Ugh. I don’t know where I went wrong.
I’ve been blogging for years and I’ve never stooped so low. I’ve been looking back on past entries and am sickened. I used to write from the heart, write what I really thought and felt and screw all that didn’t like what I had to say. What is this drivel? I’ve been wasting my time (and yours) with this trash – these useless bits of words. *sigh* This isn’t real writing. This is crap.
I’m tired. Emotionally, I’m tired. Physically, I wonder how it’s possible to be tired and wired at the same time. Which means this is perfect time for quality writing. And more devil-may-care.
If my laptop doesn’t die.. *stealing power cord from spouse’s open laptop*
First, let me debunk some of the crap I’ve been writing. Then I’ll get on to where I am now.
Cloth diapering: Still the easiest part of babyhood. The downside is that it’s hard to get her to sleep long in cloth diapers. I’ve tried pocket diapers, all-in-ones (AIO) and suedecloth “socks” to all help “wick moisture away from the skin”, which it does, but just not in the creepy, chemically efficient way a disposable would. So I’ve started using ’sposies at night. And I’ve packed the mini diaper bag with them. I sill feel a little residual guilt over it, but oh, well. I have a much better relationship with Spice when she sleeps 8 hours through and I’m well-rested the next morning, rather than ready to throw her out the window.
Breastfeeding: The second easiest part. But that’s because I’m one of the lucky few that has had zero problems with sore nipples or low supply. Pure blind luck, maybe helped along by the good birth experience bit. If I’d had problems, I’d be running for the formula as fast as the next mom. Well, almost as fast.
PPD: I’ve never felt crazier in my life. Seriously. I wanted to get myself committed about three weeks in, but I didn’t know how to go about it. Do you need to commit some crazy act for them to lock you up, or can you just walk in and say, “Hey, got a room?” Does the act need to be harmful in some way, or would they accept me lying on the bedroom floor for a week as having lost marbles? The herbs I’ve been on have helped tremendously and time.. time has helped, too. Still, I feel a little unstable, like all it takes is some bad news to plunge me back down a bit.
Sex: The spouse and I stupidly tried a month ago. It hurt like bejeezus. Now, we seem to be having trouble finding the time.
10 a.m.
Me: Wanna have sex tonight?
Him: *grinning* No one would argue with that.
10 p.m.
Me: I’m going to bed.
Him: *fallen asleep on the couch*
Everything else: Having a baby isn’t easy. No shocking revelations here. You just have to bear it as much as possible and take solace in the Grand Lie: it gets easier. See, this needs to be rephrased to be accurate: it gets easier… and it gets harder, too. All the stuff that was hard before, figuring out to to bathe them, create a non-leaky diaper, feed them, get them to sleep – all that gets easier. But then more challenges crop up just as you’re getting into the swing of things, like figuring out to entertain them because they now spend more time awake where they’re not hungry/tired/wet. Oh, well. Babies grow.
The big thing now is that I’m lonely. While we know friends with kids, I don’t know anyone with babies. And even our friends are more the “Hey, wanna come over and grill” type rather than the “Oh, god, I really need to vent right now” kind. *sigh* And I desperately want one of the latter, preferably with a 2-month-old. I’ve joined a couple of meetup.com groups, but part of me is too tired/scared to go out. The last time I went out with Spice was two weeks ago and if she got cranky/fussy while we were out, I started to go bats. The past week, we’ve stayed home and I feel more stable, so I’m reluctant to start going out with her again. I know it’s just like getting back up on the bike after you’ve fallen, but… bleah.
Now that we’re caught up, bullshit-free, let’s move on to what’s up now.
I hate family. I’m on the fence about never talking to family again. I made the stupid mistake of mixing family with money again and wholeheartedly encouraged the spouse that we should lend my sister several thousand smackaroos, as she and her spouse are going through a financial crisis and were possibly going to lose their house. Stupid, stupid me. I should really have done my homework, as usual, because it turns out that they’re more in the hole than I thought. As in, owning the babysitter a couple of thousand(!) and having borrowed from other family members, too. This is the kind of hole where you have to let them hit the bottom and help them back up when they bounce. *sigh* I’m more upset at the principle, since we’re doing okay right now. She had promised to make regular payments on it, even a few hundred a month, and her recent email reply was about how they hadn’t paid anything yet, and “please don’t send monthly statements as that will stress me out”. WTF. The spouse is taking it well, which leaves me even more shamed and horrified.
In the middle of all this, my mother has her own problems and with her health rapidly failing her, it’s suddenly looking like not such a bad option for her to take a few months off on disability and get her health back up. She needs to keep working a few more years to retire, but maybe a three-month break now would help her physically recover from all the stress she’s dealing with from work. I talked to the spouse and we agreed that, if she did, it would be ok/good for her to stay here for a couple of months with us. She could take time off, spend time with Spice, drive over to see my sister, etc. When she’s ready to work again, she could job-hunt from here, close to the city or the valley. She had previously commented that my sister’s place was a bit chaotic, with all their pets. Yesterday morning, I offer this to her. She says she’ll think about it.
Imagine my shock, and outrage, when I talk to her in the afternoon and she tells me that she’s talked to my sister and she’s thinking she’s going to rent a room from them and stay there. Again, let me restate: WTF. She says the money will help them (we were offering free room & board, in case that wasn’t obvious) and I can’t help but point out that it would be pouring more money down the drain, in their current state. She says she knows, but that she needs to try and help them. I was upset/angry enough to just get off the phone at that point, but later, when the spouse was on the phone with her, he mentioned yet again what was obvious to us: with her $80K+ salary, she could help them more by staying (with us) rent-free for a while, and using what she’d be paying them in rent to pay off her last remaining debts. Then she’d have thousands to throw at them. Ugh. And yes, part of me is just upset that she would rather live with my nutty sister than me. I swear, it’s like I’m a green space monster to her.
Of course, there’s more back-story, but this is the abridged version. Add into it juicy extras, like how how my sister thinks her hitting/kicking three-year-old is autistic and somehow thought getting a new dog would help and you have a full-blown soap opera. I’m sure we’ll get into it later. In the meantime, I’m trying to figure out how to turn off the phone in iPhone, and wondering how long I can ignore their calls before I have to talk to them and explain how fucking crazy I think we all are. Maybe we could get a family discount at the looney bin.
