Category Archives: Evelyn

Oct11

Bonsta Monsta strikes again!

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Bonsta Monsta strikes again!

Bonnie is up to her old tricks. I learned awhile back that most valuables should not be left alone with her because she likes to chew on things (see here and here if you need reminders!). And so far, she’s been pretty good about not being the mass destroyer since Evelyn has arrived.

I mean, look at this girl:

Does she look like she is capable of mass destruction of items Elisabeth likes? (No, obviously not. I am MEAN and making this all up. LOOK AT THE GRIN IF YOU HAVE DOUBTS!)

Yesterday, Evie was showing signs of being tired (which involves a mass amount of being cranky as she tries to fight of sleeping… Sleeping is for all those WUSSY babies out there. TOUGH babies don’t need naps…), so like the good mother I am attempting to be, I went and put her down. And I actually got her to sleep in about 5 minutes, which is pretty good for her. I walk back into the family room where the dogs reside, and VOILA.

 

THE BONSTA MONSTA STRIKES AGAIN!

The sandal at the top is what both should look like. The shoe on the bottom is what happens after Bonnie had 5 minutes alone with the sandal.

Fortunately for Bonnie, they were only $10 sandals that we bought purely because of pregnancy-induced feet swelling, and most likely I can work some fix-it-up magic with a hot glue gun, but still. THAT DOG IS NOT TO BE TRUSTED.

Don’t worry–no dogs were injured in the de-making of this shoe. I did a close comparision between sandals and all the beads were still there. She just had fun pulling it apart without swallowing pieces… though if it had been 10 minutes alone with the sandals, who knows?

AND- speaking of injured dogs- Remember back in June when Stevie and Neighbor Dog tangoed and he somehow ended up in the E-Vet (TWICE?!) ? Yeah, fun times. The good news is that ugly wound is hardly noticeable anymore.

Can you see it?

No? Here’s a closer look!

Barely there! How awesome is that?

So life really is great. Bonnie DIDN’T swallow anything from destroying my footwear, Stevie looks like a handsome mansome dog again, and Evelyn slept the entire time I wrote this post and is only now starting wake up. I can’t complain!

Now if Jared would come home from work at a decent hour again… 😉

 

Sep25

Adjusting

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Adjusting

Both Bonnie and Stevie got put down a notch on the totem pole in the household when Baby Evie showed up. They are our “Furkids” and we still love them lots, but the baby has taken up most of our energy.

Both of them had a hard time with it at first; not necessarily with Evie herself, but with the fact that “Mom” no longer could spend as much time with them, or sit with them for a hour, or play with them as much. Jared did what he could, but sometimes, they wanted me. Stevie went on a hunger strike for a month, where he ate about half of his normal intake. Bonnie decided to leave messes on the floor (even when we had let her out minutes before to do her thing outside!).

And then there was the fact that whenever Evelyn cried, Stevie would howl like a banshee. And developed stressed induced colitis 2 days after Jared went back to work full time and left me on my own with our three “kids”. (I won’t tell you the details of how we learned he had colitis, since it’s pretty gross, but I will admit I panicked.)

Anyways, so with all that said, things seem to be getting back into a rhythm. Evelyn is calm enough that we can spend some time with the dogs without her crying, and the dogs are calmer now that the baby isn’t such a novelty and so they don’t jump up as much on her. (“Oh, what’s that in your arms, Mom!? (Bounce) Did you bring us a TREAT?! (Bounce) Oh, no, it’s the mini person that hasn’t gone away yet. (Huff, slowly go back to wherever they were napping) Whatever.”)

Yesterday was a good reminder of the pattern that is emerging from the chaos. Everyone wanted loves, and everyone figured out a way to coexist on the couch together, where I got THIS picture:

It’s moments like this that I remember: Life is good.

Sep19

September blues

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September blues

Fall colors are usually warm colors- reds, oranges, yellows, and even browns, but this isn’t the case for everyone.

I’ve been struggling a lot this month. Not for any one reason. Many times, we’re quick to blame it on the baby. However, Evelyn is doing better every day. (She slept for SEVEN HOURS STRAIGHT last night, y’all. I got up and checked her breathing several times AND took her temperature this morning to make sure she was okay. I might do it again when she wakes up from this TWO HOUR nap she’s in the middle of. (And yes, I ended a sentence with a preposition. Check the rules; it’s actually okay to do.))

Back to my post.

I’ve touched on the fact I have depression on occasion here, and it goes up and down. It probably wouldn’t be a surprise to a few of you to know that I’ve been dealing with some postpartum depression since Evelyn was born. The first week, fueled on adrenaline, I was just so happy she was here. I couldn’t stop smiling. I thought maybe, just maybe, I would get lucky and not have the “baby blues”.

Then, as week #2 hit and Evelyn decided to start her 4-5 hour fits of screaming through  the night, it all came crashing down on me.  I would never, ever dream of doing anything to my daughter, even in the middle of one of her horrible fits, but I did not extend the same courtesy to myself. To put it simply, it was awful.

I muddled through it until around week 6 or so, when I had my postpartum appointment. I probably should have called sooner, but part of me kept hoping it would just go away. But of course, it didn’t. After taking a very obvious survey (With questions like, “I feel hopeless: 4-Always 3-Often 2-Occasionally 1-Never”… Then add up your “points” at the end, as if depression is your prize for the high scores! Go team!), my doctor and I took action to battle back the depression.

This also came around the same time we were able to positively diagnose Evie with acid reflux (hence the near-constant crying), and get her needed medicine, too. The end result- both Mom and baby were happier campers.

The past week or two, things have been going down a little more again. Evelyn has good days and bad days, but really, it’s more me than her.

Enter Dooce.com. I love this blog. Besides having a particular brand of humor I find both refreshing and irreverent, I have really identified with her because of her struggle with depression. There’s such a stigma associated with having depression, or any sort of “mental illness”, in our society, that we often ignore the problem or feel incredibly alone because we are all reluctant to share our experiences for fear of judgement. Despite the criticism, Heather of Dooce shares anyway. In reading her blog today, I came across this post, “Remember it tomorrow morning” I wanted to share because of the helpful reminder to me.

Basically, more people end up depressed and/or commit suicide in the months of September and March. Blame it on the rapidly changing light from the sun jumbling up our already messed up brain circuits. So, if you are feeling down, and you can’t quite put your finger on it, it could be this.

Sometimes just knowing is the difference between going crazy, or having a problem and being able to put together a game plan to get it under control.

Aug27

The first bell

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The first bell

Around 5:30 this morning, as I was feeding Evelyn, I had the thought hit me that if life had gone as I planned it would a year or two ago, I would be anxiously getting ready for my fifth “first day of school” today. Of course, life rarely goes “as planned,” does it not? And because it was early enough in the morning, I quickly brushed away the thought.

At 8:55am, I was getting Evelyn’s medicine together for her acid reflux while she was starting to scream in the background, and it hit me harder than I thought it would. 8:55am is the first bell, starting the first class of the first day of school, and I wasn’t there.  I always looked to that bell with so much excitement; I always was so nervous and excited to meet my new students and see what the year would hold (probably more nervous and excited than many of them were!). I was at home, in my pajamas still, waiting for an update on whether our AC could be fixed or not while taking care of my new baby.

There’s always so much potential that first day. A promise hanging in the air of all the things that we would share and learn together.

You can tell me that I’ve got a better job now, and I would agree. After how brutal last year was for me, staying at home with my baby girl is a wonderful change. Just as brutal in some ways, but better, more purposeful, so I don’t mind it that much. I am on my own schedule, with more freedom to raise my child the way I see fit; freedom I could never have with “my” children in the classroom thanks to district and state lists on what they thought 7th graders should be capable of learning. And let’s face it: changing diapers and onesies takes a lot less brain power than grading 130 papers.

But still, I will miss it. I hated those school bells because they limited the time I had with my amazing students, especially last year when we only had 50 minutes together instead of 90. But I’ll miss those bells. I’ll miss the amazing teachers I got to work with; sharing and learning information and teaching styles with them.

Most of all, I will miss the bright, creative, fun, amazing students that I was able to meet every year. For every “bad apple”, there are always more students that can make the classroom a fun, happy place to be. Often, without realizing it, students could teach me, too. I’ll miss sharing favorite stories and poems with them; the exciting and deep realizations students could have in class discussions. I’ll miss their humor, too. There’s nothing quite like the humor of a room full of 7th graders.

Will I be able to go back to teaching one day? I don’t know. There’s many reasons I am relieved that I am not in a classroom today. Being a parent has been the hardest job I have ever done, harder than being a teacher, and still I am content to stay here with my child for now.

But all of those reasons still didn’t stop my heart from having twinges of longing for that first bell of the school year.

Aug17

Horton

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Horton

If it’s not one thing going wrong right now, it’s another!

In my last post, I mentioned that we discovered that Evie has GERD/acid reflux. Before you think I hastily rushed to this conclusion to medicate her, let me show you some of the symptoms she was exhibiting:

  • Spitting up (increasingly more in the past 2-3 weeks)
  • Irritability during or after feedings (particularly in the evenings and night!)
  • Coughing/ sputtering during eating
  • Refusing to eat
  • Crying when placed on her back, especially after a feeding
  • Arched her back while crying/feeding
  • Choking after some feedings- particularly bad Thursday
  • Spits up forcefully, causing stomach contents to shoot out of her mouth

After last week, this was just getting worse and worse.  She had a nasty choking episode at 2:00AM friday morning, then a forceful vomit later on in the day. She she then had a bad night Saturday, slept very fitfully.. and Sunday was just a mess. She forcefully threw up around 5:00-6:00 pm, and then 1:30 am (1:30 one was particulary bad, but both had vomit coming out of her nose and mouth and was most of her feeding).

There’s a lot they recommend you do, like keeping the baby elevated after feedings for 15-30 minutes, smaller feedings, sleeping in a car seat or adjusting the baby’s crib to a 30 degree angle, but it wasn’t working.

And let’s face it. Getting between 1-3 hours of sleep a night and getting covered in curdled baby vomit multiple times wasn’t working for me, either.

Monday we were able to meet with a pediatrician, who agreed with our assessment that the fussiness was mainly in part to what appeared to be acid reflux. She wasn’t too concerned, since Evelyn’s been gaining weight rapidly, but she could tell, even in the appointment, that Evie was a little fussy and in discomfort from the issue. So she prescribed us some medicated drops for the reflux and told us to call in if we didn’t notice a difference within a week.

Within 24 hours, we had ourselves a new baby. If I hadn’t been so sick with a cold, I would have slept marvelously in 1-2 hour stints throughout the night because this little girl was not nearly as fussy as she had been in the past.

Y’all, when I see that doctor again, I might just hug her.

Unfortunately, remember that cold I mentioned? Well, Wednesday night, Evie started showing signs of being congested. I’ll have to put that down in her baby book. You know, where you put things like “Baby’s first words” or “Baby’s first time to crawl”? I’ll put down “Baby’s first cold: Wednesday, August 15, 2012.”

Just kidding. Sort of.

Anyways, like probably most first time parents, I was extremely anxious. There’s not much anyone can do for a cold, but should I take her to the doctor anyways? Blah blah blah. We called the office in the morning, and the nurse told us that if she didn’t have a fever (she didn’t) and if she wasn’t extremely fussy, then go with a humidifier and saline drops and bring her in if she got worse, a fever, or really fussy (though, before the acid reflux medicine, how would we have known differently?).

Well, we didn’t have saline drops OR a humidifier, so that meant going on a field trip to Target with a sick baby. Yay! (Remember, this blog is a no-sarcasm zone…)

Anyways, meet Horton. He’s our new humidifier.

He beat out a frog and a penguin during the in-store audition for the job, and has a special place next to the bed where I have Evie sleeping in her car seat. (He made a convincing argument that he’d go better with the jungle theme in Evelyn’s room, and that his nondescript gray was being true to type, not boring.)

Don’t judge me for having conversations with animal-shaped humidifiers in a Target store until you’ve been sick for a week with a nasty cold and running on 1-3 hours of sleep a night. If you’ve been there, and you still want to judge me, then go ahead.

Plus, if you’re going to be sick, might as well be sick with a bit of whimsy thrown in, yes?

Anyways, please send Evelyn good thoughts so she can get better soon and enjoy being a healthy baby for a while, before the next calamity, like teething, sets in. 🙂