Brush off the dust

I know in my last post I said that we had found our stride. I think that I might have been lying. 

Sometimes, that feeling of being in control is hovering just out of reach and it's covered in a slippery coating that is impossible for me to hold on to. Other times it's so far away that I don't see it at all. The worst part is that other people seem to have figured it all out, but I feel as though I'm not even close. Between guilt for working full time and being too tired to play with my kids at night and feeling rundown, it's as though I'm burning my candle at both ends and the middle is rapidly approaching. I almost have a feeling of impending disaster. Is this normal? If I could just put together some kind of strategy, maybe things would smooth out. At the moment, that is my priority; figuring this crazy life of mine, out.

I try to draw inspiration from people who have more challenges than me, because, truthfully, my life is good. I have a house, a family, a good job, and live in a safe area. Everyday, I work to remind myself that I have these things and even though everything is unbalanced, it's all good...

Step one, really, is to let go of the pressure. Let go of the self imposed, idealized versions of my life. I can't be super woman; I can't have a job, run a household, read all kinds of intelligent books, design patterns, write my own book, and care for my children, perfectly. That's the rub...perfection.

So, while I struggle to find my stride, maybe I will find time to log it all in here, and maybe I won't.

In my snippets of free time, I have been crocheting and knitting like mad. I've started a sweater as a Christmas gift and a shawl. The sweater is coming along ok, I had a few gauge issues, but I think I've worked it out. The shawl is still not working right. I used to knit/crochet very tightly and it was an annoying thing, but now it seems I'm the exact opposite and my gauge is way off. The sweater worked by going down a needle size, but the shawl...gosh...driving me nuts. You can see my tribulations on my Ravelry project pages.

And just because she's cute, here is a picture of my daughter.

Fingers update

So this past week Ethan had the pin removed from his thumb and the enormous cast was replaced with a much smaller cast, leaving his fingers open to the air.

The office visit was awful, he cried the whole time.  He wasn't even in pain, he just cried and cried.  The orderly began removing the cast (they unwind it) and he cried....then they removed the gauze, yet more crying....ugh.  Even when you know it doesn't hurt, and even when you know that the whole process is for their own good, it's tough.  You're never really prepared for parenthood until you're stuck in it.

So, the next steps are to clip his really long fingernails (ick) and then four weeks in this cast.  After the four weeks, he moves into a night time cast with a splint that will accompany weekly physical therapy for up to 8 weeks, depending on how well it all goes (I guess).

Not too shabby, as the doc thinks he will not need further procedures.  He says that the thumb seems fairly stable right now and it's nice and straight, so fingers (er...sorry) crossed that it stays that way.

Ten Fingers

Mr. LIH and I brought our son in for surgery to remove his poly dactyl thumb on his left hand.

Now it's almost three weeks later and he's been a champ.  He has a hard cast from mid-bicep that extends down to cover is tiny little hand.  *graphic warning*  The cast is large and must be very firm to protect the thumb itself, as the surgeon had to insert a steel pin in through the top of the thumb to help stabilize it while his tendons and ligaments are healing.

His surgery was a lot less complicated, once they were in and so his recovery time is shorter, as well as the hope that he will not need additional surgeries to bring his thumb into the correct alignment.

I really think that this might have been harder on my husband and I.  My son didn't seem to notice anything was happening and despite being groggy and maybe somewhat disoriented after the surgery, was in good spirits.  He was up and running around in the recovery room, ready to head home.

Although the recovery is looking to be quite lengthy, I'm glad that we went through with it.  It will save him on social pressures and ridicule, as well as give him better mobility with his thumb.  He could use it ok before, but now his thumb will be functioning properly.

In another week or so we will be bringing him in to remove the pin and the cast in exchange for a "soft" cast (whatever that is) that will be on him for an additional 4 weeks, I believe.  After that, he starts physical therapy to rebuild strength in his arm and hand, with which he will have a "cast" that goes on at night for another 6 weeks.

Despite the cast, he gets along better than I feared.  He uses that arm as sort a lever to get himself into all kinds of trouble.  The only time I feel guilty is when he can't do simple things that he was able to do before.  Flipping through books has become somewhat of a challenge, taking apart his Legos after he builds them, and eating.  It seems my son might be left-handed and so he has some major challenges to use a fork with his right hand and just gets frustrated.  Otherwise, he handles the whole one-handed thing well.

I will update as we go through this process, but wish us luck.  I have a new baby coming in about 8 weeks (hopefully) and my husband starts a new job soon, so life is very much in flux right now.

Something new...

Sorry for the silence...

Ok, on to other things.

Let me give an excuse for my blog laziness.

So, I've spared you the ultrasound shot, because I'm not sure how much you all want to see a picture of my uterus...

I'm about 5 months along now and expanding rapidly, chasing a toddler, and working.  Blogging has been at the very bottom of my list.

I'm going to try to be back now, maybe not posting as much as before.

Either way, stay tuned !

Parenting Post - Farewell to Sleep

Disclaimer: I am, by no means, a professional in terms of psychology, doctoring, or even giving advice.  My intent is to only share my trials, tribulations, and experiments in Mommy-dom.

As I was perusing my blog and developing some ideas for posts, I stumbled across an old post from October.  I lamented about being a new MOM and some of the crazy ideas bouncing around in my head.

Now that I'm well on my way into parenthood (E is 10 months old), I feel like an update might be in order.

We have many things happening, all at one time and life is, on occasion, a jumbled mess.  I'm happy to say that many of the misgivings and fears that I had about doing the "right" thing by your child have dissolved with the many tears that both E and I have cried over the months.  Now if only the body metamorphosis would melt in the same way, I'd be golden.

Although I don't have a solution for my current Mommy issue, E has boycotted sleep and therefore, I am inadvertently boycotting sleep, I will keep you posted.

Somewhere around 9 months old, E caught a cold and then, as is his usual MO, it triggered an ear infection.  This is always fun, E is in pain and has all kinds of bowel issues, thanks to antibiotics (which are optional, but you run the chance of a ruptured ear drum).

So, the general rule is, babies need lots of love during periods of illness and all of the normal, well, norms are dropped until they are better.  Ten days go by and he appears to be all healed up and happy, except for the fact that he has quit sleeping through the night.  I should preface this with the fact that he's been sleeping, with a few exceptions, steadily through the night since 10 weeks old AND had also been good with falling back to sleep on his own.

Now he does not appear to sleep soundly and is only getting about 11 hours of the 14 total hours that a 10 month old requires in a 24 hour period.  Although it's somewhat annoying to get up 4 times at night to comfort him, I knew what I signed on for when I decided to become a parent and my biggest issue is that I fear he's not getting enough sleep overall for him to be healthy.

At the moment, I feel, it's a combo of a few things:  learning to pull up, cruising, teething, moving to a new home and new daycare, gas, separation anxiety, and bedtime routine instability.  We now have a regimented bedtime routine and he seems happy with daycare and our new home, but the other things are all developmental and I'm stuck with them.  I just hope that his lack of sleep doesn't affect his general well-being (I'm keeping a detailed sleep log and will discuss with the doctor if it continues).

Currently, I'm struggling with my method for sleep training.  As any parent probably knows, there are 50 different ideas about this subject and thousands of opinions about their merits or lack thereof.  I was in the camp of Cry It Out and being all hard-nosed, until I tried it....E cried for 2 hours....and vomited.   I do not think this is how it's supposed to go and so I abandoned that theory for now.  Unfortunately, I just can't find something that seems to work for my son and so I just "spoil" him with rocking, holding, and cajoling to sleep until I can figure something else out.

All suggestions are welcome, but I will be mean in answering if I get any mean comments...just a fair warning from a sleep deprived, probably soon to be PMS-ing, female.

Just for a kick of irony:

Being a Mommy - Parenting Post

Disclaimer: I am, by no means, a professional in terms of psychology, doctoring, or even giving advice.  My intent is to only share my trials, tribulations, and experiments in Mommy-dom.

I enjoy my son and all of the new experiences, good or bad that come our way.  I spend a lot of time trying to make sure that he's growing and progressing towards his milestones, properly. 

This brings us to my first observation.

1.  Despite the fact that Ethan is a preemie with a 4 week adjusted age, he does not seem to fall on any particular scale that will give a rating of "normal".  He doesn't exactly fit into the profile of a 3 month old (adjusted age) or a 4 month old (actual age).  I worry all the time that he will somehow have a disadvantage or an issue because of his early arrival.  It's even more anxiety-inducing when you see other children around the same age and they appear to be doing "better" than your child.  Try not to fret too much over what other people's children are doing; because more than likely, you're doing a very fine job.

This leads very nicely to another observation that I had and one that I'm afraid, I'm also guilty of.

2.  People will brag and talk up what their child is doing.  The most challenging thing about this is, it can feel like a rather passive aggressive judgement on your child.  This one has two points.  Firstly, it's important to be proud of your little tyke, and to share this pride with others, unfortunately, it can be a bit overwhelming for parents of a child who is not meeting milestones.  It can even begin to feel like a contest.  Your baby is not in a contest with any other baby, at least as long as you're not entering them, literally, into contests.  Secondly, as a parent who sometimes feels like everything is a competition, try to remember, IT IS NOT A COMPETITION.  I think it's necessary to make sure that you're not taking someone elses pride in a way that it's not intended.

3.  There is not a rule book.  I feel that this is the most annoying stumbling block to being a parent.  There are almost too many resources at your fingertips.  Websites, Pediatricians, hospitals, other parents, "retired" parents (children are all grown and gone), books, news reports, and people without any experience at all are all willing and happy to share their advice and judgements with you.  Unfortunately, there isn't one single resource that is 100%, absolutely correct.  I find that, even amongst Pediatricians there is disagreement around all of the various parental hotspots and faux pas.  It even feels like Science and research do not really agree.  It's a potential minefield of guilt, doubt, and insanity.  It seems, so far, that taking all of the various information into account and then mashing them together works fairly well for me.

These observations are merely meant to show my personal experience with having a baby and wandering through

I think that I will try and post more regulary about this whole parenting gig and I will also do my best to be more specific, as I figure things out.  For example, my son has learned to roll over onto his stomach, from his back, unfortunately for my sleep duration, he has not learned to roll back.  This means that he squirms, wiggles, and grunts himself onto his side and then his belly before waking up with an angry wail.  I have tried propping him against the side of his crib.  This does not work, as he just tries to roll and then smacks his little noggin, repeatedly against the bars.  Then I tried to put him to sleep on his belly.  This sort of worked, but it's a WIP (work in progress) for now.  I will update with little events such as these for your reading pleasure, my own tracking system, and maybe even for a sense of comfort for other parents with these same silly, but very real struggles.