ahhhhhhhhh

OMG, don't make a sound, don't breath, don't even think about checking in on him.... Noah's still asleep at 6:13am. He went to bed at 7:30pm last night, and mama hasn't been woken by a single scream since. If that ain't god showin' up just in time, I don't know what is. 

Ahhhhhhhhh, the sweet luxury of continuous, unadulterated sleep. Hours at a time of ongoing dreamscapes, so deeply surrounded by non-dreaming sleep that I awake not remembering what I dreamt. Now that's heaven. Usually I'm woken out of so many half-dream states that I have all these incomplete story lines buzzing around my foggy head in the morning. Forget sex - although we actually did it last night (!) -  if everyone in the world could have this kind of sleep, world peace would prevail.  

So here's to you profiteering pharmaceutical companies: This stubborn anti-establishment-alternative-health brat salutes you in gratitude for your drugs. Thank you for the Amoxicillin that has allowed my son to sleep, thereby restoring his mama to sanity. I'm forever indebted to you.

Now to the important footnote connoted above with the (!) symbol:

(!) After having an interesting form of safe sex last night (I'll keep the details under raps to "protect" my already exposed, very private husband who'd be horrified to know I've ever even mentioned him at all in my blog), I brought up the dreaded birth control issue.  We've officially decided that I will go ahead and get my tubes tied or clipped or frozen or melted or whatever they do these days in the name of tubal ligation.  We're waiting a couple of months to do it for a few reasons:

1. I'm tired of being tinkered with

2. It'll be easier to recover without having to worry about nursing Noah

3. We're really not having enough activity classified under the title "sex" to warrant doing anything about it at this very moment

That's all for now folks. 

Oh, I guess the only other little tidbit I feel like ranting about is that I now understand why those butt-ugly Crocs are so wildly popular: putting on any other kind of kids shoes is nearly impossible. It was hard enough just getting them on a squirmy toddler. Then came having to do it over my pregnant belly. And now it's just worthless trying to cram on spider man tennis shoes when the kid is rarin' to go destroy and my infant is screaming and my diaper bag is falling off my shoulder. I've resisted those fugly Crocs until now, but they're becoming an attractive option to our daily shoe-putting-on fiasco.

Okay, now that's really all folks.

Birth control is pissing me off

These are my guys, the 3 beautiful men of my life. A fantastic husband and two wonderful new sons to nurture.  I think that's enough, don't you? I mean, why not stop while I'm ahead? Why add more diapers to the landfills? But most importantly, why torture myself any further? 

Two super healthy, super vibrant little boys... two cases of Postpartum Anxiety. One handsome, successful, guitar-serenading husband... one failed permanent sterilization surgery (!) (we'll talk about that soon). Two pregnancies and two deliveries survived with body and va-jay-jay in tact (an Oprah term that tickles my funny bone)... add those two + two and get the approximate 4 hours of sleep I get before baby wake-ups begin each night.  

Shouldn't I be able to turn in my ovaries and leftover eggs to a Retired Reproductive Parts counter somewhere to receive a voucher for unlimited-for-the-rest-of-my-life, birth-control-free sex with my safe, committed, baby papa husband?? I'm 40 for god's sake. I've paid my dues. I spent my first 37 years trying not to get pregnant by enduring blotation from pill hormones, nonstop bleeding from an IUD, itches and irritations from latex, nonoxynol 9,  foam, and "the ring." I'm done procreating. I'm supposedly in the years leading to my greatest orgasmic potential. You'd think it's my time to fly, man. 

But no. The Costco-sized tacky electric blue box of Trojan-enz under the bed stares at me in mockery each time I look for a tucked away book to whisk me away from reality at bedtime. It tells me birth control is not a done dealio for me yet. It reminds me that I endured an entire Essure permanent sterilization surgery, full anesthesia and all, only to have it fail. Details: (sorry Essure peeps - I'm busting you right now) Essure is supposedly this awesome new non-incisional alternative to tubal ligation. It was a procedure in which tiny nickel coils were implanted in my fallopian tubes to cause scar tissue to grow and occlude the tubes within 3 months. The surgery went great. The 3 months waiting took forever. Then the x-ray contrast dye test showed that not only did my tubes not occlude themselves, but that one of the coils perforated a tube and is floating around somewhere. Lovely.

That was a circuit-breaker for me. It was so disgustingly disappointing, I had to simply turn off any and all internal dialogue about birth control. Which leads to a conundrum. I am a woman, a wife, with a husband, who is supposed to be carrying on some sort of sexual relation. But I don't want to have another baby. I don't want to worry about getting pregnant ever again. I don't feel like having hormones implanted in my arm, going in for a tubal ligation surgery, or using rubbers. The man ain't up for the big V-word. We're still paying all the bills for the failed Essure.  So I'm just kinda at a stand still. 

No cute wrap-up for this post. No round off, back handspring, double back flip with nailed landing. Just a dull sigh, confused shrug of the shoulders and lame question mark leading to nowhere for now.

get him noah, get him!

Can I take just one quick sec to bitch and get it out of the way  - I promise it'll be short: The 9pm hour is the only time I did not see on the clock last night. Please tell me I'll survive this.

On a much lighter note, what about this hilarious picture of Noah beating up Gabriel?? I LOVE it!!!! Since Gabriel first began hitting Noah - unfortunately within the first few days of his life - I've joked to my friends that I'm beefing Noah up as fast as possible (amazing feat accomplished by these little boobies) so that he can hold his own against tyrant big brother. 

WWF here we come.

mad blog/sad blog

Remember Angelina Jolie all twitchy and gnarkity in Girl Interrupted? Her brilliant portrayal of psychological disturbance beautifully demonstrates my mental discomposure with this whole Noah-waking-in-the-night bull!@#$! I write this post only to vent and not to beg for solutions. I want only a safe place to blow out my seething madness, to somehow make light of its ugliness, mostly to amuse myself by writing something entertaining about it. Anything, anything other than floating around all alone in the stink of my thinking right now. 

Because my blog's main therapeutic strategy is to make lemonade out of lemons, I will say one really good thing has come out of my precarious sleep situation: I now value sleep more than food. This is monumental for a foodie of my magnitude. I actually crave good sleep far more than food, and good sleep gives me far more comfort than any sugary, fat-laden food right now. For this I am glad because food's magical qualities wore off a long time ago. 

Okay, enough of the smiles n' sunshine, back to the vile anger. I'm so ¡@#$%^&*! pissed right now, I could just, ... I could just, ... oh, I don't know... spit? I would scream, but I've wrecked my throat far too many times in the past doing that. Yes I am super grateful for my two handsome, thriving, happy children, but this nighttime sleepus interuptus shit is pissing me the !@#$%^&*! off. Thank god I have this blog to puke all over in anger and frustration. 

So let me indulge myself for just one more (long)  paragraph of blechy exclamatives. (Yes, I make up lots of words. It's necessary when you take my compulsive energy and cram it into sentences) I'm so ¡@#$%! pissed that half my night is spent in "twilight" sleep as a friend so succinctly put it: somewhere between sleep and being awake. A sort of limbo faux sleep suspension between Noah's very rude nighttime wakings. A cheap knock off of sleep that leads me just to those weird little incongruous thought patterns of pre-dreaming... and then...WHAM, Noah cries and I'm awake having to wonder what to do this time and then how to get myself back to sleep... and what in the heck was that weird little gnome murmuring to me under the umbrella? Hopefully I can catch that hallucination on the flip side when my heavenly-yet-frustrating thin veil of twilight sleep mercifully takes over again.

((((sigh)))))

this just in.....

N   E   W   S   F   L   A   S   H

Noah's got an ear infection so I can't be mad at him. 

Wait a minute. Was I mad at him or just the sleep situation? Is there a difference? Am I evolved enough to make a distinction between him and his behavior, not taking it out on him but rather being a good, all-loving compassionate mama? Well, sometimes. I ain't no angel. Not even close. I have to admit that in the heat of the heat of the every 20-30 minute cries in the night, I ain't thinkin' sprinkles-with-a-cherry-on-top kinda thoughts about my beloved son.

We went to the doc this morning because he was just SO out of sorts and she somehow maneuvered that ear-o-scope thing into his canals - between him batting pathetically at the sides of his head :( -  and saw puss and prescribed antibiotics.

Okay, so now I'm really, really sad for him because he is the sweetest little suffering baby boy around, all pulling at his ears and miserably wanting to be asleep but not being able to. My heart is bleeding for him and wishes the amoxicillin could eradicate it, like, yesterday. Poor poor little baby Noah.

(((sigh)))

Oh the trials and tribulations of being a mommy. The intense guilt for ever feeling angry, frustrated, impatient or being mean. The acute dread, sadness and empathy for their every travail. The fierce pride of each milestone and extreme love with each smile, kiss and hug.

I love Noah so much. So, so much. 

I love my sleep and mental health even a little bit more. 

Here's to hoping both can coexist peacefully together.

no one got laid

Since I last posted I've found out that there is actually public interest as to how my optimistic plan for passion restoral went. Let's see. It went like this: my husband got home, we got the boys to bed, we laid on top of the duvet in inverted spoon, facing fetal positions. I twitched to sleep and my husband went out and read the news on his computer. 

And that's how it went for the next 2 nights, which brings us to today. Our excuse is that Noah is sick.  He is really sick. Feverish and limp like a noodle all day saturday, projectile puking out any and all medication that night, and then brewing up a brutal ear infection that popped this morning = no sleep for mommy and daddy past 3 nights = completely neurotic mommy wanting to shut down the nanosecond they both go to bed to ensure at least a little bit of sleep = you got it: no sex.

sorry to disappoint.

tag team marriage

Now I fully understand why my all my parents, step-parents, and parents' parents have divorced so many times: They had kids. It's the story older than time, "Where did our passion go?" It went to your kids, that's where. Every magazine loves telling you how to "rekindle" the passion. (please spare me of that word) But every confidential mommy conversation will confirm that we don't give a damn about sex after a baby's been sucking us dry all day nursing, pooping, demanding, whining and crying.

My husband and I have become a tag-team, baton-passing, relay-race, working partnership. "Here, you take this one, I'll take that one." We look at each other in disbelief most of the time as I exhaustedly shove a whining baby on my boob while he tends to an irrational toddler tantrumming about god knows what. How can we possibly survive getting so little of our own needs met by one another? We both crave each others' touch but are usually too spent to do anything about it. After our boys are safely tucked away we usually end up lying on top of our duvet facing each other curled in fetal positions. He puts a hand on my leg. I put a hand on his head. We close our eyes trying to erase the days challenges. And then I immediately start twitching to sleep. He gets up to go read the news on his computer... and night falls on our family.

Even though I may not want sex and am not willing to wear my enticing strappy red salsa dress without underwear like in the beginning, I want my husband to do all the beginning things for me: rub my feet endlessly, bring me flowers daily, stare dreamily into my eyes, leave his blackberry turned off for hours at a time. Without these things I've developed a stubborn ego ache. Three years ago my identity changed from single temptress to married mommy so fast, my ego had no time to downsize itself and adjust to its lack of daily hits. Lately it's an alley cat singing the Billy Holiday blues, "Well, my man, he don't treat me like he used to. He say he love me, but he don't bring me flowers no mo'." My achy, breaky ego shows up in my dreams at night, spinning tales of old boyfriends wooing me and handsome strangers sweeping me off my feet on the dance floor. It so bad wants to feel the rush of our courtship again - to be reminded that I am still that woman that he wanted so bad. I know I am not nearly the first wife to feel this, nor will I be the last. It's the stuff that keeps romance novels selling and advice columns thriving.

But then (thank god) to save me from myself comes a crystalline moment of family bliss, so pure, so strong that it banishes all this nonsense into vapor. The other morning the boys and I were reading in our newly fashioned "clubhouse" - Gabriel's walk-in closet decked from floor to ceiling in cozy blankets, pillows and stuffed animals - when daddy paid us a surprise visit. He's usually snoozing away and our clubhouse reading is my way to keep us all quiet to let Daddy get his zzzzz's. So all four of us snuggled up cozily and read books and I had a brilliant aha moment: Rachel, dear girl, you have a loving, healthy family. All of this sacrifice might become worth it. The scales might, just might begin to tip in your favor so that the enjoyment of one another outweighs the hard labor. The bliss I felt was so creamy rich. Time stopped for a moment while I internally sighed in happiness and loved my husband and boys like crazy. We warmed up the cubby with our loving embraces, me holding Gabriel and daddy holding Noah, and I felt whole as a woman, mother and wife.

Two minutes later my husband picked up his crackberry and whooshed into provider/worker/corporate slave mode that lasted until that night's inverted-spoon, twitching-to-sleep scenario. But I love this man, my husband man. I love him for all he does for us and all his quirks, I really do. As I type this he is away on a business trip, working hard for us,  and I'm reading the book for women only ~ what you need to know about the inner lives of men. It's telling me in no uncertain terms that I need to give it up to my husband or else. So I'm psyching myself to stay awake tonight for him when he arrives home. Easy for me to say now in the morning. But come nighttime, it will be a sacrifice of some tempting pillow time. But my man, he deserves a little something more than just living kids as evidence of his wife's duties completed. Maybe the boys and I will swing by Victoria's Secret on our way home from Playwerx today and they can help me pick out some spicy new lingerie to motivate me for daddy tonight. 

I'll let you know how it goes....

mommy flake factor

I've become flaky. I never thought this could happen to me. I have always been chronically early, overly remembering, mega-methodical, obsessively organized - and judging others negatively who were not. Now I can't remember a damn thing. I can literally put a library return on top of my keys and somehow forget it on the way out the door. Somehow, I say. Hmmm, let's replay the getting-out-the-door-with-two-little-boys scenario:  Sling gaping diaper bag over shoulder while holding baby and simultaneously wiping two pouring noses, getting two pairs of shoes on, stopping one child from eating playdough and the other from throwing heavy objects off the porch, and running back inside to grab hats, sunscreen and cell phone I've already forgotten.  Oh, and when I bent over to do one of the aforementioned tasks, my bag of course spilled out half its hastily-packed contents, so now I must swat away four greedy, grabbing paws. On second thought, no wonder I forgot the damn DVD. 

I often describe having two children this young as circuit blowing. The demands come in such urgent gushes, requiring such superheroic response that even this well seasoned multi-tasker falls short. So something's gotta give. And it does. Memory, vocabulary, urinary continence (just kidding). Words, any word that I need to use in a sentence... gone. "Gabriel, stop hitting that um , that,  um, that..." God, I can't even remember what word I forgot.  Lateness becomes the new early and organization is out the door. Who can possibly be on time when waiting for a napping baby to wake up who took 20 minutes of rocking and screaming to get to sleep? Who can possibly commit to which pocket, drawer or cabinet to put what in when a toddler is constantly grabbing  it out and throwing it into the bushes or subwoofer anyway? And who can possibly get birthday and holiday gifts out to even their dearest of friends and family when teething, time changes and flu bugs keep coming at us. I can't even get it together to push a button and send a free eCard, that's how lame I am these days. 

However, on the bright side, I've acquired skills I never knew existed. I've become brilliant at packing a multitude of finger foods into very small tupperware containers, at stocking my diaper bag with enough of both size diapers that I don't have to bum one off a stranger at the playground, at whipping out the kleenex and swabbing noses before a little hand smears it all over, and at making really good animal sounds when reading about Farmer Jones and Farmer Brown. Thankfully these skills have become far more important to me than my former ability to get all library materials returned on time.