Epic Play date Fail

I knew this day was coming. I mean three weeks in and I hadn't been reduced to a puddle of snot and tears.  I will celebrate that it took three weeks!

I continue to dedicate myself to making friends.  I have had a prospect in mind. A mommy that I met through a mom’s club I joined but rarely participated in when we first moved back to California. Over my spring break I went to an event. I also went to a mom’s night out ornament exchange in December (major bore fest) and met a mom that was also buying a house very close to ours.  So I have been kinda courting her and trying to make a connection. She has a kid close to Jonah’s age, she is from the Bay Area, she has an advanced degree, her husband is younger than her, see lots in common.  We should hit it off and be fast friends.  Well we email and facebook but she is super busy and we have never seemed to be able to connect despite living blocks away from each other for several months. 

Well last Friday an opportunity presented itself and I jumped on it.  She had invited me to a mom’s event, but I actually had plans with my one friend for a 90 minute play date.  She had suggested I come to this open gym thing and offered to loan me a sling to carry the baby around in.  I have been trying to baby wear. Not because I am buying into the whole natural momma I will create a genius if I wear, sleep and nurse all the day (no judgments just not for me). But because I have to chase after my hellion of a child and I want to actually leave the house this summer.  I had gotten the Ergo and the infant insert with Jonah. I like the Ergo, but the insert seems a bit suffocating and I found it unwieldy. I used it once.

People rave about the Moby, so I got a used one on ebay and for the life of me I cannot get it and the baby on me correctly.  The prospective friend suggested I try a ring sling and on the spur of the moment said her and her two kids would come by in the afternoon.  She would help me with it. Sounded great.  They got here and Jonah was still sleeping. He had been down for over two hours so I figured it was safe to wake him. I opened his bedroom door, which is what we do when we want to wake him.  I ignored the copious amount of data that I had accumulated over the past two years, that waking this kid from a nap is not a good idea.  He can wake in the foulest of moods. Also earlier in the week when we had family visiting he had a pretty strong reaction, shouting at them, ordering them to leave, not to sit in certain places, not interacting with them, throwing his present on the ground, ya know cringe inducing behavior.  He has become more adamant that I put the baby in the swing and be held more. I know this is all part of the adjustment to having a baby sister, but it is still hard to watch your child upset and also embarrassing.

So when Jonah finally got up, came out and saw these two strange children playing with his toys and of course I had to be nursing the baby at that moment, all hell broke loose.  He began screaming at the other children, “LEAVE NOW!!”  When that didn't work, he yelled at them “THAT’S ENOUGH!”.  Then he went in the other room and laid on the couch sobbing like I have never seen.  I quickly texted Josh that he needed to quit studying and come home from the library.  In the next  20 minutes while I nursed, Jonah continued his emotional behavior snatching his toys from these kids and such.  The prospect tried to help, but he just yelled at her and told her “NO TALKING”.  I WAS DYING!!!.

Finally Josh got there and took the kids in the back yard.  She began to show me how the sling worked and put the baby on.  The baby began to scratch her since we have yet to be successful trimming her fingernails because it has freaked us out. Josh did this when Jonah was a newborn, but he was chill, this baby goes all fist pumping when we try.  So the mommy fails were about to stack up. Yep my child  is rude and unruly and I don’t take care of hygiene. 

Josh then decided in his wisdom that he needed to come inside and have a bowel movement followed by making himself something to drink. Leaving the children unsupervised in the backyard. Now we will have Jonah in the backyard by himself while we are close by and doing something in the house, but it is for a short period of time.  I understand that another parent would probably not feel comfortable. Of course when Josh is taking his supervising hiatus I am on boob lockdown because the baby wanted to nurse again.  I could see the prospect getting increasingly worried (wipe faster Josh!). So when Josh finally exited the bathroom I asked him to go outside and supervise the kids. He replied he needed to get something to drink.  Add my husband is an ass to my list of fails. 

Next one of her children came in crying holding his face.  Apparently Jonah had struck him and left a mark.  At this point I was sweating profusely and horrified at how horribly everything was going.  I made Jonah come in and apologize. (Later I found out it was a complete accident).  We have been introducing discipline, it has not been that effective.  If we try to correct behavior Jonah typically laughs in our faces, or ignores us.  If we prompt him (it takes multiple prompts) to say sorry he can become contrite. So I was trying to get him to say sorry. I then got a lecture from the prospect on how that was not an effective strategy and at her four year olds preschool they work on building empathy and care giving and that saying sorry is just being a parrot.  I was done at this point and happy to see that she was taking her kids home.  

I did kinda learn how to use the sling.  The next day I wore it at the park for an hour and I have had a horrible back ache ever since.  Super.

This is the thing. The play date was horrible on several levels. I doubt this mom will ever socialize with me again.  She could very well have gone home and talked about me.  She could have told other moms in the group that I was a hot mess.  Or she could not.  I don’t know her well enough to predict what kind of person she is-judgy or understanding. And the truth is, if she judges me, well she is not the type of friend I want.  I rock on most days, this was a bad day.  My ego would stand up to her judgments.  However, not all of my ego would.  As we sat at dinner that night, I kept having flashbacks to the horrible afternoon and proclaiming to Josh what a disaster it was, and schooling him to hold his shit and supervise goddammit!!!  And then the voices in my head started railing on me.  I had been nursing constantly all day and the baby just would not settle. I finally gave her a bottle of formula and she had been conked out for two hours.  I was feeling like a nursing fail despite previously being so pleased with how nursing was going.  I felt like a fraud as a school psychologist who couldn't control her two year old. Oh yeah, prospect cracked a joke about my profession and parenting.  And then this mean thought entered my head; “It is probably a good thing you are not a stay home mom, you couldn't hack it and your kids are better off being parented by others part of the time.”  Yeah my mind went there and I sat at the dinner table bawling. 

Almost no one can make me feel like such tremendous shit like I can.  Why have I been able to not care so much what other’s think of me, but still judge myself so harshly?  I guess it is something I need to work on.  Being nicer to myself. 

I have signed Jonah up for many activities this summer, and I am hoping maybe I will maybe make some friends that way.  Sigh. 

The Second Time Around

Tomorrow the babe is three weeks old, time is already flying by.  I have to say I am finding another cliché to be true: the second child is WAY easier.  In fact everything has been easier.  My recovery from the C-section was quick. I was completely off pain killers, even motrin within a week. I was on them for several weeks before.  My mood has been totally stable. Only happy tears occasionally. No crazy thoughts, no general anxiety, no paranoia, just me being me.   I am not feeling overwhelmed.  I am even 4 pounds from my pre-pregnancy weight. Now to lose the 20 I have put on before I got pregnant the first time! There are moments balancing a toddler and a newborn where I feel some guilt, but not horrible. 

Josh and I keep commenting that we wish someone that was with us the first time in Georgia could see us now.  It is so drastically different. Josh even wondered what was so hard last time that isn’t this time.  I think many factors are at play. My recovery was from an almost vaginal delivery, induction and C-section that went all day.  I refused to get out of bed the next day. This time I wanted to get out of bed that evening and I insisted on putting on my own color coordinating pajamas, and did my hair and make-up. There are smiling pictures of me on the delivery day. Trust me there was no smiling last time.  Not trying a vbac was clearly the right choice for us.

Nursing is working. Those pesky flat nipples, not a problem for my daughter.  We had such difficulty with nursing last time that I gave up at 10 weeks and we were supplementing the entire time.  We were working with lactation consultants and were on a crazy schedule.  I vowed this time that if it was difficult again, straight to formula. I was not going to involve lactation consultants, was going to just follow my instincts. And I pretty much expected that nursing was not going to happen.  Well the baby is a nursing champ, no problems with latch, my production is just fine. I do give formula once a night when Josh gets up with her so I can get some extra sleep.  While I do not love nursing, I have done it in public a few times, though when we are around friends I grab a bottle. But as the baby and I get better at latching I am hopeful I will get more comfortable.  I just cannot handle manhandling my boob and repeatedly shoving in her face around familiar people. 

I also know having family around to help and not having the stress of figuring out our future has been huge.  Multiple stressers is just not something I can manage I have learned.  Adjusting to motherhood and trying to transition out of the military-just made everything amplified and unmanageable  I know that you cannot control what life will throw you at times, and timing can really suck, but I have learned a lesson that I will never again voluntarily tackle two major life transitions at the same time!!! 

We have also made a decision to keep sending our two year old to daycare.  I wanted to keep his routine somewhat the same and not be faced with sharing me 24/7 right away.  Plus he is a super busy social little guy and he would enjoy daycare more than being home with me.  Josh is in finals so he is gone most of the time and when I am home with both of them, sadly there is more TV on than I would ideally like.  But if I am nursing I just can’t give him that much attention or have him in the backyard.  I think Jonah is adjusting okay. Most of the time he is indifferent to the baby, but there are moments he wants me to put her in the swing and do something with him.  He can get pretty upset too.  It kinda crushes me when this happens, but I know it is part of a normal adjustment. Josh will be done with school for the summer soon and then I will have Jonah home full time.  Luckily a newborn does sleep a lot so I do manage to have some quality time each day.  This is how our quality time went last night:

Josh was away at class and thankfully the baby decided to take a long nap. I made a high quality dinner for Jonah of hot dogs, string cheese, and blue berries, of which he only ate the hot dogs.  Then it was bath time, something I have not done enough of (yes meaning I have not been the one to give him a bath, and he has gone several days without one-oops). I was having a great time and congratulating myself on managing both kids on my own that evening.  I took Jonah out of the bath and dried him off and then he began doing this cute thing he likes to do-run through the house naked yelling “Naked Boy!!” Trust me it is adorable.  I called out, be careful and as I came into the family room to grab him he came rushing through the kitchen and slipped, fell and immediately began crying at a high-pitched I am hurt level. As I rushed to him (luckily only a bump) I could see a flood of water was all over the kitchen and streaming towards the living room.  I comforted Jonah, cursed, and created a barrier to the family room and our new laminate floors.  Once Jonah had been calmed I got a diaper on him, put on Mickey Mouse and began dealing with the flood.  Basically Jonah had pulled the washing machine hose out of the wall and when the washer emptied-it did so all over the floor. The litter box is next to the washer, so among the flood was a floating kitty litter box with overflow.  I threw down every towel we had and got out the wet vac and through numerous texts messages figured out how to get it to work, since” someone” had never cleaned it since they built their snake house, I spewed dry wall dust all over the new kitchen cabinets.  About two hours later I had sucked up all the water and gotten all the wet towels outside.  The litter box I took outside and left for Josh to deal with it. I had my limits.  Thankfully the baby slept through the whole thing.  I now know better than to congratulate myself on how well I am handling everything.

A short hop to crazy town

Now just because I wrote that things went amazingly well does not mean there was not quite a bit of crazy. After all this is me we are talking about.  So my anesthesiologist and the nurse showed up and I began calmly and sanely briefing them on my previous “experience”.  They seemed somewhat mildly interested, but I could tell (or my judgy paranoia) what they were thinking, oh boy here comes crazy.  The anesthesiologist suggested rather than an epidural we consider a spinal block.  I asked some questions like which hurts more? Which procedure takes longer?  You know the important ones like risks and such.  The spinal block sounded pretty good to me. I actually tolerate shots better than IV’s and catheters. The needle is in me less time, I know that makes no sense, but it is true. However, not that I tolerate shots well. It usually takes someone to hold me down during the flu shot and even then I scream, wail, stomp my feet and cry. Yep, sexy.

So the plan was a cervical block and I was in a zen state, sorta.  I felt anxiety nipping at me, but I was not going to let it run amok. 

It was time and they took me to the operating room. Josh was getting dressed. Once in the OR I began asking for Josh and was informed he would be coming in once the cervical block and other things we done. NOT COOL. And not what I had been told would happen. I have been led to expect he would be there. Well I guess that was for deliveries where an epidural was completed in a labor and delivery room for a standard labor, not a C-section. I was pissed and began to argue with them.  I had a whole room of people telling me no, it was not good. I was not going to win, so I decided to just move forward.  We began to get me in position and there was a nurse who was pretty understanding and was in nurturing and cheerleader mode. 

The anesthesiologist was coming off as an ass to me.  Whether he was or not, who knows. So we start the procedure and everyone is yelling at me to stay still and curve my back. Have you ever tried to curve your back while hummungo prego? Go ahead try it.  And I kept flinching which seemed to piss everyone off. They kept saying, we told you to stay still. Um, hello I understand you but I cannot help it.  So yeah things were going great. Finally they got the block shot in, and I swear it was nothing. Putting an IV in hurts more.  I was like right on!!!!

Well then we waited for it to take. And waited.  And they touched my toes and I told them I could feel that. And they asked me to lift my legs and I did.  A lot of hmms around the room.  Then the anesthesiologist started poking my belly and asked if I could feel that. I said yes. He said in a very mocking tone (all possibly in my head), what did you really feel? “Pin pricks all over my belly” –you stupid dumbass. (last part said in my head, but I am sure my tone said it all.  Then my OB comes in and the anesthesiologist informs him the block may not be taking.  I heard these words and déjà vu exploded.  I was told they might have to do the block again. To which I said, “You most certainly will not.”  Of course the rational person would have been like, “sure no problem, that was a breeze, let’s do it again.” But ya know I am a crazy monkey, and all I could think of is here we go again, procedures not working, I am being blamed, more pain. Then the anesthesiologist says if you won’t let me do it I am going to intubate you and give you general anesthesia.  And then came the F-bombs. “There is no fucking way you are doing that! Get me my husband, NOW.

 JOSH!! JOSH!! JOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Lovely right?  They still refused to bring him in.  My OB at that point, who is this very mellow cheery dude and had only seen me act like a nice normal person for nine months, suggested we roll me on my side (I have no idea what that would do) and did an exam and proclaimed the block was working and we just needed to wait a bit.  I continued to cuss a blue streak, say things like, what don’t you people listen to me and take my feelings seriously (yep got all shrinky and played the guilt card) and bring me my god damned husband!!!! 

At this point the anesthesiologist says we need to give her something to calm down.  Who knows what they gave me, I will find out, but the next thing I know is I am taking a magic carpet ride and I am laughing nonstop.  They bring in Josh and say “here is your husband”. To which I proclaim, “That’s not my husband.”  Josh sat down at my head, he was all covered in a mask and hat and I began grilling him and telling him he needed to prove he was my husband and tell me things only he would know. He was like oh shit, what happened.  I was like these assholes (yep went there) botched the procedure and locked you out. I kept asking Josh to “Prove it!” until I was convinced.  

And then we had a baby.  And I was pretty much coming back to earth.  And I had this moment, which I didn't even know was being photographed, but I just love. 

Josh went with the baby and I was sewn up and taken to recovery. In recovery the hallucinogenic mushrooms wore off and I had a perfectly normal conversation with the nurse (I think) and then I was taken to my room and got to really hold my daughter. 

So all in all in maybe 45 minutes of crazy, which probably to you all sounds pretty bad, but last time was days of crazy and like 10 hours of acute crazy.  So I still call this a win and think I did amazingly well.  So far we are doing well, my mood is stable, I am in love with my red headed daughter (YES!!!) and life is good.  

Let's put it this way

Last time: open heart surgery coupled with a lobotomy.
This time: getting a mole removed.

Afuckingmen.

Safe & Sound

Our daughter arrived safely this morning. And I was of sound mind. Alls good in the world today.

Ready or not

Come tomorrow baby number two is arriving! I am excited and not really that anxious. I am more anxious leaving  my two year old.  Seriously I am worried about him. Myself and the baby will be fine.  I have pretty much gotten everything done. Still some packing and organizing. But finished work about noon today. Have a few more errands to run. Still debating her name.  Have confidence that I am going to be chillhil tomorrow. No Hellery. Ginormous cankles, look like a hobbit.