Adderall.

It sounds like a whispered conversation in the corner of a backyard bbq; a name dropped at a parent/teacher meeting; a scene out of Desperate Housewives.

I've always avoided medication; I don't like taking pills (have a horrible gag reflex, insert BJ jokes here), I hate shots, and just generally figured I could get by without it. I hate taking bcp every day, and taking tylenol or my migraine meds when I do have one.

However, it was suggested last week that I could benefit from a medication that could help me to focus. And I have been considering it.

I felt ambushed when I walked into my counseling meeting and my husband had already been talking to the therapist and it was the first thing that was said - hey, how about going on this? Just like it was candy. Here, have a gumball. It'll make you more efficient. Hubs told me that I was taking it too personally, and that it didn't mean there was something wrong with me. Just that I needed a little extra chemical push in my brain to help my neurons to fire; or something like that.

I still don't know how to feel about it. After the Desperate Housewives scene popped into my head, I thought it might be good - I could get a lot more done! Prioritize better! Remember everything I wanted to do in a day! But would it really help? Would the side effects be too much for me? Would I be able to sleep? Would I end up doing all of the work around the house? Hubs looked a bit hurt when I balked at taking medication. He said that it worked for him, and I didn't have a problem with him taking medication for his chemical imbalance. I said that was because it was him who brought it up. He recognized a problem. Me? I didn't think it was a problem until it was a problem for hubs. I've always been a little scatterbrained, but I thought it had just gotten worse now that I was working over 40 hours a week and taking care of a kid. I never wanted to do housework in the first place - yes, dishes sometimes sit in the sink for up to a week. Other things were just more important to me.

But lately I have been forgetting things, and it's really getting to hubs. I'll leave something around the house, meaning to come back to it, and it will sit there for a week until he gets upset that it's been there for a week and I haven't done anything. Mostly, laundry. Dishes in the kitchen. My things lying around the house. I left two sweaters draped over a chair in the living room for two weeks. I'd walk by and think, "oh, I have to take those upstairs and do such-and-such with them." But then I'd never come back. It seems now? That I can't finish anything.

So, because I have such a fear - stigma, even - with taking medication for this, I'm going to tough it out and see how I do. I started a list of items that need to be done during the week on a regular basis: laundry, vacuuming, bathroom cleaning, etc. I check them off when they're done. It's going well so far. I just feel like I don't have any time in the evenings to spend with my husband and child - even though he assures me that I do spend quality time with them. I guess that's something that's hard to reconcile for me. I grew up with my mom doing the cleaning on the weekends. Since we go out and run errands, visit, and just generally have fun on the weekends that hubs doesn't work now, it's a little tougher. Especially on the weekends when he sleeps after working 3rd shift. I try to be quiet, but it's tough with a 9 month old! And if I go out, I get nothing done around the house.

I've also been trying to implement a plan to finish everything I start, and not take on anything new. After a recent crying-in-the-basement jag, I realized that I was saving all of these things for a life I didn't have right now. My basement is full of crap. Not crap to me, but just crap. Magazines, bags, bows, quilting items. It's all things that I won't use soon. I may not use at all. And I lost hubs' Father's Day card. I keep bringing so much stuff in, that the stuff I already have gets pushed out. This goes double for my brain - it's like every new thought pushes an old one out.

So I have decided to take Stacy and Clinton's advice and apply it to my life: dress for the body you have. Live for the life you have. All of my plans, everything I was saving, I can't use right now. Doesn't mean I can't plan, but don't plan and then think that it will happen the very next second - I won't be a housewife with time to make a beouf bourginon tomorrow. But, I can take a gander at the cookbooks I already have (I'm talking to you, Rachel Ray) this weekend. I won't be composting and making my own soil - but I can refill the birdfeeder.

Hopefully, letting go of things I don't use or need will help me to appreciate what I do have and make better use of it. Including the brain cells. And if not? There's always that next step.

All the better to eat you with

We have teeth. Two, to be precise. I first felt them about a week before he was officially nine months, and they have now both popped up and reared their sharp little heads.

It's the two front bottom, which I believe generally make their appearance first. They have turned his "mouth open slobber on eat part of your face" kisses into bite-marks on hubs' nose, lol.

I'm not sure how my kid is that old. Of course some days, I still don't know how I have a kid. This topic was touched upon last night as we were talking about what to do for our anniversary tonight. (Concensus was: stay home, make dinner, sleep. Much needed after a busy weekend!) I was thinking about what we were doing 3 years ago, the night before our wedding, and we both exclaimed about the time that has gone by since we first started dating - 8 years! - and how it doesn't feel like time has gone by at all. Maybe it's because of a small, almost-20lb, wiggly reminder of how far we've come that makes it all the more real, speeding by us as fast as he grows. *sigh*

Ah well, happy anniversary to my wonderful husband! I'm glad we've had the chance to grow together and been blessed with a wonderful baby boy.

Mother's Day - my lesson.

I just got back from a loooong walk. You know the kind; one of those walks where you keep looking down over the canopy on your stroller to see if they're asleep yet.

It all started innocently enough - hubs went to lay down before going into work at ten, so I took the burrito downstairs and placed him lovingly in his pack 'n' play. In a few minutes, he was p'n'p-ed out, so we switched to the new convertible walker/easel-type toy with Pooh noises. He soon tired of that too. I knew he was tired, so I walked him around a little bit. Nada. He started to scream louder. The pac didn't work, holding him sideways didn't work, none of the usual tricks.

So, I resorted to the last trick I knew - The Stroller. I estomped (that's Legally Blonde for walked while pouting) upstairs, ripped off my PJ pants and put on some jeans, threw on a sweatshirt, estomped back downstairs, grabbed Yelling Child from p'n'p of death, grabbed dog leash, yelled over my shoulder to said dog, yanked stroller down the front steps, and attempted to shove Yelling Child in stroller. Pac in mouth, dog in front, all was good (read: distracted).

I felt...like a complete failure. Here it was, Mother's Day, the day when I should be celebrated (it's my first as a mama), and give myself a pat on the back, and pamper myself (the non-diaper variety of that word please). The day when I get to bask in the glory of my kid(s), and reflect on all I have done for them. And I have to push Yelling Child around the block in Stroller to get him to calm down. Normally when it's the two of us at night, hubs and myself, it works out better. I'm not sure why; it just does. But when it's just me? I swear that he senses it and is not satisfied with the norm. He wants more! Step it up mama! Work for that title!

So all through the walk, I'm wallowing. Rolling around like a pig. In the mud of my self-pity. "You had to use the last resort Stroller! on Mother's Day no less! What kind of mom can't calm their kid down?? What kind of mom can't rock their baby to sleep??" A tiny voice in the back of my head said, "ok, but you knew that the stroller would calm him down, and he loves walks." And I wanted to estomp it out and continue to wallow in my lovely mud.

And then I realized. I was giving up too easily. I'm not sure where, but somewhere along the way, I have come to be That Girl - the one who cries "this is too hard - I don't want to do it anymore!" and estomps back upstairs and into bed. I have no idea how it happened; maybe it was a result of my relationship troubles last year. Somewhere, after all the not giving up there, I apparently started to feel like I could now give up everywhere else. Maybe my emotional brain decided that I hung in so long with that aspect of my life that I deserved a little giving up elsewhere. I don't know for sure. But I know it's been happening more recently. Especially with Yelling Child. And I don't have a colicky baby, an awful baby, anything like that, which may make it worse - I expect him to be happy all the time because he is happy most of the time.

So...where does that leave me? When is it ok to "give up," to throw in the towel and go get a pedicure? Because I'm sure that there are times where that is acceptable. But not all the time. Not every day. Not even when, on the day we go out to breakfast to the place that I want to go to, where hubs utters two complaints (which I knew were coming), where the burrito gets fussy because he poops and then proceeds to rip off the wipe I strategically place upon his baby nether regions while changing him and then emit a stream of urine so powerful the second I turn to grab a new diaper that it not only wets his face, hands, jacket, overalls, shirt, and the changing table, but also myself and the whole underside of his outfit as well (which I did not discover until afterwards when he was sitting on hubs' lap while we were waiting for boxes for our food and the check because his spare outfit was used the day before). I kinda gave up then. And I really didn't have to, but I think I placed so much pressure on the whole thing to be perfect that it was doomed from the start.

I'm pretty sure that's the worst kind of perfectionist too - the kind who doesn't even do things because they know it can't be done perfectly, so why bother? I don't know, is that me?

Well anyway, I know what I have to do now. Self, this one's for you:
Realize that life will go on no matter what, and if you keep stopping to complain/give up/estomp upstairs, you may miss things.
Don't worry, it can always get worse.
You have been through worse - this isn't it.
While ruined moments may give you just cause to eat a whole pack of chocolate poptarts, they do not give you just cause to continue to ruin more moments. Only one pack is justified, so suck it up and say NEXT.

A post about Communication.

Yeah, it gets a capital C. Cause it's that important.

I wanted to write a little about those first precious days home with your baby, because lo and behold, I have an IRL friend who reads this blog ::waves to Lars:: so, that's at least one reader, go me! And I wanted to give her some advice on bringing home baby. A real, live, small carbon-based life-form. Because that's one of the most-asked questions, at least in my mind- we're home, now what? So here are some things I noticed:

1. If people ask If you need something, for heaven's sake, tell them to do the dishes. Or whatever else it is you want done. Even if they just asked to be nice (their bad), you'll still get clean plates, a room vacuumed, or best of all, food.

2. It's okay to cry. You may do this a lot; every time a certain commercial comes on, or at 3am when the kid is going through a particularly hungry time ("but I swear, I just fed him! How can he be hungry again?! They're gonna dry up!" - ps, they won't).

3. It's okay to not have any feelings of insane, head-over-heels love for the kid that hit you like a freight train the second he exits the tunnel. It's also okay if you don't think you have any maternal instincts. This may not happen right away, so don't beat yourself up about it.

And most important:
4. Communication. Not only will you have to tell people which chore you would like them to take care of, you'll have to talk to Your Partner. Take, for example, this lovely exchange:

(me, having just fed Burrito on righty and attempting to burp him and simultaneously put my chesticle back in its home before moving on to lefty) out loud: "Benjamin! Argh!" in my head: dude, why don't you grab him and walk him around? Can't you see I'm having issues and he's crying?

(hubs, sitting on his chair trying to do something important but totally not important with the bills) in his head: hmm, did it really cost that much to have a kid? Hey, is he crying? out loud: "hey, is he ok?"

Me, out loud: "no, but don't worry, I got it." huff huff huff.

See, in this case, what I should have done was said, "hey hubs, grab the kid and burp him while I wrangle the boobs."

Or take another case, where I was waiting to change his diaper because I was going to give him a bath - but hubs got him out of the babycage, changed his diaper, and handed him back to me. This is also huff-worthy.

I find that it works much better if you actually voice what is in your head. Sometimes, especially at 3am, it is tough to do this in a calm manner. Or any manner befitting a human being and not the chupacabra. So I'd have to remind hubs that I was working on being able to let him know why I was upset, but sometimes, I just needed a moment to huff about it before I calmed down and said something - don't expect a reply right away!

I also have learned to let him know whatever is on my mind. As in, "hey, I'm thinking that we should wait to change him into his jammies until after jeopardy because I want to clip his nails and put some baby oil on his head for the cradle cap." (yes, these are the things you talk about at night when you have a baby.) Because every small thought will count when you are working with someone else to take care of the kid. Unless you have the type of working relationship where you are in charge of everything, and in that case, good luck to you, chupacabra.

Today might be a good day.

I'm going to the gym tonight. So exciting. I don't know why. But I think it's because of the new healthy kick I'm on. I went to tar-jay yesterday and got spinach, yogurt, goldfish (I blame brooke), and some other goodies. Couldn't find any pg or pre-natal dvds, so I just did regular yoga this morning.

Went to borders after that to pick up What To Expect... and got myself some grapefruit lip balm. Yum. I only read about 1/8 of the way into it, but there were a lot of sections I could skip. I glanced at Your Pregnancy Week by Week on the shelf, and I think I might get that too (coupon happy), just to know. My "symptoms" come and go - really, it's only one symptom - and it kind of has me freaked out. I know I'm not alone in this, as evidenced by a post on BOTB this morning by my almost-chart-twin. She doesn't know I'm stalking her. Yet.

Still don't know whether or not I should "come out" on BOTB. I was going to wait until Monday, but I just don't know. My biggest fear is that I will offend someone, or make someone completely depressed/unhappy because I had a surprise and they've been trying so hard for so long. So, I don't know.

What makes me feel better: text message from hubs saying that he wants to be a good husband and dad (wow, still scary!). : )

Never thought I'd write this one.

At least, not this year.

So...I'm pregnant. 4 weeks, 2 days to be exact. From the time of ovulation. Mark this one down as a big BC fail. Huge. Hubs had a minor freak-out of the "I'm not ready!" variety, which...so did I! But this was actually part of one of the many TTC plans we had made in the past, and by the time my EDD rolls around he will have graduated (yay!) and have a full-time job. I will, too, of course.

Our parents know, and certain friends, because I need that support. I'm still in shock, a whole lotta shock, but feel very blessed.

HOWEVER, it doesn't stop me from feeling horribly guilty. Why does this happen for me, and not for all the women out there who want this so badly? I wasn't even thinking of this happening now, and they have begged, pleaded, prayed, undergone grueling medical procedures, tons of heartache, and the like in order to be a parent. I will never understand that. And I will probably always feel guilt. But I am going to work my hardest to enjoy it, and be thankful, because it is a blessing. One that I hope, wish, and pray for everyday to be bestowed upon those women.

So, let the long, strange trip begin.

*phew*

In husband news, we've had a couple of talks (more to come, I'm sure!) and things are slowly getting better. He actually cuddled with me this morning in bed. And, he didn't touch my butt. That's a sure sign of I-want-morning-sex from him, and I was so happy I didn't have to turn him down, lol.

My chart had a fun little dip, which was somewhat odd. I was wondering if it's because the wieners have been waking me up at 6 when I normally get up at 7, but that really shouldn't matter. It only started this weekend, which coincided with daylight savings time (aka, the work of Satan). Apparently, wiener dogs + DST = tragedy for my 6-7am hour.

I also started checking cervix position (yes, I found it! it's not lost!), which is, ok, very odd and sometimes gross. Mostly because it goes along with checking CM, which, you can shoot me here, but totally disgusting. It's like checking how your snot looks every day. Checking the 'vix for firmness? Finding the opening? A bit unusual to me. I won't bring up the sea anemone metaphor again.

So, the schedule for babymaking has again changed, mostly because I am consigned to the fact that hubs is, at the least, PMS-y during school and very non-attentive to his lovely wife. And I'm going to need all the attention I can get when KU, just because I said so. I'm also going to need lots of Viva's creamy italian dressing, whopper jr's with cheese, and reading roll. Sooooo...we're now back to my original plan of April of 2010. Whee! That will give me some time to pay off my massive amounts of cc debt (thanks, wedding and new house) and finish up the small projects I want to do around the house (I see you, unpainted headboard and scarce living room lighting...oh, and blank walls, shut it).

Who wants to take bets about if this schedule holds?