rage

I need to get my fucking head together. I’m cracking up. I don’t know what exactly is going on.

Before my new thyroid medication dosage, my depression was getting debilitating. On the increased dose, it seemed manageable and realistic again. Yet now it’s raging out of fucking control.

I have been completely lost in my bullshit. The rage. The inconsolable rage. I am perpetually pissed off, frustrated, irritated.

And I don’t deal with it well. I surrender to it completely and advertise it. I take it out on [M], and even [Thornling], so bad. It turns me into a horrible, selfish, self-pitying person. It’s only a matter of time before it damages my life.

I don’t know what has changed. My life is the same. I still hate living here and feel trapped; I’m still bored as hell and in withdrawals for an adequate social life. [Thornling] is still beautiful and awesome; I still love {m], but we don’t get enough time together; the Dollies and dance are still my sole outlet. None of this is new; my life has not changed. Why are my emotions so out of control now?

I find it impossible that my thyroid could be fucked again so soon. I can only get off on that easy excuse so often.

I need to reign my mind back in. I have been letting my feelings flow unfettered, following and acting on them without thought. I can’t live like that, never have been able to. Have to get myself back in control. I need to catch the emotion, stop, process it, then decide how I should act on it.

I just don’t know what to change. I’ll try changing my mind, but then what?

the cost

Pregnancy/childbirth really ruined me. I never realized how much it would change/damage.

Obviously, it destroyed my body. That was a given; however, the ramifications are more extensive. I expected the stomach bulge and the stretch marks, which I have. I was less prepared for the muffins and the many unsavory stages of my breasts and the halo of hair regrowth and just how much older I look. I never thought it would take 7 months for my vagina to recover.

I used to be smart; that shit is all gone. Pregnancy then motherhood and breastfeeding have turned me retarded. It honestly feels like a chunk of my brain has been removed and I’m operating at half capacity. I remember my former abilities and talents, and they feel handicapped. I’m mentally functioning in slow motion. It feels like I’m in a psychic straight jacket. It’s fucking humiliating at times.

I miss instant recall and multitasking and creativity. I even seem checked out and incompetent at menial tasks. Driving into the side of a van comes to mind, which is surprising since I have no memory anymore.

I’m no longer as good at belly dancing. I’m out of shape and feel pathetic working out (obvious since I had a baby and got fat). At times, my emotions are extra turbulent and unexplained. Oh the random crying!

It’s just everything. I feel like a chunk of myself has been taken, which I suppose makes sense. You don’t get to create life for free. Maybe all this went to [Thornling], which would be a good trade. I have no regrets and am beyond happy with my baby. I do really miss all these parts of myself, but they were worth her. I’m just making observations as to what it cost.

I am also a bit envious that [M] didn’t have to make any of these physical sacrifices. His changes were all voluntary, and I’m so grateful he makes them so willingly and unsolicited.

roots

I don’t really know where to begin. Things are kind of falling apart right now. I’m not sure when things took a downward turn, but it seems to be a plummet.

The root of my discontentment is not new. [M] being gone. Somehow, I had allowed myself to become complacent in the idea of [M] not having to travel through the holidays. Nothing was scheduled, and with him taking over his dick coworker’s workload, it seemed possible. No sooner did this thought take root in my brain was he on his way to Atlanta. Two days before Thanksgiving and now this week.

It’s nothing unbearable; I know this. But it never ends. He has traveled more since [Thornling] was born than in the three years we’ve lived in this hellhole. It is always the worst timing, and the lack of notice enrages me every time. It makes it impossible to make any plans, have any expectations.

The situation makes me miserable. I get so angry and frustrated. This makes things worse because I unintentionally take it all out on [M]. In the rational part of my brain, I know it is not his fault; I know it is not what he wants; I know he is just as unhappy if not more than I am. I know these things, yet he remains the outlet to my anger. I feel how I feel, and since I am not taking it out on [Thornling] or turning it in on myself, it ends up on him.

And it’s not fair. It ruins the time we do have together. Every time. But I don’t know how to change it. I had been doing well rolling with it, resigning myself to the situation. Somehow that all went away again. I am controlled by my unhappiness. It is consuming.

I feel trapped in this life that I don’t want, living in a place I hate, alone with our baby. I feel like [Thornling] and I have this whole separate life without [M]. We spend days and weeks without him; we go do everything without him; we travel without him. I want none of these things.

Him traveling takes me farther and farther from what I want. I don’t want him traveling, for one, but the longer he is gone, the less gets done in the basement, the farther we are from being able to change anything. It traps us in this perpetual circle. I am very aware of that fact, and it fuels my misery.

That is the root of my problem. The pervasive root.

Upon this root, we add layers. Layers of post partum depression and low self esteem. Layers of new motherhood stress and daily work life. Layers of somehow being broke without the purchases to show for it. Layers of a holiday weekend that included my dogs taking on a raccoon and me wrecking my car for no apparent reason.

Whenever I’m unhappy, there never seems to be a bottom, no matter how far I fall. This too shall pass; I just wish it would pass faster.

bla bla bla

I think my absolute least favorite part of parenting is the goddamn opinions. Everyone has a fucking opinion on what you should do with your child and how, and they feel compelled to tell you. Repeatedly.

I understand the evolutionary basis behind this behavior. We’re all genetically compelled to try and make the offspring of our species survive. I get it. I am fully guilty of it myself. The compulsion takes me, and I don’t catch myself until it’s spouting out of my mouth. I try, at the least, to phrase it right. More comment, less direction.

However, it drives me absolutely mad sometimes. Don’t tell me it’s ok to feed my kid whatever (worse, don’t feed my kid whatever). I don’t need to prove that I’m nonconformist by not listening to the doctor. I will feed my baby what I want (and so will you!). Don’t tell me not to hold my baby. Do you have to deal with her when she’s spoiled? Don’t tell me what I need to do. You aren’t with us day to day.

I enjoy advice. I solicit advice very often. I like hearing what other people are doing, what worked for them as parents. That is very different than being told what I need to be. Being judged for what I do.

Maddening, I say. Fucking maddening. But it’s not going to change so better get used to it.

home

As much as I loathe living in Tennessee, it is good to have some time at home. The two back to back trips nearly killed me and were quite trying on [Thornling]. October nearly killed our whole family. Too much going on, not enough time together.

So now, it is nice to at least have the possibility of having some calm, normal time at home. I never imagined myself wishing for the mundane.

Family time is the priority. First, [M's] time with [Thornling]. [M] and I really don’t have any time for each other anymore. We rarely can pull off sex. We never really get adult time together. I would be depressed about this, if I had the time. However, we have the promise of a night of babysitting on Friday so we can have a date.

Then it’s back to working on the basement. Same song for over two years. No matter how much progress we make, nothing is finished. Even when the end is in sight, it’s nothing but a false summit. While I am exceedingly happy with all we’re accomplishing, I can’t help but be so frustrated with how much is left. When does it fucking end? I mean, really?

We still have a backyard to deal with before we can list the house, so it feels like we will never be able to leave.

However, back to my point, it is nice to at least be at home enough to make all this seemingly futile progress. With cabinets and carpet in the man cave this month, that would be a huge step. And more importantly, a baby proofing step. We may not be done, but as long as it’s safe for [Thornling].

There is just no time for anything but the day to day. My mind is monotonous. Even my thoughts are monopolized by the boring. Instead of dreaming and writing, I have to weigh parenting choices and think about managing our house. Sometimes I feel trapped in this new reality (worse by being trapped in this undesired location), but at the end of the day with my babies, it’s worth it.

plateau

Here I sit, two months into a weight loss plateau. And it is driving me mad.

After [Thornling] was born, the weight literally just fell off. From the time she was 6 weeks to when she was 5 months, I lost over 25 pounds. Ah breastfeeding.

Then, hovering a mere 3 pounds from prepregnancy weight, it just stopped. With the introduction of solid foods that quickly became 3 meals a day, my milk production easily dropped to half its previous rate. With [Thornling] deciding she was over sleeping through the night also at 5 months (correlation?), my opportunities to workout dwindled.

So nothing. For two months.

I have just over 10 pounds to lose to be my normal weight, the weight I happily lived at for about 4 years after my diet, the weight that puts me back into all my clothes. I can fit into nearly all of my prepregnancy clothes now, but there is no way in frothy hell I should wear many of them out.

I am so close. I can see my old body under those 10 pounds (and the additional 10 after that to get to my doctor approved ideal weight). It looks familiar, but it is not my body, and the familiarity is mocking me. I just want it off. I just want to feel like myself and to wear my fucking clothes again.

In another life, this would not be an issue. I could diet/work off 20 pounds in 10 weeks like clockwork. However, this other life, while productive in weight loss, created/exacerbated a whole slew of weight loss/body issues and behaviors that I have spent the last year trying to undo before I impress them upon my new daughter.

Most importantly, I am still breastfeeding. The change in frequency has already cut my production in half. I can’t do a calorie deficit. I have to continue to produce enough milk for at least another 5 months. I want to try and pump a second time during the day to up production again, but I have not had the luxury of time this month.

And I am trying my damnest, both for my own sanity and for [Thornling's] future development, to get this intuitive eating thing into my head. I definitely have my brain wrapped around and convinced of the concepts. However, habits keep getting in the way. When I go on autopilot or confront a trigger, I often falter. I have gotten to the point where I don’t beat myself up or punish myself; I just try to learn from it. Healing surely does not provide fast results. I try to console myself by telling myself they will last instead.

So I am straddling mental progress with physical stagnation. So close. So fucking close! I am not sure what to do. The weight needs to come off, but I don’t know that there is much I can do to that end for the next 5 months. Keep working on the intuitive eating; keep dancing and working out. More working out.

I got nothing.

8 legged beastie

Picture, if you will, a spider. Not just any spider. A huge Southern spider with long spindly legs and a fat segmented body. Now picture, if you will, two fully grown, capable adults screaming and carrying on like a couple of bitches. This was the scene at our house last night.

It started simply enough. I leaned out the sliding glass door to retrieve the puppies’ water dish. As I pulled back into the house, I saw it, dangling dangerously close to where my head had just passed. When it saw me see it, like a ninja, it plummeted down on its string. Somewhat still in shock from nearly ending up with that beast in my hair, I slammed the door shut.

I told [M] of my near fate as I filled the water jug. He laughed until I showed him the monster on the other side of the glass. Then a debate of the inherent duties based on genitalia ensued. Having the penis, he was nominated to terminate the threat.

Armed with a bottle of insecticide, back up with me clutching a sandal, he cautiously slid the door open. He stuck out only his arm and feverishly doused the eight legged devil with chemicals. Again, like a ninja, the spider dropped and swung itself towards the opening to the house. This is where the bitch screaming began. [M] slammed the door so hard that the sensor for the alarm popped off and flew across the room.

We stood, watching the spider through the glass. Not dying. It slowed down, yet it did not die. Repeatedly, [M] snuck his arm out to administer more death spray but to no avail. Unwilling to go outside and finish the job, we retreated to the basement to finish carving pumpkins.

The beast haunted us. [M] was fixated on the existence of the monster, twitching at phantom touches on his skin. Finally, he resolved that it had to die. Following a little more gender debate and the playing of the childbearing card, he armed himself with a bottle of spray bleach and a sandal and gave me the other sandal and permission to beat the shit out of him should he fall victim to spider attack.

The spider yet twitched. It would not die! We cracked the door slowly. With the bottle of bleach trained on the spider like a black ops soldier on a terrorist, [M] sprung outside, spraying all the while. He doused and doused the spider in bleach then pounded it with the sandal. It fell to the deck, finally separated from its web. Still not dead. [M] continued to rain bleach down upon it as he bashed it again and again until it finally was, indeed, terminated.

Some of the funniest shit I have ever seen.

dependency

Dependency is a strange thing. A twisted, interweaving concept. I never really gave it much thought before having a child.

In all horrible honesty, [Thornling's] dependency was unsavory in the beginning. The sheer magnitude of it terrified me. It made me feel trapped and insignificant. I have now seen that being a mother is all about dependency, the way that child utterly needs you in order to survive, especially in those first few months.

And I hated it at first. It was overwhelming; it was stifling. I had a baby on purpose; I chose to become a mother. It was what I wanted and was ready for, and I was so happy for all of it, yet that dependency was still just so much more than I could ever anticipate. Maybe I never conceptualized the physical manifestation of it.

Breastfeeding, nameably, was miserable for me in the beginning. I hated it. My breasts were huge, bigger than the baby. They hurt; they leaked. I was perpetually covered in sticky breastmilk. And it was constant. [Thornling] fed constantly. She would eat forever too. 30 minutes, 45 minutes a sitting. Not to mention the wretched uterine contractions that felt like labor.

I hated it.

And since [Thornling] abjectly refused to do a bottle, I was the only food option. Dependency. I was on an hour leash, if that. I couldn’t leave because she needed to eat, and she would take nothing but boobie. Trapped.

And so I hated it.

Yet so much has changed in the past 7 months. Human development is really a marvel. How quickly we do things from the womb still amazes me, amazes me daily. [Thornling] is an utterly different baby compared to her first weeks. Dependency is one of the big changes, and it continues to shift and evolve daily.

Slowly, she started to become less dependent. Slowly, she started to physically need me a little less. Now, each day, I can feel her pulling away from me, breaking off on her own in small ways. While still in love with the boobies, she is only on for like five minutes; then she’s off wanting to play or check out what’s going on. She’s eating solids three times a day and taking a bottle from her daddy. Breastfeeding went from being a draining affliction to our special bonding time, one thing no one else can provide.

She still wants to be held frequently, but she now pushes back against me, crawls out of my lap, turns around. She’s on the cusp of mobility. She gets closer every day.

She still favors me because she’s used to me, because we’re together all day long. However, we are definitely in a daddy phase. She wants me for food, but she wants Daddy for play. Thanks for the boobie, Momma; now give me back to Daddy. I’m only preferred for necessity right now. Or if something is wrong. Such are the biological roles.

Overnight, she was people, separate from me. As much as I wanted it in the beginning and as liberating as it is, at the same time, it’s uncomfortable, almost sad. It’s a sampling of the rest of my life, the remainder of her development. Once I adjusted to how much she needed me, adapted to my role, it changed.

Bittersweet. Bittersweet is a good word for so much of the motherhood I’ve experienced so far.

back to whine

OK, I am finally forcing myself back into the blogosphere. I have slacked off long enough! [Thornling] is six months old now!

However, and it should come as no shock, I have returned to complain. To vent, as it were.

Single parents are a marvel to me now. Or parents who have a partner deployed or consistently traveling. I do not know how they do it. Since [Thornling], [M] suddenly has been traveling frequently. Too frequently.

I am by no means a single parents. However, I can say unequivocally that I hate solo parenting. I am exhausted of being on duty 24 hours a day, especially working from home. I am sick of having to change every diaper, do every feeding, get up every time, deal with every fit. I am tired of making all the decisions.

Most of all, I think I am bitter because this is not what I signed up for. We moved to Tennessee so [M] would travel less. [M] did travel less for two years, so we decided to have a baby. We have [Thornling], and suddenly he’s traveling constantly again. The trips are short, but he’s only home for a couple days in between.

We had a child because we were supposed to both be around for it, and once we do, he’s gone all the time. She is so young, and he’s missing so much. His company says travel or unpaid leave, so we have little choice. I realize we don’t have it bad and that it could be worse and bla bla bla, but I still don’t like it.

I feel frustrated for me, and I feel sad for [M] and [Thornling]. When [Thornling] does something new or cute, I feel bad because [M] has missed it. [Thornling] looks for her daddy, and it kills me. Again, it’s not what I signed up for.

Each trip is supposed to be the last for a while; then he’s gone a couple days later.

This leads me to martyr myself. I feel myself whining and feeling sorry for myself. I feel overwhelmed. Working from home with a baby, I need some down time to decompress. The only option I have is after [Thornling] is asleep. I end up bitter that [M] is not doing his half of the parenting, even though he wants to and has no control of the situation. It’s not good.

Again, I do not know how single parents do it.

hiatus

Apparently, after having [Thornling], I decided to take a hiatus from this blog. I never really intended to. I just didn’t write then didn’t write then still didn’t write. It’s not even that I don’t have the time, which I of course have less of now; I just haven’t felt like it. I can’t really explain it. All of my writing has been stunted in my new parenthood.

I’m not sure what I want to do. I don’t think I’m ready to shut down and abandon another blog, but I don’t forsee much commitment from me in the near future either. I guess it will hang out here, in limbo, for now.

If you want to follow the baby (I am a picture whore!), feel free to message me for my Facebook page. I do miss you all.