sentimental

Well, it's the last night in our sweet little house. I'm getting ready take my last bath here in this space. Tomorrow folks will come and pack everything up and then the next thing will begin. It's still amazing to me how mushy is my brain.

mush mush mush

My brain is mush. Only 10 days left in our lovely house; 10 days in the south; 10 days before the new life. If my brain weren't so mushy I could perhaps think about what it all might mean. Instead, I walk in circles trying to remember what I'm supposed to be doing, which generally is changing a diaper.

I actually had about 2 hours away from both kids recently (and without my husband, incidentally) and it was wonderful. I felt light, physically lighter, nearly giddy. I hung out at a friend's house with several other folks and they were asking what life is like for me these days. Having an actual moment to sit and think about that (a rarity), I was able to consider what indeed it is like. It was an interesting thought--to realize how completely different my life is from what it was; how being a mom of two little little ones is not as hard as I thought it would be, but it is totally and absolutely consuming. It is what I do, all I do. It is who I am. I'm rather surprised to find myself here. Not only that, but I'm enjoying it. I'm tired and frequently exasperated, but on a fundamental level I'm really happy. (how interesting...)

Still, the mush that is the brain.

life is a tale

It's half way through the month and I've only posted once so I feel like I'm due, but I also don't feel like I have much to say. I've been struck lately by the blues, which makes writing undesirable (as well as doing much else) and I don't want to elaborate on my emotional state here because that would be useless and boring to read. These blues come and go... I fixated for a bit on Clark's birth and all that went wrong (only some of which I noted in his birth story post) and then wrote my doula several blaming emails. After a somewhat heated exchange we came to an amiable stopping point and now I'm more at peace with that. But the move is looming.

Here's the rub: Although I am my individual self, I am also a product of 20th and 21st century america, and here in middle class america this is the way life goes. We take jobs, we move, we adjust. We allow the new employer to pay for movers to pack up all the stuff we accumulate to keep us afloat, we drive across the country, we unpack, we live similar lives in a different climate. We move away from family, we move closer to family, we drive and fly to visit the family and friends we've left, we email and telephone and skype and blog, and our relationships grow and change. What we are doing by moving is nothing more than living our life, this life that I agreed to, this very one that I will look back on years from now laid out like a story in a book. In any case, thinking about it like that helps me panic less.

my daughter is a toddler

My daughter is currently in her bed because that's where the paci lives and she couldn't seem to function without it this morning. There was a fit because after mom said this was the last baby einstein video, mom still wouldn't put another one on. And there was a fit because she wanted baby brother to sit in his bouncy seat on the kitchen table rather than on the island in the kitchen. It was helpful to choose between apples and pears for breakfast, but then baby brother was still sitting on the island rather than the table, and mom still said no more tv. So to the bed we go.

This is a new stage, which is to say we've entered a new realm of the cosmos. It's different here, the air a little thinner and everyone's patience shorter because of the lack of oxygen. Luckily the baby doesn't seem to notice. We've decided we've got to work on having F see other people holding the baby, because the level of distress she experiences whenever anyone but mom holds him is way out of proportion to the situation. Nearly everyone who comes over is going to be asked to hold him for at least a moment. Yesterday when grammy was here it went surprisingly well, at least the 2nd time.

I can hear her talking with her fingerpuppets in her bed right now. Having the paci confined to the bed is a wonderful trick because it creates some built in down time when she needs it. But the risk is that she'll fall asleep in there before her nap, which is what happened yesterday. On the one hand, one hopes an early nap may mean a 2nd in the day, but the reality is that it only means an early nap and the evening dinner routine is more disastrous than usual. So do I go in and get her up if she starts to fall asleep? Do I leave her and hope for the best? If the baby goes to sleep soon also, then I could get a nap too, but that's risking an awful lot these days.

I have mastitis

and it's the pits.

i need more sleep

Yesterday mid-morning we finally got ready to go to the grocery. The getting ready part takes awhile: diapers changed; shoes on; jackets on; diaper bag ready--diapers, sippy cup, crackers, banana; baby in car seat; find the obligatory stuffed bunny; all ready. Out the door we go. Once the three of us were outside on the steps I realized I'd forgotten the keys and had just locked us outside the house. And I'd forgotten the cell phone inside so I couldn't call anyone who might have a key. While Frances pulled the petals off my pansies (and the baby sat thankfully quietly in his car seat), I stood on the front lawn trying to clear the haze from my brain and figure out what to do. Soon a neighbor and friend of mine came along pushing a stroller. She had a phone so I called who I could but no one was home. I was getting ready to try to break in the house when my friend said, "You're sure you locked the back door?" I thought I'd check, and it turns out my muddled brain had forgotten to do that before we left! Ah, the salvation of the confused. So we were off. But it had been so long since we got ready to go that on the way to the store (which is only about a mile and 1/2 away) the baby needed to nurse again, so I pulled off at the rec center parking lot. And when I got the baby out of the car I discovered I'd never buckled him in his seat in the first place. My gawd.

So.

Last night Clark slept for five hours straight, meaning I slept for five hours straight--the longest stretch of sleep I've gotten in a month needless to say. I feel sort of amazing, which is why I can delay my nap long enough to type this. Besides, I have to stay up a bit longer because Clark refuses to fall asleep without being held, so I am currently swaying back and forth with him strapped on my front. Once he's out cold I can put him down and lie down myself. This situation (his only falling asleep while being held) is a problem. I'm dealing with it in stages. Will let you know the update on that sometime in the future.

This whole two-kid thing is hard. Today it doesn't seem quite as hard, which makes me think the difficulty comes with the sleep deprivation and is not born solely of the two-kid dynamic. But it's hard to entertain Frances while nursing and burping and walking and changing diapers, and when she plays on her own she pulls the animal food bowls off the counter where we've tried to get them out of her reach, and if they don't break when they fall to the floor they spill water, which she slips on, and cat food, which she eats.

And there's the baby. This tiny newborn stage is really sweet in some ways, really warm and lovey and sweet; but it's also really exasperating. I now remember why I had a hard time with this age the first time around. I mean, he just ate; how can he be hungry? My friend B calls it parasitic, and it is. It's also terribly monotonous. Asking Frances to name the colors of her blocks while the baby hangs off my boob makes things less boring for sure, but even with that it's hard to deny the monotony. I'm trying to remember remember remember that it's only a short period of time, and that later I will wish it had been longer. He is terribly sweet. And now he's sleeping so it's my time to do that too.

mush brain

The thing that keeps slipping off my radar while taking care of both kids is changing Frances' diaper. I check it to see if she's pooped, but if she hasn't it doesn't occur to me to change it, though it feels like I change the boy's diaper every half hour. You'd think this wouldn't be something complicated to follow through with. But I have to say, my brain in general is mush right now; I forget my thoughts mid-sentence, leave the house in slippers, search the house for the glasses on my head. Today I got about 2 hours of nap midday but I didn't feel any more rested this evening when Frances spit her potato soup into her hand and smeared it on the armchair. I suppose the real problem with that was that I was feeding her in the living room armchair in the first place. Some battles I just can't fight right now.

this place

I'm rather tired of hearing gunshots in the neighborhood at night. Every time it happens I feel this exhaustion and defeat come over me. I'm hesitant to write this here because I don't want to give Durham more of a bad name than it already has; it deserves some of its reputation, but not all. Folks in Raleigh and Chapel Hill are scared to even drive through town, which is ridiculous. But there it is: gunshots. Although I don't feel any threat to my personal safety here, one does have to stay alert in general, and that's so tiring. It will be nice to live somewhere clean and safe. Sometimes it strikes me as comic that I live where gunshots are commonplace. Some people live all their lives hearing gunshots nearby but not by choice, and I'm not generally familiar with those places.

thank goodness

Did I say yet we sold our house? In one day one day one day! And for asking price!!!! I'm so tired. I can't write too much about it right now except to say thank goodness. I was curious (and somewhat panicked) as to how I was going to get both kids ready and out the door with an hour's notice, plus the house picked up, plus nursing and naps etc etc. Oh thank goodness. We closed on the house in Rochester last week so for the moment we have 2 mortgages, but that should be remedied by the end of April. Then we'll rent back from the buyer until the end of May when we actually move.

I'm excited about the move. I think we'll really like it there. :)