September 2005 Archives

Just for fun (and filler) I thought I'd try this Archive Meme from Josh's blog. Here's the directions, for those of you who want to try it (I tag Rebecca!)

1. Go into your archive.

4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.

...and what did I wind up with, gentle readers?

"Too exhausting."

Hmm. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Well, despite being awakened several times during the course of last night (which is fairly typical), I was feeling pretty decent today because I got to sleep in until (wait for it....) 8:20 am this morning. (Woo!) And despite some initial aggravation over getting everyone motivated, prepped and out of the house before the baby melted down into naptime, it turned out to be a great day.

We took Eli out of school today and Josh took the day off work so we could go to Stinson Beach to visit my brother's family, who were staying out at the Beach House for the weekend. Eli and Jonah, cousins and best buddies extraordinare, got to hang out together (the great new trend is that they go off alone and spend unsupervised playtime together--and they did great, except for a few minor incidents). Isaac got some auntie and uncle (and cousin!) time. I got to snuggle with my oh-my-god-SO-adorable little niece, Zinnia, and spend some nice bonding talking time with my sis-in-law. My brother and I hung out while watching the older boys dart in and out of the whitecapped waves on the windy, nearly empty beach. We barbequed oysters (5 dozen for 4 adults...sheer gluttony but oh so amazingly delicious, served steaming hot right off the grill and slathered in spicy sauce--god I love living in a place where you can just drive to the oyster farm and buy a bagful). And we drove home over the mountain as the sun set, full and happy, listening to a serendipitously mellow random iPod shuffle mix, with both boys snoozing peacefully in the back seat.

So it was a good day. I felt nearly normal. I'm going to try to hold on to this feeling of fullness (in the metaphyiscal and metaphorical senses, rather than the physical).

I truly do feel like a yo-yo these days...unrolling down, down, down, faster and faster, until I stall out, still spinning, at the bottom. And then it takes a well-timed yank for me to ever...so...slowly...start to roll back up, gaining momentum as I go, feeling better, faster, smoother--and then abruptly slapping into someone's palm before being released again to roll back down, down, down.

That being said, today wasn't so bad. There's a lot to be said for talk therapy and the anticipation of a long weekend full of good things. And even yet more to be said for the possibility of sleeping in tomorrow morning.

Frikkin' elephant. Go 'way. YOU HEAR ME, YOU STUPID PACHYDERM? GET OUT!!

(Let's see if that helps. Might not, though. Anger leads to hate, hate leads to fear, fear leads to suffering etc etc. *That's* what I need, suuuuure: more suffering.)

Yeah. Not quite ready for the intellectually challenging, deeply philosophical or bravely confessional yet. I think I'll stick with metaphorial obscurity (see above) and general whininess (see below) for the time being.

General whininess:

-My shoulder is killing me. Looks like it's a rotator cuff injury initially brought on by a fall back in December but aggravated by mamalife (nursing, schlepping, and bouncing a 20 lb baby). I've started physical therapy. Like I needed another project, another thing to take care of/supervise/track/schedule.

-Oreo (previously known as Boo Boo Kitty) continues to slowly decline. Now we have to feed her special food, which entails separating the two cats when it's mealtime, and only giving them food at certain times when we can supervise it. Of course I'll do what it takes, but again, see above snarkiness re: more projects.

-The cocoa is still pretty frikkin' bleak. Even though the baby has started to sleep a little bit better, I'm still running a U.S. Government-sized deficit when it comes to sleep (and energy).

-I feel like I have been a bad parent lately. Eli is getting needier and I'm just stretched too thin ("like butter over too much bread"--I get that now, Bilbo) to really be patient with him, especially in the mornings when everything is needing to be tightly scheduled and managed in order to get everyone out of the house. And the poor baby...I feel guilty every time I put him in the exersaucer or lay him down on his gymini in order to go run around and get stuff done, and then he whines and shrieks and I pick him up, and then I put him down and he whines and shrieks and I pick him up and put him somewhere else, and it really isn't working for either of us, the rushing, the half-assed attention that everything gets.

-And just to put the icing on the cake, I finally, finally managed to ever-so-shakily get past my recent writer's block and start working on some of the plot issues for my novel, only to be painfully blindsided last night by what I'm sure were meant to be helpful comments from my writer's group. Apparently I need to completely restructure my novel, and revision at least one of the major characters. I spent a good portion of my limited emotional energy today trying to just sit with the comments and not get mad or defensive or depressed, but I haven't been all that successful. I can't decide whether to just scrap the damn thing or metaphorically put my fingers in my ears and go "lalalalalaIcan'tHEARyou" and keep on stubbornly plugging away at it. I have pretty much come to terms with the fact that no one gives a flying f**k about this project but me, but it's just so hard to keep the faith alone. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that quitting now would make me feel like an utter failure, so I don't think that's a good option either.

Ugh. Why am I telling the Internet all this? I'm depressing *myself* just by writing down all these whiny things. Time to go count my blessings or look on the bright side or whatever it is that optimistic people do to make themselves feel better. Or maybe just time for bed.

Isaac Theoden Archer turned 6 months old today. Wow--how did *that* happen? Time has both flown and crawled to get here. At times it's hard to believe that his precious, solid, gleeful energy has only been with us for a mere half year, and yet I still feel like I barely know him. There's so much more to come! I have to say I keep expecting that I'll start to feel sad about the fact that the tiny baby days are passing away for good out of my life, but honestly, I'm 99% glad. I mean yes, I'm sure someday (when I'm far better rested) I'll look back with at least some amount of nostalgia to when my baby was still a real baby, but I'm far less starry-eyed about the wee baby stage than I once was. Babies are cute and fun and uncomplicated and generally wonderful in their own way, but I'm plenty happy that this stage is passing.

That being said, the big news today is that Isaac's first tooth has appeared! (Right on schedule...his brother got his first tooth at right around 6 months too.) I was hanging out in the kitchen with Isaac watching Josh make dinner, and mock complaining to the baby: "hey, kid, you're 6 months old now, so where's that first tooth?" Then I put my finger in his mouth and boom, I felt a tiny little sharp spot--there *was* a tooth there! I really should be careful what I verbalize these days, I suppose...but I promise to only use my powers for good, not for evil. Really.

Waugh. I just read back over the last 5 or 6 entries, and boy have I been going off on a full-on whinefest lately. Whineapalooza. Sheesh. Sorry, world. Believe me, I'd like to start focusing on the positive myself. Maybe one more cute baby picture will do the trick:

^ Isaac and his favorite teething toy. (Howcome they call it "teething" when there still aren't any teeth yet?)

Well, ok, I feel a little better, but I suspect it's time to sweeten up the cocoa again. So enough fooling around on the internet, I'm going to bed.

Thinking happy thoughts. This helps:

^Isaac dressed in his hand-me-down pirate overalls (originally courtesy of Dri, from whom all awesome goth baby clothes come). Can't you just hear him saying "Arrrrrrrr!"

I mean really, as I said lo, these many moons ago, who can resist a kid in pirate clothes? Not me. I feel better already.

I know it's been oddly quiet here on the Parentheticals front lately. I'll be honest, if elliptical: there's a big, metaphorical elephant in the room inside my brain where the writing gets done, and even though I've been doing my best to ignore it, it's taking up so much room that nothing else is managing to squeeze out. Did that even make any sense? Siiiigh.

I'm just not in the best of mental spaces right now, I can admit that, at least. My usual state of general optimism is becoming harder to access. Depending on the day, the amount of sleep I've had (or not had), the amount of running around I'm doing, and who knows, maybe the flapping of a butterfly's wings in Texas, the degree to which I can still feel confident that the glass is actually half full fluctuates wildly like some sort of diabetic thermometer.

Anyway, stay tuned. I'm hoping to at least ease back into posting random smorgasblog bits this next week, to get the posting habit going again (and get over this bloggish constipation). It may not be intellectually challenging, deeply philosophical or bravely confessional, but it'll be something. Whatever I can sneak around that elephant...I mean, what elephant?

Feeling numb, and scared, and full of free-floating sorrow and anxiety, but needing that good ol' writing-as-therapy.

I spent some of yesterday and much of today reading about the disastrous conditions in New Orleans and surrounding areas, and growing increasingly freaked out. Even though I have tried to keep my media consumption relatively minimal, I can now feel a great disturbance in the force--so much sorrow, so many people hurting and dying and doing horrible things to each other. My heart hurts, there is a swirling, churning ball of despair and anxiety deep in my stomach. Every time I think of the mamas out there trying to provide for their exhausted, starving, terribly thirsty babies, it makes me cry. (Earlier today I read the phrase "mothers shaking their dehydrated babies to keep them awake", and it will forever linger in my nightmares, just like the descriptions of parents walking from Manhattan back across the Brooklyn Bridge after 9-11, trying to make it home to their babies.) I imagine myself trapped on a rooftop with Isaac and Eli, all of us barefoot and wet and scared and thirsty, watching the toxic water rising, hoping for rescue. I imagine myself surrounded by throngs of hot, angry, starving people in the midst of the Convention Center, with no food, no water, no diapers, nothing, trying to protect my babies from the lawless mobs of desperate people. My imagination is not doing me any good right now. I know I need to stop looking at the stories and pictures; I will have to, at least temporarily, become numb to the situation. I literally can't take any more in without dying.

But you: if you haven't already checked out Interdictor's blog about the real live Lord of the Flies situation happening there, you should. Not so much because it is important to bear witness when disasters happen (though it is), and certainly not for any voyeuristic thrill, but because it is real, and the perspective of people trying to do good amidst the chaos and the horror is crucial if any sort of silver lining is to ever be found in this chain of events. Interdictor and his team are my new heroes, and I'm really not kidding when I say that. The fact that there *are* people trying to do the right thing and stay on the side of good, not evil, is the only balm I have against the flattening despair.

This morning, I was tempted to post about the crazy NADM morning we had--the kid waking up with a croupy cough and making himself barf up breakfast; the cat crap I found in the closet; the mysterious sharp pain that showed up without warning in my upper chest, prompting me to call the doctor; the sudden demise of several crucial appliances (including our TV and the baby's CD player), the late starts and traffic accidents and various other annoyances of daily life.

But oh, the sun was shining here in Marin today. I ate good food and drank sweet water. I talked to my friends and family, who are all safe and accounted for. I am sitting here on the comfortable couch, the pets curled up nearby, in our clean, unbroken house. My beautiful babies are sleeping soundly in their safe, quiet beds, and I am struggling to appreciate my blessings in the face of so much sorrow.