Peek-a-Boo Problems...

Am I supposed to be playing Peek-a-Boo? Like did I miss some parenting memo that says I need to play that particular game? I ask only because I am cruising the CDC webpage for Development Milestones (making myself into a neurotic freak is a hobby I excel at) and Delilah should be playing Peek-a-Boo. Except I can’t recall that I have ever played such a game with her. Could it be ingrained in her somewhere, like breathing or swallowing?

I don’t know why I am getting so upset because she doesn’t do one little thing. I mean, she does sign language and stands on her own, so obviously she isn’t a mini-moron (besides having a penchant for eating paper and knitting stitch markers). Of course she also doesn’t point at things she wants (she is very grabby though), there are no favorite toys (besides “ones that light up”), and she would be the easiest kid in the world to kidnap because she will go to anyone (seriously there is no Stranger-Danger Fright in her anywhere).

In my crazier moments I am convinced that she is going to grow up to be a serial killer because she got solid food before 6 months. Obviously I need some perspective. I know all kids do things at their own rate, but this is the only kid I have been up close and personal with; therefore, I have not to compare and contrast her to.  But every time I hear a mom of a similar aged child make a remark about what little Jr. has been doing I can’t help but feel judged. It’s like their babies are doing long division and mine is eating cat hair. To be fair, if her mother wasn’t such an abysmal housekeeper then she wouldn’t be able to find cat hair in such abundance unless she physically ripped it off the cat (which she also does, poor guys…).

What I should really be focusing on is that she is going to become a serial killer because we finally adopted the Cry It Out method when it came to sleep (when I say adopted, I mean that Jason finally brought to my attention that all I am teaching her is that if she starts throwing a fit then mom will come back). Apparently this is going to rot her brain and make her toenails fall off because it is the most inhumane and cruel form of sleep training out there (which on the whole makes no sense to me, why on earth do you need to be trained on how to sleep? Every animal in the world sleeps, you don’t see momma hippos teaching baby hippos how to sleep. I think it’s like having to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, no matter how bad you don’t want to do it, eventually you are going to get your ass up and pee). To listen to some people talk, you would think that letting your kid throw a fit because they are tired but don’t want to sleep is right up there with water boarding. But results don’t lie, and I have a 9 month old that has been sleeping 12-14 hours straight since she was 4 months old, thank you very much.

Dear Delilah...

Dear Delilah,

You are almost 9 months old! You have almost been outside as long as you were inside. And I continue to find you to be the most fascinating little thing in my whole world. You do so many things that strike me as strange, but then I realize that you are just trying to figure out what kind of person you will be. You crawled across the floor to me the other day, but instead of giving me a sloppy, wet kiss, you bit my left eyebrow. You are very into biting these days, and boy does it hurt. They have started calling you “The Shark” at daycare. You have seven teeth coming in now, and you have such a gap between the top two. You look just like I did, with a big “Cattle Gap” up front. I am guessing that braces are going to be in your future.

You now get into even more stuff, which I didn’t think was possible. I have barriers set up all around the living room, trying to keep you contained and away from the heaters, but I am sure it is only a matter of time before you figure out how to launch yourself over them. The trouble with having a smart kid, is that they will eventually outsmart you. You love to do your sprint crawl away from me, straight towards the dog’s water bowl so you can splash your hands in it. And last night I had to dig cat food out of your mouth while you screamed in protest and the cats looked at me like something horrible was happening.

Speaking of the cats, you said your first word when Weasely rubbed against your hand. Plain as day you said “kitty”. I can’t get you to repeat it, so it may have just been a coincidence. You do still say “Da da da “ all the time, and even when I sit in front of you on the floor and say “Ma ma” you still look me dead in the eye and say “Da da”.

You got to bed so early still, so I go in and make sure you are all covered up before I go upstairs. Sometimes, I sit in the rocking chair next to your crib and watch you for a few minutes. You do the funniest things in your sleep. Last night you got up on your hands and knees and rocked back and forth four times before laying back down and putting your fingers in your mouth. I went upstairs and told Daddy and he said “Oh yeah, you do that all the time”. Daddy thinks he is very funny…

Tomorrow they are lighting the town’s Christmas tree at 6pm and I hope you are awake to see it. I am sure I will bundle you up in your little snow suit and drag you down there so you can see.

I love you more than Twizzlers and Jane Austen,

Mom

Why Did I Get Married...

Why Did I Get Married….

I usually do my best thinking in the shower, well except for this week because all I can think about in the shower is that I am turning blue.

Wait, let me go back and give a little context. Every 6 weeks I go and get my hair done by my friend DeAnna at her salon. It’s a nice 3 hours, chatting with friends and getting some reading done.  I am not the kind of girl that does her hair in the morning, so the fact that I get an expensive cut and color every 6 weeks is surprising to most people. As a matter of fact, I walk in and say to either shave it all off or dye it purple every time (well there was that one time when I said I wanted it just like Taylor Swift’s hair and then I had to be blond for 6 weeks…). Usually she does something fascinating with it color wise and I bunch it back up in a messy knot as soon as I walk out (which drives her insane!!!).

Well, this last time she really did dye it purple, except that most of the purple has been washing out for over a week now, except for 2 vivid purple streaks on either side of my head.

Anyway, back to the shower…

So my best friend, A, has been dating this awesome guy for just over 8 months now (well, she calls it dating, I personally don’t count the first 5 months when they were just fucking as “dating”. If it is, then J and I have been “dating” way longer than I have been telling people). He is totally not what she would call her type, but he is nice, and treats her and her kid well and she has even told me that she may love this guy (again, I am counting their relationship as being 3 months old, but she is not the type to just jump into anything without totally over-thinking it first). As a result, she and I got into this discussion about why bother getting legally married when you know you are going to be together anyway.

Well, that got me thinking. Why did I get married? What was the point? Could J and I have just gone through our lives to date without that piece of paper in the fire-proof box along with our passports and social security cards? Does filing our taxes together make us love each other more? No, of course not. This has been my train of thought in the shower for several mornings already as I try to figure out exactly why I felt the need to get married.

Seriously, aren't we the cutest thing ever!!!

Needless to say, DeAnna came to my house for dinner with her man-friend (who is friends with J but was always too young for me to waste my time with in high school) and she and I decided over chicken picatta (which was fucking awesome!!!) that people get married because it is just one more level of commitment.

The next morning, while washing my blue hair I realized how right that was. I didn’t care about the piece of paper, I wanted J to stand in front of the people who were important to us and promise to be with me, for better or for worse, for the rest of our lives. And I wanted all those other people there to witness, incase he tries to weasel his way out of it when he realizes that I am really just a big bag of crazy disguised as a festive, knit cozy.

I called A, to tell her about this epiphany I just had, but she wasn’t biting. Perhaps because I was shrieking… (seriously, the woman has been my best friend for 18 years! She should know how I am by now!) She also probably caught on to the fact that I would really like to go on “couple vacations” in the future and though her daughter is the coolest 5 year old I know, I need her to have a baby closer in age to Delilah so they can keep each other busy while the Mommies drink…

This Week in Etsy...

I can't help it, as much as I try not to, I have to buy things on Etsy! I literally can't help it, it's like a compulsion, or raging addiction I just can't kick (not that I have tried that hard...). Of course I did have to find ways to make my buying a little harder to track after J saw that I spent $100 on a custom ordered, hand made, ceramic TARDIS cookie Jar and almost came unglued. I still say the resulting argument was totally worth it because that blue box looks great on my counter.

So lets see what the damage was this week...

I ordered these super cool stacking rings from an online friend, and though she told me I didn't need to pay for them, I love to support people that I like and I wouldn't dare assume that people will just give me things, although it's nice when they do.

I am also currently on the lookout for holiday presents for Delilah. I thought this cheese was cute, and would make excellent busy work for her, once she can figure out how to work it (which will probably be pretty fast, since she seems to grasp things easily. Well, most things, she still can't tell the difference between the cat's toys and her's...).

I got these silver candle sticks too, mainly because they were only $30 and seemed to be just like these candlesticks that my grandfather gave his mother in the 1940's. They turned out to be smaller than the "real" candlesticks, but I still like them.

The Worst Part...

In my opinion, the worst thing about infertility is how alone you feel. I mean, I get it, if you don’t have kids then you are probably alone more than people who do. That’s not what I am talking about. I mean, when you are infertile you can be in a room full of hundreds or thousands of people and still feel alone. It is amazing how every step of the journey towards a family sets you apart from the groups you had previously belonged to.

On November 2, eight days before my wedding, I received my infertility diagnosis. I was alone then too, because J didn’t think it was something he needed to go to. Over the next few years I slowly lost people I had been close to, because they had children and I was hurt and jealous. It was mostly my fault because I couldn’t stand hearing about being pregnant, or listen to their kids in the background during phone calls. To this day I haven’t even met most of those friend’s children. I had some friends dump me. One even told me she couldn’t be friends anymore because my inability to have children made her feel bad.

But, as time moved on, I made a new group of infertile friends. I met them online and at RESOLVE meetings and things were great. They were smart and funny and we never talked about kids, unless we were detailing our latest treatment cycle or commiserating over seeing pregnant women everywhere.  But then, the same thing started happening. One by one many of them got pregnant and began to drop away. At the time I just thought they were some strange version of Fair Weather Friend that used me for support when they needed it and then couldn’t or wouldn’t offer it back when their situation changed. But now that I am one of the lucky ones, I know that’s not the case either.

When I got pregnant with Delilah I wanted to talk to my friends desperately. I needed them still, but I didn’t dare utter a word because I knew how much it would hurt them. While spending days alone in my room on bed rest I wondered over and over “What the hell have I done? Do I even want this?”. But I literally had no one I could share this with, no one to talk to me and tell me that it would be alright besides one friend whom I texted constantly and then felt guilty about because she may never get to be pregnant, and even then I tried not to talk about it.

When I had Delilah I was just lost. What the hell was I supposed to do with this demanding little thing? It’s not like I had any friends to ask, because I either hadn’t talked to them for years because they had children without fertility treatments, or they were still infertile themselves and listening to me complain about how hard it was to be a mom was not high on their lists of things to do. It’s like I finally got to join the “Mom Club” but didn’t feel like I belonged there, because I was just masquerading as a mom. 

Dear Delilah...

Dear Delilah,

You are now seven and a half months old! How did that happen?!?!? You really aren’t so much a “baby” anymore. You seem more and more like a “kid” every time I look at you. You have started crawling in the last week and you are all over the place and into everything! I swear you have the ability to move faster than the speed of light and can have a cat toy in your mouth in 2 seconds flat. Weasely and Professor Chaos don’t mind sharing though.  Of course you put Weasely and Professor Chaos in your mouth too. I really try to keep you away from them, but honestly, they don’t seem to mind.

You babble all the time, and your favorite thing to say is “Dadadadada”, which causes me so much frustration. I swear you will say “transcendentalism” before you say “Mama”.  You are working on blowing raspberries with your mouth too, but right now is just comes out like a drooly “Booooo”.

You eat like a lumberjack now. I have yet to put a food in front of you that you haven’t thought was the greatest thing in the world. I can’t even begin to guess what your favorite is. I think you like peaches the best, but who doesn’t like peaches?

You almost crawl out of your bed in mom and dad’s room now too, so I think we are going to have to move you down to your crib at night. I have no doubt that you are more than ready, but I am not. I don’t know how I will be able to handle being that far away from you. You had your first sleepover at Nana’s last Sunday night and it was so hard for me to be without you. I kept waking up in the night to check on you, like I always do, and you weren’t there, which made me panic.

I love you more than Christmas and Twizzlers,

Mom

I'm Back, Hopefully...

It may seem like I disappeared, again. I didn’t, I’ve been here all along thinking that I should be posting something. I’d be lying if I said everything was great. I feel like it should be. I finally have everything I have ever wanted and I got most of it before I turned 30.

I have spent the past few months dealing with the fall out of Post Partum Depression. It seems like if you go through years of fertility treatment, make it through a dangerous pregnancy, a horrible birth and still end up with an amazing new person in your life, then you should be OK after that. Like you paid your dues and now you can go back to living your life like you planned before infertility reared it’s ugly head.

When I say Post Partum Depression, I don’t mean I got the “Baby Blues”, I mean my husband dragged me to the Emergency Room because he found me curled up on the floor at work after I told him to take all of the guns out of the house.

I started a new Anti-Depressant, and started going to counseling on Fridays. And I do feel better, not 100%, but better.

I hated that Delilah’s first year will be tainted by me wanting to walk into traffic.  And I am terrified that someday she will find out and think this was her fault. That she made me crazy, or that I didn’t love her, or want her. I am so amazed by her every day; because every day she does something new and I love her even more. Just last night I found her sitting up in her co-sleeper, meaning she sat up on her own for the first time. Of course, at the time I was just scared that she was going to fling herself out onto the floor. 

This Week On Etsy...

So far I have only made one purchase on Etsy.com this week. Which is some kind of record for me. I have been lusting after a MeiTai baby carrying wrap for a few months now, since it seems so much easier to tie than that damn Moby wrap my sister gave me.  I found a woman that makes them in London, so I ordered one since I love supporting all things handmade. Besides, I get to open a box from ENGLAND!!! I don't know why I am so excited, but I am.

I also totally want a little mother and daughter apron set for when Delilah and I bake all kinds of stuff together. But J so helpfully pointed out that she can't even sit up on her own yet, and buying $50 aprons may be a little to premature.

Additionally, I ordered a little something just for me. I have started container gardening, and have quite the collection of great plants and things on my deck now. But what I really needed was a Zombie Garden Gnome.

 

Some Wounds Never Really Heal...

Sometimes I feel like I have come so far in regards to my infertility and the loss of my five pregnancies. I mean, I won the big prize didn’t I? I brought home a healthy, happy, wonderful daughter three months ago.


But sometimes, all of it comes crashing down again. I remember my five babies that I will never meet. I wonder what they may have looked like. Would they have been blond and blue eyed like Delilah? Would they have been up all night, or hated the bath tub? What would their smiles have looked like? And then I feel guilty because if even one of those children had survived then I wouldn’t have Delilah and having her is the most amazing, magical thing I have ever done in my whole life.

I still miss my other babies though and I miss the innocence of not knowing the pain of losing your child before you ever get to meet them.

This Week on Etsy...

I have an Etsy.com addiction. I really can't help myself, it is some kind of compulsion. I am fairly sure I am keeping all of the independent crafters in the world in business with my purchases. I find such great things on there, begging to be sent to me with a hand-written address and a cute little business card. Recent purchases include the Feisty Zombie shirt, which doesn't quite fit right because of my giant, lactating titties, but I am entertained by it none the less.



I have also been feeding my little vampire fangirl with the Vampire's Bite necklace. Though I would never admit it in polite conversation, I have a thing for vampires. Vampire movies, I have seen them. Vampire Clothes, I have worn them. Small dancing vampires that sing songs about sucking blood, I have one in my car. I have read Dracula 7 times and I love every second of it. Of course, if someone asks, that is the only vampire book I ever read. I make sure not to mention the Blackdagger Brotherhood or the Midnight Breed series that I am addicted to, and I really don't mention that I have read the Twilight series..... Twice (damn you Stephanie Meyer and your strangely addicting, yet poorly plotted and written book series!!!).

 

Dear Delilah...

May 20, 2011


Dear Delilah,

Someday, when you are old, you may like to read about what you were like. Today, you are 10 weeks and 4 days old. Your daddy just brought you down to work so I could give you kisses on your bald head. He had you out for a walk in the sun with Cousin Krystal. We spent the morning together at the house and I took you outside to smell the mint and lavender in the herb garden. You took deep breaths when I held them up to your nose and sat in your bouncer chair and watched while I watered everything in the greenhouse.

You have started moving around all over the place, like a worm. It’s amazing to see you wiggle and squirm. You kick your legs like you are running a marathon and wave your arms in the air. And the smiles are the most amazing things I have ever seen. Your whole face lights up and you open your mouth so big in a giant, toothless smile that takes up your entire face. Your smile is so big that it takes up my face too. I spend hours playing with you, just to get one more smile because I am totally addicted to them. I even watch videos of you smiling when I am not with you, just so I never have to be without it.

This week you have discovered something wonderful, your hands. You think your hands are the greatest things ever invented in the history of inventions and you don’t know what you would do without them. Daddy and I are having debates about if you are going to be left handed because you always try to shove your left hand in your mouth first. You would think you wouldn’t like seeing how much of your hand you can fit in your mouth since most of the time you can’t breathe out your nose. You seem to have inherited your mother’s sinuses and I have rubbed your weight in Baby Vicks up your nose in the past few weeks. I thought you wouldn’t like it, but every time I get that bottle out you just sit there and wait for the cooling vapors to open up your little, snotty nose.

You also squawk at me now when you try to get my attention and then you smile and wiggle when I come in to your view. You did that last night when daddy and I took you to a bonfire on the peninsula. Everyone wanted to hold you because you are so cuddly and cute, but you only wanted to cuddle with me. You squawked so much, it sounded like a flock of seagulls. But all the other people there had arguments about who got to hold you next. They kept saying “but I haven’t held her yet!!” We skipped bath time last night because you were so tired when we finally got home, so we all went to sleep smelling like the beach and smoke.



I love you more than chocolate and dinosaurs,

Mom

And Now, For the Rest of the Story...

Ok, to be honest, I didn’t really disappear. I was around the whole time, just busy and lacking motivation. It’s hard to be motivated to type about your life when you are poor and miserable. You think to yourself “would I rather tell people about how I have a Master’s Degree and all day today I got to stock shelves in a yarn store and work for a psycho or would I rather sit here on this couch and watch and watch Dr. Who?” In case you are wondering, Doctor Who will always win an argument like that.


But, a lot has happened in the last year, life changing events have taken place, and who can write about life changing events while they are happening? You need distance and perspective before you can accurately process what has happened and how it has changed you. Actually, I am not so philosophical, and really don’t need distance or perspective from the last year. I know what happened, I lived it. So let’s start at the beginning shall we?

In early March 2010, I had my first appointment with a new fertility doctor. This doctor was funny, friendly, had been through infertility herself, and J and I immediately liked her. It probably helped that she gave me a pelvic exam while wearing pink bunny ears, since how could you not like someone who discusses ovarian cysts while camped out at your lady parts with big, floppy pink bunny ears on their head. It was sort of like what I imagine an acid trip would be like, if I had ever done things like trip on acid. I got an Rx in May to do a tolerance for some medication that was going to turn me into a psychotic, freak show, but the doctor said she would be very surprised if I didn’t get pregnant in 6 months, so I said “bring on the psycho”.

Life marched on and by mid April I had an application in to work in my hometown in Alaska. J and I had both talked about moving back, but hadn’t had jobs, or money and both of those things seemed pretty important at the time. J wasn’t working because he had hurt his knee at work, and was out on leave and I was working extra to make up for the reduction in his salary and praying to God that I didn’t get hit by a buss because when he wasn’t working, I had no health insurance because we couldn’t afford the co-pay when I got a magical phone call. I am not a jumpy, shrieking, squealing kind of girl but on June 4, I jumped and shrieked so loud the people in the isle next to me at Safeway dropped their milk and backed slowly away from me. That job in Alaska was mine, and they were even going to do crazy things, like pay our moving expenses. After over 3 years, I finally had a “real” job and that master’s degree didn’t just seem like toilet paper anymore.

By this point, J and I became so engrossed in moving that I basically forgot about the tolerance test. I was still working a bajillion hours a week, packing, and handling super fun chores like taking the dog and both cats to the vets for their health certificates. My last day in Seattle I went for a test to see if I had passed the test, and then I jetted off to Alaska and didn’t think much of it. Ten days later my doctor’s office called and said that I the drugs had worked and we could start trying to get pregnant just as soon as my cycle started over. Well, I waited and waited but nothing happened. I got frustrated and would scream at my uterus “why can’t you just work right this one time so I can start this stupid cycle and have a baby!!!” Finally my friend suggested that I take a pregnancy test. I scoffed at this of course, how could I possibly be pregnant, I hadn’t even had time for sex the last month. After 3 years of perfectly timed baby making, why on earth would anyone think I would get pregnant when I wasn’t even really thinking about it. Three days after starting my big, fancy new job, while huddled in the employee bathroom, my pregnancy test came back positive.

Ten months later, here I am, working at a real job, and raising a daughter with J. Of course now, I live five houses away from my mother and half of the people in town are my In-Laws…

So with new dedication, I am going to start writing again. Read it, don't read it, it's up to you. And while my daughter is understandably a huge part of my life, I drive a minivan before I become a Mommy Blogger.