Life on a Tightrope

Kids

Tea for Two

  The weather has been beautiful for almost a week now, so when it turned very windy and cold (well, cold for us) yesterday, Alison started going through withdrawals.
This is how we spent the afternoon:
“Can we go swing?”
“No, it’s too windy”
“Now can we go swing?”
“No, it’s still too windy.”
“Then can we have a Bar-b-que?”
“No, it’s TOO WINDY.”
“How about a picnic?”
“NO! OUTSIDE! TODAY!”
“But the SUN IS OUT.”
“Use your imagination to play INSIDE.”

So she did:


She kicked the cats out of their sunny spot on the rug.

Eating your cookie with a knife and fork is just good manners.

Kids Life in general

Play Pretend

Alison: Mommy, why are you wearing those?

Me: To cover my eye.

Alison: Are you going to pretend to be somebody else?

Me: Maybe. Who should I be?

Alison: Um. Tante Rae?

Me: (Uncontrollable laughter) OK, I’ll be Tante Rae today.

                  (the fabulous tante rae)

Life in general woops

It’s hideous, I know

My first (and hopefully ONLY, EVER) black eye. And those little black things aren’t spiders, they’re stitches. Three. And the actual cut? Lightning-bolt shaped. How interesting!
It really freaking hurts. Not constantly, though, thank goodness. Only when I blink, smile, bite, chew or make any kind of facial expression at all. It hurts even more if I flinch or laugh.
How did I maim myself in such a way, you ask? I tripped over my exercise ball, which was NOT in my path on the way TO Alison’s closet but mysteriously WAS in my path on the way back.  Suddenly, my feet were swept out from under me and my face went WHAM! on the floor.  My glasses were the only thing between my face and the floor, which is what created the lovely puncture at the corner of my eye.
                                                    What I managed to hurt in the fall:
                            cheek bone    brow bone     eye ball     eye lid      knee    elbow

Life in general

What’s UP?

I would have given my right arm, in my youth, to wake up with my bangs sticking up off my head. A little tease here and there, a few squirts of White Rain and I’d be set. Life really would have been perfect if it happened to occur on picture day. The key to this astonishing feat: have a baby. Shortly thereafter, tiny hairs will begin to sprout and stick up all over. Jeremy thinks it’s hilarious that I have to clip my bangs down every morning when I get out of the shower in order to avoid the craziness that lasts ALL DAY no matter how high I set my flat iron. Oh, but when I forget… GAHHH! No balloon tricks here, people – that is ALL NATURAL!

Motherhood and Pregnancy PPD

The first step

I’ve just recently admitted to Jeremy (and now the world, hello INTERNET!) that I am, that I have for months, been suffering from Post Partum Depression. Just talking about it, actually putting my feelings and thoughts into words, has lifted an amazingly heavy weight from my shoulders. It may sound cliche, but I really do feel like admission is the first step to recovery in my case. Being a childbirth educator, I am schooled on the symptoms and warning signs of PPD, but it’s a pretty blurry line to cross.  PPD or baby blues, or just exhausted from lack of sleep? Who knows?

When Blythe was about 3 weeks old, it occured to me that I might be suffering from PPD. I had only been out of the hospital following my post-partum hemorrhage for a few days, so I attributed my failure to cope with that.  Months went by, and I continued to struggle every day. I know that I didn’t hide it well, I couldn’t have even if I tried, but I don’t think I ever let on to anyone just how very hard life was for me. I was completely self-absorbed and struggled to hold even the shortest conversations. The slightest hiccup in my day would send me into a downward spiral. October came, Blythe was 5 months old, and I thought I was finally over the huge, invisible mountain I had been trying to climb every day. It’s all down hill from here, right? But then back down I went, on the wrong side of the mountain, over and over again.  I just couldn’t understand why. Excuse after excuse went through my head, trying to make sense of all of the crazy thoughts and emotions that just WOULD NOT GO AWAY.

Last week I fantasized about running away. It’s what made me realize I DO have a problem, what made me have the courage to talk to Jeremy about it. I don’t want to run away – I love my family, I love my life and I know, in my clearer moments, how good my life is. But that doesn’t change the fact that it sometimes seems perfectly rational to me that my children and my husband would be better off if I weren’t around.

I love my husband, he is everything I never new I wanted in a mate. I love Alison, and I love Blythe.  I love them in a way that I can’t even put into words. But when I’m down, I struggle to feel. I’m detached. I’m easily irritated, easily distracted. It’s easier for me to engage in mundane tasks that don’t require human interaction. I get hyper-focused and the world comes crashing down around me when something breaks my concentration. With a 4 year old and an infant around, I’m interrupted by someone or something about every 3 minutes, so you can imagine how pleasant I have been.  It breaks my heart that I am failing them (and myself, and everyone in my life) in so many ways.  The girls are taken care of, yes, but I know I’ve not been half the mother I could be. That I used to be.

I’ve been trying to read about other people’s struggle with PPD, and that has helped tremendously. Knowing that I’m not alone in what I’m feeling helps me let go of some of the shame and guilt I’ve been feeling all this time. It’s been so hard to cope with EVERY. SINGLE. THING. and feeling like people would look at me differently if they knew how I felt has kept me from talking about it. Until now. Because I can’t conquer this mountain alone!