much improved

Maybe it's just the sunny weather, maybe it's surviving my first post-partum conference and full day of daycare for the dumpling, maybe it's actually finding someplace to live when our lease expires next month ... or it could just be the 3 days I spent in bed last weekend at my in-laws while my daughter consumed in an inordinate amount of Easter candy (during pesach, no less) and I couldn't be bothered to even get out of bed and enforce order, but I am feeling much better.

Hormones can be so crazy. Because there was never any doubt in my mind through all the anger and sadness (and sleeping on the couch and running off to my office at 1 am to escape it all and refusing to eat and bingeing on chocolate and the usual) that I really, truly live a charmed life. This is what my late afternoons look like about 90% of the time:

(Yes, we live in NYC. This park happens to be 5 minutes from our current apartment and 2 minutes from our next one. Yes, the fusspot owns hiking boots (in size 5). Yes, they are her favorite shoes. Yes, she wears them everyday with whatever cute little dress I chose. Toddlers are odd).

Since not only my hormones were going crazy but my entire body was about to give up last week, I tried really hard to take it easy. No more waking up at 4 am to work. Far less cooking than is ideal for a holiday centered around food. Long walks in NYC (depending on which shot they use in the Glee scene in front of Tiffany's you may see a rather disgruntled woman in a teal t-shirt with a stroller glowering at the cameraman ... what can I say, my doctors offices are in ritzy neighborhoods and I really was not trying to burst into the shot).

I'm off to a toddler birthday party but coming up next week:
- we're not homeless! (but I will be writing my dissertation in a laundromat. You win some, you lose some)
- medical adventures part 2: PT, the shingles that-may-or-may-not-be-real, and one in a million postpartum complications which also may-or-may-not-be-real
- thoughts on a season of toddler dance class and raising a biracial baby
- preparing for the dumpling's first international trip (just me and the dumpling heading across the Atlantic - am I delusional to be looking forward to my relaxing work trip?)
- single parenting from 9 am to 12 am every day and how in the world I'm going to survive

Signing off for a while

Thanks for all your support. I really do appreciate it.

I wish that I had a grand action plan, I wish that there were something decisive I could do, I even just wish that therapy/meds/friends would improve things, but it looks far more likely that I need to spend the next few days/weeks just coming to terms with a new norm. Obviously I alone am responsible for my own behavior and happiness, and I can certainly learn to deal with all of this, but it has not been the easiest transition thus far.

Back when I have something to say that is slightly more interesting than whining about my charmed life.

Tonight we give thanks

that the baby is safe.

And while I really am deeply and truly thankful, there's still a significant part of me that wants to just through my hands up and say seriously? Did I need anxiety on top of everything else?

It was the dumpling's second day at daycare (first full day) because I had an all-day event today. But I scheduled everything so that I could run out and nurse him midday, and his daycare provider agreed to meet me near my event. Which is how I happened to be sitting on the grass nursing the baby when a 5 year old kicked a soccer ball into my face, i.e. about 4 inches away from full impact with the baby's head.

I know it was an accident, I know the 5 year old is a sweet boy and certainly wasn't trying to hit the baby, I know he was terrified and immediately ran to hide. But a little part of me has to wonder whether a family daycare is really a safe place for a 6 week old (full disclaimer: it's school vacation week. On a 'regular' week I will collect the dumpling long before the 3 big kids get home from school. But what if there's a vacation day I don't know about (half the big kids are in public school, half in private school)? Or what if a big kid stays home from school one day? All good intentions aside, they're not really old enough to be responsible around a baby, and while there was nothing that anyone could have done to prevent this particular accident, it really didn't help that Y. was in fact otherwise occupied taking the fusspot to the toilet. What if one of the big kids tries to pick the baby up while she's distracted by my 2 year old?)

I'd rather just keep the dumpling home for another few weeks, but my habit of waking up to work at 4 am (4-7 am is one of the nice, quiet blocks of time around here) probably contributed to the whole your-body-is-melting-down situation ... and not working is just not an option at this point.

Am I overreacting?

Let's focus on the good for a while, shall we?

(and totally ignore the fact that in less than 12 hours this extraordinarily itchy, sleep-deprived, decently hungry due to a lack of preparation for this particular holiday student will be presenting her research at a conference ...)

So, good things. It seems that in the midst of moving-stress, work-stress and new baby distraction, the fusspot up and decided to toilet train herself. No exaggeration, she did this entirely without the support of her parents and often to our vocal protests.

Which is to say that she has been diaper-free since Friday when indoors, excluding naps and bedtime, although her clear wish is to be entirely diaper free. And no, no accidents. Not a one. Beats me. We did start putting her on the toilet at the tender age of 6 months (thanks to cloth diapering in a climate notorious for raining over 50% of the days and in a land where dryers are exceedingly rare) and she has been toying with being diaper-free at daycare for months now, but it seems that she's up and decided that she's over damp (cloth) diapers entirely. Of course, I have no idea what to do with a girl who announces that she needs to pee on the NYC subway or on our laboriously slow walk to daycare, so we still diaper sometimes when we're out but thus far those diapers have stayed entirely dry and clean.

Of course, JD and I are tired and lazy and will just as frequently ask if she really needs to go when we are out and about as applaud. No bribes have been offered yet, or even hinted at.

The delicious irony of course is that the dumpling has been in disposables thus far due to his bris and size and he is just finally fitting into his adorable size small sun diapers (we'll switch to bumgenius in another 2 lbs or so). So, no diaper laundry for a full 8 days and then we start all over again. The great joy is that we can now dig out the pile of clothes that the fusspot outgrew in the last 3 months and they will all fit with room to spare sans bulky double-layered diaper.

We had a lovely start to the day

The cab dropped the dumpling and I right in front of Bergdorf Goodman, and for a moment I felt totally competent. I grabbed the carseat, snapped it into the stroller, grabbed my elegant oversized purse which was cleverly packed for a morning out with baby and headed across the street ... to the doctors.

It seems that my new primary care doctor (who I love, love, love. Awesome to have a former L and D nurse as your primary care doctor when you are newly postpartum) was a bit nervous about the shingles diagnosis and so I was off to a derma.tologist. And that's when things headed downhill. I should have guessed from the address, but this der.matologist specializes mainly in cosmetic surgery. There was a loop running of him doing some procedure on the View and the dumpling and I were definitely the odd ones out in the waiting room. I will admit that I was surprised by quite how many men were in the waiting room, but not in the least surprised to see 2 nice little boys (probably ages 6 and 7) waiting alone. And then a tall, unnaturally skinny woman with 2 ice packs emerged from the back and called for them to head out. Great way to spend your spring break morning, waiting for mommy to have her plastic surgery, right?

Then the dumpling and I found ourselves in an examine room with a team of doctors poking and prodding my breasts, while an equally large crowd of nurses cooed over the dumpling. It seems that I may have something in addition to shingles, or some really rare postpartum virus, or something else, or something else, yadayadayada ... all I could focus on was that only half of the possible diagnosis were contagious, and only a quarter of the contagious ones would require us to also treat the dumpling, which is good, I guess? It was determined that 2 biopsies were needed, and I shrugged thinking this would be like a biopsy of a mole: a little scraping, a band-aid and you are off.

Not so much.

There was extensive consultant about injecting local anaesthia into the breast of a lactating woman, and the next thing I know we are scheduling an appointment to get my stitches out ... so yeah. I have 5 black stitches in my breast, and 4 in my arm. And they itch. A lot.

Let me definitely recommend not getting stitches put into your breast at 6 weeks post-partum. Not only is it painful to breastfeed, but carrying the dumpling in the sling to collect the fusspot from daycare was excruciating because the sling pulls ever so slightly on my chest and I'm pretty sure that it pulled all of the stitches out. And all this for a teeny, tiny biopsy.

Needless to say, I postponed my next medical adventure by a week to let the scar heal. Up next week: PT for the ever-popular-in-2nd-pregnancies diastasis recti.

I did go to the doctors today

and we didn't even get to talk about PPD (about which I have many thoughts - primarily that I'm not a candidate for meds and that's by far the best treatment) because we spent too much time talking about febrile seizures. At my appointment.

So it turns out that excessive stress can cause shingles. And guess who has shingles, with a 6 week old who has never had the dreaded pox. And during our two bouts with the dreaded pox with the fusspot (both before she turned 1, which is when they can get the vaccine) she definitely spiked fevers above 105. So yeah, lots of advice about that and all the warning signs, and we are on high alert for the dreaded pox in the dumpling right now.

A very good chag sameach to you all, and hoping that you are much, much less itchy than I am at the moment.

and then there's that

Miserable. Most of the time, most days. Still hoping it will pass soon. - soon enough that the baby will not notice that there are no photos of him for weeks at a time. It is after all so incredibly trite: financially secure, happily married, mother-of-two-healthy-babies, pursuing a career she enjoys woman feels sad and lonely. Not much else to write.

Back when I have something more interesting to post.