DragonBlog

Caught in the Downward Spiral (again)...

Yes, I haven't blogged in a bit. It's not because I don't have stuff to say. I most certainly do. But, most of the time, I don't have the time to blog. Or, if I find myself in front of my computer at all, I have a baby in my arms. Which makes typing highly inconvenient at best. Usually, it's more like impossible

And then, there's the depression factor. I often don't blog when I don't have anything I feel I can put some sort of positive spin onto at least somewhere in my post. I've been depressed for months. Long, long, long before Kayla was born. And, while my children are often the brightest spots in my daily life, they also add to the daily stress. I think I'm getting an ulcer. Literally. There's this odd pain in my stomach recently. It's either hunger, from the diet I've been trying to stick to, or an ulcer. Maybe both. It kinda makes me feel nauseous. The trick is that it's a little lower than where I think my stomach kinda sits, so it's probably just my intestines giving me the usual grief again. Lovely. More icing on the problematic cake. I think the candles are buried at this point.

We're making progress on Kayla's room finally. The walls are prepped to be painted and the door and trim are primed. Spackel has been liberally applied to the umpteen million holes left by the previous owners, and the flimsy mirrored doors have been removed from the closet. According to real estate terms, we only have one bedroom left in the house, since the closets in Jareth's and Kayla's rooms don't have doors. That makes them dens if I remember my little bit of trivia correctly. My kids have dens. Like bears. Maybe they'll hibernate for a while and I can have a little peace and quiet.

Don't mind me, I just need a little rant time. It's been less than two months since my class ended and I've hit that barrier where I've realized that once class ended so did any "me time". That was my time, excepting a bit between when everyone else went to bed and when I did. And I only stole that at the expense of my own sleep, generally. Nowadays, I can only barely keep my eyes open past 10pm, and Kayla won't let me sleep past 8am - usually it's earlier.

I guess I'd just like the occasional "me time". Maybe the occasional pampering. I spend all day, all week long, thinking only of how to get stuff around here done without it being at the expense of my children (i.e. - trying to do dishes or laundry while Kayla screams because I had the sheer audacity to put her down on her playmat fully dry, fed, and burped, and Jareth whined because I just want to put the dishes away quickly instead of letting him "help" by handing me every single dish in the dishwasher ONE DISH AT A TIME!!!). This is my "job", you see. It comes first, and foremost. Mommy, then Housewife. In that order, mind you.

It probably wouldn't be so frustrating if there weren't all the other jobs though. Chef, for one - these days I'm cooking nicer stuff than Hamburger Helper, and Lean Cuisine. That requires both time and skill.

Let's see... what else? Ahhh, yes. Remodeler/designer. Since the WHOLE DAMNED HOUSE needs work. Gardener. Although I'm probably going to lose most of the garden I managed to plant, since I haven't had a chance to thin out the seedlings and they're going to choke each other out.

Then there's the other stuff I got myself into without thinking first. Web Designer, for one. I'm still trying to finish a project I started months and months ago, but Kayla seems to be annoyed any time I sit down to do it. I also was "kind" enough to volunteer myself to fix up the logo for one of the parents' groups I'm in, and have that only about half done too.

And yes, I could be working on all those things right now, but then I'd probably pop a vein with the way my day has gone so far. I already had to bail on going to the bank and grocery store today for fear I'd somehow find a cliff here in the flat, flat midwest and drive my ass right off it if I stayed in my car for one minute more. I drove over an hour to take my son to a hot, crowded arboretum. He had a blast, although either he caught a cold or he's suffering from some allergy that even I wasn't overly affected by (my sinuses are throbbing right now and my eyes want to pop out of their sockets so I can rinse them off in a cupfull of cool water), since he's got a funky cough since the car ride home. He loved splashing in their faux stream and pond though. I had expected a real one. I went to that arboretum as a child, back when there was camping there and one lodge-like building. Back when it was more like a forest preserve. Now it's more like an "attraction", complete with gift shop. On one hand, it would have seemed cool if that had been what I was expecting. However, I was thinking of the arboretum I knew as a child. I don't always want my children experiencing "nature" from the sterilized, theme-park viewpoint. It feels so depressingly contrived.

I derailed myself there, forgot to finish my train of thought from before. Suffice it to say that I've managed to collect quite a few job hats around here and have nobody to delegate anything to. So, every day, I fight my better judgement and roll my ass out of bed for another day. Half the time I have to work hard to ignore the urge to just curl up in a ball somewhere and cry for a while. I keep pushing forward towards... what? All plans, all bets, seem to be off. The "five year plan" that we keep changing and restarting each year has fallen completely down the drain as far as I can see. For one, I was hoping that maybe this time next year we could start seriously entertaining the idea of moving somewhere where allergens don't try to pound me into teensy-tiny, little, flattened bits every year. I think I'm going to stop bothering with making plans for the future. Every time I begin to hope my life is going in a specific direction - I am, again, disappointed.

I guess I'm just too stubborn to lower my standards. That's my real problem. If I could just stop expecting... well, anything out of life... then at least I wouldn't be disappointed. Right? I'm getting cynical again. It's not a place I like to be. But it seems to be one I continually return to. The big things can knock you for a loop, but the little things really do add up. I feel like I've got an awful lot of "little things" right about now. And quite a few seem to be the type of little things that don't matter to, or get even noticed by, anyone else until they aren't getting done. I'm tempted to go on strike. Stop doing all the "little things" and see what happens. Watch the world around me screech to a halt as everyone goes into shock that I didn't DO all those little things that they're so damned accustomed to. Not bring in the mail. Not restock the toilet paper (okay, that one could backfire on ME, so nevermind). Not leave out clean towels for people to dry their hands on. Not run around trying to tidy, putting things back into their places. Leave toys lying about on the floor, laundry in heaps here and there, dishes on the countertops...

Don't get me wrong. I don't regret my choices. I wouldn't change (much) if I had to go back and do it all over again. I love my husband and children especially, and wouldn't make any changes that would jepordize having them in my life. But I'm tired. I'm just very. very. tired.

G'night?

Current Mood: tired

Mommy on Tap...

First off, due to spammage, I've had to kill the ability to leave comments on the post just before this. It seems that they are no longer content to pick through my older posts and find one I haven't closed out yet (since I only close them when they get spammed) to drop their spam down onto, but now they head to my more recent posts instead. So, if you find comments closed on any post you might want to comment on in the future, it's because someone put an ad on it for something and I refuse to give them ad space on my site. *grumble, mumble, bitch, complain* Anyway, you can always e-mail me. Although I may be changing my primary e-mail address soon too, as it's being spammed something terrible with no way to stop it other than filters. And they tend to filter out stuff I WANT now and again, so I still have to look through the spam anyway. Argh.

In other news, summer camp has begun for Jareth this week. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I take him out to a playground (different one each week and also three days of "field trips" at other spots like the Morton Arboretum and a couple others) where he gets to play and do a craft project over the course of one and a half hours. He loves it. I love it too. And, it's organized through a parent's group I'm with that keeps it reasonably inexpensive. I took him on Tuesday and the first craft project was a Father's Day gift, so I won't mention what it was here yet. The second project was a foam door hanger thingy with little foam pieces glued on and such. Brian took him, however, as I wasn't feeling so hot. I'm still not feeling good, but I can't ask for Brian to take Fridays or Saturdays off of work, since those are better days for RV sales than the rest of the week. As it was, I felt guilty for asking him to stay home yesterday. I still had to run errands in the afternoon, despite being sick, but at least I didn't have to take the kids along. I love my children dearly, but sometimes they are the difference between a sinus headache and a sinus migraine. The allergies have been doing the whammy on me a LOT for over a month now, and every so often I just want to curl up in a ball in the dark somewhere and just cry. Sometimes I do, but usually the kids won't hear of it. Mommies don't get sick time, don't cha know. Ya. *sigh*

Then there's the "Mommy on Tap" business. She's getting worse about it, I've noticed. Kayla is getting downright picky. Which, I guess, means she's definitely MY little girl eh? Yesterday, during the times when I was unavailable to feed her (and building up supply for a proper BIGGER feeding, like she's supposed to get) she was refusing to take bottles even from Brian! She'll sometimes take one right after she's realized that mommy is OUT of milk, but if she's at all unsure about it she'll only take about an ounce or two MAX from the bottle and scream her bloody head off for ME instead! I refer to it now as "mommy on tap" around here. She basically wants to spend most of her day in my arms, occasionally turning her head towards me and finding my breast conveniently there.

She's certainly not underfed at all at least. I have no worries about her starving, since my little 3-month-old is fitting into 6-month-old clothes! She's too tall for most of the 3-month stuff I have for her. Which means that the cute little dress I bought for her to wear in September, for her daddy's birthday, will now get pulled out this weekend, for Father's Day instead. This kid is growing like a weed! Heck, most of my weeds aren't as tall as her, and some of them have been growing for longer! Goodness!

She's not fat though. The doctor's appointment on Tuesday said she was in the 60% for height and weight, and 75% for head. Which means she has a larger head than the national average, and is a little taller and heavier too. Being a little taller will lead to being a little heavier, so I was assured that she is just fine. I have also been assured that children don't get the pollen and tree allergies like I have until around age 3 or 4, so her congestion is just normal baby stuff and nothing to worry about yet. Jareth, on the other hand, who's been complaining about a stuffy nose since around the same time I felt my brain slide into my nose this year, is possibly starting to suffer from them. Poor kid doesn't understand that all that time he wants to spend outside is what's making his nose stuffy. Fortunately it doesn't seem too bad yet. The time outside also tires him out, so about the same time he starts rubbing his itchy eyes is when he needs to take a nap and sleep it off. I just wish I could have a nap now and again too. Instead, I have Drixoral and Benadryl. Oooh. Goodie. *cry*

One day we will find a place to live where this won't be such an issue, I hope. Meanwhile... Well, I already need the bottle of Tylenol today, since the Drixoral didn't get rid of the nastiness as well since I'm sick. I'm trying to fight off the "sick" so it doesn't get worse, but I'm not sure it's working this time. It had better work though - I don't have time to be sick. Not for at least another year or so...

Alright, time to get back to my mommy duties before Kayla wakes up again. I've found that if I feed her breakfast in MY bed, she falls asleep at the end and I can leave her lying there afterwards so she'll nap for a while. That won't work all the time, however. She takes MY spot when she does it (probably because it smells like MOMMY there). At this rate she'll be hogging the covers in no time! And they said you can't spoil a child before 3 months of age. I think we seem to have managed it, eh?

Later!

Current Mood: groggy

Process of Elimination...

I have discovered something both sweet and annoying about my little girl today. In the process of an experiment, wherein I pump the milk and give her formula to see if she'll actually nap ('cause she doesn't like to, don't ya know) and maybe be less gassy in the evenings, I found the following:

She won't let ME give her bottles!

Arrrrgh!

Now, don't get me wrong, I LOVE having all that warm, snuggly suckling time with her all cuddled up against me. But I've found that she quite literally grazes through the day. This leaves me no more than five to fifteen minutes (depending) of two-handed, productive time (YOU try remodeling projects while holding a baby in one arm! Nuh-uh!) at any given moment throughout the day before said time suddenly has a background screaming motif going on. I was hoping that by giving her bottles, be it formula or pumped milk (which I tried a couple days ago with limited success), it would leave her filling satiated and content to nap or play for some of the time during the day.

*holds head in hands*

But while she was starving enough in the morning to grudgingly take the offered bottle, she basically screamed at me on and off for hours after the hungry monster returned in her tummy. Every time I offered a bottle she would drink maybe an ounce of the stuff and then howl at me like I was my own evil twin come to plague her very existance! I changed her diaper, held her, burped her, tried again and again to feed her, and even took her temperature. But nothing seemed to be wrong. She just wanted to scream. But she was also acting hungry. The hungry monster makes her loud. Ow. I was wishing I hadn't been so hasty with the Q-tips this morning.

So, not long ago I caved. I whipped out the only half-full breast (since it hadn't quite been long enough since I'd pumped to really fill up) and let her at it. I swear she had been trying to curl and twist to get off my shoulder from the burping position and down to get to that boob anyway! She gave me this "well it's about damned TIME!" kind of look and then latched on like she thought I'd snatch it away at any moment. She has, since, been content to be burped and then popped into her swing while I took Jareth up for his nap. She's still there - the first "quiet time" I've gotten today with both hands free.

I will admit though, I also love that look she has when it's been a while since she ate last. That "Oh my God! This is phenomenal!" look. Followed by her nuzzling in so far I get worried she's going to smother herself in my chest. I remember having pizza that good once... Mmmm.

Oops. Looks like my five to fifteen minutes are about up.

G'night!

Current Mood: amused

Picture Heaven!

For all of you who fled from yesterday's post - I've just uploaded 26 new pictures to the gallery, complete with captions! Go here to start viewing them. I figured there were far too many to put up on the main blog, so I'm linking over to the gallery instead.

Enjoy!

Current Mood: busy

Warning! Poop Post!!!

I have a problem. I poop. I understand that Dooce set the precedent for blogging about "poop", so far be it from me to withhold my colon concerns from the internet. While she had a problem with being unable to do it, I just can't seem to stop...

While I'm pregnant, I found out with both children, my irritable bowel (IBS) goes away after a while. I normally have the diarreah end of IBS, combined with relatively unbearable pain as my colon spasms irratically. I scope out bathrooms when I enter them, eyeing the nearest clutchable surface, in case I should need to cling dearly to something as I grit my teeth and bear down with an arm on my abdomen, praying for the end. This is something I've dealt with for years, although I have found a medication dose combined with diet that normally had me down to only about one "bout" per week, assuming I didn't eat anything totally stupid. Certain items, like very fatty foods or too much fiber, can make it worse on the pain scale as well as make it occur more often.

But pregnancy sends me into constpation instead, for some odd reason. With Jareth I thought for a while that I was actually cured when following the pregnancy I pooped like I'd never pooped before - normally! Unfortunately it only lasted a few months before I slid back into the regular routine.

But this time I've been determined to fight it. Knowing it would come back, I've been trying early to develop even healthier eating habits than I had before. Not only do I have the goal of fighting off the IBS, but this time I'd like to lose the "baby weight". I didn't really lose it last time. I want to lose it now. I've got yogurt in the fridge, slimfast shakes for breakfast, granola mixes and fruit to snack on, and am planning about half our dinners to be like the ones we ate while I was diabetic. The other half are a mix between "easy to cook" and "cost effective" to keep the budget in line. I walked past a display of chocolatey goodies at the grocery store yesterday and didn't even want them. While I don't want to go overboard - I'm still going to eat yummy desserts if they are served! - I'm planning to have a diet more respectful to my health. I want to fit into that box of "skinny clothes" I have tucked away. Hell, I want to fit into ones that are smaller than them even. I have a reasonable weight goal I'm aiming for - nothing as silly as trying to fit into a size 4 with my chest and hips - and I'm attempting to go for it. After the last pregnancy I spent far too long thinking that eating "Wheat Thins" instead of "Doritoes" was justifiable. I've done the post-diabetes mini-binge without really gaining weight because of it. Now it's time to head on down the scale.

But now there's this poop problem. Ever since I gave birth I have trouble "holding" my diarreah. Yeah, for some people this is too much information. If you're one of them, stop reading now. Move on and come back another time to see all the cute pictures of my kids I have building up in a queue to be posted. There's more poop to come in this post. It could get graphic.

For those of you still reading, however, I could use some advice here. Should I see a doctor about this? I can hold my normal poop just fine, but even hint at diarreah and I have to scoot my ass to the bathroom fast! I am writing this post-shower while items of clothing and a rug are pre-rinsing in the washing machine before I wash them - because, while I made it to the bathroom, I did not manage to get all the way to the toilet before I exploded. And I DO mean exploded. I had to wash off the floor, the toilet, the side of the tub, and a few other areas of the bathroom. Today was the worst it's been so far. Usually I just have to deal with washing my underwear and shorts and a quick hop in the shower because toilet paper becomes irrelevant - I need a fucking trowel to get it all off for god's sake!

Not only that, but every time I have one of these "accidents" I end up in humiliated tears. (humiliated, and yet somehow I'm airing my dirty laundry all over the internet - hrm... go figure) This is wrecking my self-esteem something fierce right now and I don't know what to do. I'm eating healthy. I'm trying to get to the bathroom at the first sign of distress. At this point I'm going to have to buy a package of those damned Depends. But that would be like admitting defeat to me - I want to conquer this thing, not end up in frigging diapers. How will I ever get my kids to go on the "potty" if their own mommy can't make it. So far I've managed to keep Jareth from realizing what's going on. Eeesh. The last thing I need is my three-year-old pointing at me and saying "mommy's got poopie" while I'm trying to mop up the mess. I could just cry.

And, to top it all off, when it happened today - I'd already pooped TWICE. And I do mean normal, pile-o-poop in the potty kind of sit-downs too. So I wasn't expecting to have a problem.

This has been going on since I gave birth, and no amount of keigel (is that spelled right? Bah, too lazy to look it up today) exercises will help my bottom. With Jareth I had some "tinkle trials" right after he was born but keigels fixed that right up. This time I couldn't tell if it was going to be gas or the flying shits, so I was running to the bathroom to FART! Good grief! At least I've gotten most of the gas under control, but now I'm just having diarreah creep up on me. I don't know how to rectify the situation.

So... if anyone has some advice on this one... well I'm all ears. Otherwise I'm going to have to break down and make a really embarrassing doctor's appointment soon. And, believe me, it's much harder to explain this to someone face-to-face than it is to dump it out on the internet. *shudder*

Meanwhile, I think I'll just have to start carrying an extra outfit around with me. Sheesh.

Current Mood: embarrassed