My Dear Watson

Why YES, I did drop off the face of the earth.

Thank you for asking.

OY.

Not to sound like a total baby whiner, but:  What a crappy couple of weeks we’ve had…

It started with my father-in-law coming to visit, which turned out to be very stressful.  And here’s something weird. And by ‘weird’ I mean ‘super annoying.’  A couple of months ago, BeBop opened his big yapper and spilled the beans to his Dad that I have a blog.

No one in my real life knows about this blog, except for the Blabber Mouth. Not my family,  not my sister, not one of my closest friends.

And I am afraid that although BeBop didn’t give him the URL, he might be trying to find it.  He casually mentioned how he found an on-line article I’d written a few years ago after googling me.

Suspicious, no?

So, needless to say, I’m a little paranoid to go into detail about why his visit was so anxiety-producing for me.  You’d think I’d also be worried about the fact that I have oft-spoken of my areolas and other various LADY PARTS in sickening detail around here, but I figure if you look for someone’s blog and snoop around long enough, you might get more than you bargained for!

NIPPLE NIPPLE NIPPLE NIPPLE

THERE! That oughta teach him a lesson!!

Anyhoos, the visit coincided with my Nanny getting sick, then BeBop, then Jackson and, finally, me.  Hideously, horribly sick with a terrible flu.

And really, is there anything worse than a sick kid?

I guess the answer to that question is:  YES, TWO sick kids.  But thankfully, Parker seems to have (knockonwood) an immune system built of steel because she was the only one who didn’t get sick.

And there’s more delightful news to share from Casa Watson.  All of this family strife and drama and the production of copious amounts of mucus also happened to coincide with a downward spiral for me in terms of the post partum depression.  I got so very, very depressed and anxious again.

Like I was living life under water, you know?  Just slowly making my way each day through a thick, gray fog of some kind.   I’m not too proud to admit:  this PPD is kicking my A-ESS-ESS.

"I’m not sure I can DO this…" I wailed one night after bathing the babies, feeding them dinner and putting them to bed.  Thankfully Bosco the Dog was the only one home at the time and I’d sort of pulled myself together by the time BeBop got home.

And by ‘pulled myself together’ I mean I was sucking down a Crystal Light raspberry lemonade spiked with vodka and shoving a frozen dinner of pesto cheese tortellini in my face.

(That just CAN’T be good, can it?)

Here’s the thing:  This whole Motherhood Business is much harder for me than others, that’s the only way I can describe it.  When other twin Moms say to me, "Isn’t this FUN?" with squeals of glee, I can only manage a half-hearted smile and meekly respond with a "Uhhhhh, sure… "

Many parts ARE fun.  And wonderful and glorious and amazing.  But it’s also SO hard.  The blue feeling I have constantly, the anxiety, the pressure.  The inability to think straight.  The self-doubt.

The other day I thought to myself, "Hmmmmm…I wonder if THIS is why people gain weight on anti-depressants?" as I shoved a giant, cream-cheese laden bagel down my gullet.

So yes, I’m back on the Juice.  And by ‘Juice’ I mean the Lexapro…it just got to a point where I was feeling too bad, too incapable of getting through the day and accomplishing what I need to at work and at home.

Let’s hope the second time is a charm and it doesn’t make so sick. I’m a few days in, and already feeling better.  Placebo effect?  Perhaps.  But I couldn’t give a crap, because  I can honestly say I am starting to feel better.

So that this post isn’t a TOTAL downer, I also have to say that we celebrated a very nice Mother’s Day last weekend.  I spent most of the day in sheer shock and disbelief that after so many years of truly hating the day, I was finally able to mark the occasion as a MOM.  A crappy one maybe, but still a MOM. And a very grateful one, too, despite everything else going on.

And the babies have started on solid foods, so we’re embarking on a whole new routine. Different schedule, new foods, the DREADED EEEEEEEEEKKKKKK! change.   (Which, as we all know, usually sends me over the edge.)

So here’s hoping the happy pills do the trick and I’m able to pull myself out of this abyss.

One-half of the reason I really, really want to get better:

PLEASE someone save me from this vodka-swilling, cheese tortellini-eating CRAZY woman!!

So once again I find myself with NOTHING TO SAY.

NO.THING.

I swear, as an Infertile I had volumes to share, what with all the PCOS, the cervical mucus, the acupuncture, the day-to-day tracking of my cycles, the frillions of negative pregnancy tests over the years.

GOOD TIMES, people, good times.

And as a Preggie,  man I could waste some time, right?  What with the bologna-like areolas, the facial hair growth that turned me into a Wookie (Yeeeks, a bloated Wookie with enlarged areolas…do they make those?  I predict a new toy from Lu.cas Fi.lms coming just in time for the ’08 holiday season! And? I hope to GAWD you haven’t just had lunch because that’s super disgusting) and the swelling. Oy.  Remember all the fun we had talking about my swelling?  Those were the days, huh?

And then there was the actual giving birth and all…

And then?  Then my creativity and my ability to construct even a semi-coherent sentence went all to hell.

I guess I could write about what the babies are up to these days. I enjoy reading other Moms’ accounts of what their kiddies are doing, but I know not everyone does.  Especially if you’re still in the trenches.

I think a part of it is that I still feel so unprepared and ill-suited to this job of MOM.  As far as skill sets go, I might as well taken a job as a Rockette or an explorer (do they still have those?) Or a carnie.  Or a hobo. 

Seriously, I was probably just as, if not more, prepared to take on one of those jobs as I was to become a Mother, even though I spent every second of every minute of every day for FIVE years trying to reach that goal.

And don’t get me wrong:  I love being a Mom to my sweet little babies, I really do.  But I just feel so out of my element.  Every single day.

Maybe it’s the extra helping of ass-whooping post partum depression I was treated to that’s making this hard, I’m not sure. 

And I feel like as a ‘survivor’ from the battlefields of infertility, I have less of a ‘right’ to voice these concerns, do you know what I mean?  Like because we finally brokered a peace and returned home from the front lines with not one but TWO beautiful babies I don’t have the right to share these feelings that being a first time Mom of twins is hard.

I should just be grateful and shut my pie hole, I know.

So help me out peeps, what should I write about? Or should I just take my positive-pregnancy-test-after-our-first-IVF and shove it up my ass?

Go on, you can tell me…                                              

I find this post rather insulting, to be honest.  I know my hirsuteness might be mistaken as a cover for my enlarged areolas, but it’s just not true.  And to imply otherwise is just RUDE.

So Jax had his first experience with alternative healing methods a couple of days ago…and I know what you’re thinking:  SWEET!  Way to totally perpetuate the California/Bay Area stereotype of the crazy, hippy-dippy New Age parent.

Was it crystal therapy, chakra balancing, Rebirthing, Reiki or a crazed body worker who set up shop in my parents’ house, you ask? What about the life pod, did you send him to the  Sedona life pod??

Why no, but thank you just the same for inquiring…

It was cranial sacral therapy, actually.  And compared to most of the stuff I’ve experienced (see above healing modes plus various Russian hands-on healers, psychic surgeons, herbal remedies, magnets and waaaaaaay too many other crazy things to mention), cranial sacral therapy isn’t really that ALTERNATIVE at all!

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this, but Jackson has a flat head.  Not flat like FLAT, like some weird cartoon character or something.  Not like he has a poker chip perched on the top of his neck.  But the back right quadrant of his head is pretty flat, like he has a big dent in his head.

"We can call him Dent-in-the-Head," my Mother helpfully suggested when I pointed it out to her.

Perhaps he was positioned oddly in utero or perhaps he just favors that side for no reason in particular, but he always sleeps with his head slightly cocked to the right, and when he’s in the swing or the car seat, he does the same thing.

At his two month appointment I discussed it with his pediatrician and she suggested we start with repositioning.  That turned out to be easier said than done.  So at four months, with a still pretty pronounced slope, I decided to take him in again and see what she thought.

She’s a pretty holistic doctor, so she wanted us to try cranial sacral therapy and possibly chiropractic as well. So off we went to his first appointment and I have to say, he LOVED it.

He loved the shit out of that session.

The therapist had him lie on his back on a massage table and just very gently placed her hands behind his back.  She barely made any movements, so whatever she was doing it was very gentle.

Jackson just kept staring right into her eyes and smiling and making all these cooing sounds.  "Uh, huh, hmmmm…tell me all about it…" she kept saying to him and to my utter surprise, he would ‘answer’ her with these little murmurs.  He does not normally do this, by the way.

Parker is way more verbal, she’ll just chatter away (about what? Oh you know, just normal baby talk stuff like the  sub-prime mortgage crisis and the recent demonstrations here to get China out of Tibet and why, for a delicate little flower of a girl, she cuts the loudest farts in the history of mankind…just the YOOOGE), but Jackson rarely chirps on and on like he was doing.

"What’s he saying?" I asked, hoping to get some dramatic insight into my young son’s psyche like why he won’t frigging sleep beyond 3 AM without one of us shoving the paci in his gaping maw or why he loves me soooo much more than Daddy.  (Just kidding.)

"Oh, he’s just chatting," she said vaguely, as if protecting the ‘doctor’ – patient confidentiality clause.  Which sort of annoyed me but whatever.

Then she had me hold him and she worked on his head, and by God within about three seconds he was sound asleep.  It was pretty crazy.  And then?  On the way home in the car seat he held his flat head TOTALLY STRAIGHT for the first time EVER!

Since then he’s reverted a little back to his old tricks, often turning his head back to the right even after we reposition him or make sure the toy is hanging from the play mat to his left or shoving a cloth diaper under one side of the swing’s head rest to force him to keep it straight. 

But I’ll take him back next week and I’m hoping after a few sessions it gets better. 

Either that or he shows an amazing talent for growing REALLY thick hair.

SO WHAT?  I have a flat head. What’s so bunny about THAT?!?

OH MY.  My brother had to wear this outfit to cover up his sloping head issue — I just wore it because it’s so damn cute. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Or,

You’ll Want To Stage A Britney-Style Intervention After Reading This Mess Of A Post

Or,

A Year Ago Did I Think I’d Be Blogging About Binkies??  HELLS NO.

So before I bore you to absolute tears with stories of how sucky it is to be back at work, and how I cried for three days straight, let me tell you that I have decided to write a book entitled Momming By Mistake.

It will be all about how you (and by "You" I mean "Me") learn how to be a Mom by making mistakes. 

So far this is what I have written (and if you know any editors for sure forward this along because I’m, like, totally sure there will be a huge bidding war for the manuscript):

Chapter 1

Whenever you leave the house with two babies in tow, TAKE THE MOTHER EFFING DIAPER BAG YOU RETARD. 

The End.

Yesterday we went to an event held by the Fabulous Dr Z (and by God, FAITH, if you all attended and didn’t tell me I will cry (yet another) river of tears!) held at a local convention center. It was for all of his patients and I guess they hold this event each year, inviting hundreds of parents (with their hundreds of kids) who have, with Dr. Z’s help, successfully conceived.

There were so many twins there it was a bit of a freak show and of course I mean that in the nicest way.

When we finally got to say hello to him, I thought he would say something along the lines of, "Embryo 3 and Embryo 8, how LOVELY to see you again! My how you’ve grown!" but no such luck.

And anyhoo, I was so frantic to get out the door, we were halfway there before I realized, HOLY SHIT I brought my purse but no diaper bag!  What I am, a new Mom?

Oh. Yeah. I am a new Mom. I have NO earthly idea what I’m doing the vast majority of the time.

But I still felt like a jerk and my thought process went something like this:  No diaper bag.  DAMN.  It would’ve totally matched with this kicky pink sweater I’m wearing.  Hmmmmm.  No diapers.  Oh well, we won’t be staying long.  No burp clothes.  Oh well, they’ll have napkins there.  No….OH SWEET JESUS NO BINKIES.  WE ARE SO TOTALLY SCREWED. 

(Cue quaking hands and flop sweat.)

BUT!

Then I remembered I had shoved an emergency bag in the back seat, just in case. Just in case what?  You ask.  Just in case we get trapped in the snow, actually.  Oh!  Does it snow there? You ask.  Well, No.  It doesn’t. But my post partum depression is clouding my brain and I can’t think straight and at some point in the last few weeks, it sounded like a good idea to pack an emergency bag with diapers, some blankets, packets of powered formula, a couple of cloth diapers and a package of two break-open-in-case-of-emergency pacifiers.

So, thankfully, we had the binkies with us just in case and even more thankfully we didn’t have to use them.  The babies slept most of the time, although Jax did wake up and take one quick look around the crowded, loud room filled with hundreds of people not to mention clowns, magicians and several people making unidentifiable balloon sculptures and almost lost his shit.

I think it was, either I start crying bloody murder because where the fuck are we or, on second thought, let’s just shut the peepers and pretend it’s all a bad dream.

Jackson and Parker were thrilled with their souvenir onesies that said, My Parents Spent $30,000 To Have Me And All I Got Was This Fricking Balloon Animal.

Just kidding.

Moving on…

The babies did wake up in time for their photo opp with Dr. Z and I swear, when we stood there next to him, after he gave us all a big hug, I wanted to weep with joy.  And I know, it’s the PPD talking, but Good Lord I love that man.  I do.

I would run away with him and have babies with him if I wasn’t 1) already fairly happily married; 2) totally done being pregnant forever and forever. But the point IS I love him that much and can you imagine the SWEET discount I’d get on any future rounds of IVF?!?

But that’s all beside the point. What is the point?  I can’t honestly remember at this point.  GAWD.  Could I say ‘point’ any more??!  POINT POINT POINT.

I would write about transitioning back to work, and how I’m not handling it well at all, but now I actually have to get some WORK done so I can’t.

Damn Work.  DAMN YOU TO HELL.