Happy happy evening
Keats came home! He’s a bit dirty - or will have been - but he looks fine. I hope he didn’t catch anything and won’t give it to the girls. We talked about quarantining him and decided that other than keeping him away from Noah for a few days and being extra vigilant about cat boxes it’s just not realistic and probably he didn’t get anything anyway.
He is my big snuggly silly boy. The girls are all hissy ’cause he doesn’t smell right, but I can tell in a couple of hours it will be a baths love-fest.
Thank you everyone for the good thoughts. :)
Keats is still missing
Hence I am bleah today. We’ve looked and looked and postered and asked neighbours. So now it’s up to Keats and fate. It rained yesterday though which will make it much harder for him to find his way back. :( At least I think so.
If he doesn’t come back I hope he found a family that will treat him like a king.
I’ve never lost a pet before - I mean I’ve lost pets to other things, but I’ve never had one just go missing. It sucks.
Bad news day
Keats is missing and has been since yesterday afternoon. He often hides inside the house but never past bedtime, and it’s entirely possible he got out between dogs and gardening and the sticky door that has to be latched really carefully in the humidity. But in the past even when he’s gotten out he’s always been curled up by wherever he got out between 2 and 4 am.
The system kids were up basically all night looking for him throughout the house and neighbourhood (I’m now officially the midnight prowler). By now I’d say there’s definitely something awfully wrong and it sucks. He’s my big snuggly boy and Noah’s boon companion and darn it, where *is* that cat?
To top it off we had the first dentist apt since the whole root canal experience today. Fortunately teeth and gums are all just fine, although we do need to get the crown we didn’t manage to get after the whole infection fiasco.
Noah is at least in good spirits now that I’ve returned. He wasn’t too pleased about me leaving (Carl scheduled stuff so he could watch him) and is watching me like a hawk, but a happy well-fed hawk. He does look for Keats now and then though.
If that darn cat’s gotten himself permanently lost I will be a mini wreck for a bit. Our loss quotient just still feels really full despite all the good things of the last two years. And of course I worry that he’s sick somewhere. Poor fat old boy.
10 months
(Okay, I lied - here it is)
My boy! 10 months old already!
I have to start thinking about a birthday party! But wait, this isn’t about that. This is about you. And my busy guy, you are something else already. You are the grand explorer who climbs up the side of his playpen or gets to standing against the cupboard doors or a wall - one hand or foot at a time. You seem fearless, attacking stairs (at playgroup, although we have some too) as if you could get up them just by flinging yourself hard enough.
You continue to discover your preferences and share them with us. Right now you like one page of Moo, Baa, Lalala - the page where the rhinocerouses SNORT and SNUFF. You’ll turn the pages back to that page and wait for me to SNORT and SNUFF for your amusement easily 20 times a day. I have not yet gotten to the point where I will consider hiding the book on top of the piano, but I may.
(The piano is the new messy spot in our house because it is one of the few flat surfaces you can’t reach. The centre of the coffee table worked for a while, but you grew - and if that wasn’t enough, you also have figured out to dump a basket on the floor and stand on it to extend your reach. And you don’t even walk yet!)
Your other favourite amusements include: giving me something and waiting to get it back, complicated games of peek-a-boo where we both hide or where you go around corners, and chasing anything with wheels - or even better, racing me to get to whatever it was. And oh yes - animals of any sort, especially the cats. Yesterday I caught you and Keats wrestling on the floor with each other, to my horror - I’d just popped two dishes in the dishwasher; how did you manage to get into it in that time? You loved it. Now you want to tackle him whenever you see him.
You have a gentler side that is coming out too. You adopted the stuffed lamb you were given as a special lovey and dragged him around for a few days, rubbing your face into him whenever possible - until I made the mistake of winding up the music box and his head wobbled, and that scared you. You hold on when I pick you up sometimes and hug and it is just the greatest feeling, that you want to cuddle. You rub your face against soft blankets and pillows. And sometimes when you’re crawling or cruising around you get tired and just lie down with your head on the rug for a few minutes.
I love both these sides of you - the reckless reaching out and the calm moments of gentle. Although I sort of wish the former resulted in fewer little bumps and scrapes.
You also have begun what hard-core baby books might call manipulative crying and I call wanting attention. You’ve (correctly) identified the laptop as one of the challengers to your absolute authority over my time, and we are starting what I suppose is a life-long - but certainly the next-two-years-long - dance between us.
Right now we have a truce: first order of business is having some good high quality playtime together. Then during the times I’m reading/typing/whatever you emit a particular “uh!” sound from time to time and I look up, beam at you, perhaps roll you a ball or reach over and tickle you, and then you go on with your baby business and I continue to half-draft things or chat while keeping you in my field of vision.
Should I miss the “uh” though, chaos results.
This is how, oh my eldest son and only living child, I try to inculcate a little independence; the assurance that things are okay even if all the attention isn’t on you all the time, but that when you need attention it will be there to be given. God knows if I have it right, but Dr. Spock is behind us.
I also try to get you out with other kids at least twice a week. Two weeks ago, when you weren’t sick, you were in a group of boys all just a bit older than you and all four of you wanted the same toy. The other three rushed each other to get it, and you did too at first. Then you sat back and watched them play with it, with another toy in your hand for consolation. And then after they had pinched each other enough that their mothers hauled them off (two of them) or lost interest (the last), you surged in and played in delight.
And yet just when I was worrying whether you were an evil mastermind, one of the babies cried and you did too, with many pointed looks in my direction to Do Something. Empathy starts pretty young, I guess, or at least annoyance with other people’s children.
Our home is frequently visually chaotic, strewn with everything you’ve found - books, toys, pots and pans, and anything else mistakenly left within reach. It takes you about 20 minutes to empty all the baskets in the living room. And you know what? It doesn’t bother me half as much as it might. Somehow your enthusiasm outweighs my love of calm space.
But the time I’m enjoying most are our walks together, with you in the Ergo facing me as we learn how pines are prickly and mulberry leaves are tough, as leaves go; how the wind off the lake gets in your eyes and the rain feels on your dangling, bare feet. It’s cosy to use a carrier and it feels intimate and sometimes, especially in the evening, reverent.
Every age so far is my favourite as we pass through it and that, my boy, is a large gift from you to me.
My therapist is psychic…
… ’cause she emails me the week I start thinking “hmmm, it’s about time to work out how to afford/find time for therapy again.” Not out of any Huge Big Disaster or anything, just the blues last week and all the mum stuff Noah’s being sick brought up and also that weird post-holiday sense I’m getting now that maternity leave is coming to an end. A year’s worth.
It’s hard to believe it’s been almost a year since we were in my therapist’s office! My god! It’s time to go back at least enough to check in - for Noah’s sake if not ours (ours too).
Abuse stuff is front and centre today too because the CBC ran a big piece on PTSD and veterans - a very brave and forthright piece that presented a whole bunch of stuff. Arguments against PTSD (”why are these men who have lived fine for 30 years now having trouble?”); arguments stating PTSD is a scientific fact. But what hit me hard was retired general Romeo Dallaire’s audio clip talking about how he couldn’t go to the supermarket without having flashbacks to the Rwandan genocide, talking about how he’s not good at suicide because he makes cuts that are too shallow when he’s suffering. (I highly recommend the clip, but you know, be sensible about listening to it).
This is a grown man, a soldier, who is having the same troubles as people I know who went through awful things as kids, and us too (not right now!). And yet I have trouble sometimes taking it seriously, that things happened to us that affect us still.
He is an incredibly brave and forthright man to talk about this stuff publicly. Thank god for crusty old white men like him.
Today was a good day. I was a bit tired because last night rather than continuing to let Noah settle back into his regular sleep schedule I took him over to M’s to babysit for her so she and her husband could go have a nice meal out. She’d called a bit last minute and I have to admit I really wanted to say no and beg off, after the weekend of stomach big. But my superhero complex kicked in and I said yes and… it ended up being just what I needed to feel like I could take Noah out again, a calm evening at her place. (we’ve been doing walks along the lake but I’ve felt like I needed to stick close to the bathroom and washing machine… irrationally, a bit, since he’s been ok since Sunday).
It was a lot of fun. Their daughter is a thoroughly enjoyable child and I always feel like I’m soaking up Good Parenting Atmosphere there.
So today I ventured out with him to the big evil chain discount store, using the Ergo to keep him happy, and bought a cart full of stupid stuff we needed - garbage bags and sunscreen and water shows and stuff to knit. Noah has to be watched pretty carefully these days ’cause he gets himself into trouble in a flash, and knitting seems to go along with that ’cause it’s soothing and I don’t get so antsy and yet can watch him like a hawk and talk to him. We’ll see if it actually works that way.
The 10 month post is in draft but not there yet. And I think I’m likely off to do a bit more cleaning before bed. Night all!
Something I did not know about sick babies
When they start feeling better, they want to eat. Constantly. All night, in fact. I was nursing almost straight 7 - 10 pm and 1 am - 4 am. My poor boobs. But Noah is doing so much better.
It makes sense from a survival point of view, but man. It’s been newborn-intense around here the last little bit.
Yesterday (after my post) in stats & facts
Number of times Noah threw up between 12 and 2 pm: 6
Number of bouts of diarrhea between 2 pm and 6 pm: 3
Number of wet diapers between 6 pm and midnight: 0
Times baby woken up to nurse or drink pedialyte between 6 pm and 1 am: 4
Disgusted faces Noah made at pedialyte: 30
Number of oz drunk from sippy cup: 1
Number of oz fed by spoon: 4
Number of wet diapers between midnight and 2 am: 1, thank god
Number of calls to Telehealth Ontario: 2
Number of times “hospital visit” came up in conversation: 8, give or take a few
Episodes of Queer as Folk watched: 3
Number of times I had to change due to vomit or diaper failure: 4
Loads of laundry done: 5
Flashbacks/strong memories of my mum yelling/freaking out about vomit when we were kids: 3
Urges I had to yell, cry, or scream anywhere near Noah because he was vomiting: 0, if not minus eleventy one
Number of times change table has been washed down: 10
Times kitchen floor cleaned: 2
Number of toys in dishrack drying right now: 30 (hey the little people are little!)
Worst moment: waking Noah up at midnight and seeing Emily in his sunken eyes and dried lips and the shape of his chin
Best moment: when he then smiled and babbled
Grossest moment: vomit. cleaveage. Need we say more.
Man, sick babies are a lot of work!
P.S. Happy anniversary Lohr. I love you.
Pride, pride, and poo
My baby talks! He says “dada” “ang” (grandma) “angAH” (grandpa) and “ack!” (cat). I’d thought I was imagining things, but no, the “dada” is extremely clear - he says it to say hello, and when we march upstairs from Carl’s office in the basement he says “dadadadADADADA” in indignation. The ang and angAH came out yesterday when they appeared, as they had on Tues when we met them on a walk, and not in between.
I’m so - wriggly proud. My boy! Communicating in words!
Pride week is this week and Pride weekend is this weekend though and we will be missing it because of - the poo. Noah’s and my crankiness may have been us getting sick ’cause we both did starting Wed night. And here I thought breastfeeding meant never having to change a diarrhea-y boy (just a joke, that last, but some people would have you believe “increased resistence” means “never gets sick. I wish!). So yesterday was all about the liquids. Noah took a 3! hr! nap! which goes to show how sick he was; I ran in and out every half hour while also having pleasant hanging out online. Then I freaked that perhaps I should have been waking him to nurse and both nursed and tried to get pedialyte into him.
He hates pedialyte. But he’s fine in the hydration department. And he’s on the rice and bananas diet otherwise, after -all- the breastmilk he can take. And I am on copious amounts of rice and bananas and tons of liquid and rest, so as to produce the copious amounts of breastmilk required.
Telehealth Ontario says likely Noah will have decreasing amounts of diarrhea for - up to two weeks! Gah! But for sure 3-5 days.
Then this morning my parents’ dog, who is staying with us for two weeks and was dropped off yesterday, had nervous diarrhea, because he’s scared of the cats. Making my official title Poo Manager.
Sooooo - no Pride for us, except that we can lie around at home and watch L-Word and Queer as Folk. And no pool party today which sucks because it was with a really cool mom and her freelance writer friends, at her pool. But she has promised me more hangouty goodness, which is really sweet and I am glad.
And here’s my weird confession of the day: two Prides ago I had a great, great day and night - a day hanging with Lohr; a night out dancing with N. and revelling in the whole Pride thing. And it was the first time since Emily had died that I felt alive and it was the first real hint I had that I could be happy again. And now Pride is all wrapped up with that for me: it’s an affirmation for so many people that who they are is Okay, and for me too but in this different way - that it was okay to - not move on, because nothing could do that, but keep going even so.
And so I would like to go down and dance again. I didn’t last year ’cause I was really feeling sick and pregnant and fearful with labour soon upon me. But this year! I thought I would at least go down to kids’ Pride and get Noah’s face painted.
But - here’s the wierd part - I’m actually okay staying home and nursing Noah and watching shows about gay people on DVD instead. Because it’s a quieter, privater celebration - the difference between a riot of colour and a simple clean linen cloth. But it is living fully, too.
Balancing angst
Today is much better, even though the actual stuff is a bit harder. But I’m centred. Noah wouldn’t nap and finally I put him in the Ergo and went for a walk by the lake - he passed out, and I got to feel the breeze and see the sun sparkle on the water. I am once again so grateful to be living here. I am having paroxyms of gratitude today and it occured to me to mention the weird real estate blip that we bought in - on my street lately houses on the lake side have sold for $500k, and houses on my side of the street that had better lots but smaller rooms, or equivalent give and takes, have sold for $380k. But we bought for considerably less. If it was the teal and the bad carpet downstairs and the junk well, thank you for that.
Although I still can’t explain yesterday’s dip, which is fine - not every bad mood needs a reason - I am suffering from massive existential angst around the decision to leave my job. I want to lay out here once again that I think good daycare is not a terrible thing and that I am in no way taking any moral high ground. I just am laying out what I’m thinking for our family.
And that is - has been for a bit, but I wanted to talk to people at work - that given that we have the luxury of some choice, I think it is going to be my choice to not go back to work full-time for another year, or six months, or however long we can manage financially. The big picture reasons are:
1) We can afford it - barely, in that our basic expenses (even the car) are coverable and we have some savings for the other things that inevitably come up.
2) Carl’s work continues to be really high-maintenance during the week, and might be on weekends again. It’s not economically feasible for him to just quit, and he can’t go part-time.
3) It doesn’t feel right to either of us to make the trade for the job I would be going back to - a job I have enjoyed but which has changed a lot in a way I would not necessarily like. Again looking at us as a team, me being home can mean higher quality meals, keeping in better touch with family and staying connected to our community and all these things that take time and energy but are not paid.
4) Noah is thriving where he is. He well might do this in daycare too, but right now is good.
5) Daycare is harder to find under 18 months, so even six months longer makes a big difference in terms of what spaces are available, etc.
6) I do actually do work where I can continue to grow my career and even make money without having “a job” unlike, say, nursing or being a lawyer or something.
I agree with all this. There are some challenges in it even objectively - we’ve done well saving this year, but it is going to be really pretty tight financially. But it feels like the right decision.
I am going to try to sell my work on providing them with a pile of good easy-for-them content for money, produced from my home. I don’t know if they’ll go for it, but that would be ideal for me. If they don’t go for it, we’ll part ways and I’ll go after the freelance market way more agressively, and if that doesn’t work and things are getting tight financially, I’ll get some other job and things will be fine.
Except, in the fear-driven part of me, I feel vast rolling waves of anxiety. The high pitch of it is because I don’t trust the universe: it seems to me that the minute I let go of a paycheque, either Carl will get laid off or die; I’ll never get hired again for anything except flipping burgers; I’ll screw Noah up in some way or something; and the roof, despite being new, will cave in on the house or equivalent.
And layered over that, in a less anxiety-driven way but still based out of something not-quite-pleasant, I feel like I’ll just be another housewife with an unfinished novel lying around which is - so disrespectful, to myself and other women, that it makes me want to rip my own head off. But those thoughts appear in little Linda Hirshman-like thought bubbles.
First of all, I would pay a daycare centre or a nanny to take care of Noah because it’s a hell of a lot of work. So staying home with Noah is exactly that - work - it’s just that I’m not-paying myself out of money I’m not-making. Secondly, what the fuck? Why does everyone have to be productive every second? Thirdly, it’s not so black and white as “if you stop working for a few years you have given up on the idea of working.” Yes, you lose economic power for that time and you can lose career momentum, but I am fortunate enough that I might end up with more to say, or having broadened my skills by writing for a wider variety of markets, or whatever.
Fourthly, there has been only one week since January where I haven’t written either a query or an article or done significant-if-slow work on the book, or finished a story and submitted it to a ficition market. It hasn’t been at the pace that I want to work towards, but even with all the adjusting to child-rearing and stuff, plus being on maternity leave, it would be untrue to say I haven’t worked at all.
But I still worry I might end up on the floor depressed playing with Little People and being a harridan to Carl. I don’t know. It is the unknown that I find hard, combined with a lack of faith and a lot of social conditioning coming in.
I admit that I am a little floored at how hard the social conditioning hits, with all this mothering stuff. There is no choice that would come without guilt and fear. This way it’s career/financial guilt. I think that for me and us, this is easier to carry than fear and guilt at putting Noah in full-time daycare right now.
I think this is right for me and our family: to make the run at part-time work - first negotiating at work and if that doesn’t fly, settle down to serious freelancing efforts, from September to March, and then see how it is going and go from there.
But man, it’s hard.
Other people in the system are delighted. Lyria would really freak if we went back to full-time work. Middle-class poverty doesn’t scare her and she’s really doing well (and I think if I would get out of the way more, would do even better). JJ thinks it’s the best balance and is sort of hoping that we even make enough money to do that masters. Lynn is starting to get very aggressive about writing time which is - all to the good. She seems to think we’ll sell the book as soon as we finish it.
So, the committee is actually without so much angst. But me, ahhhhhh I am spinning my wheels a bit.
And then my head exploded
Today was emotionally really really hard.
I’m not sure why. I mean I can pinpoint a number of stresses - the big one, rant-worthy for another day, is my trip downtown Friday and stuff around work, parenting, home, money, etc. For me (Shandra) especially that’s a hard one. And then there was Father’s Day which, while pretty darn good over all (astral picnic breakfast, lunch with my father, dinner & dvd with Carl) was a little exhausting and… hard, especially, to see Carl go through what I went through on Mother’s Day, that space where our little girl is missing. Etc. etc.
But none of them really explain anything. It simply was a bad day, from the nightmare that woke me up onwards. Noah and I both go through Monday adjustment and this Monday he was really missing his dad, and clinging to me, and then not napping. And normally I would have had eleventy-one ideas for how to swing it - walks, activities, games.
In fact my *brain* was saying these things, but my heart was heavy and saying “stay on the living room floor and try entertaining him with these Little People again.” Then Lynn sat up to look at email and sure enough, there was someone commenting about me on a mailing list that I personally have not posted to in over a year, except for a singular apology to someone. It’s a multiple list, but I guess there’s no distinction made, and well - I obviously did read that. So then I spent a while arguing with Lynn about could we please be done with it? Because I divorced the list for the Mrs. Doubtfire reason - I don’t like who I am when I’m with you - and I have been the better for it.
But of course she spent her precious nap time - that is our precious nap time - reading and posting. All 40 minutes of it. Noah was exhausted by the time dinner was over and fell asleep without nursing, and I worry about my poor boy when that happens. Especially when it’s hot. What if he isn’t drinking enough?
(See? That kind of day, where every little thing looms large.)
But it’s almost over. I’d be in bed, but in the mess of the day I forgot to either hang the sheets or put them in the dryer and so I’m waiting for them to dry.
Tomorrow will be better. The weird thing? I got tons of sleep last night; Noah slept 7-2 and 2:30-7. So you’d think it would have been a banner day.