The Good, the Bad, and the Merry

There is very good news, indeed:

Ben has belly laughs in his sleep and give us the chuckles when we play with him. It is cute.

Ben slept last night. No kidding. I'm hoping for a repeat performance tonight, but I'm just so glad I had a little bit of a break. Thank you so much for your comments, by the way. I really appreciate them.

My husband is awesome. Okay, so that's not really news, but it is good.

And the best news of the day is this: You know how I'm getting laid off, right? Well, out of the three people in my group, I was getting laid off in the first quarter of next fiscal year (somewhere between March and June for us) while the other two ladies were given fourth quarter (which ends at the end of February). I asked if I could switch with one of them, and I was just told today that I can! Yay! This means I get my severance package (which is the only reason I wanted to work until getting laid off), and I'll get to stop working outside of the home sometime towards the end of February.

The bad news is: My dogs smell bad. Again, this isn't news at all, but it is bad.

Merry Christmas to you from us.

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Could I buy a good night's sleep on eBay?

Wow. I think this child has colic in full force. The kind of colic where nothing is wrong with him, but he's crying his head off. We can't see where he might be in pain or anything. He just has this internal clock that goes off at about 3 or 4 in the morning, and he is completely inconsolable for about three hours. And we've tried everything. Swaddling, shushing, swinging, dancing, jiggling, rocking, singing, crying (that would be me), snuggling, and of course the obligatory diaper change and feeding. And nothing works. He's also very sleepy the entire time, and fights the sleep tooth(less?) and nail. I also had a friend suggest that perhaps he was just tired of being held. So I tried putting him down. Yeah, that didn't work either. You might think he was kept up too late, and he's overtired and crabby. But if he is already asleep (like he was last night), he will wake up at the appointed hour and start the crying. And then, at the second appointed hour (you know, three hours later), he magically closes his eyes and goes to sleep.

Now, this might not be so bad because I'm not working right now, except that I've been unable to sleep when he's sleeping. I've had insomnia pretty bad. And so by the time he's gone to sleep at the end of his crying jag, I'm so dead. It's only then that I finally sleep, and my brain wakes me up for the day about six hours later (I sleep with Ben so I barely have to wake up for him to nurse). I guess the only thing pulling us through is the promise that it will get better, which we've been told by pretty much everyone.

Unfortunately, this is all compounded by the baby blues that have not gone away. The baby blues that have only gotten worse (particularly with the lack of sleep). The baby blues that could now be considered postpartum depression. And it's pretty hard. I finally saw my doctor for my six week visit, and he prescribed some low dose estradiol for me. He's hoping that by upping my estrogen a little, it will pull me out of it. I'm hoping that, too. *sigh* It all just makes me very very tired.

I do enjoy Ben, though. During the day, he's a happy little guy. He smiles a lot and goos and likes to snuggle. I'm really glad that nursing is working out for us. The hormones that are released are probably pretty good for my emotional well being. I still love him at night when he's crying, too. I just wish I knew what to do to help him feel better. It breaks my heart that I can't help him, even if I know it's nothing personal. If anyone has any more ideas I haven't tried, feel free to throw it out there. I can't say I'll try absolutely anything, but I am definitely open to trying something I haven't before.

I should probably be asleep right now because the kid is sleeping soundly, but I know if I go lie down, I will be awake for another twenty minutes as I try to fall asleep. So I'll just prolong the inevitable a little.

I've been feeling like a bit of a sort of zombie lately. What's today again? Days and nights and days all meld together like a sleepless crying snuggly fondue, if you can imagine that. My guess is that if you have children, you can. I hear it gets easier. I also hear that the crying peaks at 6 weeks. And when I told my mom that Ben fights sleep by screaming for hours (or until we get it into our heads that we should swaddle him, etc- duh) (perhaps hours is an exaggeration), she told me that it's normal. Whew. That is our light at the end of the tunnel. And also, my kid was born with a mullet. It's a trailer park phenomenon.


Every time I come here to blog, I can only think of things to write about Ben. Oh, wait. That's because everything in my life right now involves my baby. Not that it's a bad thing at all. I actually went to Enrichment Night at church this past Tuesday because a friend of mine had planned and organized the program, so I wanted to make sure I didn't miss it. And so, I left Chris with the baby by himself. For a whole hour, folks. I pumped a bottle that morning. It was my first time pumping, so I really didn't know what to expect. I got a little less than two oz, which felt pretty measly. Ben slept the whole time I was gone, but he was hungry and crying just I got home. So I warmed up the bottle and gave it to Chris to feed him. He sucked those two oz down in about three minutes, and was still hungry. I hope that the pump gets more than that out once I get going with this whole business. Otherwise, I'm in trouble.

Let me tell you, I do not like this business with the bottles. I realize that it's ridiculous, but I feel like maybe he won't need me anymore once he has a bottle and someone else is taking care of him and I'm at work. Like, I said, I realize it's ridiculous, but it's there. I plan on finding a care provider close to work, so I can nurse on lunch break, but I still have anxiety. I also plan on not working anymore when I get laid off, but I don't know when that will happen. It's going to be a hard however many months when I go back to work. And I don't want to do it, but my severance package is worth staying until I get canned. We all have to do things we don't want to do, right?

Anyway, enough of that. If I keep thinking about it, I'll just get all messed up about it way before I have to. I want to talk about turkey. Yes, that delicious bird you ate for Thanksgiving. We went to my in laws' house for dinner, and it was incredible, as always. But when Chris and I finished eating our leftover turkey (like, a day later), we needed more. You see, I usually cook a Thanksgiving meal just for us as well. Because sometimes splitting leftovers with all of the rest of everyone leaves us with only one day's worth of delicious turkey meats. And also, I just love cooking turkeys. It gives me a sweet meaty satisfaction to cook a juicy delicious bird. (I can roast a mean turkey. It will slap your mouth with tenderness.) I decided not to cook our own meal this year because obviously, there is a needier mouth in our home now. He makes it a little difficult to orchestrate such projects. However, our leftover turkey left a longing need in our mouths for more turkey. So I bought a turkey breast to cook because we are only two people, and we don't really need a whole turkey, right? We finished said turkey breast in a couple of days. And still we needed more. So I bought a whole turkey, and I was finally able to cook it today. I don't know how long it will last, but I won't be upset if I still have to cook another one after this. I seriously love cooking turkeys.

And ever since I have been cooking turkeys, I have always tried to make turkey gravy. Turkey gravy is my nemesis. I have never been able to get it right. It's always lumpy or tasteless or too thin or thick and always just wrong. But when I cop out and use the gravy packet that comes with some turkeys, it's gross. I've been spoiled by my father in law's gravy. It's so good.
But! This turkey that I made today! I made gravy! And it was good. Not at good as my father in law's, but it was still pretty good. I've finally made a gravy I wouldn't be embarrassed to serve to someone other than my husband (and really, I'm still embarrassed to serve the crappy gravies to him, too). Success!

Now for more pictures. We just got a new camera, so we've been taking many more pictures. Please enjoy my baby's chubby cheeks. Thank you.



Please ignore all the miscellaneous crap on my kitchen counter...


Do you know how many pictures and how many days it took for us to get this picture? This kid just does not perform for an audience. As soon as the camera comes out, he stops doing whatever cute thing we wanted to capture.