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Most of what I have been doing since we got back is house work. Very exciting. Or something. I left the house in a heightened state of chaos compared to normal and I am slowly repairing the damage. In the process I am discovering that we still have too much stuff. I am also trying to spend more time directly interacting with the kids in what feels like potentially “educational” sorts of ways. I’m encouraging Shanna to help more and talking to her about what I am doing, why, and the finer points of how. This is most interesting out in the garden. She is starting to talk about water permeability and that just makes my heart soar. It’s a good thing that I have a number of friends with formal science education backgrounds so they can fill in the gaps I’m leaving. I’m starting to think I need to acquire child-level plant biology books. I would love suggestions of favorites if you have any. We’ve been working from the gardening books I read (I’m still on Gardening When It Counts) and I have a few others that talk more about the specifics of care. It has seemed silly to talk about seasons when we came home to a very chilly July.
I’m also daydreaming. My birthday party is 7 weeks away. That’s not actually that long considering that Sarah is moving in during the middle of that period and my garage is no where close to ready for the party. Partially I’m waiting on the inspection on the water heater. Partially I’m trying to decide what I want to do about painting. I know what I want to do very intensely. I really really really know what I want to do… but it would be a very difficult paint job and I’m not sure that it is within the realm of reasonable for the next 7 weeks.
Catching up
I left off on the 6th, then we started traveling and I lost internet. That was entirely for the win because we are now home. Yay! Technically we have been home for a few days, but now I am feeling a little better.
7th: I got to think about how much I love assholes. Hear me out. Specifically, by asshole, I mean large and intimidating and aggressive men who are generally considered to be assholes by everyone who knows them. They like to pick fights. They like to troll on the internet (sometimes), etc. I just like these guys. Not every single one of them, of course. But I tend to like that genre of man. They are frequently abusive to me or other people. I’m not in denial about that. So I carefully limit my relationships with them so that I can deal with the level of harsh they are and I revel in seeing them when I do. Because man I like them a lot. On the 7th I met up with a friend who falls into that category. I was reminded that a lot of the reason I like those men is because they were hurt in some way as a kid. They recognize that pain in me. They speak directly to it in a harsh and direct way that will keep me from killing myself no matter how dark my days get. They have looked into the eyes of monsters too. They know what it means to survive. I don’t like all of their social tools but they have very important lessons for me. I’m glad that they understand that I might need tools that look like a set of brass knuckles some days. They understand why that has worth. I don’t want to be that full time, because frankly I see what it does to their lives. Even though I don’t want to end up like them day-in, day-out… there are days when that is better than any of my other options and if that keeps me here, well ok. I’m grateful to be handed permission to be absolutely savage in defense of myself. I need that.
8th: I was grateful to be home home home home home home.
9th: I was grateful to actually catch up on sleep. I don’t get to do that often. 🙂
10th: I was grateful I made it to the bathroom before projectile vomiting. And later I was grateful Calli confined her projectile vomit to me, my hair, and my clothes while missing the couch.
11th: I’m grateful for a return to food I love. <3
Gratitude backlog
too sick to be grateful. Calli and I are both projectile vomiting. Festive.
Gratitude bandwagon
Today I am grateful for my friends. I pinged a friend on facebook because he mentioned that he was going to be in London tomorrow. We are meeting up to talk. I haven’t caught up with him in a long time so this will be great.
But above and beyond just tomorrow’s social plans, I am truly blessed. I have trouble determining who my “best” friend is most days because I have so many people who are special in very different ways. They support me in ways that I didn’t know anyone received support. I am about to do the “extra parent” upgrade on my family. That’s not an option that I thought was open to me (for a wide variety of reasons that are outside the scope of this post). But I get to have it because I have a friend who wants to do that with me.
Shanna has had three extremely well attended, fun, exciting, wonderful birthdays. Because I have friends who have been willing to step up and be her family. I have spent my entire life feeling alone and unimportant. I don’t think that any of those feelings have entered into Shanna’s consciousness. Because of my friends.
When I have been just about as low as I can be all I have to do is call someone and they will do anything within their power for me. Sometimes it takes more than one call because my friends have lives too… but that’s ok. Really. If I spread the load out in a way that is reasonable… my friends can carry me. That’s not what I want full time for the rest of my life. I like being the supporter a whole lot more than I like being supported. But life is a balancing act, right? It’s not reasonable for me to expect that I only take one of those roles all the time with everyone.
And my friends taught me that.
Gratitude Bandwagon
It’s going to sound stupid… but today I am grateful for MDC. I was having lots of feelings I wasn’t enjoying. I spent most of the afternoon babbling on different forums and having positive interactions with people on the internet and now I feel better. Yay.
Gratitude bandwagon
Today I am grateful for being the mom. I’m not every day so I thought I would note it today. (full disclosure: I am always grateful for my kids, but being the mom sucks rocks a lot of days.). Last night Shanna asked to sleep next to me. She doesn’t cosleep anymore so we had to maneuver a bit. Some time in the middle of the night she woke up, sat up just long enough to look for me then she threw herself across my chest to snuggle. She’s a cuddly kid in general but that instinctive “where is my mommy” in the middle of the night feels different. That is primal. I am the one she wants and needs and loves the most in the world.
Calli has been resisting napping alone. She wants to be on my lap. I haven’t been willing to give her this for most of her life but I’m doing it on vacation. Sometimes she wakes up just a little and starts to panic, then she notices that she is on me and her whole body relaxes. Oh Mommy.
This is why I had children. I wanted this. I want this so much that I ache with it. And I have it. It’s a gift. I constantly feel like I don’t deserve these amazing kids, but they think I am perfect. I am so grateful that I get to be Mommy.
Gratitude bandwagon
Today I am grateful for back bacon. It makes breakfast awesome.
Gratitude bandwagon
Day one was yesterday, I was too busy being happy to post. I was thrilled to discover that we were leaving Glasgow the day before a big sectarian protest. I will be checking the news today because when we were warned about it I got the impression it might turn into a riot. I’m very grateful that we left before that.
Day two I am grateful that Noah has been gracious and helpful because all day my anxiety has been up in the 8/9 range for no reason. And he’s been very patient and accommodating. Wonderful husband.
Moving forward
I am finally up early enough to talk to my Sarah. We haven’t been able to synch up in a while. It’s really interesting for me to think about my part in forming a multi-adult household. So far in raising our kids I’ve mostly been the boss. Noah defers to me most of the time. I think Sarah will too. But I’m not sure that’s a good thing. I don’t want to be a boss. I feel uncomfortable as a boss. But I’m a control freak. I get very anxious when I am not in control. I’m not sure how to own that and deal with it and yet not have everyone in the house be required to do what I say when I say it. However my biggest objection to poly households with children (hello judgment!) is that kids need to have structure and it needs to not be wishy washy. Most of the time I see poly arrangements where the adults all want to be equal and then no one puts their foot down because they don’t want to be the boss/mean. That hits all of my buttons. Which isn’t to say that every poly family fucks up their kids, but that isn’t a system I can live in.
So how are we going to do this. Sarah has far more experience raising kids than me (she’s the oldest of 6 and there is a gap before the second kid) but these are my kids. At the end of the day, Noah and I are the ones responsible for our children. But Sarah is much better than me at remaining calm in a crisis and she has better scope for which problems are worth getting upset about. One of the things I am most worried about is me backing off and giving Sarah too much control because I feel like she is “better” than me, and then getting angry and wanting to kick her out because how dare she act like she is in charge of my kids. I can see me being that kind of stupid. Ugh.
Right now Plan A is that we need to have really frequent check ins about every teeny tiny irritation. I’m thinking that I should probably start charting my moods over the first few weeks. It’s nit picky and annoying but I don’t want to be blaming Sarah for the fact that I’m crazy. That’s a pre-existing condition.
Calli is 10 months
It’s amazing that the time is going so fast. She’s talking. She constantly says “hi” and waves. The sign for “up” is her favorite, of course. She occasionally will say “all done” and “yay” and she still calls me da da. I keep telling her I’m the other one and she doesn’t believe me. Rarely she will will sign potty or milk but mostly she just slams her face into my chest. If she wants something and we don’t hand it to her she has a tea kettle piercing shriek to announce to the world that we suck. We get to have another girl with Opinions. My ear drums aren’t thrilled but overall I’m telling myself that I want opinionated children because they will be more likely to be successful adults. Right?
As of yesterday she can hold on to a grown ups hands and walk all the way across the room. Before yesterday she would only take a couple of steps before sitting down and crawling because it is faster. She is very concerned with getting there faster. She loves Shanna but her affection is shown with slapping and hair pulling so I try to keep them physically separated most of the time. Shanna really likes to manhandle Calli so I play referee constantly. As I write this she is cruising around the chair I’m sitting on. And yelling at me because I’m not on the floor chasing her.
Calli is still nursing, as I grit my teeth. I’m not sure how long I will make it through. At this point I am praying I make it to a year before I lose my mind and run away from home. I am so done nursing. I really wish I would be able to make it to two, but I’m not sure I have it in me to do another 14 months of this. She’s not polite about nursing. She yanks, twists, hits, kicks, pinches, and scratches. Not to mention that she is physically incapable of being still for more than 1.2 seconds. This kid has energy. Another thing that I am telling myself I will appreciate in the long run even if it is hard right this minute.
She has been teething for a long time. The corner of a tooth will pop out then retract and not come back for another week before it pops out and … retracts. This has got to suck. She still doesn’t have one fully through and I have to say I’m thrilled. I think this one will bite more. Ugh.
She is fairly good natured all things considered. She really loves to play peek a boo. If you say “I’m gonna get you” she starts shrieking with joy and crawling away before she stops and checks to make sure you are chasing her. Then she keeps going. It’s lovely. She is very cuddly in a painful way. She likes to sit up and then dive bomb my chest (with or without exposed breast) over and over again. She giggles the whole time. She loves to lie next to me and burrow into my arm pit. She very much likes me more than other people, but she really likes people. She’s not a mama’s-girl and for this I thank God. She gets along with Noah really well and she is good at letting him comfort her.
She is not a fan of being carried in any baby carrier. Or stroller. She likes the wagon because there is normally a big kid in it with her and food and toys. She wants to be down crawling. No matter where we are or what we are doing she will scream and whack me in the back/head telling me to let her down. It’s festive.
This all sounds bitchy, but she is a really sweet baby. She smiles all the time. She’s just much more physically aggressive than I remember Shanna being. She has places to go and things to do and she’s bloody well going to go do them no matter who is in her way. Once she’s an adult I am going to be so happy she is like this! It’s going to be a festive childhood though. 🙂
I’m not taking enough pictures of her because I am lame about pictures. It’s dramatic how much smaller she is than Shanna at the same age. She’s got a little bit of chunk on her thighs, but just enough that she is capable of growing. She never does the rolls of fat thing. She has a little bit of jowls right now because she is closing in on a growth spurt but she actually has a rather narrow face.
She *loves* food. She is often really into meat. That’s interesting. She likes bread, but she gets uhm, backed up. I have learned that she has to have 2-3 prunes every day or she just can’t poop. That seems so very odd to me because my plumbing doesn’t work that way. (For the record, she does eat a lot of vegetable/fruit in addition to the bread and meat, but she’s less enthusiastic.) She can’t have dairy *at all* or she gets an unpleasant reaction. I’ll stop there because most people don’t want to hear it. 😛 I’m hoping that she grows out of that. Right now my plan a is to introduce goat dairy products at a year and pray. So far I am still sticking to my fascist regime of no sugar/processed foods (like potato chips/juice/soda) until a year. Only a few people have looked at me funny this time. 🙂
She takes two naps a day, the first around 9am and the second starting some time between 12 and 1:30. The first nap is 30-45 minutes and the second is usually 2+ hours. Night time sleep is rougher. She often won’t go to sleep with me. She wants to play. Often we have to let her fuss herself to sleep alone or she won’t sleep all.night.long. Of course people on the internet tell me I am causing brain damage and I am an abusive parent so I have a lot of guilt. But neither of us sleeping = big problems. When we get home I am going to get a mattress for the bottom of the bunk bed (it’s the floor) and start trying that. We’ll see how it goes. I feel awful leaving her in a baby jail to cry.
So far she seems to be growing happily and thriving, so for all of my angst I don’t think I have permanently fucked her up yet.
It’s pretty hot to sit on the couch making out with Noah while he is on a work conference call.
Melancholy but calm. I’m worn out and anxious about tomorrow. Please, please please please please let me not be picked for the “special pat down” by the TSA. I can’t go through that. I can’t.
I’m pretty sure 3 isn’t my favorite.
We had a long day yesterday. Shanna refused to nap and instead spent a lot of time hysterically crying. No obvious trigger could be detected beyond THE WHOLE UNIVERSE SUCKS AND IS TOTALLY UNFAIR. Fair enough.
Of course I am paranoid that I am going to make her a freak. The level of verbal processing she does is above average for an adult. I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen a kid talk about their motivations and emotions the way I hear her do.
The intersection of the rational and the irrational
I think that all of us are dancing at the intersection of the rational and the irrational. I think that even when we believe we are being rational we are fighting out own unconscious, unexamined irrational prejudices. Here is mostly what I mean. I don’t mean exactly that, of course. Because that focuses only on negative thoughts. There are an awful lot of irrational positive beliefs as well. And there should be. The intensity of my fervor that motivates me to protect my kids? That’s a positive irrational belief. There is no one threatening them. There is no circumstance that threatens their health or safety in any real way. It becomes negative when I feel anxiety about it. Having that fervor? That’s not actually a bad thing. Most mothers do.
The fervor I feel to protect my children is motivating me to take radical steps in my life. I am changing my living situation. I entered therapy. I have written more than 100,000 words in a month. I take conscious, deliberate steps to medicate for my anxiety so that I am not inappropriate in my interactions with my children. As a result, I’m doing a fairly good job of dealing with the negative effects of my irrational thinking.
But I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have a much much stronger positive irrational belief pushing me. I’m curious about that belief too.I want to protect my children. I have a ridiculously strong urge to protect children because of how I was hurt. I have to believe there is some value in what I went through.
I have to believe that part of that value lies at the intersection of the rational and the irrational. I have to believe this because I am a highly rational person with strong irrational urges. When I look at the people in my life, specifically the people in my family, I see both a lack of rational thinking and a prevalence of irrational thinking. That’s kind of a problem.
I strongly suspect, and literature supports me, that the irrational thoughts I have are the same sort that go through the minds of actual violent offenders. But they can’t restrain them. Why? But I’m going to take this away from there though.
Let’s talk about food. Food is like religion. Food intersects at the intersection of the rational and the irrational as well. Why do you have memories associated with certain foods/smells? Because of previous experiences. If you walk into a restaurant wanting to eat something. Let’s say you are in the mood for lasagna because you are feeling kind of nostalgic and your grandmother used to make you lasagna. The problem is, the lasagna from some random restaurant is unlikely to taste much like the
Feedback
Ok, the hits are still coming. I ask you, gentle readers, how does hearing my story change your perception of me? I really don’t know.
Sappy song
This was the song on the radio as I drove home from therapy this morning. I’m really glad Noah came back and asked.
Auditioning therapists
I’m looking for lightning. I’m looking for that strike of magic where I will feel ok sharing all of my hard, complicated stuff. It’s not always obvious who I will feel compelled to spill my guts to. With most people, I selectively tell stories. I am aware of peoples perception of me. That’s not a great thing to do with a therapist.
Not the post you are looking for.
Right now I want to go down a long list of self incriminating things. That’s all I want to whine about. But I’m kind of tired of whining. And my arms hurt from typing.
Has anyone read anything funny lately?