We are staying home on NYE. If anyone would like to come over for a very mellow sort of night that would be great. We might play games. We have alcohol and sparkling cider and pretty glasses to drink both in. 🙂
We are of course very kid friendly. We even have a guest bed if a kidlet needs to pass out and you want to stay later.
One of my awesome former students came to visit me today. I took her to lunch and we chatted and moved closer towards being friends instead of teacher/student. She told me all about her excitement about joining the Navy. I sent her home with The Gift of Fear and told her that she should sign up for an Impact class before she heads to basic training. I am completely supportive of her joining the military but I also think she needs to learn to take care of herself. She was extremely enthusiastic and supportive. I’m glad we got to spend the day together. 🙂
So right this minute my back is a little better. I took half of a leftover vicodin to get to this point. Earlier I was having trouble with feeling really angry because of how badly my back hurt. Shanna is being super super super (add a few of those on) clingy because she is teething. She’s not being bad. She’s not doing anything wrong. She’s just hurting and she needs lots of attention as a result. It’s hard sometimes to give her all the attention she needs when I’m also feeling crummy.
That said: overall it was a good day. After a less than awesome traffic experience we had a great Ikea run. 🙂 I found lots of stuff we need and a few things that we don’t need but I really want and I let myself get it. Yay! I found all the stuff at Home Depot that I will need for venting the dryer and the stuff I will need to put backs on the shelving units. Verra successful, that. Shanna was extremely patient.
I’m going to go do some more to try and help my back feel better so I can better enjoy the afterglow of a good day instead of being cranky. 🙂
I get to go to Ikea today! Would anyone like to go with me? 🙂
This stage of the garage project is completely over. YAY!
Between now and Christmas I am going to try and avoid negativity. I am going to refrain from complaining about anything. I am going to try to find something positive in each situation. If I can’t find anything positive to think about a situation I will walk away from it. I will notice the really really good things in my life.
Starting with:
I have less than 30 minutes of work left in the garage before I can move furniture out there. It looks like our dinner plans tonight are not going to materialize so I will use that time to finish the cleaning and start moving furniture. Yay! I’m really excited about this. [For those following at home, the garage is not done but I am not going to finish it for a couple of months to give myself some time to regain sanity.]
Shanna and I have had a wonderful day today. While I was working out in the garage she napped on my back. We went on a long, fun walk today. She would lag behind then declare “Chase Mommy! Fast Shanna!” It was so awesome.
Ms. asked me questions. If you want questions say so in comments.
1) How would you say motherhood has changed the essential you, or has it?
Well… I’m not sure. There are big parts of me that motherhood has changed drastically. I’m no longer quite as out there sexually as I once was. I miss that. I’m not sure if it will really come back how it was. And that was the largest part of my identity once upon a time so this is pretty hard for me. Other than that I don’t feel like I’ve changed that much. I’m still bossy and aggressive and rather a control freak. 🙂
2) What does the Christmas season mean to you? What would you like for it to mean to Shanna? Are there traditions you would like to see her grow up with?
Oh man. This is interesting to me. I know what I would like the Christmas season to mean but I’m not sure if I’m there. I would like Christmas time to be when I slow down and look at how awesome my life is and how many wonderful people I have in my life. I like giving presents because I get to show people a very small portion of my affection for them that way. I’m totally a feeder. That’s a lot of why I love making cookies and giving them away. 🙂 I think that I would like Shanna to see Christmas as a time of joyous anticipation. Not just because she is getting presents, but because she will get to see people and do things that are special to this time of year. Next year she will be old enough to help with most of the things I would like us to have as traditions: making cookies, decorating, dancing to cheesy Christmas music, going to look at Christmas lights, cuddling up and reading books while looking at the Christmas tree.
3) Do you miss teaching in a classroom?
More than I’ve ever missed anyone or anything in my life. It’s a near constant ache. That is the thing I have done the best of anything I have ever done. That was me at my best. And it feels like it is gone.
Of all the parenting decisions that I make I hadn’t thought that not-spanking would be one that became an issue. Really? You think there is no way for me to control my kid without hitting her? Ok, let me back up and explain.
Someone I’ve been friends with for 13 years was over. People who have been in my life this long are given tons and tons of slack for uhm, lets call it quirky behavior. She likes to talk about her cousin who has twin boys about a year older than Shanna. She mentioned that her cousin thinks the kids are now old enough to spank. *blink* I told her that there is zero evidence that spanking is an effective behavior modification tool and lots of evidence that it is not helpful. I stayed pretty calm during that early bit. She kept up arguing that spanking is necessary to control children. ?! What? I started getting upset so I told her that I didn’t want to have this conversation with her because I think what her cousin is doing is wrong. She went on to tell me that she was spanked and she turned out fine. I started losing my temper at this point. I said, “Yeah and I’ve been raped half a dozen times and I turned out fine so obviously we should do that to all the girls.” She said, “You aren’t fine. You have serious psychological issues.” I went from seeing red to seeing white. I wanted to hit her. I had to hold my fists very firmly at my sides. If hitting children is the correct method of behavior modification–maybe I should hit her to modify her behavior? I told her that she isn’t fine. That she is seriously fucked up. At this point she looked like she went over the line into being really really angry.
Then my nephew and his friend arrived. Right then. Perfect timing. I went out to help them get started and I told her that I had to work and be done socializing. She wanted to set up more hanging out soon and I said that we’ll see.
I’m having a lot of trouble with this right now. I want to go down the very long list of ways in which she is not a functional adult and rub her nose in it. I want to do a line by line comparison of how I may have issues but I god damn take care of them whereas she expects her parents to take care of hers. But that’s not helpful.
If she were lecturing me on vaccines or diapers or orororor I wouldn’t have gotten this angry. But seriously–fucking spanking? You think I have to spank to have control? If you have to hit someone to have control over them then you have already lost control. And there probably isn’t any way to get it back.
I think I’m not going to talk to her for a bit. Then I will try to write an email explaining that if we are to remain friends personal attacks aren’t ok. I don’t do them towards her (fantasies in my head aside) and it’s not ok for her to do them towards me. That’s the adult thing to do. But man I don’t want to be an adult. I want to tell her that she is a stupid immature bitch and I no longer want to have anything to do with her. But that’s probably a fleeting feeling. I mean, she is an immature bitch and all, but she has redeeming qualities. I’m sure I will remember what those are in a few days.
Mudding and sanding are completely done. Today I am going to sweep and mop the garage. Then the kitchen. And then we can vacuum the rest of the house. 🙂 Tonight the garage will get the first coat of primer. I think two coats are a good idea given some of the areas of funk (the wall next to the house is stained and the beams are all pretty foul). The second coat will probably happen on Thursday. The inspector came this morning so I’m about done with this stage of the project. Yay! Decorative painting is going to wait a few months until there is more money in the kitty.
So I will probably start moving stuff out to the garage on Friday and Saturday. I only need help for the biggest pieces and then I can handle the rest of the work by myself over the next week. YAY!
Cookie baking is done. Cinnamon rolls are happening on Saturday.
Christmas cards are completely done and in the mail.
Yesterday I made a whole bunch of Aloo Gobi Mattar and it is really really good. Today I am making corned beef and cabbage (and potatoes, of course). Tomorrow is some cut of beef that Noah took out of the freezer; I should probably figure out how I am cooking that. I should also make veggie soup today or tomorrow and that will use up the vast majority of the veggies in the house. With the generous help of Sarah’s freezer foods I think we will be set for meals (except for Christmas dinner) for basically the rest of the month. That’s kind of awesome. 🙂
Wow. I have cleaning, cooking and wrapping presents left on the agenda for this week and setting up the garage for next week. I think this may be my lowest stress Christmas in years. 🙂 Everything is coming together easily and in advance. Yay!
The boxes from Noah’s parents have finished arriving. I’m somewhat shocked by the generosity. I mean, my family buys a lot of stuff but it’s mostly crap. There was a really really nice doll unwrapped on the top so that when we opened the box Shanna’s face lit up like a candle. It’s rather impressive.
And then there are all her Christmas presents.
Wow. We have a very full Christmas tree and I haven’t wrapped anything yet. heh I think Shanna is going to make out like a bandit. Maybe it’s a good thing I can’t afford to get her the awesome kitchen on kids.woot.com right now because she’s already going to be pretty spoiled. Wow.
Wow. 🙂
(And the doll has a handmade jacket that matches the awesome outfit Noah’s mom made last Christmas!! How awesome is that! And a blanket out of the same super cute material! It’s very thrilling. Shanna hasn’t set the doll down yet.)
I might have to poke Noah extra to get him to call and say thank you.
Noah is teaching Shanna how to tell “jokes.”
“Why did the chicken cross the road?”
“Poop!”
“Ask me if I’m an alligator.”
“Are you an alligator?” (she said this surprisingly well)
“Poop!”
*sigh*
This week has been remarkably stable and upbeat. I had the brief manic phase last week as kind of a ‘end of depression festivity’ and since then… very calm. I have been doing stuff to relax many of the evenings, but not every evening and not at all during the day. I feel better. I feel like I am not going to freak out if something is less than perfect. I haven’t had self harming ideation at all this week.
I hired my nephew to come do a lot of the work in the garage. That was a wise choice. He has worked out there probably ~16 hours over the past week and he has made amazing progress. He has about two more hours of mudding left to do. I am, of course, extremely grateful to Paula for coming over and telling us how to do this more efficiently. 🙂 Not to mention the work she did in general. 🙂 Yayyyyyy Paula! The mudding will be finished tomorrow and he will be coming over next week to start the painting. The garage won’t be ‘done’ by Christmas but it will be usable which was by goal. It’s kind of funny, but I am proud of myself for realizing that I wouldn’t be able to get it done by myself and asking for help. That’s a big deal for me. And I’m grateful that Denny was willing to come do so much work. And I’m super super super grateful to T and L for all the enormous work they have done so far. I’m feeling very humbled by the good people in my life. I may not have people who are available to ‘hang out’ much, but when I need help it appears. That is something I need to spend more time being aware of.
We haven’t finished making Christmas presents and we haven’t mailed anything. Oops. 🙂 Stuff may be late this year. And you know what? That’s ok too.
This is why I believe in the roller coaster model of life. Everything that is up must come down and everything that is down must come up. Thank goodness for upswings.
It’s time for American Gift Giving Holiday cards! If you have moved in the last year I pretty certainly don’t have your address. If I have sent you a card before there is only like a 75% chance that I still have your address. I’m *awesome* like that.
So! Now’s the time! All comments screened so you can give me your address if you would like a card.
Based on what I have read and how much is left to do I can probably get the mudding completely done this week in the garage (thanks to the generous help of awesome people) and I can probably even get the garage painted with primer if not with colored paint.
I need to get baking done. I have barely started. I could also stretch this into next week if I have to but I would prefer not.
I need to get the holiday cards addressed so they can go in the mail the day I get the pictures back or they won’t go out at all.
I need to get cooking done that uses up this week’s vegetables.
And there is the constant avalanche of crap inherit in living with a toddler. I would love to just ignore this part for the whole week but Noah gets cranky.
And let’s not get into how desperately my bathroom needs cleaning.
I’m tired before the work even begins.
I kind of forgot this feeling. Man I’ve been productive today. Shanna woke me up at 4:30. We didn’t really get out of bed till 5. I left Noah sleeping. Then I got up and got busy. Today I have (in no particular order):
-Cleaned up basically all of the small debris out in the garage and put it away or broke it up small enough for the trash.
-loaded the dishwasher and ran it
-put the dishwasher stuff away
-did a full dishdrainer full of hand washing
-diaper laundry is nearly done
-another load is in the washer
-went through extensive stain removal crap on a shirt of Shanna’s that I love. *cross fingers it will actually come clean*
-completely cleaned off the kitchen counter and scrubbed it and the stove
-cleaned off the kitchen table and changed the linen
-cleaned the cat litter box
-read several chapters in My Mother Wears Combat Boots while Shanna napped (turkey butt)
-got my nephew started mudding the garage (w00t)
-ate the best cookie ever: white chocolate, blueberries, and milk chocolate covered blueberries. I think I died and went to heaven.
-made sausage and eggs for breakfast
-fed Shanna several snacks
-Completely scrubbed down the high chair (it was disgusting)
-spent a lot of time chatting with my wonderful Sarah 🙂
-rounded up all the unused Christmas stuff and put it away
And it’s not even noon.
I think I will go clean the bathroom. I’m thinking that I should sweep the kitchen. Mopping is pointless until we finish the drywall stuff. Hmmmmm…. what else should I do…
I haven’t been posting filtered stuff. As a result I have ceased to feel safe posting about some of the stuff going through my head and I’m tired of feeling like I can’t post on my journal. So I’m back to filters. This isn’t a particularly broad filter. There are many cases of one person in a partnership being on this filter when the other person isn’t. I’m not asking you to keep secrets from your partner but I would prefer if you didn’t go out of your way to bring this stuff up. I still like all of your respective partners I just don’t want to be argued with right now.
Apparently Shanna is choosing this week to start potty training herself. I had completely given up on EC because she was so hostile to pottying for a long time. But this week she has decided to start asking for the potty almost 50% of the time. I think with a little encouragement from me she will be out of diapers in another week because I think she just needs a little bit of reminding. Like she woke up this morning and announced, “Mama potty poop.” And she did. 🙂
Now how’s that as a follow up to my dirty dreams?
Periodically I have filthy dreams about my friends. They are usually a whole lot of fun. I wonder about the etiquette about telling people about them. So a poll:
+ Hanging out with the blacksheep all day plus brief appearances with her Frogling and husband
+ Pastrami sandwich the size of my head
+ Seeing Mr. and Mrs. HotPockets 🙂
+ Totally awesome shopping at the Hanna Andersson store
+ Totally enjoyed the toy store
+ Shanna has behaved super well despite very minimal napping and being in and out of the car
+ Fantastic Mongolian BBQ at some grocery store
+ Can’t beat heated seats
+ Good bonding time with Dad
+ Awesome hand-me-downs
– Still haven’t heard from C 🙁
– Miss Noah
– Still sad
– Bleeding sucks
Overall it’s been a great day.
I suppose it isn’t a surprise that I feel funky and out of sorts. I have a nasty headache. I’m tired and drained and stressed. But I’m at Dad’s house. If the house were a little more babyproofed it would be way way more restful. I can’t really ignore her here and that’s hard.
There’s a part of me that wasn’t 100% certain that I had a miscarriage before because I never had a positive pregnancy test. The past few days of seeing what is coming out of my body has dispelled all doubt. This is my second miscarriage in less than six months. I talked to my midwife. This might be coincidence. This might be a problem that is easy to fix with minor medical intervention. She didn’t really want to say but there was the strong hint that this might be a sign that something is Wrong. I know that it’s a small chance. But I still freaked out when I kind of had to acknowledge that. I had cryosurgery and was told then that I might have trouble getting pregnant because she was taking off a lot of the surface of my cervix. Then I had a hard labor. There is a non-zero chance that something was damaged. I’m scared.
And I’m a petty, horrible bitch. I found out today about two more pregnancies in my relatively close social circle. I’m jealous. I’m angry that my body isn’t working right. I’m upset that they aren’t having this hard of a time. And then I think about my friend who hasn’t been able to get pregnant at all and I feel like the worst sort of horrible person. How dare I be upset about having problems now when I have such a wonderful, beautiful child.
But it hurts. It hurts so much. I hate that I feel betrayed by my body. My body has more or less always done what I wanted it to. My body doesn’t have a lightening fast metabolism, but I’ve proven that I can have the kind of body I want (I just don’t care enough to maintain it). I don’t have allergies. I’m mostly healthy. The Meniere’s hasn’t actually made my life harder at this point. I have disliked having the stomach acid problems, but enh.. that’s just whining.
This is awful. This is hard. I feel broken and bad and horrible and defective.