I have a high school friend who apparently wanted to say "hi" to me, so she sent an email through classmates.com. The drawback being that I can't read it without paying for membership, since she is not a paying member. I sent her one back, which she will not be able to read, although the site has kindly informed me that if I were to join, she would be able to read it free of charge. Sweet of them, really.
Screw that. I put my current email address in the subject line of the email.
Thursday, December 08, 2005
back to the drawing board
excuse the lack of capitalization- jonah has a cold, so there's a lot of late-night feedings to be done here.
things get better, only to get worse again...at least that's how it feels right now. i thought allie was coming out of whatever behavioral fugue she falls into every few weeks, but alas, it isn't so. it's not so bad for me- we have those first two years of pretty much mutual exclusivity going for us, and if it almost drove me crazy, it also means we have near-telepathic rapport. might be because we're so alike, also- although that works against us as well as for us. on the less-helpful end, we both enjoy arguing, but only if we can pretty much grind the opposing party into the floor. as much as possible, i just refuse to argue with her- it's too much like a power struggle. a wise person once told me that you can't win power struggles with children- once you engage in it, you've lost no matter what the "outcome".
so. allie, yeah...jeff is not so lucky. three-quarters of what he says to her she percieves as rejection or attack. the word "fine", in particular, provokes a reaction you would not believe of my sweet little girl. he's trying hard to banish it from his vocabulary; meanwhile, i have a severely anxious and overreactive daughter- make that two of them; myself, who just went up to a slightly higher dose of meds, making me irritable and impatient for a few days; jeff, who is struggling mightily but still feeling like he's losing his mind; and a son who- scout's honor- would drive a substance abuse counselor to the nearest dealer. oh, and one sweet little baby who is growing up far too fast for his poor mommy.
speaking of jonah, he is definitely the prodigy of our family. crawling by 6 months (although it took him another month to really get good at it), pulling himself to standing now, at just under 8 months. and the boy can *stand*- unless gabe shoves him, he's steady on his feet for a good 30 minutes, which seems like an inordinate amount of time to me. he really enjoys walking if you hold his hands, and he uses this really cute marching-band stepping style. he also said his first word tonight ("duh....ck"). it just doesn't seem possible that i'm coming to the point in my life where i will no longer be the mother of any infants. part of me is cheering- no more mandatory 3 am feedings! no more missing concerts because it isn't worth it to introduce a bottle for one night! but part of me is sad, because most of my friends are just entering or preparing to enter parenthood, and while I'm far from done (parenting, that is), I do seem to be done with babies. I love being pregnant, and it's hard to come to terms with never being pregnant ever again.
Notice the caps are back? Jonah finally went to sleep and stayed asleep after roughly three hours of nursing and two failed attempts at putting him to bed. Thank God. The upside was I got to spend some extra one-on-one time with Allie. I walked past her room with Jonah and noticed she still wasn't asleep an hour after I put her and Eva to bed, so I invited her to get up and watch a little TV with me while I nursed him some more. We split the last of the Le Petit Ecoliers cookies (extra-dark chocolate, yummm- another thing she and I have in common), watched a bit of a movie (not Olive the Other Reindeer, thanks be- that's been more or less playing constantly the past two days while Gabe and Eva were sick), then I put Jonah down and carried my big girl to her bed. She's almost too big to carry now, so I am enjoying it while I can. She is so much to deal with right now that the chance to spend some uncomplicated, quiet time with her was really special.
things get better, only to get worse again...at least that's how it feels right now. i thought allie was coming out of whatever behavioral fugue she falls into every few weeks, but alas, it isn't so. it's not so bad for me- we have those first two years of pretty much mutual exclusivity going for us, and if it almost drove me crazy, it also means we have near-telepathic rapport. might be because we're so alike, also- although that works against us as well as for us. on the less-helpful end, we both enjoy arguing, but only if we can pretty much grind the opposing party into the floor. as much as possible, i just refuse to argue with her- it's too much like a power struggle. a wise person once told me that you can't win power struggles with children- once you engage in it, you've lost no matter what the "outcome".
so. allie, yeah...jeff is not so lucky. three-quarters of what he says to her she percieves as rejection or attack. the word "fine", in particular, provokes a reaction you would not believe of my sweet little girl. he's trying hard to banish it from his vocabulary; meanwhile, i have a severely anxious and overreactive daughter- make that two of them; myself, who just went up to a slightly higher dose of meds, making me irritable and impatient for a few days; jeff, who is struggling mightily but still feeling like he's losing his mind; and a son who- scout's honor- would drive a substance abuse counselor to the nearest dealer. oh, and one sweet little baby who is growing up far too fast for his poor mommy.
speaking of jonah, he is definitely the prodigy of our family. crawling by 6 months (although it took him another month to really get good at it), pulling himself to standing now, at just under 8 months. and the boy can *stand*- unless gabe shoves him, he's steady on his feet for a good 30 minutes, which seems like an inordinate amount of time to me. he really enjoys walking if you hold his hands, and he uses this really cute marching-band stepping style. he also said his first word tonight ("duh....ck"). it just doesn't seem possible that i'm coming to the point in my life where i will no longer be the mother of any infants. part of me is cheering- no more mandatory 3 am feedings! no more missing concerts because it isn't worth it to introduce a bottle for one night! but part of me is sad, because most of my friends are just entering or preparing to enter parenthood, and while I'm far from done (parenting, that is), I do seem to be done with babies. I love being pregnant, and it's hard to come to terms with never being pregnant ever again.
Notice the caps are back? Jonah finally went to sleep and stayed asleep after roughly three hours of nursing and two failed attempts at putting him to bed. Thank God. The upside was I got to spend some extra one-on-one time with Allie. I walked past her room with Jonah and noticed she still wasn't asleep an hour after I put her and Eva to bed, so I invited her to get up and watch a little TV with me while I nursed him some more. We split the last of the Le Petit Ecoliers cookies (extra-dark chocolate, yummm- another thing she and I have in common), watched a bit of a movie (not Olive the Other Reindeer, thanks be- that's been more or less playing constantly the past two days while Gabe and Eva were sick), then I put Jonah down and carried my big girl to her bed. She's almost too big to carry now, so I am enjoying it while I can. She is so much to deal with right now that the chance to spend some uncomplicated, quiet time with her was really special.
Friday, December 02, 2005
I truly live in an alternate universe
I just finished a yahoogroups posting where I'm trying to convince a mother of two that she is not a bad mom for encouraging her second child (15 months) to only nurse a few times a day, because she is pregnant and nursing makes her antsy. Her first child nursed to age 2.5, so she is feeling very guilty and upset.
Sometimes I completely forget that this is not normal behavior for an American mother. That if the age of my children at weaning were general knowledge, I would get some surprised looks (at the very least). Our American average age of weaning is 6 weeks or so (largely due to the unavailability of paid parental leave, I would assert), and most babies are recieving at least some formula by the time mom and baby leave the hospital.
The hospital. Yeah. Because that's where you go to have a baby, right? I mean, only a complete freak would do anything else, right?
Sometimes the real world is too much like a slap in the face. I like my alternate universe.
Sometimes I completely forget that this is not normal behavior for an American mother. That if the age of my children at weaning were general knowledge, I would get some surprised looks (at the very least). Our American average age of weaning is 6 weeks or so (largely due to the unavailability of paid parental leave, I would assert), and most babies are recieving at least some formula by the time mom and baby leave the hospital.
The hospital. Yeah. Because that's where you go to have a baby, right? I mean, only a complete freak would do anything else, right?
Sometimes the real world is too much like a slap in the face. I like my alternate universe.
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Good things and bad things
I have a great deal to be thankful for these days, and also a large number of things that are worrysome. The best of the good things is that my mood seems to be stabilizing, and on the first medication I've tried (Lamictal). I've been taking it for three weeks now, and my grossly out-of-control irritability is pretty much gone. I still have mood swings, but instead of switching daily or several times a day, for now I seem to have settled into a pattern where I feel good (but not manic) during the week, and depressed on the weekends. The depression started to appear when I stopped using my light box, but discontinuing that was also what took care of my daily descent into bitchyland (the remaining irritability), so good riddance. And as Jeff pointed out, I get to have my cake and eat it too- Lamictal is only really effective for treating bipolar lows. So I get to keep my hypomanic periods. Unless I should suddenly start to develop mania with psychotic symptoms, hallucinations, or grandiose delusions (which seems unlikely), I'm golden.
Jeff is also feeling better, which feels good for all of us. Things were really rocky for a while- with my mood completely unpredictable, his depressed and highly irritable, and four small children...well, let's just say it wasn't Disneyland. At least not as it's portrayed in the commercials- I've been there and know better ;)
I'm also supposed to be making some lifestyle changes- Making Sure I Get 8 Hours of Sleep Each Night, and No Caffiene After Noon. Obviously, this is a lot harder for me than taking the medicine (just look at the time stamp on this post, realize my kids get up around 9, and do the math). But I am trying. I'm not a person who goes to bed at 9- never have been. That's Jeff. But I'm striving to become a person who goes to bed around midnight. Caffiene is my life's blood in the winter, so that isn't going so hot. I think I'd actually take it by IV if I could. Nah...I know I would.
The worrysome things really aren't so bad when I consider what things were like a few months ago. We have a consultation at our mental health clinic for Allie on Friday to hopefully start the process of getting her help with whatever is going on with her. We are scheduling screenings for Gabe and Eva to make sure they are developmentally on-track (and very likely, we'll discuss behavioral referrals for them). Jeff is missing a decent chunk of work to keep all these appointments, but thankfully a bus driver's schedule is pretty flexible, so it's not a threat to his job- just our finances.
There are more good things, though...I made feta jalepeno dip today, and while it could have used a little more jalepeno, it was still scrumptious. My pumpkin cheesecake for Thanksgiving turned out looking almost professional (and tasting fantastic, if I can be pardoned for saying so). Thanksgiving went great. We had it here, just us and our parents. They brought stuff and I made the turkey, stuffing, and cranberries. It was the first holiday gathering I have completely enjoyed since Allie was born...because since that day, we've been pressured to attend two (sometimes three) different celebrations each Thanksgiving and Christmas, often on the same day. And by "pressured" I mean coerced. But this time, instead of hitting Jeff's folks' house at 11:30, eating, dashing out with crabby kids in tow at 3:30 to arrive at my grandma's by 4 and spend the remainder of our evening trying to protect her 300+ music boxes in their glass-fronted cabinets from toddler hands, we just relaxed the morning away as the turkey cooked, played with the kids, and waited for our parents to arrive. Then a thoroughly restful meal where for once I didn't have to worry what my kids might be breaking, because whatever it was, it's mine and I probably didn't need it anyway.
Sorry that this was kind of an aimless post- I haven't written in a while, so I just sort of hopped around through all the things I felt like talking about.
Jeff is also feeling better, which feels good for all of us. Things were really rocky for a while- with my mood completely unpredictable, his depressed and highly irritable, and four small children...well, let's just say it wasn't Disneyland. At least not as it's portrayed in the commercials- I've been there and know better ;)
I'm also supposed to be making some lifestyle changes- Making Sure I Get 8 Hours of Sleep Each Night, and No Caffiene After Noon. Obviously, this is a lot harder for me than taking the medicine (just look at the time stamp on this post, realize my kids get up around 9, and do the math). But I am trying. I'm not a person who goes to bed at 9- never have been. That's Jeff. But I'm striving to become a person who goes to bed around midnight. Caffiene is my life's blood in the winter, so that isn't going so hot. I think I'd actually take it by IV if I could. Nah...I know I would.
The worrysome things really aren't so bad when I consider what things were like a few months ago. We have a consultation at our mental health clinic for Allie on Friday to hopefully start the process of getting her help with whatever is going on with her. We are scheduling screenings for Gabe and Eva to make sure they are developmentally on-track (and very likely, we'll discuss behavioral referrals for them). Jeff is missing a decent chunk of work to keep all these appointments, but thankfully a bus driver's schedule is pretty flexible, so it's not a threat to his job- just our finances.
There are more good things, though...I made feta jalepeno dip today, and while it could have used a little more jalepeno, it was still scrumptious. My pumpkin cheesecake for Thanksgiving turned out looking almost professional (and tasting fantastic, if I can be pardoned for saying so). Thanksgiving went great. We had it here, just us and our parents. They brought stuff and I made the turkey, stuffing, and cranberries. It was the first holiday gathering I have completely enjoyed since Allie was born...because since that day, we've been pressured to attend two (sometimes three) different celebrations each Thanksgiving and Christmas, often on the same day. And by "pressured" I mean coerced. But this time, instead of hitting Jeff's folks' house at 11:30, eating, dashing out with crabby kids in tow at 3:30 to arrive at my grandma's by 4 and spend the remainder of our evening trying to protect her 300+ music boxes in their glass-fronted cabinets from toddler hands, we just relaxed the morning away as the turkey cooked, played with the kids, and waited for our parents to arrive. Then a thoroughly restful meal where for once I didn't have to worry what my kids might be breaking, because whatever it was, it's mine and I probably didn't need it anyway.
Sorry that this was kind of an aimless post- I haven't written in a while, so I just sort of hopped around through all the things I felt like talking about.
Thursday, October 20, 2005
My Pet Peeve
I have to write this, because it's been bothering me for years now, but for some reason the last few days it won't leave me alone.
I hate the way we refer to doctors' involvement in a birth in this country. It drives me absolutely batty. And I know I said "doctors", but I mean midwives too, most of them (and most of us) use this terminology and when I'm dictator, I'm going to glare very sternly at anyone who uses it, and maybe make them give me five dollars. For now I'm just going to beg all of you lovely, mindful people to pretty please think about the language we use and decide for yourself if my objections are valid.
Women say in this country "Dr/Midwife Sally delivered my baby". It's like fingernails on a chalkboard for me, people. Like someone peeing in my Coca-Cola.
The problems with this:
1. In most cases, the only thing a doctor does at a birth is arrive in time for the grand finale, coach the woman in pushing (which she doesn't need anyway), and announce the baby's sex (again, unnecessary...I'm guessing most people able to have sex can figure out on their own which one the baby is).
2. Even in cases which require some sort of dramatic intervention (forceps, surgery, whatever), saying that the doctor delivered the baby completely robs the woman of any sort of crucial role in what happened. In this phrasing, the doctor, not the woman laboring, is the star. I always want to ask, "So, what were you doing while the doctor was delivering your baby?" not out of a desire to humiliate, but because I want women to realize that the doctor is there for them. The show can't go on without them.
3. It implies passivity. That birth is something that is done to us, not something we participate in. I think it was Henci Goer who put it like this: "There's a big difference between being the magician who pulls a rabbit out of a hat and merely being the hat." Who wants to be the hat?
4. It's just sloppy English. The word "deliver" (as a transitive verb) has 9 meanings at dictionary.com. Only one (#7) concerns birth. The rest are either nonsense in this context (#1-6, #8), or truly horrible when applied to the doctor's role in birth (#9). There's got to be a better way to say this.
I'm open to any and all suggestions for a replacement phrase. Sadly, I have caught myself saying this from time to time, and it always makes me sad. Because any doctor worth the money knows that s/he's not the magician when it comes to a birth. The laboring woman is. The doctor is more akin to the magician's lovely assistant- sometimes crucial, sometimes clumsy, but always second fiddle. Stand there, look pretty, help me if I need it...good doctor.
I hate the way we refer to doctors' involvement in a birth in this country. It drives me absolutely batty. And I know I said "doctors", but I mean midwives too, most of them (and most of us) use this terminology and when I'm dictator, I'm going to glare very sternly at anyone who uses it, and maybe make them give me five dollars. For now I'm just going to beg all of you lovely, mindful people to pretty please think about the language we use and decide for yourself if my objections are valid.
Women say in this country "Dr/Midwife Sally delivered my baby". It's like fingernails on a chalkboard for me, people. Like someone peeing in my Coca-Cola.
The problems with this:
1. In most cases, the only thing a doctor does at a birth is arrive in time for the grand finale, coach the woman in pushing (which she doesn't need anyway), and announce the baby's sex (again, unnecessary...I'm guessing most people able to have sex can figure out on their own which one the baby is).
2. Even in cases which require some sort of dramatic intervention (forceps, surgery, whatever), saying that the doctor delivered the baby completely robs the woman of any sort of crucial role in what happened. In this phrasing, the doctor, not the woman laboring, is the star. I always want to ask, "So, what were you doing while the doctor was delivering your baby?" not out of a desire to humiliate, but because I want women to realize that the doctor is there for them. The show can't go on without them.
3. It implies passivity. That birth is something that is done to us, not something we participate in. I think it was Henci Goer who put it like this: "There's a big difference between being the magician who pulls a rabbit out of a hat and merely being the hat." Who wants to be the hat?
4. It's just sloppy English. The word "deliver" (as a transitive verb) has 9 meanings at dictionary.com. Only one (#7) concerns birth. The rest are either nonsense in this context (#1-6, #8), or truly horrible when applied to the doctor's role in birth (#9). There's got to be a better way to say this.
I'm open to any and all suggestions for a replacement phrase. Sadly, I have caught myself saying this from time to time, and it always makes me sad. Because any doctor worth the money knows that s/he's not the magician when it comes to a birth. The laboring woman is. The doctor is more akin to the magician's lovely assistant- sometimes crucial, sometimes clumsy, but always second fiddle. Stand there, look pretty, help me if I need it...good doctor.
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