Thursday, September 13, 2007

De Je Vu, Soccer, and Mommy Guilt

So yeah, woke up today to the pleasant surprise of DIZZINESS and NAUSEA! Much like a certain hellish two-week illness in my not so distant past! What the frick, as my friend Elliot of Scrubs would say. It's not nearly as bad as it was before, but I am most definitely light-headed and wobbly and weird feeling. I'm really hoping it's just some sort of dehydration thing due to a combo of the stomach flu and nursing every two hours nonstop, and does not in fact have anything to do with my inner ear. But either way, it certainly threw a wrench in my plans- two doctor's appointments, which had to be rescheduled. I have done nothing today but lie on the couch or bed, drinking water and either sleeping or woozily clutching an eight pound baby to my chest.
So! Here's hoping tomorrow I wake up and this is just a memory. I feel irritable, like I cannot catch a break, health-wise. A week after Eli was born, I got a bladder infection requiring antibiotics, and now this crap again. Does anyone know, once a person gets an inner ear virus, is their equilibrium kind of off for the rest of their life, or easily unbalanced, or something? Can I expect random occurrences of vertigo FOREVER now?
Anyways, other than the seemingly never-ending string of weird health problems, we are doing pretty well around here. I haven't had any more big tearful breakdowns, which is a relief to everyone, and Eli is fattening up like a... Like some kind of farm animal which gets fattened up. Is it pigs? Geese? Suffice it to say, he has chubby and squeezable cheeks, and bellows much more loudly than his sister ever did when his meals are not delivered promptly. Also eats in a much more round-the-clock manner than she did, not that I am bitter.
I am feeling truly bitter AT MYSELF, however, for encouraging Jim to coach soccer this season when he literally approached me with the idea in this manner: "Well, there's this coaching opportunity, but with the baby and your being sick and all it's terrible timing. You probably don't want me to..." And here's Sarah, the smiling, eternally supportive Good Wife: "Of course I want you to! You love coaching! We'll manage, don't you worry!" I think if I could take back any spoken words of my entire life, those would be the ones. It was just one thing too many, for all of us. It would have been fine earlier in the summer, or later this year. Any time but RIGHT NOW, what with his being behind in work anyways from having to take off so much due to my various hospitalizations and incapacitations, and what with me or Addy wanting his attention every spare moment, and the rain suddenly pouring down every other day and turning our acre of yard into a knee-high swamp. He so did not need this on his plate, too. I actually feel guilty, because I think if I hadn't encouraged it he would totally have just said no. I am chalking this up to a lesson: This is what comes of trying to be giving and supportive instead of rational. Always go with rational.
Also, someone assuage my guilt about Eli, please, please? Tell me it's okay that I haven't written in his journal yet, and I haven't even BOUGHT a baby book, and I haven't gotten pictures developed and cropped and painstakingly scrapbooked. That I never got his Tigger crosstitch finished, and that I'm not taking at least ten snapshots a day of his kissable newborn cuteness the way I did with Adelay. Is this normal? Will he forgive me? It just feels like all I can do to stay on my feet right now, to get a shower and keep the house and laundry reasonably in control and make sure that everyone has been fed and changed somewhat recently. I am enjoying him very much, but I also felt delirious with exhaustion and pain killers the first week or so. And now it's pretty much just exhaustion, but then also the bladder infection and the flu and then this nonsense today with the wobbling around drunkenly. He's not going to have middle child syndrome as a direct result of my lack of recording every minute of his first few weeks, is he? (Hint: Say no.)

13 comments:

Tess said...

Sounds like you're doing great to me. If your Ridiculous Illness returns, I shall be extremely indignant on your behalf. Seriously, WHAT THE FRICK (love Scrubs)?

Jess said...

I'm the younger child and my baby book contains a few photos of me being born (which horrified me when I first discovered them)... and then nothing until my hospital bracelet from needing stitches at age 7. This is in stark contrast to my sister's overflowing and informative baby book. And while it would definitely be nice to have a record like that of my infancy, it's not a big deal, and it never made me feel like the less-favored child or anything. It sounds like you're doing great and I'm sure Eli will be fine.

d e v a n said...

Guilt be gone!!!

Sorry you're feeling sick and bummer that you told dh he could do the soccer thing. Sounds like something I would do and then regret later. lol

jen said...

damn, having had a TOUCH of what you describe, I really hope that you don't get that again.

Then again, when I was a kid all the way up to college I'd get this weird ear illness where I'd totally lose my hearing for 3 months at a time. I'm not sure what's worse (because you can sure go nuts not hearing anything)

Hope you feel better, take it one day at a time, and don't worry about the baby book, you can always fudge it later.

Mommy Daisy said...

Oh, Sarah, I hope that you're feeling better soon. We all just got over colds here. But you sound much worse. The dizziness would drive me wild.

I'm glad that Eli is growing so well. It sounds like he's getting plenty to eat. Maybe it's a boy vs. girl thing? Or bigger baby vs. smaller baby? It's always hard to tell. I can't wait to see him though.

Oh boy, the soccer. I would have told Matt to go ahead with something too. What's a girl to do. You live, you learn.

The baby book, don't worry about it. Maybe you can jot a few things down, and then catch it up when you have a little more time in a few months. As long as you have some pictures, it will be fine. My mom said she always made a point of not treating the middle sister like a middle child (mostly because her sister was resentful for being a middle). But Rachel doesn't act much like a middle now, and she never complained abuot it much. Plus I think the dynamic is different when it's boys and girls, as opposed to all girls or all boys. (So you're already thinking about more, huh?)

Sarah said...

Mommy Daisy- Well, we're thinking about more in the sense that, "Someday in a future I cannot even bring myself to think too carefully about right now we will surely have more, but there are currently no plans to begin trying in the near future." If that makes sense. I want four, I think, Jim would probably have ten if I'd agree, but for a year or so at least this body is MINE alone! You know, except for breastfeeding and allowing a toddler to watch me use the bathroom and shower.

Anonymous said...

OH NO, I hope it's not back! Ug!

When I was pregnant with the twins, my friend who had twins said that what I should do is keep the camera handy (she said on the kitchen counter) and make sure the date label was set right so each photo would be dated (not necessarily printed on the photo, but like it shows you the date when you unload the camera into the computer---assuming it's digital...well ANYWAY) and take lots of photos and worry about dealing with them later, like when the kids were in school. I thought this was pretty good advice, since I DO want the child documented in photos if nothing else.

Funny about Eli "fattening up like a...Like some kind of farm animal which gets fattened up." Ha ha!

I find that when Paul says he's going to do something, I get all indignant and say oh no he ISN'T. But if he comes to me saying he ISN'T going to do something, I turn into "eternally supportive Good Wife."

Anonymous said...

Oh, I should have clarified that the photo thing would just be for YOUR benefit--I don't think Eli will be sad later if you don't document his early days. But then, I'm a well-documented firstborn!

Another tip my friend gave me (and again, this is only if YOU are feeling stressed about WANTING to do these things despite not having the time--not for Eli's future psychiatric bills) is to put a calendar over the changing table, with a pen attached by a string. Then while you're changing a diaper (presumably before or after, not midst), you can go, "Oh! That's right! He smiled for the first time today!" and jot it on that day on the calendar. Later you can transfer the info to a baby book, if you so choose.

Black Sheeped said...

I think it'll be fine. I'm not even sure where our baby books are, or if they still exist, and I know they are not all filled out, and my siblings and I have never wondered about it. No scarring, I promise!

I hope you feel better soon!

RachelAnn said...

As a middle child, and your little sister I can tell you that I have no scarring about the lack of scrapbooks. And you are a great mom and have been through hell with this pregnancy and don't need to stress about taking ten pictures a day of my darling nephew!! things will calm down i promise!! love you!!

kristi said...

No, it is always harder with the 2nd child. My daughter's book is HUGE and my son's book is small and skinny.

email said...

I have four kids. The first one has a pretty decent amount of info in her baby book. The second one has the when each tooth came in thingy filled in, but only up to a point. The third one has little scraps of paper scrawled with a few dates of things here and there and then shoved into the box holding the baby book. The fourth has nothing. So far I've written down a couple of things on our wall calendar when things happened, first tooth, crawled, etc., with the intention of then writing the things into the baby book, but we all know it will never happen.

mom of the year said...

The inner ear thing - I am a sufferer myself, and yes it tends to perpetuate. The good news is that there is a simple non-medical set of head movements your doc can show you to "reset your head." Crazy but true. Call and tell her you have vertigo issues and ask about vestibular rehabilitation. There are also meds you can keep on hand that will cure the dizzies. Good luck!!!