A Week of Firsts

I really don't know where to start.  This week has been filled with firsts!!  To begin with, the kids grew over the two weeks we were in Alaska.  E grew out of her 3T clothing, while we were there.  I watched pants that fit turn into high waters right before my eyes.  L took his first step, and made a HUGE cognitive leap.  He's figuring out the functions of objects.  Instead of picking up shoes and immediately putting them into his mouth, he's trying to put them on.  He also took his first step.  He took a couple of them, but they were just one at a time, and then he'd sit down and clap for himself.  He was very proud.

When we got home on Saturday, both kids were extremely excited to see their dad.  L kept crawling over to Paul to snuggle with him on his lap.  Paul was beside himself with joy because his relationship with L has been more difficult in this first year than it was with E.  I think it was partly because we had more than one kiddo to deal with, so he also took the bigger one; the fact that we have been on one income for much longer than the last one; and possibly the co-op preschool that gave me special time with each one.  I don't know, but I'm glad we're past that and L is totally digging his dad.

So on Sunday (which was Easter, for which I didn't do much planning or shopping, and ended up digging out toys I had purchased last year for E in anticipation of the new baby for her basket, and putting a couple bananas and plastic eggs filled with Veggie Booty in L's), L took more than one step in succession.  It was AWESOME!!  E started walking two weeks before her first birthday.  This year, Easter Sunday is two weeks before L's first birthday.

Monday marked my first real day of work.  I say "real" because my official start day was the Thursday before Spring Break, which turned out to be a snow day with a late start, so I worked about two hours and there were no kids or classrooms to observe.  It's not an entirely new job.  I'm teaching Early Childhood Special Education classes at the same district I worked in (and same school) before I got pregnant with Lizzie. So I started work on Monday.  It's been kind of hard this week since I had to hit the ground running with new classrooms and kids, no plans or idea of who my assistants or support staff are.  In addition, in the past three years, there have been some changes in the systems we use at the district, and there are a lot more new to me staff than old staff, so it's been a little strange, and difficult to maintain balance.

Someone else is at my desk.

Someone else has my SLP (Speech and Language Pathologist).  My SLP was awesome and fun.  He was (and is) the only dude in the building.  He also likes to joke around and play pranks on people.  It's just not the same.

But I'm enjoying it.  I like going to work.  I like playing with the kids, and making messy art projects that the assistants hate cleaning up.  I like the paycheck I'm going to get at the end of this month.  And I like the ECSE schedule.  I can work 189 days.  (I love unions!)

So, I go to work on Monday, totally jazzed about my new job and meeting all the kids and figuring out what the hell we're going to do with our day.  I put my purse in my desk in the office area and head to class.  I have two classes on Mondays and Wednesdays.  The first is 8:30-10:30.  The second is 10:45-12:45.  I go home at 1:00.  Tuesdays & Thursdays, I have planning time.  Next week, I'll pick up a third class from 10:45-12:45.  I get most Fridays off.

After my second class, I talked with my boss for a little while, then went back to my desk and started packing up.  I opened my purse to get my cell phone.  I noticed there was a voicemail and some missed calls on my cell phone.  The voicemail was from my husband saying, "I just want to start out by saying everything in OK..."  My initial thought was Oh no, he's been in a car accident.  Oh well, he's calling me, so we just have to deal with the car, no biggie.

The message continued "I have E with me now..."

The blood left my body as I listened to the rest of the message.  I can't remember it verbatim, but the gist was that E had been leaning back in her chair at lunch (exactly what her dad does when he sits in a chair), and fell.  She pulled the table (it's a kid-sized table and kid-sized chair) on top of her.  On the table was her bowl, which just happened to be ceramic.  It broke, and a piece found its way to her arm.  He met the nanny at the urgent care, and they're waiting to see a doctor.

[cue Mama guilt for going back to work]

I called Paul.  He had everything covered.

I wanted to meet them at urgent care.  I wanted to turn back time and call in sick that day.  I wanted to turn back time and not interview, or even apply for the job.  I felt awful.

If I hadn't gone back to work, E wouldn't have fallen and she would be fine.  If  I hadn't gone back to work, I could have stopped this from happening.  If I hadn't gone back to work...


I picked L up from the nanny's, went home and waited for Paul's instructions.  His phone died.  I paced.  I ate whatever crappy food I could find in the house.  I paced some more.  I beat myself up some more.  I considered just packing L into the car and driving over to the urgent care.

Paul called from the urgent care's phone.  Our choices were as follows: 1. Do butterfly bandages at urgent care; or 2. Go to the ER and get stitches under anesthesia.

I freaked out about the anesthesia.

The nurse sent me a text with a photo of the wound.  It needed to be stitched up.  I couldn't deal with the whole anesthesia part.  What if she didn't wake up? I will never do something stupid like go to work again.

Paul finally decided to take her to the ER.  As it turns out, there is a thing called a papoose board, where children can be restrained for things like this.  It looks like a torture device, and when they were giving her the local, it sure seemed that way.  Paul says it's the one time in the whole ordeal he came very close to crying.

photo credits

But she didn't need to be put under, and that made me happy.

She got seven stitches.  She won't let me take a picture of them.  She doesn't like looking at them.  She screams and cries and tells me she would rather go to bed than to have the bandage replaced and let us clean it every night.  Poor girl.

I've gotten over my mommy guilt.  I can't protect her from everything.  I fell and needed to get stitches when I was little.  My mom was working at the time.  I came out of it just fine.  I know she will, too.  I went back to work on Tuesday, and again today.  I intend to return tomorrow.

I take my cell phone into the classroom with me now.

Denial

My sister had twin girls three weeks ago.  I packed up my two kids and flew up here to Alaska to visit and help out as much as I could.  I feel a little useless since I have to deal with my own brood and can't wait on them hand and foot, but at the same time, I think it's good that they are getting only part-time help so they can transition to zero help once we're gone.

One thing that I have realized while being here is that when you have a baby, you go through the stages of grief.  What?  you say...  But you just had a precious baby!  How could you possibly be grieving?  Well, while you gain such a wonderful joy (or in my sister's case, TWO wonderful joys), you lose your former child-free life.  You can't get up and go to bed whenever you darn well please.  You can't go to the bathroom when you need to.  You can't randomly drive to the coast for a romantic weekend with just the clothes on your back.  You have to be home for nap time.  You can't leave sharp knives on the counter or fragile vases on the coffee table.  You need to keep sharpies locked up.  You really can't have anything nice in your house.

My sister and brother-in-law are in their 40's.  They have spent many years collecting very nice things in their home.  They have gotten used to doing what they want when they want to.  They have a dog who they love more than anything in the world.  They are grieving.

They have the first stage down -- Denial and Isolation.  Many times a day I hear "I just need more sleep," and "How can she be hungry already?"  They bought an iPad and have a program that tracks everything - feeding, sleeping, diaper changes, amount of milk pumped, etc.  J made a comment yesterday that they used to go four hours between feedings.  I replied that when they're brand new, they sleep a lot, so they nurse less.  When they start becoming more aware and staying awake for longer periods, they get hungry faster.  [Deer in headlights look from J].  "But don't worry," I reassured him, "As they get bigger, they will drink more at each feeding and spread out the time.  This is just the time they start needing more.  That's all."  [Deer in headlights look does not get any better.]  I think he changed the subject.

This morning, J came down to the kitchen while I was making pancakes.  He barely acknowledged me, and gave me short answers to my questions.  Having babies makes you feel quite isolated.  You don't think that anybody could possibly understand what you are going through.  Even those who have children, because they don't have YOUR children.  And when you have two at once, well, then you can easily talk yourself out of any help or advice from the parents of singlets.

Of course, with the stages of grief, you don't sit in one stage, then advance to the next and the next until you finally hit acceptance.  You wallow in one, jump up to another, fall back to the first, etc.  My sister hit the anger stage the other day.  J had left the house (I thought he had gone upstairs to the bedroom) to plow the drive and I was downstairs messing around on Facebook.  D came downstairs after a little while with a screaming baby.  I asked her if she needed anything.  She said "No.  I just need to grow two more arms."  She went upstairs and then I looked out the window and saw J.  Oh shit.  I failed.  I went upstairs to help her out.  She was in the middle of changing a diaper.  I talked her into using gDiapers because they are a cloth and disposable hybrid, so there is no plastic when you use the disposables, and since she has twins, the amount of diapers she's gonna go through is too high to even contemplate.  The thing is, when you change a newborn in g's, you need to set up the new diaper before you take the old one off.  My sister did not do this, and since I was remiss in my duties as the helper, she did not have any prestuffed with the disposable liner.  So one of the babies pissed and shat all over the changing table.  My sister lost it.

"I'm fucking done with these gDiapers!" She yelled, "I'm going out and buying Pampers tomorrow!"

And who can blame her?  She has two babies crying, she hasn't had a full night's sleep in months (because the last trimester of a twin pregnancy sucks sweaty balls), and she is still teaching an online class for the college.  What the what?!?!  Of course she's going to be angry about systems that are not working when she is still working this other job and has just been given the world's most difficult and stressful job.

While I adore gDiapers and will never use anything but, I knew this was not a time to lecture my sister about landfills and the environment.  I simply nodded and sighed with her, changed the girls' diapers, and helped get them back on the boobs.

Another thing my sister hates: the twin "My Breast Friend" pillow.  Why?  because when she has both babies on, she's completely restricted inside the pillow.  It wraps around her, giving her support everywhere, but if she forgets to move her water before she latches on, she's screwed.  Oh, and where's the remote?

Currently, I'm listening to my sister type on her computer upstairs as one of the girls cries.  J is trying to keep her calm while my sister finishes what she needs to do.  She's already said she just needs to quit her job because she can't get anything done.  I'm sure she'll hate her job this week (if she doesn't already) because of it.

I think it takes a couple years to hit acceptance.  I remember when E was 6 months old, I planned on going out for drinks with a friend of mine.  I wanted to get her to sleep before I left.  Babies seem to know when you have something important planned, so they don't cooperate.  I remember sitting on the floor crying, since I couldn't go out with my friend because the baby wouldn't sleep.  Damn kid!

Heck, even a year ago, when E was 2 1/2, I got bent out of shape because she came down with a fever the night of her school's Parent's Night Out auction and fundraiser.  I remember telling my husband "If we didn't have kids, we'd be able to go!"  I was so mad, because I couldn't remember the last time we were able to go out.  He responded "Honey, if we didn't have kids, there would be no Parent's Night Out."  Oh yeah.

I hope in the next week and a half I can help my sister and brother-in-law through some of this.  I know they feel isolated and want to do as much on their own as possible.  That's what new parents do.  After all, isn't asking for help a sign of weakness?  And, if they ask for help now, how will they be able to handle things once I leave?  I want to call bullshit on that, but it's hard to bust in and say "Hey, fuck you!  I'm helping you out because I love you, and this is what you need."  I'm not Type A enough.  Maybe I need to be.  I'll try that tomorrow and see where it gets me.  Until then, I'll let them grieve for their former selves tonight, and hope they feel a little better in the morning.

Dr. Google

The internet is a wonderful thing.  You no longer need to keep a set of Encyclopedia Britannica in your house and continuously update it as the years pass.  You simply log onto the computer, pull up Google, type in your search and voila!  It's great to find out what the internal temperature of a chicken should be before you serve it, how late the Fred Meyer down the street is open, or what's playing at the movies this week.  Today, however, Ive been grappling with the idea of using Google to diagnose my children's illnesses.

I am extremely guilty of this, and I am not proud.  However, with things being the way they are in the medical field, it's difficult not to.  For example, when we were unsure whether or not my daughter had chicken pox (there was an outbreak at school and one Sunday we noticed some spots on her torso), we took her to one of those strip mall urgent care centers.  The "doctor" (I put it in parenthesis because she was a Physicians Assistant) on duty flipped through a book to find a picture of chicken pox, and used that to confirm that she did not have chicken pox.  We paid a $25 co-pay.  The bill to insurance?  $300.  I went home thinking I could have found better photos on Google Images for free.

So yesterday, after allowing my son to learn what happens when you crawl off a surface that is elevated three inches above the floor, I found myself consulting Dr. Google to find out if he had broken his nose.  There was some bleeding, but it stopped rather quickly, and he didn't seem any more upset when I messed with his nose than he is normally.  But I was worried, and rather than calling the advice nurse or going in to the doctor (because he's my second child, and who worries about such things with the second child?), I spent over an hour perusing baby and parent Q&A boards trying to glean a good answer to my question.  I didn't get a definitive answer to my question.  I wouldn't get that unless I actually took him to the doctor for an exam.

I did learn a few things about myself and Dr. Google, though.  Many of the answers on the boards strongly urged the parents to take their children in for an exam if they suspect the nose to be broken.  I realized that I didn't suspect my child's nose to be broken.  I realized that I simply wanted reassurance that I'm not a shitty mom who lets her kid hurl himself through space and time, getting a few bumps, bruises and nosebleeds along the way.  When I truly am concerned for my child's health, I take him in.  I took him to urgent care a few months ago because he had a fever that had lasted nearly four days.  I took my daughter in when I thought she might have chicken pox.  I took my daughter in when she ate applesauce and it came out the other end looking exactly like applesauce.

I'm not a shitty mom.  I just feel that way sometimes.  Thank you, Dr. Google, for reassuring me that I'm OK.