Category Archives: Uncategorized

We are NOT a fan of vaccinations.

That is all.

So, about two weeks ago I went on Zoloft. I never really got the “baby blues” as such, but a little after Mr. Squab went back to work, I noticed that I was starting to worry excessively about little things. I wasn’t sleeping well at all from being so tensed up, and I kept imagining awful (and highly unlikely) “what if” scenarios, like “what if I trip and fall down the stairs while I’m carrying the baby?” or “what if Mr. Squab gets into a car accident and dies?” or “what if the baby’s swaddling comes loose and she suffocates?” etc., etc. I couldn’t stop thinking about stuff like that.

Anxiety and depression run in my family, and I’ve certainly always been a “worrier.” Some of that is just standard oldest-child stuff: feeling responsible for the younger siblings, wanting to maintain order and carry on family traditions, wanting to “fix” things. But as I’ve gotten older I’ve noticed my worrying getting more intense, and sometimes veering into an unhealthy place. And of course extreme fatigue and the stress of a new baby don’t exactly do anything to alleviate nerves. When I was growing up, there was much less awareness of clinical depression and anxiety: my parents, who now take meds for those maladies, didn’t start them until well after I was out of the house. The drugs made a real difference for them, just in terms of keeping on an even keel, and I wonder sometimes how my childhood would have been different if drugs like Prozac and Celexa and Zoloft had been available back in the ’70s. Don’t get me wrong – it’s not like I had a bad upbringing or anything. Quite the contrary. But I think my good childhood was despite my parents’ struggles with depression and anxiety, a testament both to their abilities to overcome those things and to my ability to be blissfully unaware of them.

At any rate, I noticed that it was getting kind of bad, so I talked to Mr. Squab about it and he’d noticed it, too. I think anxiety can be worse than depression in some ways for the people living with the afflicted person. Anxiety can put so many demands on the entire family, making everyone overly cautious so as not to cause an outbreak. I don’t want Mr. Squab or the Hatchling to have to walk on eggshells just because I’m unreasonably nervous. There’s a teensy, irrational part of me that feels weak about this, a tiny little puritanical devil on my shoulder whispering “suck it up and just get over it already!” in my ear. But really, I know better than that: the weaker choice would be not to do anything about it. So Zoloft it is, for as long as I need it. And thank goodness, once again, that we’re among the insured, ’cause baby, those are some expensive pills.

So on Friday night, we’re up in Duluth, and we put the Hatchling down around 10:30, as per usual, expecting that being as how we were in a new place and all, she’d probably get up earlier than usual, maybe in an hour or so. We went to bed shortly thereafter. I woke up at 3:18 and realized she hadn’t made a peep yet. So I jumped to the obvious conclusion: she must be dead. I leapt out of bed and went over to the bassinet to see if I could feel her breath with my hand. In attempting to do so, I accidentally hit her cheek. She stirred, and my maternal reaction went in only seconds from relief (she’s not dead!) to fear (Mr. Squab will kill me if I woke her up!). I jumped back into bed, and lo: she kept sleeping until 5:30 in the morning. And just to cement the deal, she did the same thing last night. Oh, blessed day.

Yesterday was Mr. Squab’s and my 4th anniversary. To celebrate, we’re heading up north for the weekend. We’ll spend one night with Mr. Squab’s mother and insanely large dog, and then we’ll leave the Hatchling to her grandma’s tender care for a night while we go enjoy a hotel in downtown Duluth, complete with jacuzzi. Ahhh, yeah. It will be the first night we’ve spent without the Hatchling … I’m both excited (sleeping through the night!) and nervous (what if she misses us?!?).

Have a good weekend.

Scene: the Hatchling’s bedroom, from 9-11:30 PM.

The Hatchling: WAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Squab: Whatsa matter, bean? Do you have a diaper? huh? Need a snack? (gets Hatchling up, changes her, offers boob)

The Hatchling: SUCK SUCK SUCK suck suck suck suck suck zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz …

Squab (carefully scoots to edge of rocker, slooooooooowly stands up, tiptoes over to crib, gennnnnnnntly lays Hatchling in crib)

The Hatchling: WAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Squab: Crap. (picks Hatchling up, reswaddles her even tighter, turns her sideways and starts to jiggle) Shhhhhh … shhhhhh … shhhhhhh … shhhhhh …

The Hatchling: waaaahh.

(Repeat for 10 minutes. Squab loses sensation in her lips and her spit dries up.)

Squab: Shhhhbbbth … fuck.

The Hatchling: waaaAAAAAAAH!

Squab (to Mr. Squab): Honey?!?! Where’s the radio?

Mr. Squab: What radio?

Squab: My boombox, the small one!

Mr. Squab: Hang on, I’ll find it. (sounds of digging around downstairs) OK, here it is.

Squab: Take her while I find a static station.

The Hatchling: WAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Mr. Squab: Shhhhh … shhhhh … shhhh … shhhh …

Squab (punching through every station on the dial): No … no … no … why the fuck isn’t there any pure static? How can there be stations close to every frequency?!?!

Mr. Squab: Try AM.

The Hatchling: WAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Squab (tries AM): It’s too quiet, it won’t turn up loud enough. (tries FM again, gets station with mostly static and decides it will have to do. Cranks it.)

The Hatchling: WAAAaaaaahhhhhzzzzzzzzzzz …

Mr. Squab (slowly puts Hatchling in crib. She stays quiet. Squab and Mr. Squab turn off the radio and sloooooooowly back away.)

*** Forty-five minutes pass ***

The Hatchling: WAAAAAAAAAAH!

(Repeat, ad infinitum)

Babies. What a weird bunch. So we brought the Hatchling to the Doctor on Friday, and she squalled and squawked just like she had been doing, and sure enough, the doctor said it was probably colic. (Or colic-esque, since true colic is supposed to go from 2 weeks to 12 weeks – shudder.) She told me to cut out dairy from my diet for 2 weeks, just in case it’s a milk allergy, recommended a book for us to get* and said, basically, be indulgent: if there’s anything you can do to calm the baby, do it, and don’t worry about establishing bad habits or anything. And if there’s nothing you can do to calm the baby, then just set the timer for 20 minutes and leave her in her crib while you take deep breaths. Oy.

But then … well … we brought her home and she slept. Didn’t fuss. Just slept, and slept, and slept, with breaks for feeding in between. And that’s basically been her pattern ever since. Sleep, eat, play a little, fuss a little, sleep some more. We’re letting her sleep on us, if that’s what works, and we’re still dosing her with Prevacid, but, like, what the hell? I mean, don’t get me wrong – this is a positive development! I’m not complaining! (Though god knows what I’d do if we had more than one kid and I couldn’t park my ass on the sofa for 10 hours a day.) But I sure am looking forward to the time when she gets a little more predictable. Whoo.

*The book, incidentally, is awesome. The Happiest Baby on the Block, by Harvey Karp. Dippy title, but a goldmine of helpful information.

Well, the Prevacid honeymoon was a brief one. The Hatchling’s reflux does seem to be better, but the fussiness reigns on unabated. Yesterday was the worst – the only place she’ll sleep during the day is on me, after nursing, and the only time she isn’t fussy is when she’s either nursing or sleeping. Around 5:00 her truly fussy time begins (just in time for Daddy coming home!), and last night this was punctuated with some truly impressive screaming. She’s beyond gassy, and still kind of constipated, and just generally seems like she’s in pain, pain, pain. Sometimes she still seems hungry after nursing, but offer her a bottle and she becomes absolutely ENRAGED. By the time we finally do get her to go down in her crib, my nerves are so shot that I wake up every hour, on the hour, in anticipation of hearing her start to fuss again. She sleeps for four hours, I sleep for maybe a total of two. Good times, people. Good. Times. It would seem that we may have gotten that glorious blessing, a colicky baby. We’re taking her into the doctor’s office this afternoon, just to rule out any other problems, but this may just be something we have to ride out. Which would totally suck, and why the hell haven’t they figured out this colicky thing by now, anyway? I mean, what’s with the resigned attitude? Like, if it’s colic, the clear indications of pain on the baby’s part somehow don’t count? WTF?

Prevacid and responsive pediatricians. We called the doctor yesterday and described the Hatchling’s symptoms, namely: cranky, smacking her mouth all the time, cranky, writhing as if in pain and did I mention motherfucking CRANKY? She’s had a bit of reflux ever since she was born, but the doctor said 6 weeks is often when it gets bad in a lot of babies, so he called in a prescription for Prevacid and Mr. Squab brought it home after work. The effect was instantaneous. She was very interested in the grape-flavor of the medicine, took it down like a pro, and oh! she feels so much better. As a sufferer of reflux my ownself, I knew exactly how rotten she was feeling and it sucked not to be able to fix it. Now she can lie down without getting heartburn, which makes it so much easier to be cuddled or to play or – most importantly – to sleep! To wit: she slept for five hours at a go last night. I mean, holy crap! Now if I can just get to the point where *I* can sleep for five hours when she does, we’ll be golden.

That’s how long it took to put the Hatchling to bed last night. Which means it took longer to put her to bed than she actually slept once she was there. And it’s not like she’s just wakeful – she’s crankypants. Clearly uncomfortable. Is it gas? Constipation? Reflux? All of the above? We have no idea. Hopefully the doctor will have some helpful thoughts, because lord have mercy I am not up to many more marathon nighttime sessions. (Not to mention that today isn’t looking much better.)

When Mr. Squab and I were house hunting, I was adamant that we look only in the city limits of Minneapolis/St. Paul. Mr. Squab would have been happy to check out the inner ring of suburbs, but I was determined to stay in the city. Part of this was political: I think it’s important for educated, priveleged honkys like us to commit to the city and its development. And part of it was aesthetic – I love the mixed zones of city living, with single-family houses cheek-by-jowl with apartments and coffee shops and corner grocery stores and cafes, etc., etc. I love being able to walk places instead of driving. I like the pace of the city, and exploring different neighborhoods to find the hidden treasures that only the locals know. Plus, in Mpls/St. Paul it’s not exactly a concrete jungle – there are lots of parks and green spaces. So I was determined, and because we’re not independently wealthy, we walked the tightrope of finding a house we could afford in a neighborhood we could feel safe in. We ended up in a nice old house that needed some TLC, in a neighborhood that could best be described as “up and coming.” Not ghetto, but sort of right next door to the ghetto – the kind of neighborhood that will probably be highly desireable in maybe 10 years.

This has been just fine for the most part – the neighbors we’ve met seem nice enough and there are lots of young families. But as the summer heat kicks in (this last week has been a real scorcher, unseasonably warm), it seems that the locals get a little less “neighbor” and a little more “‘hood,” if you know what I mean. A few nights ago there was a big ole party at one house down the street, which culminated in a highly vocal argument around midnight about someone’s fuckin’ cell phone. Hard to sleep through, that. And then there was the group of folks who decided they needed to jumpstart their van engine at about 1 am, which involved some shouting when the jumper cables sparked, and lots of squealing by the several 3-5 year-olds who were running around at the time.

These events are irritating, to be sure, but nothing you can’t live with every once in a while. You call the cops if the noise gets too loud and that’s pretty much that. But this morning, we were woken from our memorial day slumbers at about 5 am by what sounded suspiciously like gunshots. We both sat up in bed and looked out the window – there was a car and some teenage kids outside the house where the party/fight had been who looked kind of suspicious. They took off pretty quick and it wasn’t too long after that that the police showed up, along with an ambulance and a fire truck. Mr. Squab went out to see what he could see, and sure enough, there were 4-5 9mm cartridges lying in the road just up the street from our house. The woman at the party/fight house was sitting on the front steps, rocking back and forth and saying it would never happen again, she didn’t know those people, it was her brother’s 24th birthday and she didn’t know where they came from, she was sorry, etc., etc.

Mr. Squab didn’t get much info from the police; they got their evidence and took off. And we can’t find anything in the local papers or newscasts, so we’re still not sure exactly what happened. But it’s left me … a little freaked out. It’s so easy for me to imagine terrible outcomes that might have been. What if we’d been downstairs at the time? What if I’d been nursing the Hatchling on the sofa when it happened? What if one of the bullets had ricocheted off something and come into the house? The possibilities are – literally – too awful to consider. And as Mr. Squab said, what’s to be done? It’s not like we can just up and move to another house. Then, too, if we’re committed to living in the city don’t we also have to be prepared to handle stuff like this? Maybe it’s a once-in-10-years occurence and nothing like that will happen the rest of the time we’re living here. Maybe it’s nothing to worry about. But I’m a little shaken and jittery, and I wish this hadn’t happened so soon after we moved. Anyone have any tips on how to process this?