Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Marital Conversations

WORKING: Ooh, my knee is killing!
TREV: Ibuprofen's on the counter.
WORKING: It's from rocking him. I'm going to call it "Baby Knee".
TREV: Or "Mac Knee." Get it?
WORKING: Ha!
TREV: And when he's older and gets pimples we'll call it "Macne".

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Sunday, December 20, 2009

Meanwhile, In Boob World

Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow MASTITIS ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow

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Brain Conversations

Conversation with my own brain as I was falling asleep the other night:

That was a good quote in that book.
It was.
I should write it down or mark it or something.
True. You can do that tomorrow.
I should have a better way to mark passages in the book for book club. Maybe stickies of some sort.
Let's worry about that tomorrow.
We don't have any stickies. Not the little kind that you use to mark in books.
Again, tomorrow. Goodnight.
I could grab a big yellow sticky note and kind of tear it up.
Yes, that would work. Goodnight!
Or I could cut it.
Grrrrrr....
I could get the white scissors from the drawer and just pre-cut a bunch.
Yes! You could do that! Tomorrow! Now shut up!
It wouldn't be that hard.
This is the stupidest conversation EVER.
Then I could stick the stickies in the book exactly above any passage I want to remember.
I should blog this insanity.
...
...
I could start it with, "That was a good quote in that book" and then-
Aaaaaaarrrrrrgh!!!

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Friday, December 18, 2009

Marital Texting

(306) WORKING: Mac choked pretty bad. He's fine now but it scared the hell out of both of us.
(306) TREV: Holy crap. On what?
(306) WORKING: Milk. But it came out of his mouth and nose and he couldn't breathe to clear it.
(306) TREV: Oh God. But he seems okay now? How did you help him?
(306) WORKING: I let him clear it. But I was getting ready for first aid...
(306) TREV: Whew. Are you okay?
(306) WORKING: Yeah... now...
(306) TREV: Full of excitement this kid.

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Thursday, December 17, 2009

Dear Mac: 5 Months

Now is probably not the best time to write this. You didn't seem to require sleep last night, but I did. Oh yes, I could have used some sleep. And here we are at some ungodly early hour, considering how late we went to bed, and you're on your mat, wide awake, shriek-laughing at the Christmas lights. I'm just trying to keep my eyes open, counting the minutes until your next nap.

But I will gather my thoughts so we can pay tribute to the splendour that is five months:
- you now use your hands so precisely to reach, grab, pull, push and scratch. And can we talk about the scratching? My face looks like the cat took a few rounds out of it. There's this thing you do now where you're falling asleep and you reach up and softly stroke my chin, my cheeks and then suddenly you dig your nails in. Can you explain why my sweet boy turns into a rabid little animal trying to tear my flesh and why this has to be part of the sleep process?
- You can roll front to back but you haven't figured out back to front. So you start crying for rescue. Eventually I give in and roll you back, but you immediately flip onto your tummy again and start crying. It's such a fun game.
- I've been reading you The Dangerous Alphabet by Neil Gaiman as a bedtime story because I like it. I hope that's not why you haven't been sleeping. You seem to like it. Well, in that you try to eat the pages.
- You love your daddy. He's the only one who can consistently get you to laugh.
- I can tell that you adore me, which feels so good. Even though you dive bomb my boobs, I like to think it's more about me as a person.
- You've tried pablum and these baby rice cracker things. You gagged.
- You have distinct emotions. You can be downright sullen. Your dad still talks about the day he looked over and you were staring at him like you were possessed by something dark and evil (I still maintain that you were probably just taking a dump). You have a temper. But when you smile, you light up the room. After rocking you for 45 minutes, I look down only to see you staring up at me and I want to scream, but then you smile and when I say, "why aren't you asleep?" in exasperation, you laugh. I can't help but laugh, too.
- It already takes a lot to entertain you. You have about a five-minute attention span for any given toy. I dread the time when my tool belt will need to consist of more than a walk to the touch the stickers on the window or a round in the jolly jumper.
- Speaking of which, you love the jolly jumper and man, can you get some air! It's enough to make a mother a little nervous.
- The scabs from your burns are starting to fall off. I'd be surprised if, by the time you're old enough to read this, you even have scars.
- You love the dog. The dog thinks you're loud.
- If one day your naturopathic doctor wants to know about any persistent problems as a baby, feel free to mention the diaper rash you've had since you started wearing diapers (so, your entire life so far). We have a stockpile of creams, prescribed and otherwise, and you're naked a lot, and yet it persists. The good thing is now you can scratch it to give yourself relief. The bad thing is the sound of scratching at night.
- I almost forgot! You have two teeth! Or "teefs" as I like to call them. They're on the bottom. They're so cute, your little chiclets. But holy man, I don't get why it's evolutionarily necessarily for baby teeth to be so freakin' sharp.
- You have one more month to start sleeping longer than three hours at a time. Consider yourself on notice.

Love,
Mommy
XOXOXOX

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Saturday, December 12, 2009

Pills

I woke up in the middle of the night worrying that my blog isn't as interesting since I went on the 'happy pills'. Then Mac bit my boob with his two new chiclets. Instant distraction.

I had an appointment with the shrink yesterday for a prescription renewal. It was basically to check in. I had to admit that since going on the pills, I haven't had any lows. I've been pretty even. I feel normal. Which tempts me to think I can do this on my own....
"So when can I come off of them?"
"Well," he tapped his lip with his pen, "for people with more frequent episodes, sometimes they are on them for the rest of their lives. For people who just need to get over a hump, they can come off within the year."
"And me?"
"A few years at least."
"Oh."

I'm not sure how I feel about that. For one, I hate being dependent on any kind of medication. For another, it's bloody expensive and I'm a student. It's so tempting to think that if I could just do it on my own...
"What about Cognitive Behavior Therapy?"
He bent towards his desk and dug out a form from the disorganized mess, "It's a good idea. I can refer you, but they're so backed up. You probably won't even hear from them to make the appointment until the Spring, and then maybe your first appointment will be six months from there."
"Oh."
"Meanwhile, I'm going to put you on a new variation of your medication. It has the same metabolism. I can give you some samples, should help with the cost? I've never prescribed them before, so let me know at the next appointment how they work for you."
"Sure. When is the next available appointment?"
"May."
Five months. "Oh."

One day a few weeks ago I forgot to take my pills. That night, I had the most beautiful, lucid, multi-dimensional dreams I have ever had in my life. This makes me want to 1) forget to take them again and 2) worry obsessively about what these pills are doing to my brain.

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Thursday, December 10, 2009

Uh Oh

TREVOR: I have a feeling his first words are going to be, "uh ohhhhh...".

The week could not end soon enough. I caught some sort of throat infection, my second knock-me-on-my-butt cold in as many months, just when I'm trying to pull together my last assignments for the Fall / Winter semester.

Then, The Incident. I was at the doctor's getting tested for strep when Trev texted me: He just slammed his head into the heater.

"The heater" is the third in a series that we've bought to try and keep Doodles warm when he's having naked time. This one had the advantage of not blowing gales of hot air, so it didn't dry out his sensitive skin as much. But it also tended to get really, really hot to the touch and it didn't have the screen that ceramic heaters have, for example.

And Mac has learned to roll over in recent weeks. See where this is going?

When Trevor turned away to reach for a diaper, Mac suddenly rolled over with gusto and smacked his head into the ridges on the oil-filled, blazing hot space heater. By the time I got home, the burns on his head had blistered significantly and we discovered more on each of his hands. I called Health Line. She asked me A LOT of questions. I mean, I pretty much had to get out a measuring tape and a protractor. Her advice: take him to the ER.

The ER sure jumps when you say "I burned my baby". There was almost no wait for us. Mac, meanwhile, was perfectly fine, smiling, nursing, entertaining the entire waiting room with shrieks and coos.

The prognosis was good, the treatment simple. Just second degree burns and aside from a rather severe "Harry Potter" scar across his forehead, hopefully no permanent damage. Then they told us to wait a minute because Social Services and Child Justice wanted to talk to us....

I guess the Health Line tipped off the police. They do that in any case like this where a baby is involved, particularly if you say "his dad was watching him". Poor Trevor. But our interviews lasted all of 30 seconds and we were free to go, with profuse (and unnecessary) apologies. I guess our story jived with the distinct shape of the radiator grill marks seared into his head.

Trevor feels so, so bad. But when I ask him to list off the litany of injuries he survived, as did his brothers*, I gather he feels a bit better.

*these consist of poisonings, fires, falls, being kicked in the head by a horse, and being run over by an Econoline van. Trevor really needs to start his own blog with some of those stories. It's a miracle he lived to procreate. Is it a boy thing?

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