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LiveJournal · Experiment
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Birdsong at midnight
and my pulse quickens, electric.
Signs and portents
slide away in the face of certainty.
I have searched the depths,
made maps of my musings.
It's time to rise.
Which is my way of saying that this year, I am going to attempt NaNoWriMo. I'll sign up at some point tomorrow, because right now I need to take an extremely late shower. I have a first sentence even-- well, for right now. Could change. I should maybe figure out some manner of plot. Oh hell. But when I felt the thingy above come to me while I was wondering if I should really commit to this, it seemed right.
"I'd always loved the way I could feel it under my skin, but I needed it to rattle my bones." All I have to do is make a novel out of that sentence. While doing the kindergarten mom thing, dealing with an infant, and my mother-in-law is coming back into town tomorrow afternoon. I imagine though, every year it will be something. Life doesn't GET in the way. Life just is in the way until you mold it into what you need. Right? Right. Wish me luck. Please. |
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Since new babies aren't fabulous at showing how much they love the people around them, and they don't really want to play a whole lot, my mommy role has been somewhat limited the past four weeks. I've done the feeding and changing and the cleaning and carrying. I think that was pretty much it. Today though, Lucy let me know that I needed to sing. All day. And she was clear that turning on an ME Timeline show about Def Leppard wasn't going to cut it. Noooo. And she had opinions on my song choices too, which strikes me as really demanding. Graham didn't start directing the music until he could talk. "Okay Mommy, you sing with the trumpets, and I'll sing with the words." I think this may be a long week... |
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Being a good mother to two children is wayyyyyyy different than being a good mother to one. Even if the second one is only three and half weeks old. When Graham was this age, he "went to bed" at about 11 or 11:30, and we "got up" at about 9:30 or ten. Understand that in between those times were numerous feedings, the occasional puking, and not a whole lot of uninterrupted sleep. But that was just fine. Not to say awesome... but it worked out okay, and gradually he became a child instead of a newborn and now he's asleep by 8 and up no later than 6. And, if I wanted to sleep another hour or hour and half, that was okay, since he can make his own peanut butter sandwiches, get a glass of water by himself, and even go to the bathroom unassisted.
And now things are different. Lucy is kind of on the same night schedule he was, but I can't just lay in bed until 10am, guilt-free. Noooooooo. Because I have a four-and-a-half year old who wants me to help him play a game. Or put together a puzzle. Or read a book. And he tries so hard to be patient. "Mommy, I made myself a BIG peanut butter sandwich instead of a little one because I was waiting for you. And waiting and waiting and waiting for you... I'm still waiting. Because I can't play my game by myself."
While I'm adjusting to how much Lucy needs me, I feel so awful that Graham gets shut down so often because of those needs. Also, I'm short on patience and he's the one most around me, so if I take it out on anyone, it's him. And that sucks. I try not to, I really do, but sometimes I feel the annoyance coming out in my voice and I know that he doesn't deserve that.
I have a little bit of faith that soon it will get better, and I'll go back to being the lazy mom who has little guilt and much more fun with the children. That will come back, right? Because I'm kind of counting on it. |
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Or, rather, the weekend. Because Lucy is two weeks old, and last weekend Becky was still here part of the time, so this was our first weekend alone as a family of four. I have to admit, it was pretty unexciting. I had two free periods of time: one on Saturday and one on Sunday. Saturday I decided to use my few hours of freedom to go upstairs and sleep. Sunday I used my thirty-five minutes to shower. Geoff really hasn't gotten into the caring for an infant mode just yet, and I find I'm really resentful that next weekend is Fathers Day (and also his birthday is Thursday) so I'll have to suck it up and deal with the two-child situation on my own. Kind of again. I think with Graham, it took about a month for Geoff to really figure out everything and I guess I just thought that he'd be ready to jump right in at the very beginning this time. He really is trying... I mean, he's not playing computer games very much, and when he gets home from work, he tries to remember to tell me to bring Lucy to him (while he plays computer games), and he'll watch her so I can do other things. Unfortunately, those other things are, say, making dinner or putting away the laundry. Or, if I'm feeling totally selfish, I catch up on my work, so I don't get fired. I know things will get better soon, and that really it's the first four to six weeks that really suck, only... I'm just ready for the good part now. I remember how weekends were great with Geoff taking over and letting me recharge for the week. It's a good system, but I guess we need to relearn it. |
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The little girl decided to make her appearance Thursday night. I was in labor for about 2 hours, and ended up having an unexpected water birth. I won't go into the whole birth story, except to say that if you want it, feel free to ask. There's nothing scary in it at all. Lucille Kaitlyn was born at 10:13pm, May 24th. She was 7 pounds 12 ounces and 21 inches long. We're both doing great, and it's so very nice to have been able to be in my own home instead of confined to the hospital the past few days. Now that I've experienced both the hospital situation and the birthing center, I have to say that the birthing center wins big time. So now we are four.
I'll try to post some pictures of Lucy later this week. |
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I'm having one of those weird weekends where everything is making me think about the kind of life I have right now, and the kind of life I will shortly be having once I actually have the baby, and then the kind of life I want. And I'm all confused. Yesterday I made Geoff take me to Macy's so I could get a nice pair of MicroModal pj's in black (they were on clearance, and I'd been meaning to go since Wednesday, but my inherent laziness and current pregnancy exhaustion had conspired against me). If any of you haven't tried MicroModal pj's... well, it's like a massage in fabric form. So very soft and comfortable. I may never wear actual clothes again. Anyway, while I was at in the checkout line, Geoff pointed out that they had Belgian Waffle makers on sale, and so of course I had to have one. Nancy and Marie bought themselves one last Christmas and I swear it's all I want to ear whenever we stay with them. So then there was the part where I set up the waffle maker and made Belgian Waffles while wearing Macy's pajama's on a fairly bright Sunday morning, noticing that my white orchid (to distinguish it from all the other orchids I don't have...) was looking extremely lovely. And I even did this without caffeine. It was very suburban. Thank god I didn't set the table on the back patio for brunch. I may have had to drown myself then. But the thing is, after the baby comes, I can't really leave her for more than two or three hours at a time (well, I could, but then I'd have to take the pump with me...) so it's good to have a nice comfortable home environment. And now I even have one with a clean garage, since Geoff and his dad spent all last Saturday installing shelves and disposing of crap. But part of me is really resentful and restless, because the last year and half has been all about me making myself comfortable going out and doing things and meeting people. And there's no fucking WAY I'm doing the Lakeway Moms thing again, or anything remotely like it. And now I'm housebound for something close to a year. Okay, not housebound, but-- something. Something that makes it hard to do anything else. And I know it's selfish and stupid, I really do. Only, it was just the other month I was talking about how happy with life I was; how awesome it was to have the family and a social life and NOT be like the rest of the Stepford women around here, and now I'm desperately afraid that that's right where I'm headed. Rationally though, if I know enough to be terrified of the possibility, then probably I'm aware enough to avoid it. Right? |
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It is 4:40 in the morning. I've been awake for nearly two hours now. Even online Sudoku is boring the crap out of me. So I was looking at the MIss Manners message boards (mostly because it was on the msn front page thingy), and I have to say, those are pretty entertaining. Some very polite bitchiness. The topic I'm in the middle reading now -- page six out of 19, is getting completely out of hand. A woman asked why anyone would exclude children when inviting people to a wedding. Some people responded with a good list: financial concerns, parents who don't watch the children, and some venues/activities that are not child friendly. The original poster seemed to get it. She said thanks, okay, then I won't take it personally as a judgment on my parenting skills. And one might think that would be the end of it. Oh no. One would be very very wrong. Now there are weird stories about how children spoil weddings and weird stories about how lovely the weddings were because of the children. Apparently, it's all or nothing for some of these people. They reminded me a little of one of Geoff's snits when we first lived together.
One of Geoff's friends was getting married, and had been planning the wedding for some time. I think the invitations went out in January for the October wedding. It wasn't a large wedding; I think it was maybe twenty guests, but everything had been planned and paid for well in advance, to save the bridal couple all the costs they could, since they were paying for it themselves. Geoff and I met the last week of February, and by the end of September, we were living together (while planning our own wedding for Thanksgiving weekend). I hadn't heard anything about the wedding until the week before it, when Geoff suddenly announced to me that he was not going. I asked why he didn't want to go to his friends' wedding, and he told me that when he'd sent in his reply card in January, he said he would be going alone. And then, when he thought about it the week before, had called the bride and asked if I could be included as well. Well, it was the week before her wedding, so no real notice, plus the food had already been ordered and all the place settings, etc. While it could have been fixed (possibly) I really and truly didn't blame her for saying no. I told Geoff he should just go the wedding and have a nice time. He took a lot of convincing and seemed really offended, like it was some kind of slight directed at me, when even I didn't feel that way. It's not like she didn't like me, since we'd never even met! People get all manner of weird around weddings. My own wedding lost me one of my closest friends. Sometimes I still miss her, even though I know she must have been a little crazy. To this day, I have no idea what really happened. |
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It's five o'clock in the morning, and I'm awake. I've been awake this time for about an hour, and before that I was up at 1:45 and only went back to sleep a little before three. This is starting to annoy me. Seriously.
Yesterday morning I had the long diagnostic sonogram, and from what they could tell, everything with the baby is fine. She seems healthy and active. Yes, she. The other thing they did was let me know the sex, and so now it's confirmed. Graham was with me and he was relatively unimpressed, since he's maintained he was getting a sister since the day after we told him there was a baby. He even offered to pick her out in the baby store. We have no idea where he got the whole baby store theory, but we figured it would work for now. So we told him that we didn't get to pick, but we'd already gotten the baby from the baby store and now the baby was in Mommy's belly until it was ready to be born. He thought about that for a minute, then asked me if I ate the baby. No? Well, then what did you DO with it?? I have to admit I was kind of at a loss there.
When I was pregnant with Graham, I thought I wanted a girl. Mostly because I am a girl, and I didn't grow up with brothers, so I was worried that I wouldn't know what to do with a boy. But I love having a boy. Hopefully this girl isn't scary. I just know so many freaky little girls. I'm going to be all judgmental here (because it's my LJ... and my myspace blog, depending on where you read this) and say most of that is the parenting. Because, to be fair, I know some horrible little boys too.
So there's the news. We are having a girl. We decided on the name Lucille Kaitlyn, and the plan is to call her Lucy Kate, although this past weekend (before it was confirmed) I kept referring to the baby as Katie, so you never can tell. |
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Those of you that I talk to regularly know that I've been sick the last month or two. Colds, ear infection, cedar fever... it's been fun really. But then a few days ago, I felt something very different: movement. So I went to the drugstore and got the test, which came back positive. Friday I went to the doctor to confirm everything and got information that was very very unexpected and a little freaky. Turns out that I'm having a baby (well, that part I expected since Sunday), and the due date is May 5th. Yes, in less than two months. It's a very very strange thing, and I could bore you with all the details of monthly cycles that didn't stop, and all the other indicators that didn't happen, but I won't. And understand that with Graham, I knew within minutes and I took the test as soon as it said I could. This one is different. And last time I think I needed maternity clothes at three or four months along, and this time at seven months I was still wearing my jeans and they still buttoned just fine. Since I got the news, I've gotten a new pair of maternity jeans (because when the hell else do you get to wear jeans and have them feel like sweatpants?) and the baby has started shifting and now I look pregnant. It's all manner of strange, and the family is very thrilled, but my reactions are still a little off. Yesterday Geoff's aunt Nancy and her partner Marie came over to pick up Graham for the night so we could have an evening out, which we'd planned long before any of this came up. Nancy was bouncing off the walls she was so very happy, and didn't understand why we were just smiling but not as excited as she was. She thought we needed to make up for seven months of excitement right then. But Geoff and I are doing are best, it's just that it's still a shock and we only have two months to prepare for this. It may take a few more days to get to the excitement.
So that's my news. And some of you are possibly offended that I haven't called you, but like I said, there's still shock to deal with. So call me, and we'll talk about it, and if you're really nice I might even share the baby names. Which are awesome. |
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Stolen from Dave's blog, because the medicine that's making me lightheaded apparently also came with a competitive streak: |
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