Playtime

Of course I think my kids are extraordinary, but in general I know they're pretty typical. Which is good - developmentally they're pretty much right on track. Both are walking (M more smoothly than B, but she also had a couple of week's head start) and into everything. And temperamental - they want what they want, when they want it (now - always now). And playful, both with the nice toys that we and their grandparents have provided -- the wooden play cube is a big hit, as is the somewhat annoying electronic play table (thank you craigslist) and various push wagons and blocks and puzzles and books -- and with whatever they can get their hands on. Tupperware drawer? Love it love it love it. Wooden spoons, metal bowls, paper slipped from a shelf that used to be out of reach? All fun. And today they came across a box of miscellaneous nursing and pumping supplies. Apparently, the "horns" for my old hospital-grade pump are excellent toys that have been in high demand ever since. Who knew?

The $10,000 Question* (Updated @ end)

Welcome, Akeeyu, to the world of stupid twin-parent questions. It’s lovely here. Really.

We just got back from a week’s vacation with the in-laws. They rented a house in a mellow mountain town, and we mostly just hung out and played with the kids. Midweek, I managed to pinch a nerve in my neck, or throw something out of alignment - whatever it was, it hurt. I couldn’t find a local chiropractor with availablility that day, so J booked a massage for me at the local “day spa.”

I was already a bit unsure about the massage therapist when I met her and she had a weak handshake. I don’t know about you, but I generally think of hand strength as a good thing in a massage. But my whole neck and upper back had tightened up around this spot, so I stripped down and settled myself on the table. She starts working, and making small talk - where are you visiting from? how did you hurt your back? I said I was playing with my one-year-old twins, and she said... “Oh, are they natural or did you use drugs?”

Yeah. Because that makes for a relaxing massage. I said, “We were lucky” though that answer totally feels like a cop out on a number of levels (although it’s true, we were - are - lucky). And then she said, “I lost a set of twins.” And what do you say to that? Especially when laying naked under a sheet in a room with a virtual stranger. “Um, I’m sorry.” **

But otherwise it was a lovely vacation, and my babysitter is back in town (halleluyah!) so maybe I’ll actually find a few minutes here and there to write. And shave my legs. And pee in peace. You know, the little things.

* As in, If I had a nickel for every time I’d been asked the question, I’d sure be richer now.

** UPDATE: Not that it lessens the pain any, but this woman's kids are in their late 20s or early 30s, so any loss was a long time ago. The vibe I got was that it was a miscarriage, though I don't know why I think that. I'm not saying that makes it less painful - god how we all know that - just that it wasn't quite as fresh as it might sound. And the massage was only mediocre, so I got more caught up in that than her potential loss. Sometimes I am incredibly selfish. Perhaps a conversation for another time - the balance between being a compassionate person, and being granted an hour of blissful and mindless relaxation.

Hooray for small victories

I successfully made wheat-free, egg-free cupcakes for the babies to try at their party tomorrow. Not that they'll know the effort, or the difference. But stil, yay!

(Longer post, ruminating on the passing of a whole year of their lives to come, but for now I have a party to make happen, and cupcakes to frost. My ruminating will have to happen later.)

Identity Crisis

M and B will turn 1 next week. But this isn’t a birthday post. At least, not really. Not yet.

M & B will turn one, and I will start the countdown to the end of my official leave of absence from my life as Grad Student. I don’t talk about that part of my life here much, partially because I can’t talk about my specific research without risk of outing myself, and partially because for a long time, I’ve been ambivalent about being in grad school. Since the first year, actually. And I’m now in my 6th year. (It’s a PhD program. In the social sciences. Normative time in my program is 7 years. It’s not unheard of for people to take longer.) For those of you that know something about the world, here’s where I am: I’m ABD. For those that don’t, that basically means that I’m done taking classes and jumping through hoops in terms of exams, and all I have left (all I have, as if it’s so little) is to write my dissertation. I defended my dissertation prospectus (and you don’t just present, you DEFEND) when I was 9 weeks pregnant and feeling queasy - physically and emotionally. And I’ve done virtually no work on the project since then. I kept busy for a while, and the time after the initial defense is always a bit of a downtime, and then I went on bedrest, and then I delivered, and, well, you sort of know what I’ve been up to since then. I’m entitled to 3 quarters of leave. Unpaid leave, mind you. This is not the cushy land of generous maternity leave plans and universal health care. (Actually, going on leave meant that I lost my university health care, so it’s a good thing that I’m also covered on J’s plan, even if it is with the EvilHMO.)

Anyway. I took a leave of absence and threw myself into parenthood. I didn’t see any other way. Initially, I thought I’d take just part of the year as a leave, then return to school somewhat part-time to get my head back in the game. Except the babies wouldn’t take bottles. And childcare is expensive, and it’s not like I make any money as a grad student. And I didn’t really want to leave. And I didn’t really want to be back in school. So I’ve been home.

I never really envisioned myself as a full-time SAHM. I planned to be home much of the time, but somehow I thought I’d also be working (or, for now, in school) part-time. It seemed so ideal to be in school, actually, because I have a flexible schedule and can do my work in the morning, at night, on weekends, at home, on campus, at a coffee shop, wherever. In theory. Only I can’t. I can’t get anything done at home. Even when we had a sitter coming a few times a week (she’s on summer vacation, sob), that precious time was spent showering, or going grocery shopping alone, or at a doctor’s appointment. I didn’t have enough time or focus to do MORE.

Here’s the thing. I don’t particularly miss my research. I’ve been ambivalent about this program, and my schooling in general, for a long time. I’m not one of those people that just LOVES the thinking and theorizing and jargoning. I’ve stuck with it for varying reasons: I couldn’t judge the program based on the structured first-year curriculum; I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do instead; we moved for me to go to school, so how could I stop; I don’t want people to think I’m a quitter; and now, because I’ve invested so much time in it that it seems silly/lame/pathetic to just quit.

Mostly it’s just that last one, now. Most days I’m sure I don’t want to go into academia, professionally, and this isn’t a field where there are lots of industry jobs just waiting for me. So the degree is somewhat unnecessary. (Though for the kinds of jobs I might someday want, it might lend me a touch of credibility.) I’m no longer excited about my research topic (if I ever really was). The worst part right now is the feeling of limbo, which translates into guilt. If I’m reading blogs, I’m not keeping up with the journals or other academic discussions. If I’m home with the babies, I’m not taking part in colloquia. If I’m keeping the kids happy and healthy and the house running as well as can be expected (if not smoothly, than at least functionally), I’m not doing much else. I can’t. There just isn’t enough of me.

And so it goes. My leave of absence is coming to a close and I have to make this decision, and then stick with it. Come September, will I throw at least a portion of my brain power back into the academic arena, buck up and get to work, or will I say “to hell with this” and move on? I just don’t know.

I’m not sure I’ve even laid out the problem here, but it’ll have to do for now, since I have laundry to move to the dryer and dishes to wash.

Advice, please

1. We have the possibility of buying a used Learning Tower. Obviously, the kids aren’t old enough yet, but it’s a good deal and I think we might want one. I know someone out there has one, and I’m hoping for advice - is this a good purchase? Will the kiddos fit up there together? Please advise.

2. While we’re gathering advice, I’m looking for recommendations for our next round of toys. We’re coming up on their birthday, so we’re trying to think ahead about what toys and activities we’d welcome at this point to get us through (or at least into) the toddler phase. Here’s what I’m thinking about so far:

• A climber/slide thing - maybe this one?
  
• An activity cube (or this one instead?)
  
• A wagon - maybe a Radio Flyer - with two seats
  

Suggestions?

in out open closed

I think we’re on the mend. I have a lingering cough, which always happens after a cold (gee, thanks, asthma!). The kids are definitely over the worst of it, with just an occasional bit of snot to wipe. Although MissM has replaced sickness fussiness with teething fussiness - as far as I can tell, she’s finally getting ready to cut her first tooth. It was a big relief to figure this out today, since her sleep has been getting worse and worse and I wasn’t sure what to blame. But now I can point my finger at her mouth and say “you - you are the culprit” and somehow that makes me feel better.

Plus she’s otherwise quite charming. M’s latest skill is IN and OUT - she loves to take things OUT of containers and put them IN other containers. It’s good that we got one of those toy storage units that’s just a bunch of bins - lots of places to take from and put in. But sometime recently she graduated to the next step - tonight I found a ball IN the laundry basket. Under some laundry. I guess it’s not just IN and OUT but UNDER, too.

Not to be outdone, B is exploring OPEN and CLOSED - playing with doors, drawers, and cabinets... and the kitchen trash can (which has one of those push latches - you press down on the little grey part and the lid pops up). He thinks it’s great fun to pull up on the cabinet and then pop the trash open. To thwart him, I turned the trash can around so the part he can reach doesn’t have the latch. He still presses, though, and looks up expectantly. The thing is, I did the same thing tonight. It takes a long time to retrain me, I guess. Probably more time than it will take for him to figure out how to get to the other side of the trash.

So yeah, things are okay around here. I started to write a post about feeling overwhelmed, and how having sick kids the first week I have no babysitter and no visiting grandmas really sucked and made me notice some, um, unpleasant things about our relationship, but I think I’ll save it. For now, things are okay. J is working tonight, so I did the whole bedtime routine alone for the first time since the babies got so mobile. Tiring, but I got them fed, bathed, dried, diapered, clothed, nursed, read to, and down to sleep. And started a load of laundry. And now I think I’ll go watch TV or something pathetically decadent like that. (Maybe with dessert, even.) Yay, me.

Next up, what we’re eating (and not) these days. And more on the crazy antics of my (almost-former) playgroup. And our nine ten month update. Yikes, I’m late on that one. I’d better get moving. Right after I have some ice cream.

What Goes Around

We are sick.

First B, who was hit hard with whatever cold/flu this is. Poor boy. I don’t think it’s a stomach bug, but he spent a couple of days throwing up. On me, only on me. He’d wait for me to pick him up. Sweet, in a disgusting way, right? I think his tummy was upset by the large quantities of snot that must have ended up there.

Then M, who was already having a tough time with sleep (after a week or so of decent nighttimes and good naps - just a tease, really) and is now congested such that lying down is a problem. She was up and down last night, and I have no reason to think that she’ll be much better tonight. And we can no longer bring her to bed with us, because while she’s fine in her sleep, when she’s awake in our bed she moves around so much she’s nearly fallen off the end of the bed. We’re just not awake enough to manage it. Which is a shame, because when she’s SLEEPING in our bed, she sleeps really well. This morning I slept with her in my lap on the chair in the nursery (not comfortable) and after B got up, I shifted to the floor (thinking it wouldn’t work) and she slept there a bit longer. So maybe that’s a possibility.

And now me. It’s no wonder, since they both love to chew on my water bottles. But ugh. Headache, achy body, coughing. I’m headed to bed right now, where I’ll drift off pondering how we managed to get so sick in the SPRING, when we don’t really go anywhere, aren't in daycare, and when the babies are breastfed. I’m just saying.

Snort, moan, sigh. Waaaaaa.

Tiptoe

Firstly, many thanks for your collective wisdom. I called the Evil HMO and explained that I wasn't sure I needed to come in and could I get a call back from a nurse or doctor, but when the customer service person (neither a nurse nor a doctor) heard me say "possibly broken" she switched from taking a message to making an appointment. So I went in to Urgent Care last night after the babies were in bed, careful not to touch anyone or breathe the air of people there because they had the flu or somesuch. The doctor I saw told me, as we all suspected, that it didn't much matter if it was broken or sprained, the treatment was the same. (Treatment = tape to next toe for support and wear shoes for protection.) She offered to send me for an x-ray if I was interested in whether it was broken or not, but confirmed that the only difference would be length of time to full healing (~2 weeks for a sprain and ~6 weeks for a break). We concurred that it didn't make much difference, and off I went. I did get to read a few pages of a new book, so the outing wasn't a total wash. Lesson? You and I know what we're doing better than the customer service rep. Also? I liked the doctor. And? Because I'm so often with the babies, I don't carry their pictures, so I have nothing to show a semi-interested doctor. Must fix that one.

In other news, um, actually there isn't much going on. Our fabulous babysitter is going home for the summer, so we're doing the babysitter/nanny search again. Ugh. She's here right now, and the laundry has been folded and high chairs wiped down and now we're just tiptoeing around because the babies are Still Napping. I'm not going to tell you how long it's been for fear of jinxing anything, so I'll just keep tiptoeing around.

Solicitation of input: I'm getting tired of reading the same board books (they're getting boring - ha ha, I crack myself up) and looking for some new books to add to our repertoire. Any suggestions?

I'm sure I had something interesting to say, or ask, or recount, but now I can't remember what. So this will have to do for now.

Unfortunately, I'm not that popular

This is one of those moments where I wish I had one of those blogs with really high readership, so I could tell you all that I think I may have broken my toe, and someone would kindly tell me whether in fact it seems so and what I need to do about it - thereby saving myself from waiting hours for a return call from the doctor on call at the Evil HMO. But alas, I am not one of those bloggers and this is not one of those blogs.

(Though if anyone wants to weigh in: I stubbed my big toe yesterday and it hurt like the dickens, whatever that means, and was sore to walk on, but bearable. Today it's worse, with a black and blue spot - not the whole toe - and somewhat swollen. Currently I have it taped to the next toe - the index finger of toes, I guess - and that's helping a bit with the walking. Am already planning to skip the walking portion of playgroup, sadly as I could use the exercise, but trying to decide if I need to go in to get it looked at/x-rayed or if I'm already doing what needs doing.)

Conversations

The babies babble at me, their language full of syllables and trills and rasperries. I sometimes echo their syllables and noises back to them, which makes them squeal with laughter, and then I wonder - what have I just said? Have I promised them ponies? Cars at their 16th birthday? Or more likely, all the cheerios they can eat and never having to take a nap when the world looks so interesting.

Yes, I know it’s not Friday anymore

The answer to the question “How good are your babies at self-entertainment?” is apparently - not good enough for me to sneak away to write a blog post.

They can play with each other without much intervention for a bit, but I can’t get too far away. When I do, it’s to the kitchen to get something to eat (which I haven’t done today) or to the computer to catch up on email or blogging. I have a laptop and wireless internet, but the babies often find my computer a particularly compelling toy, so I’ve had to stop bringing in to their play area.

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.

---

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.

And how was your day?

Me: I’m hungry and I’m tired and I’ve been a human tissue all day.

J: Well, at least you’re the soft lotiony kind.

Midnight Dilemma

I am not getting enough sleep. The kids are each doing decent stretches (no sleeping-through-the-night or anything, but B was down to one night nursing, and M down to 2, on their best nights). But lately I’ve been up every couple of hours with one or the other.

When they were little (I can’t believe I just started a sentence that way! I have kids - that used to be little - can you believe it?) we used to wake the second for a feeding when the first woke. But at some point I thought we should let them set their own schedules - if one could sleep through, it would be silly to wake them (and might teach them to wake up when what I really want is for them to sleep). But now I’m up all the time, and I often have trouble falling asleep because I just know that the next waking is around the corner. (Now, for example. I went to bed and waited, and sure enough I was up in 20 minutes. And now I can’t sleep. Ugh.*)

What do I do?

(a) Keep letting them set their own schedules. They’re working on a developmental spurt, I think (when are they not?) - B is close to crawling. They might be teething. Once we get past this hurdle, we might be back to fewer night wakings, and I don’t want to have screwed that up.

(b) If it seems like a reasonable stretch since the last waking, wake baby #2 after baby #1 nurses. Which is good except that I acually dread the babies waking at the same time, since at night I can’t really tandem them (at least not without waking J, and that turns it into a whole big production and makes everyone more awake and harder to settle, plus he does have to get up for work these days). Plus, then I’m encouraging them to wake every 4 hours or whatever one of them is doing, rather than encouraging them to sleep through. Aren’t I?

(c) Night wean. Or at least work harder to cut back on night nursing. When we did our big sleep project, we spent a couple of nights following a set of rules around night wakings that meant soothing them sometimes, and allowing them to nurse at others (since I’m not so sure they can go 12 hours without nursing at all). I gave it up because it seemed so arbitrary for them - at 11 they wake up and get shushed but not nursed, but at 1 they get nursed right away? How do they know it’s 11 and not 1? It just didn’t work so well for me. But then I stopped trying to soothe them back to sleep at all (except for the early night wakings - anything before 10 or 11), and just nurse every time. And I know at least some of the times they’re not really hungry (2 hours after their last waking/nursing? I think not.)

Any advice/tips/warnings/encouragement? Please?

* And sure enough, after I wrote the initial draft here and started to go back to bed, baby #2 woke.

Sad news

Sad news doesn’t even begin to cover it.

I’m sitting here, crying, waiting for my babies to wake from what I would have grumbled was a too-short nap, but now all I can think is how much I want to hug them tight and not let go.

Wherein I use the word “sucks” a lot

This is a big ol’ woe-is-me post. Be warned.

I have a couple of great posts in the pipeline, just waiting for me to get it together to post them. So why am I not posting them now? Because during their morning nap, M and B granted me enough time to pee and change my pants (but not my shirt). Yeah, naps are sucking more and more. I think (partially channelling Moxie) that we’re at a developmental spurt (there’s one at 29 weeks, right?) plus they have a cold, plus maybe teething? All together and it sucks. Not that naps have been great, well, ever. But now even nighttimes suck. Talk about a sleep regression. I think I was up more than I was down last night - all with M. She’s sick. And won’t sleep except if I nurse her. Which is the one sleep habit we’ve been trying to break, at least for naps and such. (I still nurse her most times she wakes at night - or lately, every time since I have no energy for anything else.) Plus J is back to working like a normal person (instead of working part time from home) and yesterday worked from 8am to about 4, then had to cover for someone in the evening. So I did the dinner/bath/bedtime thing alone for the first time. And it took forever to get M to settle. And again a few hours later. And several times overnight. Did I mention this sucks?

So those other fabulous posts? They’ll have to wait until I have time to change my shirt. (I’m not even getting my hopes up for a shower, though J would probably appreciate a less-smelly wife.)