We Survived

Two of the longest hours of my life.  

The babysitter said that BB cried for the first 45 minutes he was there.  Funny (in a not so haha sort of way) since I cried for approximately the same amount of time.  Two peas in a pod, we are. 

Everyone told me that when I went to pick him up, he would see me and smile and that would make it all okay. What actually happened is that he saw me and started to cry.  I suspect he felt abandoned.  I certainly felt like I had abandoned him.  And we get to do it all over again on Thursday... but for three hours this time.

Now that he's back home with me, I'm noticing that he smells like someone else's house.  It's a bit weird.  It makes me feel sad.

I'm normally all about safe driving, but I suspect I'll be getting a speeding ticket at some point while making the trip to the babysitter's.

I Did It

Twenty minutes ago, I turned BB over to the babysitter for his two-hour visit.  I haven't stopped crying since.  The house feels so empty.  I miss him.

I keep thinking of things I should have told the babysitter but I wasn't thinking straight.  I needed to get out of there fast, because he was reaching for me, and I was on the verge of tears.  If he saw me cry, he would cry too... and that would be the end of it all.  

So much guilt.

Run Run Run Otis Lee

Since last summer, I've been struggling with running.  I'm not struggling with the physical act of running so much as I am with making the time for it.  Often when I do seem to have the time, I don't have the energy.  I manage to get back on the wagon for a couple of runs, and then something happens that it all goes to hell again on me.  

The last time I was "on the wagon" I managed to visit the treadmill twice, and then BB got a nasty head-cold, and I got the blocked duct.   Over the following few weeks, the blocked duct returned a few times and BB got a second cold, this time in his chest.  

Things have settled down now (knock on wood); once again I've climbed back onto the wagon.  Wednesday night I picked up on week five of the Learn to Run program.  I ran 8.5 kph, walked 5.5 kph, with an incline of 0.5.  In total I covered 2.901 km, and (supposedly) burned 241.2 cal.  I know that running on the treadmill is much different than actually pounding the pavement, but being a numbers kind of gal, I really like being able to track this sort of stuff.  I find it motivating.

After Wednesday night's run, I had a little conversation with a friend on Facebook.  She's an avid runner who trains for real races, and runs real distances, beyond my piddly three kilometres!  She suggested that I sign up for the 5k on Mother's Day so that I'd have a goal to help keep me motivated.  She seemed to think that I'd be able to work up to the 5k by then.  I did the math, but running at 8.5 kph would give me a real bad time, and I can't stand the idea of embarrassing myself in public like that.  If I'm going to do it, I need to be able to do it in a respectable amount of time.  

I visited the Running Room's website and found a 5k in town at the end of May.  The best part is that it benefits the food bank.  I'd like to try to work towards entering it.  I know I should sign up so that I'll be more likely to stick it out, but I don't like the idea of wasting the 35$ if my running goes to hell again.  

Last night I managed to visit the treadmill again.  I jumped ahead to week six of the Learn to Run, increased my running speed to 9.0 kph, walked 5.5 kph again, and kept the incline at 0.5.  This time I covered 3.180km and Mr. Treadmill said I burned 264.7cal.  

I really felt like I was pushing myself last night.  Normally I'm listening to my music and skipping through the songs, but last night, I wasn't even noticing the songs until they were finishing up.  They were just background noise to keep me moving, and help drown out the annoying noise of the treadmill.

When I was participating in the running programs through the Running Room, I seemed to do a much better job with my breathing.  I'm finding that I'm not doing so great with it now, so I need to keep working on it.  

As the days continue to grow longer, I'm hoping that I'll be able to head outdoors to run again.  I'll miss being able to track my stats (I can't afford one of those fancy Garmin-type devices!) but if I want to enter any races, I definitely need to be practicing outdoors.

My current running playlist includes:

9-5 - Dolly Parton  (I love this song for my warm up.  Even though I've known it all my life, I fell in love with it while I was pregnant, and it's been one of my favourites ever since.)

The rest of the songs all play on random.

Cecilia - Simon & Garfunkel

I'm Still Standing - Elton John

Seven Nation Army - The White Stripes

Cumbersome - Seven Mary Three

Little Green Bag - Tom Jones & Barenaked Ladies

I Can't Dance - Genesis

Hollaback Girl - Gwen Stefani

My Humps - Black Eyed Peas (This one didn't play last night, and the last few times I've actually skipped it... It's been on my playlist since we got the treadmill, and I think I'm getting tired of it.)

Kryptonite - Three Doors Down

Body Movin' (Fatboy Slim Remix) - Beastie Boys

It's an eclectic list, but I've been enjoying it.  I think it will soon be time to mix it up a bit though, remove a few more songs and add some new ones.  

On a side note, when we were kids my brother had the Cabbage Patch Kids album that Run Run Run Otis Lee was on.  I listened to the album this morning (thanks to the link that is found in the title of this post), and am surprised that I still remember all the words to the songs, even though I haven't heard the album since I was a child!  Memory is a wonderful thing.  :)

Last Week of "Normal"

I just realized that today marks the last day of the last week of what has become "normal" for us over the last year.  Next week BB starts going to the sitter--Tuesday for two hours and Thursday for three hours.

I'd like to think that I'll use the time to do something productive around the house... like washing the walls and cupboards since they haven't been washed since we moved in almost four years ago, but I figure either one of two things will happen.  I'll check my email "for just a second", blink, and then it will be time to go pick up BB, or I'll park my butt on the couch and cry.  

I'm trying really really hard to be positive about things right now.  However, my realist side keeps popping up, and sooner than later I'm feeling down about it all again.

It's a beautiful, sunny day here today, so BB and I are going to head out for a walk as soon as he wakes up.  Maybe the sun will bleach away all of my woes.  :)

My Swirling Dark Pit

I feel like I'm sinking.  I survived the winter without anything more than the occasional "blue" day.  Pretty good for me.  Spring is now here, and those dark feelings seem to have arrived with it.  

I think it's just a combination of several things weighing me down.  

I don't feel that going back to work is the right decision for BB.  However, it is the logical thing to do in order to have BN2.  It won't be forever, as long as BN2 happens.  But I'm feeling a LOT of guilt about leaving BB with a sitter.  

Tomorrow I reduce BB's two daytime feedings to one daytime feeding and next week I'm eliminating the daytime feedings all together, as he starts spending a bit of time with the sitter next week.  This is breaking my heart.  I feel that he still needs to nurse.  I feel awful about already reducing him down to two feedings.  It wouldn't be bad if he wasn't interested in nursing, but the little guy loves it.  I'm being eaten alive by the guilt.  I want so badly to be a good mother to him, and I really don't feel like sending him to a sitter and reducing the frequency of his breastfeeding this is the way to do it.  

I'm worried about whether things are going to work out with my babysitter... that is an entirely separate post though.  

And then this weekend, DH was at his usual training all day Saturday, and then today his family came to help him reconstruct our woodshed that collapsed during the winter, so he spent the entire day outdoors working on that project.  Both the training yesterday and the woodshed today are very important things, and I don't believe for a second that he should have skipped out on either.  However, it meant that it was business as usual for BB and myself.  I look forward to the weekends because it means that we get to spend time together as a family, and during BB's naps, DH and I normally have some great chats.  Missing out on all of that this weekend really seems to have messed with my head.  

By suppertime I ended up sitting with BB in my lap front of the computer watching Sesame Street videos on Youtube so that he wouldn't be able to see my crying while I held him.  Since he doesn't get to watch TV, watching a bit of Sesame Street was definitely holding his attention.  If he sees me cry these days, he cries too, and I didn't want to make him cry, but I couldn't hold it in any longer.  

Tonight, I felt like the walls were closing in on me.  Part of me wants to crawl into bed and never get out.  But I know that laying there, buried under the covers, I'll only continue to brood.  My instinct when things get bad are to start walking.  Walk and walk and walk.  I don't mean walk out on my life or anything like that, but just walk until I can come up with a solution to all of the things that are upsetting me.  (You know, when I think back to a lot of the bad stuff that happened in a previous relationship, I often found myself wandering.  I never really made that connection until now.)  

I had hoped that once the decision was made about whether or not to return to work that I'd be able to relax and enjoy the rest of my time with BB.  But once the decision was made, I worried about childcare.  And even now that I have a babysitter, the dark cloud is still over my head.  I want to enjoy the next month, not spend the entire time brooding.  BB deserves our last month together to be special... not to have a mommy who is in tears all the time.

Creepy

We finally have our "medium-speed" internet working again.  Yep, Xplornet actually footed the bill for it this time.  Perhaps they knew we weren't kidding when we said we were going to dump their sorry asses if they didn't cover the repair.  

I've been cleaning up the oodles of emails that accumulated while I was on dial-up.  So many emails with pictures, etc. that I haven't bothered looking at because they would have taken forever to load (I use a web-based email program.)  I also hadn't cleaned out my spam folder during our outage.  I just sorted through the hundreds of messages to ensure nothing real had been dumped into the spam folder.  On the last page there was a message that made me feel a bit creeped out.  The subject was, "Date of your death."  The message I could see in the preview was, "Subscribe to Men's Health.  Subscribe to Men's Health.  Subscribe to Men's Health."  WTF?  

Only a Bit Inappropriate

DH usually leaves the baskets of our clean laundry in BB's room, since he normally does the laundry after BB is in bed (in our room.)  When it's time to fold all of the clean laundry, I do it in BB's room so he can play in a relatively safe environment while I work.  Sometimes, he likes to "help" me with the laundry.  He used to pull stuff out of the baskets to play with, but over the past week he's started pulling things out of the baskets, and putting them in other baskets.  It's really cute.  

Today, he pulled one of my pink thongs out of one of the clean baskets, played with it for a bit, tossed it around a bit, shook it around in the air a bit (nope, it didn't rattle), and then put it in with his laundry.  I'm wondering if he was hoping I'd forget that it was mine and try to put it on him tomorrow.  

Test #1

I knew it would be negative, considering the fact that I haven't had a cycle since July 2007. However, I always hear about people who got pregnant while breastfeeding, so a little (okay, a big) part of me definitely was hoping that maybe I might be. I peed on the stick this morning, and of course I'm not. And even though I knew that I shouldn't have my hopes up, I'm still disappointed. I think going back to work would be easier if I knew there was a definite end in sight to the whole thing.

Now I'm wondering, how often should I pee on a stick? I know that I shouldn't allow myself to become obsessed with getting pregnant, because that's destined to end badly. However, I can't seem to help it. I was thinking I should try to limit myself to once every four weeks (those tests aren't cheap after all!) but before I voiced that opinion, DH suggested every two weeks. Maybe he's more anxious that I am? As if!

DH did say something really sweet last night. After we had put BB to bed, he told me that he really likes him. That's huge. It made me melt. Considering the fact that he only consented to having a baby in the first place to make me happy, and then once BB was here, I knew he still wasn't completely sold on the whole thing (otherwise, he never would have said no initially to BN2), but now for him to say that he actually LIKES BB, well, like I said, it's huge. I've always felt that it's easy to love someone, and that actually liking someone is a much bigger deal.

BB changes so much every day. He's been knocked down by two different colds over the past few weeks, and he emerged from each illness older and wiser it seemed! He's now standing in place without holding on to anything for several seconds at a time now. He's eating a LOT more solid foods now, and is only nursing a couple times during the day. (That transition was hard initially, but he's okay with it now. I never would have bothered with the day-time weaning if I wasn't planning to return to work. I much prefer the idea of baby-led weaning. However, on the upside, perhaps this will work to my advantage with project BN2.) BB's new favourite song is "Barbara Ann" by the Beach Boys. My brother and I used to listen to an old 45 of that song over and over again when we were little. BB's favourite word is "Ba" (has been for a looong time now), so I started singing "Barbara Ann" to him. Now he actually tries to sing along. He'll vary his tone of voice while saying, "Ba ba ba ba ba." It's like he's singing back-up for me. *grin* He can also try to point out his eyes, nose, and mouth now! I say try, because he puts his entire hand up to his face when you say, "Where's your nose?", and the difference between where he touches depending on the body part you ask him to identify is quite subtle, but there definitely is a difference... for example, if you ask him where his eyes are, he'll put his palm to his face, and then gouge his eyes with his finger tips. :) He's such an amazing little guy, and he definitely has a LOT of people wrapped around his sweet little finger.

How to Make Me Swoon

Tell me, "I really like BB."

This, after he didn't even want to have a baby, and only agreed to it to try to make me happy again.

Totally not the right reasons to have a baby, but it's working for us. :)

How to Annoy Me

When you are announcing the birth of your child to the world on Facebook (or anywhere, really) be sure to note that your baby was 6'12" instead of 6 lbs 12 oz.

I saw this posted this morning (not only on the proud papa's status, but also the proud aunt's and proud gramma's) and immediately wondered how someone gave birth to such a GIANT of a baby. Then for another brief moment I wondered why they didn't just say the baby was seven feet. Finally it actually dawned on me what they were intending to say. Maybe I'm knit-picky? Maybe I'm dense? Perhaps and perhaps. But I seriously did feel confused for a few seconds.

Bet you thought my next post after an 11 day hiatus would be a bit more interesting, eh? The posts in my head have been. However, BB will be waking up shortly and this was on my mind at this precise moment.