Accepting the Happy...

This is a post I've been struggling to write for a while.  It's been one that I've questioned sharing, and have started and erased numerous occasions.  I don't have legions of fans reading my blog, but I still feel as though, to not write this one would be dishonest to those of you who do follow along with my crazy little life.  I said I would share the ups and the downs... so here it goes.

During the last few months I've found myself fighting a battle within myself... it's very difficult to explain.  In pretty much all respects, I have a perfect life.  I have two beautiful girls, a loving husband, a fulfilling career.  And yet, I found myself not really enjoying any of it.  I was happy... and then again, I wasn't.  I felt kind of... empty.  Here I had two beautiful girls, doing amazing things every day and I would smile at them, and laugh, and cheer them on, but it was only because I knew that's what I was supposed to do.  My smile didn't quite reach my insides.

Sometimes I would find myself just staring out the window, not thinking of anything at all... just staring.  Other times I would find myself feeling so "blah."  I didn't have any energy, any get-up-and-go.  I couldn't bring myself to do anything more than the necessities.  I would get through the day, but as soon as the girls were in bed, I would go to bed too, or collapse on the couch and not do anything.  If Danny was working, I didn't bother to eat in the evenings.  If I did tackle things, like laundry or housework, it was all so mechanical.  I knew it had to be done, so I would do it.

I found myself getting angry and frustrated over nothing.  And then just as quickly, those emotions would change back to "oh, who cares."  I felt like something was wrong, but I couldn't pinpoint it.  For a while, I questioned whether I was depressed.  But I wasn't sad.   I just wasn't... happy.

I was really frustrated about feeling this way.  Sometimes I would just collapse against Danny and ask him, "what's wrong with me?" while he hugged me.  How could I feel like this when I had so much going right in my life?  I had so much to be happy about... and yet, for reasons I couldn't explain, I just wasn't.  

And then one day, during my lunch break at work, I came across this article in Women's Health magazine.  It was about apathy.  I had heard the word apathy before, but didn't really know what it means.  It's defined as "a state of indifference, or the suppression of emotions such as concern, excitement, motivation, and passion."

The article talked about how apathy is becoming more and more common, especially in the lives of women. It talked about apathy being a coping mechanism for when women are overwhelmed.  "Any woman can be become apathetic provided the right set of circumstances.  And those circumstances are piling up as women strive to look sharp and nurture others while juggling challenging careers, difficult relationships, and hectic households." It talked about using apathy as a way to protect one's self from failure.  If you don't care, then it wont matter.

Reading the article was like a wake-up for me... it was the answer that I was looking for.  There wasn't anything wrong with me.  I had just lost my passion, my excitement.  I was stressed about things that were beyond my control.  I had just gone back to work, I was juggling a hectic household, I was involved with volunteer projects that were totally draining, and I was just dealing with it the only way I knew how... by deciding I didn't care.  The problem with deciding not to care, apparently, is that it also ended up affecting things I wanted to care about.  My family, my husband.

Once I realized what was going on in my poor, overworked brain, I felt like a completely different person.  I started making a conscious effort to stop and enjoy things.  To not just see the girls playing together, but to watch them.  Once I started enjoying my family again, I found the stress about the other things just wasn't as stressful any longer.  I was still just as busy, but when I was frustrated about being busy then I said that, out loud.  I started taking care of myself, making sure to eat and work out when I could.  At work, I would do what I could during a day, and then forget about when I left the office.  I couldn't do anymore than I could do, and that's all there was to it.

It's amazing what the mind can do without us realizing it.  And it's even more amazing what the mind can do once you "put your mind to it."  I know it sounds cheesy, but once I decided to just "be happy" I found that I was.  Being happy can be a conscious decision.  We often rely on the things around us to make us happy, when really, it's as simple as just being happy.  Making that decision.  

These days, I'm feeling much better.  I feel that passion again for my kids.  I want to get down on the floor and play with them again.  I want to make their lunches, and pack their bags.  I want to hear Ella screeching and Gracie whining.   I watch the girls and I smile... not because I should, but because I want to!

My pre-Mama Life

Has anybody ever told you that being a mother is the most rewarding thing there is?  It's 100% true.  There is nothing more rewarding than seeing your baby take her first steps, or say her first words, or help her baby sister find the toy she wants.  But does that make me immune to nostalgia about the yester-years?  Before the days of poopy diapers, breastfeeding, and toddler tantrums?  Aw hell no!

There are certain benefits to being a non-mommy.  Clean shirts for instance.  I miss the days when I could walk out of the house without having to check for boogers or barf.  I really miss the days when my ultra-conservative boss would just say "Good morning, Samantha."  Since our last awkward "Uhh, you've got something on your shirt there." "Yeah, it's snot" conversation, my boss just says "Good morning" and stares at my shoulder.  At least he's polite enough not to point it out every time.  Although I'm sure he's thinking, "Boogers again?  Why can't she wear a clean shirt?  Who comes to work every morning with snot on their shirt?"  Believe me, I leave the house every morning with a clean shirt.  Somewhere between my house and the sitter's house, Ella manages to land a snot rocket on me.  She's crafty like that.

Another pre-motherhood phenomenon is going to the bathroom alone.  When they are babies, you take them with you to make sure they don't roll down the stairs when you're not there, when they are older, they demand that they join you.  I find myself sneaking off to the bathroom when Gracie is distracted just so I can go pee alone!  Sometimes she notices me and runs to cut me off.  She may be tiny, but that girl got speed!  When I first went back to work, I would find myself announcing to my coworkers "I'm going to the bathroom now" just to see if anybody wanted to join me.  Okay, that's not totally true, but it felt so wrong (and yet, so right) to go pee alllll by myself!

Poop.  Sure, everybody poops.  We all know it!  But until you're a parent, you live in this lovely world where you can pretend poop doesn't happen.  Once you're a parent, that's all out the window.  Now, I'm a butt-sniffer.  Ella was grunting... did she poop?  *sniff**sniff* Yup!  Time to change her!  The other day after a sniff check, I took her in to change her, was happy to see there was nothing up her back, and proceeded to pull her pants off.  Next thing I knew, there was poop smeared down her legs, and onto her socks.  And since Ella immediately pulls off her socks when being changed, it was now on her hands.  And my hands.  And an elbow.  And down the wall, since I threw a poopy sock at the laundry basket and it hit the wall, slid down, and landed on the floor.  Yeah, 2 years ago that experience would never have happened.  Now, I am an expert at pinning Ella's hands with my non-poopy hand, getting her cleaned up before she can touch anything else, and get her into a clean diaper, all without throwing up at the thought that I still have poop on one elbow and some knuckles.  It gets better after they're potty trained, but not by much.  Now I get "Mooooooom!  I pooped, come wipe my bum!" and then once I enter the washroom, I have to comment on how big, green, pretty, long, or smelly it is.  No comment at all just isn't acceptable to a two-year old.  I mean, come on.  She just pooped after all!!

A clean house.  Damn, don't I miss that!  Not that my house was ever really spotless.  But the most I usually had to do was the dishes, and scrub the floors every now and then.  Then I had kids.  Now, no matter how clean my house is, it never looks clean.  It's hard for it to look clean when I have diaper bags stacked on the floor, a jolly jumper hanging from the doorframe, an exersaucer in the hallway, 2.5 million children's books stacked in the corner, and toys all over the freaking place.  We don't have that many toys for the girls because we spend a lot of time on the go, or playing outside.  But the few that we do have, inevitably, are in the middle of the floor.  Even though I just put them away two minutes ago.  Gracie has to clean her toys up before she goes to bed.  So between 7:30 p.m. and 7:30 a.m., the toys are usually put away.  Not to mention the cheerios.  Oh my God, the cheerios.  Now that Ella is eating the snack food choice of all infants, they are freaking everywhere!  They stick to her pants and her shirt and her hands, so they get transferred from room to room where they drop onto the floor.  Or she throws them off the exersaucer and they land on the couch cushions, under the diaper bags, or behind the toys.  They are everywhere!!  Not to mention that Gracie now gets her own snacks.  The other day I found a bowl with some banana pieces (I think) under a couch cushion.   They had been there awhile.  I have also found milk glasses behind the bookcase, and in the cupboard under the sink.  No house is truly clean with a child in it.  And most of the time, we don't realize how disgusting things are until we find a month-old piece of peanut butter toast behind a chair.

One of the things I miss the most (and the least) about my pre-mama life is the conversations.  It used to be about dreams for the future, where we see ourselves in 5 years, love, and all sorts of uplifting and hopeful stuff.  Well, we're here, five years later and the conversations have changed dramatically.  Sure, we still talk about our dreams ("Danny, my parents are coming down in 13.25 days, I can't wait to let somebody else cook and clean for a while") but mostly, our conversations are about poop, bodily functions, what the girls have gotten into, and how not to totally fuck up their lives.

If you're a parent, you've probably said most of these.  If you're not a parent, you're probably wondering why in the world Gracie thinks there are batteries in my bum.  I can't explain that one... have a couple of kids for yourself, and you'll understand!

Oh my God Danny, come look at this poop!

Please stop trying to wipe my bum while I'm sitting on the toilet.

No, Gracie, Ella is not a little shithead like you.

Gracie, you drink out of a cup now, nipples are for Ella.

Gracie, we don't say "fuck."  Or "shit."

Don't worry, I wont flush it until you see it!

Danny, come quick I need backup!  She has poop behind her ears!

Gracie, it's "Oh my goodness," not "holy shit."

Thank you, you're very sweet, but I don't need you to hold my hand while I'm pooping.

Yes, Mom, you were right.

Yes that's the cat's bum, no you cannot poke it.

Please remember, when we're out in public, you have to keep your pants on!

Gracie there are no batteries in my bum, please get your hands out of my pants!

Sure Danny, let's have another baby!

Pain, Pain, Go Away...

Until a few days ago, I had never heard of intercostal muscles.  And now I am very familiar with them. I've been fighting off this really annoying cold for weeks now.  Nothing too terribly serious... a head cold one day, a sinus cold the next, a stomach bug, then back to a head cold.  But consistent with this weeks-long illness has been a nagging, hacking cough.

On Friday when I coughed, my ribs hurt.  Not too terribly.  In fact, when I was at work coughing, I would hold on to my ribs, and then sort of laugh through my cough... "tee hee hee, wow, that hurts."  By the afternoon, I wasn't giggling anymore and by the evening I had myself at outpatients.  By that time, coughing was extremely painful and I couldn't take a deep breath.  In order to cough, I had to double myself over and brace my rib cage.  I got triaged by a nurse who ordered chest x-rays and asked me to rate the pain out of 10.  When I was coughing, it was a 7.  When I wasn't, it was around a 3.  Three hours later, when I finally got in to see the doctor, it was a  9 when coughing and a 6 the rest of the time.  I couldn't move without cringing! I couldn't lift my right arm, I couldn't blow my nose or sniffle, I couldn't sit still, and I sure as hell didn't want to cough!

The chest x-rays were clear.  No pneumonia, no bronchitis.  But I was diagnosed with a chronic cough, which caused "severe intercostal muscle sprain."  Basically, the muscles that surrounded my rib cage were either strained, sprained, or torn, from the prolonged coughing.  She prescribed me narcotic pain medication which I was to take two of, every four hours.  She also told me that the only way I was going to heal the muscles was to rest.  She said to take the next 3-4 days and just stay in bed or find a comfortable position on the couch and stay there.  Perfect!  Without a husband to watch the germ magnets who gave me the original cold in the first place, I couldn't (a) take the painkillers every 4 hours as needed, or (b) stay in bed.  She also warned me that the cough would probably linger for another 6-9 weeks, and if I didn't get healed up and rest, my ribs were only going to feel worse.  I headed home, and although she said to me "Here's your prescription, you'll be able to have some relief tonight" I don't think she realized it was 9:30 and the pharmacy was closed.  

Friday night was not a good night.  I tossed and turned (very slowly, cause it hurt!) all night.  When morning finally came, my little angels actually slept in (till 7:15 and 7:30) so I got to stay in bed a little longer than normal.  Then it was business as usual.  The girls had to be fed and dressed, and then I had to get to the pharmacy and the grocery store.   Throughout the day, the pain got worse and worse.  If I was in public when I had to cough, I had to crouch down in the middle of the aisle and hold my ribs as still as possible or else I would be in agony.  I had one nice gentleman hear me screech in pain while I was reaching for something on a top shelf, and ask me if I needed some help.  Thanks guy, Gracie has crackers to eat because of you! :)

That afternoon Gracie had swim lessons.  Her final class, so I couldn't miss it.  Off we went, and I got into the pool.  For some reason, I was thinking, "Aww, pool.  Therapeutic."  Nope!  What I should have been thinking was "Awww, pool.  Crushing pressure on my ribcage."  It's a good thing it was "play day" and I could stay out of the chest-deep water.

Somehow, I made it through the afternoon, supper, and the girls' bedtime.  I'm not going to lie.  Around 4:00, I was in so much pain, I had a good idea what drug addicts feel like.  I was literally counting down the minutes until the girls went to bed and I could take my pills.  I would stare at the bottle, then the clock, then the bottle, then the clock.  The girls were both in bed by 7:00 and at 7:01 I took two of the pills, as directed.  I decided to settle in for the evening, so I set up the TV to watch a Gilmore Girls marathon, and got into my comfiest pajamas.  I waited, and waited, and waited for the pain to start easing.  7:30, nothing.  8:30, nothing.  9:00, nothing!  Apparently the pain was too far gone to be helped by two measly little pain pills.  So I cried.  I had waited all day for "sweet relief" of this pain, and it wasn't going to happen.  I stopped crying pretty quickly, cause that hurt like a bugger!  At 10:00, I couldn't wait any longer and took two more.  By about midnight I started to get sleepy, and around 1:00 a.m., the pain was gone enough to get some sleep.  I had the worst sleep I have ever had in my life, and I've gone through two pregnancies and two newborn stages.  Every time I moved, or breathed for that matter, I had a searing, stabbing, burning pain through my side.

I woke up this morning and decided to take a friend's advice.  I was going to stay on top of the pain today, gosh darn it.  Although a drugged parent is no good to anybody, neither is a parent who cannot function due to pain.  So I took one pill every 4-6 hours and managed to get through the day much better.  I still hurt like hell when I had to cough, sneeze, blow my nose, pick up a child, or reach for something.  But it was definitely more tolerable.  We had supper at friends' place tonight and they waited on us hand and foot, God love em!  

I've already called work and told them I wont be in tomorrow, or possibly the next day.  I fully intend to take the doctor's original advice tomorrow.  I'll be dropping the girls off at daycare first thing in the morning, setting up camp in front of the TV downstairs, and doing nothing but resting all day long.  I'm hoping that'll be the break my body needs to heal up a little so I can get back to my normal life.

Of course Murphy's Law says that I, who never gets sick, was doomed to be ill the entire time Danny was away and wasn't able to help out.  He's home in three weeks, so I fully expect to be back to top-notch in 2 weeks and 6 days!  :)