Welcome to Crazy Town

I haven't had a chance to post in a while because life has been inSANE around these parts. I have literally sat down to blog at least 4 times in the past week and just deleted the post after a few lines out of sheer exhaustion.

Lucas has been sick for more than a week, and having a sick baby is exhausting in every sense of the word. I'm physically exhausted because he wakes himself up at night coughing. I'm mentally exhausted because I'm expected to think and function after these nights. I'm emotionally exhausted because I'm constantly worried that things are going to go from niggling cold to pneumonia in no time flat.

Ah, parenthood. The good life. We've taken Lucas to the doctor, I've called the Nurse Line through my health insurance, I've called the doctor twice. The doctor is concerned but confounded. All he can tell me is that it must be a cold that's really hanging on. Lucas hasn't had a fever, hasn't lost his appetite, and isn't turning blue when he coughs (which apparently is the only color we worry about. It's no cause for worry when your baby coughs so hard that he turns bright red and the veins in his head protrude like little blue pipe cleaners. Just in case you were wondering.)

The nurse on the Nurse Line basically asked me yes or no questions which she plugged into her computer, then read whatever the computer spit out at her. I know this isn't her fault, I'm sure she has to follow protocol and can't tell me about what she did when her kid was sick. But it doesn't make me feel better when I call the Nurse Line and get the same results I could have gotten from plugging Lucas' symptoms into WebMD.

So basically all I can do is continue to smother Lucas' feet in Vicks (you only put it on his feet because apparently Vicks can cause babies to overheat if you put it on their chests), give him warm baths before bed, run the cool-mist humidifier at bedtime and fill the bathroom with steam and sit in there with him. Which is what I've done for pretty much this whole week. With no visible positive effect. ::Sigh::

I've been fortunate that Dan has been home for the worst of it. When Lucas first started getting sick last Sunday, he only had a little cough and suddenly started sleeping from 8:30 p.m. until 6:30 without waking up. I was a little concerned but glad he was sleeping because I knew he was getting the rest he needed and I knew I was getting the rest I needed. Dan was home from Thursday until last night, and Thursday was when things really started going downhill.

We actually moved Lucas back into our bedroom on Thursday night because we were getting up 100 times a night to put the paci back into Lucas' mouth after he coughed it out. (And by we, I mean Dan, because when Dan is at work I am the one who gets up with Lucas every time, so I lovingly provide the same opportunity for Dan when he doesn't work.) And normally we don't have to get up to put the paci back in for him because he'll usually spit it out but stay asleep, but now he's coughing it out which wakes him up and then he wants it to go back to sleep. In a word, it's been miserable. And now Dan's back to work. I can only pray that Lucas gets his rest tonight, because I know his poor little body needs it.

And the very best news of all is that I have now contracted Lucas' cold. Never let it be said that my little guy doesn't know how to share!

So usually I am not very good at accepting advice, but now I am begging for it. Does anyone have any idea how to help Lucas kick this cold? (And that's what I really want to do - kick the crap out of this evil, sadistic cold that has taken over his helpless little body.) I am willing to try anything that doesn't include putting medicine in him, which the doctor has explicitly told me not to do. Please help!

Baby Mama

I have always known that I wanted kids. I, like most little girls, loved playing mommy to my baby dolls. I saved all my First Communion money to buy a Crimp'n'Curl Cabbage Patch doll, who I promptly named after the bus driver who took me to and from school each day (Beth Anne, for anyone wondering). I did go through a brief phase in college when I decided I didn't want kids, but that faded pretty quickly.

At my wedding shower, we played a type of Newlywed Game. Dan was asked questions about me prior to the shower, and I had to guess what his answers were (not what mine would be). One of the questions was how many kids I wanted, and Dan and I both accurately answered "four to five." Some people weren't surprised, but I think the majority reaction was "Say what?!"

When I got pregnant with Lucas, I was pumped to be getting started on number one of four to five. I actually really liked being pregnant and had an easy pregnancy (even though my poor body is still reeling from the experience 3.5 months later).

Then Lucas was born. Mothers of older children fawned all over him, telling me how much they missed the newborn stage. And I sat in my hospital bed (and on my couch, once we were sent home), shell shocked and wondering what the h-e-double-hockey-sticks they could possibly miss about the newborn stage.

If you had asked me in the first two weeks (ok, month) when we were going to have our next baby, I would have straight-up laughed in your face. "NEVER," I would have shrieked. And then I would have started crying. In those first long weeks (the longest of my life), I wondered in all sincerity how and why anyone would have more than one kid.

And I'm not even concerned about the physical birthing of the child. I got lucky and had a pretty wonderful birth experience. Except the actual pushing part. At that point, I was so tired and in so much pain that all I could think was "Never mind! I take it back. I don't want to have this baby, I'll just be pregnant for the rest of my life." But by then, the only way out of it was to push through it (haha get it? push?).

No, the physical labor and delivery is not what put me off kids in the first few weeks. It was the actual motions of parenting that did it for me. And if I'm being honest, perhaps off-the-wall hormones had something to do with it as well. That first month is grueling when it's your first baby. It's probably hard when it's your second or third too, but when it's your first you have absolutely no idea what to expect or how long each phase will last.

That was what was hardest for me. The simple fact of having absolutely no idea what to do or what to expect. I worried that everything I was doing was wrong. I worried that I would neglect to do something that would ruin my baby forever. I didn't know that you were supposed to do "tummy time" until Lucas was about a month and a half. After learning that, I had visions of Lucas as a 21 year old, his head flopping all over the place because he had never learned proper neck control as a result of my neglecting to do tummy time when he was 3 weeks old.

After the first four weeks, I turned some sort of a corner. The baby blues began to dissipate, and I fell into a semi-routine (as much of a routine as you can when you have a newborn, anyway). Then when Lucas was 8 weeks old, I stopped nursing (well, pumping, since we never got the hang of actual nursing), and I started to feel more like myself. It was easier to take Lucas places, and I could be away from the house for long periods of time without having to either a) rush home to pump or b) haul my pump along with me and find some place private to pump.

Then Lucas starting growing and developing, and he began to flash smiles that melted my heart. And then one day he actually giggled. I thought I was going to die from happiness. There is no way to describe how thrilled I was with that first baby giggle. My heart felt so full that I never knew it could hold so much love. I was actually relieved, because I did not experience the immediate falling in love that so many women describe when they first meet their baby. With that giggle, I knew what it was like to fall in love with my baby.

By that point, I had already decided that it wouldn't be so bad to have one or two more. I figured I'd just power through the newborn stage, and that it would pay off when my kids were older. And then a few weeks ago, I was browsing through some pictures of when Lucas was first born and I realized that I was turning into a mushy pile of love, reminiscing about how little he was, how he used to fit perfectly on my chest, how he used to fall asleep on my shoulder. And then I "accidentally" stumbled onto the maternity section of Gap.com, just so I could see what cute new maternity fashions they had. And then my uterus began to ache a little.

And then Dan and I did our budget and we saw how much Lucas was costing us and decided to wait a couple years for another one.

Judgy Wudgy Was a Bear

I'll admit that I'm not the most confident of women. My feelings get hurt more easily than they should, and try as I might, I still can't shake the desire for the approval of others. I'm much better than I used to be, though. In high school, I was a total wreck. I did and said things solely because I knew other people would agree or think better of me, not because it was how I really felt.

It's not that bad anymore. I'm not so afraid to express my opinion anymore, and have mostly come to the realization that I am who I am, take me or leave me. At the very least, I no longer pretend to agree with people if I really don't. If I don't have the guts to say what I actually think in the face of someone who holds opposite views, I just stay quiet instead of nodding and acting like it's pure genius (yes, I unfortunately did used to do this when I was younger).

However, I am in no way immune to the judgment of others. I still get squirmy when conflict arises. I'll sometimes go over and over something I said that I thought was stupid, long after the conversation is over and probably forgotten by the person I spoke to. And I still feel uncomfortable if I sense disapproval from someone. Granted, I don't feel uncomfortable with all disapproval. But disapproval from people I respect or people I wish would like me does not make me happy.

If you are like me, being a parent makes things a lot harder because suddenly you have a living, breathing example of who you are as a person walking around. A baby is a SUPER easy way for family, friends and strangers alike to judge you. Even when their behavior is not your fault, it can negatively reflect on you. Sometimes you can just see the disapproval in people's eyes.

My baby is only 3.5 months old, yet I already feel judged and disapproved of. Case in point: I'm afraid our daycare lady is going to fire us. Lucas has been uber fussy the past two days and he also just happened to be at daycare the past two days. Dan thinks I'm overreacting but hear me out.

The first time we met our DCP (daycare provider), one of the things I liked most was how friendly she was. We totally clicked, which was something that was missing with other DCPs we interviewed. The first few times I dropped Lucas off, she was the same - friendly, easy to talk to, happy to see us. (I'll just call her Brenda which is nowhere near what her real name is because it's not her fault my kid is a hot fussy mess so I don't want to incriminate her or otherwise negatively reflect on her.)

Ok so Lucas was with Brenda Wednesday and today this week. When I dropped Lucas off on Wednesday, Brenda was a little quieter than usual, but nothing too out of the ordinary. I called a little after lunch that day to see how Lucas was doing and Brenda said he was doing good - a teeny fussy but nothing big.

Then this morning when I dropped Lucas off, I got nothing. I said hi, she said hi and then she said nothing. I said, "Well he's having a bit of a rough morning." She then said in a flat voice, "Yeah he had a rough day yesterday. I jinxed it when I told you he was being good because he completely melted down after that." I was caught totally off guard because I don't pick him up in the afternoons (Dan does), so I had no clue that he'd had a bad afternoon. Basically, Brenda did not seem happy.

I unhooked Lucas from his car seat because he was still having fits of screaming, and he stopped crying. I had to leave for work so I handed Lucas to Brenda. He started smiling and laughing to her and she didn't even react. No smile or anything, which I think is kind-of impossible when my kid flashes his adorable grin (though I might be biased). Then she said, "Oh so you're happy now." I decided it was time to high-tail it out of there before Brenda changed her mind, handed Lucas back to me and told me I had to take him to work with me.

Dan had worked the night before, and he always calls me when he's on his way home from work. So when he called me I said, "I think Brenda hates Lucas." I expected him to tell me I'm crazy (which, let's face it, he's usually right). Instead he said, "Yeah, she was kind of weird when I picked him up yesterday."

My heart picked up speed and I said, "What do you mean??" He told me she was pretty quiet when he'd picked Lucas up yesterday and that she'd mentioned how fussy he was. This did it for me. If Dan noticed something, I decided there was definitely something going on. I was so afraid she was going to fire us that I didn't even call to check in on him because I really didn't want to know how he was doing. Based on how he was this morning, I knew the answer. I knew she'd tell me that she was certain I was Satan's mistress and Lucas was his spawn.

When I got home from work today, the first thing I asked Dan was, "Are we fired?" He said no but that Lucas was indeed a horrible ball of fuss today. In fact, Brenda told him that Lucas had started being happy for the first time all day about 15 minutes before Dan arrived to pick him up. Ack.

And now I have to face Brenda again tomorrow. I pray that Lucas does a 180 and is an angel child tomorrow. It took us forEVER to find Brenda and I really don't want to lose her. Because really, what kind of terrible sign would that be? Getting kicked out of places at 3 months. Not a good start as a kid.

And I don't really feel like having my first kid be a juvenile delinquent. If I'm going to have a horrible child, I'd rather it be one of the middle kids. That way I can say, "I don't know what happened, it can't have been our fault. Look at our first child! He's perfect." So memo to Lucas: you must be perfect. End of story.

Snow Day

I was lucky enough to get a snow day today. Since I work for the teacher's union, if all three of the districts I support call off because of snow, my boss can close the office for the day. Yesterday at work we were all talking about how today would probably be a snow day, so I had a feeling that I wouldn't be working today.

Lucas must have had a feeling too, because he decided to play a little game with me last night. Except for this game was about as fun as a round of Bloody Knuckles. We had gotten into a really good pattern - bed time around 9:30 or 10, and he'd sleep until 6 or 6:30, which is just about perfect. But last night, Lucas decided it would be a barrel of laughs if he went down at 9:30 and wake up at 2:30, 3:30, 4:30, etc. I finally got tired of going into the nursery to put his pacifier back in and took him out of his swing to come sleep in bed with me. (I know, I know, HUUUUGE no-no, but whatever. Keep reading.)

So Lucas settles down next to me with my arm under his head and I doze off. Right as I fall into a nice peaceful sleep, Lucas starts squirming around. And then we went another 40 rounds of spit the paci out, put it back in, each round spaced out with enough time in between for me to reach almost-sleep. So instead of getting the desired result - sleep - I ended up laying in bed half-awake, cursing the day Dan decided to work nights. So see, all you anti-bed-sharers, the punishment fit the crime. So it was a good thing I had a snow day today because I am doubtful that I'd have had the energy to make it through work after such a terrible night.

And now, I'm going to sign off and watch a movie with my husband who has not been off work since Sunday and had not been off before that since Thursday. More scintillating and fantastically well-written blog posts to come later!