Critter is my first born. He is the guinea pig. He is a ten-year-old blonde-haired, blue-eyed cutie. I'm glad we kept him. We decided to have him after we had been married for three years and I had attended too many baby showers one summer. The giraffe-printed onesies finally got to me.
He was due on April 15th. We didn't know if he was going to be a boy or a girl. His nursery was painted yellow with a Hey Diddle Diddle border.
When I was about ten weeks along, I had some spotting. It was terrifying, especially since I had had a miscarriage previously. I was at school, where I worked as an English teacher. I had gone to the restroom to pee (for the millionth time that day, of course), and I noticed the blood in my underwear. I went to my department head, sobbing and hysterical. I thought if this were another miscarriage, maybe I would never have kids. My department head sent someone to cover my class for me; it was the last one of the day, thankfully.
I was in her office, still crying, and students were coming in for this or that. I could just hear the rumors now. No one knew I was pregnant, but I'm sure my kids would wonder what was upsetting Ms. Sullivan. A good cussing? I was fired? A death threat? Gossip rules the high school. Anyway, my boss, who had had her share of miscarriages, sent me home to call my doctor.
My doctor said she didn't do ultrasounds on Friday, but I could make an appointment on Monday. What? We are supposed to wait until Monday to find out if we have lost another baby or not? Livid. Doc says if I'm going to miscarry, there is nothing that can be done about it anyway. Apparently she isn't familiar with the term "peace of mind."
One agonizing weekend later (no more spotting, thankfully), I went in for an ultrasound and saw my little peanut on the screen. Although minuscule, he's alive, and everything looked normal.
I went through the rest of my pregnancy with no more scares. No morning sickness even. I gained 50 pounds. A nurse told me, "I gained too much with my first one too." I wanted to slap her. I didn't gorge myself purposefully; I was just always hungry.
At about 38 weeks, I started having painful Braxton Hicks. My husband, Steve, started timing them. They kept coming regularly until we were about to call the doc, and then theywould fizzle out. This went on for about two weeks. In fact, one night we were so sure the baby was coming that we called the grandparents and headed to the hospital. The moment I waddled in the door the contractions went away. Embarrassing...
While being uselessly checked out at the hospital, I overheard a woman screaming. Her husband was nervously answering questions from the nurse. I heard the nurse say the woman was three centimeters dilated. I had just been told I was dilated to two. I thought in horror, "am I only one centimeter from THAT?" I felt the kind of dread one feels when on a roller coaster and about to go down the big hill.
My hubby and I had attended birth classes like dutiful first timers. I went to the first class determined that no one was going to change my mind about drugs, drugs, and more drugs during the birth. We had wonderful teachers who demonstrated all of the options. They weren't pushy, but objective and honest. The classes served their educational purpose, and we came away from them informed, enlightened, and inspired. Inspired to go all-natural. Yes, I became one of those.
Steve mercilessly kept me walking throughout my pregnancy. We walked a lot toward the end, trying to make things happen. Mostly what happened was my bladder felt like it was going to fall out. One night, at forty-one and a half weeks gestation, we walked to the grocery store (about a mile and a half from our house).
I was having the Braxton Hicks contractions again. I was in a bad mood. Hubby was taking too long deciding on cookies. Finally he picked out some crappy Chips Ahoy, and we headed to the video store next door.
We started for home with the cookies and Witness. We lounged on the couch watching our movie.This was about 8:45 PM. Suddenly I heard a tiny "pop" like someone smacking his lips together. I went into the bathroom, sat on the toilet, and heard tinkling sounds, only I wasn't urinating. My water had broken! It was only trickling, which I didn't even know was an option in water breakage.
Steve and I grabbed our bag, which had a layer of dust on it from being ready for so long (I was a week and a half overdue and had been having false labor since 38 weeks). We called the grandparents and doc. We drove to the hospital to have our Critter.
We got to the hospital about 9:45. Critter was born at 1:45 AM. The labor was about five hours total, that I know of. I could tell NO difference between the false labor pains and the real ones, only that the real ones didn't fizzle out a few hours later, and a baby did eventually come out. Perhaps I had a super long labor lasting two weeks. Either that, or I had a quick labor.
I was thinking I'd have a typical labor of eight to ten hours or longer. Thinking this, I asked for an epidural a little before 1:00. I had been managing the pain by breathing techniques, rocking, and looking at a picture of Maui. I discovered walking while in labor is for the birds. Then, the contractions started coming relentlessly closer together, and I could not rest. I thought I could not take going all night like this.
The nurse I had was one of the most knowledgeable, kind, and skilled that I've ever had. She told me she had had five children (foreshadowing, anyone?), some with an epidural and some without. She didn't push me one way or the other, but simply let me know she'd been there and could answer questions. After she ordered my epidural, she said, "let me check you before we give it to you." She checked me, and I was almost ten centimeters. She told me that she had been suspicious that I was in transition. She advised me to forgo the drugs, because at this point, it was almost over. As if by magic, the pain went away. Maybe my pain-addled brain thought I'd gotten the epidural after all.
I rested for a long time, perhaps twenty minutes, without a contraction (I have since learned this is appropriately called "the resting phase." Then, holy hell, there came the pressure. If I pushed along with it, though, it did not hurt. My baby was resting at the cervical opening in such a way that I felt a natural pain relief (can't remember the medical terms for this). This whole last part of labor was almost pain-free. It lasted about an hour. I mistakenly had arranged to have an episiotomy. I've never "needed" one since, and probably didn't need one then. I grossed Steve (and myself) out for nothing (http://www.hencigoer.com/obmyth/epis.html).
Critter was one ounce shy of nine pounds. He was twenty and a half inches long. He was a boy! He was born with the "Dr. Phil" hairstyle, which he soon lost and was a baldy until he was two. Steve was skipping around with our 1990s camcorder like it was Christmas.
The Grandmas, who were there watching the whole time (it seems like they should've been eating popcorn while enjoying the show), were sanitizing it up; everyone wanted to hold the little blue bundle.
A few days later they let us take him home. We left quickly, before they realized they were handing a baby over to clueless bumblers.
Critter:
Born April 26th, 1999 at 1:45 AM
8 pounds and 15 ounces
20 1/2 inches long
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
11:00 PM
It is eleven o'clock. I need to be asleep. I have to get up early to take the freeloaders to scout camp.
Alas, laundry needs to be folded. Spiderman underwear and Cinderella nighties don't care that I should be in dreamland now.
Lunches need to be made. Bologna sandwiches with two slices of cheese and a smidge of Duke's mayo could care less how tired I am.
I have procrastinated long enough with email, Facebook, and watching fireflies through the window (who also don't care that I have to sleep soon).
Every night my life is punctuated by the arrival eleven o'clock. I feel that dreadful tug of time at its end. Time I want to spend but it is already spent. I must pay the debt of sleep, and sometimes like a child, I avoid it.
ZZZZ
Alas, laundry needs to be folded. Spiderman underwear and Cinderella nighties don't care that I should be in dreamland now.
Lunches need to be made. Bologna sandwiches with two slices of cheese and a smidge of Duke's mayo could care less how tired I am.
I have procrastinated long enough with email, Facebook, and watching fireflies through the window (who also don't care that I have to sleep soon).
Every night my life is punctuated by the arrival eleven o'clock. I feel that dreadful tug of time at its end. Time I want to spend but it is already spent. I must pay the debt of sleep, and sometimes like a child, I avoid it.
ZZZZ
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Paging Dr. House
This past spring break my family and I traveled to the Midwest to visit relatives. We planned on celebrating Easter and our baby's first birthday there as well. We were going to be staying with my in-laws for about a week. About the third day in, I was visiting my mother with the kiddies. My mom had a windmill she was planning on installing in her yard, but it was sitting in her family room. She moved it to the spare bedroom so that my brood wouldn't hurt themselves on it. Irony came along, and while my mom was carrying the baby, E.E., she tripped on said windmill. She fell with E.E. in her arms, and he softly hit his head on the floor. He did cry for a while, but appeared normal the rest of the afternoon. That was that, or so we thought.
Later on that evening, I was back at my in-laws' house. E.E. became irritable. I chalked it up to teething, lack of sleep, and being in a strange place. Then he started crying if he were ever standing for a long time (E. E. had just learned to pull up to things and stand there, but he couldn't stand on his own, cruise, or walk yet). He would cry and then collapse onto his bottom eventually. Then he would stand again and be fine for awhile. I thought this was strange, but again I attributed it to tiredness. Then stork-boy appeared. E.E. started standing on just one leg like a stork. I began to worry in earnest.
I called my mom and asked her if she thought his leg could have gotten hurt in the fall. She said he didn't hit his leg on the floor, but she was holding him so tight, maybe he jammed his leg against her body. We considered this a possible solution to the stork-boy mystery.
I noticed when I changed E.E.'s diaper, he winced. As I would pull his left leg down to straighten him out he would cry. I felt up and down his leg, testing it. He didn't seem to mind me touching his leg at any spot. He did mind when I pulled the leg. I also noticed he tended to keep the leg curled up to the side when on his back (he looked like he was doing a pirouette). I got the idea that maybe he had gas. I know sometimes babies pull their legs up when they have painful gas. This next part will later make me slap myself. I began to pull his leg up into his stomach. This made him cry out in pain, but I thought, "This always helps with the gas. It's for your own good little buddy."
I debated with the in-laws (my husband, Big Daddy, was actually in San Francisco on business and would be meeting us later) as to whether I should take the little guy in to the ER or not. He is my fifth baby; my first born would already be in his car seat en route to the hospital. Also, my family has what we call the "hospital tour" going on. We have been to so many medical facilities across the U.S., (we should really be experts on the state of our nation's hospital care), and we try to avoid adding another hospital to our tour if we can help it. Stay tuned for more medical misadventures.
Anyway, I decided he would be fine until morning, when I would then take him to an urgent-care center for $50 (instead of the ER for $100) if he was still acting like stork-boy. He was completely fine when he wasn't standing or having his diaper changed, so how bad off could he be?
Flash forward to 1 AM, 2 AM, 3 AM, 4 AM... he was waking and crying about every hour. Jeepers, is this a mini-version of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button? He was turning into a newborn again. Needless to say, I was regretting my decision to forgo the e.r. I almost drove him there at 1 AM, 2 AM... I kept thinking, "I've been through this before. We've had gas that kept us up," but this was more intense. My poor baby. He had a fracture. A concussion. His leg was disintegrating. He swallowed a Lite Brite piece, and now it was puncturing his intestines. I actually believed that last one was a possibility. The older ones were playing with the Lite Brite...
Morning intruded on the little wisp of sleep I had gotten. I left the older kiddies with their grandparents and headed to the urgent care. Blood was drawn. X-rays were taken. E.E. was poked and prodded. The doc thought it could be osteomyelitis, a hip infection which usually follows an illness. E.E. was recovering from a cold. If that was the case, he would be fine in a few days. That was not the case. His blood work showed high inflammation and white blood cell count and some other mumbo jumbo indicative of a bacterial infection. He was referred to an orthopedic doctor who came back with E.E.'s blood work results, freaking out. He feared E.E. had a septic hip and he needed to get it treated ASAP or the joint could start to deteriorate. Oh yay. We were then sent to Riley Children's Hospital, in Indianapolis, about an hour away.
Oh, by the way, did I mention:
*my hubby was still out of town- so I'd be doing this alone
* my cell phone decided to quit working, and I couldn't even call my in-laws
*I was supposed to be picking up aforementioned hubby at the airport later that day
*this day was E.E.'s first birthday, and I had a half-iced cake at the house
E.E. was admitted on his birthday and given an I.V. line. Instead of cake he got needles. That was a blast, especially for poor E.E. Little tiny baby veins. I finally suggested they put the line in his head where huge veins were popping out all over the place as he wailed. They took my advice! Once he was "plugged in" (that's what it looked like- he had a power outlet on his head) antibiotics were given. Then more tests were done. To make it more stressful, E.E. developed a fever. A high fever. His dad finally arrived from his business trip. We wrung our hands in mutual worry.
E.E. was knocked out and fluid was drawn from his hip. Not septic. He had an MRI. Hip had no inflammation. Not the hip causing him to be stork boy. However, inflammation was shown in the lower leg. A "toddler fracture" was suspected. Sometimes these don't show up on x-rays right away. A bone scan was ordered.
So far, we had been in the hospital for three days. We were already a day late getting back to Georgia; the older kids had to get back to school and Big Daddy had work. We decided that the older kids and Big Daddy would head back home tomorrow. I would come with the younger ones when E.E. recovered from the mystery stork disease. The next day, off they went.
They had been gone half a day, when E. E. miraculously started standing on his leg again. He hadn't even had the bone scan yet. I convinced the docs to let us go home. We would follow up with his pediatrician there.
E.E. had another x-ray back in Georgia. It showed no fracture. Finally, a pediatric orthopedic doctor we were referred to determined that he had a bone infection. The course of treatment would be six weeks of squirting foul liquids into baby's mouth (antibiotics). Seriously, his meds smelled like a pet store.
Six weeks later, E.E. showed no signs of any leg pain. It was never fully verified that he had a bone infection, but that was most likely what it was. No one could tell us why he got the infection, but all the docs said that it is usually unknown why babies and young children get them. It may have had something to do with the fall he had with Grandma or it may not have.
The doctors, nurses, and staff were wonderful at Riley. Nice, helpful, patient, and they knew what they were doing (with the exception of one intern who was none of the above). I was so grateful; like I said, I've been in a lot of hospitals, and E.E. could've had worse.
I was also grateful that my baby turned out to be fine in the end. Seeing all the much sicker children around the hospital made me count my blessings.
Later on that evening, I was back at my in-laws' house. E.E. became irritable. I chalked it up to teething, lack of sleep, and being in a strange place. Then he started crying if he were ever standing for a long time (E. E. had just learned to pull up to things and stand there, but he couldn't stand on his own, cruise, or walk yet). He would cry and then collapse onto his bottom eventually. Then he would stand again and be fine for awhile. I thought this was strange, but again I attributed it to tiredness. Then stork-boy appeared. E.E. started standing on just one leg like a stork. I began to worry in earnest.
I called my mom and asked her if she thought his leg could have gotten hurt in the fall. She said he didn't hit his leg on the floor, but she was holding him so tight, maybe he jammed his leg against her body. We considered this a possible solution to the stork-boy mystery.
I noticed when I changed E.E.'s diaper, he winced. As I would pull his left leg down to straighten him out he would cry. I felt up and down his leg, testing it. He didn't seem to mind me touching his leg at any spot. He did mind when I pulled the leg. I also noticed he tended to keep the leg curled up to the side when on his back (he looked like he was doing a pirouette). I got the idea that maybe he had gas. I know sometimes babies pull their legs up when they have painful gas. This next part will later make me slap myself. I began to pull his leg up into his stomach. This made him cry out in pain, but I thought, "This always helps with the gas. It's for your own good little buddy."
I debated with the in-laws (my husband, Big Daddy, was actually in San Francisco on business and would be meeting us later) as to whether I should take the little guy in to the ER or not. He is my fifth baby; my first born would already be in his car seat en route to the hospital. Also, my family has what we call the "hospital tour" going on. We have been to so many medical facilities across the U.S., (we should really be experts on the state of our nation's hospital care), and we try to avoid adding another hospital to our tour if we can help it. Stay tuned for more medical misadventures.
Anyway, I decided he would be fine until morning, when I would then take him to an urgent-care center for $50 (instead of the ER for $100) if he was still acting like stork-boy. He was completely fine when he wasn't standing or having his diaper changed, so how bad off could he be?
Flash forward to 1 AM, 2 AM, 3 AM, 4 AM... he was waking and crying about every hour. Jeepers, is this a mini-version of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button? He was turning into a newborn again. Needless to say, I was regretting my decision to forgo the e.r. I almost drove him there at 1 AM, 2 AM... I kept thinking, "I've been through this before. We've had gas that kept us up," but this was more intense. My poor baby. He had a fracture. A concussion. His leg was disintegrating. He swallowed a Lite Brite piece, and now it was puncturing his intestines. I actually believed that last one was a possibility. The older ones were playing with the Lite Brite...
Morning intruded on the little wisp of sleep I had gotten. I left the older kiddies with their grandparents and headed to the urgent care. Blood was drawn. X-rays were taken. E.E. was poked and prodded. The doc thought it could be osteomyelitis, a hip infection which usually follows an illness. E.E. was recovering from a cold. If that was the case, he would be fine in a few days. That was not the case. His blood work showed high inflammation and white blood cell count and some other mumbo jumbo indicative of a bacterial infection. He was referred to an orthopedic doctor who came back with E.E.'s blood work results, freaking out. He feared E.E. had a septic hip and he needed to get it treated ASAP or the joint could start to deteriorate. Oh yay. We were then sent to Riley Children's Hospital, in Indianapolis, about an hour away.
Oh, by the way, did I mention:
*my hubby was still out of town- so I'd be doing this alone
* my cell phone decided to quit working, and I couldn't even call my in-laws
*I was supposed to be picking up aforementioned hubby at the airport later that day
*this day was E.E.'s first birthday, and I had a half-iced cake at the house
E.E. was admitted on his birthday and given an I.V. line. Instead of cake he got needles. That was a blast, especially for poor E.E. Little tiny baby veins. I finally suggested they put the line in his head where huge veins were popping out all over the place as he wailed. They took my advice! Once he was "plugged in" (that's what it looked like- he had a power outlet on his head) antibiotics were given. Then more tests were done. To make it more stressful, E.E. developed a fever. A high fever. His dad finally arrived from his business trip. We wrung our hands in mutual worry.
E.E. was knocked out and fluid was drawn from his hip. Not septic. He had an MRI. Hip had no inflammation. Not the hip causing him to be stork boy. However, inflammation was shown in the lower leg. A "toddler fracture" was suspected. Sometimes these don't show up on x-rays right away. A bone scan was ordered.
So far, we had been in the hospital for three days. We were already a day late getting back to Georgia; the older kids had to get back to school and Big Daddy had work. We decided that the older kids and Big Daddy would head back home tomorrow. I would come with the younger ones when E.E. recovered from the mystery stork disease. The next day, off they went.
They had been gone half a day, when E. E. miraculously started standing on his leg again. He hadn't even had the bone scan yet. I convinced the docs to let us go home. We would follow up with his pediatrician there.
E.E. had another x-ray back in Georgia. It showed no fracture. Finally, a pediatric orthopedic doctor we were referred to determined that he had a bone infection. The course of treatment would be six weeks of squirting foul liquids into baby's mouth (antibiotics). Seriously, his meds smelled like a pet store.
Six weeks later, E.E. showed no signs of any leg pain. It was never fully verified that he had a bone infection, but that was most likely what it was. No one could tell us why he got the infection, but all the docs said that it is usually unknown why babies and young children get them. It may have had something to do with the fall he had with Grandma or it may not have.
The doctors, nurses, and staff were wonderful at Riley. Nice, helpful, patient, and they knew what they were doing (with the exception of one intern who was none of the above). I was so grateful; like I said, I've been in a lot of hospitals, and E.E. could've had worse.
I was also grateful that my baby turned out to be fine in the end. Seeing all the much sicker children around the hospital made me count my blessings.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Bubbles to the Moon
Summer fun is brief here in the south. Yes, we do have a longer summer season, but the actual amount of time we can spend out time without dying of heat exhaustion is brief. Right now, people are jogging and hiking. Kids are playing football in the yard. In mid-July, it will look like a ghost town around here, with people looking out from air-conditioned windows. So we are enjoying summer while we can.
Target shopping the other day, my five-year-old spied the new Bubble Rocket gizmo from Gazillion. We weren't in the toy aisle. I was strategically avoiding that. The gizmo was on an end-cap of sale items. My second son snatched it up and looked at me with his "I am an adorable five-year-old who will only be five once so please indulge my childlike love of fun and curiosity and general five-year-oldishness" face. I wondered how long it would take for the Bubble Rocket to blast me off to crazy land once all the neighborhood kids came stomping along and bubble stomping fights ensued, but I told second son he could have it if he cleaned up the basement. His little chubby hands clutched the box all the way home, bubbly rocket thoughts in his head, no doubt.
Three hours and one clean basement later, we set up the Bubble Rocket in the Georgia heat. We had to move from the driveway to the grass to keep our feet from blistering. The kids had a blast, pardon the pun, but I worried about possible impalements on the rocket launching part.
Bum Rocket Launching
Target shopping the other day, my five-year-old spied the new Bubble Rocket gizmo from Gazillion. We weren't in the toy aisle. I was strategically avoiding that. The gizmo was on an end-cap of sale items. My second son snatched it up and looked at me with his "I am an adorable five-year-old who will only be five once so please indulge my childlike love of fun and curiosity and general five-year-oldishness" face. I wondered how long it would take for the Bubble Rocket to blast me off to crazy land once all the neighborhood kids came stomping along and bubble stomping fights ensued, but I told second son he could have it if he cleaned up the basement. His little chubby hands clutched the box all the way home, bubbly rocket thoughts in his head, no doubt.
Three hours and one clean basement later, we set up the Bubble Rocket in the Georgia heat. We had to move from the driveway to the grass to keep our feet from blistering. The kids had a blast, pardon the pun, but I worried about possible impalements on the rocket launching part.
Bum Rocket Launching
Things for Bubble Boy to Eat
As I've mentioned, I do have a toddler (we call him "Bubble Boy" because he would have to live in a bubble to avoid all of his allergies) who has many food and environmental allergies. Feeding him can be a challenge. I've found that the more homemade a meal is, the easier it is to make it allergy-free. In that respect it has been easy to make allergy-free meals for him, because I've always tried to avoid pre-packaged or heavily processed foods. Homemade is cheaper, people! However, every mom needs a short cut night. So, I do serve good old macaroni and cheese out of the box. I just scoop out a little macaroni for him before I put the cheese sauce on the rest of it. Easy.
What's hard is making two sets of cookies, or finding store-bought snacks or junk food without dairy, nuts, or soy. We've been at this for three and a half years now, and have learned it can be done. Here are some dairy-free, nut-free store-bought snack/junk foods we have bought for Bubble Boy (our third son). Soy is too hard to avoid, but we avoid it when we can. Mostly we just make sure it's not one of the main ingredients.
*Newman's Own Alphabet cookies
*Oreo cookies
*Bunny Grahams or Teddy Grahams (any flavor)
*most graham crackers
*Austin Choco, Vanilla, or Lemon Cremes
*most animal crackers
*most pretzels (NOT Goldfish pretzels!)
*"natural flavor" microwave popcorn
*Immaculate Baking Co.'s Vanilla Sugar, Chocolate Chunk, or Oatmeal Raisin cookies
*plain rice cakes
*Rice Dream Frozen Dairy Dessert
*Starkiss bars from DairyQueen
*most Italian ice or sorbet
*Sunbutter
*Earth Balance Natural Buttery Spread
*Roman Meal bread (basically the only wheat bread I've found without soy!)
Note: Bubble Boy can tolerate small amounts of soy. He only has a reaction to food allergens if he ingests them or gets them on his skin. He has no reaction if he breathes them. Some kids can't even breathe the peanut molecules! Also, I have found that foods warning of cross-contamination or "made in the same facility" as nuts, etc. don't seem to bother him. I call these "CYA" warnings. They are maddening. In any case, if you are searching for allergy-ree foods, try above suggestions at your own risk.
Another maddening thing is that companies change their ingredients all the time. I discovered that angel food cake mixes were dairy-free (and some other cake mixes as well). I was so excited because my from-scratch allergy-free cakes usually get spit out by unsuspecting party goers just wanting a yummy chocolate cupcake. Anyway, I had bought the angel food cake by Duncan Hines and Pillsbury. Both reaction-free. Next time I went to buy one, both brands had dairy! Beware.
Sunbutter and Earth Balance are great for making cookies and deserts for Bubble Boy. Sunbutter, made from sunflower seeds, can be used in place of peanut butter. Hello, no-bake cookies! Earth Balance is used in place of butter, but we don't use it much because of its soy.
Dairy-free chocolate? Yes, some chocolate can be dairy free if it's not milk-chocolate. Cocoa does not have dairy in it. Immaculate Baking Co. doesn't use milk-chocolate, so that's how Bubble Boy gets to eat chocolate chunk cookies. Finding out he could have chocolate almost made me cry tears of joy. Seriously, I ripped up the letter to Oprah about the poor kid who couldn't eat chocolate.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
The Girl I Used to Be
I don't want to BE the girl I used to be; I want to HIRE that girl to load my dishwasher.
I used to be organized, with my towels straight and cans lined up a la Sleeping with the Enemy. I used to be on time, showered, and dressed. I used to wear make-up. I used to clean. Now I am not that girl anymore. Now I am a woman with a family, not big by Dugger standards, but sizable. The woman I am now doesn't have time to do the aforementioned things because I am too busy looking for lost Bionicles, fastening Spiderman masks, and making cinnamon play dough. These are things that are more important to me now than cleaning and preening. The woman I am now would rather look for Bionicles than dust bunnies. However, when the kids start naming the dust bunnies, I know I need the girl I used to be.
Sure, I enlist the children to help with the dust bunnies and Mount Laundry. They all have chores, and this is part of parenting. It is good for the kids, but for me it is like an itch in the center of my back that I can't quite reach. It only gets a little scratched. Well, the kids only get the house a little clean.
That's why I want to clone myself, but not my current self. I want the self who doesn't feel guilty about scrubbing, folding, and filing. She doesn't feel guilty because she doesn't have any kids to feed/bathe/read to/teach. She is a clean freak, an organizer from the Martha Stewart school, and she still has time to read and look pretty. She can do all my household errands and chores while I have time to be the woman I am now, a mom.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Dear Pillow
Dear Pillow,I miss you and can't wait to put my head on your cushiony goodness again tonight. Maybe this time, teething one-year-old won't wake up at four in the morning.
Longingly yours,
Angel
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