fits and starts

 

 

I am officially a c-section mother.  It's taken me almost 6 months to say that - the days following Max's birth were flooded with life events that pushed documentation to the background.  His birth story sits unfinished in Blogger.  For the sake of this post actually getting written, suffice it to say that when the post-op doctor came to my room after a 13-hour labor and emergency c-section, she said without preamble: Don't try a vbac next time.  Just head straight for scheduling a C.

All of this meant to tell you that I do my best to be a c-section supporter.  It's what my body and babies need, I guess, and so I go with the flow.  HOWEVER, there is one thing that really bothers me about the c-section: the fuzzy-headed fog of disconnect that invariably lasts for days.  Even when you think you're getting clear, the pain of recovery wraps your body in a zig-zag of haze.

I don't know if it's indicative of the c-section alone, or if it's simply a body's way of learning how to connect the dots of relationships when everything has been rewired.  Does every new mother go through this?

And with a second one, the disconnect is intensified.  Relearning how to be in the house, in my body, in the world.  All the while tending to the needs of not one but two small beings.

It's taken nearly six months and I'm still not quite there.

I tried to set myself up with a list of expectations: those things that need to be done to live inside the space I call my life.  Taking care of Alice, of Max, of Chip.  Doing housework and cleaning toilets.  Occasionally making dinner.  Showering.  Doing work for my church.  My part-time job.  Family relationships.  As the circle grows wider, we come to things like Alice's 2nd year of our preschool co-op, service for others, sewing.  Then there are the outlying goals of exercise, gardening, eating healthy.  This blog pushes farther back on that list but I find that it fills my mind even as I try to tell myself that it's okay, it's another layer of life stuff that will eventually be able to fit inside my day.

If I think of The Creamery as simply a journal then it doesn't make sense why I haven't come back sooner.  But it isn't that simple, it never is.  The Creamery has always been more than that to me.  It's an interactive journal, a small space on the internet where I've met so many of you.  And I've said it before: I miss you.  Even when I don't show it.  Even when I don't respond to emails.  Even when it takes me two months to post after Phoebe's death.  I do miss you.

And I want to be better about showing it.

Life goes on.  This space has sat empty and lonely.  I'm going to fix that.

farewell to a friend

I've tried to write it a dozen times - in between feeding the kids and sweeping the floor and organizing the freezer, I have tried to write these words to say goodbye.  Instead I find myself writing a laundry list of things I'm going to miss about her.

So here it is, in list form, my sendoff for dearly delightful and oh-so-hairy Phoebe:


-She liked to sleep on my bed, and more specifically on top of my head.  I called it Phoebe Hat and it made me nuts.

-As a kitten she would stand on my chest while I was sleeping and sneeze directly on my face.

-She never took NO for an answer.

-She had terrible breath.

-She had the softest belly fur: white and downy with bits of her pink skin poking out.

-Long tufts of fur grew out between the pads on her paws.  I liked to tug on them until she'd move her paws.

-She followed me into the kitchen every time I walked in there.  She was hoping for treats.

-I used to put my cereal bowl on the floor after I was done eating.  She would come along and stick her paws in the bowl, licking the milk off her paw fur.

-She played something we called Crunchy Hockey with the dried cat crunchie food.  She'd fish a single bit of cat cereal onto the kitchen floor and then bat it across the room - chasing it as fast as she could.

-Her belly fluv swung far and low to the ground.

-She was annoying.  She got into everything.  She shed on every stitch of nice clothing I had.  She had awful hairballs and would vomit on the rugs the minute I washed them. 


And I'm going to miss her.  We're all going to miss her.  Because she was also the sweetest, most long-suffering, best example of unconditional love I've ever known.  An angel.  Covered in fur.

sleeping habits of the baby boyd

Or, more accurately, NONsleeping habits.  The little dude is charming from the moment he wakes around 6:30am to eat and smile and sneeze (without fail: four times in a row).  Then, throughout the day he continues to eat and smile and poop and sneeze AND DOESN'T SLEEP FOR MORE THAN 30 MINUTES AT TIME.  For thirteen hours.  He retires as a gentleman should at the considerate hour of 9pm. 

I am doing my best to take this in stride.

But yesterday his charms were dimmed by the intermitant crying fits he deemed fit to add to his repertoire.

Alice had her sleep issues, heaven knows I struggled through them.  And as it goes, I've defended the dude's little quirks because I think he's scrumptious.  But come ON.  I've tried putting him down in quiet rooms, loud rooms, bright rooms, dark rooms, tightly swaddled and barely blanketed.  Nothing really makes a difference except if I'm actually sleeping WITH him and can attend his every whimper and move.  So that's clearly out.

Did you have or do you have children with weird sleep issues?  And more specifically, anyone have experience with the rare non-daytime sleeping baby?

This baby says Who wouldn't want to spend thirteen hours a day with me?



my excuse for not getting anything done

Because really, when there are children this delicious to smoosh on, how one be expected to blog?

now with bow tie

After Max's frightening visit to the hospital in April, I felt compelled to flee the state with kids in tow.  Don't ask me for details of the solo-parenting flights to Salt Lake (a frightening blur), but the memories I'm left with are these---

A month of reveling in familial goodness
A month of my parents mugging on Alice and Max
A month of playing with cousins and visiting with our nearest and dear
A month of checking in with our dear Winston, checking on his amazing recovery
A month of fun and backyard play

And also this, Max's blessing day, with every single one of my siblings in attendance.  All of the cousins except for one (we greatly missed Taylor).

I was the perfect reason for Max to don infant formal wear.  He was very dapper.

It felt like we were swimming in an ocean of love.  We can't thank mom and dad enough for opening their home to us.  And the hugest of thanks to Kimmie, Steve, Curtis and their families for everything. 

I do so love this group of crazy people.