flea | Entries tagged with whine

1. Medela Pump In Style, borrowed from a friend, works fine. But the sucker is huge and heavy - the pump is built into the carrying bag - and as you may recall I pick up two children, one of whom I carry, and take them home on a bus. So I've put a bid in on ebay for a new Ameda Purely Yours. Word to those in the market - lots of good prices on breast pumps on ebay, and the Ameda can be completely sterilized so it's perfectly safe to share. I should be able to get one for $50 including shipping, I think.

2. I fell to Librarything this morning. I am there under the same name as here. Shaky fist to the timesuck!

3. Poor Dillo was very goopy-eyed this morning. Will the fellow ever be well? The last two nights he has slept worse than ever in his life, basically because he is sick.

4. I slept like crap last night, aside from the Dillo wakeups. I am only barely sick, but when I lie down quietly and try to sleep, breathing makes my throat tickle. I was awake until at least 11 and up for the day by 5.

5. We are having another round of Dissertation Angst (front burner version - it's always there, of course). I am trying to help. The big looming issues are a) money (student loan, parent loan, liquidate some assets?) and b) transition. If he isn't finished by midsummer and confirmed in a job, what to do? I hate to place Casper in school in August and then take her out to move to Ohio in October. But it may happen. Goddamnit.

6. Should go eat something. Have managed to depress myself.

7. Oh! Baby of yesterday named Harrison HerLastName HisLastName. Not sure if he's to be a Harry or what.

The hospital chose to send the ($350) bill for the birth of my 5 month old son today, a week before Chistmas.

The photo studio "did not enter my order into the computer" (it was placed online, and I got a confirmation number) so my Christmas cards haven't arrived. In good news, they are sending them next-day, and I should get them Weds or Thursday, and I didn't have to make a fuss.

I lost the big bag of stocking stuffers for all the kids. But then I found it.

I am paying the bills, and it always makes me woeful. This is an especially woeful month.

mr. flea is sick and depressed. I am kind of sick too, but as I am less sick I am the one who has to hold us all together.

I am dreading the drive to Ohio.

It is 75 degress and SO not Christmassy.

The end.

In light of the truly bad things happening to various friends lately, I feel guilty that we're in a state of mild suckiness around here, and especially that I'm complaining about it. But here we go:

Dillo is aging up into a crankypants phase. I prepared mentally for this kid to be so different from the other kid, but nearly everything about the Dillo is so similar to Casper it's a little freaky (and also, let's say it, tedious). First week stressful and jaundice-y? Check. Breastfeeding pattern of Too Much Milk, leading to swift gulpy nursing sessions, only on one side at a time? Check. (With Casper, this pattern developed spontaneously and got my mother yelling at me that I was starving the kid because I wasn't nursing 10 minutes on each side - long-distance, natch. Turns out the pattern is a LLL-approved solution to Too Much Milk: http://www.lalecheleague.org/FAQ/oversupply.html). Placid start, followed by increasing crankiness and unwillingness to sleep unless being held? Check. Dillo has already started to have evening meltdowns of uncontrollable crying; Casper spent a few weeks right around 6 weeks screaming her head off like clockwork from 10-11 pm nightly. Curse the bad human design that means they're born with immature digestive and nervous systems. (IMO, "colicky" behavior in both my kids has been more from nervous system immaturity than digestive issues.)

My darling mother managed to sabotage any confidence I have in myself yesterday by phone, simply by commenting that the reason the Dillo slept badly Friday night, which I stupidly mentioned, was because he was picking up on my stress about the visit of the in-laws. God knows I get stressed out about shit, not least the crankiness of the baby. I find it incredibly stressful to hold a hot sweaty arching crying baby and be unable to comfort him. But does Mother think it will help me be LESS stressed to tell me that my stress makes the baby act up? Even if she's right, it's not very helpful. Of course, this is the woman who continually blamed (and blames) me for Casper's poor sleeping. Note to self: lie to mother more. "Yes, Dillo slept for 6 hours in a row last night! He has the temperment of an angel!!"

Tired because sleep deprivation is cumulative, and we didn't get naps this weekend due to houseguests, and I seem to be in a state of being too tired - really, too stressed out - to sleep lately.

mr. flea has put his back out, badly.

I dropped Casper off at school this morning, and it just reinforced my concern that her current classroom is not managed well. They are still without a lead teacher (have been since she started in June) and it being summer there are frequently substitutes due to vacations. The class isn't well structured; every time we are there (which includes unusual hours, such as today's 9:45, not just drop-off and pickup times which are scheduled as free play) they are just having free play, although their activity sheets do suggest there are structured activities. What really bothers me is how little the teachers seem to be paying attention to the kids - this morning, Jasleen was crying for her father, which she habitually does in the AMs, but nobody was paying attention to her, which they DID do in the old classroom. Nobody welcomed Casper when she arrived. The teachers just have an air of sitting around and chatting while nominally keeping an eye on the kids. The two teachers actually assigned to this classroom are nice women, but I think they just don't have the educational and/or experiential chops to really manage a classroom of 18 kids; I assume the ex-lead teacher was the one who kept things in line. I guess I should email the center director with my concerns. Ugh. I am sure they are trying to hire someone.

Back to work in 4 weeks, and can't imagine how it will all come together (sleep, feeding the kid, child care). Even though it's only back to work for 2 hours a day (plus 2 at home) for the first 2 weeks.

On the plus side, I am just stunned by how beautiful my daughter is:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/casperflea/209151396/

Well, there's a lot going on:

1. So. Tired. I've had maybe 3 hours of sleep each of the past two nights, in non-continuous segments.
2. Yet, cannot sleep, due to being stressed out about:
3. Is baby okay (having exact same latching issues I had with Casper at first - it is hard to get tiny ones to open their mouths far enough to get a good latch, plus 24 hour bilirubin is on the high side so they'll test again at the ped tomorrow, so I fear we'll also repeat the Casper jaundice not bad enough to treat but resulting in sleepiness and forced waking to nurse and cold washcloth on the feet).
4. Also, it's hot and humid again so I get to be sweaty and worry that the baby is dehydrated. Why wasn't the human body designed so that the milk comes in faster???
5. Casper's a bit of a wreck, and it's stressful and sad-making. A lot of the time she seems fine, but then she'll have a breakdown. And of course she suggested we leave the baby at the hospital.
6. Did I mention I hate being in the hospital? They don't let you fucking sleep, they keep taking away your fucking baby, the food sucks and it's a gigantic paperworky pain in the ass. I was very happy with my care from admittance to an hour after delivery, and then rolled my eyes and huffed in impatience for the next 26 hours until we got to go home. On the plus side, their air conditioning is better than ours. Redoubling the negative, there's no wifi in the entire damned place.
7. Another positive: except for the so tired I have a headache and could die, I feel really great for having had a baby 36 hours ago.
8. My mother's also stressing me out a bit. Such is life.

I want to write up about the amazing speed and intensity but easiness of Dillo's birth, and how he cried a lot at first (unlike Casper) and was all puffy and Winston-Churchill-y (unlike Casper) but after a first big nap spent most of last evening and night awake and alert and all about his fingers, which are slim and looong and hyperextend and he rubs his face and successfully gets one in his mouth and sucks it like a mad thing. (See, if they'd had wifi I would have been writing this at 12am instead of annoyedly waiting for them to return my kid.)

Instead you get tired sweaty worried sleepy baby cranky toddler worries. Sorry. But, there are pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/casperflea/

I am feeling very sorry for myself today. Why am I having another child, again? I am hot, tired, uncomfortable, headachy, sore, creaky, bored and cranky. That's like the evil eight dwarves of pissiness. Nothing is helping, not even a roll of plain chocolate hobnobs and iced coffee.

And it's going to get WORSE before it gets better. Imagine when I actually have a newborn.

It got hot. 90 yesterday and for the next 2; mid-60s at night. Which is normal, but we'd been having this lovely 75 day/50 night weather for so long...
Set AC: on
Set garden: neglect
Set flea: suffering and whining

I am stressed due to mother's visit. Hence tonight's unsleeping. Also, despite her plans she has not yet begun to either pamper me or clean my house. But did manage to make me rack up a huge Whole Foods bill. (Note to self: do not shop at Whol;e Foods with rich people unless they are buying.)

Baseball sabermetricians on my flist (yes, both of you) may be interested in the book The Wages of Wins, reviewed by Malcolm Gladwell in the current (May 29 ) New Yorker. It's by economists and about basketball and valuing players; it's much more complicated to determine what contribution a basketball player makes to the team's success based on stats. Interesting.

Sleep news: after a great start to the week, Casper was horrible between 3:15 and 4:45 last night. Awake, crying and whining alternately, a pain in the ass, nothing was right (I repositioned the bunny, the bunny blanket and the soft blanket approximately 47 times), when I got frustrated and tried to tag-team out to mr. flea she howled for 10 minutes. This can't go on. On two levels - I need more sleep than I'm getting, and will need even more in future, and I need to be able to tag-team out to mr. flea, and will even more in future.

Ow news: well, my pelvis only hurts when I stand up and walk. Unfortunately, I have to do that a fair amount. It's just an ache, not killing me, but I'd certainly rather not have it. I also fell off a kitchen stool backwards yesterday AM (I am blaming the cat, for startling me) and landed on my shoulder and hip. As expected, I was fine at the time and today am stiff and sore. Ow.

Mood news: having a bad attitude at work. Got exasperated at someone, who deserved it, but there's no point me getting exasperated when it doesn't accomplish anything. Tired. Dreading having a newborn about. Want a vacation from my life (primarily, anything to do with stress and responsibility, i.e. work and child) at the moment. Financially and practically impossible.

It's not all bad. Casper and I had a wonderful time together yesterday afternoon, cooking dinner. She ate nearly all the green beans I was planning to cook, raw. But I need a break. And some sleep. Don't know how to get either right now.