Squidbits (belated)
On my to-do list this week: "Shoot man in Reno; watch die."
It's been that sort of month. My misanthropy has reached unprecedented levels, seriously.
Awesome toy laptop courtesy Burch and Daughters
It started out so well. Himself was gone for the first week, but the Squid and I took the long weekend and went up to Washington (state) to visit my much-loved college housemate and her partner. She was quite pregnant at the time and I figured that between her infant and my toddler, it was going to be a few years before that kind of visit became feasible again. (I say "was" - as of today, she is about two weeks unpregnant - welcome, young Oliver!)
The Squid got to play with a ukelele in Washington and fell in love
We had a blast up there. Long days of warm weather and good people and laughter and music and tasty food and lots of sleep. Bliss. (Why do so many of my friends live so far away? Two of our last remaining local friends have relocated in just the past few months, woe.) Even the flights to and from, which I had been dreading, were good; toddler on a plane can be worse than snakes, but he was not snaky at all - not even too squirrelly - just listened to my iPod and played with his toys and ran up and down the aisle a lot.
The Squid walking Tater Tot, my friends' bulldog, at the dog park
The rest of the week was fine. We had a good time! And then it all kind of fell inexorably apart. I scrambled for deadlines and data and dropped things (both professional and personal) through the cracks because there was just too much to do. Throughout this, I was having my medication adjusted, and the resulting insomnia, dizziness, and gamut of other side effects was compounding everything else. Eventually I stopped taking the meds, without tapering them properly, and went into a tailspin that coincided with another two weeks of solo parenting.
Which was the most grueling stretch we've had in a while, too. The Squid was inconsolably howly for a lot of it, and I was completely unable to cope. I babysat him with Disney movies for at least four evenings and fed him a steady diet of convenient starchy foods (tater tots for breakfast! cheerios for dinner!), relying on the daycare lady to ensure he got his daily nutritional needs met. I mean, he lived through it, and according to the doctor's visit we had last week, he is perfectly healthy and right on track for all developmental and physical whatnots. But I pretty much managed nothing more than subsistence parenting.
Sleeping Squid
This was compounded by his acceleration into full-on destructo-mode. Some time in that two-week period, it was like someone hit his fast-forward button. He went turbo! He can now make two or three messes in the time it takes me to clean up one, run and go up and down stairs at alarming speed, and reach all kinds of things he should not have and was once too short to access. To be frank, this is more what I expected from toddlerhood, but it was sort of a bad time for it to kick in. I kind of just wanted to faceplant into bed at the end of each day, not clean up the wreckage he had left in his wake, do my work, and prep for the next day, and faceplant won out a lot more often than it perhaps should have done, given my obligations.
And god, I still need more faceplant. I am looking longingly at November, when I can have my life back.
Greater love hath no Grandpa than this, that he risk his felt for his grandson
But the roller coaster is back on an upward swing - my review at work today went well (vindication! relief!) and I haven't burst into tears in at least four days. Although, when this is my measure of okayness, it occurs to me that perhaps something is not quite right - also, I almost just broke my dry streak when the hair appointment I had been looking forward to called and cancelled. So, you know, I'm still not really working with a wide margin here. I'm 1 for 4 on the deadlines, but I've made progress on all of them, and Himself is back as of late last night, so I'll have backup from now on. I've put off the medication readjustment again until I have the leeway to fall apart if I need to. I'm rickety but mostly functional.
It occurs to me that the Squidbits posts are losing their focus, becoming neither Squid nor Fish nor good red herring, as it were - my angst and life whatnot all mixed in with baby photos and commentary and random observations. The professional writer in me disapproves of this. Of course, if it weren't for the Squidbits posts, it would pretty much all be other people's grim poetry all the time, so I suppose they still serve a purpose.
At the zoo, the best part is the dirt, of course. Please note the "remember to wash your hands" sign in the background. Ahahahaha.
Still, this one is a few weeks late and totally all over the place. And oh, I left out so much!
Like the part where I am an aunt now, as Himself's sister just had a little girl. I have never been an aunt before, and I suspect it will be awesome. We get to meet the Nugget at Thanksgiving.
And like the part where the Squid has words now! "Fish" won out for first word, said repeatedly in context (it was my first word as well, go kidlet!) He now also has a consistent "yeah" and "no" and "bye" and I have heard "daddy," too. Of course, my mother swears he said "dishwash" at the dishwasher, and my friend S and I both distinctly heard him say "otter" twice at the otter exhibit of the Tacoma Zoo, which he has not repeated at all since, so I'm sure there's some amount of coincidence in operation, but mostly, hooray language!
Or like his most recent set of awesome new toddler tricks: stuffing food in your cheeks and holding it there until some more appealing food manifests itself (or until you get bored) and then spitting it out in a warm, slimy, half-chewed mess. Dumping out all the starter Legos on the floor and then making a windmilling motion through them, thereby spreading them out to evenly cover every square inch of floor. Deciding that what your parent is eating - even if the same thing is on your plate - is the only thing on earth worth having, and whining until you get it. If whining for attention/crackers/toys/up does not get you what you want, running headfirst into the wall so that your head audibly bonks, and then crying until you get what you wanted in the first place (this hardly ever works, as I am usually laughing too hard to feel properly concerned).
He was following me around the other day making baby talk - "Tikka tikka tikka oOoo! Bibble tikka bitsa bitsa bitsa" and I looked over at him at "bitsa bitsa bitsa" and he was making the hand motions for the Itsy Bitsy Spider song. Cognitive development is apparently on fast forward as well.
Now if only he had a "pause" button, so I could get some rest.
It's been that sort of month. My misanthropy has reached unprecedented levels, seriously.
Awesome toy laptop courtesy Burch and Daughters
It started out so well. Himself was gone for the first week, but the Squid and I took the long weekend and went up to Washington (state) to visit my much-loved college housemate and her partner. She was quite pregnant at the time and I figured that between her infant and my toddler, it was going to be a few years before that kind of visit became feasible again. (I say "was" - as of today, she is about two weeks unpregnant - welcome, young Oliver!)
The Squid got to play with a ukelele in Washington and fell in love
We had a blast up there. Long days of warm weather and good people and laughter and music and tasty food and lots of sleep. Bliss. (Why do so many of my friends live so far away? Two of our last remaining local friends have relocated in just the past few months, woe.) Even the flights to and from, which I had been dreading, were good; toddler on a plane can be worse than snakes, but he was not snaky at all - not even too squirrelly - just listened to my iPod and played with his toys and ran up and down the aisle a lot.
The Squid walking Tater Tot, my friends' bulldog, at the dog park
The rest of the week was fine. We had a good time! And then it all kind of fell inexorably apart. I scrambled for deadlines and data and dropped things (both professional and personal) through the cracks because there was just too much to do. Throughout this, I was having my medication adjusted, and the resulting insomnia, dizziness, and gamut of other side effects was compounding everything else. Eventually I stopped taking the meds, without tapering them properly, and went into a tailspin that coincided with another two weeks of solo parenting.
Which was the most grueling stretch we've had in a while, too. The Squid was inconsolably howly for a lot of it, and I was completely unable to cope. I babysat him with Disney movies for at least four evenings and fed him a steady diet of convenient starchy foods (tater tots for breakfast! cheerios for dinner!), relying on the daycare lady to ensure he got his daily nutritional needs met. I mean, he lived through it, and according to the doctor's visit we had last week, he is perfectly healthy and right on track for all developmental and physical whatnots. But I pretty much managed nothing more than subsistence parenting.
Sleeping Squid
This was compounded by his acceleration into full-on destructo-mode. Some time in that two-week period, it was like someone hit his fast-forward button. He went turbo! He can now make two or three messes in the time it takes me to clean up one, run and go up and down stairs at alarming speed, and reach all kinds of things he should not have and was once too short to access. To be frank, this is more what I expected from toddlerhood, but it was sort of a bad time for it to kick in. I kind of just wanted to faceplant into bed at the end of each day, not clean up the wreckage he had left in his wake, do my work, and prep for the next day, and faceplant won out a lot more often than it perhaps should have done, given my obligations.
And god, I still need more faceplant. I am looking longingly at November, when I can have my life back.
Greater love hath no Grandpa than this, that he risk his felt for his grandson
But the roller coaster is back on an upward swing - my review at work today went well (vindication! relief!) and I haven't burst into tears in at least four days. Although, when this is my measure of okayness, it occurs to me that perhaps something is not quite right - also, I almost just broke my dry streak when the hair appointment I had been looking forward to called and cancelled. So, you know, I'm still not really working with a wide margin here. I'm 1 for 4 on the deadlines, but I've made progress on all of them, and Himself is back as of late last night, so I'll have backup from now on. I've put off the medication readjustment again until I have the leeway to fall apart if I need to. I'm rickety but mostly functional.
It occurs to me that the Squidbits posts are losing their focus, becoming neither Squid nor Fish nor good red herring, as it were - my angst and life whatnot all mixed in with baby photos and commentary and random observations. The professional writer in me disapproves of this. Of course, if it weren't for the Squidbits posts, it would pretty much all be other people's grim poetry all the time, so I suppose they still serve a purpose.
At the zoo, the best part is the dirt, of course. Please note the "remember to wash your hands" sign in the background. Ahahahaha.
Still, this one is a few weeks late and totally all over the place. And oh, I left out so much!
Like the part where I am an aunt now, as Himself's sister just had a little girl. I have never been an aunt before, and I suspect it will be awesome. We get to meet the Nugget at Thanksgiving.
And like the part where the Squid has words now! "Fish" won out for first word, said repeatedly in context (it was my first word as well, go kidlet!) He now also has a consistent "yeah" and "no" and "bye" and I have heard "daddy," too. Of course, my mother swears he said "dishwash" at the dishwasher, and my friend S and I both distinctly heard him say "otter" twice at the otter exhibit of the Tacoma Zoo, which he has not repeated at all since, so I'm sure there's some amount of coincidence in operation, but mostly, hooray language!
Or like his most recent set of awesome new toddler tricks: stuffing food in your cheeks and holding it there until some more appealing food manifests itself (or until you get bored) and then spitting it out in a warm, slimy, half-chewed mess. Dumping out all the starter Legos on the floor and then making a windmilling motion through them, thereby spreading them out to evenly cover every square inch of floor. Deciding that what your parent is eating - even if the same thing is on your plate - is the only thing on earth worth having, and whining until you get it. If whining for attention/crackers/toys/up does not get you what you want, running headfirst into the wall so that your head audibly bonks, and then crying until you get what you wanted in the first place (this hardly ever works, as I am usually laughing too hard to feel properly concerned).
He was following me around the other day making baby talk - "Tikka tikka tikka oOoo! Bibble tikka bitsa bitsa bitsa" and I looked over at him at "bitsa bitsa bitsa" and he was making the hand motions for the Itsy Bitsy Spider song. Cognitive development is apparently on fast forward as well.
Now if only he had a "pause" button, so I could get some rest.
posted by The Stute Fish at 10:47
4 Comments:
simultaneously, I am thinking:
-I want to stick my fingers in his hair to feel the soft curls.
-I am so sorry you are measuring days of no tears. I so know that feeling and hope you are soon at a place where you've measured weeks.
Though, some of us are just more tearful than others, even when things are truly good, remember to take heart that you aren't the only one. My new neighbor told me she had to walk out of a meeting with some consulting clients this week because they were driving her so crazy she started to cry. She used the pregnancy card, pretending she just had to pee. I should do that more often, whether or not I get pregnant.
The Squid looks like a goblin boy in the last photo. Or imp.
My brother and I have big plans for when we are uncle and aunt (there's a scary pact involving sugar and more sugar and noisy toys and scary movies). I keep hoping he has a child first.
- Anon
Oh and in regards to the first statement of this blog, let me know if you need help I've got access to shovels and tarps.
-anon
NLG - The office manager at my work, who is the only one who can see into my office, is also on antidepressants and so she is nice about it if I have to hide under my desk and cry. My office has big windows, so I'm glad that my desk has a footwell!
And I'm glad I have a therapist.
And yes, his curls are dreamy-soft, when clean. :) Himself is talking haircuts, but I resist.
anon - yeah, my aunt gives him noisy toys. She wants to give him a DRUM SET. AUGH.
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