Ramble Ramble

So my trip last week was the first time I’ve been away from the kid overnight.  I was super worried about both how I would do and how he would do (although honestly I was probably more worried about me). My trip called for 4 days, 3 nights away which presented, you know, some challenges.

I’m going to do a full post on the practical parts of the whole thing (pumping, time differences, setting dad up for success, etc. ), but first I want to address the emotional part of things.

Which basically boils down to this:
I stressed, it sucked, I missed him, it was fine.

So, as we all know by now, I’m a worrier and fretter. As my dear friend Katherine is happy to point out, I can create things to worry about. I don’t know why I’m like that, but there it is. So of course, when I realized way back in late November that I had to go on this trip I immediately began worrying. Part of my worry was the practical–milk supply specifically–but the bigger part was concern about being away from the baby. I mean, I miss the kid like crazy while I’m at work, and I was going to be on the whole other side of the country?

Then there were the other, crazier worries. The ones that are selfish and silly and totally insane, and yet the ones that killed me to think about the most. I was worried that the kid wouldn’t miss me. I was worried I would come back and he wouldn’t nurse anymore (hello all those easy easy  easy bottles!). I was worried that it would be one more sign of the kid not really needing me–it’s not like I’m the primary caretaker anyway, so why would he care that I was gone for 4 days, you know? It was like all my fears and worries about being a working mom amplified about a 1000%.

In all, I got myself all worked up–internally of course–and stressed and woe is me. You know how it goes. And then?

It wasn’t that big a deal.

That’s not entirely true. Look, I missed the kid like crazy. It was supremely bizarre not having him near every night. I kept hearing phantom baby sounds (no I’m not kidding. I kept thinking I heard the kid in the other part of the hotel room). I had to go to the Times Square Toys R Us at one point (more on that tomorrow), and I just kept thinking of how this thing the kid would love, and that thing would scare the crap out of him, and wouldn’t he get a kick out of all the lights!flashing!noise! So you know, it’s not like it was out of sight, out of mind.

BUT.

I was there for work, so I was busy.

I was sick, so I didn’t have a lot of energy.

I was having to think of the practical–”ok session ends in 20 minutes then I can go upstairs to my room and pump for 10 minutes, then 2 more sessions, then lunch, then I can pump and eat, shit have to check email, damn the wireless isn’t working AGAIN, crap where’d I put the power cord for the pump.” ETC.

So there ended up not being a whole lot left for the stress and worry and over-thinking the missing him. Plus, there was the bonus of the uninterrupted sleep every night. Which–given the kid’s recent sleep regression, plus my sickness, plus the exhaustion of business travel alone–was a powerful thing in the YAY column.

But what of my other, more selfish worries? Of the kid not missing me, etc, etc? Well, because of his age, I don’t think Jackson missed me too much while I was gone. I don’t think he really has an idea of “absence” quite yet. But he WAS happy to see me when I came home. He grinned like a mad man at seeing me. He was kind of clingy when I got home–but I might be imagining that because I want to, not because it’s real. He also had NO problem getting back to nursing, which was a big big fear of mine. Honestly? It was kind of like I’d never left. Which, in hindsight, was probably the perfect thing. It’ll get harder, I’m sure, as he DOES get a sense of “here” and “gone” and that’ll probably hurt more for us both, but this time? It wasn’t that bad.

It was hard to leave the kid. It was hard for me to get on a plane and fly across the country, putting almost 2500 miles between me and my not-quite-6-month-old. But I think the actual leaving was the hardest part–once I was gone, it was done and then I just had to wait to come home. To this.

So this week has kind of kicked my ass folks. Actually, scratch that kind of. This week has ROYALLY kicked my ass. Why? Well beyond the missing kitty and the crazy work and the overwhelming stress? Two words.

Sleep. Deprivation.

(I know, bitching about being tired as a parent, how original. But there’s no brainpower for original with sleep deprivation.)

This week, we seem to be in the hellacious intersection of teething, sleep regression and a growth spurt for the kid, which is basically killing us all slowly. Poor little guy is miserable and N.C. and I are walking zombies.

We’ve been lucky with the sleep thing until now. Jackson was taking 2-3 decent naps every day, and mostly sleeping through the night (minus some whimpering if the pacifier fell out), since he was about 2 1/2 months old. Lucky, lucky, lucky we know. So lucky that I never wanted to talk about it, lest the cruel fates think we were tempting them to change things.

The past week though? The kid has barely been napping, and is up about 3 additional times a night. Our schedule used to be: down for bed around 8:30-9:30 pm, up at 6:30-7:00am to nurse. This week it’s been more like down at 8:30, up at midnight to nurse, up at 3:00 to nurse, up at 5:30 to nurse. And if he can get in one more nursing session before I leave for work, so much the better. And his night wake ups are not  little things– instead they are full on screaming bloody murder wake ups. Nursing has been the only thing that he seems to want (see: growth spurt), though he’s not nursing that well (see: teething), and even then that doesn’t answer the napping issue (see: sleep regression. Or so I’ve read).GAH!

If I weren’t so tired, I’d be really stressed about this because–joy of joys–I’m leaving on a 4 day business trip on Sunday, leaving the munchkin with his daddy and a freezer full of frozen milk. Until this week, it was pretty much exactly enough milk to match his daily schedule, with a little bit extra in case of a travel delay on my way home. He was eating 5 times a day (nursing and bottle), and I had that covered. THIS week though? He’s been eating anywhere from 6-10 times a day. There is definitely not enough milk in the freezer for that. Like I said, if I weren’t so tired, I’d probably be really freaked out about it. Right now, all I can muster is a lackluster “I guess we’ll have to hope that he doesn’t reject formula if he keeps up this pace”.

The only good thing I can see? The sleep deprivation makes me less anxious about leaving the kid for 4 days. I’m gonna miss him, but I’m too tired to worry it over and over in my mind (what mind?). And for once in my life, even though I sleep like crap on business trips, I’ll probably get a better nights sleep there than at home.

And maybe when I get back, the kid will have popped a tooth, finished his growth spurt and reverted back to sleeping enough for mommy to not need IV caffeine to function at work. Here’s hoping.

Perpetua over at Our Lady of Perpetual Breadcrumbs has started a weekly “thing” called ControverSunday, wherein those of us who are interested can all talk about controversial things–we’re starting with parenting stuff for the time being, but may branch out into other topics. This is my attempt at sounding even 1/2 as intelligent as the ladies over there.

This week’s topic is on television. Which, as luck would have it, is on my mind a lot lately. See, a few weeks ago, someone we know mentioned that they had read that exposing infants to television could lean to brain damage. Any kind of television, any kind of exposure.  Something about their brains not being able to process the speed at which the images move, or something like that. I’ve heard a lot of theories about television and kids, but actual brain damage was research I hadn’t heard about. And if so, Jackson is pretty much screwed.

At 5 months old, Jackson loves to watch TV*. He will stare at the TV, pretty much no matter what is on–sports, cartoons, Lost, you name it. But we don’t put TV on for him. There are no Baby Einstein videos, no PBS, no Nickelodeon. He watches what we watch–because he is where we are, and we like to watch tv.

I’ve mentioned before that I am a TV junkie. Well, having a baby didn’t change that. When he was a newborn, and eating every two hours for 30-45 minutes at a time, TV was a way to help keep me entertained and/or awake. While I was on maternity leave, it was a companion to help keep me from feeling isolated from the rest of the world. As he’s gotten older, we watch TV while he plays on his mat, or in his chair. And while I’ve begun to limit when we watch certain things, it’s usually more due to the loud/explosion-y nature or the “Mommy and Daddy need to concentrate to understand what’s going on” (hello, Lost) syndrome, than to any thought that we’re corrupting the kid, or harming his little brain.

Now, let me clarify here, just for my own sake. Despite what it sounds like in this post, the TV isn’t constantly on around the kid. Often, it doesn’t come on until after he’s in bed (see the aforementioned Lost reference). It’s rarely on during the day when he’s with his dad. And he doesn’t always care when it is on, as he’s too busy being tickled, or playing with his music box, or watching the cat or trying to eat his feet.

But, when it is on, I really and truly don’t think that the 2-3 minutes here and 5 minutes there of TV that Jackson sees is damaging. I pretty much think he likes the colors, light and movement–which, really, doesn’t seem that much different than a LOT of the baby toys I’ve seen. We don’t turn on the tv as the babysitter while we do stuff at this stage, but honestly I don’t think there’s any harm in Baby Einstein** when he’s a little older so dinner can get made or laundry done.

As the kid gets older, I fully anticipate that my thoughts on television usage will adapt and change. But in a generic, overall kind of sense, I don’t think that TV is inherently dangerous or bad. I think, like with most things relating to kids, it really kind of depends on how you use it, what kind of kid you have, and how you monitor it. But I reserve the right to change my opinion completely if the kid someday wants to watch Barney.

 *To be fair, the kid also loves to stare at my iPhone screen, the computer screen, the laptop screen, and just about anything with light and color. So, you know, there’s that.

**For the record, I don’t think Baby Einstein has any genius making properties. However, I think it’s age appropriate and visually interesting to babies. So while I think the claims to intelligence are bullshit, I think they’re fine for what they actually are–entertainment.

Being a mom has led to some pretty strange situations already, and I’m only 4 months into this gig. I seriously have found myself in situations, and doing things that I could never even have fathomed 4 months ago. Let me share a few:

• Spending up to 1 1/2 hours a day with my boobs exposed at work (yay pumping!) (and, um hi random Google searches!)
• Examining a dirty diaper intently to determine color and consistency
• Sitting on the floor of a Von’s bathroom, with my sweater under the baby as some sort of barrier/padding as I change his diaper
• Breast feeding in a Melrose Winchell’s Donuts at 10pm on a Friday night
• Pumping in the backseat of the car on the freeway (I’m sure the truckers got a kick out of that one)
• Breast feeding in a dressing room while my husband tries on clothes. I’m still wondering what the employees at that store thought of us.
• Changing the baby in his carseat because there was no where else to put him

It’s been an interesting four months, to say the least. I wonder what this list will look like in a year?

As always, more lists can be found over at Anna’s at abdpbt!

Day three of my return to work, and I haven’t cried today–victory!

Ok, only sort of. Monday pretty much sucked. I cried getting ready, I cried pulling out of the drive way, I cried on the freeway, and then I spent the rest of the day trying not to cry every time someone asked me “how are you doing?” or “do you miss him already?” I’d get myself calmed, and focused on something else (like a new computer that needed to be set up, or 3 months of emails, or the urgent thing that needed to be reviewed right away), and then someone would ask how I was doing and I’d have to fight, HARD, not to break down.

Add in the drama of figuring out the hows, and whens, and whatnot of pumping (oh, let me tell you how much I already hate, hate, hate pumping. That’s another post for another day though), which then left me trying to focus on the kid to help things along, and it was an exhausting day. I was never so glad to get home to a screaming baby who needed me (at least for his dinner).

Tuesday didn’t start out much better…I was teary on the drive to work, and at a coworker’s birthday breakfast everyone kept asking the same questions (was it hard? did you miss him? don’t you wish you could be with him? Um, folks seriously, you’re not helping). I was worried it would be another day of emotional beat-down.

But then, something came up. A project that was supposed to be taken care of while I was out on leave didn’t get done and was stalled, and I basically had to come in and save the day. And it felt great.

It felt great to know that I’m still needed here.

It felt great to know that I’m still good at my job.

It felt great to have something to think about besides Jackson.

It felt great to use that part of my brain.

And while it didn’t stop sucking that I’m not able to be with the kid, I was able to give myself a break by doing my job.

Today is…ok. I can’t allow myself to keep thinking about what I’m going to miss with the kid–I’m going to kill myself slowly if I keep that up. I wallowed last week, I wallowed on Monday, but I can’t keep wallowing. There’s no other options for me–I have to work, I have to have the paycheck and the benefits, and I can’t do it at home, so this is what it is. I need to soak that lesson in and make it my own: this is what it is and there is nothing else I can do about it, so I need to figure out how to move forward.

Do I think I’m “over it”? Not a chance. It still hits me at moments, and I’m sure that will continue throughout Jackson’s little life. I’m going to miss things in his life and that’s going to suck. But since I don’t have any other options, I’m trying to find ways to move past the heartache and into a space where I’m ok with this. I’m doing what I have to do for our family, so I’ve got to suck it up and move forward.

And I get to come home to this:

And I’m thankful for that.

P.S. We’re flying today for the first time with the kid. Wish us luck (and non-sicky sick folks in the flying tin can to germ up my baby who can’t get flu shots)!