This chaps my ass

I heard two things on the radio today. One was a piece on sleep deprivation and how much it affects people. All I could think was "yeah, and try extended sleep dep after major surgery." That was one thing. But then there was a quick news story about a local cop who was busted for DUI, and apparently was thrown in actual jail. The last sentence of the story was that he was suspended from work with pay.

So let me get this straight. A cop who drives drunk and gets thrown in the clink gets paid leave. A woman who has a baby (with all the accompanying sleep deprivation and increasingly, surgery recovery) does not.

Got it.

*steaming*

Defying Physics

I've put this post off long enough. It's time to talk about the body.

In training for this half-marathon, I've been running longer than I've ever run in my life. On Sunday, I ran nine miles. Nine. I was hobbling by the time I got back to my street, and I ached everywhere the next day. My bra chafed my back until it bled. This weekend it will be ten miles. Good times.

First, the good: I'm quite proud of myself for going through with this. I wanted a challenge, and hooboy. This is turning out to be a bigger one than I anticipated. It's a lot harder than I thought it would be. One of the problems I'm having is the sheer boredom that comes with a two-hour run (okay, the nine miles took me 1:40, but still-- eventually I will hit the two hour mark). I've changed up the music on my mp3 player a few times, and that has helped, but only a little.

My body feels better, too. I feel like I'm ever-so-slightly more fit. Tighter. I'm not horrified by cellulite on the front of my thighs anymore; they're starting to resemble their old selves. (somewhat.) (edited to add: I wrote this yesterday, then looked in the shower last night... cellulite is still there. I just haven't been wearing shorts for several months, which is why I haven't seen it. Damn.) But when I put lotion on my arms, I'm not feeling the vast expanse of flesh on them that I have since I had Sascha. My clothes aren't hanging off of me, but they're not cutting into my flab either. I've even found a few (oversize) tops from Target that make me feel pretty-- a Herculean feat!

Now, the part that makes me want to throw an irrational tantrum: wanna know how much weight I've lost with all this training? Well guess what? NONE. Not a single fucking pound. None. None. What is that? Running nine miles burns roughly 900 calories. I had an artichoke for lunch that day, and a normal dinner. I'm not stuffing my face, and I'm not doing the whole "your body is starving so it's hanging onto every calorie" thing either. I'm eating normally. And it's not that hateful "building muscle" thing either, because I'm only lifting weights once or twice a week. Certainly not enough to justify this.

I can't describe the frustration. I know I shouldn't focus on the numbers, but that's only part of it. No matter how good I feel on a good day, as soon as I see a picture of myself that good feeling is gone. It's like "...oh. That's what I look like? I thought I looked pretty that day. But... Oh." And it's so sad.

I hope this doesn't jinx me

Sascha has been awesome lately. I hate to write it here because every time I do, she turns into the devil's spawn again. But she is snuggling and trying to say more words and generally being agreeable. When I put her in her crib, I tuck the blanket around her and whisper "tuck-tuck-tuck" and she thinks it's a riot. Now that has become her code for "snuggle me," like if I'm on the couch and she wants to come up, she'll put her arms up and whisper "tuck-tuck-tuck." Kills me. We have to be careful about the talking thing because she's starting to repeat after us, which is not good when Mama burns her hand and yells "shit!" Not that she's repeated that one yet, but give her time. Like a day. She still dances to everything, including "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" and calls out "MAMBO!" when we play "Mambo Italiano." She rules. Now I am more excited than ever for summer vacation.

I'm feeling a lot more optimistic in general. I think it's the weather. We had about a week of warm, sunny, open-windowed perfection recently that really set my mood. Half-marathon training is picking up, as it should, seeing how the race is less than five weeks away. I've been pushing myself harder and harder and I'm up to 7 miles. Only six more to go... I figure if I can get to 12, I'll be able to handle the full amount on race day.

...But if you try sometimes, you'll find you get what you need

I had a crappy day. Just crappy. Two things:

First, a co-worker shat all over me. The short version: we are both advisers for a club at school. Out of the six competitions we have been in this year, I've been to five; my co-worker, one. She always has excuses. The competitions involve travel and getting home late. The last one is tomorrow. I have a toddler, my co-worker has grown children. I asked her to go, and she basically just said no. And was indignant and bitchy that I asked. My blood was boiling out of my ears all day. Knowing how she is, she probably ripped into me to the other teachers during lunch. How dare I ask her to pull her weight. Or rather, one-quarter of her weight, considering how little she has done already.

Then I got home and had an e-mail from a friend who has no kids. I will spare the details but she went into a passive-aggressive rant about parents who expect the world to stop for them when they have children. She implied that when her neighbor has a baby, she will feel smug in not helping them that much because they chose their fate and knew what they were getting into.

I just. Today just kicked my ass. And I was reading that e-mail while Sascha was downstairs having a total sobbing meltdown over something or other. (she's cutting molars right now.)

I don't know if the friend thinks parenthood is so glowing and wonderful that parents deserve shitty times? Deserve to lose all their friends? Deserve to suffer because they chose to have kids? Deserve hostility when they're, oh I don't know, healing from major surgery? I don't know. All I could think was that maybe she was sold the same load I was before I had a baby: the image of the calm, sweet, cooing baby that fulfills every desire the mother ever dreamed of. The one in the commercials. That bullshit baby. So from the outside, it seems like we're having the time of our lives and just whining about a few sleepless nights.

So, back to the title of this post: after Sascha's bath tonight, it was my turn to do the bedtime routine. I was too tired to care whether I felt like it or not, I was just going through the motions. Well. She was awesome. She snuggled and giggled and pointed out letters in her book. She said actual words (when she's lazy she just points and says "kee!" to everything and to be honest, it's a little annoying). She sang a little song. She said "Mama." She let me kiss her a hundred times and relaxed into my chest instead of wiggling away.

She was that bullshit baby. Just when I needed it most.

So here's to you, my lovely daughter. Thank you for redeeming my truly shitty day.

Contentment

I haven't been posting much lately... I feel like the point of this blog is to document the trials and tribulations of pregnancy and motherhood, and the trials are just getting fewer and farther between. That kid just rocks my world. She is completely awesome about 90% of the time. Really. Smiley, singing, dancing, and totally entertaining.

She is lovely.


Oh, also, she's feeling much better. That sickness lasted about a week. It was a long week, because Nick got the flu at the same time. I'm blocking the memory.

Trial by Fire

Sascha is sick with the croup. Sunday night, we were advised by the doctor call-in service to take her to the ER because of a fever spike, so we did. We spent 7 hours there. She’s fine by the way—- still sick of course, but fine. We got home around midnight. I got about 4 hours of sleep, which made me the lucky one since I had to work the next day. Nick stayed in Sascha’s room and got a lot less because he took the next day off. She had a rough day and didn’t improve.

Just setting the stage.

We decided that the next day would be my turn to take off. So it was my turn to stay with her at night. With four hours of sleep under my belt from the night before, I was dreading it. For a good part of the day, she had slept for about 3-4 minutes, then she would wake up to cough, then cry. Then fall asleep again, and so on. I was looking at a long night, and I was exhausted before it started. It reminded me so much of her newborn days when Nick went back to work.

I set up the TV room like a huge bed. I wasn’t going to set up camp on her bedroom floor since there’s no TV in there, and I wasn’t going to be up all night with no TV. Also, standing up and leaning over her crib to tend to her all night was not appealing. I was surprised that she did okay. She woke up about every 30 minutes to cough and cry instead of four, so I was actually able to sleep in between those times and I feel somewhat sane today. Still, every 30 minutes… rough. But I was right next to her so I could comfort her easily.

So here is the trial by fire part. First, I tried to give her some drugs of some sort, and infant drugs come in sugary syrups. She batted it away, getting sticky syrup all over both of us, including in my hair. She woke up around 1:30 in a coughing fit that made her vomit, which she did all over me and herself. She hasn’t been eating, so it was all mucus she’s draining. Mucus vomit. We had to go up and both change, but it was on our skin too. Oh well. This morning she did the same thing with the drugs: syrup all over the place. I managed to peel her off of myself so I could go to the bathroom and make breakfast. I brought my tea & toast into our little lair and realized that she had pooped (pooped what? She hasn’t eaten anything!). I picked her up, and for the first time since in ages, the poop had leaked out the sides of the diaper… onto a pillow that doesn’t have a removable cover. I took her upstairs to change her. Opened her diaper, and splat! She reached her hand down and stuck it right in the mess, then grabbed her pacifier with her shit-covered hand. I grabbed a wipe and tried to clean her hand while she wiggled and the other hand threatened to head south. The next wipe I pulled out of the pack was the last one. Of course it was!

I thought, okay—- I just have to put her in the shower. Now, Nick and I have a problem with our showers: whoever built this house put an anti-scald contraption into the faucets and went way overboard, so our showers barely get above body temperature. (To fix it involves cutting into the shower wall and several hundred dollars we don’t have.) To get it even that warm, we have to set the hot water temp for the whole house so that it’s hot enough to make tea out of the kitchen faucet. The cool showers are really fun in winter. So I was running our lukewarm shower and trying to undress us both while crumbs of shit fell off her back onto the bath mat that I just washed two days ago. Naturally, she stepped on them and ground them into the rug. We showered off (I remembered the syrup on our faces/arms/necks and dried vomit on our chests—- bonus!) as she wailed hoarse, pathetic sobs. I dressed her and put dirty clothes on my still-wet body, and came downstairs. My tea was cold.

Now we’re back in front of my best friend, the TV, and she’s letting me type. God bless Sesame Street.

Edited To Add:

Did I say 3:30 to 6:30? HAHAHAHAHA!!!

I meant whenever we're around her. Loud, loud yelling. It just so happens that during the week, we're around her from 3:30 to 6:30. Weekends are fun...

Is this normal?

This is the soundtrack to our lives between 3:30 and 6:30.

Also, she had her first fever last night. At 14.5 months, I think we've been extraordinarily lucky there. But it was awful. She woke up puking, crying, and boiling hot. Tylenol took care of her temperature literally within minutes. But it was pretty scary. She woke up the same way this morning. She let me rock her and sing to her, limp and whining in my arms. There was a little, tiny, selfish part of me that was thinking it was nice to have her need me. 99% of the time she is pushing me away and squirming.

Despite the voices of reason, I still think she got sick because I poisoned her. I made flour tortillas last night and the Crisco was a little off (it was old). The tortillas smelled like turpentine. So I'm noticing this, and telling Nick I can't stand to have the gasoline tortillas even close me because the smell was so vile AS WE ARE FEEDING IT TO SASCHA. Guhh, the stupidity.

This is the third night in a row that I've been so exhausted that I'm trembling by 6 pm. I have no idea if this is normal. Sometimes I wonder if I've just been so spoiled in my life that I can't handle a hard day's work. Maybe, but I worked in restaurants for years where I'd come home shaking like that. However, when I was working in restaurants, I got nights off. I wasn't working double shifts 7 days a week. Really, it has got to be me, because women have way more kids than I do and they do it with smiles on their faces. I have one, and I feel like I die a little more every day from the tired.

I feel like I'm due for another post about my post-partum body, but I'm tired-- it will have to wait until next time.

A glimmer of light at 14 months

A few days ago, it happened. I had one night. One night where I got a glimpse at the light at the end of the baby tunnel!

It was that weird chunk of time between getting home and having dinner. I don't like that time. She's usually whiny and squirmy and kind of awful (hungry/tired/antsy). I spend the whole time trying to force myself to be positive, secretly wondering if I will ever enjoy motherhood. Then of course there's the self-hatred that inevitably follows that line of thinking.

But the other day? Wow. Just wow. She plaaaaayed. By h e r s e l f. Quietly. And I got to make a nice dinner for all three of us. AND clean up the dishes. AND get lunches started for the next day. All by 5:30! Seeing it in print, I am in disbelief all over again. But it was wonderful. And all I could think was, maybe as she gets older I might have more days like this. Maybe. If I'm gonna dream, I'm gonna dream big. And if that is what it can be, then I can totally do this parenthood gig. My god, if I could get one night a week like that it would be as good as a spa day.

Once again, the pendulum swings back...

Aaaaand, I'm infatuated with my kid again. (Yes, manic-depressive motherhood is exhausting.)

We had such a lovely weekend. We went to a neighbor kid's birthday party, which was held in this place full of bouncy houses. I had a total blast bouncing around with her and watching her try to walk in that place. Watching her try to interact with the bigger kids. Oh, my god, I feel myself dying inside a little just remembering it. They didn't ignore her because she is little and cute, it was just... it just killed me to see her out in a social situation.

I'm going through a phase where I'm so obsessed with her that I will lie in bed at night mentally replaying the nice moments I had with her that day. It's like when you first start dating someone, how you think about them and want to be with them all the time. Is it possible to have a crush on your child? Part of me wishes it could always be like this, but then I know I would spontaneously combust, and that wouldn't be good for anyone. The other day, I guess I had been smothering her face with kisses (again) and some of her stinky-breath saliva had gotten on my face somewhere (milk breath + pacifier + teeth = sour stank). I realized this while she was napping and I was watching TV. I tried to breathe very carefully so I could smell that smell as much as possible. Gross, huh? That's right. I miss her stank-ass breath when I'm away from her. Because it's her.

I've been suggesting to Nick that he take Sascha to visit his parents over our winter break, fantasizing about having the house to myself and how much I could get done if they went. But last night I was rocking her just before bedtime, and Nick came in the room and quoted a plane fare. I felt my throat tighten in a quick panicked-cry response. And it's not that they'd be gone, it's just the prospect of something happening to them, which would make every molecule of my being come unglued. Fortunately we decided we can't afford it. So our basement will remain a pit, but I get to keep smelling that lovely sour breath as she plays with my necklaces and snuggles into my chest.

I wrote this two weeks ago

(Today is Jan. 22. Just sayin'. I intended to edit this more, and like everything else, I just never got around to it. So you get two, two, two posts in one.)

Sascha has been going through this phase lately, which, if she were older, I'd call PMS. She is so irritable, constantly whining and yelling. Nick is so good (again) with the "poor kid, something must be wrong..." Me: "SHUT UP KID FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY!" (okay, so I growl this under my breath instead of yelling it at her, lest you call DSS on me.) Last night Nick and I were both wiped out from work. We didn't want to think about dinner and we wanted to celebrate the fact that we still had three figures in the bank the day before payday (okay, $110, and that's only because we still haven't bought my brother's Xmas present), so we loaded up the car and headed to Chili's. We got about a mile from the house when Sascha melted down and we had to turn around. Nick and I were both at the end of our ropes. I wanted to have a tantrum myself. I just (stomp). Wanted (stomp). Someone (stomp). Else (stomp). To bring me dinner (back arch)! These are the moments when I hate motherhood.

We came home, dosed her with drugs and we were all happier. I escaped to go get Indian takeout and there was a happy ending after all, but still. I just want to go to a stupid restaurant and be served. Even stupid Chili's.

When she isn't whining, I'm still crazy about her. Her verbal abilities seem to improve every day, and she really seems to be trying hard to get words right. However, so much of it is just variations of "da-da." She uses da-da for bye-bye, thank you, Auntie (although that's "ah-da"-- not to be confused with the "ah-da" that means "all done," because they're so different) and of course when she sees Nick. Of course we can tell the difference between all of these, being typical idiot parents, like people who insist their pets make facial expressions. We also think we can see a difference in her enthusiasm when she's eating the same food we're having for dinner. If we have something crunchy/spicy/salady/soupy, we have to give her a separate meal and it's a fight. We're just idiots. Idiots in love. At least most of the time.

Cool new trick, and random thoughts

If I tell Sascha to sing "This Old Man," without giving her the tune, she'll hum it. It's awesome. She has also discovered some new consonants, so she goes around going "goy-goy-goy-goy-goy!" Which would be so much funnier if we were Jewish, but ah well.

Also, I taught her something last night that I was especially proud of. We were reading this book that has little stars that stick (tightly) to the page with velcro. She tried to rip one off and it was hard. Tried again, then got frustrated and did her thing-- she holds her hands up and shakes them up & down when she gets frustrated, it's hilarious-- and turned the page in a huff. I talked her down, turned the page back, and calmly made her try again until she got it. And she did! And then sat there doing it over and over for about five minutes. Having major frustration issues myself, I thought this was a pretty big moment. I hope with all hope that this is a tactic that will work in the future.

I have no idea where this came from (a conversation with Nick I think), but yesterday I remembered the first time I tried to find online support when I got pregnant. I'll name names, I got on babycenter.com's forums. I remembered that I was terrified, and desperate for someone to validate that somehow, and then this male (!) doctor who was in charge of the forum blasted me for being too negative. I left that forum of course, but not before giving that guy a piece of my mind. I feel sorry for any other women that try to go there for support, unless they're having a 100% easy pregnancy, mentally and physically.

Finally-- The hard drive on our computer died and we lost a year's worth of pictures. Sascha's first year of life. We do have a good perspective about it (I mean, we didn't lose HER), and I still have all the ones from her birth on disk, and my mom has a lot of her own, but it's still sad. Back up your pictures, everyone. *sigh*

I think I may have finally arrived!

I think I'm finally there. I think I am truly and completely in love with Sascha now. It only took, what, 13 months? I can't apologize for how I felt before. But to my surprise (and relief), I am starting to feel the actual need to see her now, the need to spend time with her and-- yes!-- play with her. Thanks to the suggestions I got here and from friends, I am relaxing so much more about the playing thing. Which means I am just relaxing more about her in general. And when people ask me how she's doing, I don't have to LIE anymore and act like she's so fun and awesome! Oy, I have been lying about that for a solid year. Indulging everyone else's nostalgia for babies, "oh, she's just so much fun..." Lie, lie, lie, I was LYING MY ASS OFF PEOPLE. And now she IS fun! Hooray! Oh God, her little talking and animal noises... Also, she is getting more snuggly, which is amazing. She's never been snuggly before! When she rests her head on me, it's like a puzzle piece clicks inside of me. It is total contentment. Wow! Listen to me!! I sound like a regular girl, the kind who gushes from the day she finds out she's pregnant! God, it is nice to feel normal sometimes.

On that note, I mentioned to a friend recently that Nick & I were rolling around with Sascha on the hard kitchen floor with all the crumbs & filth, having a ball (see? playing!). She said I didn't seem like the kind of person who would roll around on the floor or have filth on it. I didn't know if this was a compliment or a dig, but me being me, I got paranoid. The very next day I caught about ten minutes of Tea Leoni in "Spanglish" and wondered if that's how people see me, as that tightly-wound. Really the best I can do is just hope not. But it's not the first time I've heard someone say something like that.

I certainly don't have the holiday under control. It's Dec. 14th today and we still don't have a tree up, which genuinely saddens me. Nick and I set a spending limit on each other of $25, and I went and spent $50. Then I worried that he'd get mad. And I have been subsisting on cookies. Um, on top of the 4-5 full meals I'm eating in a day. The day I took off to get Christmas in order? I spent one big block at the gym, and the next big block making four kinds of cookies. (NONE of which were given away. None.) This left me about 30 minutes to decorate, and the cards? Um, still working on them. I just cannot stop putting things into my mouth. Granted, I've been working out at school a lot, so if I'm gaining, I'm gaining slowly (I'm certainly not losing, psheh!). I put on my fattest fat jeans the other day and they still fit perfectly. Thanks be to cookies.

Oh hell, BUT, BUT, I just signed my hippo-ass up to run a HALF MARATHON next June. The longest I've ever run is 10K, and that was when I was in high school reunion shape. Now I am a postpartum horror show, wheezing and shuffling through my 30 minutes at a stretch. But I have five months. Also, physical therapy is helping. I found out that in addition to the rearranged skeleton, I even have a rib that popped out of alignment. No wonder. And I want to go through it again?

Final unrelated comment: I noticed that I've gotten a lot of comments from women in England. I have no idea how this happened, but I so completely dig it. I miss England terribly. Sometimes I want to crawl into my "Office" DVD box set and live there for a while.

I suck

I thought I'd cut right to the chase with that title. Shameful confession time:

The other day I heard someone describing how she was playing with her infant daughter (which was not the point of her story, but it stood out to me). I thought to myself, "oh yeah..." I realized that I do not know how to play with Sascha. Short of peek-a-boo, reading books with her, and tickling, I'm clueless. I usually just channel-surf while she plays, bored, willing the clock to get to dinner/bath/bedtime/freedom. Mother of the year, right here folks. So here I am shamefully searching for how-to books on Amazon. No luck so far.

Suggestions welcome. *tail tucked*

Back Issues

So it's been a year of back pain now. It has never stopped hurting to take a deep breath and my lower back has been sore for a solid year. I have finally started to go to physical therapy for it. I had been blaming it on my excess weight, which I'm sure doesn't help. But it turns out the pregnancy hormones, the ones that relax the ligaments, made my scoliosis problems worse and knocked my hips out of alignment. The PT exercises are killing me. The first night, I had to sleep with a heating pad under my hip. This morning, I couldn't move because of pain in a whole different part of my back. I reeeeally hope this starts to improve.

And on the subject of weight, I've been working out at school for a week now. It is fantastic! My only gripe is that I'd like an extra 20 minutes or so, and carrying my purse + school bag + workout bag every day looks like I'm going on a weeklong trip, but otherwise I can't complain. I'm definitely going to keep doing it. I haven't started to diet yet, but that will come after the holiday (cookie) season. Good thing I have plenty of XL clothes to get me through the winter.

I'm going to take a day off school soon to try to "do" Christmas in a single day. That is, bake, decorate, and do cards. I just might be smoking crack. But it almost can't be done any other way. On the weekends, if Nick tells me that he's got Sascha and I can do whatever I like, that is a guarantee that she will be difficult enough that I will have to stop what I'm doing and help him. Today Nick said this, and then we spent three hours trying to get her to nap. She cried, we fought from the stress, and now that she's out (thanks to infant Motrin), all I want to do is nap too.

Hmmm. Not a bad idea.

I am insanely in love with her, honestly, but I am in dire need of a vacation from my own kid. Work does not count. I cannot think of how to make this happen with our extremely limited budget. I may just have to think about it until she's old enough to go to summer camp.

Cake Shot

Note frosting on the wall. My girl knows how to do it right!

Report Card at one year!

Here's the short version: I wouldn't wish the first year of parenthood on my worst enemy. And I had it considerably easy! Healthy kid, great husband, lots of family help. But it still sucked. I'll post her birthday pic in a separate post because I hate that scrunched-up text that will happen if I put it here.

Now that she's a year old, she is definitely getting more fun and manageable. I am trying so hard to be more positive. And I am beginning to figure out ways to manage my life. A tremendous help is that my free period at school is the one that's attached to lunch, so I basically have 70 solid minutes instead of the usual 45. I will often leave school to run errands, which is huge. I've decided that I'm going to start running in my school's weight room during my free period. I will come back to teach my last two classes somewhat sweaty, but they will have to deal. Maybe I'll even set an example.

A few nights ago Nick and I went out to dinner (our fourth date in a year!). We talked about how we've been so bad about writing stuff down in Sascha's baby book. I pulled out a scrap of paper and we scrawled out things that we want to remember. Here is a sample:

• Singing to herself. She does this instead of sucking her thumb as a comfort measure. It started out with me quietly humming a two-note “song” when she was newborn and lying against my chest, and she picked it up. Two notes, over and over, like a European ambulance. Only slower.
• She laughs at the Shea Homes commercial that comes on just before Curious George. Something about the picture of the three babies reading.
• She giggles when we tuck her in at night. We lay her in her crib, and when we cover her up she puts her arm on top of the covers (always) and giggles.
• When she eats, she makes this “eeegh” sound when she wants more. At her christening, the priest came around and gave me a chunk of bread for communion. I broke off a little piece for her, and as she was chewing on it she said “eeegh” very business-like. Cracked me up.
• She makes a phone out of everything, meaning she puts it up to her ear and says “hi!” Everything. Her pacifier, her Ernie doll, blocks.
• She does a Pacifier Switcheroo. If there are two pacifiers in front of her, she will suck on one, grab the other, and switch it out. Back & forth, back & forth. The funny part is that she looks like she’s really concentrating on the unique flavor of each one, as if it was so different from the last.
• She dances to everything, usually by twisting her shoulders. She will even dance to the rhythm of Nick’s footsteps. It’s awesome.

The Brass Ring

This is what opportunities (like the chance to blog) feel like in my life lately, because if I don't grab them at the moment they occur, I've swept past them and they're gone. So I have a lot of updating to do... this is the benefit of waking up at 3 am, unable to sleep.

I've been on this roller coaster of emotion lately. I know that sounds cliche, but somehow "acid trip of emotion" doesn't sound much better, particularly when it's referring to a drug I've never done. Sometimes I feel like I've really got this motherhood thing down now, I'm in a groove, I'm enjoying her, I can entertain thoughts of a second baby. Other times, I completely lose my shit and hate all over myself. Since I last posted, I've had some weekend afternoons where Sascha laid on my chest for an hour or more, sometimes napping, sometimes just idly watching TV with me while I smell her hair. This has made me fall impossibly, desperately in love with her. And it's about time, since we're closing in on one year. I'm relieved. I still blame my breastfeeding failure for my not feeling bonded with Sascha. She never makes me feel like she needs me. She rarely even says Mama. Of course, to paraphrase Dr. Phil, I don't want to give her a job. I shouldn't expect anything from her. But, you know. It would be nice to feel like I've done something right. Anything.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm capable of loving anyone at all, given my obsession with Accomplishing Piddly Errands. Literally, obsession. I got angry with her yesterday because she wasn't napping and was being high-maintenance, which meant that I couldn't fold my laundry. I called my mom and said something horrible about why anyone would want kids, why did I do this, and then hung up and hated myself bitterly for the next few hours for not having my priorities straight (and crying to Nick about what an awful person I am). But then he took over and she fell asleep, and once I was able to get the laundry done and some end-of-season yardwork that's been nagging at me, I felt like a new person. I was able to be totally calm and present and really enjoy Sascha's company, eating crackers with her. I *hate* that I am that way. That my to-do list comes first or else I'm a rotten beast. And it doesn't have to be the whole list, but I have to have accomplished something before I can relax.

I've realized that motherhood has shone a big spotlight on how incredibly weak and shallow I really am. It has brought out the Can't-Do attitude in me like nothing else ever has. It turns out that I am the very opposite of strong. The very opposite of mothers I admire, who have nine kids and do so much and it never seems hard. Me? Huge whiner.

Maybe it's because I'm trying to do the work of Mike, Carol, and Alice. No wonder they all seemed so happy. Mike Brady may have been in the closet, but he had a third of the workload of the modern American. And Carol? Psheh, bitch didn't work AND she had a live-in housekeeper.

The latest stressor is money. We haven't had money issues since 2004. We've gotten very used to having pretty much everything we want, within reason-- we had to save a few months for major purchases like a new TV, and we're not huge spenders, but we've been very comfortable. But since we bought a new car this summer to replace Nick's two-seater, and are shelling out $400 a month for childcare, it's amazing how tight things have become. Cutting back on food and energy costs hasn't been that hard, but the most obvious impact to me has been on small impulse buys: a book here, a necklace there, maybe some cute clothes for Sascha that she doesn't need. Now I see them and have to remind myself that I can't do that anymore. Because we're paid every two weeks, there are two months a year where there are three paydays. (Even using the word "payday" makes me feel like white trash. I know, I am a bitch, look at the blog's title.) I am not exaggerating when I say that I think the only reason Christmas will happen in this house this year is because November is a three-paycheck month. It's crazy. I'm trying to come up with legal and semi-legal ways to make more money without having to commute to another job (like selling baked goods to my students out of my room-- I'm wondering how illegal that is... mattress-tag illegal? Or tax evasion illegal?). We can cut costs in small ways, like cancelling Netflix and magazine subscriptions, but we can't lower our tremendous insurance bill. I constantly find myself wondering what other people do, because I have a good job and had lots of help from my parents to offset the total cost of the house and car. How does anyone else do it? This country is set up to work against anyone trying to keep their heads above water. If I didn't have help from my parents, I'd be using credit cards to move my ass to Canada.

I'll finish this post on a high note: you know that certification thing I was working on last winter?

I PASSED!!!!!!!!!

Granted, it was by the skin of my teeth, but who cares? I am a Nationally Board Certified Teacher. I am so, so glad that's behind me.

The Longest Post In All The Land

Lately I’ve been feeling like I’m starting to get a concrete picture of my life... and it isn’t good. The exhaustion is building on itself in layers: Sunday was a nightmare combination of: *me trying to fit in way too many tasks while Sascha napped, * Nick needing a day to himself due to a family crisis, and * Sascha being a teething beast at my parents’ house for dinner that night and not sleeping. Sobbing pathetically, but not sleeping. Which led to me sobbing. I went home so tired I barely remember driving, and then decorated cookies for my niece’s birthday for over an hour on shaky knees. School the next day left no time to recover, and then I was back at school that night for Parent-Teacher night. Today is Thursday and I still haven’t recovered. I have never used so much concealer in my life. I woke up this morning looking like I had been roughed up a little.

During dinner on Sunday my aunt mentioned that she & a few other relatives had recently been to this museum, and that my dad didn’t go with them because he went to the bookstore. Just hearing that simple snippet of conversation made me realize something. I feel 100% imprisoned. I cannot go to museums or bookstores. My high-maintenance baby would not suffer it kindly, and if I ever got a sitter I would never be able to use it to go to a museum— in the triage that is my life, there are 100 far more urgent things to be done. This means, for instance, that I have to pass up work social events in order to see friends I haven’t seen in six months. Not that it means that much to me, but by God I feel like I am saying “no, I can’t” to an awful lot of things. It’s like I’m permanently grounded. That whole my-day-your-day schedule is not working anymore, because due to traffic we get home at 4 pm. Now that we’ve shifted Sascha’s bedtime back so we could go to bed earlier (um, and because I never really knew what was an appropriate bedtime before— heh— I just learned it’s earlier than I thought), we eat dinner between 5:30 and 6. So there’s no gym. No shopping. Really nothing. Even if I leave the house to run necessary errands, I feel my heart racing with stress, usually because I can only go when it’s 30 minutes before dinner needs to be started and there’s always traffic. I basically can’t take Sascha anywhere, assuming it would coordinate perfectly with her naps, because she starts freaking out. So I just come home and... Sit. In the house. Watching Oprah while she plays, waiting for… I don’t know what. Her next meltdown? Her bedtime? For her to go to college? I am careful to give Nick the time he needs for himself so that I can have equal time, which I then overstuff with Things That Need To Be Done. And in that hour a day, I never, ever catch up. Sascha continues to chew on bath toys painted in China. I continue to put on bras that haven’t been washed in weeks. My classroom website is outdated. I haven’t e-mailed my aunt to thank her for something nice she did for me two weeks ago. I still have to call to get a confirmation number for my shrink appointment two months ago. The list goes on. If Nick were to give me necessary-tasks time in addition to actual me-time, I wouldn’t see Sascha until she was twelve.

So I feel like I’m under house arrest in a glass prison. I can see out, I just can’t GET out. And I’m starting to wonder if this shackled/exhausted combo is going to continue until she is an adult. At this point I am just letting life bend me over and waiting to see what happens next. I wonder how much worse I will start to look, and how many more things will slip my mind as the layers of exhaustion accumulate. I am probably juggling 10 different balls right now. I’m going to take a day off work soon, but it’s so that I can clean up the landscaping for the winter, and that’s a whole day. Naturally, all I ever want to do is stuff my face, and yet I’m supposed to be thin. Right? On that note…

I recently finished reading A Thousand Splendid Suns. It got me thinking, wow, women have it so bad over there, aren’t we lucky? I fantasized about a parallel life where I could dedicate myself to helping women in other countries. I thought, how great it is to be American. But now that I am a mother, I am not so sure about that. This country is positively hostile to mothers. It is considered an insult to tell someone they look like a mom. The pressure to be thin and beautiful is like our version of the burqa because it controls so many women and serves to dismiss any other reason they might be taken seriously (see any comments about Hillary Clinton’s weight, because, you know, that makes her an unfit candidate). A friend of mine is 34 weeks pregnant. Her employer wants to see her baby’s hospital bracelet as proof of the baby’s birthdate. What an utter insult. All of it enrages me. I was going to start quoting statistics until I found this amazing website that pretty much says it all. And nothing will ever change. Makes me realize that I would be just as helpless going to Afghanistan to help women there, too.

I’m going to tack this onto the end because I don’t feel like making it a whole new post. So on a MUCH lighter note, I made a vegetarian meatloaf for Sascha on Sunday when I was running myself ragged. It is the absolute bomb, and— miracle!!— she will eat it! I was getting sick of the veggie-free meat/cheese/bread diet of hers, so I adapted this recipe from Giada.

½ c. brown rice
¾ c. lentils
Onions, carrots, celery
Spinach (two large handfuls of organic baby spinach)
Garlic, oregano, thyme, basil
1 c. shredded mozzarella
Two eggs
(I also threw in half an avocado that Sascha refused to eat.)
Salt & pepper

Cook the lentils & rice well. Sauté onions, carrots, celery slowly until cooked. Add garlic & herbs, then spinach at the end to wilt. Put about 2/3 of the lentils and rice with the veg, cheese, and eggs into a food processor and run it until smooth. Mix with the rest of the lentils & rice. This definitely needs SALT and pepper. Pour into loaf pan sprayed with Pam and bake at 350 for about 45 minutes. This is ridiculously good.

I feel compelled to clarify after all that ranting that I am insanely in love with Sascha. She gives me absolute pure joy. This morning as I was changing her diaper, she farted and startled herself. I mean, that is comedy gold. As she watched me crack up, she blew a raspberry with her tongue. She is brilliant and hilarious and I am crazy about her. So there, I am not entirely selfish and heartless.

Aaaaand, I’m spent. The last bell is about to ring. Thank God for video day.

On turning 36

I wish I had something more interesting and insightful to say about it, to be honest. But it's a weird number. Like I remember my mom being this age. I guess I would have been around 14. It always seemed so much older to me. The permanence of age is starting to dawn on me, I guess.

A very old friend (and the best man from our wedding) is in town visiting. He is single and doesn't have kids, and we were talking about parenthood last night. He gave me the best compliment I think I've received since having Sascha. Not that I'm a great mom, or that I look skinny or anything like that. He said that what strikes him most is that Nick and I are the same people we were before, just with a child now. He added that some people change completely when they have a child; usually for the worse because they get extremely uptight and nervous. And apparently we haven't. I am still basking in the glow of that comment. It means that one of my top goals as a parent has been accomplished. Now if I could just conquer that I'm-a-sucky-mother guilt...

And we are back to the crazybusy. I think I am one of the only mothers I know who has a full-time work schedule. Not working from home, not part-time or off-hours, but five full days a week with a commute. I have to remind myself of that when I start feeling exhausted or frazzled, or especially when I am feeling inadequate. Any addition to my regularly scheduled programming makes me feel a little panicky. So if my peers are able to work out, or read, or make homemade Christmas ornaments or whatever, I need to not be so hard on myself because I can't. The next two or three weeks (starting tomorrow) I have a mountain of baking to do for various things, and I feel like a deer in headlights. Over brownies.

A friend of mine said recently that there is a fine line between keeping it all together and losing your shit entirely, and she feels like she is always rubbing up against it, threatening to cross it (I'm paraphrasing, sorry Jeanne). That is definitely me.

Baby food even I want to eat

I have been making Sascha some kick-ass baby food lately. I've done the spinach frittata thing. I did the zucchini pancakes (which, strangely, she will only eat in front of the TV and nowhere else). I made these fish cakes based on a technique I learned in culinary school: raw tiliapia and salmon in a food processor, processed to smooth, then cooked. We did this with shrimp in school to make ravioli filling, but I piped this into little bite-sized dots (fish nonpareils?) and baked them.

I thought they tasted amazing and Nick said "why can't we have fish cakes?" However, Sascha's reaction to all this great food was not as enthusiastic.

Note tantrum arms.

She pretty much only wants bread, fruit, and cheese. And rotini pasta with big chunks of tomatoes in the sauce. *sigh.* So a handful of fish cakes and a big slice of spinach frittata went into a tortilla with some salsa for my lunch that day. I had put a little raw onion in with the fish. I think that might be too strong a flavor for her. Maybe next time I'll try some chives or something more mild. Maybe add some cream cheese for extra binding and texture.

Also, I am officially no longer trying to get pregnant until next summer. Our latest attempt didn't take, and since I want a spring baby, that was it for a while. Mom disagrees with this decision because I'm not getting any younger, but if I have to go back to school before the baby is sleeping through the night, I will die-- it damn near killed me last time. So I'm trying to time it for spring. I'm a little bummed because this means Sascha won't have a sibling really close in age. At the earliest, they'll be 2.5 years apart now. The good thing is that she'll be a little more self-sufficient by then so if I do have a second baby, I won't be as crazy as I would have been with basically two babies. Also, I get to drink through the holidays. And I've decided that now that I won't be pregnant for a while, when the holidays are over I'm going to try to lose some weight. Not the full extra 20 lbs. that I'm carrying-- way too daunting a task, and a setup for failure-- but just enough to make me more comfortable and less horrified. Like ten pounds.

I also have to re-affirm my position that this may end up being our only child. If we tried diligently for three months and nothing happened, what if I can't get pregnant again? I know many women who have this issue-- had one, can't have another. I have to make myself okay with this, because I'm just not willing to go through fertility treatments of any kind. Sascha is so great, so at least we did a good job once. I think my biggest regret would be that I didn't enjoy her enough when she was really tiny. I was thinking I would be doing it again, and I was overwhelmed and freaked out and preoccupied with the breastfeeding issues. I think I'd just like one more shot at the whole process-- pregnancy, birth, newbornhood, all of it, now that I'm not so afraid of it all. I have zero expectations for breastfeeding. Hopes for a miracle? Yeah, a little. But I do expect the same thing to happen, so at least I won't spend all my time crying in frustration and disappointment.


(Maybe my knowlege of HTML is way outdated, but for the life of me I cannot figure out how to maintain spacing after adding pictures. Arrgh!)

Getting back in the swing of things

Ahh... so we're back to the craziness of school. I think we have a good routine down. Four days a week, we switch days back and forth: M/W are Nick's days, T/Th are mine. (Friday we help each other try not to die from exhaustion.) This means that after school we can do what we want and the other person is on baby duty. The intent was that we would go to the gym, but it can also be web-surfing, napping, running errands, whatever we want. It is working out really well so far. There's no guilt, resentment or baby burnout, and I feel like I'm starting to get a grip on my life again. The person whose day it is is also responsible for dinner and putting Sascha to bed while the other person does dishes, so I am especially fond of my days since I love both cooking ang putting her to bed. Then we make lunches together and pretty much go right to bed.

I think the secret to getting everything done is never watching TV. And never idly surfing the web at home, and not bringing home any work. It is all productivity, all the time. Sounds awful but it's not so bad. I do get some web-surfing time at work, which is great. I think of all the hours of my life I wasted in the past on "Seinfeld" reruns, although I miss our nightly post-dinner "Simpsons-or-Jeopardy?" dilemma. We'll watch a little TV just before we go to bed, but lately I've tried to be very conscious about turning it off when there's nothing on-- I am reading again! Or if I'm extra tired and need to turn it off and go to sleep, even if it's only 9 pm. But I am in the middle of three books now. They are the icing on the cake of my life. I've really missed reading.

Now, if I could just maintain this level of smoothness in my life through the holidays.

Sascha continues to be amazing. I can't believe she is actually going to get cuter and smarter than she is now. In short? She rules. It only took 9 months, but she's finally easy!

I forgot to put this in my last post: Nick and I went on Date #3 (post-Sascha) a few weeks ago! It was awesome. Awesome. He took me to this beautiful, overpriced restaurant where we ate slowly and got a chance to really sit and talk. Alone. We talked about food and traveling and our home improvement fantasies; all good stuff. It was so incredibly soul-satisfying. It was an early dinner and we wanted so much to go somewhere else for dessert, but we were too full and tired so we went home. But we have got to do that more often. Dating is absolutely essential to the health of our marriage. Driving to school together doesn't count. Getting together with other couples doesn't either, as much as I love doing that. Just. Us. Alone. And I forgot how great it felt to fix myself up all purdy-like. Stay tuned for Date #4, which will probably be happening roughly six months from now.

Speaking of fixing myself up, the body acceptance project is still on. It has freed up an awful lot of energy and brain-space for me. It still takes work though, and it still hurts when people refer to Britney Spears as a big fat pig when I would kill to look like that. But generally, I've just tried to not think about it. One thing I have thought of, however, is this analogy: you know when you buy a brand-new fitted sheet? It comes in this nice flat package. Once you open the sheet and take it out, there is nothing you could ever do to fold it back up the way it was when you bought it. Well I think that's what happened with my insides during my c-section. Because my stomach is still freakishly big. Really freakish, like second-trimester big. But what am I gonna do about it, really? I was doing 100 crunches a day for a while and it didn't budge. Now, I am just running for mental clarity. Ahhh.

My favorite holiday

Is today, Labor Day (tied with Memorial Day). Because there's nothing to it. No decorating, no cards to send, no gifts to buy, no big meals to cook, no airports or long trafficky drives, no hurt feelings, no expectations, no stress. That is my kind of holiday!! And what am I doing? That's right, sitting on my ass. It's lovely. The other holidays always make me feel like a failure: I don't decorate enough, my cards are never on time, we can never visit everyone at once... ugh.

It's also my last day of summer. We go back tomorrow. I'm kind of excited, because at work I get more time to myself-- one solid, uninterrupted hour every day!! But I'm kind of sad because I won't have my kids from last year, who I loved to pieces. And of course I will miss Sascha, but given the chance to actually miss her, I will be a much better mother. More appreciative, less burned out.

She has been okay. The stellar behavior has relaxed into a happy medium. Naps are back (yes!) and so are baths. But there always has to be something... so now it's eating. Every meal is a fight. She refuses to be spoon-fed. She wants to do it herself. How many foods can be cut into cubes? Surprisingly few. I always said our kid would eat what we eat, but what if we're eating spaghetti? Chili? Caesar salad? None of them finger food. Also, she only wants fruit, bread, and cheese. I've been trying a few veggie tricks though. She loves scrambled eggs, so I pureed some cooked spinach & broccoli and made a sort of frittata. I have to admit, that thing tastes amazing (because there are also onions, garlic, and S&P in it). And she will eat it!! I'm also going to try zucchini pancakes, loosely based on zucchini bread. But she is also going through a THROW EVERYTHING ON THE FLOOR phase, which just about makes me come unglued. It's nice to have a dog when that happens, but it still pisses me off. It's a lot of work for me to come up with stuff to feed her, and she will just grab and toss. Or rub it into her face and hair. She gets yelled at a lot, and always finishes her meals needing a bath. And having not eaten much, so we end up giving her a bottle with oatmeal an hour later. Oy.

Nick just called me outside to enjoy the sun while Sascha naps! Ahh, heaven. Will write more later about that.

Why motherhood is isolating

I've always heard that motherhood is very isolating, and I could never pinpoint what it was. I think I've figured it out. With your childless friends, you're always trying to downplay your motherhood. You over-explain yourself to make them think you're still one of them, still cool, not like one of "those" moms you swore you'd never become. But the truth is, you know things now that you didn't know then. The truth is, you're not cool.

Then with your friends with kids, there's always this underlying competition of who is doing what and how, this constant judgment, self-perceieved though it may be. Although I have to say I've been extremely lucky in that arena; I have had amazing support from just about all of my mom-girlfriends and my sisters. But I can see that working against other women.

Gah- can't win.

Also, Sascha is still being great. It can't be long before this jig is up!

The Twilight Zone

I don't know what it is, but ever since she had blood drawn (the day I last posted), she has been a totally different baby. Maybe a bit on the clingy side, as in "please I promise I'll be good, don't ever make me do that again," but she has been... pleasant. Actually fun. Maybe this is what normal babies are like, the babies of women who tsk-tsk frustrated and bitter mothers like me. The train whistle? Gone! The whining? Gone! Baths? Well, getting better again, but still a challenge. The arching? Okay, that's still there. But still, I'll take it. The absence of verbal fussing makes it a whole different ballgame. She is playing a bit more by herself. I am scratching my head, but I'm not going to question it. This would have to happen the last week of summer, but better late than never... she's even napping for the babysitter now.

I feel like Tom Hanks in "Cast Away": "Look what I have created!!!!!"

She will probably revert to being a beast again, but for now? I. Am. Happy.

What if? (a post-script)

Forgot to mention in last post: I have eased up on myself a little bit about my weight. Maybe it's denial, but I have become a little more accepting of my body, which used to be vampy and is now "funny sidekick." I figure, it's not going anywhere. What if I just decided to accept it? What if I only ran for my mental health, instead of focusing on the heavy jiggling? What if I decided to stop hating myself so much all the time? What if I did like Nigella and made yummy noises over meals instead of mentally abusing myself? Well. I'm going to find out what if. Maybe I will actually get fatter. Maybe not. Maybe I will actually be happier. It's sort of like Margaret Cho's "fuckit" diet.

Oh, the humanity

Today Sascha had blood drawn (!) and it was pure drama for probably two solid minutes. Two LONG minutes. The girl can scream the most pitiful sounding "Mama" I've ever heard. Or rather, "MAMA (gasp) MAMA (gasp) MAMA" and so on. Nick and another nurse held her down while I paced and literally wrung my hands helplessly. I think I've already blocked most of the doctor's visit, and it was just a few hours ago. I think she was more pissed about being held down than the pain of the needle (when that went in, she just sounded indignant on top of annoyed-- I like to think it was indignance anyway, rather than panicked fear) and the nurse said she is one of the strongest babies she's ever seen. Another validation that it's not just me: check. Oh, and another new person got to experience my child today (a friend who came over). She said a single friend of hers is trying to get pregnant through artificial insemination, and she thinks it's a bad idea. Then she said "I should bring her over here and have her spend an hour with Sascha-- that might change her mind!!" I thought it was very funny. And another validation. Check.

So I went to therapy a few days ago. I don't think I'll be going back actually. The woman was very nice, the kind of woman I'd be friends with actually. But I sat down and started telling her all of my problems, and as I heard them coming out of my mouth, I had two recurring thoughts: (1) Wow, you are a whiner, and (2) what exactly do you want this woman to do for you? What do you want her to say? And I couldn't answer that question. At one point she asked if I was feeling suicidal. Me: no. Therapist: Any substance abuse problems or rehab? Me: no. Therapist: And you live in a house with your husband and daughter, right? (At this point she was just sort of taking my stats for the record.) Me, feeling smaller in my seat for sniveling because ultimately I have it pretty good: yeah. So, that was pretty much the end of that. Her, at the end: "So when should we schedule your next appointment?" Me: "Umm, why don't I get back to you on that?" She didn't make me feel bad, she said lots of mothers feel like I do and whatnot. I'm glad I went, I just don't think therapy is going to help me with this kind of stress. A cheap nanny? Now we're talkin. And friends and sisters who will back me up with "you think you're a shitty mom? Listen to what I did..." Sort of a reverse competition. I can feel the mental health (and huge love and gratitude and relief) seeping into my brain with every story.

Speaking of nannies, we have started to take her to "daycare," which is a friend of the family who will just add Sascha to her own brood two days a week. She is awesome. A godsend. Sascha seems to like her and her kids, even though she is giving this poor woman a run for her money. There's a surprise. Nick is convinced that this woman is going to quit. I would cry, because she is Mother Teresa herself. She actually seems to have just as much energy at the end of the day as she does at the beginning. (Me = cranky wet noodle by 4 pm daily, rooting around for red wine.) Anyway, Sascha went there two days this week. Just having those two days... I cannot describe how good they were for me. Even though I ran myself ragged, with to-do lists a mile long each day (and did almost everything on them!), just to get a break from her sort of uprighted (?) my brain again. One of those days was when I went to therapy, which is why I had very little drama to bring to the table. I guess I wasn't kidding about that nanny. I showed up both afternoons refreshed (okay, completely exhausted, but mentally refreshed) and totally ready to be her Mama again. It had given me a chance to miss her, which I needed. She's going two days next week too, which is our last week of vacation. I am already excited about it and trying to plan out each minute I'll have. You think I'm kidding. I bought a chest freezer and I'm going to use the free days to cook huge quantities of dinners that I can freeze, so that when school starts we won't have to revert to take-out and frozen pizza when we're totally wiped. Which is every night. And literally, I am trying to calculate how long it will take me to make each thing in order to maximize my time (i.e. cook massive quantity of chicken one day to make dishes X, Y, and Z... Huge pot of red sauce to make 2-3 things another day... etc.). I should remember to work in a bathroom break or two. The grocery bill for all of that is going to be heinous...

Oh, Sascha's latest is that she hates baths!! WTF?!?! That was one of my favorite things about her. Now suddenly she is afraid of water and goes apeshit when we put her in the tub. Showers aren't much better, but at least I can hold her in the water while we wash her, unlike baths where she tries to crawl out the whole time and ends up smacking her head on the side of the tub. Also: her naps have become almost completely obsolete. It's common for her to sleep 45 minutes the entire day. The pediatrician today told us that with babies, they're either good sleepers during the day or at night, so we should be grateful that she's such a solid night sleeper (which she is). I agree, but still-- only a 45 minute break from the back-arching squirms and whining? We've been going to bed at like 8 every night, exhausted. No wonder we haven't had much luck with Baby #2. At least putting her to bed has been easier if she didn't nap; she's calm and sweet and goes right out. This gives me a chance to rock her and sing to her, and I get to be the mother I would love to be to her if she would just hold still for two minutes. Ahh, fantasy-motherhood.

And it's 8:25 now... I am beginning to turn into a pumpkin. My friend came over today so we could make a wedding cake together. I'd forgotten what a pain that is, since it's been quite a while since my last cake. Even though it was good, I am so done with today.

Vent

I had a bad night's sleep last night. So I'm going to use this space as it was originally intended: I'm going to say what's on my mind, and then go downstairs and present myself in a socially acceptable way: as a happy mother. Please do not come to me in the next few days with "I read your blog," and then tell me you're concerned about me, and then tell me all the things I'm doing wrong in the spirit of trying to help me. Because I KNOW. I am doing it all wrong, I got it, okay?

Here's the short version: I have never hated myself so much than since I've become a mother. I don't *enjoy* my fussing child. I can't figure out what she wants when she's squirming and whining, which is most of the time. I can't seem to get her on a schedule. She is very difficult. And when I suggest to people that this is less than totally enjoyable and fulfilling and life-affirming, they get this look on their face... it's like a mixture of pity and contained disgust, like they took a bite of something bad just as I told them I had cancer. Like I'm a sociopath. Like there's something wrong with me. Oh yeah, and like I've just let THEM down. It's a look that says, "How could you say that??" So then I feel like I am a horrible person, and a horrible mother. Which I guess I am, if I don't love it. I love her, but I don't love motherhood.

I need therapy. And a babysitter.

I should have stayed home today

I just got back from a friend's house (she doesn't read this blog). She has two kids and is doing everything right. I would mention problems I'm having with Sascha (in a nutshell: she is squirming, arching and whining about 80% of her waking hours), and my friend would say "well, you're doing [whatever], right?" Me: "uhhh..." the way a teenager answers when he doesn't want to admit to doing something wrong, trying to buy time to find an excuse. So embarrassing. And then mentally: Dammit, why didn't I think of that? I forget to give her Tylenol when she's at her worst, instead just sitting there suffering with her and hating life. I forget to give her water on hot days. I don't read any of the parenting magazines or books, and if I did, I am positive I'd forget what they tell me to do because there is so much information. That panicked train-whistle whine that she does all day erases all coherent thoughts from my head and I tend to go into survival mode, thinking makeitstop, makeitstop. I think the only way I could manage this properly would be to get a parenting coach to come to the house (Supernanny?) and tell me what to do all the time. I still cannot figure out when she's hungry or overtired or whatever. It's like I'm an incompetent teenager when it comes to parenting skills. What really kills me is when she is fed and changed, and still throwing a fit. I do not know what she wants. And that goes on all day long. Every. Day. We still cannot get her on a schedule: when it's time to eat, she's not hungry; when it's time to nap, she's wide awake. And some days, she's ravenous and will suck down gallons o