Sunday, April 3, 2016

Seven Month Survivor Baby-Battle-log Updateapalooza

Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated...

I'm still alive! Seven months of mad baby booby nappy nutsiness has wrung me through a few tight spaces, but I'm pliable. Or at least, I'm hanging on by the power of decaf coffee and sheer cuteness (mine and the baby's of course).

If I miss anything about my pre-baby existence, it's writing on a more regular basis. Unleashing my compulsive rivers of pablum has always been such a restorative endeavor.  It's a mental lathe, writing. When I chitter away with little fingers, I gain a sense of otherworldly focus. Simultaneously diving into my deeper chasms and stone-skipping the glib surface of those shiniest ripples of quotidian mummery.Even knowing these might be read connects me to it. And my god, now that I have a baby, there is so much to write about.

I remember taking some umbrage when my father suggested that my sister and I combine forces - I having the writing bug and she having the tri-child chaos about which to write. Is la vida lalaloopsy so intrinsically more interesting than the DINK day to day? Was my pre-baby life not worth memorializing in agonizing detail? Pshaw?

Didn't I have more to talk about at the dinner table before the baby? My days now are a pastiche of naps, drool, diapers and an obsession hinging on the contrast between my child's poop and peanut butter. 


But of course parenting is a mad whirlwind worth processing. Sure it's mostly the many facets of baby feces and a catalog of baby shrieks and raspberries that would put the OED to shame
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But sometimes it's also rushing to make an Easter egg hunt after an unpredictable nap; carting a cutely clad cranky strawberry-bunny through the recondite back streets of lord-knows-where because you missed a turn and nearly plowed yourself and your daughter headfirst into a stationary Ford while trying to load the map on the phone you swore you'd never take out while in the car...

waiting to reconnect with your husband who misunderstood your errant google calendaring and took a long free detours on the way; thoroughly missing the egg hunt, but not the best desserts, and only narrowly coinciding with daddy, who finally made it just as every one began leaving en masse.

Sometimes it's intense negotiations over when and where to meet up for a "walk" that will inevitably end up changing times more than your baby changes diapers before landing exactly back on the original time; sometimes involving some actual walking, but mostly mad messaging to determine whether you actually are all in the same parking lot or not.

Sometimes it's an hourly overnight vigil as baby lies still for the first time in months, leaving you to balance the bulging in your boobs against the snoozing of the sweetie and your projected future nap-map of the day to come.

Sometimes it's nursing a tiny terror who hums and burps while suckling, and then begins banging her arm against your face and arm like she's hitting the bar after a strong shot of whiskey. Sometimes it's just the overwhelming joy and sheer terror of loving something so vitally alive.


There's a lot to write about.

If only my brain could actually kick into focus. Which, sadly, is virtually impossible.
I get down time. Plenty of down time. Plenty of hours hovering over the kitchen counter, suspiciously eyeing the baby monitor and wondering why now of all times the baby is taking a real nap. Plenty of aimless pacing between several open tasks. But it's a sort of restless, constantly on the alert sort of time. Usually filled by rushing about the house and battening down the hatches. I eat carrots and lettuce compulsively each time I pass by the fridge. In between, I indulge in crosswords and social networking, and other things that have the luxury of being taken up and abandoned at a moment's notice. Not conducive to even semi-coherent babbling.

But I am still alive. And the wars rage on as we reach 7 and a half months of baby bliss.


And so, here is your baby battle status Update On All Fronts

The PP physical recovery - while I was knocked flat on my well-toned tush by the postpartum physical convalescence, I "should" now be "recovered" entirely. Meaning parts of my internal lady plumbing are no longer bobbling through my belly and sloughing detritus. Should I so desire, I "could" actually work out just as hard as I did before this baby farrago. However, I'm nowhere near able to replicate that kind of fitness. Things that interfere with my cardio dominance: The sheer lack of time, absence of appropriate ergonomics while toting an increasingly heavy little lady, and significant sleep deficit. 

Speaking of that not-so-callipygian toosh, the breastfeeding has done more than liposuction on the junk in my trunk.

The damage done to my lower back is unspeakable, of course. Full of prickles and little tweaks, and unknown knots. Add that to the still stretched out abdominal midsection muddle - plus the bigger boobage - and I have an entirely different shape than my typical shape.

It's a nice enough shape and not entirely alien to my general contours. I'm still hinging on underweight. I still have muscle tone from pushing strollers up hills and swinging babies over my head. My calves are still week formed. But I'm in a different place physically for sure.

We have a jogging stroller. I have the ok to start running with Chaya. Today, I bought a sports bra that fits my jiggle-wiggles. We'll see if running begins again. I had a brief flirtation with the treadmill during naptime, but the treadmill is torturously tedious. And even running requires a certain focus and commitment that's hard to muster during my brief little nap windows. Perhaps outside would be more enticing? I already take a daily walk with the stroller. But the extra requirement of having to change and maybe even shower? I just don't know. 




The breast-feeding bonanza - So, I have declined to take the follow-up ultrasound, but it appears my abscess/mastitis/boobamaggedon has abated. This time. I am terrified of a resurgence now. Chaya has recently started nursing less. Most likely in response to her increased interest in solids. Nonetheless, when she does things like suddenly sleep through the night, leaving my engorged boobs achingly full... well it is a bit nerve-wracking. I don't want to pump it all out, lest she suddenly wake and scream the baby equivalent of "psych! Where's my boob, biyatch??" But I also don't really want to putter down clog lane again. And in the meantime, she's been sort of constipated. I want her to keep more hydrated, but she doesn't drink from a sippie cup and is nursing less, so a challenge. Fortunately, me and my boobs have adjusted to what appears to be a permanent dropping of one more over night feed. We are now able to go 7-8 hours at night. One middle of the night feed. And now Chaya gets up an hour earlier. Thank god for the time change. But she's getting eleven hours, and my breasts haven't exploded. Knock on wood. 

In the meantime, I've decreased my dose of domperidone by 4 pills in the very slow wean from medication. So, it is all still very much a work in progress. Priorities include these action items: keeping on keeping on, avoiding more surgical intervention, and suppressing the development of baby teeth as long as possible.




Napwars - Lord knows, really. I vary my response by the hour. Naps are way better than the four month nightmare period. The nap ritual definitely has power. Sometimes she'll begin her nap period with some massive nap gymnastics. Sometimes she'll start fussing right up until she passes out. On rare occasions, she does not actually fall asleep and that fairly well sucks. But most of the time, a nap is wrung out of the whole experience. And often enough, she turns around a bit and then goes to sleep. Most of her naps are still short affairs - the painful 30 minute non-nap to the massive success of a 50 minute nap. But at least once or twice a week, she'll throw in a long nap. Usually when I have to be somewhere. Or when somebody's coming over. Other times, she'll take a really short nap, tumble around the crib for twenty minutes and then take another nap. It's predictably unpredictable. But, again, a lot less doom and gloom than the four month napless baby. And, as I alluded to up above, the baby seems to be sleeping a bit more at night. Of course, she's also getting a little constipated from less breastfeeding at night, so it's a balance.


Getting Out: It's hard to see my old friends. I can barely schedule anything for myself (a nap? a run? a visit to the doctor?), let alone something involving actual logistics. The vicissitudes of baby whirlwinds are tempests that cannot be planned around. Chaya needs a nap roughly two hours after she wakes from her last one. Her naps vary in length from twenty minutes to two hours. She needs to nurse somewhere in between there. She doesn't really do that if she's in a different environment, or if others are around. And to add a little cherry on top, I'm an introvert who has always been exhausted by socializing and who is now running on a seven month sleep deficit.

If I say that my other mommy friends "understand," it's a little more nuanced than that. I wish I could explain this in a way that would not incense my prior childless self. It's not quite embarrassment. It's not estrangement. It isn't that I don't trust my non-childed friends to understand/tolerate/brook my newly flaky anxious distracted behavior. I do. With all my heart.

It's maddening to be unable to commit to anything. Or to have a serious conversation for more than a few seconds at a time. Maybe it's that I want to preserve my sense of those friendships and my sense of myself in those friendships for the nuanced and deep relationships that they were.

You know how with the right people, you reconnect within seconds after years apart? Maybe I just want to feel like we can pick up "just the same" and that's not really likely in this current chaos. What if I'm not my old self. It's inevitable to change. It's great. But what if some part of me that I wanted to keep has been lost? Oh the horror. But mostly, it's just hard to get out.
It's not super easy to see my new friends either, but then that's part of the understanding.
A few examples:
I have a group of mom-friends with whom I take walks. Ok usually "walks." The amount of walking is far outweighed by the amount of standing, gearing up, bottle-feeding, shuffling, and the like. It's not a super aerobic group usually, although I have other mom-friends who certainly are true walkers.Typically, Jennifer brings her six year old daughter, Olivia, which adds lots of doubling back and stopping. Inevitably, somebody needs a bottle. Usually one of the babies. And there's that sort of cat-herding uncertainty to our mass gait. But we get out.
One of these days I'll bring my awesome jogging stroller. But it doesn't actually fit in my car at the moment. Darn. Every time we schedule a walk, I bring our umbrella stroller. Every time I bring the stroller, I struggle with it briefly and then thank the powers that be that I also brought the boba air carrier. One of these days, Chaya will end up in that stroller again. Maybe.
Anyways, having hit an unseasonable pocket of warm and pretty, we all decided it would be good to go for a walk "at the end of the week." I had suggested earlier in the week, but too many things were already happening. So I sent out a mass text suggesting Thursday was the best weather day.
Jennifer said "ok, where/when." I suggested two places and asked if she wanted Olivia to come along (Olivia gets off school early on Thursdays). Claudia said "whenever." Everyone said wherever. We're all so flexible in theory!

Chrystine said that she was really busy, but maybe. I finally suggested it would be easier to meet at the Marine Life Center down at the Harbor. This was because (1) parking at Boulevard is awful, and (2) a mutual friend of ours works there, so I thought we could see her. Jennifer said that Olivia would want to come then. I suggested that would mean we should meet after 2. Claudia said Sebastian usually eats at 2. I said maybe 2:30ish, "nap dependent."
And on we go. Of course somewhere along the way, my friend Jessica asked if anyone wanted to take a walk at Boulevard. Two other girls were going at 2. She chose the Harbor because she didn't think she could make 2:00 p.m.
And so, the naps begin. Let the walk excitement commence:
Chaya wakes up at 1:50 and I text the rest of the group that we are on target for 2:30. Claudia texts that she is already on her way. Her husband will drop her off early and they're feeding Sebastian in the car. Jennifer tells Jessica that we're on for 2:30.
I get a little distracted playing peekaboo with Chaya in the crib and start nursing fairly late. And it takes a while. And we end up making googly eyes at each other for a few minutes. And suddenly it's 2:20. Crap. Grab a soda because I know I'll be thirsty. Chaya enjoys playing with it right up until she spits up right into the can and I throw it in the sink.
I make it to the car with an armful of baby, purse baby carrier (I have the stroller in the car but somehow I just know it's not going to work out), and ... not my coat and not the baby's coat and not the baby's hat and not my sunglasses and not my keys. Unable to actually escape without my keys, we return to the house for a thorough scour. Tada, finally find it and take off still sans baby coat and my sunglasses. Oh well.
While I'm on the way there, I get a text from Claudia asking if she's in the right place. She's not. She's at Zuanich Point instead of the Marine Life Center. Jennifer texts she's on her way. Claudia misinterprets and believes that we are on our way to find her. She begins to wander around and says she'll meet us halfway. Google maps tells her it will take twenty minutes to walk. This concerns me, since it's actually much closer.
Make it to the Harbor. Jessica sees my car and follows me in. We go to the Marine Life Center. Nobody is there. Including Casey, who runs the place. On our way back to the parking lot, we find Casey. Jennifer calls asking where we are. I go find her and Olivia, who is very upset that we are not going directly to the touch pool. Meanwhile Claudia texts to say nobody knows where this place is, she's lost, and to just go on without her. I tell her to stay where she started and we'll find her. She says she's "on the trail." We start walking, while I once again tell Claudia to stay put.
In the meantime, Olivia has several mini-strikes in which she refuses to advance because she is annoyed that we are still not at the touch pool. She occasionally runs forward ahead of us and then pouts on a new bench.
By the time we've reached Zuanich, Claudia texts "I'm here" without elaborating where. Several confusing text messages about Anthony's restaurant and the Bellwether later, and we ascertain by telephone that she went in the opposite direction. I again tell her to stay put. She again says she'll meet us on the way. We somehow find her after two more telephone conversations. Still baffled as to how we passed each other previously, we finally reassemble our tribe and get set to set out for real...
Except Jennifer stays behind because there's no way Olivia is going out again. And then we run into Bill. Claudia chides him for dropping her off at the wrong place. He goes to The Loft (a fancy bar by the Center). We set out. Ezryn starts to sob. We're not sure why. And then of course I realize that if I don't leave soon, I'll miss the last nap window and be stuck at the park with a baby who falls asleep at 4:30 and then wakes up ragingly hungry at 5:00 and... I leave.
Claudia and Jessica hopefully actually completed the walk that I began yesterday.
I received additional texts that Jennifer had to go home as the children were being crazy. Chrystine let us know that Meira had slept for five hours that day and was going back to sleep. Jessica probably went home ruing the day she couldn't make it to Boulevard by 2:00 p.m. And Claudia and Bill decided to hang out at The Loft.
And hey, after some major protest, Chaya did actually take her afternoon nap. I'd call that a success of a group outing. More or less. 

Time Passes...
So for the last what seems like several weeks the discussion about walking has gone like this:

First person: soooooo the weather looks good on ______ day
Second person: I think I have the flu.
Third person: Baby is sick with something nasty and keeps puking.
Fourth person: My entire family has liver cancer and I think the dog has scurvy.
And thus we postpone. It's been a really nasty cold, flu and plague season in other words.
Anyways, it's finally reached peak gorgeousness time out in this area. The flu had been around and around faster than a tilt-a-whirl. It seemed safe to attempt another walk.
I tried again. After a week full of foreboding Monday thunderstorm predictions (which turned into a mostly cloudy to beautiful weather day), I suggested that Wednesday through Thursday might be nice.
Claudia, of course, has the plague. She caught it from Sebastian who caught it from Bill. The conservative faction suggested a humidifier and baby tylenol. The Bellingham faction suggested an array of essential oils and herbal infusions. We all agreed that Bill probably should not have stayed home to "take care of Sebastian" and then spent the morning in bed nursing "a cramp" followed by planning to take a hike with a friend. Some of the other ladies sympathized. And others praised how wonderfully helpful their oh so special cooking/cleaning/rainbow-pooping husbands really are. I said "yeah, that's nice, but mine has a really cute butt." End of that conversation.
At any rate. Plans weren't entirely made. But Jen suggested that she was going for a walk today after Olivia got home. I suggested that might align with Chaya's nap battles.
We get the option of Chaya sleeping "well" (two four hour chunks and a two hour morning chunk is miraculous to me) at night, or taking an unprecendented two hour nap during the day. We don't typically get both. She slept well that last night... so... There have been a few guerrilla resistances movements and crib tumbles before succumbing to far shorter and more volatile naps.
Olivia was going to be out of school at 1:30. Chaya woke up from one nap at 12:30, meaning she would probably be due for another around 2:30ish. There seemed to be wiggle room, so I suggested I might be in for a short one. We agreed to meet at St. Clair park. Which is just far away enough for me not to be able to walk there. But close enough to be a ridiculously brief drive.
Biding my time, I allowed the little demon to scootch-crawl herself around the house in increasingly intense fashion. At about 1, we nursed. At 1:30, I was ready for the long "getting ready to go" battle. I did much better than usual, all said. No spit up in cans. And I remembered the baby, the boba, and myself. I did not, of course, remember a hat or sunglasses for either of us. Nor did I really remember that my back can't take front carrying a 17.5 pound monster baby anymore. This I had to remember while actually at the park.
After some unexpected battles with the garage door remote, I made it to the park almost precisely on time. Only to check my phone for the first time in far too long.
Alex was still asleep, having konked out in the swing. Olivia was "getting home soon." Etc.
So I wandered. I waited. I realized I should have used the bathroom before I left.
By about 2:00, I was thinking perhaps I should head out. By 2:05, I got the message that they were almost there.
And after walking down the street to find them, we all connected. For a "walk." By which I mean "walk two steps before Olivia began to (1) protest and cry that we were walking instead of going to Sienna's house; (2) demand snacks; (3) insist on going back to look at a 'fairy hole' in a tree." And so on.
After about fifteen minutes, Chaya was pretty out of it and I really had to use the bathroom, so I said I needed to head back. Olivia celebrated in theory, but then dismayed in the realization that we had to walk all the way back. She troopered on with chagrin and a faintly escalating moan. After what I am assured was an endless death march, we loaded back up in the car, and the rest of the group went off to find Sienna's house. Turns out Sienna was not home.
For our part, I wasn't the only one who needed to use the bathroom, so the timing was probably for the best. Incidentally, solids poop is bizarre. It stinks and looks like little poop pellets compared to breastmilk poop. Really, it basically is proportionally normal human poop, but at that scale, it's really weird. And Chaya actually went down for a nap without much protest around 3. Yes, I'm a stay at home mom. My life is defined by my child's diapers and sleep sessions.
And, well, my back isn't totally broken.
One of these days, we will all actually walk together. I'm guessing our children will be in college.



And some day I'll get back to writing more regularly instead of massive blogger blowouts every few months. I may be senile enough to really make some colorful entries by then!

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