working mother, sad mother

I’m feeling blue today. I miss my baby. Over the weekend, as we nursed in the dark, rocking in the chair (she asked, asked me to turn on her music and crawled up in my lap), I was thinking of the time when we don’t nurse to sleep. It’s easy to think I can just zone out and blog or surf while she goes down to sleep in the pack, but being present for that nursing session was amazing. I just held her, in the dark – like hundreds of times before, and rubbed her back as she drifted off to sleep. This time will end. Being present for it is critical.

I’m sure nursing will end like so many moms say it does – dwindling until they forget for a week or two. The day you never think will be the end, will be the end, and I’ll never have savored it like I should have. It makes me teary NOW to think of it! I hope she’s not ready.

And to hell with my mom for saying a 2-something y/o shouldn’t nurse. Mine will, and I’m sure she’ll say something, but who cares!  Maybe she’ll change her mind. E. may be my last child.

I miss her. when work stress gets me down (like now) I think, well, I could quit. But that isn’t solving the issue either. I’ll replace it with something else. Like worries over money or something.

the market craters, economists point doom and gloom, and I remain every optimistic, seeing the silver lining. But I’ve got to work hard to keep the silver lining, and not make any foolish financial moves.

I’m glad I save money by sewing and thrifting. Besides, it’s FUN to do both! And I’ll even e-bay some stuff too. but that makes me sad as well. I wish I had a clear voice in my heart that told my rational brain to shut up. I do, maybe I’m ignoring it, and the rational brain is pumping in fear instead.

I miss my toddler today!

lemonade

I got ahold of our staffing firm on Sat. via e-mail. She said don’t worry, they have people. And really, it’s what i have to deal with so I will. It turned out to be a lovely weekend – I finished sewing the white shirt, the sweatshirt redo, and a cute skirt from Christine’s BaseWear 2! Plus, we scored great deals at a garage sale, played at the park with friends, went for a 30 mile bike ride AND played in the new fort setup we got at the garage sale!

The only thing I didn’t do was vacuum (and G. didn’t clean the bathroom, which is bordering on frightening). But there’s time enough for those things.

I also packed up some itty bitty baby things from E. Found her wristband/ankleband (mine, actually, I think hers is in her note book of baby essentials) from the hospital, packed up some too-small clothes, and brought out the things that fit now. I was sad, wistful, and emotional a lot this weekend. My baby is growing. I’m the only yoga mom with one child who is not pregnant with a second (a couple other moms were 2nd time moms in our group).

I waffle, and this will be an endless discussion – do I or don’t I? I’d love for it to just happen. You know, when I’ve fully resolved it emotionally, when my NKs won’t kill off an embryo and when I dont’ have to go to chicago every six days for six months or more!

Ha ha. perfect world. Not here.

But my baby grows. Time marches on. I could be happy just with one. I could.

Life throws lemons…

Make lemonade!

Okay, how do I make lemonade now? Our programmer is leaving. We knew this, but officially she’s leaving. Tuesday. As in FOUR days from now (two of them weekend days!) We have a freelancer, and we already have asked our staffing firm to start looking. But there’s no one to start next week. Crap.

I’m just deeply stressed. When I get this way I want to sleep. That’s all. Sleep. I can tell I’m getting like this, and I think I’ll go take a shower and go to bed. At 8pm. Yes, I know, but I have to. It’s crazy. I just can’t deal with things and my body (and mind) just shuts down.

So I took action. I’ll e-mail our freelance guy later. I emailed our staffing firm owner tonight. I’ll go take a nice shower. I bought buttons for my white shirt to finish tomorrow. I’ll sew a skirt. Start the cape. It’ll be good. It’ll be OK. One door closes, another opens.

I miss my nursling!

I’m very emotional today. I miss my nursling! the pump is not the same. Oh well, to be expected after a lot of time off with her, that I should be feeling like this. I’ll see her soon enough…in just under two hours!

First day of fall…it’s still summer

High in the mid to upper 70s or near 80 all week – and autumn arrived at 11:45am~ So I broke out the sundresses again for both of us, and am glad to do it! I’m not ready for summer to end.

But I do love fall – my birthday is in just a bit over 2 weeks now, and it’s usually crisp and beautiful by then. The trees have changed, it’s cozy sweater-and-wrap weather, the smell of woodsmoke in the air.

I’m supposed to be nostalgic this week – with mercury in retrograde for three weeks. That means back up my computers, be careful with technology projects and look inwards. So I’ll look inwards to that same ole discussion – should we have more children? I think G. is closing the door. He keeps making noises  – since E won’t have siblings, sell the cosleeper, sell the stroller and carseat combo. You know I go back and forth on this – what seems like weekly. It helps to write, to get this out, so I’ll just do it.

Why I want to have more kids:

• E.  will have a sibling or two
• I want to be pregnant again, and to give birth again
• I want to breastfeed longer (*this could be accomplished with the first kid, though that time is increasingly waning)
• We have more love to give

Why I shouldn’t have more kids:

• I am almost up to having a moment of free time
• The road to get E. was long, arduous, and there is no guarantee
• It costs about $20,000 for all the immunology testing and treatment DESPITE the fertility drugs and the meds being covered!!
• It’s a risk to me, physically – on a number of levels – from the blood clots, to the cancer risk.
• I risk more miscarriages – even with treatment – given my age and ovarian age
• I finally feel ‘back’ to myself – physically, emotionally, financially, professionally

So the list is longer to not have kids than TO have more kids.

Or maybe I’m just making this up. If I could do it easily, I would, not even think about it. I think about it all the time. Oh, I wish I could give it up – it was SO hard! Cripes! I forget how hard – I lost friendships, I suffered terribly, everyone sacrificed so I could have E. I would do it again – the surgery, the injections, the meds, I’d take every risk there is (was). But it’s so much harder – my little girl needs me – how can I wean her? And yet, I turn 39 in two weeks.

So it’ll be an endless discussion. i almost wished, last night, in the very wee hours, that I would just leave the diaphram in the closet (never used it) and play russian roulette with another miscarriage? It seemed like a good idea, and in the light of day today i thought, did I really think that?

Let’s focus somewhere else. this is driving me crazy. It’s fall. I’m going fabric shopping this week at Christine’s. I’m sewing two great projects right now in the micro Mini swap – started the white shirt over the weekend, and traced off the cape yesterday. Crap. I can’t let it go. Oh well, three weeks of Mercury and then I can move on.

sublime

Tuesday the babe and I went to Tikes Peak waterpark area at Blizzard Beach. Let me tell ya, Disney knows kids. There was a toddler-sized slide setup with four slides and a small stairway with toddler-height railings. She wouldn’t go down them by herself, but that’s OK. She had a blast! They also had a toddler-sized zero depth pool and bigger slides for bigger kids (and one mama went on with her to get from the top level baby slides to the bottom level toddler pool). It was so much fun!

Then, that evening, we went to see an irish band at Raglan Road, in Downtown Disney. They were great, and even E. got into the act, doing her own dancing and her version of Irish dancing. She was in my favorite (and hers, too) flouncy tiered sundress (mama was in her sundress too) and the entire day, week, weekend was sublime.

Fast forward to reality. Our web developer is leaving for a full time U position, 65% of Tria’s work is on MY desk and my partners are having personal crises. So I don’t bother them with mine, only to suggest unless we find immediate help, the stuff is going to hell in a handbasket in a hurry. Well, not that dire, of course. One partner suggests we need more print work. I suggested we need no more work until I can get some help. And the world is web today – people aren’t investing as much in print as they used to!

Sigh. I’m spotting today, for real. So maybe my cycle is returning? Ah  nevermind, I don’t really care if it does or does not. I’m not yet ready to wean, and thus not yet ready to decide, discuss or even think about another pregnancy. I’m just not ready. I may never be. It’s easy to say the next would be better but what if it’s not – what if it’s a special-needs child? or a surgical birth? or another miscarriage? It could be devastating. And right now is so good. I don’t want to mess with good

Snoozing sushi

Last night, on the infernally ineffecient but plush bus around Disney, the baby fell asleep. It took an HOUR to go three miles on a combo of monorail/bus/walking. Crazy. I had the Ergo with me, in case, but I slid her so her little head and torso was on my lap, covered her with a dinner napkin and she slept thru our entire sushi dinner! So much for $14.00 an hour for baby sitting, eh?  The sushi was OK, actually our SanSu in East Lansing has better sushi and a more fun atmosphere. I guess we have to go away to appreciate what we have at home!

This morning, going to have another room-service breakfast, as she’s really sleeping soundly.  But I’m letting her sleep, she has a big day at the waterpark with mama today. The park doesn’t open til 10, we’ll be there most of the day, so I’m in no huge hurry.

It’s sometimes interesting, when I get the chance to spend uninterrupted and guilt-free time with her. There is no dishwasher to empty, there’s no sewing to be done, there’s just me, and baby and I’m having fun just doing mainly what SHE wants to do! When I’m at home, I feel pressured to get a lot done. My house needs cleaning. I need/want time to do my own thing (whatever that thing is). I’m hoping maybe they have cabanas or something at the waterpark, because that would be great for a short nap for the babe, to keep her going until I can get her back here for a long later afternoon nap so she can stay up for Irish music tonight.

The nursing sundress worked great. I’ll wear it again tonight! only one guy (and his wife, though she looked way older than he did) kept looking over. I was very nonchalant – there was no boobage showing at all – so I think they were trying to figure out if I was nursing or not. Eventually she fell off the nipple and I slid the flap down and no one was the wiser.

Down here in the humidity, my hair is actually very wavy. VERY wavy. I’m not surprised – it used to do that when I lived here too. But it’s great – I wish I could keep it like this when we went home!

Baby still sleeps. I think I’ll gently wake her soon, at close to 9am if she doesn’t get up on her own. I could just order room service now, but only when I want to wake her as I’m sure she’ll wake up when I make the call.

we’re at Disney

There’s a reason it’s called Disnified EVERY DETAIL is planned. I mean EVERY. It’s quite extraordinary. I actually felt myself teariing up a bit when they welcomed all THREE of us at the Magic Kingdom bus at the airport! The airport! After 3 hours on two planes on the ground in Detroit, we finally got here, but very late. We made the best of it, with a late dinner at the Wilderness Lodge Resort.

All three of us have colds, so we’re taking it very easy today. Hotel pool in the AM, lunch after E. wakes up from her nurse-and-nap here. (I’m OK, I had a large room-service breakfast). Dinner – probably sushi – at a neighboring hotel, and then I think a boat-bus tour of the other resorts (just because it’s interesting).

Tomorrow we plan to spend the day at one of the waterparks. E. will love that! I don’t know how naptime will go, but she’s slept snuggled next to me on a chaise lounge before so maybe she’ll also do that. If not, a late nap at the hotel, because we all have late-night plans to hear some Irish music live, at 9pm, in Downtown Disney. Like I said, it’s all Disnified here.

I have two magazines with me, bring ‘em to the park tomorrow to read whle she naps. Mostly I’m just online now to kill some time while she’s snoozing. It’s weird, when I have nothing TO do, I’m pretty darn bored!

why we do what we do

One of my high school classmates’ husband died. I knew Sally well in school, of course, we all did. But I know little of her life since then, except on the RAHS1987 board list. And I think of another person who died from cancer, this husband of a schoolmate. And when I get peeved G. is spending too much time (or guilty that I’m not doing enough) on the Foundation work, I think, well, it’s for THIS. And it steels me to do more.

A couple of weeks back I was contemplating the life list (before I saw that movie), and thought, I want to start a foundation. Oh, wait, I already HAVE started a foundation! So, I want to – need to – get back involved next year (this?) I need to get reinvigorated by the cause.

The thing about cancer is it’s non discriminatory. One in three. Maybe me? Who knows. I do what I can, but always knowing that it may one day be my fight. But it’s my fight now – in a different way. It’s my time to do something, while I can, while it helps others.

A few months ago I posted that a friend of mine’s wife died unexpectedly (not of cancer) and her 2yo son was left without his mother. You already know how I feel about leaving my baby (never), but what I don’t often talk about (have here once or twice) is how I felt about my side of the story. I have often felt like many parts of my life, personality and passions are somewhat disconnected. I have talents that my dad (and my mom) do not have. Was it my birth mother? I don’t know. My grandma was too loopy to take seriously for many years. My uncle, one of them, is estranged. The other is a nice acquaintence but I have never asked him, and not sure that e-mail is the best way to do this.

But why we do what we do, all the long hours, is for people like Sally’s husband, David, who fought the good fight but didn’t win. And for the people who DID survive.

Back to work….

The work week started with a bang – three meetings in one day, two the next. And I’m already overloaded. Our web dev is probably leaving for a full time job at MSU, waaah. We knew this though, and agreed we’d find someone else. Life changes, moves on.

I am recovering. No sewing at night (dang, work wears me out!) but I’ll try when I get back from Orlando for one night per week. In the mean time, there’s a BWoF calling my name.