Made in Richmond

We’re a month into JR’s new routine of going to day care and my new routine of being in the office 3 1/2 (give or take) days a week.

I must say, things are going swimmingly. Aside from that whole missing an entire week due to a cold/ear infection that caused a ruptured ear drum. Details, details.

While some days I hate (hate, hate, hate, haaaaate) dropping him off, overall, we are handling things well. He typically cries when we leave, but I can hear him stop as soon as the door shuts. He also cries when we go to pick him up, but on a few occasions I’ve been able to sneak in without him seeing me, so I know that he waits to turn the waterworks on until he realizes that we’re there. I think he just forgets that he misses us, what with all of the learning and playing and fun-having he’s doing.

I do ok most days. His day care center is within walking distance of our office — something that is both good and bad. Good in that I can get there in 2 minutes if I need to, but bad in that… well, I can get there in 2 minutes if I need to. The building is just sitting there, taunting me all day long.

But the absolute best outcome of our new situation is that I no longer spend the time we are together feeling pulled in two directions. I feel much less guilty about making myself unavailable to work-related tasks in the evening because I’ve been able to invest quite a reasonable chunk of time to those during the day. I’m a better worker, and a better mother because I don’t feel like those two roles are constantly in conflict.

Plus, that “Mama, Mama, Mama, Mama!” I get when I go pick him up is pretty awesome.

It’s been a rough few days.

Last Wednesday JR started showing signs of a wicked case of the grumps. We assumed it was teeth (which wasn’t completely off), gave him some Motrin and went about our business.

The grumps continued steadily until Saturday evening. And then Saturday evening marked the beginning of a multi-day crying streak that has yet to cease.

The child is sick. SIIIIIIIIIICK. Sick in a way that has made up for the complete lack of sick we have experienced in the almost 15 months he’s been with us. Fever, cough, crying, runny nose, runny eyes (yes, babies can leak snot out of their eyes - I didn’t know that either and it’s just as horrifying as it sounds), crying, not wanting to eat, crying, only wanting to be held, crying, the works. He’s also waking up a couple times a night, shrieking for someone to wipe to boogers out of his eyes or suck the snot out of his head because, hello, we wakes up not being able to see or breathe.

(I told Ross that it’s all reminding me way too much of what life was like with a newborn. I hope this doesn’t ruin JR’s chances for ever getting a sibling. It’s possible.)

But what’s worse is that he is just not himself. There are no animal noises, no shouting of “THIS,” and not one single laugh. Not even a giggle. It’s depressing.

Meanwhile, I’ve become a mad woman. I haven’t left the house for more than two hours in six days. I can’t go to work. I can’t sleep because I lie awake anticipating the whimper from the next room. My work is so half-assed it’s ridiculous. And I’m being mean to everyone.

So, be patient with me (although I doubt I would be patient with you if we met in person because RAWR). I’ll be back soon.

For the past few months we’ve kind of been in limbo in regards to child care.

We’ve had three (THREE!) babysitters since October. Each one of them was helping us out while looking for a more permanent, full-time job. And what do you know? Every last one of them found one. Do you want to know how to solve the unemployment problem in this country? Anyone looking for a job should come spend five minutes with JR. They will be employed in a matter of days.

So, daycare it is.

After many (many, many, good Lord, so many) phone calls, we managed to track down a center at a local church that we’re comfortable with AND will not put us in the poorhouse. Well, not the really crummy poorhouse, anyway. The nicer poorhouse.

This will mean a change to my working schedule. Instead of 2 days in the office and working from home the rest of the week, I’ll have 3 1/2 to 4 days in the office (and more if necessary). This new schedule will free me up in the evening (somewhat), making our time together less of a struggle of what wants to get done and what needs to get done. And with JR now being a one-nap man (!) that struggle was going to inevitably get more and more tense.

But more so than the logistical things, this is kind of a world-shift for JR who has spent every day of his life just hanging out with adults. He’ll be in a class where they have circle time. He’ll have a little nap mat and a cubby with things in it. He’ll have friends.

To me, this situation pretty much encompasses what this whole parenting gig is about: hard choices, being brave, and letting go a little bit so your kid gets the chance to come into his own.

Yes, this is good. But, oh my, how I will miss him.

As you can probably tell from my last post, I’m going through an over-the-moon phase for my kid right now. I’ve been feeling so good lately which has allowed me to be more present in my time with him, to soak him up and really enjoy him. Forgive me because the sappiness is about to get turned up to 11.

This morning we were playing in his room and listening to a CD given to us by the mother of the family I used to nanny for. There’s a song on it called “On Children,” adapted from a section in Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet. I think it’s perfect.

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
Which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
And He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
So He loves also the bow that is stable.

This evening, I was breaking up an apple slice to give JR as a snack. As I was snapping one in half, part of it slipped out of my hand and hit him in the face. He found it hilarious.

And because I’m a baby-laughter-whore (odd way of putting it, I know), I started tossing pieces of apple at him. He found it ESPECIALLY funny when they landed on his hair or his cheeks.

A few minutes later, JR picked up a piece of apple and threw directly at me.

I didn’t laugh. And realized that our days of an unresponsive blob of cute are over.

Now I have to like start being a role model and stuff. Wuhn wuhn wuhn.

JR has always been very good when we tell him “no.” He would stop doing whatever prompted the correction, smile, shake his head back and forth, and move along.

Well, it seems things have changed.

He still stops, but rather than happily directing his attention towards something else, we get a very different response. I’ve mapped it out in easy step-by-step instructions should you care to re-enact it for your loved ones…

1. Sit on floor.
2. Place head in hands.
3. Fold body in half so hand-held face is pressed firmly on the floor.
4. Emit a brain-melting shriek.
5. Sit up quickly.
6. Thrust finger in direction of desired object.
7. Sob “Thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis.”
8. Repeat steps 1 through 7 when “no” is inevitably repeated.

JR started his day by clipping the edge of one of our dining room chairs. A lovely purple line immediately took shape on his forehead.

Then he went to the doctor where he got a finger stick (and a Band-Aid which bothered him more than the stick), and a few shots.

Later, as he was cruising around the kitchen as I made his post-nap smoothie, the sound of the blender startled him, causing him to jump, fall forward, and smash his previously-injured forehead into a stainless steel shelf. After some silent, red-faced flailing, he engaged in the biggest sobfest he’s ever had in his young life as a huge goose egg sprung up.

I know that pain will happen but JEEZ, no one told me about this feeling of your stomach going into your throat and your heart ripping in half when it does.

This past Thursday I got home from work at around 3:30 to find a delightfully healthy boy toddling around the front yard with his lovely babysitter/our lovely friend. JR was all smiles and laughs, bright eyed and on the move.

About 90 minutes later his nose was a river of snot (green, the best kind) and his eyes were rimmed with that reddish-pinkish tone that calls out “FEVER.”

Sure enough, a quick poke of the thermometer indicated that his temperature was slightly above 100. We pumped him full of Motrin and put him to bed early.

(I make it seem as I was so calm during this episode, when in fact my inner monologue kept chanting, “It came on so quick! Doesn’t the flu/H1N1 (and, yes, my inner monologue often incorporates slashes) come on really quick? He’s only had the first dose of the flu shot! OH WOE!)

The poor little man was up off and on until about 1am, requiring the suckage of snot out of his head, which lead to much screaming and thrashing. Oh, parenthood.

He woke up Friday morning completely fever-free but with his face covered in crusted snot and his nose still dripping constantly. The day was full of whining, sneezing, shrieking at the site of the nasal aspirator, refusing to eat anything but bananas, and (blessedly) taking wicked-long naps.

By Sunday morning he was at about 80 percent. Come Sunday evening, he was basically his old self. But me? OH HO HO HO me, you ask? Well, it seems that as soon as the cold/flu-ish thing had run its course through his system, it jumped straight into mine. Add that sickness to the unthinkable injustice that I, personally, cannot sleep 16 hours a day, and you’ve got a very sick, very grumpy, very-stuffed-up-and-unable-to-correctly-pronounce-Ns young lady.

And it’s all his fault. How the hell am I supposed to resist kissing on a face like this, especially when he feels like poo and actually wants to cuddle for the first time in his life?

Now that it’s been 10 (holy heck how did that happen?) months since I had a baby, I’m finally in a place where I can really, really talk about what it was like afterward.

I don’t mean the physical pain or the exhaustion, which, in retrospect, weren’t that awful for me because I was blessed with a very easy baby. And Percocet. Lots of that.

Now I’m talking about my feelings.

When we were in our childbirth class, our instructor mentioned that if you’ve struggled with anxiety or depression, you’re something like 85% more likely to experience postpartum depression. Being someone who fits quite neatly into that category, I made sure I thoroughly educated myself on the symptoms and knew what to look out for.

When we brought JR home, I can surely say that I went through the baby blues. There was much crying and hand wringing and fretting and “oh my God what have I done”-ing for a couple weeks until my hormones leveled out. And never did I experience what would be classified as postpartum depression. Most of the time I was happy - tired and sometimes crabby, but mostly happy.

I was also scared out of my ever-loving mind. Not because I didn’t think I knew what I was doing. I did know what I was doing. I knew I was more than capable of taking care of my baby. But, I was sometimes paralyzed by the fear of The Bad Things That Could Happen.

My mind constantly raced with thoughts, not of terrible things that I thought I might do to the baby, but with terrible things that could happen to him or us: SIDS, car accidents, house fires, cancer, intruders, carjackings, abductions, me falling down the stairs and hitting my head, leaving him alone in his crib, starving, for hours until someone came home to find us. It became almost crippling at times, not enough to make us shut-ins, but enough to make me contemplate it.

Luckily, this was of thinking has kind of phased itself out. I still have my panicky moments, but I’m sure all mothers do. I never felt that I needed medication, but it might have reached that point if I hadn’t somehow, blessedly, snapped out of it.

Now you’re probably asking, why are you putting this out there? I’m doing so because I have a sneaking suspicion that I’m not the only one who has gone through this very specific brand of postpartum anxiety. I just never came across anyone else going through it while I was, too. I didn’t know what to call it or how to even begin talking about it. Hopefully by me saying this, someone else will.

WARNING: This is SUCH a mommy blog post. Part of me hates myself for it. BUT I HAVE INFORMATION I NEED TO SHARE.

Ok, so now that JR is 4 1/2 months old, I’ve started to finally be able to figure out what pieces of baby “stuff” work the best for us. And since I’m sure some of you out there are or hope to be expecting a wee one in the future, I thought I’d share. I’m not going to say I couldn’t live without these things because, let’s be honest, when it comes down to bare-bones survival with a baby, you need a blanket, maybe some diapers, and a functioning boob. So let’s just call these “nice-to-have” items.

Boudreaux’s Butt Paste
I mean, the name is pretty fabulous to begin with, but this stuff has been pretty amazing. JR isn’t paricularly prone to getting diaper rashes, but this goop clears up any redness with ONE application. Sure the $16+ price tag for the jar seems a bit steep, but it’s lasting forever and it just plain works.

Moby Wrap
I was originally going to write AN ENTIRE post devoted to this, but that would be a bit much, I think. We tried the Bjorn. JR hated it, judging from his insane screaming the second we put him in it. We tried the Hot Sling. My frame and his girth were just not compatible with their sizes (and please don’t tell me I was wearing it incorrectly. I watched the demo vidoes 87,321 times, and each attempt was cut short with JR attempting to throw himself onto my hardwood floors in order to save himself from getting his circulation cut off). So, a couple of weeks ago, I caved and bought this wrap, which is essentially a million feet of stretchy cotton that you twist around yourself all Jedi-like, creating a soft, flexible apparatus within which you can perch your child in a variety of configurations. So you’re bonding! While you do the dishes! Everyone wins! I almost cried the first time I put it on because FINALLY I was able to hold my 18 pound child close to me for longer than 5 minutes.

Cloth diapers
Don’t get the wrong idea - we are not doing cloth diapers. Much praise to those of you who do. I just don’t think I could handle it. We use these primarily for burp cloths, but lately they’ve taken on the role of JR’S MOST FAVORITE THING IN THE WORLD. Forget any toys we’ve purchased. All he wants to do is snuggle these, chew on them, or play peek-a-boo. The best part for us is that we never actually had to purchase any thanks to a friend who handed over about 30 of them once her daughter got beyond the “spitting up everything she ate” phase.

Johnson & Johnson nursing pads
The same friend who gave us the burp cloths recommended these. I had originally used the Lanisoh version but I found them to be super scratchy and irritating. I also tried washable ones but they just weren’t cutting it. My let-down reflex is, shall we say, enthusiastic, and there were some potentially embarrassing moments before I found these. They’re a bit thicker so you need to layer, but they are so soft and so not expensive.

Ring-A-Links
Oh, Ring-A-Links, with your cute name, lovely bright colors, and fun textures. This one *might* actually be worthy of getting a “must-have” title, at least with us. These little guys are tucked away somewhere in almost every room of our house just so we can easily have something on hand for the little man to grab at (or chew, lately). You can use them on their own or to hang up other toys on our stroller, car seat, etc. JR just loves to gnaw on them all day. The best part? They can easily be slipped around overall straps or through button holes so the kid doesn’t lose them. The hubs figured this out once during church and it made me want to make out with him right then and there.

Anyone else got some recommendations?