in the wash and no longer fits quite right. It was different, for sure. The same- my same stuff, arranged in my same way- but I had grown out of it, or beyond it, or just different and away from it.

And there was the new stuff too- the new black bag that at a passing glance could look like a large tote bag, and its accompanying square-ish cooler bag. You wouldn't know what those were for. You'd think it was a tote for books, or files, or even a large handbag. You'd think the cooler bag was a lunch. Instead, I lock the door three times a day and bottle up motherhood, using the horribly undignified machinery from the black-bag-that-is-not-a-tote. I pack it in little bottles and ice them in the cooler bag and hope they are enough for tomorrow and worry when it seems like less than yesterday, less than this morning, less than.

Bruce doesn't call often when he has the kids. I assume they are busy; I assume they are having fun. I surf the internet. I check Facebook, annoyed when there are no new status updates from the previous ten minutes when I checked it last. I surf through my favorite blogs, news sites, parenting sites. I get sleepy and think how ridiculous I must look to anyone walking by, my eyes closed, face dipping forward when microsleep overtakes me. If any of my plants had been bodysnatchers, I would have been a goner.

I count down till lunch. Then I count down until I can leave. I don't talk to anyone unless I get up to make yet another unwanted cup of coffee. It helps me get out of my office, anyway.

Economic conditions mean that I have very little to do, and likely won’t have much for awhile. I set myself tasks to do every day, which I sometimes finish. Mostly these are personal tasks, like making Caetlin’s doctor’s appointment or calling the bank about a disputed charge on my debit card. Sometimes there is a tiny smidge of work, that I usually procrastinate. When I only have one thing to do, it’s hard, for me anyway, to make myself do that one thing, even though my conscience would be clear about all the web surfing if I just went ahead and did it.

Phoebe seems completely fine with me being gone most of the time. It turns out she is a very flexible baby, able to roll with just about anything, boob, bottle, mom, dad, nanny. In some ways that makes it easier, and in some ways that makes it harder. I wish she would seem to need me a little more, but I am glad for Bruce and the nanny that she is still happy. I miss her face, her ready smiles, her faux-hawk hair. Her little voice cooing and squealing at me. I drink in when Bruce tells me about something new she has done that day, like starting to enjoy playing in her Exersaucer or getting up on hands and knees like she's almost ready to crawl. But I also hate it, hate missing it, feel like a fraud for not being there.

It would be better if I had something to do. What's that old saying? "Idle hands are the devil's workshop?" For me, they are depression and inadequacy's workshop. I am not conflicted about being at work. If I had a choice before, when I went back to work with Caetlin, I most assuredly do not now. Plus I have made my peace with the fact that I like to work and don't really want to stay home with the kids, unless Bruce could do it too and we could have lots of help. (I need us to be independently wealthy, apparently.) I'm not in the same place at all that had me gaining 20 pounds because I was so unhappy about leaving my kid when I went back after Caetlin. Three years have taught me that my kids will be smart, happy and healthy even as I go off to work every day. That helps a lot.

So I go, and I sit behind my desk and surf the internet, visiting the same sites over and over, feeling like my behind is growing into my chair. I smile at people in the hall, and field well-meaning inquiries about the baby. I collect my paycheck.

Here's hoping things pick up soon, for the sake of my hours (because the pressure to work hasn't abated and in fact has grown stronger since Bruce's layoff), but mostly for my sake. Because I need something to help me grow back into this role of a working mom. Emphasis on the working.

Tomorrow Is the Day

So...I go back to work tomorrow. I wish I had another month. Or 6. Or 12. It's been especially nice that Bruce has been home with us lately, though unfortunately it was a result of his being laid off.

Phoebe and I are not really separate beings at this point. I mean, of course I see and understand that we are two people, but she doesn't get that yet. And I haven't worked at all to emphasize it. Anytime she cries and I can't soothe her any other way, she gets the breast. My body is hers; I'm sure she sees me as a large extension of herself. I am her hands, her feet, her eyes, her food. I have had to do everything, be everything for her. This was true for Caetlin as well, but less so, in part because I went back to work when she was so much younger than Phoebe, and in part because Phoebe is so much more enamored of me. Caetlin loved me, but Phoebe loooooves me. I calm her more easily than Bruce when she cries (and not just with my boobs!), and she just generally usually seems happier with me.

So, tomorrow will be traumatic for her. And for me. It's not that I think she won't be cared for- she totally will. She'll be with our nanny and Bruce, and she'll be perfectly fine. But she'll miss me. And I will miss her. Every time I am away from her for any period of time, I miss her, like she's a fifth appendage. Even though sometimes I resent being so tied to her, and her to me, when I'm untethered from her I also feel unmoored. I worry for her. I worry that she won't understand that Mommy is coming back, and will only know that she wants me and I'm not there.

And then there is the breastfeeding and pumping thing. I am so nervous that she won't continue to nurse. That is what Caetlin did when I went back to work, and though the circumstances are somewhat different here (Caetlin never nursed without a nipple shield and therefore a bottle was much easier for her, plus she was never an avid nurser like Phoebe anyway), I worry. I want to nurse in the mornings and evenings and pump during the day, rather than pumping everything. Down that road lies madness, as I well know; I pumped for 3 more months with Caetlin after she stopped nursing. Despite my frantic efforts, I never pumped enough for Caetlin to have only breast milk, so after my store of frozen milk went away, I was only able to pump about 40% of the milk she needed as she grew. And to eke out that 40%, I was pumping up to 8 times a day, wrecking my productivity and my emotional state.

My big concern about Phoebe is that she has grown so aware, so interested in the world around her, that she will prefer the bottle because it will be easier to look around while she eats. I know I just need to relax and accept what comes, but it feels like such a personal rejection when the babe refuses to nurse. Such a referendum on my mothering. Or on my decision to keep working (not like I have a choice now, but I have had in the past). At times like those, the internet criticisms of "Why did you have kids if you aren't going to raise them yourself?" haunt me the most.

Anyway, going back is not just about these big things, of worrying that I won't be able to continue nursing Phoebe and fearing the pain of separation from her. It's the small things too- having to get up with an alarm in the morning, instead of waking up with the kids. Not being able to wear my comfortable, machine washable clothing, and generally putting less effort into my appearance (I'm always clean, but I don't remember the last time I put on full makeup, and I stress far less about a spot on my shirt). Having to plan my days more carefully, thinking about kids' mealtimes and pumping and getting to the gym and what deadlines will I have at work, when the past four-plus months have just been one unbroken, underscheduled stretch.

And then there is the frustration of work, of trying to scratch out a place for myself in a department that is indifferent to my efforts. The worry about Bruce, and whether and when and where he will find something. Tomorrow will be the first day in over 4 years that Bruce and I have not worked together (barring my maternity leave with Caetlin, when one of us is sick, etc.). And there is the added pressure of being the breadwinner. Though Bruce is continuing to receive a paycheck, that will run out faster than I can even think about it. It makes me scared for my job, scared for us, even though the numbers crunch just fine on only my salary. I don't like the pressure of carrying the family, not in this economy, in my line of work.

Anyway, I can't stop tomorrow from coming, and it will bring what it will bring. I know from experience that Phoebe will be just fine in the long run. I went back to work much sooner with Caetlin than I have with Phoebe (and can I say just how incomprehensibly short 12 weeks seemed with Phoebe, to the point that I have no idea how I went back when Caetlin was so incredibly young? My hat is off to anyone who can or must go back to work any sooner than that, as I know many women are required to do), and she's a perfectly fine and happy and well-adjusted almost-three-year-old. And she was a perfectly fine and happy and well-adjusted baby after I went back. We will all get used to our new normal, probably pretty quickly. If I keep things in perspective, I know it is not the end of the world, not the end of our relationship, not a sign of poor parenting. It's just...different. Different is not bad. Just different.

So off we go into the great unknown. How will we cope with the changes? I hope better than I did when I went back to work when Caetlin was a baby. At least this time there is not a convenient chocolate-filled holiday nearby, so I hopefully won't put on 20 pounds as a result of being so depressed about going back. That time it was a poorly timed trip to Target- a few weeks before I went back to work, I bought a huge amount of half priced candy that consoled me through the first couple months back at work. Consoled me right into larger sized clothing, too. I didn't lose that weight until about a year ago. Let's hope I can avoid that this time!

In other news, we have spent the last two weeks at the beach, and had a fantastic time. Caetlin, especially, had a wonderful time in the pool and the ocean (Gulf of Mexico, really). She started the vacation in my grandmother's pool with floaties on both arms and a pink inflatable ring around her middle, and she had to be coaxed away from the steps into Bruce's arms. By the end of the two weeks, she was going completely underwater while holding her breath, without her ring (her floaties had been long since discarded). Seeing her gain so much confidence in the water has been really great. I think if we had been there another week, she would have been swimming, as often as she was in the pool. The kid was more or less in her swimsuit from morning until night; we had to pry her out of it. And she's been pretending to be swimming all day today, and asking to go to the pool as well. Bruce and I are both fans of the water (something I remembered about myself when I spent so much time in the pool with Caetlin), so it's no surprise that Caetlin loved swimming so much. I can't wait to get her some lessons so she can really get moving.

Also, Phoebe had rice cereal for the first time today, and loved it. She sucked down spoonful after spoonful and consumed in the neighborhood of a quarter of a cup. She quickly got into the groove of opening her mouth for the spoon. Though she sucked on the spoon, which made a big mess, she clearly loved the whole eating experience. She even started crying and fussing between spoonfuls, because I wasn't pouring it into her fast enough. It was hilarious and awesome and so much fun. When we were done, her little belly was all pooched out and full, and she was basically ready to pass out. After a bath and a short nursing session, she crashed hard (this was after a 2 and a half hour nap this afternoon, which might be the longest nap she's ever taken- girl is sleep deprived and then some from our vacation). I'll look forward to giving it to her again tomorrow. It's something to look forward to about tomorrow anyway.

Reality Comes Crashing In

I go back to work in less than two weeks. That's scary to contemplate. We're at the beach right now, and will be until the Saturday before I go back, so this is my maternity leave swan song. And because we're on vacation, I haven't got the time to really think about going back, to really imagine myself at work all day, pumping a few times, and not seeing Phoebe except in the mornings and evenings. At least, it's easy to avoid that reality, though it is getting harder and harder to ignore.

I thought I was ready to go back. I had a great time at the conference that was held at the end of May, and I really was happy to be back in that professional world for a few days. But now that it's not just a short break from my leave, now that my four and a half months has evaporated like dew on the grass in the hot summer sun, I'm panicking. I thought I would be ready. I've been telling everyone that I am ready. But I'm not ready.

I am more ready to go back than I was with Caetlin, that's for sure. I went back after just 12 weeks, and I couldn't imagine going back at that point with Phoebe. More time is certainly better time.

But she's going to miss me so much. And then she won't. Which is worse?

Maybe not thinking about it is the better way to go. Maybe just confronting it when it's time to set the alarm clock and put on heels and pack the pump is less painful. I really don't know. I'm trying to enjoy the beach while I'm here. We're having a great time. Caetlin loves the pool. Phoebe likes it okay too. We're here with a bunch of my extended family, which is nice. They all love the girls. There is nothing to be sad about when we're here in this tropical paradise.

Yet it is lurking, growing more prominent in my psyche. I'm dealing with some administrative crap already, that needs to be done by the time I go back, so it's sort of more in the forefront than I wish it were. And it's looming large anyway. I can't deny that less than two weeks is not a lot of time.

I thought I was ready. I'm so not.

Milestone: Rolling Over

So today, Phoebe rolled over for the first time.

We both missed it.

I was in my room, getting dressed after a shower. Bruce was in the kitchen getting something to eat. He had put Phoebe on the floor on her back in her play gym. When he came back into the living room- so I'm told- she was on her tummy.

I wasn't surprised when he told me, because it has seemed to me like she was working herself up to roll for awhile now. I don't call her my "Get Up and Go Girl" for no reason, after all- she is going to be much happier when she can move around by herself. She's way more motivated to move than Caetlin ever was. Caetlin rolled over like once when she was two months old and then didn't do it again until 4 going on 5 months.

Phoebe hasn't done it again, yet, though I am sure she will soon. Still, I am sorry to have missed it. I think those kinds of milestones become less important with baby #2, so long as it's clear there is no delay, which there isn't in this case. But it's step one toward a mobile Phoebe, who will be a happier Phoebe.

Yeah, It's Been Awhile

Life on maternity leave tends to kind of smooth out the edges of things. Days flow into each other, the weekdays versus the weekends stop having any particular meaning, and I only remembered what day of the week it was by what was on TV that particular night (made more difficult by the end of the regular TV programming). There was me, and Phoebe, and a steady stream of lunch dates with girlfriends, trips to the gym and the mall, and diapers and nursing and spit up and crying and napping. My left bicep is extremely buff from hauling her around in her carrier. Really, for awhile, that was the most notable thing going on. So it's been awhile since I've posted.

Yet time and life both march on, and Stuff has Happened around here that finally moved me to write.

First there was Memorial Day weekend, which started, memorably enough, with Bruce being laid off. Happy three day weekend!

Seriously, if you've been reading here for any length of time, you know we knew it was coming. All options have been exhausted, and there really is just no room for him. He is a man without a department, with a specialty that no one else in the firm does (any more), and almost non-existent billable hours for the year. It made zero economic sense to keep him, and the firm is a business. It really was no surprise. The separation details are pretty generous, though we will have to address circumstances with our nanny (more on that in a bit).

Saturday we took Caetlin to the Y, where we have recently become members. We have found that having kids makes a Y membership entirely more appealing, as they offer a ton of programs for the kid, plus babysitting that Phoebe is now old enough to start using as well as Caetlin. Also, the Buckhead Y has a kick-ass outdoor pool. We haven't been there yet, since we regularly go to the Ashford-Dunwoody Y, but I foresee some summertime fun there. Caetlin loves going to the babysitting there; she "has a good time with teachers and plays with new toys" as she puts it. (The having a good time with teachers part comes from us, to remind her how much she tends to like day care teachers.) She apparently tells the teachers how "Mommy and Daddy be riiiiight back." I'm glad to know she's confident in that fact.

After the Y was the park, since it wasn't raining yet, and then home for lunch and nap. Then a trip to an indoor playground for a very short visit and then to the mall for a "smoovie." Caetlin is a smoothie addict and then some, and often we need to get her the 20 ounce size, rather than the 12 ounce kids' size. Because otherwise she ends up drinking mine, and I don't like to share.

Anyway, it was a good day, the news from the day before notwithstanding. We've both been pretty calm regarding the layoff, mostly I think because we've been expecting it for so long. When the meeting was set earlier in the week, I kind of had a freaking out, hyperventilating "OMG OMG What are we gonna do???" kind of evening, but I was over it by the next day. There are some really good things coming out of it, I think, and frankly, it was time for that shoe to drop so we could deal with the reality rather than worrying about it.

Sunday, we set off for a new indoor playground, where we were meeting two ladies I work with and their respective children, plus a niece who was visiting. We broke out like this: one colleague and her husband brought their 6 year old daughter and their 3 year old son; one colleague brought her 8 month old daughter and 7 year old niece; and we had Phoebe and Caetlin. So everyone had someone to play with, and the babies sort of lumped together (kidding, actually, as the 8 month old had a good time in the crawlers area). We chatted and followed the kids around; we snacked on goldfish and pretzels and juice and water; and we discussed the relative bravery and/or gross motor development of each of the walking kids. Afterward we adjoined to Five Guys for burgers and fries, and watched the kids running around the plaza outside the restaurant. Spencer (the 3 year old) and Caetlin were super fast friends, clamoring to sit next to each other at lunch and hugging goodbye (seriously, is anything cuter than toddlers hugging? I think not). We all had such a great time that we decided to get together for bowling the next day.

I had a small misadventure, though, prior to all this idyll. We left without me getting any breakfast, in order to be on time. We had time to pull into a McDonald's, which we passed on the way, and waited behind a man in line who may never have encountered this weird thing called the McDonald's breakfast menu before. Or perhaps had never been in a drive-through before. Either way, there was dialogue between him and the drive-through worker. Impatient, I told Bruce to drive around and I would go in, figuring the line inside would be shorter as it often is. I walked into a madhouse. Let's say the line was not shorter inside, and when I walked out, the drive-through line had backed up too. Frustrated, pissed off at myself for having made a bad call, I got back in and told Bruce to drive on, since we were going to be late.

We drove to the place, and no one was there yet, so we decided to do our best to find a breakfast place (too bad we didn't see the Starbucks across the street until we went to that complex for lunch). After driving for a couple minutes, we found an Atlanta Bread Company, where we were headed until I saw the Burger King. BK will be faster, I reasoned. We got my food, Bruce got his large coffee, and we were on our way again, Caetlin and I happily sharing hash browns (actually, she got her own small order; remember what I said about not liking to share?). To get back the way we needed to be going, as we really were running late by now, Bruce had to make an illegal left turn. In so doing, and in swinging sharply around the median that tried to force us right, his too-tall-for-the-cupholder coffee overturned and spilled. All over the diaper bag. All over a lot of the junk on the floor of the car. All over me.

I started screaming and trying to hold my jeans leg away from my skin. That coffee was hot. As in scorching hot. As in heated by the interior of the sun hot. As in lawsuit hot.

Bruce pulled over as I sobbed my pain and unhappiness over being soaked in coffee. By the time he stopped the car and I hopped out, my jeans had cooled enough that I didn't need to strip down to my underwear on the side of the road. We moved on to the play place, me smelling like coffee. I headed for the bathroom to soak some of it out, but I smelled like everyone's favorite breakfast beverage all freaking day. My leg was slightly singed, on the order of a very slight sunburn, and it cleared up by the next day. (One of the moms was pretty late to the playground and when I told her that story, she was all, "You win. Your morning has been worse than mine.")

Anyway, we all met up again for bowling, and the kids had another awesome time. Caetlin and Spencer pushed their balls off one of those racks for kids (I had never seen them before and they are great!) and we all were grateful for the bumpers. When C and Spence got tired of bowling they ran around and around and around. Fortunately, early on Memorial Day, the alley was reasonably empty so they didn't annoy anyone. Anyone not related to them, anyway.

Afterward we all went to Willy's for burritos and quesadillas. We were a small pocket of chaos in the back of the restaurant, as we took over two booths plus all the surrounding area. The kids hugged goodbye again, and I heard from Spencer's mom that he told her his favorite part of the weekend was "playing with [his] new friend Caetlin!" Your heart could just melt.

This week was pretty quiet, but we did reach a milestone: we cleaned both cars out entirely and had them super-duper-detailed. The coffee incident caused an irritant that had only been slightly itching me to flare into a full-blown rash of need for clean vehicles. It took us several hours to clear all the junk and trash from the cars, and it took the detail folks several hours to clean them. They remain clean today, and I am determined to keep them that way.

I had a really great and interesting work conference this past weekend, and we've had many discussions about what to do regarding the nanny, but that will all have to wait, since I'm tired and need to pump (ugh) and sleep now. More later.

News and Notes

A scattering of random facts and anecdotes from the No Math house:

- My thrush appears to have cleared up, thank goodness. I'm still on medication for it, as is Phoebe, but it's kind of how you take antibiotics long after you stop being sick- it's still working even though the symptoms are all gone. And frankly the symptoms were what I really cared about. That shit hurt. NOT recommended.

- Phoebe turns two whole months old tomorrow. How is that possible?? And she's started outgrowing some of her 0-3 month clothes. Scary. She otherwise remains the smiling-est baby on the planet. I will have to try to take some pictures so you can see the gorgeousness that is her smile. She's also sleeping really well at night. Last night she slept for 5 hours, had a feeding, and then slept another 5 hours. We're starting to lose that haggard look that comes from too many interruptions in sleep for too many nights in a row.

-We all seem to be healthy around here for right now; everyone please say a little prayer that we can stay that way for awhile. I love all my care providers, but I am really ready to not see the inside of a hospital for as long as possible.

- Caetlin has decided that she loves pretty dresses, and it's been mostly warm enough to let her wear them. It is with some small embarrassment that I admit that I think she has basically every style of dress that my local Target sells for toddlers. What?? I'm trying to make sure she has enough to rotate through the week. Really! Anyway, it's awesome to see her twirl around in front of the full-length mirror in our bedroom. She looks at herself, dances around a bit, looks at herself again, and tells me, "It's a pretty dress, Mommy!" I love making her that happy with something so simple as a dress.

- Caetlin has also exploded musically lately, and will often sing herself to sleep. Favorites include "Itsy Bitsy Spider," and "Pop Goes the Weasel" (which is "Hop Goes the Weasel" if she's not paying attention), "London Bridge is Falling Down", "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean" and the always-popular ABCs song. It also leads to some interesting displays of personality. Her nanny told us about one day last week when Caetlin was singing Itsy Bitsy Spider and her ABCs at the park, and getting all the "Awww"s and smiles from the assembled grownups. Her little friend Mary, who turned three in January, chimed in as well, and started getting her share of attention. Caetlin apparently decided she was not going to be shown up, and launched into an operatic "Baa Baa, Black Sheep," which Mary didn't know. Caetlin's nanny said Caetlin was clearly all, "Top that, amateur."

- We have started a hard core push on potty training. She's pretty good on pee, though we have to make her go when she's in the middle of something. The poop, however, is a different story. She has pooped in the potty in the past, but for whatever reason, refuses to try these days. We'll be putting her in underwear soon, so she can feel the mess she's making when she goes in her pants, pee or poop. It's going to be a long summer, I think, filled with bodily fluids. Y-A-Y.

- Speaking of summer, we joined the Atlanta Metro YMCA this week, and got Caetlin signed up for parent-tot swim classes that start at the end of this month. I am hoping to spend a few days at the beach with the girls this summer, and I want Caetlin to be at least comfortable if her head should go under or something like that. Plus as much as she loves the water, she needs to learn how to swim, pronto. I'm excited about taking her to the classes; I think it will be fun time for us together.

- Bruce and I both took advantage of the wellness programs at the Y as well, starting a 6-month series with a wellness coordinator who set us up on the weight machines and showed us how to use the FitLinxx system. I walked on the treadmill for the first time today. It's Day 1 in my quest to lose weight, firm up, and make my heart healthier. My diet is better than it has been in a long time, and I feel like it's a diet I can maintain, so the next thing is to add in the exercise while I have the time to get hooked on it. Wish me luck.

- On the work front, Tokyo appears to be officially dead, so that's a decision we at least don't have to face. We have informed the nanny that Bruce could be laid off at any time, and things don't look great for him, and she should probably search for another job, given the economic climate. I think she doesn't want to hear it, and has stuck her head in the sand and refused to look for anything else, but that is not a decision we can make for her. I think we have acted in good conscience in this situation. We have given her all the information we can, and she can choose to act- or not- on that info.

- Completely as a lark, Bruce and I have both registered for the Foreign Service Officer Test to be given in June. It's a lark because the odds of either of us becoming foreign service officers are pretty small, and the process takes a really long time, at least a year. I'm actually enjoying the process of studying for it- test taking is something that I am good at, and I'm enjoying feeling mental muscles stretching out that I haven't used in awhile. It would be a huge deal if one or both of us made it, but I'm not even thinking that way at this point. It's much more about the fun of taking the test and seeing how I do. I've needed an intellectual goal for awhile now, since I'm on leave now and before I left work there wasn't much for me to do anyway.

- Finally, Caetlin was super adorable when she came in from the park this afternoon. I had just finished feeding Phoebe, who was asleep in my arms in the same position she had nursed in. Caetlin picked up Cheer Bear (I think I have written about Cheer Bear before, how she's completely annoying but Caetlin loves her so I love her) and said, "I'm feeding Cheer Bear, Mommy," and held the little pink bear's face to her chest. She sat like that as long as Phoebe stayed in my arms in that position, occasionally telling me how she was feeding Cheer Bear. It was adorable to watch her "nurse" her bear.

So, that's about all there is from here. Life rolls on, more or less uneventfully these days. We like uneventful. Uneventful is good.

Make It Stop

I think I have developed thrush on my nipples. Thrush is a yeast infection, the same kind of yeast infection that the boys snicker about, only on my nipples instead of in my lady parts. Yeast is a naturally occurring organism; everyone has some amount of it in his or her system, men and women. A yeast infection, or thrush, occurs when the yeast gets out of balance and too much is able to grow. The yeast loves the sugars in milk, so nursing moms are often susceptible. Particularly nursing moms who have recently completed a course of antibiotics. Which I have.

Where a yeast infection as people are familiar with it is more annoying than anything- itchy, mostly- thrush on my nipples and in my milk ducts is turning out to be extremely painful. I have actually stopped nursing Phoebe again so I can take some prescription painkillers for a day or two, until the medication starts to work and I can stand her to nurse from me. On Monday I will have to get treatment for Phoebe as well, since the likelihood is that she has thrush in her mouth that is not yet developed, but will be painful for her if it progresses.

So I'm pumping- as much as I can stand to, anyway- and dumping again. Yippee. Did I mention this is extremely painful? As in, extremely painful?

I hope this clears up soon. Jeez. I wish we could catch a break!

Getting Back to Normal

Morning smiles:



Caetlin offers a good morning kiss:



These days it's really hard to get good pictures of the two of them because Phoebe is so stationary and Caetlin is so...not.

I'm Going Home!

Well, I didn't have the CT scan today. There is still too much barium contrast in my intestines to get a good picture. I have been given more magnesium citrate to get everything moving (not that it wasn't already), as well as some prune juice just for good measure. However, my surgeon felt that, having delayed surgery already, and given how well I'm doing, everything else can be done on an outpatient basis, especially since it is likely to take the contrast 3 or 4 more days to really work itself out. The last test was seeing if solid food made any difference, a test I passed with flying colors. My continued lack of pain plus good tolerance of food means no reason to keep running up hospital charges with me.

So, they are discharging me tonight, within the next couple of hours. I follow up with the surgeon on Thursday; he will arrange for the CT to be done next Monday (sooner if I show less improvement), and I'm to follow up with my GI doctor late next week.

I have also been prescribed antibiotics that are incompatible with breastfeeding, which means I'll need to pump and dump for the next 11 days. In a few ways it will be easier to pump at home, since I can rig that up to be truly hands free, and I won't have random people walking in on me at any moment. However, it more sucks than anything, because pumping isn't something I can do in public (like breastfeeding), and pumping as often as I need to in order to keep my supply and caring for Phoebe by myself is going to be a challenge. By the time I'm done, I'll have pumped and dumped for over two weeks. It will be worth it when I can feed Phoebe again, though.

I can't wait to go home, eat some good food, sleep in my own bed, be there when Caetlin wakes up in the morning. Wear my own clothes and not be attached to an IV. This has all been like a very bad dream. Thank goodness I get to wake up!

Quick Status

Everyone on my treatment team (!) appears to be on board with the current plan now; my surgeon was skeptical yesterday, though he agreed with my GI that it wasn't quite time to cut yet. He endorses the plan entirely at this point, since my continued improvement can't be ignored. I was pain free today, completely. And I look great and feel great. I am essentially a healthy person walking around these halls.

Now, if the pictures of my insides will back that up! Hopefully all the barium I had to drink on Friday has cleared my system, so they can get good clear pictures. There is talk of an X-ray tomorrow morning, to make sure the barium is all gone. If it isn't, they will give me more of the laxative that I had yesterday and today. That's not as scary as it sounds; I haven't had anything solid to eat since late Wednesday evening. My last solid elimination was Friday. A laxative doesn't do anything impressive at this point. I hope that the barium is all gone, though, because the sooner we can get a good CT scan, the sooner I can go home.

If the barium is all gone, the CT will show the mass either looking better (more defined, more organized, smaller, whatever the doctors decide is better), or not. If it is better, which I have to assume, since I am feeling so incredibly improved, they will make/let me eat something solid, to make sure that actual food isn't a problem or an aggravating factor. I don't know if they are going to require that the solids come out the other end, though I guess in a system as empty as mine is, that probably wouldn't take too long. But in any event, once they are satisfied that solid food doesn't seem to be a problem, I think they will let me go home. Dare I hope that might even be as early as Tuesday? Probably not, since everything takes longer than I think it's going to here in the hospital, but I can maybe realistically hope for Wednesday, I think.

If the scans aren't positive, that's a different story, of course. I would expect that surgery would be on the table again. I have a hard time believing that it's going to go this way, though. My body couldn't possibly be telling me so aggressively that things are getting better if they weren't. I mean, I guess it could, but I think it is more likely that I actually am getting better at this point.

So that's where we are. Hope for clear scans and solid food.