my-ass-titis

On Saturday morning my dad came over to give me a hand with the little ones, and my choice was either to take a nap (which I desperately needed) or go for a run (which I also desperately needed). D was out of town again, and I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to run for almost a week, so I pressed myself into my two sports bras, and headed out the door. It was sunny and cool—the perfect weather for running, and as I plodded along the river road, I felt so calm. I thought about how glad I was that breastfeeding was so much easier with Zoe than it had been with Stella, and I thought about how I was finally getting the hang of two kids—how two now felt normal to me.

Well, a mere two hours later, on the way to Stella’s dance class, I started to feel some pain in my right breast. A plugged duct? Hmm. I wasn’t too worried about it, but when we got home, I soaked myself in the tub and tried to unplug it. No luck.

By 5 p.m. I had the chills and was shaking so much that my lips turned purple and I could hardly change Zoe’s diaper. (I kid you not.) By 5:30, I had a throbbing headache and a temperature of 102. I had heard how fast and furious mastitis was, but it seemed impossible to get that sick that fast. It felt like I had the worst flu of my life. I felt like I was going to die. I called my mom and burst into tears. (What if this interferes with nursing? Did it happen because of my tight sports bras? Why didn’t I take a nap instead of going for a run? Why did D have to be out of town?)

She said she’d be over as soon as possible.

I called my doctors, and the on-call physician agreed that it was mastitis and prescribed antibiotics for me. Luckily, a friend was coming over with dinner, and after making me some food (which I was too sick to eat) she went and picked up the pills for me. But then other worries set in: what if Zoe has a reaction to the medication? What if it makes her even gassier? What if I don’t really need them?

I was clearly very ill, though, and I remembered my sister’s horrible bout of mastitis, so I ended up taking the antibiotics (which I now need to take four times a day for two weeks). Another friend, who is a doctor, told me that the two main things I needed now were fluids and rest. “Kate,” she said, “you just started back to work and just started running again and you’re not getting enough sleep and Zoe isn’t even three months old yet.”

Oh right. I’ve been doing what I always do—too much. And even though I’m back to work only five hours a week, I’ve also been working on a freelance assignment, and there is my own writing—an essay with which I’m struggling—and then the details of keeping up the house, which now that D is traveling so much, fall primarily to me. Indeed, I’m doing too much.

So Sunday, I canceled everything, sent Stella to her grandparents’ house, and spent the day in bed. Warm breeze blew the curtains into the room as I lay next to Zoe on the bed, nursing her. I drifted in and out of sleep to the chirping of birds and the sounds of our neighborhood—lawn mowers and neighbors’ voices and the ice-cream truck tooling up and down the streets. And I realized I wanted to do this every day, all summer—lie in bed next to my baby, resting.

This won’t happen, of course. Stella will be out of pre-school in July and August, which translates into very little napping for me. And I do need to work—whether at this job or by picking up freelance projects—because we need the money. But I must find a way to balance it all without so much stress because I don’t want to end up here again—in mastitis hell.

What to do? What to do?

8 weeks old

It's hard to believe that Zoe is already 8 weeks old. I'm not sure exactly how big she is, but it's somewhere around 11 pounds. She seems huge, wearing clothes that Stella wore when she was five months old! As hard as these infants months are for me, I feel myself grasping, trying to hold on to certain moments. How can I want time to move faster and slower all at once? How can I want to hold her forever in my arms at the same time I want her to learn to take a bottle, to give me a little breathing room?

I know these conflicting emotions have something to do with the fact that this is it for us, our last baby. And knowing this makes me want to somehow preserve the moments I love: holding Zoe to my chest as she sleeps, staring into her smiling eyes, pressing my lips to her so-soft temple.

This makes me think of Deborah Garrison's poem "Square and Round" from The Second Child.

It begins:

You moments I court --

Back of the head settled
in arm's crook,
rump in my palm,
the whole half of a body
just the length of my forearm,
small face twitching toward
repose. From the window
lamplight or moonlight slides
on the creamy forehead,
the new-bulb smoothness
at the temples both squared
and rounding, the flickering play
of shapes suggesting, mysteriously,
intelligence within...

It ends:

What was it, just
then, I swore to myself
I'd keep?

As though I could hold
a magnifying glass
to time

and slow its shaping
us."

I love this poem. I love the whole collection.

on narrative urgency and single parenting

I’ve been thinking a lot about narrative urgency the last couple of weeks because I recently went to see Charles Baxter talk about and read from his new novel, The Soul Thief. (I dragged both Stella and Zoe out in the cold so I could get my literary fix.) He used the term narrative urgency, which makes sense because The Soul Thief is thick with it. I didn’t want to put the book down. He, quite simply, rocks.

Then I was reading Beth Kephart’s blog, and she posted about a similar thing: the use of present tense and the need for forward movement. Or rather, how you must be sure that you continue the forward momentum of your book or your writing will become precious. (She quoted McEwan.)

It makes me want to dive back into my memoir and make sure I maintain the sense of narrative urgency until the end of the book. I think I do, but I guess I’ll have to see. And if it lags in the middle, what does one do about it?

Am I obsessing about narrative urgency in my book because my life currently seems to lack narrative urgency? Because I am definitely challenged in that department.

I know what you’re thinking: Kate, be in the moment. Enjoy these precious times. (How many people have said that to me in the last week?)

I am enjoying many moments, every day. It seems I could stare at Zoe’s sleeping face for hours, counting her expressions, each of which she inhabits for mere seconds. I can’t get enough of her chubby face when it breaks into a smile. Seriously adorable. And I love to listen to Stella singing along to her princess movies when she doesn’t think I can hear her or when she tells me stories about how the Huns are coming and she has to protect her babies. (This is after she has carried all her stuffed animals and baby dolls downstairs and lined them up on the couch under blankets.) Zoe and I, sitting in the nursing chair will, sadly, always be killed by the Huns.

What I’m not enjoying is how tired I am. Or the way Zoe screams—she’s inconsolable sometimes—even when I’ve bounced her and turned on the water in the kitchen and nothing works and my knees ache and my quads are sore from all that bouncing and carrying on. I’m exhausted. It doesn’t help that D was gone again for 5 days. Single parenthood, frankly, sucks.

I was talking to a friend on the phone the other day as I walked Zoe around the neighborhood in an effort to get her to fall asleep. (It wasn’t working.) Zoe was screaming and I started to laugh. My friend said, “Oh good. You sound relaxed.”

I don’t know if “relaxed” is the word I’d choose. Unless relaxed is a state of mind one inhabits somewhere on the path from exhausted and comatose. No, it’s not relaxed. That’s not right. It’s more like just putting your head down and doing what you have do—picking up the Barbies and stuffed animals and trying not to snap at the sassy four-year-old you love as you coo and bounce the fussy baby you love. And then, as you’re doing what you have to do, the only thing left to do is to laugh because otherwise you feel crazy.

when the escape might not be worth it

My darling Zoe is getting progressively fussier. It’s the must-be-bounced-and-carried-or-nursed-to-fall-and-stay-asleep kind of fussy. Yesterday I desperately needed a nap, but she wouldn’t stay asleep, so finally I gave up and strapped her in the bouncy chair so at least I could shower. Then, I wanted so badly to check e-mail and maybe even write a sentence or two—A SENTENCE, people. I wasn’t even shooting for a whole paragraph—so I drove her around the neighborhood until she fell asleep, then I snapped the car seat into the stroller and took her to a cafe. She slept for all of twelve minutes before she began screaming. I tried to nurse her, but she pulled back, apparently in pain. I was awkward with the nursing because I was sitting on a tall stool and trying not to flash the whole restaurant, so I didn’t notice until I had gotten her back in her car seat (still screaming because nothing I did would calm her) and frantically packed up my laptop that the front of my shirt was soaked with milk. Lovely.

I was finally able to calm her down when we got home, and she fell asleep for twenty minutes before we had to go pick up Stella at pre-school. More screaming, more of me singing the Twinkle variations.

But there was escape at the end of the day. I had a hefty gift certificate for a salon down the street, and I had decided that I would get my hair highlighted. This is a big deal for me—I’ve never colored my hair. So I pumped, nursed Zoe until she fell asleep, and passed her off to D, wishing him luck as I dashed (as fast as I could) out the door.

I left with enough time before the appointment to get a glass of wine at the fancy restaurant near our house, and I was giddy as the waitress seated me at a quiet table. I ordered a glass of Pinot Gris and a cabbage, beet, and bleu cheese salad. Then I opened Charles Baxter’s new novel, The Soul Thief. What could be more divine than a crisp, minerally glass of wine, a salad with bleu cheese, and a perfectly crafted sentence? I was only there for a half hour, but it was heavenly.

Midway through the hair appointment, D called and said that Zoe had been crying for two hours. She did drink a little of the milk, but he couldn’t do anything to calm her. I said I was sorry, but there was nothing I could do—squares of foil protruded from my head like many metallic wings.

D was exhausted when I got home. He was reading to Stella as Zoe wailed. I nursed the poor dear for a long time and she finally fell into deep sleep. She looks so peaceful when she sleeps. All I can do is press my lips to her head and breathe her in.

This morning, when I went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror, I was startled by my hair. Instead of a washed up ‘80s rock star, I now look like the washed up girlfriend of an ‘80s rock star. I’m not sure this is an improvement.

fresh air

I'm up north with my mom and the girls, and the change of scene helps, though getting ready to leave the house yesterday felt like flying to hell in a very tiny hand basket. I cursed up a storm as I struggled--for forty five minutes--to fold Zoe's co-sleeper into its carrier bag. Meanwhile, Zoe, who has become increasingly gassy and fussy screamed and Stella asked over and over again how long it would be before Grammy arrived. To say I was crabby would be a serious understatement. But when my mom arrived and we had rearranged the car seats for the fourth time, I could do nothing but laugh. Yes, I feel crazy. Yes, it's hard to do anything but juggle my two darlings. But there is nothing I can do about it, so I may as well laugh. (This philosophy won't always work for me, I know, but I'll try to remember that it does help to spontaneously burst into laughter, even if it's a little maniacal.

Once we were in the car and Zoe had stopped crying, I fell fast asleep. (That also helps.)

When we got to the cabin, it was 57 degrees! Stella and I walked down to the lake and threw rocks onto the melting ice, then walked down the road, collecting "sparkly rocks," which are, claro que si, Stella's favorite kind. The sky was the kind of blue you can imagine stepping into. I took deep breaths, filling my lungs with the scent of pine and dirt and melting snow, and I could almost feel the freckles blooming on my cheeks.

Zoe cried and cried last night (her new fussy time) and was awake much of the night, and this is hard on me, of course, but if I can have an hour every day to be outside, soaking up the sun and breathing fresh air, those tough hours are bearable, at least for now.

a kinder, gentler version

Zoe is 4 weeks old today, which seems impossible. How have four weeks already passed? How have four weeks of me doing nothing but nursing and bouncing a baby just disappeared?

These are hard times for me. I started to feel more like myself at the end of last week—the scary hormone visions (more on these another time) are less vivid and I even read a little last week. Stella seems to be adjusting to life as a big sister. Dinner time is a little more manageable. Zoe is gassier now, but when she smiles (she really smiles, I swear), I press my lips to her downy red hair and feel so lucky. But I’m still so tired and irritable, especially by the end of the day. It doesn’t help that D just started a new job. I’m really excited for him—really—but it doesn’t make me less frustrated with his erratic schedule.

I had this idea in my head (while I was waiting for Zoe to be born) that I would somehow be able to surrender myself completely to these months of caring for my kids, and I’m certainly happy to not be teaching right now and to be on maternity leave from my communications job. But I can’t stop thinking about writing. I can’t stop worrying about not writing. I can’t stop thinking about my manuscript. I fret over essays and stories that are getting rejected and need to be revised and sent out again. I worry about all the books on my self that I’ve been meaning to review on this blog. I can turn off other parts of my work self, but I can never turn off the writer part, and in a way I wish I could put her to rest for a month or so. Be quiet, stop worrying, take this time.

But maybe these moments—when I want to write but can’t—are what make me committed to writing when I can finally get back to it. Before Stella was born I was a writer who rarely wrote. During those long winter months after she was out of the hospital, when we were stuck inside and I was unable to put her down, I couldn’t stop thinking about writing, about the necessity of words. And when I was finally able to go to the coffee shop for a couple of hours, words and images simply poured out of me. I vomited everything onto the computer. A year later I had written half my book. Two years later, I had finished a complete draft.

The truth is that right now I can get only one thing—two things on good days—done each day. On Monday, I went to Target and vacuumed downstairs. Woo-hoo. Yesterday I napped for two hours. Woo-hoo. Today I’m posting this, which is huge because both girls are home with me. I am standing in the kitchen typing while I watch Stella’s soup cook. Stella is watching a semi educational video in the other room and Zoe is sleeping in her car seat. These are stolen moments.

So when would I write? In the evening, I am so crabby and tapped that I all I want to do is watch episodes of The Wire, which I wait impatiently for the mail carrier to deliver. I can’t get up early to write because I’m already up early, feeding the shark.

I know I’m hard on myself—I’ve always been this way. Now would be a perfect time to trade myself in for a kinder, gentler version of me. Is this possible?

a little levity

I’m feeling much better today, and you are all right—I need to take it slow and be patient and remind myself to breathe when the drama queen (Stella, not me) begins slamming doors and hitting herself on the head as she wails about not being loved anymore. Dear child. The sunshine helps and so do friends--virtual friends with your words of wisdom and my local friends who bring me lunch and mixed CDs and send me funny e-mails. Thank you.

This came via e-mail from one such friend today, and I thought I should share:



So disgusting and yet, beautiful.

Most adults I know no longer think that sugar-covered marshmallows taste good. But really— honestly—what could be better? They are hot pink (or yellow or now purple), squishy and covered with sugar. Yum.

I once competed in a peep-eating contest (this was over a decade ago, but I was old enough to know better). Sadly, I lost, and now I have a five-peep serving limit. I’m planning on eating my fill on Sunday because my dad—bless his heart—still gets me an Easter basket.

the power of hormones

This morning I woke to falling snow, and I almost started to weep. I don’t know what I had been thinking, but it went something like this: I will have a baby, and we will be in the hospital for a few days, and when we are discharged, it will suddenly be spring. I was born and raised in Minnesota, so this line of thinking is obviously delusional, but I had really convinced myself that it was going to happen this way, so snow now feels especially brutal.

But even if it were warm (I’m only talking 50 degrees and sunny), where would I go? I still can’t drive, and it’s still cold and flu season here, so I don't really want to take this baby out in public anyway. And I can’t walk very far (no more than around the block) or my incision begins to hurt. So I’m trapped inside, watching the snow cover rooftops and the ground, wishing away this weather, and wishing I felt normal. (How I would love to put this baby in a stroller and walk for hours along the river with the sun on my back!)

Tell me, how does one feel normal after giving birth? I’m disgusting, people—milky and bloody and sweating so much at night that I’m convinced I’m going through menopause. On days that Stella is in preschool, it’s easier. At least I can nap when Zoe naps (something I was never able to do with Stella, who never slept and who I had to hold 24 hours a day), but then Stella comes home and throws a tantrum and/or breaks my heart with one of her big-sister adjustment phrases: “You don’t love me anymore” or “I wish I were a baby so I could always be with you.” She’s killing me, and I spend half the time feeling guilty because I’m irritated with her and the other half of the time feeling sad because I know how hard it must be to have to share her parents’ attention for the first time in her life.

Oh woe. I also feel guilty because I do feel depressed. How in the world can I be depressed after that birth? How can I be depressed with a baby who is such a stellar sleeper and eater? Oh, I know about the hormones raging through my body. I understand their power. And I wish I could just be happy to spend the day sitting inside, watching the crows gather on my neighbor’s rooftop, pecking at the fresh snow. The problem is that I have never been good at sitting still. I want to walk, to breathe fresh air, to look up at a blue sky. I want to lug this baby around town, to go biking with Stella, to run again.

I know these things will come in time, but I want to be well enough to do them now, and I want the weather to cooperate. Even if I could sit outside for a bit under a sunny sky, I think I would feel better. Damn hormones. Damn snow.

That I feel this way now makes it seem impossible that I made it through 5 months of winter trapped inside after Stella was born. I almost went crazy, true, but we made it through that, so certainly I can make it through the next few weeks without losing my mind, no?