Day three, 8:21 PM: Just like riding a bicycle

Remember last post, when I was all, “I forgot how to be lazy!  I’m going to do multiple updates a day to entertain myself!  I’m so lonely!”

HA!

I remembered how to be a couch potato.  It came back to me on Sunday afternoon, approximately three hours in to a “Millionaire Matchmaker” marathon, as I sat knitting and saying things to the dog like, “That guy is a raging ass” and “I can’t believe those women demean themselves like that” and “I am so glad I’m not dating anymore.  You have no idea how much dating sucks.”

The dog agrees, by the way.  She’s horribly offended by that show.

Anyway, we are now on Day Three of my single, child-free existence.  And here’s the truth: I don’t care if they never come home.

People!  Do you know what I have been missing with this husband and kid thing?  I have been missing so much!

I’ve been missing the time to stop whatever I’m doing to go for a walk.

I’ve been missing the ability to sleep until I want to get up.

I’ve been missing the ability to stop and go shopping after work without worrying that I need to get home as soon as possible because the baby won’t stop crying, so get home now.  NOW! NOOOOOOWWWW!

On the way home tonight, I stopped at the grocery store to pick something up for dinner.  (Because I didn’t go grocery shopping on Sunday.  Simply because I could skip grocery shopping on Sunday without the entire schedule for the week being completely thrown off.  See?  This is what I’ve been missing!)  At the grocery store I ran into a friend who has a one year old.  I asked how the family was doing and she launched into a wild-eyed rant.  She alternated nearly-hysterical tales of incoming molars and no sleep with maniacal laughter and I realized I was looking at a the picture of myself back in November when the Buddha’s molars were coming in.  Remember back then?  When I was nearly inconsolable and you were all kind of looking at each other out of the corners of our eyes and wondering if one of you should maybe talk to me about the comforts of Prozac?  Yes.  That’s where this poor woman was.

Anyway, to distract her from her own misery, I told her all about my situation.  You know, with the husband way far away and the baby being with him and me all alone.  As I went on and on her eyes started lighting up and she began hyperventilating.  “I don’t know,” I said in conclusion, “Do you think it makes me a bad mother because I’m kind of enjoying the alone time?”

And she grabbed me with both hands, pulled my forehead disturbingly close to hers, and hissed, “I would give my child to anyone–ANYONE–that wanted to take her away right now.  ANYONE!”  And I felt pretty damn good about everything.

Then I came home and made some dinner.  The Alias Father put the Buddha on Skype so I could say goodnight to her.  And she giggled at me and signed “I love you” over and over and over again.

So there’s that.

Yeah.

There’s that.

Day one, 5:23PM

Took the dog for a hike, then came home to chill out before going out for drinks with a friend.  Then caught myself doing laundry and cleaning up the kitchen instead.  I think my couch potato skills are rusty.

Day one, 2:48PM

Just got home from the airport.  The house is so quiet it is freaky.  Just thought I’d mention it.

(Of course I’m live-blogging my week alone.  What, do you people think I have a life?)

T minus 24 hours and counting, where T= paralyzing ambivalence

In approximately 24 hours, the Alias Father will walk onto a plane and away from me for eight days.

And he’s taking my daughter with him.

(Breathe.  Breathe.  Breathe.)

This is all your fault, you know.  You totally talked me into it. And now I’m possibly going to die of a broken heart.  Or I’m going to have the best week ever in the history of weeks.  Or possibly a combination of both.

(Breathe breathe breathe.)

Can she live without me for a week?  Can I live without her for a week?  How in heavens name am I going to live with a smooshy cheek to kiss every night?  HOW?

(breathebreathebreathe)

One of the hard truths I had to face about daycare wasn’t that daycare was bad for the Buddha (it’s not.  She’s thriving there), or even that I was being judged by other people because I don’t stay home with my kid (few actually seem to care, and those that do can suck a rock). It was that I was being jealous and possessive.

When I felt sad about dropping the Buddha off, it wasn’t because she was unhappy. Most of the time she doesn’t even notice when I leave.  It wasn’t because she wasn’t well-taken-care-of.  I’m sure none of them ever say anything like, “Oh, for crying out loud, would you just eat!” like some people I could mention.  It wasn’t because I was worried about her. Seriously, her daycare is tremendous and she loves all of the caretakers.  Which was the problem, you see.  The problem that I finally realized one day in a humbling moment of self-awareness.

The problem was that I wanted her all to myself.

I didn’t want her to become attached to anyone else.  I didn’t want her to hug anyone else.  I didn’t want her to giggle for anyone else.  I didn’t want her to have little jokes with anyone else.  I wanted it all.  All the attachment, all the hugs, all the giggles, all the jokes.  All for me me me.

That was an ugly moment of self-realization.

Look, even Sting knew that if you love somebady, you gotta set them free, man.

I had to set her free.  I had to acknowledge that it was possible for her to grow to love other people and still have room to love me.  I had to remember that the human heart is not a finite thing.  We have enough room to care for everyone who touches our life.  It’s one of the miracles of the universe, really.

So here we are again.  She’s going to be carried away from me, far, far away, and I need to grow up and acknowledge that she will be okay.  I will be okay.  We will be okay.

(breathing)

But I’m telling you, if my Baby-Whisperer mother-in-law turns her against me or teaches her even one new trick without me present, there will be some hell to pay.

Capiche?

And leave all this behind?  How could she?

And then there’s this…

Me: What’s the matter?  You look depressed.
Him: I am depressed.
Me: Why?
Him: The old photos things again.  I used to be so creative and artsy.  And adventurous!  And what do I do now?  Nothing!  That’s what!  Nothing!
Me: Well, yeah.  Neither one of us is really living up to our potential, are we?
Him: *sigh* No.
Me: We need to get back in the game, baby!  Maybe what we should do is set some goals, see.  Every week.  We’ll push ourselves to move at least one step towards what we want to be.  We’ll take back our dreams.
Him: That sounds like work.
Me: Only at first.  Then we’ll get used to it, and our creative fires will be lit again, and we’ll be rich and famous geniuses!
Him: Hmmm.
Me: You sound unconvinced.
Him: I think I’d rather go watch Family Guy. *wanders off to living room*
Me: I CAN’T HELP YOU IF YOU WON’T HELP YOURSELF!!!!!

Because there’s more than one way for Facebook to bite you in the butt

The Alias Father spent some time this weekend scanning in old photos and posting them on Facebook to entertain friends and family.  We oohed and aahed over his sweet-faced, knobby-kneed childhood, had some good laughs along the way at his scrawny-necked, wanna-be player high school self, got to the portion of the stack where we first met, and the whole thing turned a bit wistful.

Oh, how young we were.

The AF and I met when we were just 22.  Though we dated (and not-dated and dated again) long distance after that for six years before getting married, that first summer will forever serve as kind of our touchpoint in our relationship. I’d like to tell you that we knew from the beginning that we were meant to be, but that’s not true.  We both thought it was a summer fling.  He was in a bad place, coming out of a very serious relationship.  I was whiling away time in that limbo between college graduation and “real life.”  We were looking for a good time, some entertainment, a partner for dinner, drinks, and hiking.  It was a throw-away summer, not some soft-focus music montage in development.

We are very different people than we were at 22.  I think that’s a good thing.  I think I’m more sophisticated in thought and manner now.  I’m funnier.  I dress better.  I am more considerate of others.  I’m less concerned with what the rest of the world thinks of me.  He’s more mature, less likely to take-off on a whim.  He doesn’t duck responsibility anymore.  He’s got goals and plans and strategies instead of amorphous dreams.  He’s less superficially sweet and more deep-down sweet.  I’m a better woman.  He’s a better man.

But looking at those old pictures of us, back when we were unwrinkled and unsaggy and unburdened by anything but trying too hard to have a good time…

Well.  It just made us a bit wistful.  Nostalgic, I suppose, for the kids we used to be.  Maybe even for that summer, only a month or two, really, when we had no expectations for each other but were just in search of adventure.  We didn’t really talk about it.  What could we say?  It’s a pointless conversation, because we’d be talking about two strangers.

But that night, as I was making dinner and he was trying to finish a house project, I turned to him as he walked through the kitchen and said, “I kind of miss the person you were then.”

And he paused for a second and said back, “I kind of miss him, too.”

And then we ate dinner, and we watched some television, and life was good.

Poverty Party Post: One Step, Two Step, Yay Step, Ew Step*

I haven’t Partied with the Poverty since December, so I thought I’d provide a little update.

We are still in poverty.  The end.

Oh, wait, what?  You want more detail?

Okay, fine.  We were in really bad poverty and then it got a little better and now it sucks again.  The end.

You want STILL MORE?

Fine.  After four months of chronic underemployment that completely emptied our savings account the Alias Father finally found a job that will provide him with 40 hours of paid labor per week.  We spent all of February desperately catching up with things we got behind on and finally started to see the light at the end of the tunnel this month.  We were formulating big plans for April.  BIG PLANS, my friends, where BIG PLANS means possibly, finally paying off an albatross-like credit card balance that’s been taunting us for years.  But, alas, I found out yesterday that my workplace is going to be instituting a 15% pay cut across the board starting April 1st.  Which doesn’t sound like much, I know, so I suggest you get out your calculator and figure out what 15% of your (or your spouse’s) annual salary looks like.  Go on and do it.  Sure.  Right now. 

Did ya do it?

Oh, jeez.  Sorry.  Should have warned you.  Here’s a paper bag to breathe in.  I’m done with it as I’ve moved on to the PANICKED RAGE portion of the program.

So.  So much for paying off that credit card, or that other card, or any of the other plans that we had.  (We thought we’d be out of all consumer debt by the end of 2009, folks.  HAHAHAHAHA!)

Ever since I started worrying about such things, my theory on securing my financial future has always centered around getting and keeping my living expenses as low as possible.  I know that some financial planners emphasize savings and investing and retirement and blahblahblah, and those parts are certainly important, but it seems to me that if you can reduce the amount you need to live on to the bare minimum, then you are halfway to that “financial freedom” that we are all supposed to be aiming for.  That means, in my dream world, I would have no debt at all.  No credit card debt, no student loans, no house payment.  That way, every penny that I earn could go to something that I wanted it to go to, whether that be savings or a nice bottle of wine.  This endless shoveling of my paycheck back out the door to debt obligations?  It sucketh.

By my calculations I’ll be living that debt-free life by the year 2114.

Come back and see me then.  I’ll open that wine for you.

*Sorry.  The Buddha’s been really into Dr. Seuss these days.

Really, I can’t decide between “bad mothering” and “most brilliant idea ever”

The Alias Father fielded a phone call from his sister the other day, during which she asked him if he would consider flying to their (warm, sunny, beautiful) hometown and finishing up a construction project she had underway.  Her husband has been working on it for two years and it pertains to her business and she’s really sick of looking at the plywood, so could he just come down and work on it?  She’ll pay him, just GET IT DONE, FER CRYIN’ OUT LOUD! (What can I say about the caps?  I empathasize.)

And he instantly went all Scooby-Doo and was like, “Rurrrr?  Warm?  Sunny?  Pay?” and was in before she could finish talking.  He waited to check with me and my schedule before confirming, of course, but I can imagine the ensuing huffiness had I refused.  But it’s fine.  It’s a good chance for him to go see and help his family and work on something he likes, versus shingling outside in 30 degree weather, which is what he currently is doing.  Which he doesn’t like.  Shockingly.

We were talking about possible dates and flights and whatnot while cooking dinner that night and I jokingly said, “You are bringing the Buddha with you, right?”  At which point we kind of looked at each other and realized there wasn’t any reason he COULDN’T bring her.  She’s still a lap baby, so it wouldn’t cost any more.  His mother would be beyond-words thrilled to have her far-away grandbaby to watch for a week.  I and my boobs are no longer a necessary feature of her existence.  Traveling alone with the Buddha wouldn’t be fun and he wouldn’t get much sleep, but on the Suckiness Scale (TM) it’s pretty much even with me trying to handle daycare juggling, work, and general life maintenance for the two of us on my own.

Soooo…she could theoretically go.  Without me.  And I would spend a week home alone.  Responsible for no other human being but myself.  But without my Buddha to hug.  But I’d get some sleep.  But I’d miss her.  But she’d get to spend a whole week with family that loves her.  But I’ll miss a whole week of life at time when she does something different every day.  But I’d be able to possibly go out with friends with no other consideration of someone else.  But I’d be abandoning her and my stomach tightens at the thought of the whole thing.  BUT I’D GET SOME SLEEP.

“Torn” isn’t really strong enough to be the word I’m looking for here.

Because I haven’t written about my boobs in a ridiculously long time

If statistics are to be believed, by far the most popular post that I’ve ever written is this one.  Composed in a hormone-fueled breastfeeding haze, it’s definitely not my most coherent ranting ever, but for some reason people keep finding it.  I like to think that, rather than an audience of pervs scouring the internet for boob posts, all those hits are from overwhelmed new mothers struggling to make breastfeeding work and wondering if the pain is ever going to stop.

I wrote that post when the Buddha was six weeks old and at the time I was wondering that myself.  It did stop, but not for several weeks after that post.  For at least two or three more weeks, I suffered through bleeding nipples, feeding sessions that felt like I was being stabbed with fiery pokers, and one-a-day breakdowns in which I sobbed to myself, the Alias Father, and anyone who would listen that there was NO WAY I could do this for a year.  I would never MAKE IT.

It’s funny to me now, and was even kind of funny to me then, that if anyone else–a friend, a reader, a complete stranger at the mall–had come up to me and told me that they were going through that kind of agony six times a day or more, I would have shaken them by their shoulders and said, “For heavens sake, woman, quit doing that to yourself!  Let it go!”  But it is a sign of my [idiotic] hard-headedness that I kept going.

I kept going until it finally stopped hurting and the Buddha was no longer drinking my blood with my milk.

I kept going until I went back to work and was introduced to the new torture of the breastpump.

I kept going until the Buddha got teeth at 5 1/2 months and used my boobs as her personal chew toy. (By the way, Tooth Fairy, did I forget to thank you for the gift of early teething? THERE’S A REASON FOR THAT!)

I kept going until, at 11 1/2 months, I finally drop-kicked the pump into the backyard and decided that if she couldn’t get it from the source, she didn’t need it.

I kept going until I decided that, regardless of what she thought, the Buddha no longer needed three feedings day at 13 months.

I kept going until a week ago, when, taking a shower after the Buddha’s remaining evening feeding, I looked down at my sad little boobs.  They were covered in teeth marks and bruised all to hell.  They looked stretched, and abused, and just plain tired.  And I thought, “Okay, girls.  You’ve done your job.  You can have a rest now.”  And that was it.

Over the last week the Buddha has only asked to nurse a handful of times and each time I’ve easily been able to distract her with something else.  I’m replacing our just-home-from-work feeding session with a book-reading session, which she thinks is just fine.  She was ready to quit.  I was ready to quit.  It’s all good.

I wanted to write this because I thought it was important to conclude the story.  I’m going to go back and edit that rambling, slightly hysterical post and include a link to this one.  So that, just in case it is indeed being found and read by desperate new mothers, they can get the full story.  And the full story is this: it did stop hurting.  And I did stop crying.  And it did get better.  And well over a year after writing, I finally decided to stop, leaving a hale and hearty child who for 15 1/2 months got the best I had to give her.

(But, really, if it is hurting that much and you are in total agony, then FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE, WOMAN, QUIT DOING THAT TO YOURSELF!  SERIOUSLY!)

Today’s post brought to you by the words “jet” and “lag”

1) I’m not dead.  I was just on vacation.

2) Vacation was wonderful, endless flights and non-sleeping toddler notwithstanding.

3) Wonderful and warm.  I made lots of Vitamin D and felt more awake than I have in months.

4) Sadly, I got home really late last night, or rather, really early this morning, and between that, a week of a non-sleeping toddler, and a time-zone switcheroo I’m a little over-tired and peaked today, thus negating all that Vitamin D.

5) Which is too bad because I have a huge meeting this afternoon.

6) Also too bad: all my makeup and deodorant are in my luggage.

7) My luggage is in Detroit.

8) Hint: I don’t live in Detroit.

9) So I look pretty awful and smell pretty awful and HELLO, first impression, how are you?

10) I got halfway to work today and then had to turn around and go back home when the Alias Father called in a panic because the car seat was still in my car and he couldn’t take the Buddha to her 15-month check-up.

11) We do have a car seat specifically for his truck, but it is busy keeping my luggage company in Detroit.

12) Did I mention that I don’t live in Detroit?

13) I have approximately 100 million prep things to do for this huge meeting, but I can’t do them because I keep getting interrupted by people who barely lived without my presence last week and need to talk to me RIGHT NOW.

14) I don’t really want to be needed this much, thank you.

15) This post is also cutting into my prep time.

16) Ask me how much I care.

17) When we got home last night/this morning, the cat launched herself at me in desperate, mewling adoration and then spent the entire night smashed up against my side, purring.

18) I did want to be needed that much.

19) It’s good to be home, cold and snowy or not.

20) How are you?