zeptember

By December 28, my sinus infection or whatever it was, had started to finally fade.

By December 31, my husband’s doctor cleared him to be able to go out in public again, though we’d been stepping out of the house for the past two days as it was, because of cabin fever. The doctor said that as long as one still has a cough, one is still contagious, at least when it comes to H1N1. My husband had a mild cough, and was told as long as he coughs into his inner elbow, and washes his hands frequently, the spread of the illness would be greatly minimised.

So on New Year’s Eve, we went to our friend’s house, and enjoyed a mellow evening just hanging out. Some of our friends have young children now, so the house was filled with infant and preschooler noises as well.
I had reminded my husband on the way to the party about how to cough into his elbow, since we employ this method in the Montessori school I work for.
Of course, within the first half hour, my dear husband jokingly shoved his face into a box of homemade cookies and made ‘nom nom nom’ noises.
I pulled him aside immediately and reminded him of his germs. He sheepishly said he was sorry, that he’d forgotten already.
*sigh*

On January 1st, we decided to go dancing, since we’d been screwed out of most of our vacation by being sick. We sweated and danced our asses off at Meat vs. Death Guild.

The next night, we returned to the same location for New Wave City, and danced some more. I began to get sad on the way to the club, because I realised it was our last night out together before having to return to work. We’d not been able to go to Michigan to see friends and family, and we’d not been able to go out into the world from Christmas Eve til New Year’s Eve in any capacity to hang with friends, much less go wining, dining and dancing.

Today is the end of our “vacation”. Tomorrow it’s back to work. I slept in til 11:30am, despite having told myself that would be a bad idea - that I’d have insomnia tonight. Ah well.

Throughout the past week and a half, I’ve checked flight status on the airline we were supposed to have flown. Our flight made it safely to Michigan on December 25, and safely back to San Francisco on January 2. The Cabal party we were supposed to attend still happened in our absense, and pictures and dialogue were posted. I kept tabs on the weather - snow fell regularly through Christmas into the New Year in Michigan.
It’s a bit surreal knowing all of this, and having reality be that I never got on the plane.

Meanwhile, back in California, it’s been a mix of rain and sun, and the temperature has been roughly in the 50°F range during the day, and in the 30-40°F range in the evenings.

Yesterday as we shopped for a dishwasher, I informed my husband that we’d boarded the plane in Michigan and were now on our way home.
This morning I had a nightmare that we’d overslept and likely missed our flight back to San Francisco. I spent a lot of time on my cell phone with a bad connection to Travelocity to try to pin down whether the plane had left already or not. The nightmare ended with me at my ma’s house, having gone into the kitchen and turned down the country music on an old small boombox radio, so I could hear the phone conversation about how to go about getting booked on another flight. My husband was in the living room, my brother had just walked in the front door, and the boy next door stood on his porch with his wife, who was there and then not there and then there again…like some sort of hologram. The two looked a bit Victorian.

My cough returned Wednesday or Thursday as I cleaned the house, because of the dust. The cough settled, then returned again by Saturday morning, along with phlegm, after my husband and I had gotten all kissy face for the first time in about two weeks. I was hesitant but gave in. We’ll see if I get sick again. I don’t have the best immune system…

Yesterday I was so tired all day long, despite having slept in, that I wanted to cry. I overcaffinated myself to no avail. Today I’m feeling pretty tired again, but not as worn out as I was on Saturday. I’m guessing I was just super dehydrated and worn out from all that dancing and sweating on Friday, since it is the first major activity in weeks on account that I’ve been sick. I first got the flu around December 5, and my husband’s doctor thinks it was a blend of H1N1 and the regular flu. She says it takes weeks to fully recover from it, and that relapses can happen.

So it’s back to wait and see, now that we’ve had a weekend of strenuous activity via the nightclubs.

For the past six months, since working close to home and not having a daily commute anymore, I have not listened to the news on the radio.

I don’t have regular television to watch news - we only have DVD and VCR hookup - we don’t have cable or satellite TV.

I don’t watch the news in online video feeds.

Every now and then, I’ll google national and world news to see what’s going on, or I’ll see news via posts made in LiveJournal, Facebook or Twitter.

But I have to say, overall I’ve been a much more sane person since cutting two things out of my life:

• working for the computer industry
• listening/reading the news every day

For the past couple of days, I’ve been full on checking the news again, because of the school and health care speeches that President Obama has given, and everything surrounding what’s going on with those speeches - mostly right-wing nut jobs (check it out here, here and here). Since I was paying attention to who said what about the President’s speeches, I thought I’d also check in on national and world news as well.

I’m seriously depressed, now. It’s been no more than 36 hours all told I think, checking the news a few times, and I’m a mess. This world pisses me off. This is why I had stopped paying attention in the first place - I don’t have the energy or health reserves to be absorbing world news and politics.
It wasn’t any one thing - it was all of it: right-wing nut jobs, several child abuse stories, continued horrors of vets returning from war when I know I still have extended family in the military, all kinds of stuff on The Canary Report by a fellow blogger-acquaintance, unemployment stats, continued heat waves, local homophobia, and other news.

I have a daily job that makes me work really hard for eleven effing dollars an hour. I come home exhausted. For up to two weeks out of each month, I am incapacitated in some form by endometriosis, culminating with being bedridden for 1-3 days. I don’t have time outside of my own home life and health issues for much else. I NEED to focus on me and not on the rest of the world. So when I do pay attention to the news, it leaves me emotionally bitter and depressed. And when I’m left like that, I don’t have the extra spoons on reserve to also handle what’s going on in my own life, or my family and friends’ lives. I certainly don’t have the stamina to catch up on my own blog, which captures and reposts the latest news and research surrounding finding a cause and cure for endometriosis.

To try to correct the damage I’ve caused myself over the past couple of days, this evening I took a dose of Happy News. It’s sort of like a news anti-depressant if you will.

I’m not trying to sing LA LA LA! while plugging my ears and pretend nothing’s going on in the world around me. I know there’s a lot of bad and serious shit going down in the world, in the U.S., in the Bay Area, in my town.

I just not the right person to talk to about these things - if I get involved in any way in matters which I feel are completely beyond my control, it will literally take me down emotionally and physically. And I’m too self-preserving to let that happen.

After reading some happy news, I remembered I should be attending a meeting to help get the word out to say NO to a recall of three of my town’s school board members. I panicked a bit, wondered if I should bother now that I was late, but in the end, I bit the bullet of social phobia and walked to the event. I only wanted to bolt from the meeting a few times, but I stayed in my seat. Two of my friends were in the row in front of me but that didn’t stop the social anxiety.
After the meeting, I met and shook hands with one of the board members and got her business card. Wouldn’t you know it? One of her kids used to go to the school I now teach at. Connections are a great thing.

After the meeting, I went to the grocery store and spent an hour trying to figure out the best groceries for me and my food allergies. I still eat a lot of processed foods - still not prepping most of my dishes by hand. Need to work on that. Food prep is calming.

Tonight’s outings more than pass me on the homework I was assigned by my shrink, which was to walk alone around the block as a step in facing my social anxiety.
I know my therapist will be proud of me. The thing is, I know she means well, but she really just doesn’t understand what I go through, and how intermittent it can be, and how debilitating it can be. She may say I’m on the road to recovery but she has no idea. At least, that’s how I feel right now. She’ll view me going out as a huge success, but down the road, it could be a day, a week, a month…I’ll have another social phobia freakout and/or drink myself to blackout again in order to deal with the anxiety. It’s hit and miss.

*sigh* anyway…

Now it’s nearly 11pm and I need to be in bed but for the past three nights, I’ve not been able to fully wind down.

Hot shower, here I come.

I just spent the past 6 hours on and off searching for airfare to Michigan. I’ve been searching on and off for the last few months and I keep dropping the ball.

This year is my 20-year high school reunion. I started off saying I wasn’t going, then I waffled, then I said definitely I wanted to go, then I got in touch with more and more old school buddies through facebook and found out none of them really wanted to go. Then they waffled, then they wanted to go, and now the most important ones to me no longer want to attend the reunion. It’s hilarious because I got an email the other day saying the whole reunion will be canceled soon if more people don’t commit to it and pay the dues for dinner and drinks! What losers our class continues to be.

I’ve been saying for the last couple of years that I want to go back to Michigan to visit friends and family, that it’s been too long, that my family will be mad at me if I don’t visit soon, etc…

And then I remember something - the ONLY family that ever came to see me in California over the last 12 years that I’ve lived here are my father, my aunt, uncle and my cousin (and my aunt, uncle and cousin came here to visit the rest of their immediate family as a present to said cousin who graduated high school back in 2000. I was just an additional bonus to visit as it were).
My mother, my brother, his wife and kids - none of them have ever come to visit me.
Granted, they’re all poor as dirt, living hand to mouth like I am much of the time. They don’t know how to save their pennies for a vacation any more than I do.

Therefore I’ve always felt it my responsibility to be the one to keep in touch, since I so thoughtlessly abandoned them by moving nearly 2,500 miles away.

I’ve had friends and chosen family come to visit over the years - that’s always wonderful of course.

But the family thing…I moved to California in 1997 and went back home for Christmas in 1997 and in 1998. That’s about all I could take, what with all the drama and politics that goes on in families. And well I was still an AngryGoth™ back then, who was going through the teenage rebellion several years later than most people.

I declared after two Christmas trips home never to do that again. And I haven’t. It’s going on 11 years now that I have not gone home for Christmas.

That, combined with just having gotten married last October, and my 20-year high school reunion coming up next month, and the stark fact that we still haven’t gotten out hard copies of wedding photos yet to immediate family - all that has me feeling much more obligated and in debt to the family for an in-person visit than I normally feel.

So I wrestle with the thought - do I want to go back home to visit? Or do I think I have to go back home to visit?

As I went through expedia.com for the umpteenth time this evening, trying to find the perfect schedule and airfare, I finally just growled, tossed aside the laptop and fled the room.
I spent several minutes in the bathroom just staring at myself in the mirror, trying to figure me out.

And that’s when it finally hit me on a conscious level - I don’t want to go back home. I’d much rather spend the $1,500+ it will cost for airfare, rental car, hotel and food for a week on going somewhere special with my husband, or buying stuff we need, or hell even getting some new nice clothes.

I keep trying to rationalise the idea of flying home for Christmastime, during the snow and freezing time, as something that would be enjoyable. I keep thinking we could turn it into a winter lover’s getaway and snuggle near a fireplace.
What a laugh.
We’d spend an entire day traveling, check into the hotel and try to catch some sleep. The next day, we’d need to get a rental car and slog through the snow and ice for 300 miles, which normally takes about 5-6 hours but in snow could take much longer. So that’s another whole day of travel. Then we’d spend two days visiting my father up north. Maybe there’d be some fun and lazing about in that.
Then we’d have to slog back downstate through the snow and freezing weather again and arrive back at a hotel - day 3 of 7 being nothing but travel. Then we’d spend the next couple of days trying to see my ma, any other family, and friends.

I’m twitching just thinking about it.

And I’ve been bitching at my husband to tell me if he has Christmas break off work or not. He finally told me yesterday that yes, they are shut down for one week between Christmas and New Year’s.
I realised while looking at airfare that not only do I still not have my autumn hours for work in place yet, but I don’t even remember if my workplace shuts down for a week or just a few days.

So now I feel sheepish for pestering my husband so much about his time off.

And I realised too that a lot of my mental friction has been just The Point Of The Matter against my husband - I know he despises Michigan and Kentucky where I have family. More than that, he hates flying in airplanes. He’s got severe flying phobia - I call him B.A. Baracus because he’s gotten unruly on flights, and has to be severely drugged to get through the flight.
So anytime I so much as mention missing my family back home, and could we maybe visit soon, he gets all bristly and short with me. This has been going on for the entire time we’ve been together. I then go ahead and make the flight arrangements, and we argue the entire time because his phobia ramps up severely, and I need his input as to dates, times and all that.
Once, I booked flight without telling him in advance, just to save my sanity. It did jack shit cuz once I let him know we’d be flying, he still flipped and hemmed and hawed and then totally backed out.
I flew without him (this was to visit friends in Seattle in 2005). I made him pay me back for the cost of the canceled ticket.

So it’s a lot of stress for both of us to even consider flying anywhere. Doubly so when it’s to a place he doesn’t even care to ever set foot in again, and doesn’t really care much for his in-laws to begin with.

That has left me thinking two things simultaneously:
1) FINE, I’ll go without you, then. I don’t know why I didn’t do this before. Wait yes I do - I still have a bit of that co-dependent streak in me.
2) You’re my HUSBAND now, you HAVE to come with me, otherwise you shame me and my family for being absent from my side.

While staring at myself in the mirror tonight, trying to get a grip on my brain meats, it occurred to me that I - ZEPT - do not want to spend all that money in cold and snow to be running around trying to please parental units by being physically present for them. My father continually treats me like a 15-year-old, and my mother continuously wants me to try becoming Christian - for her.

I wouldn’t even have time to visit the extended maternal family - and ma says they don’t even gather at the holidays anymore, anyway. All this I have in my head is just romanticised childhood memories of extended family holiday gatherings that ceased to exist 23 years ago. Going back now and trying to make that a reality would fail on all levels - families have split up, grandparents, an uncle and a cousin have died, other cousins have abandoned the family and/or the family has abandoned them, and let’s not forget that several cousins have gone on to have their own children and broken homes at young ages.

Then there’s my childhood homes - my ma still lives in the one I grew up in during the week, and it’s still as gross and disheveled and legally condemnable as it ever was when I lived there. My father’s childhood home, which then was my childhood home on weekends, and then full time during the last two years of college - that house was sold a decade ago and got a second floor added onto it. And development has claimed much of the wetlands forest surrounding the property.

Then there’s my friends and chosen family. Many of them have grown up and now have families of their own. They work full time and/or cannot afford to go out anymore. They certainly don’t party or go out on weeknights anymore. Others moved out of state like I did.

We can still have an awesome Cabal Ball - I can declare that I want one and we can set a date. If not that then a nice dinner somewhere - people usually are able to make it to a dinner.

The friends thing is not a loss - just an adjustment.

So other than that, what am I chasing?

What do I NEED from going back there?

It’s ghosts, now. It’s swirling dust. It’s the past haunting my mind. I don’t want to go back to Michigan, I need to go back to put my life there to rest. But haven’t I done that already? I thought every time I go back there, I declare, “I’m SO glad I moved away!”
Don’t I find out the hard way every time that my Michigan vacation is not a vacation? It’s actually rushed and complicated and frustrating due to family dramas and cycles I can’t break free of.

The only thing I NEED from that place is genealogical and geographical historical research.
That’s what I want.

And knowing that, I can then declare that it is Not Worth It to put my husband through hell for the false notion that he must be at my side to represent our marriage. I realise I have been trying to prove to my family that I have somehow MADE IT away from the nest. I’m not sure I have - I need their validation that I have. In my head, I don’t know if I’m actually away from home or if I’m still there in my bedroom writing in my diary, wishing I was grown up and had moved away.

I think that not until I have cleaned out my mother’s house of every last scrap of my childhood will I feel a sense of closure on my past, and finally begin to grow up on my own.

There has been recent talk on my brother’s part of retiring my mother, selling off her house, and getting her settled into an apartment near his place three hours to the south.

Therefore I need to just WAIT, and when I find out for sure when my ma will be moving, THEN I can fly back home with or without my husband, and help ma move, and box up or throw out the rest of my crap, and bid a final farewell to that despicable old house we had to live in for so long - the house that contributed towards my low self-esteem and self-loathing just by its very nature of being so run down and smelly and flea infested and in a shitty neighborhood and looking so obviously inhabited by people living below poverty level.

There.
Now I guess I know what I want.

So… I’m still not upholding my promise to stop drinking in 2009. As a matter of fact, I’ve blacked out drinking three times in the last two months; June 20, July 9, July 31.
All three times were social events with people I already know and have hung out with. Of the three, one was on a weeknight, where I had to go in to work the next day severely hungover, because my co-worker had partied with me the night before and I knew she’d call in sick, so I couldn’t.

I put myself in therapy for the social anxiety drinking on July 20th, and have only had two sessions before I got too drunk again.

Apparently I was so drunk this past Friday that when my husband came home, he found me trying to give the TV remote a drink of water with the water pitcher.

I woke up around 8am with no pants on and still in my tee shirt, bra and undies. That’s the first moment I realised I’d gotten blackout drunk again. I know that I did not blackout until I got home, because I recall leaving the bar and saying goodnight to my friends. In fact, both of my friends who were with me til the end of the night told me even today that they are amazed I told them I was so smashed, because they thought I behaved very well and only slightly drunk.

Well that’s good to hear, I guess…

But my husband was really upset with me. He was pretty depressed over having come home and seeing me like that. It reminded him of a very aweful experience we shared down in San Diego four years ago when I got blackout drunk. I’ve not touched Long Island Ice Teas and especially Gin ever since that episode, which nearly ended our relationship.

I spent all of yesterday housebound. I was despondent and even suicidal at times. Alcohol is a CNS depressant, after all. I was humiliated at what I’d gone and done again. I keep telling my husband I’ll stop drinking at social events and I keep failing him and me. I don’t do this when we’re out to dinner. I don’t do this at home with our wide assortment of wines and liquors right there in the open.
I drank water all day yesterday to no avail - I barely urinated all day. It wasn’t until I got some pedialyte and SmartWater and drank that regularly last night into today that I could feel my body start to detox a bit. Ugh.

I’ve gotten too old for this shit.

Nothing I do or say aloud or think or write down or vow - nothing helps. I still keep getting super drunk to quell the noise when I’m out at social events.

Third therapy session is tomorrow evening.

August 3, 2009 Edit:
Had a good session with the shrink tonight. Got some good info. Scheduled to meet with outpatient rehab in two weeks. Until then, I’ve grounded myself from the following social outings: bar night, tiki night, concerts, clubs, parties, group dinner gatherings, picnics and BBQs.

I will be telling people I may hang with one-on-one about the drinking and rehab, and that more than anything, if people wanna hang with me right now, NO BOOZE PLZ anywhere near me. If yer drinkin, I’m not hangin.

…and of course I must write a book about it.

My neighbor went into labor at 4am Sunday. She’s a week overdue already and on Saturday morning I agreed to be on call for her this coming week, since there’s no summer school teaching work for me this week.
She was trying for a home birth without drugs, which to me is absolute insanity.
Sarcasm aside, a home birth seems like that’s just the way it should be done anyway, innit? And the without drugs thing, well that’s just cuz you never know what the meds really do to a newborn, so trying to birth without is also a good idea.
Ain’t no way I’d ever tho.

Though she was in labor, I was not told I should report for babysitting duty on Sunday, so I went ahead with my plans to do the AIDS Walk.
We had a great turnout and did the walk, and had a great time walking with my hubby, with artisticskin, damiondead, princessdammitt, nohwhere_man, Anna Mae, Christine, Melanie and Betsy.

mklmyrs was also there but instead of walking, he manned the team table for us along with Amanda. THANK YOU!

Our team raised $2,425 in online donations alone! The total for this year’s AIDS Walk was over $3M.

On the way home from the AIDS Walk, my neighbor called to tell me she was still in labor. I told her I’d be over as soon as I could to help out with her toddler son.
I had time to change clothes and that’s it. My neighbor’s wife told me I could find their son in the park a couple blocks away with another babysitter, so off I went, after having just walked 6 miles for the AIDS Walk. My feet and legs were in pain but I’d promised I’d be there for my neighbors, and besides, their son is adorable.

We two babysitters hung out in the park with little S for awhile, reading to him, feeding him some late lunch/early dinner, and finally taking him for a walk because he was starting to worry about momma again.
We walked down to the bookstore and hung out in there, reading board books to him for a bit. I finally put in an order for Pirates Don’t Change Diapers, because that book is hilarious and I simply need it for my babysitting tote bag cuz I love the book so much.

Around 6:30 or so, we put S into his stroller instead of having him toddle along, cuz my fellow babysitter needed to leave soon. We got back to the house and the curtains were drawn with the “IN PROGRESS” signs still in the window. My colleague made the remark that since the curtains were drawn, that perhaps there were now complications.
We went in the back entrance to the house, and S’s birth mom received him. We went inside and hung out in the back part of the house and waited for further instruction. Babysitter #1 was given the OK to leave, and I accepted dinner and bedtime duty. We were told that momma #2 was having a hard time dilating despite the regular contractions.

Little S was seriously concerned for momma and wanted to go back in and see her, but his birth momma told him that he mustn’t right now. He wailed but we were able to calm him down after a few minutes, and I even convinced him that dinner would be a great idea. We washed hands and he ate hummus and soft pita bread, had three drink options, and was contented for awhile.

Meanwhile, in the front of the house, it wasn’t a nightmare scenario from what I could hear. Every now and then I’d hear her doing the lamaze breathing, or grunting in pain, but there was no wailing and screaming.

After dinner, we went to the bedroom so I could read to S, but he wanted to see momma #2 and began to cry again. He tried to tell me he was still hungry but as soon as I’d open the bedroom door, he’d say ‘momma’ and point, then start crying again. We went round and round with this for a bit. I’d hold him, rock him, sing to him, read to him, take him to bathroom to brush teeth or back to kitchen again to see if he really was still hungry (he wasn’t).
At this point, the midwife came in and asked if little S would like to help her get something from her car. She handed him her keys, cuz keys are all the rage for toddlers, and off they went. I hung out in the kitchen with another helper friend and we chatted. S came back in with the keys and the midwife was holding an oxygen tank. Uh oh, I thought, this isn’t looking good.
She let S have her keys, and S went around the back of the house “locking” things.
I changed his diaper, got him into his jammies, and we went back to the bedroom, where we played a game he’d just invented with me the day before, whereby he uses the key to lock the stuffed animal kitty’s mouth or my mouth! I made strange noises with my mouth locked shut until he unlocked my mouth and I could talk again. I did the same for the kitty’s voice.This was very funny for him.

Bedtime came and there were more meltdowns, more rocking and holding and rubbing his back. I read him some books and he calmed down. Finally I declared I was tired, so I climbed into bed and told S he should join me. I hoisted him onto the bed and he didn’t lay down at first. I reclined on some pillows and shut my eyes and began to breathe deeply and evenly. He followed me and lay down next to me, but he fidgeted a lot.
Finally he ended up on his tummy, so I rubbed his back until he settled and eventually fell asleep at 8:49pm.

I put him in his crib, tip-toed out of the bedroom, made my way through the house and lightly knocked to enter the front of the house. I was met with the midwife’s assistant and told her to relay that S was down and I would like to grab dinner if it was possible.
At this point birth momma appeared and updated me - momma #2 was having a lot of trouble - the baby passed meconium during labor and they might need to go to the hospital. She told me to go eat dinner but asked if I’d be able to return within the hour. I told her yes.
Within 25 minutes, I got the call that they were definitely going to the hospital, so I finished up my dinner, changed into my pajamas, and went back over.

Momma #2 was burning up and was in a lot of pain, the contractions coming regularly but still not making progress according to the midwife. At this point she’d been going like this for about 17 hours.

I settled in on the couch and off they went to the hospital. It didn’t take long before I fell asleep.
Around 10 or 10:30pm, S woke crying for momma. I went to him and scooped him out of the crib and held him. He clutched his little arms around my neck and sobbed, the poor thing.
Nothing I tried would comfort little S. He didn’t want to lay in his parents’ bed. He didn’t want to go back into the crib and have his back rubbed. He didn’t want me to rock him for very long either standing or sitting.
In the dark, each time I picked him up out of his crib again ( a grand total of two or three times), he felt for my face to see if I was one of his mommas. When it was clear by my facial structure and my voice that I wasn’t, he laid his head on my shoulder, clutched my shoulders and sobbed.

I realised there was no way he was going to just cry himself to sleep with me either sitting nearby or rubbing his back in the crib, so I brought him out and changed his diaper and we went to the living room. S sat on the couch and alternated between crying and waiting for his mommas to come home. I decided this was the best thing for him right then and there, so I told him I’d stay with him but I was tired. I reclined on the other end of the couch, put my legs up on the back of the couch, and “slept” with my eyes slit barely open.

S began to nod. His eyes began to flutter. His head would droop and then he’d snap to. He did this for probably half an hour before he finally allowed himself to lean to the side and rest on the pillows on the other end of the couch. And then he fell asleep.
We slept for 45 minutes or so, on and off, cuz he tossed and turned and he’d cry out in his sleep for momma.
I had to keep bolting up ready to catch him, lest he’d toss himself over the side of the couch.
Finally I was really falling asleep and decided it was safer for little S in his crib. He was contently asleep at the moment and let me carry him to his crib.
I was told I could sleep in the parents’ bed, since the kid’s crib is at the foot of the bed, but it didn’t feel right for me to do so. However, half hour back on the couch dealing with little S crying out in his sleep and I rethought my feelings on the matter - I crawled into the parents’ bed.

I remained in twilight sleep all night, because he cried out in his sleep, “Momma!” and “No!” all night.
I had been told by the babysitter I’d met in the park with S that previous afternoon that S was pretty traumatised once labor started for momma, because he could clearly see the pain in her face, could tell the difference in pitch and cadence of her voice, could sense the urgency of both moms that something was happening, and well it scared the shit out of him. That’s when he began sobbing and crying out ‘Momma! No!’ from that point on.

Again, my heart goes out to the poor little boy.

Around 5am, I got a text message saying the baby had been born just two hours earlier! I was asked to text back when S woke up. I fell back to sleep, and an hour later, at 6am on the dot, S awoke. He was a tad bit fussy and was moving around in his crib, but he didn’t wake sobbing, thankfully.

I forced myself to get up. S started to ask for momma and I cheerfully told him that momma would be coming home soon, and that she was at the hospital and everything went great, and she was going to bring home a new baby sister.
S was unsure about this whole baby sister thing, and gave me a wince! Too cute.

I changed his diaper and set about opening the drapes in the house to let the light in, and then got S settled into his high chair for breakfast. He’s a picky eater so we went through what seemed like everything in the house before he said yes to orange juice, grapes and banana bread.
I found some string cheese and apple sauce to eat, and also drank some orange juice. I taught S how to do ‘cheers’ before drinking, hehe. Even if he can’t say the word, yet.

After breakfast, I gathered up all the dirty dishes in the house so they were all in one location for either myself or someone else to take care of, and then went to the living room with S.

I noticed from the previous night that any time I walked out of the room, little S panicked and ran after me, sometimes just hollering, sometimes slipping up and saying ‘momma!’
This continued into today and is totally normal for a toddler whose parents have not been able to spend any time with him for the past 29 hours.

In the living room, we read books, played with trucks, listened to music. I looked for baby dolls but only found stuffed animals, so I grabbed a nearby towel that momma had on hand the night before, and swaddled Peter Rabbit. I showed S how to hold a new baby and how to rock her and talk to her. I told him this is what his little sister will look like when momma brings her home from the hospital.
S peeked at the swaddled rabbit and petted its face gently, and made a rocking motion with his own arms, then made kissing noises. Then he went and got his stuffed animal cat and carried that around for awhile, before deciding he wanted to get into the car and go look for momma, cuz she was taking too long to come home.

I grabbed the spare house keys and gave them to S, got a sweatshirt on him, and we went out the front door. S went right around the side of the house towards the back yard and headed right for the driveway where the second family car was still parked. He tried every key imaginable in every lock on that car, and some invented locks as well. All the while, I told him momma will be home very soon, but I let him continue with his determination.
Meanwhile, lawn men showed up in their truck a few doors down, and waved and smiled at S. His big dog waited patiently in the backyard for some love, staring intently at little S and wagging her tail every time we came near. People passing by on the sidewalk smiled or waved at S.
But all this was nothing to him - he was determined to get into the car and drive to find his mommas!
After awhile, I convinced S to come back round to the front of the house and unlock the front door. He was reluctant but followed me because after all, I was ahead of him and walking away from him. We got inside the front door and a neighbor saw me hoist S up to lock the front door from the inside, and smiled and waved at him, calling his name. S smiled back and stared all shy-like.

Moments later, we heard his birth momma’s voice from the back of the house - she’d just gotten home and came in through the back door. S seemed like he was in disbelief, wondering if he was hearing things, and not wanting to trust that momma might really be home. But as soon as she appeared in his line of sight, he called out and ran to her.

I told her that she can expect to be followed everywhere for a few days - even to the bathroom, and that leaving him alone for even a few seconds will be traumatising for him. She was completely on board with that and said it was okay and expected. Great relief there - some parents really don’t know these things about toddlers. These parents however are awesome.

I got home around 9:35am and it was impossible to fall asleep, even though I’m dead tired.

I had my first shrink appointment in 2 hours, so I forced myself down to nap for an hour. I slept HARD.
I figured that after my appointment, I’d likely be ready to sleep for days, but here I am at 4:30pm still unable to get back to restful sleep.

I think that of all the babysitting and nannying and preschool teacher work I’ve done - having stayed overnight with barely any sleep and having to get up ready to go full steam ahead the next day with a little one - that is surely the closest experience I’ve had yet to what a real day in the life of a parent is like.

And I’m happy that it’s not my every day life.