Sweet Yet Sour

For my birthday – My mom is back!

Friday, May 30th, 2008 | The Daily Special | 3 Comments

Almost a month has passed since my birthday, but I’ve been busy so I haven’t had time to write this post.  For my birthday I got a lovely pot rack from Mike (see his Cameraphone picture of it here), which Mike and my dad hung this last weekend. 

As much as I love my new copper pot rack, the most important part of my birthday is that I feel as if I have gotten my mom back. 

As my regular readers know, this odyssey began on February 6th, when my mom went in for what was supposed to be a routine surgery to remove her gall bladder.  Instead, it turned into a nightmare of multiple surgeries, two weeks in ICU and then several weeks in the recovery area of the hospital.  She was really sick and for a while it seemed that the doctors were not able to figure out what had gone wrong (we think there might be some medical malpractice at play).  At the lowest point, my mom was unable to walk, talk, or eat and had seemed to have lost parts of her memory. 

During this time, my sister and I visited our mom when we could and for several weeks came home crying after we visited.  I was eight months pregnant and a little emotional anyway, but I really cried the day that my mom’s primary care doctor pointed at me and asked my mom, “Who is that?” My mom simply stared at me without recognition, when she had just been able to tell the doctor the exact year that my dad began his teaching job.  

My sister and I worked hard to get my mom to practice walking down the hallway of the hospital and organizing her friends to do the same on the days that we were not able to visit.  Sometimes when I would try to get my mom to walk she would grimace at me and say, “No” with an anger I have never seen – nor hope to ever see again.  It felt like I was torturing her, but I so wanted her to get better that I would force her to walk with me down the hall.  I kept reminding her that the baby was due soon and I needed her help.  My dad spent every minute he wasn’t teaching at the hospital taking great care of my mom; so much so that he rarely ate a meal during these weeks. 

I learned that my mom has some awesome friends and that when they are organized they are a force to be reckoned with.  They visited my mom sometimes several times a day, talking to her, giving her foot massages, making inspirational cards for her, and when we asked them to, they packed lunches for my dad to eat while he visited her in between class and his lab sessions.  It’s a testament to how great my mom is that she has such wonderful and devoted friends.

Finally, in March, my mom came home, but she was much changed from the woman she was before the surgery.  She did remember us at that point, but she could only walk a few steps with the help of a walker.  She tired easily, couldn’t concentrate long enough to read (which she loves to do), wasn’t able to talk much, and still was only eating small bits. 

I’m really proud of my mom for the progress that she has made these past few months.  She was determined to get better and she has almost returned to the way that she was prior to the surgery.  For my birthday, she and my dad ventured up to my house, and spent a lot of time holding the baby. 

She gave me an awesome slow cooker for a present (it’s huge and programmable!) and she made me my favorite birthday cake – whipped cream roll.  She also got me the latest book in the Precious Ramotswe series, and now that I have finished the book, she’s had a chance to read it as well.  My mom has also returned to doing the New York Times crosswords every day and unfortunately for her, she’s making dinner every day as well (I know she gets tired of making dinner). 

This week my mom went on a hike up a tough trail with my dad and their dog and returned to one of her favorite spring time activities – collecting wild asparagus for dinner.  She’s returned to making granola and yogurt, walking the dog and working in her garden.  I talk to her every day now and as horrible as it was when she was sick, I try to remember it so that I keep in mind how far my mom has come in the past few months.

I love my mom and really hated it when I wasn’t able to talk to her every day while she was sick.  I told her on Mother’s Day in her card that I will never take her for granted again.  I hope to keep that promise, because my mom truly is a wonderful mom and a great friend.  I’m so glad to have her back!

Postpartum Crazy

Tuesday, May 20th, 2008 | Seriously? | 2 Comments

Despite what Tom Cruise has to say about it, postpartum depression (I’m calling it postpartum crazy) exists, and I challenge the sanity of any woman who says that she didn’t experience it after their children are born (especially the first). I can’t see how you could get around it during the first few weeks.

Let’s review some of the triggers and symptoms of the Postpartum Crazy period for me:

1. First, Anna is six weeks old and I have been writing this post in my head since week two and have only now been able to sit down to even begin writing the post. That’s how completely busy I have been.

2. During the last few weeks of my pregnancy, when people would ask how I was, sometimes I would answer with something like, “I don’t sleep – I just can’t get comfortable and I get up to pee 5 times a night.” More times than not the person would smirk and say, “Get used to it.” It was the smirk that always made me mad, as if somehow they were getting pleasure out of knowing that I would soon be a zombie.

And yes, it’s true, I am generally up several times a night, about every two hours, with Anna duty. Sometimes I feed her, change her, and get her calmed down enough for her to go back to sleep only to have to wake up again in an hour to do the whole thing again. Who wouldn’t go crazy with a schedule like that?

3. This lack of sleep has multiple affects, the first being that I am of course tired, but also that I am forgetful, grumpy and a little loopy. The other day I changed the baby, only to forget that I had already changed the baby 10 minutes later and advised Mike that Anna needed to be changed again.

4. I also am unable to carry on a conversation a lot of the time because I can’t remember words for things other than “diapers” and “wipes”. I’d love to talk about world events and politics with someone, but unless Hilary and Obama start having a discussion about whether cloth or disposable diapers are best, I don’t think I can contribute to a meaningful conversation!

5. The other day, during a quiet period while Anna slept in her swing, I watched the “Ellen” show for a few minutes of rest. Beckham was on, talking about how he and Posh Spice loved kids and wanted more. In my postpartum loopiness I actually wasted time wondering whether or not Posh has a nanny, because I couldn’t imagine wanting to be up at all hours with another child anytime soon. And then I wondered if Posh has stretch-marks and if she breastfed. Isn’t it a sure indication that I have lost my mind that I even spent any time at all wondering if Victoria Beckham has stretch-marks?

6. I was in the shower the other day and had to seriously consider, “Will my regular Suave shampoo get the spit up and lanolin out of my hair, or should I go for the Prell?” I went for the Prell in the end and it seems to have done the job. But eww…

7. The incident above was on one of the rare days when I actually get a shower. Some days, and sometimes several days in a row I don’t get the chance to shower. There are just some days where if I set the baby down, she cries inconsolably and I haven’t yet figured out a way to shower and hold the baby. By the time that Mike is home and I have an opportunity for a shower, I’m either too busy getting the things done that absolutely require two hands or too tired to do anything but conk out.

8. I have also found that even the two minutes that it takes for my electric toothbrush to run its full cycle is too long on those “colicky” days of Anna’s. I very rarely have the time to put her down and run through the full cycle, unless I do it while holding the baby at the same time – which means that really, only one side of my mouth is really getting the full benefit of the tooth-brushing.

I end up spending many days not having showered or brushed my teeth completely, never mind putting deodorant on, and with my hair up because it’s the best way to prevent the over the shoulder spit up from ending up somewhere in the tangles.

I’ve never been a “girly-girl”; I wear make-up rarely, skirts almost never and have found that if I paint my fingernails I’m so distracted by the color I can’t type but instead stare at my hands. But I’ve found myself so disgusted with my own un-cleanliness that I go overboard when I do get the chance to clean up. A few weeks ago Mike gave me the opportunity to go out while he took care of the baby; I was so overjoyed at the relief from my stinky-ness that I showered and wore heels to go to the grocery store!

So, if you come for a visit and something smells, it could be Anna’s diaper, or it could be me, her postpartum crazy mom…

Book Funds

Tuesday, May 13th, 2008 | The Daily Special | 2 Comments

I’m up late at night a lot lately – feeding Anna of course – and sometimes during the night I switch on the radio to keep myself awake. During the early morning hours the local NPR station switches over to a BBC feed where if you’re not paying attention you can fall asleep to the ultimately boring broadcast of cricket scores.

However, the other night I heard a report on the online archival of all of Charles Darwin’s writings by the University of Cambridge. There are plenty of interesting things on the website, and someday, when I have time, I’d love to really explore the whole thing.

During the interview with the man who headed the effort to put all of Darwin’s writings online, I heard something that made me think and made me like Darwin even more than I already did.

Darwin at some point created a “Memo on Marriage“; a list of pros and cons of getting married. It contains interesting insights into Darwin’s thinking.

On the “pros” list there are items such as, “constant companion” and “better than a dog anyhow”. The”con” list contains notes such as, “Freedom to go where one liked” and “Anxiety and responsibility”.

But here’s the best and most memorable part of the cons list: a short and simple item, “Less money for books”. Seeing as how I am practically a book hoarder and find it extremely difficult to pass by a bookstore, let alone go into one and come out empty-handed, I completely agree with this sentiment.

I don’t agree with Darwin that marriage has depleted my book funds, although marriage to a man with a penchant for expensive photography equipment has limited them. But on the other hand, this is something that should be kept in mind in many areas of life…

Probably I should have this phrase tattooed somewhere on the hand that I use to reach for my credit card. That way, when I go to buy something silly like groceries or pay the electric bill, I can contemplate on the necessity of the transaction as it relates to a degradation in my funds for future book purchases. I can see the tattoo and think to myself, “Do we really need butter this week? Because there’s a new Connie Willis book coming out…”