Here's from Me to World

Monday, October 24, 2011

My son and pizza are awesome

Oof, I'd gotten into the habit of not writing.

Hi again! I've been doing pretty well lately. Gearing up for NaNoWriMo at the moment, which is a lot of why I'm writing this--I want to be able to blog about that. I'm excited! And I'm scared! And I'm excited. Hopefully it will be all fun and glory and creepy fairies, tapping into the majesty of my first three years (especially the very first) rather than the letdown of last year. I have reasons to hope that it will go well.

In other news, I just ordered pizza! It's kind of a waste of money, but whatever! I'm super hungry and we haven't gone to the grocery story in 2358547 years. Anyway, apparently Domino's delivers to Monmouth now, so this is going to be pretty freaking awesome.

Well, I'm boring tonight. Oh well. I'll plagiarize from facebook my most recent Daniel update, which I posted yesterday:

Tonight, we have finally embarked on the goal of having a bedtime routine for Daniel. We've been surprisingly fine without one, but it was time and past time. He wasn't even sleepy tonight because of a late nap, but I was determined anyway, and shut us in his room. It only took an hour of quiet play, reading, and snuggling,* and he fell asleep in my arms in the rocker. Yay! Pretty good start!

* Also, I might mention, nursing. The fact that we're still doing this is a big part of why we haven't really needed a routine, because I can just bust out the sleep-inducing hormones wherever he happens to crawl into my lap. But I'm hoping to wean around his second birthday in six months, so having other sleep-inducing factors well-established in his life by then will help a lot.

Oh, and while I'm talking about Daniel, this one describes some awesomeness from last Thursday:

The other day I took Daniel for a walk through campus without a stroller, and it was slow and long and exhausting and totally amazing.

He learned how to blow dandelion seeds, listened to a clock tower chime, ran through a tunnel made of bike racks, tried to read the spray-painted roadwork letters on the sidewalk, eagerly pointed at items in a shop window but didn't want to go in, played around on some stairs, sat a table doing nothing for a while, pressed the alarm button in an elevator, stole some brochures, touched rocks in a fountain, laughed at his reflection in a sculpture, crawled under an advertisement sign, pointed at a lot of interesting cars, crunched a lot of leaves, got tired, pitched a fit, and was carried home. After 20 minutes of rest, while I was still dead, he started pointing at the stroller and saying "Go?" again. Luckily Heath arrived home around then to take him back out.

So good. So good. I was so tired, but it was so good.

Actually, I've been feeling strangely competent as a mother today. Strange because I never feel competent, even though I no longer feel like a total screwup (at least not most of the time). But I've been playing with Daniel more, and enjoying it more. I've been doing other stupid boring distracting things less. Also, I actually cooked lunch (read: made boxed pasta) and we ate it together, and when he was full he pushed his bowl away instead of throwing it at the ground. (He saved that for later, when Daddy was giving him dinner. Haw haw.) He got my wallet out, and instead of storming over to snatch it away before he pulled all the cards out, I nicely asked him not to open it and to put it back, and after a while of procrastinating, he actually put it back! And then applauded himself! Also, we went for a walk, and we saw a kid meow at a cat, and Daniel meowed at the kid, and the kid was obviously delighted.

We've been doing "Parent and Me" swimming lessons, and Daniel is amazing. His only thing is that he doesn't like being confined to the warm little therapy pool, even though it's awesome, and would much prefer to be free to climb out and go jump in the lap pool. But that's just him being him, and the water itself bothers him not at all. I can hand him a pair of floaties and propel him around the pool on his stomach, only holding him up by the feet, and he doesn't even care. He splashes and climbs in and out and plays with toys. Today he didn't want to do much of what the teacher was suggesting, but she's extremely cool about my disinclination to force him. Instead, he floated by himself for a couple seconds, using only the little water weights and without my touching him at all! Then he figured he was done and really wanted to climb up the stairs and go do something else. Instead, after some other wandering around and playing, I set him standing on the bench and gave him a watering can. He spent most of the rest of the lesson scooping up water and pouring it out, often on the concrete by the side of the pool, with a look of deep concentration on his face. I could practically see his brain working, and it was the most magical thing ever. I told the teacher, "I bet you didn't know you were running a Parent and Me Physics Lab."

(Another awesome thing Daniel does is recognize letters. He doesn't know any individual symbols, but he knows writing when he sees it, and he likes to poke the letters and make authoritative little staccato noises. He does this with the depth markings on the pool, the warnings on his carseat, building signs, food packages, sides of cars, books... I'm pretty sure the place he learned it was from sitting in my lap when I was on a big crossword puzzle kick a few months ago. Just the other day he found one of my puzzles sitting out, picked up the pen, and poked at it four times, stating, "Dee, oh, nih, nih.")

So yup. <3 Some pretty nifty stuff going on. Also some other kinds of stuff. But right now, I feel like I'm doing okay at life, and that is nice. It's weird to feel competent on an evening when the kitchen has more dirty dishes than clean and the fridge contains more moldy food than edible, but whatever. I'll take it.

In another post I should talk about all the books I've been reading, and the one I'm about to write! But right now it's time for me to sit here and imagine eating pizza until it's time to sit here actually eating pizza. Mmmmmmmm.

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

On Writing, Returning, Depression, Returning, and Writing

Well, humm.

I want to write a new post! But so much time has gone by. It's always hard to catch up.

Ordinarily, the first thing I do when catching up is apologize for not getting around to writing, but in this case I don't have to do that. The lapse started out unintentional, but turned into a deliberate thing before very long, because I was actively shedding as many of my reasons to feel guilty as I could.

I stopped writing because I was miserable, and I didn't know how to talk about that. That's always been the hardest thing for me when it comes to writing in public--I always feel like the internet has enough people's banal, repetitive angst in it, and that adding to that would just annoy and bore everybody. Or worse, make everyone get super worried and crowd in on me at a moment when I'm feeling easily embarrassed.

Eventually, I figured out that what I was dealing with was untreated postpartum depression. It took me a long time to come to that conclusion, but then I figured out that if you have to keep asking yourself whether or not what you're feeling "counts" as depression or not, the answer is "sure, why not?" as far as pursuing treatment goes. Similarly, if reading the list of symptoms of PPD makes you cry, that should be taken as a sign.

So during the hole in talking about my life, I've been working on trying to fix the hole in enjoying my life. On the advice of my awesome bishop, I've been talking to a counselor. I've been asking people to babysit for me so I can leave the house by myself on occasion. I've been writing privately about my negative feelings. Possibly most importantly, I've been making art of various sorts, which I've discovered is a really big deal for my sanity and self esteem.

Progress is being made, especially as I sort out my thoughts and emotions and my ambivalence about being a mother, which basically comes down to this: Daniel is amazing and beautiful and funny and delightful. But full-time caretaking is not a job I'm naturally inclined to like or find fulfilling. So I've been feeling a lot better just in owning that fact, because everyone likes some things and dislikes others, right? This is just another thing. I'm about 75% of the way to convincing myself that I'm not a bad person just because I don't enjoy, and in fact sometimes resent, my day-to-day activities. The mothers of generations past who did this had a totally different culture and much tighter communities. They would have gone stir crazy all alone in my living room, too.

So the next step is to try to change things somehow. The obvious method, or at least the first thing people say, is "well, start enjoying it, then," but my brainstorms along those lines are still tainted by guilt and fear of judgement. Anyway, how do you just "start enjoying" something? Everyone says "be grateful" and "find joy where you can" and "savor it while it lasts," but nobody says how to do that. So this method: not super effective.

The other obvious approach is lifestyle changes. I'm still thinking about this. Getting some time to myself outside the home has made a really big difference when I've managed it. I've figured out that I really, powerfully, desperately miss being a student, and although we don't have the resources for me to do grad school at the same time as Heath, it's been a useful fact to notice about myself. I've figured out that I love writing, and do it a lot better when I'm not at home. I've figured out that I feel fine about expressing my negative emotions when I can find a pleasing way to phrase them.

It would be cool if I could find a part-time job. Coming home to Daniel after just two hours away lets me start over fresh and be excited to see him, which feels like a much more fitting approach to his awesomeness. And it helps me avoid ever getting to the stage where, after being chased by him all day, I end up literally hiding in the closet because I can't handle playing clown anymore.

Side-note: It turns out I'm very introverted, and Daniel is very extroverted, and most days I'm his only source of socialization for like eight hours in a row. It is not a good fit. Days when there are other people around for him to talk to are 30973657 times better.

But yeah, anyway. Having a job just for fun is so not going to happen in this economy. I'm happy just to go out somewhere and write and breathe fresh air and not have anyone scrabble into my lap whining and crying for a little while. So when this school term starts, I'm asking my mom and my sister to each take one two-hour shift a week as part of the general depression-recovery project, and see how big of a difference it makes in my joie de vivre / ability to function. If it works, I can then deal with the fact that asking for help like that seems really selfish and weird. (But shouldn't it be okay? Communities are important, right? But most other people seem to have more graceful ways of dealing with the exact same problems I have. Or do they??? No, no, Rachel: worry about this later, remember?)

It's all a work in progress. But I'd like to be able to write in this blog, and I don't want to carefully tiptoe around the issue, so let's drag the elephant out of the closet and out into the open: I do not like parenting. I have been capital-d Depressed for most of my time as a mother. But I am going to keep doing it anyway, not because I believe it'll all be worth it in the end, but because I love Heath and I love Daniel and I already love my future kids, and I'm the only one in a position to do this for them.

Knowing it's all worth it in the end is a privilege reserved for people who are not depressed. I'm looking forward to that. Meanwhile, I do have a lot of moments of joy. They don't cancel out the badness, but they inspire me to keep fighting the badness off. Eventually I will find my balance, and I hope that time is soon. Juggling a household is one thing (and I'm prepared and happy to accept that that will always be difficult), but juggling while standing on a ball balanced on a pole just kind of sucks. (The ball, uh... represents my brain. Also, I can't do any of these stunts in real life. Also, I am so blessed and lucky and cared about and such a ridiculous whiner to dare to be depressed when I have as much goodness in my life as I do have. Also, shut up, guilt-lobe. I told you to go take a nap.)

Anyway, hi. I'm back. <3

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

O hai

Don't worry, I still remember that I have a blog.

Current status: I need a shower.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Durp

Submitted without comment.

Still owing a real entry. Also, I'll probably do another one of these tomorrow, because we're hanging out at my parents' house this week and have a lot of tabs building up on their machine. This dump is from Heath's compy again; mine is still kaput. Sad.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Minidump

O hai.

My computer is broken! D: I don't know why yet. Gotta consult with Ben at some point. It keeps rebooting on its own, giving me a different lengthy blue-screen-of-death error every time, and not for long enough for me to read them. So I've been using Heath's laptop instead for a few days, which makes it super important to keep tabs on my tabs.

Here are some carseats I've been looking at:

And here are some random womanish things I want to get around to reading:

That's it for now. I want to yammer about Daniel soon, though. He is psycho cute and is working on walking. :o

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Dumptruck

Well, Tuesday was yesterday, but whatever. I started this in the morning, and then unexpectedly got to go hang out with my mom all day instead. Hooray!

Anyway, following up from last week, here's the cleanout of my main FF window. Hooray hooray!! Now, if I start doing this on a weekly basis, maybe it won't get away from me so often anymore.

Monday, March 7, 2011

Not really an answer

I got hung up on this one, too, but I at least started it on the right day (Wednesday).

~

Here we are! The big finish! And our prompt iiiiiiiis...

"Day 30 - Your favorite song"

...Really? That's what we're going out on? I don't even have a favorite song, man. Lame.

I was going to make a list of songs that I extra super love, but I'm too paranoid about making it comprehensive. Bahhh!!! I give up.

Right now I am obsessed with Anaïs Mitchell's Hadestown, and you should be, too.

If this appeals to you even slightly, go out right now and spend the $14.

Trust me. You will thank me, and thank her, and fall over.

And then fall over again and again and again.

And so, that's the end of the challenge month! That was fun even if I was erratic about it. thanks to those who have read and commented! I will continue to look for ways to be interesting. :)

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

They think they are wise

Look, I'm posting on time!

"Day 29 - In this past month, what have you learned?"

Uh.... I dunno.

*looks at planner*

Groundhog Day is a good movie.
Everyone's utilities bills got psychotic lately, not just mine. How nice.
How to solve the Rubik's Cube's first-layer corners and second-layer edges at the same time. (Still working on getting it as fast as the rest of my solving. My new record on the old method is one minute, by the way!)
Heath is really good at constructing Magic decks. (He was in a tournament and got the highest score but lost to the winner.)
Babies get you psychotically huge tax refunds!
Relatedly, being totally out of school debt feels goooooooooooood. :D
I still really, really, really like to dance.
I am still afraid of insinuating myself into groups of dancing people.
With prayer, I can give a super good talk even if I'm banging my head on the table through the whole preparation time.
I'm kind of a jerk sometimes.
Andy and Joanne and kids are awesome.
OMSI is awesome. It has a room for little little kids that I wish was next door to me. Daniel really likes those tables with the beads on big wires. Apparently they're cheap at IKEA.
Also, there was a mummy, and I solved a horse puzzle.
Raw fish is not terrible, and eel is pretty good, and egg sushi is deliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiicious.
My friend Brendan is super helpful, and a given Baskin Robbins probably doesn't have a changing table.
Hadestown is the best thing. The best thing.
A bunch of other stuff.
Heath does super well at interviews!
I love Summer and Courtney like mad and miss them.
I'm good at shopping. Actually, I already knew this.
Secretariat was the coolest horse.
Apparently you can milk Minecraft squid.
Heath: still fun to smooch.
My new Boba baby carrier is awesome.
Avoiding drama doesn't help, because it finds you.
I can and must write scripts faster.
Church choir is way easier when my mom-in-law comes and takes care of Daniel. Thanks! <3
Nicole's concerts are awesome, and going to them makes me miss being pregnant, because last time I went Daniel galloped around me the whole time.
People are really cruel and horrible and obnoxious sometimes.

I guess that's enough? I'm probably missing something major or deep, but I don't know.

Events from the past few days: Heath got into his grad school program! :DDD Now he officially gets to become a teacher! And I got my Boba and my own copy of Hadestown and they are awesome.

On the negative side, I had a headache for four days. And today was miserable for everyone, because Daniel's next four teeth have decided to come in all at the same time, and nothing is helping. He's been frantic with pain and unwilling to nurse. There was some respite when we went for a walk, but mostly there has been lots and lots of inconsolable crying. And I broke a glass.

Tomorrow is something I want to be excited about, but mostly I'm sad for my baby, and scared he'll cry all day again, and scared that I'll completely lose my mind from the stress of it.

Windowdump

Tabdump Tuesday is back! Today I will get rid of all my auxiliary Firefox windows.

Quotes of a day!

Oh, I meant to post this a long time ago! There was a 24-hour period last week in which people kept saying fantastic things to me. Here are the best examples:

"guns don't kill people - monkeys with robot arms (and guns) kill people"

"Speaking of hazing, I have a Kappa Kappa Psi branding iron in my car."

"Did you know you can milk squid?"