Chocolate is not the enemy anymore

When MissM and B-Boy were about two weeks old, I accidentally ate some cabbage and it gave them really bad gas. And ever since, I've been concerned about how my diet affects them. For a long time, I had cut almost everything* out of my diet in an attempt to alleviate Miss M's reflux, though I've since added most things back to my diet. But still, when the kiddos have a particularly rough night, or a hard afternoon, or any trouble at all, I tend to pause for a minute to consider whether I've eaten something that was the cuplrit. It's a habit I'm trying to shake, since for the most part I don't really think what I eat has much effect on them anymore (though I do think it did to some degree, for a while). The other day, I had a bit of a splurge - a $tarbuck$ mocha. Milk, chocolate, sugar, coffee (okay, decaf, but still). And you know what? Nothing happened. Nothing. They were fine. I guess I can go have that chocolate cake and glass of milk now, right?**

* Among them: dairy, soy, most vegetables, anything acidic (tomatoes, citrus, coffee), and, sob, chocolate.

** I fear that now that most things are back in my diet, my body is going to feel the impact. Oh sure, I can eat veggies again, but I can also eat Ice Cream! With Chocolate Chips! Yeah, this is going to be good for me.

Metablogging

I miss blogging. I’m having a hard time channeling the brilliant miscellaneous thoughts I have when I can’t write them down (bathtime, driving, nursing) into actual, coherent posts, or even finding time to edit the things I have managed to jot down. And so I don’t post. And I miss it. The blogging community in various guises has been a community to me - the place where some friends meet and hang out and share advice and joys and sorrows and mundane nothings. So I’m trying to find my way back. If blogging is a conversation, I guess sometimes things aren’t going to come out the way I’d intended, or as smoothly, or whatever. But trying to get it just right seems to keep me from speaking up at all, and then I’m just sitting on the sidelines listening in. And that’s no fun.

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A bit of housekeeping: I “upgraded” to the new blogger, but I haven’t had time to mess with it to get it back the way I’d like it. Case in point - I no longer have a blogroll. It was out of date anyway, but I’m not sure how best to get it back. I currently read blogs through Bloglines, and I figure there must be a way to export my bloglines and just use it as a blogroll. Anyone? And how hard is it to add things to the sidebars? I think I’d like to add one of those “what we’re reading/listening to” lists, but given how little time I can find to write a crappy post, I don’t know how I’m going to make that happen.

In the darkness

In the darkness, I am awakened. Again. It is one five ten minutes. A few hours. I am needed. My body is needed.

In the darkness, I dream mysterious dreams. I dream of being taken from my babies. I am terrified by what I read into the dream, and by the possibility that they would be okay without me.

In the darkness, my body is not my own. My fingers are chew toys. My breasts, spigots. My clothing a canvas for the neverending landscape of drool, spitup, leaks.

In the darkness, I am consumed by doubt. I ask,
what did we get ourselves into?
how am I going to do this?
what have we done?

In the darkness, I am consumed by darkness.

In the darkness, I wait for a moment of light.

It comes, in a chubby hand kneading at my breast. Grabbing, tugging. It comes in a gummy grin, a gleeful look, a face lighting up at my entry to the room. It comes, in babbles and coos, words of love in a language I don’t fully understand.

In the darkness, I wait for the light.

Measures of Success/The Road Not Taken

I went to high school with a girl (call her E) at a school known not so much for its academics as its artsy focus. She and I were the only two students taking a specific advanced class, and we were friendly, but not the kind of friends you keep in touch with after school. I’ve Googled her before, so I had a sense of what she’s been up to, but something triggered the search again the other day, and I scoped out her latest - after spending two years on the faculty of Well-Known Midcountry School, she’s now on the faculty at Very Prestigous New England University. She’s my age and she’s already been working as a tenure-track professor for three years. I’m on leave from a program I can only hope to finish in another two or three (or five) years.

It’s not the path I want to take anymore, nor was it ever really my path, but even so, it’s hard not to compare. She’s completed her graduate training at a top-notch school, married a colleague, and been hired into not one but two Name Brand Schools. She’s also a rocket scientist/brain surgeon, speaks 20 languages, and can recite the alphabet backwards

while dancing
in high heels
on a tightrope
over a pit of alligators
who are hungry.

Last week I was a human tissue. Today I was a jungle gym.

I’m not saying she has the better deal, not at all. I’m where I am because this is what I wanted, this is where I put my time, energy and resources, and this is my payoff. And it’s a big payoff. But still, it’s hard to avoid the moment of comparison, the brief imagined trip down another path. What would my life look like if I’d chosen a path sooner, focused on my research, published and presented?

Um

So the other day I had a bit of twinge-y pain/cramp on my left side.

Hmm, I said. I wonder if I might be ovulating? Hah. No way. It’s probably my stomach or something.

Last night I had a bit of pink spotting.* My first thought was “oh shit” until I remembered that when not pregnant, spotting is not a big thing. Today it’s gone.

I think I might need to renew my account on Fertility Friend and start charting again.**

Not because we’re trying or anything, but just because it looks like I might want to keep track of what’s going on in there. Because I have no effing clue what that might be.

* I'm not the only one who still checks the TP, right? It's a hard habit to break.

** Can you temp if you're not sleeping for multi-hour chunks? Because I was up at midnight, 2:30, 4ish, 5ish, and 6ish last night. I think. It's all a little fuzzy.