I was pushing the stroller past a wall of windows when I caught sight of my reflection. It was startling: I look like a mom. Not in the whole “Hey, look at that, I have a baby!” sense, but as in “Wow, when did I completely lose all sense of style and individuality?” There I was, hair all flyaway, no makeup, wearing a pale green v-neck with milk stains on the front, faded size 16 blue jeans (cuffed out of necessity rather than aesthetics), and white sneakers. Let me say this again: white sneakers.

Like everyone else who has not yet spent nine months straight in a uniform of sweats and oversized tee shirts, I had definite pre-baby ideas about what kind of mom I would be, and many of these ideas involved outfits. There would be the “going to the park” outfit (cute capris, butterfly-sleeve tee, headband), the “playgroup” outfit (v-neck shirt, dark-rinse jeans, strappy sandals), the fall “duck pond” outfit (knee-length boots, pencil skirt, soft brown sweater, possibly a hat of some sort). I would not succumb to the lure of schleppy, unflattering clothes. Not me.

The last known pre-pregnancy picture of me. Note the brand spanking new boots,
which I had been coveting for months and finally – finally! – was able to afford.
Note also: irony.

I was cute. I had good hair. I fit into my shoes. I mean, seriously. What pregnancy god did I piss off to gain a shoe size and be forced to get rid of my entire shoe collection? Because if I find that god, I intend to have some words.

Now I don’t wear outfits; I have uniforms. There’s the hot day uniform (pants rolled to the knees, flip flops, one of Not So’s wifebeaters). There’s the not-hot day uniform (jeans, tee shirt, sneakers). And there’s the not leaving the house so who cares uniform (sweats). The not leaving the house uniform is especially convenient because it can transition seamlessly from waking to sleeping with only minimal adjustment.

I hate that I look like a mom, but being a mom? Pretty kick ass. I wake up every morning to a smiling baby who can’t wait until I open my eyes and spend a half hour snuggling and singing the “Good morning!” song. I get to watch him staring wide-eyed at the world and then looking to me to explain it. I get open-mouthed baby kisses and raspberries and snuggles and bouncy baby dances. It’s no contest, really.

But I still wish the uniforms were more flattering.

Blogged with Flock

This is a thing I wonder: how much of my not being depressed is just the second law of thermodynamics? Because, see, when I’m working on something (the business, school, even cleaning the house or whatever) I feel fine. Well – fine-ish. Acceptable. The rest of the time I seem to alternate between two states: too-much-to-do torpor and oh-my-god-I-can’t-function torpor. Which of course look very similar, not that there’s anyone looking.

I’m tired. And I don’t know what I’m doing. And I should know what I’m doing, because I’m doing it, for better or worse. Parenting, running a business, sleepwalking through school…I should feel competent, but I’m quite sure that there’s something very important that I’ve been overlooking all this time and I just don’t know what it is. Maybe I would if I actually got some sleep every once in a while. Or maybe that’s the problem: I spend far too much time trying to sleep. If I didn’t sleep, think of all the stuff I could get done!

I was thinking about this yesterday, when I had some time to kill before meeting Not So after work and decided to try on shoes at Famous Footwear, which led to the realization that my shoe size is, inescapably, a nine. This wouldn’t ordinarily be significant, except for two things:

• All the shoes I own were acquired pre-pregancy, and
• My feet used to be 8-8 1/2.

So I have a closet full of shoes that will never, no matter how much I like them, fit comfortably on my feet. Added to the closet full of clothes that don’t fit for various and sundry reasons, this fills me with a sense of pointlessness.

“Look at this as a unique shoe-buying opportunity!” said Not So.

But, see, shoe-buying implies money-having, and that is not a thing that is. You see. Shoe-buying falls under the same category as hair-cutting, except, of course, that I can’t make my own shoes. I can cut my own hair. I shouldn’t, because apparently my hair-cutting mojo evaporated during my pregnancy along with my waistline, my memory, and my formerly-impressive grammar skills. But I can.

And, see, that’s the crux of the problem. I look schlumpy, I feel schlumpy, and every time it occurs to me that I ought to do something about it I’m faced with the fact that I am no longer a self-sufficient, productive member of society. I don’t bring in an income. I can’t justify things like hairstyling and footwear because any (theoretical) money I spend on myself is money I should be spending on, in order of importance, my kid, my husband, food, our bills, or our business.

Yes, so: sleep. And if I didn’t need it, I could spend my nights as a typist or something and make enough extra money to afford shoes. Shoes, and and a haircut.

And some therapy. But I’d have to work a lot to afford that.

Blogged with Flock

Happy Fun Baby is exercising his vocal cords. Not in the cute ‘listen to me shout!’ way he was yesterday; today it’s all about the screaming. I think he’s mad about the fact that I’m the only one home with him. Yesterday he had mama and daddy and grandma and papa davey. Today: just mama. And everyone knows mama is no fun.

Hey! I know why mama’s no fun! It starts with pre and ends with menstrual. God, how I’ve missed – oh wait. I haven’t missed it. In fact, I’d looked forward to several months of periodlessness (I am breastfeeding, after all) and was unpleasantly surprised last month when it started again. Stupid period. And since then my hormones have been throwing themselves a rave in my brain, complete with lightsticks and bad techno. We’re back! they say. Pass the cupcakes!

Currently I’m cranky and bloated and my self-esteem is actually eating itself. Because god knows the rest of me can’t stop eating. Ha! I am funny. Funny, and tired. So. Tired. Not a productive kind of tired, either; I could sleep for days and I’d still be complaining about how exhausted I am. (Sleep for days. Ha! I am funny again.)

Aside from the wild n’ crazy mood swings, it’s been a pretty good week. We got the office (yay!) and ordered our first set of official business cards (double yay!). I’m almost done with, what, three of our websites? and we signed up for SkypeIn for our business phone. CouldBe Studios is getting off the ground!

Of course, I still feel like I should be doing More, because I always feel like I should be doing More. Like right now: Cranky Baby’s taking a nap (and snoring…SO CUTE) and I could take this time to do some laundry, or work on a template, or work on a design blog post, or clean the kitchen, but do you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to have some pie. Yes, pie. Because my hormones demand it. And what the hormones want, the hormones get.

Except for sleep. I’m certainly not getting much of that.

technorati tags:pms, couldbe studios, cranky

Blogged with Flock

On Father’s Day, when we went to the zoo, Not So went camera crazy and took a bunch of pictures of me. This is one of the things I love about him: the way he sees me. The only problem is I can see me, too, and I? I am the size of a house.

I used to love having my picture taken, but I don’t look like me anymore, and it’s disconcerting. Whenever I see pictures of myself now I feel like I’ve just discovered a big clump of spinach between my front teeth. I went out like that? Why didn’t anyone tell me? Over the course of the last year I’ve gained, I don’t know, a metric ton. My chin is indistinguishable from my neck, and I have the beginnings of a hump from slouching over the stroller or holding the baby or something, I don’t know. I look like a troll. I mean that literally.

Women in my family (the Italian side of it, anyway) become…somewhat larger in their 30s. Family gatherings tend to look like an episode of Higglytown Heroes, only with somewhat less wobbling. I was always skinny, and I assumed I’d take after the crack-fiend thin relatives on my mom’s side, but apparently having a baby activated my “Rubenesque Italian Mama” gene. Unfortunately I still have the pointy features of a borderline anorexic, so I look somewhat like I’m being swallowed by my own fat. It’s not pretty.

So I’ve decided to be proactive for once, and started charting my food intake at The Daily Plate, a diet and fitness site. It’s in beta, and you know how I love a good beta. I’m kind of a geek about stuff like that. Makes me feel like I’m ahead of the curve.

So far, according to their ever-so-handy little calculator, I should be consuming around 1900 calories a day to lose a pound a week. I might need a bit more, since I’m breastfeeding (and there’s no “nursing mom” check box), but something in that vicinity should be good. I entered all the food I ate yesterday and it came in right at 1900 calories, but I suspect that’s because I skipped lunch. Which, you know, isn’t the best idea ever.

Writing down everything I’m eating is at least making me more aware of what I put in my mouth, and that’s always a good thing. Maybe this week (since we’re poor right now anyway, with the whole “putting down a deposit on the office” thing and what have you) I’ll eat like a normal person and lose a few pounds. It sure would be nice to have a chin again.

technorati tags:diet, weight, chin, fat

Blogged with Flock

This has been an exciting morning, if by “exciting” you mean “awful.” Following on the heels of yesterday’s bank debacle (I’d suggest you see yesterday’s entry, but – ha! – I didn’t post one. The gist is that I am such a poor credit risk that I cannot possibly have anyone else on my account because we will surely TAKE OVER THE WORLD VIA OVERDRAFT, or something) I woke up with a horrible headache and half an hour until the landlord walkthrough. I fed the kid, got sort of dressed (sweats are totally clothes, yo), tossed another load of laundry in, gathered up all the rest of the dirty clothes and hid put them in an unobtrusive pile, moved all the unfolded clean laundry into the closet, closed up all the closets, picked up all the detritus that inexplicably ends up everywhere we are, and went downstairs with roughly 30 seconds until 10 (which was the early end of When The Landlord Might Arrive) followed by two cats who should know better. To find that the kitchen was a mess, the living room weirdly full of boxes which had been almost entirely unpacked but then stacked, carefully, as though the three screws and a single figurine needed a huge box to keep them safe from their enemies, and random toys and things on the floor.

Now, you’re probably asking yourself two things: 1) why did I not deal with this last night? and 2) why am I noticing all the things that aren’t done instead of all the things that are? The answer is simple: I suck. Or, wait, maybe it has something to do with the fact that Ellison had his six month shots yesterday and spent last night wailing and clinging and generally refusing to let me do anything that did not involve snuggling him and nursing, a lot. And since I had such a good time with the bank letting me know I’m a bad credit risk, I wanted to avoid a similar situation with the landlord (i.e. him coming in and seeing how horribly disorganized our house is and reneging on our lease, or something). So I’m looking at the house and seeing it through the eyes of someone who dislikes people like me (and possibly also has a splitting headache and needs a cup of coffee), but for the record: Not So, thank you for dealing with the unpacking last night. The hallway looks great, and that was the really important thing. Anyway.

So I’m freaking out, doing the pursed-lip cleaning thing I do when I’m anxious, the cats are yowling and underfoot, the baby is wailing because clearly the Pack ‘N Play is some form of baby torture. So naturally I start yelling, because that will make everything better. Funny thing: shouting at cats? Does not help. Especially when all they want is more food. I did get the momentary mean-spirited satisfaction of them running out of the room (“We’d better go! Mom’s crazy!”), followed by the inevitable guilt of someone who has just bullied her pets. I? I am not a nice person.

Anyway I fed the cats, made some coffee, and emptied out the dishwasher (all to a chorus of wailing baby, yay), to find the third surprise of the morning:

That’s our brand new Snapware, which I tossed in the dishwasher to get rid of the plasticky smell. Turns out that wee little note on the box that says Do Not Put In Dishwasher is actually true. Good to know! Also: FUCK!

The best part of all of this? The landlord didn’t even come in. He and the builder just asked if we had any problems, and when I said we didn’t, they left. Ha!

technorati tags:anxiety, snapware, dishwasher, housework, disorganization, suckage

Blogged with Flock

Server move: pending. I probably could have made some progress today if I wasn’t so busy fruitlessly searching for a single slim manila folder which is theoretically located in one of the many unpacked boxes in our living room. (See below.)

Home move: finished! All that remains is…everything else. There are boxes. Lots of boxes. I have noticed that my emotional stability varies inversely with the number of boxes in any given room. Just because I’ve moved roughly once a year since I was born (some years we moved more than once, so I feel I can average it out) doesn’t mean I like it! In fact, I have what might be considered a moving aversion. A relocation phobia, if you will. It’s all good and fine to find a spanky new place – I am all about the obsessive searching of Craigslist for a dwelling which will more accurately reflect my Id – but once the reality of moving sets in I become increasingly useless.

Once we reach the unpacking phase, I’m practically catatonic. You’d think I’d want to unpack, to put things away and not be faced with mountains of cardboard, and you’d be right. Wanting to unpack and being able to unpack are two different things, though. I open a box, glance inside, flutter my hands around it a few times, and then need to go sit down because I can’t possibly imagine finding a place for any of this stuff, and why do we have so much stuff, anyway? Why didn’t we just throw it all away? And where the hell is the rental agreement? There was some paperwork (that’s the manila envelope I referenced above; keep up, people) I was supposed to send back to the landlord and now I can’t find it and OMG panic.

So now I’m taking a break from unpacking, if you can take a break from something you weren’t really doing in the first place, and hoping that a little time spent hiding in the bedroom will make the process seem less daunting. That, or I’ll just end up staying up here until Not So gets home and rescues me.

technorati tags: moving, unpacking, phobias, tired, boxes, useless,

See, the whole point of taking meds is to make my brain a more friendly place. I am not a pill popping sort of girl. Well – except for Valium, and I did not pop it, exactly. I more savored the lack of overwhelming anxiety and wished I could feel like that all the time. Which kept me from taking them any more frequently than was absolutely, completely necessary. Having a mom who’s addicted to escapes (chemical and otherwise) is the best anti-drug there is.

But I digress. I have been dutifully taking my half-dose of Zoloft every day, and instead of a slow, steady return to sanity I have achieved new depths of blah. My brain apparently rallied against the onslaught of seratonin, the result of which is that I’m more anxious and more hopeless than I was before. Which begs the question: why take the meds at all?

Lifehacker linked to an article on changing negative thinking, which seems hokey (I envision myself with wings! Ha!) but worth a try. I’ve pretty much given up on Kaiser as a depression resource. I may try some homeopathich remedies (more vitamin B – which can be beneficial to both mama and baby – and suchlike) and some diet changes. Not that I’m taking up the flag of the Ineffecual Kaiser Therapist on that one; it’s just common sense. Like the breathing thing. I intend to breathe, and I intend to eat, but I certainly don’t intend to spend my valuable time listening to advice I could find in a pamphlet.

I looked out the window today at the blue sky and the clouds and the trees, listening to my baby babbling in the other room, and I had a moment when I knew exactly how wonderful my life is. I need to remember that feeling.