Fresh, Hot Wastes of Time

My four year old did something the other day that was truly sweet. It was the first time she had done something specifically just to make me happy. She and her little sister had been upstairs playing in the bedrooms with a toy vacuum cleaner. A while later she came downstairs and watched a video. She came up to me and put her hand on my knee and whispered to me that she had a surprise for me when we went upstairs for bedtime. I was a little distracted and mmm-hmmmmm’ed at her and forgot all about it. Half an hour later we went up and I went to her closet to pick out her school clothes for the next day. She waited patiently and quietly behind me, then when I was done said that I had forgotten about her surprise. She said I had to close my eyes and she would lead me to it, so I did, and she held my hand and led me down the hall to our bedroom and said I could open them. I didn’t see anything, and I didn’t want to upset her, but I had to ask what I was looking for.

“Look, Mommy! I took the vacuum cleaner and vacuumed the whole room for you, and now it’s all nice and clean for you to walk on!”

I just melted. Hub whispered to me, “What a crappy gift,” and I smacked him. I thought it was glorious.

For Valentine’s Day, hub and I are going shooting. Then the next day we’re going to get up at 6 o’freaking clock in the A. of M. and go take our concealed handgun class together. This, laddies and ladies, is real romance and don’t you forget it.

Kid #1 got her shots last week so we can put her into preschool and they made her feel bloody awful. She had a 103 fever for a few days and was generally miserable. She and kid #2 have been thumping each other at least once hourly, then they both come to tattle on the other. hub has decreed that in the event of any tattling, they’re both getting sent to their rooms, tattler and tattlee. This has cut down on the tattling, but not the thumping. It wouldn’t be so bad except for the occasional wails of pain.

It’s cold. And rainy. And rainy and cold. Rainy, too. Hub and I almost talked ourselves into going to Las Vegas this weekend but I had an attack of acute sanity at the last minute (seriously, I mean we were just about to book a flight) and nixed the idea. It was insane, is what it was. Not saying I don’t want to go, but I think it needs more than 2 days of planning.

Been pretty boring around here. Next weekend we’re going to the rodeo. Woo!

It was quiet. Too quiet. Granted, even a deafening din would seem soft in comparison to the rest of the day: screams, wails, the muffled smack of fists hitting flesh. This was a quiet of a different color.

He said: should I go up there and see?
She said: I don’t know, I’m just enjoying the quiet.
He said: but should I?
She said: should you? Probably. Will you? I don’t know.

He did.

The quiet was broken. A torrent of unintelligible shouting bombarded the spaces, intermixed with wails of frustration. Two small bodies scampered into the room.

He said: wash their hands. They have scattered the entire contents of the catbox all across the upstairs. There is cat litter caked into their hair.

She said: shit.

And it was.

I’ve been pretty quiet lately… the new game that I’ve been waiting on, Acheron, started the other day with a bang, and there’s this miserable awful devilish puzzle that nobody seems to be able to figure out. So yeah, I’m obsessing.

The girls have been completely at each others’ throats for the past few days, and I have no idea why. The constant fighting, screaming, and thud of fist against flesh has been tattooed into my brain.

In happier news, a friend is painting my AR-15 bubblegum pink and I think it’s beautiful. I was considering a Barbie logo, with a little daisy to dot the ‘i’, but thought that might be too much.

I’m thinking about stopping work on the puzzle and doing something more enjoyable, like coating myself with honey and lying on an ant hill.

When Jo was born in 1999 I had a really long and difficult labor. After pushing for over 4 hours, it was finally over. At around 3 weeks, Jo developed a fever of unknown origin. Because she was so young, she had to go into the hospital for..3? I think 3 nights, just before Thanksgiving. It turned out to be a UTI, but they had to do all sorts of horrible and invasive tests, including catheterization, IVs (tiny baby veins blow out a lot, and they had to restart it 4 or 5 times), and a lumbar puncture. My God that was a horrible time, watching a team of medical people hold down my brand new daughter as they put a needle into her spine.

Around that time she also started having problems nursing. She would fight at the breast and whip her head back and forth, arching her back and grimacing. This got worse and worse and developed into full-blown colic. She would start fussing a little and it would turn into horrible blood-curdling screaming that lasted for an hour straight or more. She would scream so hard that she didn’t sound human anymore; it was an insectile, buzzing noise.

Even when she wasn’t crying I could still hear it. In the shower I would close the door and turn on the fan and step into the stream and I would hear her start to cry. Panicked, I’d run out and open the door and hub would tell me she was still asleep. As soon as I got back into the shower I’d hear screaming again.

It turned out that she had reflux and a milk protein sensitivity, so a change of formula (I had to use a supplemental nurser) and some medication eventually helped her. She had her last bout of colic at around 9 months.

There is no way to describe colic in terms you can understand. Your new baby screams as if in horrible pain for hours, and there is nothing you can do to help. No amount of babysitting can prepare you for it. Nothing in the world can make you feel more helpless.

It’s probably no surprise that I developed post-partum depression. In my case, it manifests as horrible anxiety. At first it was just a gnawing feeling that I had forgotten something, like I left the oven on or forgot to pay the phone bill. It grew until I was sure, every time hub left the house, that he was going to die while he was gone. I wouldn’t let anyone cross the room holding a knife, because I knew they would trip and the knife would fly out of their hand and impale Jo’s soft spot. I can’t even remember all the irrational thoughts I had at that point, but I do remember thinking very clearly that I was going crazy. I eventually found out that PPD can cause anxiety, and that I could even have some PTSD from the labor I had. A few months of an anti-depressant cured me, and all was well.

Caroline was born on 9/7/01. My labor with her was one of the worst experiences of my life. The doctor on call was verbally abusive. Thinking about her makes my heart pound. I get physically ill when I come across shows like A Baby Story. The thought of having another baby fills me with fear. And 4 days after Caroline was born, the world fell apart.

So it’s probably no surprise that I developed anxiety again after her birth. I knew what it was right away and contacted a psychiatrist. The worst part was waiting the 6 weeks until I could get an appointment. Since I was breastfeeding more with Caroline, I couldn’t take the same medication that helped me the first time. I spent a few months on medicine that didn’t work. Finally I did some calculations on how much breastmilk Caroline actually got, and it was a tiny amount, so I was able to take the original medicine.

A week or so ago my pills ran out, and I kept forgetting to refill the prescription. I decided it had been well over 18 months, so I’d just try to go it without the med. The anxiety started creeping back again.

Dammit! How long is this going to go on? Caroline will be 2 this Sunday. I do not want to be on medication for the rest of my life. I want to be whole again. I hate having to take pills. I resent having to take pills. I feel weak having to rely on them. The shrink said that he was going to try taking me off them this fall, but if it didn’t work a week ago, why would it in a month?

Scenes from a 3 hour car ride that’s been extended into 4 hours by various and sundry silly things. Conversation includes Mommy, Caroline (2), and Jo (almost 4 and renowned for her ability to translate for Caroline).

Caroline: Aaaaaa! The sun! The sun!
Mommy: Put your blanket over your head and hide from it.
Caroline: Fix the sun!
Mommy: I can’t, but I can fix you.
Caroline: The sun in your eyes too, Mommy?
Mommy: Well it was, but it’s gone now.
Caroline: That’s your sun. It’s coming back.
Mommy: I don’t have a sun.
Caroline: No, your sun out there, it coming back to you.
Jo: She means that a sun is coming to you.
Mommy: Yeah, that’s what they told the Virgin Mary too and look where it got her.
Caroline: I pooted.

I forgot to mention something else Jo said today. Hub was telling her about the ranch, and how we would take rides and see deer and stuff, and Jo said “And Daddy, I want to kill a pig.” Just out of the freaking blue.

We’ve been playing family games of hide-and-seek in the bedrooms. Cuervo got in on it tonight. Kona was in solitary confinement because once again she shat in the dining room and then proceeded to dine upon it.

I’m such a dweeb, I’m actually watching Not Another Teen Movie because I like the soundtrack. Well, the references to the movies that I love are amusing. I’ll have to watch it from the beginning, as I just noticed that Mr. Vernon from The Breakfast Club is in there somewhere. The Breakfast Club is the Best. Movie. Ever. At least as far as the 80s/teen/angst genre goes. When we went to Chicago a few years ago, I actually got excited about going into Shermer because that’s where so many John Hughes movies took place.

Brand me! Loser! Dork! Geek! Neo-maxie zoom dweebie!

Jo said her first “y’all” tonight. We are so proud!

We’re going to the ranch tomorrow, so perhaps I will have some nice creepy crawly pictures for y’all when we get back. This is the first time we’ve gone with the kids in a long time, so it’s kind of a trial run to see what Opening Weekend will be like (dove season opens in the South Zone on 9/20).

You should be very proud of me. I haven’t blogged any snarky comments about how handguns are illegal in Chicago, so workplace shootings and gun crime will never occur there.

Oops.