Here’s what drives me crazy, today. As everyone knows, my anxiety is frequently out of control. Quite often, friends family and healthcare providers tell me I need to Calm Down, ie stop worrying so much. And so I try.

Then yesterday: I phoned the nurseline to check on some abnormal blood test results for F. The nurse was very helpful in interpreting those results. Basically, F is anemic. Nurse says, “I’ll have the doctor phone you because you’ll want to start F on iron supplements as soon as possible. Iron affects brain development.”

Mmmmm-Hmmmm. Brain Development.

So how pressing is this? How long has she been anemic? Is it normal for children to be anemic at certain points? She eats fine; a pretty balanced diet. . .why is she anemic? Is her anemia a symptom of something else? Has she suffered any brain development decreases thus far?

I know that I am being somewhat melodramatic here, taking some poetic license with my written words. But still: WhatTheHell.

Working

After a particularly bad day of infighting amongst the little people, K looks deep into F’s eyes and says:
“Baby. . . . .I *guess* you are my favorite baby in the whole town. I’m never going to say bad things to you.”
Pure.
Love.
or something.

The house across the street is vacant and for sale because Margaret, who lived there from birth until death, died.

K says that when he grows up, he is going to marry F and they will live across the street in Margaret’s house. Unless Bob or Mike (our left and right hand neighbors) die, in which case they might live there instead.

baby is not well. i want baby to be well. i have posts written about her previous medical travails. . . . . just haven’t put them up yet. but here and now, she is not well.

December 05. chicken pox
December 10. pneumonia1
December 26. cold + fever
January 03. pneumonia2 + ear infection
January 14-present. suspected herpes virus.

her gums are bleeding. she has sores in her mouth. she is not sleeping. she is not well.

tests pending.
more later.
poor baby.

I’m crying uncle and the winter has technically not even begun. We have had colds for 2 weeks. F’s seems to have moved deep into her chest but I really don’t want another doctor visit where I’m told, “This seems to be . . . .a cold.”  The night-time hacking in our house is both stunning and tragic. PleaseGod we will get better. T and me being sick is one thing; Kentucky and Fried are entirely another thing.

Add too to our list: corneal abrasion. Yes, dear Kentucky somehow scratched his eyeball. Last Thursday, he made it through lunchtime at school and then T went to get him. He wouldn’t open his eyes, he was screaming in pain, it got worse and worse. Through the night Th, he woke every 1-2 hours screaming. It was a long night. Realizing at that time that it might be more than pinkeye, we took him to ped at 820am. She couldn’t see what was wrong and so sent us up to opthamology. K had his eyes closed the whole time and mostly was sleeping. Well, except when he was screaming and kicking the poor doctor. I’m sure she’s been kicked before. Right? Maybe?

So the whole family waited for TwoHours to see opthamologist. I have to say though that he was almost worth the wait because he was awesomely awesome with K. Honestly. He was absolutely, bar-none, the best. Best.

Anyhoo, he looked and put drops in and looked again and even got K to put his face in the big machine so that he could look into his eye with the blue light. Diagnosed an abrasion. Put more drops into screaming K, then some ointment into more-screaming K. Then we left.

K slept all day Friday. All day. It was kind of freaky. (And blessedly quiet now that I think of it.) He screamed a little more that night, but was definitely feeling better. Improvement continued as we put the ointment in his eye for 5-7 days. Well, except on the 6th day when I was putting the ointment in, as he lay in bed, at night, in the dark. . . . I poked him in the eye with the ointment tube. Yep. The little moments that make me question, seriously, my abilities as a mother.

For now, he is better.

You are so lucky.
You are so lucky.

She says it all the time, T’s mother’s cousin Margery, when referring to K/F. I always thought she just meant it conversationally, like your kids are cute and you have a nice little family, a boy and a girl, how nice.

Then last time she added a bit about a family she knows whose 4 year old has leukemia. Then she mentioned another family, with a young boy who died from cancer. She, Margery, is of course fighting her second bout of cancer herself–  surgery and radiation. And finally, dumb me, I get it. I am SO LUCKY.

I am trying very very hard to say this every day. I am SO LUCKY. I will myself to stop worrying about all the possibles, and eventuals, and maybes in our future. Truth be told, I know nothing of our future. Anyone could get sick at any time. Anyone could die. But for today, I am SO LUCKY, because we are all ok.

We have everything we need.

I love my babies. I love my kids. That said, these past couple of days weeks are killing me. I am so tired, like bone tired. Even when I get enough sleep I am bone tired. I know from reading other things on the www that I’m not alone in this. My situation is not unique or special or noteworthy in any way, except that it’s mine.

Oddly, I don’t type this to complain, but rather to marvel. Marvel that this parenthood thing has been going on for so long, with such apparent success. I mean, the species has not faltered due to lack of reproduction, in turn due to parenting being so damn hard.

I know that perhaps my age and our current familial situation likely has something to do with my fatigue. We have separate schedules. We are essentially taking turns being single parents (and with that statement I will piss off all the truly single parents). I am relying on my parents for childcare every week lately. They have been happy to help thus far, but I don’t want to suck them dry. I want them to have the energy for and luxury of being grandparents.

My father said to me the other day: These days will pass quickly; ENJOY them. That made me sad because it says that to an outsider, I’m not enjoying this. Though I am. When I’m not worrying about something, or tending to a sick one, or re-doing our budget to see if we can afford food AND daycare, or trying to pick up for the millionth time the ten-millionth toy, or basket of laundry, or pair of shoes. I do so enjoy them when I get a little sleep and don’t have the other pre-occupations. I love to sit and play ball with F. I love to read to K. I love to have time alone with each of them. I love to lay on the bed with them and hug. I love to go for walks and to the library. I love them and they bring me such joy. I can’t believe they’re my kids; I can’t even believe I HAVE kids some days. But here are these 2 little wonders who are so smart and funny and cute and precocious that they fill my heart.

My friend keeps saying that we’re in the vortex, lay flat, lay low, wait to be shot out of the tornado. And from experience, I know that is true. Once F is one year old (in 5 weeks), I will begin my slow ascent back to normalcy. I can stop pumping, can breast feed at will, with leisure. Can stop freezing milk and washing bottles. She will slowly transition to her own crib. As we get through this first year, I’ll have a better idea of our finances and how they have been affected by adding a person to our lives. I won’t need to worry so much about medical issues; she will have made it to one year. As our house/yard become more lead-free, I can cross that off my list of worries. As she gets older and I can leave her without her crying her head off, I will not feel so pressed to rush around squeezing in housework as able. Even this makes it sound a little like I’m just wishing away their early childhoods. But I’m NOT. I am simply trying to make it out the other side.

In the meantime, I try to act somewhat sanely and balance at least a little. I’m not doing so well, I know, but I will do better.

If only I had more time, and yes more energy, I would have so many more entries here. By the end of each day I am exhausted. Perhaps the downside of being a 41 year old new mother?

So what would I like to write about:

• Developmental updates for both k/f.
• K’s school updates.
• K all-of-a-sudden doing everything by himself.
• F being charming and delightful to all she surveys.
• Many the-things-they-say updates
• The daycare illnesses: A chronicle
• K’s budding fashion sense.
• K + F playing together are so funny.
• My severe lack of attention and other impending disasters.

For now, let me choose a couple to briefly update. . . . .

I have been trying to clear out old clothes, new clothes, clothes coming and clothes going. There are piles everywhere in every room. It could, yes it could, drive someone crazy. So I try. I finally cleared out some baby stuff of K’s and put it in the OUT pile. I came home last week to K wearing a cute little pair of capri-type pants. Then I thought to myself, he does not *own* any cute little capri-type pants. When he took them off that night I looked and yes, they were size 6month baby pants. My 3.5 year old can fit into 6month baby pants. He put on another pair yesterday but they couldn’t button, thankfully.

In related news he has quite recently (last week) taken to dressing himself 100%. And then undressing himself and re-dressing himself a couple of times a day. I’m not sure if this is fashion or just a simple pride in having mastered a new skill. Either way, I get a big kick out of it. I think the most we’ve seen is perhaps 3 or 4 new outfits in a day. He gets mad when T or I see him doing the changing. . . he wants it to be a surprise so he says, DON’T LOOK AT ME. And we can’t look until he’s done.

He’s quite newly self-sufficient in other ways too. I suppose this could be developmental or it could be his pre-school experience. But in the evening, he will go to the bathroom, wash his hands, brush his teeth . . . all by himself. We’re all quite pleased with this new independent behavior. I must mention though that last night the new independent behavior did prompt one phone call to poison control. You see, I’ve been letting k use adult toothpaste, you know with fluoride (which I guess is technically a poison). Last night in his flurry of independence he didn’t want me in the bathroom to watch his whole routine. I agreed. He was awfully quiet in there for quite some time; I should have been suspicious. He came out clean and smelling, no, reeking of toothpaste. Did you eat the toothpaste? Yes. How much? I don’t know. I looked at the tube and it was pretty squished down. Soooooooo, I called poison control because that’s what it says to do on the back of the toothpaste tube and if nothing else, I do follow directions. The man said how much did he eat? I said I don’t know. He said a teaspoon or half a tube? I said more like a teaspoon, but I don’t know. He said give him some milk; it will bind with the fluoride. He said based on his weight, he would have to eat 2ounces for detriment to occur. He said watch him and call back if he throws up in the next hour. So k drank the milk, went to bed, he never threw up, he lives today.

And one more thing, this final incident of the day was but one of many. K also decided to play hi-ho-cherry-o on the floor in the living room. Of course he didn’t pick UP all the cherry-os. I found them throughout the afternoon, scattered around F’s blanket and toys. Perhaps a choking hazard? Then later I was making dinner. K was playing and F in her saucer. I glanced over and thought, How nice that they are both content. Then I glanced over again and thought, What is F doing playing with a circus peanut. Well it was actually playdoh the color of a circus peanut. And yes I think she ate some. So I talk to k about all of these things. . . . . don’t leave the cherries around, be careful of small choke-able items, you can’t give playdoh to a baby. But at the end of the day *I* need to be more careful. Have I mentioned lately? This is hard work.

Let me tell you a little, true story. . . .

Yesterday was the first day of daycare/school for k/f. Because K is kind of sensitive, we had been to visit twice and had talked about the experience quite a bit. He woke up grumpy and got grumpier. He whined, wanted to be held and carried, wasn’t “comfort-ble” anywhere we put him. He didn’t want to eat breakfast, he wanted to lie on the couch.

At a certain point, I had to go to work – - and did. And the rest of the story, as relayed by T. . . .

He got them to the school. F was dropped off (happily, no tears). K was dropped off (not so happily, many tears). As T left, K was being held by a teacher, sobbing and looking over his shoulder at T, betrayed. Or rather, BETRAYED.

T got a call mid-day that K had stopped crying and indeed seemed to enjoy himself at Arts and Crafts time.

I got there to pick them up at about 5pm, thinking that I would be in the throes of the other parent-pickups. I certainly didn’t imagine being the second-to-last parent to pickup. But I was. I walked in the door and spotted him right away. He had on a fleece shirt with juice dripped down the front, his second pair of extra pants, his red boots. He was peaking out from behind an easel at the back of the room. The look in his eyes was forlorn, a little despairing, and reeked somewhat of abandonment. Even when I went over to him, he didn’t lose the look, in fact it just turned into blame, with betrayal close behind.

He wanted to get F right away, so off we went. He wanted to be carried, which I did for a bit. He slowly started to warm up to me and began to talk as we left the building. By the time we got to the car he was almost himself, ie not listening to me anymore.

And so it goes.
Yipes.

I find myself wishing that he could be different than me, ie not quite so introverted and sensitive. I had thought that he might be more like T. . . .extroverted and confident in the face of anything. I wonder from where do these things come? Nature or nurture? Could K be changed, or even encouraged to be a certain way?

Upon further reflection (and some probing questions from a colleague/friend), what am I saying by, “I wish he could be more like. . . .(insert anything here).” And what if he picks up on that? Does he feel like the way he is isn’t good enough. I am who I am today bc I was/am an introverted sensitive person. For certain, I don’t like it some days, but would I change it if I could go back to my childhood? I don’t know the answers here but I am surely thinking about what I want for my child. How do I accept him as he is, guide him toward something better, and yet love him and help him feel confident whatever the case may be.

You know. . . the fine line of balance, eluding me again.

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