A Long Goodbye

Shifting gears entirely to another subject that leaves me feeling a little stressed and lacking in control, it looks like my father will not be selling the house I lived in during the latter part of my childhood and moving to another state afterall. As much as this is the way I would have preferred things to end up, the circumstances under which this change in plans has arisen are fully suck-tastic.

I always thought his now-wife was a tiny bit flaky, which struck me as a bit odd for a fairly high-powered professional, but I figured it was just a quirk of her personality. Apparently, this "quirk" grew increasingly worrisome and had been a subject of many unpleasant discussions between her and my dad over the past year-plus. He insisted she seemed flakier; she insisted he was being an ass. Possibly to placate him or possibly because she could no longer deny what he was insisting was a problem, she went to a neurologist. After much testing, multiple opinions, etc., she has been told that there is a 95% chance that she has early-onset Alzheimers. And there's really nothing good about that.

Let me begin by saying that the situation for her and for her (adult) kids is a nightmare. I can't imagine having to face it and am a bit ashamed of how glad I am that it's not my dad facing this horrendous diagnosis at such a (relatively) young age.

But it's not exactly awesome for my dad either, and I doubt anyone else is thinking about him and what this means for him right now. I feel like no matter what my dad does, it's the wrong thing to do. If he moves, he gives up the life he has where he lives now for, what, a couple of years, maybe more if they're lucky, with his wife before she no longer remembers who he is and goes to live in a nursing home? And then he's stuck there. She promised to help him ease the transition, introducing him to people and helping him establish himself socially, but is that realistic now? Or he stays where he is and rips a woman whose mind is already losing touch out of the one familiar setting it has. Or they stay where they are, living apart.

The current plan seems to be to continue to try to sell her house but not his, spending three weeks a month there, and one week in an apartment they'll rent near where she lives now so she can remain in contact with the people and places she knows. Is that really for better or for worse? It seems so incredibly selfish for him to do anything but move, but that sacrifice just seems astronomical now, with no real upside. He's was in his 60s when they met -- this isn't exactly the Notebook.

The reality is that he sensed something amiss months before they got married and talked to her about it numerous times, but she just kept saying that it was who she was. (He has since learned that she spoke to at least one of her oldest and dearest friends and voiced her own concerns during that same period, which I think really upsets my dad. I'd feel better saying he is upset because he feels sad that she didn't trust him but really he feels betrayed, feeling like she lied to him.) Part of me wonders if all his heel-dragging over the move (because, seriously, they got married 11 months ago and still don't live in the same state) was subconsciously related to his gut sense that something was wrong (ignoring the fact that the state of the economy hasn't exactly made it easy to contemplate selling either, much less both, of their houses, as they planned to move to a new shared place). There would be much less guilt and indecision if the move had already been made.

This may be the first time in my life when something bad was happening in my dad's life that didn't really affect me. I don't even know what to say to him. I can't even figure out how to think about the situation. I keep trying to step outside myself for a bit and think about what I'd want my dad to do if I were one of her kids, or if I were her, and I honestly don't know and I'm secretly and shamefully glad I don't have to.

Down with PWD

I was about to ask whether there was such a thing as post-weaning depression, as I suspect I am en route to suffering it if not already there, when I decided to google first. Without quotes, I got 136,000 hits. Even with, 889 (though a not-insignificant percentage seemed to be about animals). Apparently, though not as oft-discussed or as common as PPD, PWD is in fact a real thing, or at least a thing that women other than myself feel like they might have, might be, or might soon experience. See here, and here, and here, and here (though that one is about toddlers, and Harry is clearly not a toddler). Apparently, it is worst when the weaning is abrupt and not initiated by mom. (CHECK) It is often characterized by mood swings, fight-picking, incessant and uncontrollable crying, and a desire not to get out of bed. (CHECK) It has both a physiological/hormonal component and an emotional one. (CHECK) As I read, it was hard not to feel like I was reading about myself.

While what I really would like is someone to fix it, to find a way to get Harry back to the breast (do you hear me, universe? I AM NOT READY FOR MY SON TO ABRUPTLY WEAN -- FIX THIS. DO YOU HEAR ME? NOT. READY.), knowing I'm not alone helps. Or at least it doesn't hurt. So thanks to those who came before me who put something out there on this -- PWD, early weaning, prolonged nursing strikes that resulted ultimately in weaning -- (including you, Nicky). Seriously, thanks.

*ETC(larify) that the thanks is for talking not only about PWD but also about nursing strikes and pre-mature weaning and the conomitant feelings that don't quite rise to the level of PWD too.

Yet Another Breastfeeding Post

I feel like I keep proclaiming the end of breastfeeding, turning myself into the girl who cried wean, but I think this really is it. Now that he has top teeth, the biting has become unbearable. He bites all the time, yanking on the breast with his teeth as he pulls away, and the pain is excruciating. Some of the time he won't latch on at all -- as the breast approaches his mouth, he clamps down, biting before even thinking of doing anything else. And it breaks me heart. And the pain. I love him more than I could ever express, but sometimes it's hard to like him. If he isn't biting, he is scratching or punching me in the face or pulling my hair. I don't want to end up resenting my son, who I love with all my heart.

Truth be told, I'm often scared he is eventually going to rip the nipple right off, even though various sources claim that isn't possible, or just isn't going to happen. Most of those same sources also claim that any number of techniques will keep the baby from biting more than once and/or that babies outgrow the biting after a few das or at most a few weeks. Many techniques and many months later, I have lost all faith in such words of wisdom. And I'm out of ideas.

I am also eventually going to run out of tears. I spend far too large a percentage of my day crying over this. I feel very rejected. When I was encountering schedule problems at work, P made a comment about how it's important that I get enough time with Harry "because he's nursing." Not because I'm his mom and babies need time with their moms, but because he's nursing. And what about now? Does he not need me anymore? I fear that in Ps eyes, he doesn't. At least no more than he needs anyone else.

Plus, I already feel like I don't get enough time with him, being at work during the week. Nursing was always our time, time that was just for us. Now we will be giving up this time too, either giving up the time spent feeding to pump or the time I could otherwise play with him to pumping. And I hate pumping. But I am also not willing to switch to formula when I'm still perfectly capable of giving him breastmilk (please know that I am not judging anyone else who does so -- it's just not where I'm at).

I guess that last note is part of the issue for me. I was prepared to accept that I might not be able to breastfeed. That I might not produce enough milk. That he might not be able to figure it all out. That we could have encountered issues from day one. I was also prepared to accept that he would one day be a big boy and be ready to stop nursing. I just didn't expect that it would happen so soon, before he hit ten months. Before he has even figured out crawling, or called me mama. I'm just not ready, but I'm learning that it's not up to me.

Uninteresting Update

Harry's nine month appointment was last week. He has really grown a lot -- blowing out of the percentiles (18th for weight, 75th for length, 50th for head circumference) he had been in since he was a month old. As of last Thursday, he weighed in at 21 pounds 6 ounces (which was Ps guess on the nose -- impressive), which is the 62nd percentile. And he was 29.75 inches long (85th percentile) with a head in the 95th percentile (I don't think they told us the measurement). Oddly, though he does feel a lot heavier, I would not have guessed that his head had grown that much.

There's honestly not a lot new with us. Harry continues to try to crawl with no real success. he has been on hands and knees for over two months. This week he seems to have perfected lifting one arm without toppling while on hands and knees. He also loves standing and has mastered the one-arm hold. He doesn't do much step-taking, though. He is capable of pulling to stand but has yet to realize that he can do it whenever and wherever he wants. Perhaps if he realizes he can take steps and cruise, it will become more appealing. For now, he just yells until you offer fingers for him to use to pull up. To be honest, he yells a lot these days. Not crying. Not whining. Yelling. Very. Loud. Yelling.

There were layoffs at Ps work, but P was unaffected (though, sadly, Miss M's -- Harry's daycare provider -- husband was not so fortunate). Miss M is on vacation right now, so Harry has been at backup daycare at my office. He has not been drinking his bottles (he usually takes 18 ounces during 9 hours of daycare; they got him to take 6 ounces on Wednesday and 6 on Thursday, though I ended up going down to nurse on Thursday post-lunch so he wouldn't end up hungry and dehydrated) or napping well. It has not affected his mood much, but it stresses me out anyway. And the poor napping has left him overtired, giving him a hard time falling asleep at night, playing for a lot longer than usual before drifting off, adding to the sleep deficit.

My work is about the same. Plugging away. Trying to get enough work and make a positive name for myself in order to avoid what I can only assume will be another round of "performance-based terminations" in the late fall/early winter.

Lacking anything further to say, I offer a picture of Harry -- one of my favorites, as I think his bedhead look is cute:

Nine Months

Dear Harry,

I can't believe how quickly you are growing up. Your ninth month was remarkable in large part because of how unremarkable it was. You didn't really learn anything new -- you just kept on doing the things you've been doing. Generally speaking, you nap well, you eat well, you sleep well. You have a lot to say, but none of it is at all word-like, or even proto-word-like. Some of the time (okay, much of the time), I'm convinced you are communicating with the dog.
You don't crawl or army crawl or scoot on your bottom, but you do get around, mostly by pushing with your arms while on your belly or on your hands and knees, going in reverse. You then want to see something to one side or another, so you push yourself in a circle with your arms, and then you push backwards in a new direction. You roll on your right shoulder (yes, always the right, so you don't make any real progress), back and forth, making sure you know what is above you too. But you can't seem ever to move to where you want to be, always moving instead further and further away. I can't imagine how frustrating that must be.

You also love to stand. Mostly holding on to fingers, but you have also discovered that the activity table can be fun. So long as someone is there to catch you if you topple. Thankfully for us, you have not figured out that you can move your feet and go places while standing, so for now you enjoy the view and work on bouncing up and down. Always a good time. Your dad and I fear the day when you figure out you can really get around on your own. (We are a bit delinquent on our baby-proofing.)


You got your third tooth this month, and all of a sudden the biting stopped. Thank you! Apparently, your third tooth was the cause of three months of biting. I'm sorry teething is so tough for you, at least with respect to the top teeth. I hope the fourth, which seems very close to the surface, is less painful -- for your sake and mine.

Your second Red Sox game was more fun for everyone involved. We all got to see most of the game -- and you even took a nap in Daddy's arms. Everyone kept telling us that their own kids/grandkids/nieces and nephews would not have behaved nearly so well. The only time you fussed or cried was when you hit yourself in the face, which wouldn't have made you cry except that you were very tired. Within three minutes you had fallen asleep.

For new foods, we introduced you to apricots, blueberries, watermelon, and kiwi. You loved them all -- especially blueberries, since you can feed them to yourself easily. On that note, you've become quite skilled with finger foods. Over the course of the month, you went from picking things up with your fist and failing to get them into your mouth to picking things up with your fingers and putting them in your fist and using the other hand to get them into your mouth to picking things up with your fingers or your fist and actually getting them in there. You have also started really chewing, which is very strange to us. So we've been giving you a lot more for you to self-feed. We told Miss M she could do the same and let you try soft foods if the other kids were having them, but she took some liberties with that invitation. We asked her to limit it to foods you had tried before. She decided to start with french fries. Needless to say, we learned that you like both potatoes and fried food.


You're a wonderful little boy, Harry. No longer a baby, but really a little boy. I am so lucky to have you in my life.

Love,

Mommy

Reune, or uniting again

Inspired by Dr. Grumbles post, I decided to post, since it has been a while.

My college reunion was this weekend. It was good to see friends and catch up. (It was also wonderful to see a fellow blogger classmate.) There's definitely something a little odd about reunions, though. You keep having these moments in which you realize that you are having the same stale conversation over and over again, and that at some point you had ceased paying attention to anything the other person was saying. You know your own answers to the totally predictable questions (this is my husband P, we still live here, big law stooge, Harry), and you ask the same predictable questions in return, and you have the same stock responses to the answers given by the other participant in the conversation. Eventually, you realize you haven't heard a word the other person said, but they didn't even notice, because some part of your brain is still functioning on some strange sort of autopilot while the conscious part has drifted off and begun contemplating the surreal nature of the experience of participating in a conversation while not really being mentally present.* As the two parts of your mind start to come together again, you want to share your experience with the other person but you realize that you would then have to admit that you weren't paying attention to what they were saying. And, well, it's one thing unintentionally not to listen to someone else, but it's another thing entirely to own up to it. So you let them remain ignorant and instead tell the next person you talk to before you get into the routine banter. You then wonder if you could have had that conversation without your conscious mind participating, in a very meta way. (Or maybe it's just me.)

But it's not like that with everyone. Just some people. There were a lot of people I was excited to see and catch up with and whose goings-on were things I wanted to learn more about and as to whom when I said 'let's catch up soon' I actually meant it. But my class was large, and I knew, at least tangentially, quite a lot of people. And, to be fair, if we were that close, we would probably have kept in touch better and they might already have known that the man with me was P and that we still live here, where I lawyer, with our son Harry. Or at least have seen it on Facebook.

At our last reunion, little enough time had passed that it felt like we had been away for the summer, so now we had to fill one another in on what we had been up to. Some people were married, many to people they were dating in college. Some people were in grad school. One or two had kids and/or a career (as opposed to a job, which was what most people had). This time, it was different. People were doctors with specialties and areas of expertise and/or had more than one child and/or had sold the business they started out of college to a multinational corporation and/or had moved overseas to work in a developing country. And others had done none of those things and were just enjoying dancing and drinking, like it had been summer and no time had passed at all. And we all said "I'll talk to you soon" when what most of us meant was "I'll see you in five years." Then we all went back to what we do when we aren't doing that.

*I think that non-conscious part of my mind could in fact pass the Turing Test, and I can't decide if that makes sense or is totally weird. Thinking about it now, it reminds me a bit of what Adam Sandler's character did in Click when he skipped ahead. But less weird.

Wordless Wednesday: My Sweet Guy

Honesty versus pride

As for the title, I am not referring to my own.* This is just an anonymous note to my employer.**

I would just like to say that I know that layoffs/RIFs can always be called performance-related. The reality is that when faced with having to cut costs, once the decision is made to cut staff, cuts will almost always be made based on performance. We all know that a company is not likely to cut its top people while keeping its bottom. So, yeah, it's usually going to be performance-related, even when it's a layoff. But most employers have the moral fortitude to be honest about it so that its employees aren't left feeling like crap and aren't in a tougher position when it comes to looking for work. Seriously? The economy sucks. Suck up your pride and admit that you have more people than you can keep busy and need to cut costs.

*It's not just the title that isn't about me. As of right now, I still seem to have a job. It'd be hard to claim that my performance in the review period wasn't up to par since I was on leave during the entire period. But it pisses me off for the dozens who were affected this week and will be next.

**To whom I am very thankful at the moment for my continued employment. I hope it continues for the indefinite future.

On an unrelated note, for anyone not reading on a reader, I just posted Harry's eight month post.

Brief Update

I can't believe I disappeared. First, I started Harry's eight-month post and never had time to upload the photos, and he didn't cooperate with the month-iversary ones (he thought eating the paper would be more fun, then he cried when I took it away), and I didn't want to post something else before I finished it. I still haven't. That makes me sad. But it gives me a project for the weekend.

Then I got super busy at work. So busy that I missed bedtime. And a lot of dinner-times. And it made me really sad. And meant I didn't have much time. And things have only just started slowing down again, and I'm not even sure how long that will last.

So I've been a bit freaked out because I have heard that there were, well, "letting-gos" (for lack of a better term) this week. Not layoffs. Not systematic. Just some people being told that it was time for them to move on. Meanwhile, my reviewer never contacted me to set up my review, and he did his others this week. And I can't seem to get the head of my department to return my emails or phone calls regarding some things I need to discuss with him. And it all left me feeling a bit panicky. I reached out to my reviewer this morning (I don't actually know this guy -- my old one left the firm around the time I came back from leave and this guy works in a different department, in a different city). He apologized and said that since I hadn't done any work this review period he had planned to have a phone call for us to introduce ourselves and for me to ask any questions I might have and that he just forgot to set it up. We'll do it next week. So I'm a little less paranoid now. A little.

That said, I'm finally getting to do some real lawyering. I went to court last week. I have written briefs that received very little partner review/editing before filing. I'm working on a fairly interesting business development project that I have been told will count as billable for hours purposes. I feel like my career has a trajectory again, for the first time since the miscarriage, when I feel like it started to derail and never quite got on track again. In addition, I met with our internal career counselor person last week. We talked a bit about what my exit strategy might be, among other things. And I'm feeling like maybe I have one. No time frame, really, but some kind of inkling of what I'd like to do and someone who will help me figure out how to get there. This is a good thing.

So it's been a mixed bag career-wise around these parts. Everything else? Well, that'll have to be another post.

Eight Months

Dear Harry,

As you can see, this month we learned that you are no longer interested in sitting patiently and smiling for the camera. If there is a piece of paper nearby, it will go straight in the mouth and become damp and crumpled and slowly disintegrate, leaving big wet pieces in your mouth that I have to scoop out with my fingers (or just let you swallow them). Not that this happens often or anything. This was also the month when I realized that I have no idea how or whether one is supposed to discipline a baby, or at least prevent a baby from doing things that are harmful to him, or to, say, those around him. I should probably figure this out soon, though, before you gauge my eyes out with your pointy little fingers with their always-sharp, always-ragged nails or pull out all my hair with your grabby hands or bite my nipples straight off. Again, not that these things happen often or anything.
I feel like I missed you a lot this month. Like last month, I missed you because I saw you less than I did before. I just hate that this month was even less than last. I worked late more than once and made it home just in time for bath, or just in time for bed. And that makes me sad. I also had a Vestry meeting, and a Finance Committee meeting, and a Vestry retreat. Church is important, as is taking a role in its governance, but I hate missing time with you all the same.


You went to the park for the first time (and second and third) this month. You loved the swings. Really, really loved them. You also checked out a couple of different slides and the see-saw and those things that are mounted on a giant spring. The swing was definitely the biggest hit.

This month was also your first trip to Fenway to see the Sox. You mainly seemed to enjoy the folks sitting behind us who kept smiling at you and trying to entertain you (at the expense of your nap). We didn't see as much of the game as your dad and I usually do, and it was a bit chilly, and our seats weren't great, but it was fun anyway. We have tickets to many more games this summer, so I hope you had a good time!

Given that baseball season is starting, it seems fitting that it is finally warming up outside. You haven't spent a ton of time outside in months (with us -- you go outside at daycare every day, so long as it's at least 35 degrees, which I really like about your daycare), and I'm pretty sure you had no memory of those early times in the sun. I think your favorite thing about being outside is getting to spend time with the dog while he plays. Your love for him grows each month, and it's wonderful to watch that relationship develop. You started saying a lot of consonants this month, but my favorite is "Wu," which you say when you see the dog. I'm pretty sure it's woof. So sweet.

You tried some new foods, like you do every month. This month was pumpkin, acorn squash, barley, and mango. You seemed to enjoy them all, but I feel like you spit up more when you had pumpkin after a run of very infrequent spitting-up, so maybe we'll hold off on that for now. I wish mangoes weren't such a pain in the rear to prepare for you, because you really seemed to like them. On that note, I'm cool with you liking acorn and butternut squash, as well as bananas, as they are all easy and cheap. You also started eating some finger foods, mainly banana chunks, puffs, and cheerios. You tend to pick up food with your fists more than your fingers and then jam your whole hand in your mouth. Most often, the food sticks to your hand and you get very angry when you discover you didn't manage to eat anything. I know you'll figure it out eventually, though.
Finally, this month we got to celebrate our first mother's day together. Like every other holiday, we spent a lot of it in the car, driving to see all the ladies who love you, starting with the grammies and GG, then heading to Grandma and Grandpa's house. You chewed on some tissue paper, hung out in a box, and sat in your very own rocking chair for the first time. You and Daddy got me a potted lily, which was beautiful and should last a long time, just like my love for you.

I love you with all my heart,

Mommy