For crying out loud

Kids really need to come with instruction manuals.

I read everything I could get my hands on when I had Zoe. This time, I read next to nothing, but I need more than anything to find that magic nugget that explains to me why this boy cries all the time and why I can do nothing to stop it.

I have seen the light at the end of the tunnel lately. After getting a clean bill of health from Jacob's doctor and trying all the "approved" remedies, I've been branching out. My dear dear dear dear friend Rebecca has been gathering intelligence from seasoned moms, and in the past two nights I've tried Karo syrup and rice cereal, with mixed success.

The crying has diminished. The sleeping is still lacking.

The figure-out-what's-bugging-him-tonight ritual has been starting later and ending earlier. But now I'm on HIS schedule, and when he does drift off, I'm wide awake.

We'll get it right at some point. I'm confident. But just when I think I might have it, he jerks awake, and it starts again. I feel like I'm teetering on the edge of success with each new thing.

Until the crying starts again.

He's almost six weeks old. Many women have to go back to work after that amount of time. I just can't imagine having to deal with that right now. I was supposed to have a six-week checkup to finish up my short-term disability benefits, but I can't even get it together enough to remember to make an appointment for that.

Joe is sick again. Zoe seems to be entertaining the idea of illness. If Jacob gets sick, I might just have to commit myself to long-term, in-patient psychiatric care. No visitors allowed.

It's a scream

Joe came home Tuesday afternoon. I have to admit, when I woke up Tuesday knowing he was going to be home, I felt like I could breathe again. Like I had been holding my breath since he left.

When I finally picked him up at the airport, I felt like I was holding my breath again.

He seemed somehow changed though, and over the next two days, I learned why as he told stories about seeing his daughters, who he hadn't seen in about four years, and his grandchildren, who he had never met. I could tell he already missed them very much and that he realized that spending that much time estranged was a huge mistake.

And he mentioned that his daughters insisted on coming to our wedding.

Sigh.

We spent a week of hell (again) last week fighting about what seemed to be the end of the world, and then after he calms down he (once again) acts like nothing has happened. It's amazing.

I finally got up the nerve tonight to tell him we needed to talk. "About what?"

ABOUT WHY WE NEARLY BROKE UP AND WHY WE NEARLY BREAK UP EVERY OTHER MONTH AND WHAT THIS WILL DO TO THE LIVES OF MY CHILDREN IF IT DOES HAPPEN AND WHY YOU SEEM OK TO GET OVER IT AND MOVE ON WITHOUT LETTING ANYONE ELSE KNOW.

I didn't want to talk about it tonight though. We are both exhausted. Jacob was screaming well into the night last night. And well into the morning. And some of the afternoon. And now.

Good, night

"In between the moon and you the angels get a better view
Of the crumbling difference between wrong and right."

-- Round Here, Counting Crows



It's almost 5 a.m. I have just gotten Jacob to go to sleep. Ahhhhhh.

I've stewed a lot today about why Joe should have scheduled his Florida trip for another time. I've gotten pissed at the Huggies people for the package of defective diapers I managed to buy that cost me two loads of laundry just today. I nearly burned out the motor on one of my car's windows thinking I had outsmarted the ice that collected in the crevices of the door. I've stared down parts of the house and over hours and hours slowly concluded that cleaning them could wait another day or two or three. I even sat on the toilet at midnight and dealt with the constipation that no coffee will do to a person, while simultaneously feeding a bottle to a newborn parked in a carrier, assessing a kindergartener's mysterious leg injury and trying to get through a column of news briefs in the nation section of the newspaper.

I'm talented, I tell ya.

And now, now that I've spent the past few hours doing little more than what I do every night -- figuring out a little person -- I finally succeeded in figuring out a little person: he will sleep when he's damn well ready.

I'm going to do something I would never think of getting away with if Joe were here: I'm going to collect my two beautiful, sleeping children and sleep in my bed with them, cuddled up, as long as they will allow me to.

Alone

Joe left this morning.

I had offered to drive him to the airport, but when I woke up to get Zoe off to school, he was already gone.





I don't want to be alone.

Can't keep it together

"Somebody told me
That this is the place
Where everything's better,
Everything's safe."

-- Walk on the Ocean, Toad the Wet Sprocket



Is it just me?

Or does everyone have all these relationship obstacles?

I'm thinking I might have my own set of unique relationship-busting traits. Take for example, my self-assured mantra that lasted until about, oh, six years ago, when I constantly told myself I didn't want kids, that I could not possibly bring a child into this horrible world, nor have the patience to nurture them through it.

My stand on that issue probably would have rooted out many potential suitors, and yet I ended up having children with men who also thought having children or having more children was not in the cards for them, and seemed happy enough to keep it that way. Yet seemed happy enough when the "surprise" spilled out on the delivery room table.

In my own trailer-parky way, I've managed to carve out two new beings in the universe. It's made me want a family of my own so much, probably since the natural progression of having a relationship then having a child should lead to some kind of cohesive, lasting thing. And losing my mother as a teen once made me snub that kind of thing, but now I have a pressing desire to re-create what my family life was like with her. I like to fantasize now that my mom's obit said she was married a bazillion years and died so old. And that I would do the same. And I feel like a failure. It didn't happen for either of us, for different reasons: She never got to, and I just never got it.

My kids will be half-siblings, but they will never feel that way if I can help it. And I have a deep admiration for both of them... the new one is so fascinating, but I never grow tired of sitting on the side of Zoe's bed watching her sleep. And if their fathers don't have an interest in me, they will never feel for a moment that their fathers don't want them, even if I have to beat the shit out of someone to make that happen.

But am I crazy for wishing I had a constant role model for them? Someone who will stick around, get on the floor with them, suffer through nursery rhyme stories over and over at bedtime, get dirty with them outside, relent and get them those expensive sneakers just this once, cuddle with them when they are sick? I mean, who the hell would be interested in that kind of shit? And take care of my sorry ass too?

Every time I think I have it.....

Here we go again

"Hook me up a new revolution
'Cause this one is a lie."

-- Learn to Fly, Foo Fighters



Jacob got up last night at about 2 a.m. Joe decided, I guess, that he was going to show me how it's done since he had all that experience being stuck at home with him yesterday.

We ended up, um, talking, about what he was upset about. He told me I was insulting him if I didn't know, but I really didn't, so he told me.

He was upset that Bob saw the baby.

Yeah. As if the baby would turn to stone or something. As if he doesn't see Bob's child every single day.

I asked Joe what we were going to do about it, and he said he was thinking about it. "I'm this close," he said.

"This close to what?"

"Asking you to get out."

I ended up giving him his ring back, and told him that if he ever felt like he meant it, he could give it back.

After giving it thought today, if he does give it back, it will be with plenty of conditions, including counseling to figure out what the fuck his beef is with Bob, someone who he's never even met. And it's not like Bob's going away, he's Zoe's dad for crying out loud. I also want him to figure out why he completely shuts down and then overreacts to, what seem to me, stupid fucking things. OMIGOD, BOB SAW THE BABY. CALL THE POLICE.

I am rather tired of Joe pulling the rug out from under me every couple of months. This is what, the fourth time that he's alluded to wanting me to get out of his house? That averages out to about once every three months. Shit, what if Bob lived in the same city? We might be doing this every weekend.

This instability is not fair to my kids. Or me. His hostility is completely irrational.

Jesus, I can't wait until he goes to Florida.

Well, that didn't take long

Joe and I are fighting, but I have no idea what we are fighting about. But I'm not exactly helping our situation.

Zoe's dad was in town visiting with her at my dad's house, and I went over to pick her up Monday when said visit was declared finito. When I got home, Joe was home from work, and livid. "I can't talk to you right now," he told me. "I will say something I don't want to say." And then he slept on the floor in his office all evening.

I know it was something about Zoe's dad, but I don't know what. That we were actually in the same room together for any length of time? Joe and I had spent a whole counseling session talking about Bob way back when, but I don't remember if we ever came to any conclusions about why Bob bothered Joe so much.

Fast-forward to 4:30 in the morning. I was up with the baby all night, I had a splitting headache from not indulging in caffeine, and Joe's alarm was going off. I asked him to help with the baby, take a turn for a while, and he said flat-out, "No." I asked him if he was going to talk to me about what's bothering him, and I got another, "No."

I totally flared up! I calmed myself down, and with all the clarity I could muster at the moment, I went downstairs and tried to talk to him again. He completely ignored me, so I goaded him with a threat that if he didn't talk to me, I'd leave him with the kid for the day and see how he liked it with no help, and he told me to go.

And so I did.

I spent the day with Zoe at my dad's, hoping Joe would call and just say something, anything. Even if was just, "Do we have any more diapers?" Nothing.

I went home in the evening, and Joe was feeding Jacob. His work clothes were still by the bed, untouched. I offered to take the baby and he refused. And as much as I wanted to snatch that kid up and cuddle with him, I let them be for the evening. They stayed upstairs in bed watching the Penguins game together and fell asleep. I keep poking my head in and looking at them, so peaceful, a couple of buddies who spent the day bonding.

I feel so fucking useless.

And I still don't know why we're fighting.

And Joe's leaving Friday morning.

Relief

"Sometimes it seems
Like this world's closing in on me,
And there's no way of breaking free,
And then I see you reach for me."

-- When I See You Smile, Bad English



Joe and I browsed the internet last night in an attempt to figure out why Jacob might be crying more and more each day. Colic definitely sounds like a possibility, but it also seems to me like a last resort diagnosis... if your baby is crying, and if no cause can bothered to be found, they call it colic.

One thing we found as a possibility is caffeine. I have been drinking low-octane coffee, and it normally takes a lot of caffeine to affect a breastfed baby, but we are desperate to figure this out so we decided this was the next thing to try after gas drops didn't work. Today I zapped it from my diet to see if it made a difference.

It was a WORLD of difference. Jacob had only of few jags lasting a few minutes instead of wailing constantly from 8 p.m. to 4 a.m.

I had a hard time nixing the coffee... I've been depending on it to help me with all this lack of sleep. And I LOVE coffee. But you know, sitting here watching him sleep when he's supposed to, and seeing that he's not acting like I just ripped his leg out of its socket, I'm happy to kiss coffee goodbye.

Joe let me sleep a lot today, and without coffee I needed it. It was a really great day. When I was awake Joe was all over us, and he made me breakfast and we watched football and made pizza and I napped a lot while Joe did all the laundry and chores and shit that needed to get done. And he took care of the baby when one of them wasn't hungry or sleeping. I don't think I even had to change a diaper today! I have been hating being stuck in the house, and I hate even more when I don't feel productive while being stuck in the house, but I let it all go today and just enjoyed having the time to do what I needed.

And it's so wonderful to see Joe smile again. He was joking and happy and bitched about Cowher all day. I haven't seen him like this since around Thanksgiving.

Ah, if only every day could be like this.

Joe's probably making up for some guilt for leaving me next weekend, but I'll take it. Zoe is with her dad this weekend, and while I miss her, I really needed a day to recharge.

In peace. And quiet.

I remember when I lost my mind...

"When you're out there, without care,
Yeah, I was out of touch.
But it wasn't because I didn't know enough:
I just knew too much."

-- Crazy, Gnarls Barkley


Joe is planning a trip to visit his daughters in Florida next weekend. He'll be gone for five days.

I think I was the last to know.

I was understandably upset when he told me about it. It seems he arranged for a plane ticket and told his kids when he was coming... and he just didn't think to run it by me.

Jacob has been difficult lately. Crying inconsolably. During the week I have been up at night with him, crying right along with him. Last night, since it was the weekend, I coaxed Joe into staying awake so he could help me with him. Joe about went out of his mind, and again tonight. He's been telling anyone who will listen that he's convinced we have a colicky baby. I don't disagree.

And he's off to Florida for five days.


I'm going out of my mind.

Crowded house, Part II

"If I lay here, if I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?
I don't quite know how to say how I feel.
Those three words I've said too much but not enough."

-- Chasing Cars, Snow Patrol



I'm trying not to be paranoid...

Joe's older daughter today found out that her cancer treatments have so far been successful. And his younger daughter had a baby of her own. He's been on the phone with them a lot lately getting updates and coaching them through this from afar, since they live in Florida.

He hasn't seen these daughters in several years, and when he found out they were going through tough times, he stepped up and re-established contact. I think it's great, and about time.

But -- and here's where the paranoid part kicks in -- I think he's been so preoccupied with them that he's not really invested in what's going on in his own house. I mean, we just had a baby. He horses around with Jacob for a few minutes a day, spends a few minutes in silence with me on the couch in the evening, and then he's either off talking to a daughter or sleeping or trying to stay awake to make it through a period of a Penguins game.

I miss him. I really don't know where he is these days. When I ask him how he is or if he's OK, I get the same thing: he's fine.

If this is fine...

I'm trying not to draw conclusions. Maybe he thinks I'm strong enough to carry a household of four on my own.

He'd be wrong.

Oh yeah...

One of the many reasons I miss Florida... sometimes:



My new laptop comes with these widgets, which I have set up so that I can check any time how sweaty I could be if I had stayed put in balmy Fort Lauderdale.

Crowded house

Who knew adding another person to our house would bring about such loneliness?

I have a feeling we are all feeling a little lonely these days. Joe comes home from work exhausted. He normally is asleep on the couch by 8 or 9. He doesn't seem to remember being up during the night, though he does sometimes get up to help me with the baby. But we don't talk as much as we used to, and I noticed he seems sad a lot. One of his daughters is going through cancer treatments, and the other is about to have a baby of her own. He shares news with me, matter-of-factly, but doesn't really talk about the toll it is taking on him.

Zoe is suddenly a chatterbox. Being inside while it's cold outside is creating some serious cabin fever. Going to school doesn't seem to take the edge off for her. I have her coming straight home from school now instead of going to the Boys & Girls Club, but I'm thinking I'll start her back to the club sooner than I thought. I feel horrible that I'm shushing her all the time when the baby is sleeping, and I haven't been letting her help with simple things like cooking dinner because I'm in such a hurry to get it done before the baby has to eat or before he wakes up. She has been crying a lot lately, and it just breaks my heart.

Jacob cries the most. He has had the sniffles and I know he's not feeling great. And when I'm away from him for more than a minute, he lets everyone know it. I think Joe gets a little cross when he can't comfort him. I do too. I can't even take a peaceful shower.

For me, being home all day with Jacob is not exactly a chore, but it's more work than I remember. I look forward to Zoe coming home, but then she's constantly chattering at me in one ear and I have a hungry baby crying in the other ear. I look forward to Joe coming home, but then I have two kids whining in one ear and Joe complaining about something in the other. I usually keep it together until Zoe goes to bed. By then Joe is usually on his way to sleeping, then I'm alone with the baby again. Sometimes he lets me fall into bed as early as 2 a.m., sometimes as late as 5 a.m.

When I do get to enjoy my kids, it's usually not at the same time, and I spend the time feeling guilty about the other. And I have to balance that with Joe, finding time to put our relationship on the frontburner, though it seems his stamina or interest in doing so is waning. And then there's the disparity inherent to paternity... Joe never approved of Zoe in our bed even when she had bad dreams, but now Jacob is in our bed every night. Explaining this to Zoe at bedtime every night while she's threatening to have bad dreams so I'll have to take care of her is killing me.

I haven't heard from anyone except my sister and my lawyer in Florida for a week.

I am trying so, so hard not to feel sorry for myself. Luckily I don't have the luxury of time to do so very often.

Happy New Year!

Best wishes to everyone for a safe and healthy year.



Jacob was born on Dec. 19. In time for Christmas, and in time for a tax deduction!



Everything about this pregnancy and labor and delivery was so very different from when Zoe was born. (For example, all the screaming and cursing I did this time. Even before labor started!) But as it turns out, Jacob is a great baby, much like Zoe was. He is pleasant and uncomplicated. Which is not to say he is not a ton of work. I forgot exactly how much work a newborn is! If I get my teeth brushed every other day, I feel successful.

While my dental hygiene may be on hiatus, my health has improved vastly. My energy is back! My body is my own again! Well, sort of. This kid loves to eat. But after battling a mountain of breastfeeding problems, we've finally got it down, and it really forces me to take a break and enjoy having a little one in my arms again.



All of this has also made me see how much Zoe has grown... physically and otherwise. What a young lady she has become! She has been very understanding and loving when it comes to her new baby brother, and my family has done a lot to keep her included. She has embraced her big-sister role and wants to help with everything, from unwrapping Jacob's presents to emptying his diaper pail. Little moments I steal with Zoe -- painting our nails or playing a round of dominoes when Jacob sleeps -- make me feel so close to her. Adding another child has added another layer to the relationship I have with Zoe, one that I didn't expect, and one that I cherish very much.

It's been far from easy, but when I look at my babies and think ahead 10-plus years to teenagers, I realize how easy this will seem then!