Saturday, August 28, 2010
The Lady System
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Off To The Witch Doctor - Ooo Eee Walla Walla Bing Bang
A good friend of mine, who has a child similar in age, was also experiencing similar symptoms. She, upon recommendation of a friend, took her son to a naturopath, who ultimately diagnosed her son as having allergies - food allergies AND environmental allergies. Once she changed his diet and was aware of his surroundings his symptoms diminished completely.
So, I gave it some more thought. My son really could be suffering from allergies. The fact that the cough and runny nose really DON'T seem to be going away could mean that he's constantly exposed to something that his little body isn't tolerating. An allergy also could explain the rash that comes and goes on his body (his pediatrician said that was a mild case of eczema...and prescribed a constant slathering of cortisone, which I'm not about to do either).
So, I thought it was best just to check out a local naturopath and see what she has to say. My husband's benefits plan covers a portion of it, so it wasn't going to hurt. I visited a naturopath once for myself and felt like it was mostly a sham. I believed that each naturopath was told to diagnose their patients with candida (which I was diagnosed with, and I BET YOU A BILLION DOLLARS THAT IF YOU WENT YOU'D BE DIAGNOSED WITH IT TOO!!!!), get them to spend a million dollars on homeopathic remedies and send them on their way. To me, it was the same as going to see a voodoo priestess ... it just didn't seem right...
...but when it comes to the health of my children, I want to make sure I explore all avenues to ensure I have the REAL diagnosis.
I figured that if I was going to take my son to see this "quack", I might as well get them to check me out too. I want to be sure that my health is as good as it gets. Especially when I'm breastfeeding. I would like to know that I'm doing everything I can to provide my little girl with the best milk she can get, and I'm hoping they can steer me in the right direction. Being vegetarian sometimes means that my diet is lacking in certain vitamins and minerals, so I'd love to hear what they recommend.
My appointment is today and I had a VERY thorough questionnaire to fill out before my arrival, asking about my previous health, environment in which I grew up in, lifestyle, etc. This is definitely a different experience than the one I had a couple of years ago. In addition, they had a completely different questionnaire for my son to fill out. One geared strictly toward children, which I thought was pretty cool. I'm hoping that this visit is a successful one for the whole family and we can figure out some of the unsolved mysteries that have eluded us thus far. Wish us luck!
Friday, August 20, 2010
Take A Load Off Frannie
...but I have a ways to get back to "normal". I figured I should definitely start with some easy stuff...Dye my hair, paint my nails...and then move on to the tougher stuff when I can. So, I grabbed some L'Oreal and got to it. Of course, I followed the instructions to a tee, and my hair looks GLORIOUS, with the exception of those dastardly grey hairs that continue to boing out of my head like pubic hair...and don't think those grey hairs changed pigment. Of course not...they remain as grey as the day I gave birth. Good LORD! Someone throw me a bone, here!
My mother took pity on me and my disgustingly dry and gross fingers and toes. She, bless her heart, paid an esthetician to COME TO MY HOUSE and give me a mani/pedi ON MY OWN COUCH!!! How luxurious is that? All I needed was someone to fan me and feed me grapes! Of course, the moment the lady finished the top coat on my nails, the baby started to cry and I had to change her diaper...so much for the mani!
So, the easy stuff is now out of the way (until I can find a more powerful hair colour!)...it's time to move on to the tough stuff...
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
All You Need Is Sleep...Sleep Is All You Need
Everyone always says "make sure you sleep when your newborn does"...but they forget that I have a toddler and I could win the lottery sooner than I would have a day when both kids are sleeping at the same time...so my husband and I came up with (read: I strong-armed him into agreeing to) a plan. Although not entirely romantic, we do night time split shifts. He does the 11pm to 3am shift and I do the 3am to 7am shift. This way we ensure that each of us gets x number of hours of uninterrupted sleep. Perfect right? Well almost perfect, because, as all of you breastfeeding moms know, your boobs don't always follow the sleeping schedule. My boobs are on a "fill up every two hour" schedule, which makes for an extremely uncomfortable and wet sleep on most evenings. If I sleep longer than 4 hours I end up looking and feeling, for the most part, like this:
So, even though my thoughtful husband allows me to sleep as much as I can to ensure his kids don't end up at the City of Toronto waste management site, my bags o'milk aren't as considerate. Thankfully I have many hands in the babysitting kitchen so I have some breaks during the day. So, all of you out there looking for advice on how to keep your sanity as a new mom. Sleep. Sleep as much as you can, whenever you can, wherever you can. I doesn't matter if you're on the toilet, it doesn't matter if you're breastfeeding, just DO IT. Trust me. Your children will thank you for it in the long run.
I wanted to quickly give a shout out to Ian, Adrienne and Charlotte. Congratulations on baby Kieran. We can't wait to meet him, and we're so happy that you had a quick and safe delivery!
Friday, August 13, 2010
The Heart-Broken Bad Mom Blues
...she still needs me more than anyone else at this point (if only Daddy had boobs!). I thought that having constant playmates for my son would make the transition from only child to big brother a little bit easier for him, and it really did seem to be working. He didn't take much notice to the baby when we brought her home. He was more interested in all the fun toys he was getting when people came to visit, often asking people where his present was as soon as they walked in the door. I thought for sure that I would see the wrath once Daddy went back to work and he was left ALONE with Mommy and the attention-sucking vampire baby, but again, in my limited experience being alone with the two kids (only 4 days in 5 weeks) there really wasn't an issue...or so I thought.
Tonight after dinner my husband took the baby and I spent a little one on one time with my little guy. We played "I'm gonna get you" and then we played a simple game of throw and catch. Seems pretty harmless, right? My toddler caught his first ball tonight, which was an extremely exciting milestone, not only for my l'il guy, but also for my husband, who has pipe dreams of his one and only son playing for the Blue Jays. Again, a pretty big day for everyone, so where do these bad mom blues come in? CUE SOB STORY...
Each night we read a bedtime story and I tuck him in. I kiss him and say "I love you, good night" to which he normally responds "Love You, Night, Night". Pretty simple. Tonight, I got a different response. One that melted my heart initially, and then broke it after the words actually sunk in. He said "Mommy, thank you for playing catch with me". At first I didn't understand him, but when I finally got the words he was saying I got teary-eyed. The free time that I dedicated to him and him alone tonight was so impactful that he felt the need to thank me. Honestly...that's tragic. I've been so occupied making sure that everyone is getting attention, I've lost sight of the importance of spending some one on one time with him. I'm not sure why I thought that filling all of his free time with fun events with other people would be enough, but that truly isn't the case. Even a 15 minute game of catch with Mommy meant something to him. This just means that even though I have a baby attached at the boob for most of the day, I really, really, really need to make an effort to spend some quality time with my son ALONE. No baby in a chair, baby in a swing or baby on the monitor in the sidelines. The baby needs to be out of sight, out of earshot and out of his mind. Seems obvious. And the fact that it's taken me this long to realize it is what really makes me sad.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
A Month Of Bliss, Eleven Months of Hell?
So, most of the visitors I've had over the past four weeks are extremely curious to see a) how my recovery has been and b) how it's been with two kids. I'll start with a).
My recovery has been ...um...interesting to say the least. After my first c-section, the recovery time was pretty minimal. I was out of bed after the first day home, racing up and down the stairs, carrying heavy objects, pretty much tempting fate. This time...not so much. I had to actually fill my prescription for Oxycontin (don't tell Lindsay Lohan...she'll be knocking on my door tonight on her way outta jail). Granted, I only took two of them (again, LiLo doesn't need to know that I have a surplus, so keep it on the downlow, please), but I had to take them so I wasn't feeling great about that. When I wasn't doped up on Oxy, I was popping Advil and clock watching to see when I could take another. I was bed ridden for almost 2 weeks and up until this weekend, I wasn't able to walk around the block without feeling a terrible pull and tug in my midsection. So, you can imagine the distress I was feeling when I realized that my husband was off to work this week and I was having to tend to an overly active 2 1/2 year old and a newborn who is constantly feeding. Luckily my immediate family has stepped in with their time and allowed me to break myself into the role of mom o' two slowly. Hence, I have some free time as my newborn sleeps and my toddler is off to Nana's house.
I do, however, now realize how much one forgets about the grossness that is a recovering mother's post-natal body. Ugh! Starting with the disgrace and embarrassment of having your first pee accompanied by the unsympathetic and immodest nurse, squeezed into a 10sq ft bathroom, followed up by a constant flow of stool softeners (which I felt were unnecessary to take), only to end with the first post-natal poop (and realization that I should've taken those tootin' stool softeners!!!!!!!). GAWD! How could I have ever forgotten my initial experience???? Not to mention the inability to soak in a bath because of the gaping axe wound I had across my belly. It was shock after shock after shock.
So other than the fact that the recovery time of the c-section didn't go as planned, all is well in my household. The sleep issue is horrendous, but expected. The baby is feeding every two hours (and gaining weight like a fat kid threatened with a hunger strike). She is, however, giving Mom and Dad a little bit of a break on the sleep front, generally knocked out from 10pm - 3am without issue. It's the other one that's giving us a hard time. When we first came home, my eldest got a cold, so was up all hours of the night hacking away. Now, it's not the cold that's keeping him up, it's more that he's discovered the art of manipulation and that he's a mildly independent human being. "Mommy, I need water", "Mommy, I can't find my soucie" (yes, we haven't kicked the soother habit yet...), "Mommy, I'm not tired", "Mommy, can I sleep in your bed?"...From what I've heard from other mothers, this is ONLY THE BEGINNING....Luckily we have a safety gate in front of his room, so he's not able to escape the confines of his firetruck bedroom...that being said, it certainly doesn't sway him from screaming at the top of his lungs from the threshold.
As for bringing the new baby home and the issues that may follow, luckily I haven't encountered those ... YET... My son seemed ultra excited at the hospital as the entire family converged over my constantly filling catheter bag (oh the shame of labour) to meet the baby for the first time. He was all about holding her and checking her out. Nowadays I'm not sure he's even aware that she exists until she cries. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but I'll take the peace while I can, as I'm sure it's not going to last forever.
Since my husband has been home, and my family has been a super help, we haven't really had to deal too much with one parent vs. two kids...and between the two of us, it appears that my husband has had more practice juggling than I have. That being said, I did wake up ON MY OWN this morning and had to put the baby in the crib (screaming of course!) while I did the morning routine with my toddler. All in all, it wasn't as terrible as I had anticipated. Granted, I only had two hours of two kids on my own before my mother-in -law rescued me and whisked my two and a half year old outta the house. I can't believe how quiet it is, though, with only one child here. Especially one child that sleeps often and can't talk or run! I feel like I should've had a training kid, so that I could've enjoyed my first born as much as this, rather than being stressed out over every little thing that happened. Ah, the joys of motherhood and hindsight!
Tomorrow is another day of just the baby...but Friday...Friday is the true test. The day where I have both kids ALL DAY, without ANY HELP until my husband returns from work. You'll have to check back with me then to see how I actually survive...until then, let me relish in the quietness and calmness that is my home.
PS- For those of you who are interested...I still haven't really given the tummy binder a real go, as it's been irritating my c-section scar...but I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to start up a "Tummy Tuck Fund" cuz the appearance of my hanging gut is a horror movie more scary than The Shining. Feel free to donate!