kielbasa, kimchee and narcolepsy

05Dec07

I’m hyperventilating. I have five red spots on my shoulders and under my arms.

I’m not immune to the chicken pox.

I’m an idiot for not getting vaccinated between pregnancies.

2.2% chance of birth defects. I’m still freaking out because everywhere I go, there’s a dire warning about early and late pregnancy contractions of c.p. There’s even a fucking meme about what one would do if they found out that they had chicken pox for the first time while they were three weeks pregnant. As in, would they terminate or not.

Sometimes I hate the internet.

Could somebody, if there is somebody, please tell me that they’ve had the chicken pox for the first time while they were pregnant in their first trimester, and given birth to perfectly healthy children?? I don’t think I can hear anything other than that. Excuse me for being such a moron, but I’m slightly hormonal and paranoid and I can’t deal with anything heavier than pure, good news.

***

I forgot about this whole narcolepsy thing while your pregnant. I haven’t been awake this long past 8 for a while now. It’s a wonderful thing, sleeping for 10 hours. Granted, Max wakes me up a couple of times a night, or my grumbling stomach beats me up and yells for food. I’ve woken myself up with the sound of my teeth grinding and my stomach grumbling almost every night for the past week.

***

If you’re working for Pfizer and you’re trolling this blog because I wrote about some stupid antibiotic that made my son sick, stop it. Or don’t stop it if you’re here because you’re bored at work and like wasting time by reading this nonsense.

***

Kielbasa and kimchee. Eaten together, they make for gastrointestinal fireworks. What the fuck am I thinking? If I’m not about to throw up, I’m eyeing your plate about to make your fries vanish down my gullet. I have not self control with food any more.

My husband is my absolute hero. Despite all the crazy antics, like trying to pick up my left boob with a pair of tongs…in a very nonsexual way (trust me, the sex ain’t happening), the mister is the engine that keeps this family fed, laundered and laughing. Without him, I would subsist on pringles and fig newtons. My son would get jarred food for lunch every day instead of maybe once a week. I would be having as much sex as…I’m currently having. And I would just fall apart.

He made kielbasa, sauerkraut, and laid out some mustard and cornichons to see if I would get my vinegar/sour craving satisfied. I ate way too much sausage, prompting much delight from the mister about me loving his wiener. Kimchee was next. I spent the next 8 hours in the bathroom evacuating my bowels with frightening speed.

Grose.

***

I’m stressing about being the mother of siblings. Mostly because my sister and I have such a complicated and sometimes strained relationship.

“Be Careful” is chanted almost 2000 times a day in my house. Max must think we’re total pussies because we are afraid of everything. For him. I don’t know where we get it from, but both my husband and I are over protective to the point of being pathological. Of course, it must come from our own upbringing. To my parents, everything is gee gee dirty. That’s why I’m germophobic.

My son crying as his main form of communication is our fault, because we run to make him stop, to give him something to drink, eat, laugh at if he’s unhappy. I’m trying to slow down and think about what we’re teaching him but it’s hard to see what we’ve done until some annoying situation arises. Your friends start joking incessantly about how they’re “sorry” that their daughter, who is three weeks younger than Max, “beat up” our son and made him cry.

The fact is, Max has an unusually hard head, and rarely cries because he’s actually hurt his head from bashing it against, well, anything. He doesn’t seem to feel pain when he falls hard or accidentally hits himself in the mouth with a book he’s yanking off the shelf. He cries to get attention and to make another 19 month old toddler stop trying gouge out his eyes with a piece of cardboard.

I kind of want to punch them in the ovaries. I’m overprotective that way and they should shut up. They’re 19th months old for fuck’s sake. Mom wrote something that says it all when it comes to gender and expectations.

I remember flattening some kid’s ass because he was bothering me or because maybe I just felt like it. Maybe I was 8 or 10 or 6? My hands went on his hips and dragged him to the dirt. I don’t remember if this was during recess and why my dad was there to see it. His mortified response to my victory dance set me straight on how to behave like a lady.

***

I’m all over the place for this post. I have a vague impulse to apologize, but to be honest, I don’t really care. I’m too tired. Brain dumps are good for me lately. They’re not happening enough because I’m usually passed out next to my son at 8:00.

The last thing that’s been bothering me about being a mom to two, is this. I have some pretty serious separation anxiety and it stems from memories of jamming on my shoes to follow my mom out the door after she just had a blow out fight with my dad.

They weren’t very friendly with each other for most of their lives. Until about 6 or 7 years ago, I had never seen them hold hands or anything like that. When I saw my dad put his hand on my mom’s leg in a gesture of affection for the first time, I got very confused. It was like I was witnessing a crime where no one was getting assaulted or robbed. I just knew that it was wrong. Wrong that it had taken thirty years for my parents to start enjoying each other’s company and wrong because all the rules had just been tossed out the window. I didn’t know what to expect next. Maybe they’d start making out in front of me. With tongue.

In the beginning of their marriage, my mom was always trying to leave with my sister who was still a baby. She calculated how much easier it would be to take the younger child and tried to assess which daughter my dad would be more apt to chase down. Their marriage was a joke. My sister doesn’t remember any of it, but I remember all of it.

I confronted my mom about this issue while I was going through my divorce. I used to have a recurring nightmare about running after my mom and my sister. They were always within hearing distance but I could never see them. I won’t get into it here, but my mother had good reason to want to leave her marriage. She was doing the best that she could and I admire her because of that. Talking about it with her made her more human than I ever expected her to be, and it enabled me to start understanding my weaknesses.

The ripple effects of the tensions that her actions created between my sister and I are still evident. I still have small panic attacks when my husband leaves the apartment. I have a hard time being alone. None of this is easy and I’m not laying blame. I just don’t want to unwittingly burden my son with this kind of baggage. I just don’t know yet what insecurities I’m really passing down to him.

***

My husband, in the meantime, keeps me laughing and pulls me away from too much introspection.

He does this by asking for a tissue because he’s “swallowed one of Max’s boogers”. I don’t know if he gets himself into these situations intentionally because he knows how much I’ll enjoy it, but it doesn’t matter. I’m just glad that it’s him that’s next to me. I’ve somehow ended up just fine. I hope this means that Max will too.

***

No twins in here. The first prenatal visit was nervewracking because I had some weird idea that maybe I was never pregnant in the first place and it was all in my head, or my urine. I regretted not taking a picture of the pee stick’s positive reading to just reassure myself that it had really happened.

After seeing the beating heart and the little blob, I was thrilled that it was really there, and that there was only one.

Filed under: hormones, luff, the mister   |  11 Comments