Author Archives: Krissy Gibbs

About Krissy Gibbs

Just your average hippy white trash incest survivor stay at home mom. Is there an average for us? No? Oh well.

My night for weird phone calls.

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And then I talked to another woman I know. She is a fairly new mom and she hasn’t been married that long. She expressed a great deal of shock that I am so consistently positive in talking about Noah. I recognize that very few people are as effusive about their mates as I am, but I always kind of chalk that up to people having more of a sense of decorum… but they feel similarly. She was really wistful when I talked about how I’m so positive about Noah because he has earned it. And she was really bitter when she talked about how I won’t feel so happy with him once I have a baby and he isn’t doing anything to help. I told her that I would be absolutely shocked if Noah was less than helpful because it would be a 180 in his personality. She was skeptical and almost hostile.

She was also really negative when I was upbeat about prodromal labor and that I’m feeling pretty well and I feel like I just don’t have that much to complain about with pregnancy. She was miserable and pissy by this stage and she doesn’t understand why I’m not. When I told her that I see no point in being pissy and upset by having to wait on the baby because “This too shall pass” she told me that everyone will be throwing that in my face once the baby comes when something is terrible. I said that it’s true and that I try to remember in bad moments that they aren’t going to go on forever. She then got quiet and sad and said, “Maybe you’re just better at all this than I am.” I told her that I will probably be better at some things but that I will suck compared to her at other things–there is no use in comparing.

I feel really sad for her. I feel really sad that her life has gone this way and that she has become so bitter. I don’t generally think of myself as all that positive/upbeat/optimistic, but compared to her I’m Pollyanna. It’s interesting to get that perspective. I hope that she finds some peace.

How very odd.

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So I haven’t posted in a while about how much I love my therapist. There have been some reasons for this. A few months ago she had some personal medical stuff happen and she went on hiatus to deal with stuff. Fair enough. When she came back she started behaving… oddly. Our sessions started involving a lot of personal details about her life. It started feeling more like she wanted to bond than be my therapist. This was a gradual process and for a while I wasn’t sure if I was overreacting or if things were starting to get way too friendly.

A few weeks (months? my time sense is toast) ago I noticed that almost half of our session was spent with her telling me how much she and I are alike in great detail and telling me about how we have overcome the same things in our lives and how special we are. Riiiiiiiight. Then I had the prelabor issue and I canceled sessions for a while because I was afraid of driving to Oakland. During this period I talked to a few people and decided that no really, she was being completely inappropriate. After I was on bedrest for a bit she offered to drive down and do a session in my house. I figured that I needed to talk to her about the weird boundary stuff anyway so sure. Only she just couldn’t seem to get here. She called 30 minutes before the session was to begin and told me that she was getting a late start because she had been having anxiety issues and her current med cocktail makes it unsafe to drive when she is freaking out like that. I said that we should maybe cancel because I had another appointment after her with not a lot of wiggle room. She indicated that she was already on the road, but she had stopped on the way and she could make it in time. She was pretty aggressive about still wanting to come down. So I agreed hesitantly and sat and waited. At 15 minutes past the start time she sent me a text message saying she was lost but almost here. When we got to the point where I needed to leave in 15 minutes I sent her a text message saying that I needed to leave soon. She called me and said that she understood that I needed to leave and that being punctual is very important to me. She then said she was very sad because she had really wanted to at least see my house and touch base with me–she hadn’t been planning to charge me for the session anyway. *blink* ? What? This was odd. I told her to just turn around because I was going to head out.

Then she sent out an email to all her clients saying that she needed people to pay in cash for a while due to an issue in her personal life. Well that’s odd…

I agreed to one phone session after that, but there was a weird connection and she lost phone connectivity (battery?) and so she didn’t charge me for that. Then I got to the point where I was just not up for the continued weirdness and I told her that I was going to be opting out of therapy for a while because I didn’t really want to be driving to Oakland and I thought I was doing pretty well anyway. She reluctantly agreed to this.

Then tonight she called me. She has missed me and wanted to know what was going on with me and why I haven’t called her. I was very very clear on my boundaries and told her that I’m doing fine and if I want to see her again I will call. Noah couldn’t figure out who I was talking to–he thought it sounded like my conversations with Rebecca when I’m being extremely clear on what I am interested in talking about. 🙂 She wanted to be sure that I would let her know when the baby comes and that it will mean a lot to her. She stressed a few times that if I want to talk on the phone because I’m processing anything she is totally up for that and she won’t charge me at all. Or if I am able to come up and see her that she won’t mind me feeding the baby at all. I’m starting to feel pretty freaked out. I left the phone call by saying that I was feeling like maybe I wouldn’t need therapy anytime soon but if I decide I need to see her I’ll let her know. That was probably too ambiguous. I’ve been seeing her for years. The next time she calls I’m going to need to tell her to stop calling and that feels so very uncomfortable.

I wish she hadn’t freaked out on me. My therapist is not supposed to be a source of freakin conflict.

Inspiration?

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My blogging has gotten particularly boring lately and I’m aware of that. So, if you would like to have something more interesting to read, here is your chance. Stolen from my Sarah.

Everyone has things they blog about. Everyone has things they don’t blog about. Challenge me out of my comfort zone by telling me something I don’t blog about, but you’d like to hear about, and I’ll write a post about it. Ask for anything: latest movie watched, last book read, political leanings, thoughts on Orlando Boston drivers, favorite type of underwear, graphic techniques literary criticism, what I actually studied in school, teaching, etc. Repost in your own journal so that we can all learn more about each other.

Comments screened, posts might be filtered – possibly just to the person who asked the question, if it’s touchy enough. We’ll see. (Though I’m usually not that sensitive and people basically never ask me questions that violate my sense of appropriate.)

Doing my best.

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So I kind of freaked on Noah yesterday. I’m not telling you why. Suffice to say I was not as awesome of a wife as he deserves. But I tried to find solutions. Then more stuff got complicated today. ACK. But I sent him off with his best friend tonight. It’s been hard for him to be stuck at home all the time with me. It’s hard to be supportive of someone getting their needs met when your needs are conflicting. I’m trying though.

This life and being a grown up and taking care of your partner stuff is all a big fat pain in the ass.

Silly.

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So we have a plumber here fixing our garbage disposal. Normally I could do this sort of thing myself, but not so much at the moment. No contorting under sinks for me at 39 weeks.

He’s swearing. Constantly. Mostly in Spanish with an occasional “fuck” dropped in for flavor. (He shocked himself.) I’m pretty sure that he isn’t supposed to swear at a customer’s house. I’m giggling like mad. I kind of wonder if I should let him know that I do actually understand all of the swear words he is using. Would it embarrass him?

I’ll just sit here and giggle.

Post-partum vists

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A number of people have asked? informed? me about visiting once the baby comes. Based on the advice I have gotten from women who have been through this before me (see–I do actually listen to advice sometimes) I am going to structure how this works formally and in advance so that I don’t have to negotiate with everyone individually.

-You must set up a time in advance and be punctual. No dropping in because you are “in the neighborhood.”
-During the first two weeks visits will probably be restricted to 30 minutes. After that an hour, maybe an hour and a half until I’m feeling better.
-If you want to come over you need to do something helpful. Bring food. Start/fold a load of laundry. Do dishes.
-I will not be up for being a host and I’m going to be less than thrilled about Noah doing it.
-Soft voices. I’m actually pretty sensitive to noise in general and I’m willing to bet that when I’m adjusting to listening to a baby crying a lot of the time I’m going to be extra fussy on this one. If you see me cringe when you boom out the start of a sentence, please self regulate to a softer volume.
-Leave your drama outside my house for at least the first month. I love you. I will return to listening to other people’s issues after about a month. I will be sleep deprived and probably anxious as I try to figure out what a parent is supposed to do with an infant and I’m always over-sensitive to other people’s emotions.
-Please don’t tell me what I “should do” with the baby. If I know you have parenting experience or even a bunch of siblings there is the possibility I will ask for advice–don’t offer it unasked though. 🙂
-If you have been sick in the past week don’t ask to come visit. The kid will be around for years to come and I promise that you will have lots of chances to bond later. 🙂

See. I’m not rejecting *you*. I’m not being mean to *you*. 🙂

I’m thinking about printing this and putting up on the front door as a reminder.

Muddled

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I’m starting to be fuzzier and fuzzier in my thinking. My normal brilliant observations (hey–I have them sometimes) are coming fewer and farther apart. Instead I feel like I’m swimming in a fog. It’s strangely reminiscent of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Dude. I’m totally Bromden.

We went out and were social this weekend, more than once even. I was pretty amused at how the party we went to basically segregated into the monogamous breeders and the poly people. 🙂 I had a lovely time. 🙂 I need to spend more time with Lauren because she is obviously a really good mom (you don’t get a kid that good on accident) and maybe she can rub off on me. It was nice to see the various poly folk as well–don’t get me wrong. They just weren’t as interested in orbiting around where I flopped and I’m not doing the get up and move around social butterfly thing just now.

Then Noah wanted to go watch the fire show at the Tiki Bar last night. He wasn’t willing to go without me. So I dragged my grumpy ass out. Luckily I had the brilliant idea of sending Miss Jenny a text message and she came and talked to me. It’s a good thing cause I was being pretty sucky and unenthusiastic and that was probably hard for Noah. Then my delightful acupuncturist showed up with her husband. She’s neat in general and I had a great time fucking with her husband. 😀 That was probably the best social interaction I’ve had with a new-to-me person in months. Normally I just sort of retreat over to my chair and don’t talk to new people. 🙂

All of this on top of Noah vacuuming the whole house on Saturday. Whee! My life is awesome.

Oh! I got painted green yesterday! Uncle Mikey came over and painted me and we took pictures. I don’t have any that I can mass share at this point, but I’ve seen some of them and they are neat!! Very freaky-creature-like. 🙂

The cat has been really fussy lately. After losing the teeth a few weeks ago she has also had this weird growth on her lower lip. Last week we took her in for a steroid shot and it seems to be getting better. I’m hoping that more doesn’t come up. *sigh* I think she has been over-eating lately out of sheer joy at being able to eat again (infected teeth and gums = lots of pain while eating) and she puked all over the carpet this weekend. *sigh* I think this is her 6th? 7th? time puking in her whole life so I don’t feel like I can be too grumpy.

The house has come a long way. I’m getting happier and happier with the house. At this point the house looks different enough that it doesn’t feel like it is the same house Noah used to live in. I’m pretty grateful for that. I was having a lot of trouble feeling happy here and at this point that is fading and the house is feeling more like it’s “mine.” The one remnant of former occupants that I am thrilled about is the roses. Thank you Christyn! They are soooooo pretty. 🙂

I’m not sleeping that well because a three hour stretch between bathroom breaks is a really long time and I usually can’t go that long. I have also started gaining a pound a week in the last couple of weeks (whoo hoo! 21 lbs!) but that means that I’m gaining about 1/2 lb a week of water weight. My feet are now swollen. It took till 39 weeks, but it happened. My pelvis is so sore I have trouble believing that my body can be this sore for this long. I’m just achey all over in general. Getting out this weekend was awesome because I’m not sure how much more time I have.

Oh, people: stop asking if I’ve had the baby. I’ll freakin let you know.

The kind of thing I sit and think about

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I think that relationships are complicated. When you think about what makes someone “right” for someone else you are looking at a whole elaborate string of interrelated points and it’s hard to figure out what is the clincher or deal breaker. Yeah, Noah is awesome in general and attentive and a good communicator (very unusual) and hot and good at sex and… He’s just a really bitchin package.

But I think I know what the clincher is. See–I have a really clear picture of what I want in my life. Of what the most important non-negotiable thing was in a life partner. I believe with all my heart and soul that Noah will be a good father. He balances me in all the most ideal ways. We’ve already spent a lot of time talking about how we think parenting should look. Yeah, there are going to be surprises and course corrections and there will be things that Don’t Go As Planned–but our overall attitudes and how they work towards dealing with kids is unlikely to drastically change.

I am not the most stable person on the planet. I work really hard at being consistent, but I can only do the best I can do. Noah is incredibly stable and cheerful and good natured. I’m really happy that I can give that to my kids even if I can’t be that. Noah also believes in letting kids do things for themselves and letting them learn how to accomplish things; they can ask for help if they need it, but I think “doing it for them” is a good way to stifle kids learning. My opinion is backed up by a lot of studies. 🙂 There are areas where I am probably inclined to be far more strict than necessary and Noah is good at telling me that I’m being lame and over reacting. (It’s a delicate line let me tell you.) He likes to play and is physically comfortable with touching far more than me which is going to be awesome for our kids. He can make up the best stories. I really suck at making up stories. He’s so willing to try things even if he might suck at them–I spend too much time worrying about looking stupid. Noah will be awesome at reminding me that just because he doesn’t need privacy and it’s ok for me to snoop in his stuff it’s not ok to do that with our kids. 🙂

Noah is everything I wish my father had been and wasn’t. I’m so glad I get to bring kids into the world and have them grow up with him.

hell yeah

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Barring Noah saying, “Wow these suck–you need to heavily edit these” I think I am done with my papers. I am turning them (and my huge stack of library books) today. That is it for this semester. I’m sure glad the Lizard didn’t arrive early because so much for my goal of turning in my papers early. 🙂

Now I get to turn my brain towards nesting! Yay nesting!!

Although I get to spend today sitting at the car dealership because the car needs that 45,000 mile check up. Oy.

Holy moly

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Noah’s aunt sent us a baby stuff care package. Receiving blankets, clothes, hats, burping cloths, bibs, bath care items, a rather nice diaper bag, an incredibly sweet home made baby book, and a pile of Thank You cards. It is a rather impressive spread of stuff actually.

🙂 I can take a hint. I will never neglect sending her a thank you card again. 🙂 There was no snark or hostility in the present at all so I feel like this was actually a really awesome way for her to express her preferences. 🙂

Maybe I should meet this relative. She lives in Davis.

Optimistic?

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I’m not sure if it is optimism or foolish dreams that is causing me to pack up my size 10 clothes for storage. Size 12 doesn’t seem outside the realm of reasonable expectation for me to get back to so I don’t feel bad about keeping those clothes. Size 10 though… hm. I really liked being that size. I liked how my body felt. I liked the fact that I was very fit. I liked that I didn’t get freakin rashes on my inner thighs.

As it is, I’m just leaving the size 14’s out of storage for post-baby wear. I make the assumption that it won’t be too hard to get to there. 🙂 That is the size I’ve been more than any other since hitting full grown.

State of the Lizard

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Cause I saw my midwife last night. 🙂

Measuring exactly on target for the week I am in. My baby is more than big enough, which points to a high likelihood of excellent lung development. I’m still doing everything I should be doing as far as not having gestational diabetes/protein issues. I’ve gained 19 lbs. I’m off bedrest officially even though I have been off bedrest for about a week due to my own impatience unofficially. 🙂 The baby is head down and ready to rock and roll. We have everything we need in the house already. I’m having Braxton Hicks contractions more often than not. I feel like I have a bowling ball in my belly because it is so rock hard most of the time. (It almost makes me wish I could have such a rock hard belly when it’s smaller. 🙂 It’s not very comfortable when the kid rolls around and shoves his/her knees into the rock hard belly. I whine about that sometimes. Relaxen has flooded my body like nobody’s business and all of my joints are getting sore. Sometimes when I walk there is a sharp stabbing pain in my pelvis that is sucky enough to make me catch my breath in pain. Not my favorite part of pregnancy.

All in all I would say other than aches and pains and having trouble sleeping this is the easiest part of pregnancy so far. I like the third trimester. 🙂 I am eating a lot (and things taste good!!) and I very very rarely have heartburn. I’m a little angsty from feeling isolated, but getting massages helps with that. I’m ready to have the kid and also feeling like this is not sucky so I’m ok with waiting a while longer. I’m becoming a little less set on the idea of having the baby really early. 🙂 Even though I still keep in the back of my mind that almost everyone in my family goes early… But if we go later than the due date then we get to go to Dana and Anton’s wedding and we will get a Gemini. Guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.

Apropos of nothing.

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I walked past a mirror and noticed that my neck/face look way thinner than they used to. So I measured my neck. My neck is an inch a quarter smaller around than it used to be. Wow. That’s a big difference. And I think my upper arms are a lot smaller than they used to be as well.

So after childbirth I just need to figure out how to get my thighs to decrease in size and I’ll be totally freakin set. 🙂

Sleeeeeeeeeep

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For some stupid reason we have been staying awake later and later at night. Last night I noticed that it was 1:30. So we went to bed. I’ve had two nights out of the last week where my bladder has made it to a six hour stretch, usually I get four hours of sleep then two, then one, then one, then get up. This morning I woke up at 6 am so hungry that my stomach ached. So I went and ate. Then couldn’t get back to sleep till 7. Then woke up for good around 9 because that’s when Noah got up. I’m tired and brain dead. Everything feels wonky.

And what do I do about it? Whine on lj.

Although, to be fair, other than being really tired I’m actually in fairly good spirits. 🙂 I keep feeling like I should get up and “get busy” and then I think… naw…. 🙂

bits and pieces

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Today I managed to get multiple errands done. I went to close out the storage unit and found out that if I waited until tomorrow I would have been charged an extra month. w00t. Glad I caught that. I went to Home Desperate and got stuff for the Noah. Then I wandered through REI and found a neat messenger bag that will function quite nicely as a diaper bag. Then I noticed that it was on sale. Then I went to the register and found out that the sale price was less than half of my dividend for the year; so I didn’t even have to spend real money. w00t again!

I find that if I do a lot of housework/moving around in a day I tend to spend the next whole day sitting on the couch kind of wasted. I moved around a lot yesterday. Books are in the locations I want them to be in. Yay! And fiction is alphabetized. Not that I’m neurotic or anything. *cough* Most of what is left to unpack is clothing and glassware, neither of which I’m stressing over.

And I did all this today in a Twisted Monk “Trust Me” tanktop. It’s the only tanktop that still fits. It makes me smile. Children, don’t follow that link or your parents will get upset. No really.