September 14, 2011

Recovering

When I first got sober, or a short time into my sobriety rather, I started looking back. The fog was starting to lift and I was able to process things, emotions, and actually feel. I think that’s happening again. I feel like I am pulling out of a fog of some sort, an emotional fog. Last night I was lying in bed trying to sleep and cursing my 4 pm cup and a half of coffee, and my mind started wandering through the past few months.

It was dark.

I laid there having real visual memories of my actions, my reactions. Mostly to Madelyn. I did so much crying. I did so much wishing. I laid there and tried to imagine what she must have thought of me during those moments of chaos. I hope she won’t remember.

I know the extreme sleep deprivation I was suffering from was the catalyst for this depression.  I was at a breaking point. I was shocked by the depths of my frustration. It has gotten better as of late, but by using sleep training methods that challenge my instincts and my emotions. I just kept telling myself throughout those first few hard weeks nights of training that I am better for this, and so is my child. He was suffering from sleep deprivation too and becoming so sad and fussy. In fact, the last few weeks his night waking has ceased and he has gone from sitting up surrounded by pillows to crawling, getting into sitting position, bear walking, pulling up to stand and his newest trick: edging. i can’t tell you for sure if that is his age or the direct result of 10 solid hours of sleep, but he just seems better.

My sister (New York) said something to me the other day that has been running through my mind. After telling her that I was feeling better but “not out of the woods yet” she said “we are never out of the woods, we just have to figure out how to get through them.”  And that thought combined with my therapists advice to, for now, tell myself that what I am doing is “good enough” I’m finding a bit more calm. When Maddy has her huge little meltdowns and starts thrashing her being around the room I now tell her I love her and that I want to help if she will let me. It doesn’t always get her out of it, sometimes it does, but it makes me feel better. It makes me feel better than before when I would freak out and yell at her and toss her in time out. And that sets me up in the right direction for the next meltdown, which is usually 5 minutes later.

This is my life, you know. I was so so so lost this summer, I wish I could go back and try it again. I knew that this first year was going to be crazy but I didn’t think I was going to be crazy. Seriously, I felt crazy. So this being my life, I have to figure out how to stop thinking of the things I wish I were doing, from my lack of job outside of the home, to my job inside my home. I want to get back to the happy I felt the first few months of being a mom of two. I know how much good I have and how lucky we are. And the last couple of days I’ve been watching my kids more, while they are doing what they do and I’m doing it without guilt or sadness in my brain for the first time in a long time. I’m just trying so hard to embrace the joy that they bring into my life, and the rest I will work out on my own.

One thing I keep thinking as well is thank god I am sober. I mean THANK GOD I AM SOBER. Things would not be working out if I was still under the magnetic influence of the Pinot.

So there’s that. And it’s good enough.

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September 9, 2011

Untitled

It has been a wordless summer. A summer of survival. A summer spent wondering if what I am doing is good enough. A summer spent trying to figure out why I feel this way. A summer spent. And it’s September again, just like that.

My children are growing too fast, and not fast enough. I teeter between desperately trying to preserve their childhood, babyhood, while at the same time, wishing for them to just be older. So I am less needed. I cry as I type this because the overwhelming shame I feel just thinking that consumes me.  I just feel so needed, there is no relief.  I feel so physically drained. So mentally clouded. So emotionally torn.

I’m done feeling guilty when I say “fuck, this is hard.”

I’m done having the weekly conversation with my husband about not getting enough of a break on the weekend. And he works such long hours (still!) that there is no family time during the week.

I am the family.

Earlier this summer I started having monthly panic attacks. Breakdowns. The feeling that I cannot do this anymore and holy shit! I might just get in the car the minute he gets home and not tell him where I am going and not return for a few days. Would that make enough of an impact? Would he then hear me? As the summer progressed, so did these moments of panic, until they became weekly, expected. I convinced myself that I had PPD and went to a therapist.

“the good news is you don’t have PPD. You just have regular old depression.”

Awesome. She also diagnosed me with post traumatic stress disorder from some childhood events. Another Awesome.

I know what I need to do to be better and yet for some reason I am only going for it half way. I feel like my drive and determination, my will, has faded over these past 3 plus years at home. I’m comfortable here. Home doesn’t care what I look like or what I eat. It doesn’t care whether or not I get on the treadmill, or how badly my garden has been neglected. I have to sack up and make changes in what I am doing not only for me, but for the little people in my life. I know my ups and downs are not easy on Madelyn, and I can see her starting to have mood swings similar to mine. She’s 3.

I need to return to the place, the space I know I have inside me where the positivity resides. Where the healthier choices live. Where my creative ideas blossom. Where less is more. Where trying so hard, trying so fucking hard, isn’t that important.

And I need my words back.

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May 13, 2011

It’s not you, it’s me.

Dear Seekingclarav,

Hey. Remember me? It’s your blog. The one you used to love. The one you used to need.

Are you mad at me or something? I feel like we never talk anymore. We haven’t hung out in, like, weeks. You’ve pretty much stop confiding in me. I’m just wondering what I did to offend you.

Is it the new baby? Are you one of those girls like from high school who starts going out with a new guy and drops all of her girlfriends? I never thought of you as that kind of girl. I guess I never really knew you.

Can’t you just tell me what I did? If it’s over, I need closure so I can move on.

I still love you.

***

Dear Blog,

I’m so sorry, I’ve been meaning to write.  Yes, it’s the new baby. And the other baby. And my large ass that I am trying to shrink each night on the treadmill. I barely have time to shower once everything is done and everyone is taken care of, my to-do list always a million items long.

I guess I just don’t have time for you right now.

To be perfectly honest, I felt like you were pressuring me. Even if you didn’t mean to. Even if I created the pressure in my mind, it was still there.

I’m the one who needs to move on.

Now don’t get hysterical. I’m not leaving for like, forever. I’m not going to give up my domains or anything I just need some space.  Some space to live without feeling like I am neglecting you. Some space to want to see you again. Really want to, not out of some weird familial obligation.

I hope you can forgive me because I think you are wonderful. And hey! I’ll see you on Facebook, okay.

I love you too. Goodbye.

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April 30, 2011

Blurry with the chance of clarity.

I just stared at myself for a while in the bathroom mirror, after I took out my contacts.  Then I stood back and my image was blurry. My face as seen through my own eyes, uncorrected, isn’t clear. My image isn’t clear. I was born not being able to really see myself, at least not from a slight distance.

I have recently discovered that I like having poor vision. I get to see things in a totally different way than anyone else. Once in a while if I am wearing my glasses in public, which is kind of rare even though they are cute, I will slip them down and check out the scene, through my real eyes. The way I was born to see things. Or not see things.

I like looking at Madelyn’s face without correction in my eyes. I feel like I really see her. I can see into her. This usually happens in the morning when the light is strong. And she beams. She glows. She radiates. There is a softness, about her skin that is breathtaking, and an intensity in her energy, even when she is being still, that takes over the room. Like a smoldering bright haze all around her. It amazes me. She does.

I was just looking at my skin. My forehead has the lines running across it, the ones that I always hoped for. I wished for them. My father had this amazing forehead. Strong. Earned. Proud. I always wanted it. It’s getting there. I have lines around my eyes from squinting. That means I’ve been in the sun too much and that realization makes me feel happy.

I am slowly learning to handle myself. Almost thirty-six years later. 

This morning I didn’t take the time I granted to myself, the few hours I said that I needed to be just about me, then carved out, but then abandoned to get a few things crossed off a list. A list that I know will never end. And mid-day when I started to feel anxious and trapped and far away from myself, I reeled it all back in. Because the truth is the only person that I can be bugged with is me. I kept myself from my time with me. My kids and my husband were playing happily in a whole other space while I stomped around the house blowing myself off.  

I own my lack of motivation and desire and I can’t harbor regret. I will not. I can’t imagine that will make me feel any better about it.  So as the day nears its end for me and I am close to getting in my bed, close to those last few minutes in my head as I drift off to sleep, I have decided to let go.

I’m getting better at this.

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March 23, 2011

A bit of babble cause that’s all I’ve got.

To say that I have had writers block would be the understatement of the year. It’s not that I don’t have anything that I want to write about, it’s the opposite in fact. All day long during the myriad of mothering, posts start and finish themselves in my head.

Sometimes I feel like my days are made up of Facebook status updates.

I often fantasize about deleting it all. My blogs, my Facebook profile, my email accounts, anything and everything that pulls me in and takes me out of my moments. Lately, I want to do it really bad. I want to remove the excuses for validation. The desire to post pictures only for the comments. The writing, the desperate pleas for the “you can do it” comments. The only thing that keeps me from deleting my Facebook is my husband’s family. His grandmother would die without pictures of the kids. She bugs me weekly for new “pictures please thanks.”

But then I feel like it’s sort of the only thing I do that is really for me and me only.

I have finally taken control of the television and bingeing. Oh I still watch TV, let’s not get crazy, but I do it on the treadmill. We bought a small flat screen for the garage and mounted it in front of the treadmill. Now I have no excuses for not getting on. Of course I am digging deep for the motivation at 8 or 9 pm when I am trading in my fuzzy socks for cold sneakers. Kissing Mike and Trey goodbye for an hour when all I want to do is climb into bed and snuggle up with the both of them. But it’s working! Only 4 pounds to go to my pre-pregnancy weight…and then another 25 on top of it.

I am struggling to balance it all.

My days consist of classes for Maddy, scrambling during the short nap over-lap to make dinner (in an attempt to stash away more vacation cash, we are not eating out or taking in much anymore. And it’s healthier) making sure I play with Madelyn with all-ish of my attention for a bit each day and actually teach her something, making sure I snuggle the baby enough, listening to how Mike’s day was, making sure everything is paid and ordered and shopped for, cleaning everyone and all of the rest of the mess and preparing to do it again tomorrow.

Oddly, I am finding fulfillment in this.

I have learned how quickly it will go. Maddy is almost three. Trey will be three in the blink of an eye and then another blink and they won’t need me in the same ways anymore. I know how lucky I am and that the future holds nothing but time for me. Time for Mike and I. Time for all the rest.

So I am not going to go berserk and delete it all, at least not yet. I am going to simply let the guilt of not posting, updating, uploading and checking wash away with today’s rain.

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March 4, 2011

Those people

Well, we are officially those people. That couple. Who sleep in separate beds in separate rooms. Not because we had a fight. Not because we don’t want to be close. Not because children are occupying our space, ooohhhhhh no. Because this entire house wasn’t sleeping. I’m in it, man. Ooohhhhhh I am in it.

I should say that Maddy was sleeping. But she’s taken to waking up once or twice a night, and screaming Mommy Mommy as if someone is poking things into her eyes. I have to jump out of bed (THE GUEST ROOM BED) and fly down the hall to see what is the matter for fear that she might wake Trey with all of her shrieking. And usually she just needs a drink or a tissue, or her leg is stuck inside the duvet. Again. How that keeps happening is beyond me. The opening is all the way at the bottom of the bed, nowhere near her. But it happens.

Trey, sweet little gooberific Trey, has gone from a solid 7-8 hour stretch at night down to a definite 5. But he goes to sleep at 7 pm. I don’t go to sleep until 11 or later so there goes that. Then he wakes hourly until sunlight. And the whole problem is that he is a really loud sleeper so Mike was waking up with every grunt. Basically I have been getting about 2 hours a night. I’m not exaggerating. And his naps are now 30 minutes long max. The past two days have been better but I am afraid to even type that out loud. It is rough. I got the flu this week and 3 days ago I called Mike bawling hysterically at 1 pm, blubbering on about how I am not going to make it until 6:30 when he gets home and “please God oh please I wanna lay down so bad.” It was pathetic but I couldn’t help myself.  He came home from work and I handed him the baby who had napped for a whole 25 minutes, and rolled over. He told me later that within 30 seconds of rolling over I was snoring. It was that bad. He loves me though because although he did have to go back to work after my 2 hour nap, he called in late the next morning and I was able to go back to bed for 90 minutes. You have no idea what that did to me though. I have had a taste of the good life. And now I want more.

We gave Madelyn our master bedroom. The addition of another human to this 1350 square feet has really done me in. Tiny humans need lots of things and we are busting at the seams. It was one of the best moves we ever made. There is a room in our house now where we can all sprawl out on the floor without moving furniture first and roll around and do airplane rides and super babies and watch Madds dance around nekked after bath time! We can do the Hokey Pokey with full arm and leg extension!

Initially I was going to bunk the kids together and I think that will still happen once Trey stops waking up in a thrashing fit every single time the paci falls out of his mouth.  I get warm fuzzies from the idea of them sharing a room. I loved it when I was a kid. It made me feel safe and definitely grew my lil sis and I closer together.

In the interim, I found a mini crib on Craig’s List, like a real crib but smaller! Who knew? And it fits through the doorways in one piece so moving it is a breeze. For now Trey lives in the guest room. Also known as Trey’s room. Our last round of “come meet the baby” guests ends the weekend after Easter so then it will officially become his room until he can learn to sleep like a normal tiny person and move into a real sized crib in Maddy’s room. When we have people staying here, he will sleep in our room. But until then, it’s me and the boy bunking together and now I am the only one not sleeping. It’s awesome.

I have to say that amongst all of the confusion and decisions about who and where I do love the growing part of all of this. As a family, we are making changes to improve the day-to-day flow around here. And as a couple, Mike and I are making sacrifices for our children, and that feels good. And we know it is only temporary. And on Sunday afternoons when we are all hanging out in Maddy’s room being goofballs together, we know what we are doing is right. That somehow we are figuring this out. The dynamic has definitely changed in this house, and the balance isn’t always there. But we are getting glimpses of it and that makes all the difference.

It’s good conditioning for me, this change thing. Having children basically hurls you into a constant flow. A never-ending cycle of trying to figure things out. One day it works and the next day it doesn’t. And as they grow, we do too. We are growing as a family. And that makes my heart warm.

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February 23, 2011

More leg room

We’ve created a space where little girls now nap in big beds

And conversations with butterflies happen often

Where you might run into to a fella named George

And the sun shines in a whole lot brighter

Where just about anything she builds becomes a choo-choo train

And we are all smiling a little more

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February 16, 2011

A mom thing.

Well. The past few weeks have been eventful. My mom was here visiting us (yes, I am still sober.) I have said before that being a mother in front of your own mother has its share of challenges, for me anyway. In the past I have always equated my anxiety surrounding her visits to my drinking. Or the fact that I wouldn’t drink like I normally did around her for fear of being judged. Well turns out that no matter what I do, she will judge me anyway. I don’t think she means to do it, I really don’t. I think it might just be a mom thing. Is it? A mom thing?

I escaped one afternoon and took a walk around a bunch of lakes or quarry’s or whatever. I escaped is the point. I found myself thinking about the kind of relationship I have with my mom and the kind of relationship I hope to have with Madelyn some day, in our future.  I want to really always be her mother. I want to still take care of her, even when she has her own children. I want to still spoil her and pay for things, even when she has her own money. I want her cry to me, even when she has someone else to lean on. Most importantly, I want to still love her as unconditionally as I do now. Even after all the years of heartache she will likely cause me. I say heartache in not a negative way, but in an emotional way. So far, watching Madelyn grow up has been amazing. But thinking of her as a grown woman, and knowing what we will go through together in getting there, will undoubtedly cause us both some heartache. The mother-daughter relationship is a tricky one. Partly because I know I will struggle with my role as mom-friend. I will want to be her friend but I will need to be her mother. It’s a lot.

I have been thinking a lot about Maddy in general lately. As she grows, she is constantly testing me for consistency, looking for that lapse. In our home, I am the disciplinarian. I am the no-sayer. At times it seems like she hates me. Yet I am always the one she asks for at the end of the day. The one that can get her settled to sleep, or calm her out of a frenzy. Or talk to her with just the right language, enough to get her to relax and cooperate. She is going to be the kind of teenager that slams the door to her room shouting about how much she hates me and wishes she was never born, then crawling into bed with me a few hours later. And I will wrap her up in my arms and forgive her. And I’ll do that for years and years and years. Over and over again. I can see it already.

I want her to believe in me. I want her to trust that I am always on her side, even if it seems that I am not. That I always have her safety and best interest in my heart, however it may translate in her growing mind.

I thought that having a daughter would help me figure out what it is lacking in my relationship with my own mother. It totally hasn’t. I have no idea why I thought that. But it has got me thinking about how I can build a solid foundation with Madelyn. It has made me realize that everything I say to her and about her to other people, whether I think she is listening or not, will affect her. How I treat myself, my friends, my own mother, her brother, her father, our damn cat. It will all effect her.

I hope I don’t screw this up because I just love the girl so much.

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January 30, 2011

Mister Mister

This morning Mike took Maddy to gymnastics open gym and the plan was that I would get some cleaning done while Trey had his morning nap, as my mother was arriving today and well, I wanted to clean up this pig pen for her. Trey woke up 2 minutes after they left. Of course. So instead of cleaning, we had a full-fledged extended arm photo shoot. It was long over due.  And having some alone time with him was like therapy. It doesn’t happen very often and I needed it so much. Just to take him in, it was perfect.

yes, trey. yes you do.

I realize that I bitch about being a mom of 2 under 3 quite often. And I realized that I haven’t really told you about the magic that is my son. He is eerily similar to Madelyn when she was a baby, in temperament and looks. He is a bit fussier than she was though. He musters up the fuss sometimes and that is all kinds of hilarious but when the boy gets ticked, he lets us know. But he is so sweet and snuggly as can be. He smiles and coos and lights up my heart. He is in awe of his big sister and doesn’t flinch when she accidentally kicks him in the head mid flail or falls on top of him when she leans in to kiss his cheek and looses her balance. She and I sing him a song, and now she sings it to him unprompted. And he smiles.

So my mom is here and my house is dirty. But she hardly noticed, thanks to my 2 little cutie bugs.

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January 17, 2011

Motherhood is kicking my ass

This is the second day in a row I have cried due to some sort of parenting/husband related malfunction. Yesterday I did everything. Everything. While my husband sat on the couch. He has become a good baby holder but in all other categories, he is slipping up. He was doing well while he was on paternity leave, he got into the swing of things. But there is this weird thing about his work. It consumes his entire brain, like the entire United States Armed Forces are his responsibility and he looses all ability to be present and capable when he is home. Last week, all week, he worked from 7am until 8pm. That’s a long friggin day for me. And I know it’s a long day for him too, but he is around adults! Speaking in actual sentences! Making multiple trips to Starbucks! Sitting at a desk in silence! Driving alone! You get my drift, I hope.

Yesterday after Trey had a long nap he brought him downstairs to join the family madness also known as trying to get dinner on the table. After dinner I asked him if he changed Trey’s diaper. He said yes. Then I asked when. And he said, “okay, no. I didn’t”. Ummmm why is your first reaction to lie, and why in God’s name do I have to ask you if you did these things? The first thing you do after a baby has a long nap is change the freaking diaper, man.

At 7:30 last night both kids were asleep. I told him I needed to zone out with my computer in silence for a while. So he sits down on the couch next to me and starts a conversation. With me. HELLO? Instead of shushing him I decide to talk. Let’s talk.  I bring up the diaper incident from earlier and most of the above written. And instead of maybe just owning some of it, he rambles off excuses and tells me it’s about to get worse for me because he is starting classes again soon. He says that I know how to do everything around here because it’s all I do all day so he just assumes that I have it all under control.

Well as you can imagine I could no longer speak. I took MY baby upstairs, because he only slept for 30 minutes, and watched TV is the dark and tried like hell to enjoy the quiet and the snuggles, but I cried.

My life, on a daily basis, is challenging enough without having to teach my husband how to be a parent. And the thing is he is a good “dad.” A good “father.” But as a parent, you know, the nitty-gritty, he is sucking.

Then there is Madelyn. It seems an entire world of guilt has swallowed me whole with this girl. Just thinking about her makes me cry. I have been loosing my patience with her like nobody’s business and I feel terrible. I feel SO needed and pulled in so many directions that I feel like I can’t breathe properly.

Breastfeeding, for me, is exhausting. I love the bonding part of it. I love the closeness and the fact that I am nourishing my baby. But the physical part leaves me exhausted and starving all day long. Like I can’t eat enough food. And I don’t have the time or the free hands to eat that often so the hunger makes me nasty.  And while I am nursing, I am usually tending to Maddy in some way. Whether it be physical or emotional, I feel obligated to her somehow because I am being so close with Trey. I need to get over the guilt of having this second child because it is making me less happy about things.

And even though I am typing this with tears in my eyes, the honest truth is that I feel really happy with my 2 kids. What used to be moments of bliss and contentment have begun spreading into hours. I know, it’s kind of amazing. I feel complete and relieved. But it seems things have become way more black and white for me now. I am either happy with my world or aggravated with it. I don’t want to be that way.

And I just have no fucking idea how I am going to survive the next few years like this.

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