Category Archives: trials and tribulations

Checklist

Posted on December 11, 2008 | Comments Off on Checklist
  • Inability to find a comfortable position in which to sleep/sit/eat/exist? Check.
  • General grumpiness? Check.
  • Constant fatigue, due to item 1 and contributing to item 2? Check.
  • Lower back and round ligament pain? Check.
  • Irritating emotional instability? Check.
  • Possibly irrational levels of anger at Mr. Squab’s place of employment for its no-leave-nohow-for-nobody policy? Check. Maybe. Except for the irrational part, because WTF?
  • Ever-lingering nausea? Check.
  • Ravenous hunger combined with total apathy towards any actual food? Check.
  • Increasing inability to engage in complex thought because this baby is SUCKING MY BRAIN CELLS? Double Checkity Check-Check.

I tell you what, if I read one more time about the damn second trimester “glow” or “energy surge” I am going to stage a public conniption fit.

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Posted in trials and tribulations

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On the mend

Posted on December 8, 2008 | Comments Off on On the mend

Amoxycillin is a wonderful thing. Took the Hatchling to urgent care and only one ear was infected but it had also ruptured – OUCH – and she had a lot of lovely congestion to boot. She haaaaaaaates the medicine (can’t blame her: it’s “orange dreamsicle” flavored) but we’ve been getting it down her gullet twice a day and she’s already feeling much, much better. Last night she only woke up once, a drastic improvement over the past three days. We’re lying low today but I think we’ll actually make it.

I have to say, I did not handle this sickness well. Usually I’m pretty good with the coddling and cuddling that goes with a sick kid, but for some reason – I’m guessing because I’m already low on energy reserves due to my fetal enhancement – I was going OUT OF MY MIND this weekend. I don’t think the Hatchling picked up on it (though poor Mr. Squab did) but by last night I was just losing it left and right. Part of it was the lack of sleep, but even more than that was the feeling of no escape from the sick kiddo. She was literally attached to me for 85% of the weekend – couldn’t sleep unless she was in bed with me, couldn’t be awake unless she was right up next to me on the sofa, and if I had to get up to, you know, pee or get something to eat, she would start mournfully moaning “oh, no … OH, no … OH, NOOOO!” in escalating tones until I came back. I could not get anything done, and even if I could have gotten away for a moment I was too damn tired to accomplish anything. It was just making me totally nuts – and, like, how churlish is that? Christ, it’s not her fault she’s sick. And as Mr. Squab truthfully observed, in a few years I’ll WISH she’d snuggle with me on the sofa for the whole day. But it wasn’t helping this weekend. And then I started thinking, crap, she’s basically just behaving like a little baby … and we’re having one of those soon … and what if THAT makes me crazy like this is? ACKKKKK. Because, you know, that kind of worst-case-scenario thinking is so incredibly helpful at all times. Ahem.

Anyway, I got some sleep last night and Mr. Squab put up some Christmas decorations and cleaned up the kitchen and rubbed my back and tried not to laugh at me for bursting into tears whenever anyone looked at me crosseyed. So today things are better. Onwards and upwards, right?

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Posted in parenting highlights, trials and tribulations, updates

Memed

Posted on December 7, 2008 | Comments Off on Memed

The Hatchling has been sick since yesterday with what we this evening determined is probably a double ear infection. No one has gotten much sleep the last two nights, and tonight isn’t looking much better. Mostly all she wants to do is cling to my side and watch PBS kids. So … not so much with the blogging time, or the any other kind of time. Fortunately, I got tagged, which is a synonym for lazy blogging. Hopefully I can get this post done before the Hatchling needs urgent maternal attention again.

1. Five names you go by
a) Elise
b) Ceesa
c) Mama
d) Lees
e) Elisimo/Imo

2. Three things you are wearing right now:
a) Stretchy maternity pants
b) Stretchy maternity top
c) Irish totem necklace

3. Two things you want very badly at the moment:
a) To win the lottery.
b) A healthy child who can return to her normal excellent sleeping habits.

4. Three people whom I would like to see fill this out:
a) Scott
b) Question
c) Miz E

5. Two things you did last night (Friday, 12/5):
a) Ate Chipotle (mmmm)
b) Watched a truly unhealthy amount of Sesame Street

6. Two things you ate/drank today:
a) Unbelievably good wild rice soup (courtesy my mother-in-law)
b) Pomegranate 7-up (pretty good!)

7. Two people you last talked to on the phone:
a) My sister, getting an update on the baby
b) My BFF, putting in my order for Chipotle

8. Two things you are going to do tomorrow:
a) Take the Hatchling to the urgent care pediatrician
b) (fingers crossed) get a Christmas tree and start decorating the house

9. Two longest car rides:
a) Athens, GA to St. Cloud, MN
b) Columbus, OH to Santa Barbara, CA

10. Two of your favorite beverages:
a) caramel cafe lattes
b) chocolate malts

AND ANOTHER:

Pick a color for the things that you have done. Mine are in red letters.
I have…
1. Started my own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than I can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland/world
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sung a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched lightning at sea
14. Taught myself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown my own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitchhiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Skied a marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of my ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught myself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had my portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi concentration camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had my picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee
100. Ridden an elephant

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Posted in quizzes and lists, trials and tribulations

Awesome and Not Awesome

Posted on November 9, 2008 | Comments Off on Awesome and Not Awesome

Awesome:
Having your mother, who is basically Martha Stewart, come for a visit and cook and clean like a true maniac. She cleaned my room, y’all. She is the ONLY person other than myself whom I would allow to even witness my room in its usual state of chaotic decrepitude, and not only did she witness it, in three hours she cleaned that sucker from top to bottom. I can only assume that she’ll dine out on the horror of it for weeks to come, but so far she’s been very pleasant about it to my face. We have also been eating like royalty, including fried chicken with hawaiian rice, pork chops with garlic mashed potatoes, roasted sweet potatoes, and fresh green beans, and tonight’s meal of sauerbraten with poppyseed noodles and red cabbage. That’s not even including the chocolate chip cookies, pound cake with chocolate cream cheese frosting, and banana bread. Mr. Squab thinks he died and went to heaven. She also does all the dishes, and has been helping me sort through all the Hatchling’s baby clothes and clean out the Hatchling’s room – oh, and then today she went out and bought the Hatchling a new twin bed because she has already outgrown the toddler bed we just set up for her about a month ago. (No, really: as in breaking the slats that hold up the mattress. She’s the size of a four year old.) We also went out today and got supplies for her to knit the Hatchling a purple and green cardigan with dragonfly buttons. A clean house, good food, new clothes and furniture: these are the building blocks of a peaceful Squabby mind. We will be very sad to see her go, and she’ll probably collapse from exhaustion the minute she steps onto the plane.

Not Awesome:
Having a reaction to the flu shot I got on Thursday that makes me feel … well … kind of like I’m getting the flu. So I’m spacey and really tired and not much good for anything. I woke up this morning at five o’clock with what I thought was an allergy attack, but it didn’t go away and I’ve felt increasingly blech as the day progressed. (And if you ever need evidence that I am not a morning person, just try talking to me when I’ve been forced out of bed at 5 AM by nasal difficulties. It’s not pretty, y’all. Not pretty at all.) It had BETTER be a reaction to the shot and not some actual disease coming on, because I’m supposed to fly out to see my sister and her new baby this coming weekend, and I refuse to be waylaid. Take that, contagion.

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Posted in Best Thing Ever, la famiglia, sleep, trials and tribulations

Every silver lining has a cloud

Posted on November 6, 2008 | Comments Off on Every silver lining has a cloud

So, not to rain on anyone’s parade, but how ’bout those shitty election outcomes all over the country? Yeah, I know – Obama’s election is huge, and it really did make me very extremely happy, and I’m hopeful about the presidency for the first time in a long time. BUT. WTF, California? Why you gotta hate on the lesbians and gays? What have they ever done to you, other than inject absolute SCADS of money into your state’s economy? And locally, I admit being completely unable to comprehend the reelection of Michele Bachmann, Erik Paulsen, and (possibly, but please Maude no) Norm Coleman. What the hell kind of blue state sends people like that to the nation’s capital?

Honestly, I don’t want to harsh anyone’s buzz – it’s important to celebrate Obama’s ascendancy. I get that. But I just hope that we don’t forget that, for all that Obama might make it possible to not be embarrassed to be an American again, there’s still a whole lotta fucked up shit around this country. A lot of racism, and homophobia, and sexism, and general ignorance and hatefulness and criminal ineptitude. Which is just to say … yeah, let’s enjoy the moment, but hoo, there’s still a whole lotta work to be done.

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Posted in current events, politics, trials and tribulations

tap-tap-tap … Is this thing on?

Posted on October 28, 2008 | Comments Off on tap-tap-tap … Is this thing on?

Wait … I have a BLOG? Holy crap, why didn’t anyone tell me?!?!

OK, I know it’s been about forever since I last posted. I can always tell that it’s been too long when I start getting concerned emails from friends and family with carefully worded greetings along the lines of “oh, hi, hope everything is ok! Sure do miss those blog posts! I’m sure you’re just really busy!” but where the subtext is clearly “JESUS CHRIST, ARE YOU ALIVE? POST SOMETHING, FOR FUCK’S SAKE!”

So, you know. Message received. And sorry to be the cause for concern. Why have I not been posting, you ask? Lord, I don’t know. Part of it is that I’m busy. I can’t really post when the Hatchling is up, because if she sees the laptop open she either requests, repeatedly, to watch “bee-yos” (videos) or wants to “push button” which results in very distracted, if not illegible, blog posts. When she naps, I nap, so no posting then. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights I’m either teaching or at meetings or rehearsals, so that’s out. Which basically leaves weekends, Monday nights and Friday nights as possible blogging time, and lately I haven’t had the gumption those times to do much more than catch up on TV or read novels. Which brings me to the other reason for the lack of posts: no gumption. I’m not depressed, exactly. I *am* motherloving tired All. The. Time. And … have I mentioned how I don’t enjoy the pregnancy thing so much? Yah. I really, really, really, really-to-the-nth-power do not fucking enjoy being pregnant. Love the result, hate the process. I just feel shitty all the time, and I’m having a hard time keeping my blood sugars where they should be, and I’m already sick of restricting my diet to diabetes-approved items and I’m already HUGE and I cannot find a comfortable position to sleep in so I don’t get much sleep and I still have like five months to go and it’s just going to get worse. And what’s even worse than the physical discomforts – which are legion – is the guilt for not being able to pull my weight around the house. Seriously, I think I’ve cooked a meal, like, once in the past two weeks. Mr. Squab does ALL the laundry. I almost never have the energy (or, increasingly, the coordination) to pick up after the Hatchling, so Mr. Squab typically comes home from a day’s work to a dirty kitchen, a hyper toddler, a living room that looks like it’s been hit by a smallish tornado, and a wife who’s cranky he couldn’t get home earlier and feels like she needs a break. God, it’s demoralizing. And the sense of guilt makes me even crankier, so I don’t always even say thank you or otherwise show some semblance of gratitude. Not because I’m not thankful, but because acknowledging the huge imbalance is so painful. Which … is just really not a nice way to behave. Mr. Squab never complains about it (though he did say the other day that it’s a good thing I’m cute when I’m pregnant because otherwise he’d never make it), and my friends all keep reminding me that, hello, it’s not like I’m not doing anything – I’m growing a freaking human inside me! – and I know this is true. And, like my sister says, it’s not as if this is our whole marriage; this is just a brief moment on the long timeline of our relationship, and there will no doubt come a day when I will have the opportunity to repay the kindness. It’s just hard to feel that way when you’re in the middle of it, you know?

So anyway, blah, blah, blah, whine whine whine. This is the kind of stuff on my mind lately, and it’s just so BORING to be so pissy all the time. And if even *I* find it boring, I don’t feel like I should inflict it on my lovely blog readers. Who am I to waste your valuable blog reading time? However, I will try not to take unintentional week-long hiatuses (hiati? hiatae?) anymore. After all, not everything here in squab-land is dismal. The Hatchling is being an extremely awesome little trouper about having only a partially-functional mama, and is keeping us entertained with her various weird pronouncements and activities. (We have decided that 2 1/2 is the age of weird; I’ll have to post more specifics later this week.) I have an amazing set of friends who help keep me afloat, doing everything from giving me huge bags of hand-me-down clothes for the ever-embiggening Hatchling to offering me housekeeping and massage (!!!) services when I’m feeling particularly beleaguered. And this week – on Thursday – we’re going to find out what flavor of baby we’re having, which will be exciting. Plus it looks like Obama’s going to win (knock wood, cross fingers, throw salt over shoulder, etc.), so that’s, you know, good. And stuff.

Anyway, that’s my update. And how are all of YOU doing?

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Posted in trials and tribulations, updates

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Wheeeee!

Posted on October 10, 2008 | Comments Off on Wheeeee!

Well, I SPECTACULARLY failed my gestational diabetes test this morning. How spectacularly, you ask? Well, let me put it this way: there are normally two tests for GD. You take the first, shorter one, and if you fail that then you have to take the longer, four hour one so they can really make sure. But me? I did so amazingly poorly on the first test that they aren’t even making me TAKE the second one. The lab tech was all, yeah, we’re just going call this one now and start treating you because this is ridiculous. Yo: when the LAB TECH thinks it’s ridiculous, that is some serious shit. You gotta give me credit. I do things with panache.

On the upside, Mr. Squab and the Hatchling have developed a new game, where she stands there and Mr. Squab gives her rotating commands of either “kick,” “jump,” “punch,” or “spin.” It’s like Toddler Bop-it, and it is truly hilarious to watch.

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Posted in trials and tribulations

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Grump

Posted on October 8, 2008 | Comments Off on Grump

I’ve been in a royally bad mood for the last 5 days, and bad moods are not conducive to blogging, I find. Partly I’m in a bad mood because I feel like crap ALL THE TIME, whether from the nausea – which is not going away because apparently nobody told Bubba that he or she is supposed to knock that shit OFF in the second trimester – or constipation, or allergies and sinus headaches, or fatigue, or whatever. It’s a fucking feel-like-crap cocktail over here, and I’m good and sick of it.

And then last Thursday night, I got into Cherry Ames to go to rehearsal, and saw that some person or thing had hit my windshield, hard, with a pointy object, resulting in a big crescent of cracks on the lower driver’s side. Y’all, I can’t even describe how PISSED OFF this made, and is still making, me. I am so fucking OVER living in a neighborhood where I cannot park my car on the street outside my house without some asshole crashing into it, vandalizing it or breaking the windshield. (All things that have happened to family cars in the three years we’ve lived here.) I am sick of the gunfights, and the stuff being stolen from my yard, and the break-ins, and the graffiti, and All. The. Shit. I mean, Christ! I know I live in an urban area – and I’m committed to that, I have absolutely no interest in living in the suburbs. I value city living, and being in a neighborhood where white is not the dominant skin color, and where kids from families from different income and education levels all play together at the local playground. These things are important to me. But I am getting real close to my limit on destruction of my personal property and use of violent weapons in my immediate vicinity. Not that my limits matter a good goddamn, because what are we supposed to do? The housing market is plumb saturated in this town, and I highly doubt that we’d get even what we paid for the place, much less making a profit on it. Not to mention that there are still some improvements to be made before it would even be worth putting it on the market in the first place. And even LESS to mention that I have negative interest in moving while pregnant – I did that last time and it’s, you know, no good. So we’re stuck, and I just have to suck it up and deal with it, just like I have to suck it up and deal with the nausea, etc. If anyone knows of an available donor for an attitude transplant, y’all let me know. I sure do hate being grumpy all the time.

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Posted in outrage, trials and tribulations, updates

Question

Posted on September 24, 2008 | Comments Off on Question

Is it possible for nausea to get *worse* in the second trimester?

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Posted in Questions, trials and tribulations

Sigh.

Posted on September 23, 2008 | Comments Off on Sigh.

Well, there goes another $500 down the drain. Our refrigerator has just … stopped working. The freezer still seems to be operational, but the refrigerator part has just completely given up the ghost. Which is, you know, something of a problem what with all the groceries we just bought. Today I crammed as many things as possible into the tiny refrigerator I had left over from college, but I don’t know what’s going to happen to the milk and the eggs, neither of which fit into the mini-fridge. We went to Home Depot and bought a new, low-end one tonight, but of course they can’t deliver it until Friday, so … this should be another FUN WEEK at the Squab household.

Feh, I say. Feh.

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Posted in trials and tribulations