My head is clear from the brain drain. Ahh… Well mostly, anyway. I talked to both R and my boss about the various things that have been making me nuts, and I feel a lot better. I know you’re all very relieved to hear that.
TGIF! For the FF this week I have the long-awaited pictures from our brewery tour getaway this past weekend. There are a bunch of shots here, but it’s only a fraction of the entire album. If you’d like to see the whole thing just leave me a comment and I’ll send you the link.
Both good and bad, I guess.
Last night I went to a Jockey Person2Person clothing party at one of my good friend’s houses, and it was awesome. I was completely unfamiliar with that line of Jockey, but the clothes are fantastic. High quality, beyond comfortable, stylish and flattering for a woman’s body, and washable/dryable without shrinking or pilling – excellent! I ordered a pair of black modal active bootcut pants and I can’t wait until they arrive. I could seriously live in those things if it was socially acceptable to never change your pants. And what could be more fun than sharing a couple bottles of wine with girlfriends while trying on a bunch of new clothes? Yeah that’s right – nothing.
(side note – if you see anything you like in the catalog in that link above, or if you’d be interested in either hosting one of those parties or becoming a rep yourself, let me know. i’ve got the hookup)
So anyway, as we were tossing around shirts, workout tanks, dresses, and other various articles of Jockey clothing, of course the conversation turned to boobs. Why wouldn’t it in a house full of topless women? Most of us there have swum together for years, so we’ve all seen each other in more stages of undress than just bared to our bras. One girl had just had hers beautifully lifted after having her babies, and can I just say they looked spectacular!! I was of course envious of her gorgeous rack, and was lamenting the current deflated state of my own micro-rack and the fact that none of my bras fit properly anymore. Then one of the other girls said, “Thank you! That’s exactly how I felt!” Sweet – I’m not crazy or the only one who thinks her post-baby boobs have turned into little tiny niddlers! (name the movie that has that description of boobs in it and i’ll give you a cookie) The universe hasn’t singled me out with this punishment, it does happen to others! We both said how now we have to have all these different sections of bras in our collection – pre-pregnancy, pregnancy, nursing, then post-nursing. Bleh. I may as well just be wearing a training bra at this point. Again – who’s got suggestions for comfy, properly-fitting bras out there?
On the flip side, here’s where the bad validation came into play. Well not bad bad like I’m now thinking harmful thoughts or anything, but it totally cemented my notion that these things really have shrunk. This past weekend as I was vomiting out everything that’s been tumbling around in my head to R, of course I landed on how I hate the current state of affairs on my chest. I’m like seriously, there wasn’t much there to start with, but now what little I had has even disappeared in recent days. He said oh yeah right, and I’m like no, really, feel. So he did, and you know what he said? “Well, maybe they are a little smaller.” See! See?! I told you. I told him I need a boob job now when we’re done having kids and he just laughed and said don’t be silly, maybe they’ll come back. What?! Why would they just decide to come back once more tiny mouths have sucked the life out of them? I might have to get the number of my friend’s doctor who did her work, see if she also specializes in miniature versions.
I’ve heard so many women say that their boobs just kept getting bigger and bigger with each successive child they had, and I was so hoping that would be the case for me too. Ha! Yeah right, SM, you should’ve known better. That’s not how your luck works.
Boobs – you didn’t think I could talk about them so much, did you?
This post may seem kind of rambling, crazy, and pointless to many, but that’s just kind of how things are rolling around in my head right now. Lucky you.
Now that I’m done breastfeeding and the milk has completely dried up, my boobs are utterly and totally lifeless. And I hate it. I think back to how full and nice they were while they were producing infant life force, and it makes me sad to look at the shells that have been left behind. They were certainly nothing special to begin with (emphasis on the nothing there), but now I swear they’re even less so if that’s at all possible. And for whatever reason none of my pre-pregnancy bras fit right anymore. Maybe I’ve just forgotten how underwires feel after not wearing one through those 9+ months of nursing, but damn if they aren’t uncomfortable! I used to avoid bras without them, but now I can’t seem to find one in my drawer that I like. I’m debating going to have an actual bra fitting done, but I’m afraid the woman will just laugh in my face and say, “Hon, what are you thinking? You don’t even need a bra!” The only one I’ve ever had done was while I was pregnant, and I was actually wearing the correct size at that time. But now I’ve lost that cup size I gained and it seems like every other aspect is out of whack too. Hmm – anyone have suggestions on comfortable bras they like?
Work sucks. There, I said it. People always ask, “How’s work going?” because they know my company has gone through round after round of layoffs the past couple years, and I have been fortunate to survive them all. Trust me, I know how fortunate I am, and I’m definitely not taking my employment for granted. And I usually answer that question, “Oh it’s fine. Work’s work,” but to be perfectly honest I get more and more restless every day. I like my job and all, but I just keep feeling useless. Like, what am I doing there that no one else can? When is the next round of firings going to come with my head on the chopping block? Fortunately I think we are past that point in the survival of our firm, but I still can’t help but wonder. There really isn’t a career path for me much past where I am now, which is actually totally fine. I’ve aimed to get where I am now my whole time in this industry so far, and I’m perfectly happy in my current role. But I always feel like one day someone is going to expect me to want more, and when they realize I’m content where I am now they won’t be able to understand that and run me over for the next hungry young guy (i say guy because this is still a fairly male-dominated industry, even though there are very many extremely talented, smart women in it. ok, hungry young guy or girl). I can’t help it, though – I get a paycheck, I have excellent benefits, I am good at what I do, I don’t need more and more responsibilities to feel validated in my career, and I enjoy the flexibility that I have now to leave work each day at a pretty reasonable hour and go home to be with my family. For that is what’s most important to me now – my family. And I just feel that so many people in my office make their life revolve around their job that I get further and further removed from that mindset every day. Maybe it’s just because things are a little slower at work right now, my mind has time to wander into this dangerous territory. I don’t know. I know I need to keep my job to help sustain the livelihood of our family, but I just really don’t want to. Isn’t that terrible? I should be considering myself lucky that I even still have a job as great as mine, and here I am complaining. I’m such a brat. (which in itself doesn’t help my feeling of uselessness either)
When are we going to have more kids? Woah, there’s one for ya. I swear every other second I start trying to figure that question out, and it’s beginning to drive me a little crazy. See, here’s the sitch – I know we want more (one, maybe two more, probably definitely no more than that), but when should we get to work on that little side project? Maybe it’s because now my body’s getting back into its groove and I know that project is possible again, or maybe it’s all the awesome babies coming into the world right now, or maybe it’s just because. Who knows. All I know is that it’s fairly constantly on my mind right now and I just don’t know the answer. And I don’t like not knowing. I originally thought it’d be great to give D a sibling about 2 years younger than her – have them pretty close together so they’d grow up close, plus if we decide to go for more after that I’d be that much younger when the time comes to work on #3. But then I started thinking wait, is that fair to D? Should we give her another year or more where it’s just her, so she can enjoy having all of our attention and love a little while longer? Would we miss out on precious moments and memories with D if we decide to go for it sooner rather than later and have to focus a chunk of ourselves on a new baby? And I have no idea how to answer that. I can see the pros and cons in both, and I feel like I’m about to tear in half when I try to come up with a solution. I teeter back and forth between leaning strongly one way, then the other, then I get all messy when I try to reconcile my feelings. Ugggghhhhh. Why is this worm eating away at my brain right now? And why won’t it tell me the answer? And when is it going to stop making me itch?
Well we’re still on our mini-vaca, so maybe some of these things are getting resolved as you read this. And maybe not. But throwing them out of my head for once helps it feel a little better, so thank you for letting me do that.
You know, the days where you feel like you just can’t win. Like whatever you do, it’s not good enough, or you can’t get it done fast enough, or it’s just not right. Yesterday turned into one of those days when I got home from work.
All I wanted to do was sit and relax in the sun for half an hour when I got home, while it was still shining on the back part of our driveway. I’m feeling seriously vitamin D deficient after this miserable “Spring”, and I was exhausted. Well I had to take D out there with me because R was working on something, so I grabbed one of her books, her water cup, and a little container full of Cheerios, and I strapped her into her stroller so she couldn’t boogie away from me. This worked well on Monday – she played in there for quite a while as we grilled and ate dinner outside – so I figured it’d be a fine alternative to hauling her playpen outside again, especially since I was only going to be out there for 30 minutes. Of course not. She played with her stuff for a minute or two, then got totally fidgety and everything started being thrown overboard. After about the fourth time of retrieving and replacing her Cheerio tub I just left it. Whatever got thrown out and onto the driveway stayed there, while she contorted her body into every angle possible trying to launch out of the straps. R came out to take out some garbage and I think could sense my growing frustration, so he took D with him when he went inside. Thank you! Too bad my quiet sun-filled glory that I so desired was short-lived, because after no more than 2 minutes I heard D start screaming. Good lord, now what? She’d apparently fallen into the side of her playpen holding her water bottle and I think scared herself more than anything, but either way my chance to relax outside was now thoroughly shot to hell. And only 20 minutes later, a good portion of which was spent picking up baby paraphernalia. Hmpf.
Last night I also wanted to get a load of laundry done and D’s and my clothes packed for a mini-vacation we’re taking this weekend. After the playpen crying, though, she was all upset and cranky, so I decided it was time for some supper for her. And then, oddly enough, she was covered in food and sticky whatever leftover in her hair from daycare, so she needed a bath (no, i don’t bathe her every day. babies aren’t that dirty, but this child was pretty filthy last night). I finally got a chance to get the first load of laundry in the washer after her bath, and I could tell she was getting sleepy and ready for her bedtime bottle at that point – it was 6:45. So I heated up her milk, got situated with her in my arms on the couch, and almost instantly her eyelids became heavy as she drank down the moo juice. Just as she was about to konk out completely, R shouted out from the bathroom to get him a towel since I’d thrown the ones that were in there in the laundry. What?? You’re joking, right? Just step on the mat to dry your feet and walk out to the hall closet to get one yourself (our hall closet is approximately 4 steps from the bathroom door). And of course I didn’t want to shout that I couldn’t come running at that exact second because I didn’t want to disturb D as she was falling into slumberland. So after the third bellow from the bathroom, I tried as hard as I could not to jostle her and carried her into the hallway with her bottle to get a towel to throw into the bathroom. Failure. She was totally awake and then ready to play once she saw Daddy. Back into the living room we went.
It took 3 tries to get her to bed last night, for each time she’d doze by the end of her bottle something would grab her attention and it was playtime once more. Boo. Then when I finally did put her in her crib, she began another screaming session, which he haven’t had for months now. Why can I not please this child?? Ear infection back? Sickness of some sort (she was kind of pukey last night)? Just mad at the world (hey, i know the feeling kid)? Whatever it was it was not helping the mood of my day. Thankfully R put her to sleep that time with a little rocking, so I could switch the loads of laundry (when i was only expecting to do one in the first place) and get something to eat for myself. Just as I was finishing my sandwich and getting ready to simply sit for a few minutes, which was all I’d wanted to do since I’d gotten home, D started crying again in her crib. Silly Mommy, you don’t get any down time. So I went in there after a few minutes when it was obvious she was really awake and not just doing her little sleep cries where she puts herself back to sleep, and picked her up to rock her. Then she barfed on herself. Then she barfed on me. And it’s no longer just the little spit up of sweet-smelling breast milk, oh no. It is now curds of foul-smelling sour whole milk and whatever else she’s eaten that day. Lovely. So I had to change her onesie, and fortunately through all the screaming and crying I could tell she was still wiped out tired, so it only took a minute of rocking after that and she was zonked out for the night.
Okkkkk, now where was I with the rest of the shit I wanted to get done? Oh that’s right – NOWHERE. By then it was 9:30 and I had to start the dishwasher, get the second load of laundry out of the drier and fold everything, then go to bed. My exhaustion from earlier in the day certainly hadn’t magically worn off, and I wanted to get to bed early. Failure again. And the packing I wanted to at least start? Didn’t even get the duffel bag out of the attic. Mm-kay, fun. So my lack of progress there, coupled with the unexpected trials and tribulations of D at bedtime, more laundry than I felt like doing, and late bedtime once again made for one crabby SM.
But things always seem better in the morning, right? Wrong. D woke up crying 15 minutes before my alarm went off, and of course I was the one who got up with her. Of course. Sorry, R, that’s why I slammed the door this morning. I just wanted those 10 extra minutes of sleep by the time I actually got out of bed to go into her room. So the mood to begin today picked up right where it left off last night – shitty.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot the best part. For the first time in 19 months my body is doing that thing. That thing that women’s bodies do monthly-ish? Yeah, that thing. Oh sweet, let’s have a parade. On one hand I’m actually glad to see it again, since it means my body is getting back to normal after the whole experience of pregnancy, child birth, and breastfeeding. On the other hand it could be contributing to this funk. I’ve never been a “PMS-er”, thank god, but man if I’m not in a mood right now. And I just feel bleh – my body looks gross to me, the milk machines are done and now back to their original non-existent state, I need to do more exercise, my skin has decided to give me the gift of breakouts, and I’m still tired (crazy, i know!).
And now I get to add packing to my to-do list for tonight. Joy.
So this whole milk drying-up procedure has turned out to be much more painful than I expected. Remember how I thought that since my pumping had slowed down so much recently my risk of exploding boobs was pretty much gone? Yeah, I was wrong. Everything I read said that in order to get your milk supply to end you need to stop pumping/nursing entirely, so even my every-other-day pumping was making my body think I still needed to keep producing. I thought I was just teaching my body to produce less and less until finally it would simply get the hint that I no longer needed any milk. Apparently I was mistaken. So this weekend I decided it was time to stop for good, and I haven’t pumped since Thursday morning.
And I want to rip my boobs right off my chest. Actually just the right one; the left one has been behaving nicely. But righty? My god it’s being a turd. Full, hard, extremely sore, just all around unbearable. I’ve been popping ibuprofen like it’s my job since Saturday because I can finally take it again and it’s the recommended pain reliever for going through this process, but it hasn’t been doing much that I can tell.
What has been helping, though, is cabbage. What? Yes, cabbage. Everywhere I looked for how to go about doing this warned of the engorgement I would experience (they were right!) and recommended putting cabbage leaves on my boobs to relieve the pain of the swelling. Har – yeah I don’t think so. Raw cabbage leaves? In my bra? You’re crazy. Nope, you’re a genius! That shit saved my sanity this weekend. I’m not kidding, from the very first leaf against my skin I wanted to cry with joy and relief. For all the sites I read that suggested this I still can’t tell you what exactly is in the cabbage that helps, but I am now a believer. If Mr. Cabbage told me the world was ending tomorrow night at 6:00, I might actually listen, that’s how much of a cabbage convert I have become. You take raw green cabbage leaves, either slice off the top edge of the big veins in them or smash them down with a rolling pin (i chose the latter), and put them on your boobs for about half an hour or until whenever they’re wilted. I just wore a sports bra so they were easy to put in and remove, and I plowed through almost an entire head of cabbage in two days. The colder they are to start the better, and seriously as soon as you put the leaves on it’s instant relief. They don’t actually reduce the engorgement that much since they don’t do anything to make the milk dry up, but just like ice packs work, the cold compress on your skin does help take a little of the swelling down and provide some pain relief. And I guess women have been using this remedy since the 1800s, so who am I to judge? Bring on the cabbage!
I’ve also read that it may take up to a week or two for the milk to finally be dried up, and if that proves to be true too I may just have to be locked away by the end. I can’t even describe the level of discomfort, for although I’ve felt it before when I would go too long without nursing or pumping, knowing that I can’t relieve the engorgement or else I’ll have to start this cycle all over makes me a little crazy. If the pain gets too awful or I start running a fever I’m supposed to call the doctor at that point, so let’s hope it doesn’t get to that. I did have to express a little by hand last night before the right one exploded, which is such a fun endeavor all in itself. I tell ya, the human body? It’s a crazy machine.
To switch topics to try and take my mind off the boobage pain, let me tell you how my 5k went. I rocked it!! My original goal was to break 30:00, which, after I ran the route earlier last week I knew I’d be able to pull off. So then I had the 27:00 mark in my head. I secretly wanted to break 27:00, but the whole time I was running I kept telling myself I’d be happy with 28:00 something and felt like that’s the pace I was holding. Imagine my surprise when I crossed the finish line and my watch read 26:57!!! (it wasn’t an officially timed race so i used my watch instead of their clock) I mapped out the race route and it actually was 3.24 miles, so that’s an 8:18 pace! Holy shit. The whole time I was running I couldn’t believe my legs were holding in as well as they were, but I had no idea I was going that fast. Well, fast for me, I should say. So I was very happy about that.
Then Saturday night R smoked another scrumptious rack of ribs and we enjoyed 2 bottles of wine. These:
Both were quite tasty. The zin was pretty sweet for a red zinfandel, which I love, and the riesling was nice and light, tasting very much of pears. Last night R used his new pizza stone and pizza peel and made 2 homemade pizzas for dinner. They were both on whole wheat crust, and one was topped with his homemade bacon and cheese, and the other was topped with pepperoni and cheese. Need I even say it? Delicious!! Unfortunately he didn’t take pictures of any of the food this weekend, so you’ll just have to imagine the savory delicacies yourselves.
R and I watched an awesome documentary tonight, “The Real Dirt on Farmer John”. It was about a guy who grew up on a farm in northern Illinois, took over said farm when his father passed, turned the farm into kind of a hippie commune as he actively farmed it in his 20s, went broke and had to sell almost everything at age 30, and his subsequent return to the farm and eventual transformation of it into a CSA. (side note – we joined a CSA last summer. wonderful premise, but unfortunately we were disappointed with ours. so this summer we’re just going to try to get more veggies going in our own gardens and frequent the local farmer’s market)
The movie also showed the sad demise of so many surrounding family farms in the 1980s. Seeing a farmer actually start crying as he spoke of watching the concrete being poured for all the neighborhoods that sprung up on the beautiful farmland brought tears to my eyes. And it got me thinking, as I have so many times before – what’s going to happen to R’s family’s farm when his dad dies?
R grew up on a 400 acre farm about an hour north of Milwaukee. His dad’s parents started it, his dad and aunts grew up on it, and his dad has been farming it ever since he came back from California in his 20s to take over. It used to be an active dairy farm, but now it’s mainly crops. They have a few cows left, but not nearly as many as they did in the milk-producing hey day. There are also some pigs and lambs, but it’s definitely not a meat producer. We occasionally reap the benefits if his dad slaughters a hog, but it’s not like we get all our beef and pork from there. They used to raise chickens, but those are gone as well. His mom still tends a magnificent garden each year, though. And when you’re on a farm, your garden isn’t your little run-of-the-mill thing like we have in the backyard. It’s a garden. I can’t even list how much stuff she grows in there, but the first time I saw it I was like this isn’t a garden, it’s a field!
R’s brothers both still live in the area of the farm and have helped their dad with the farming and chores their whole lives. R was much more sports-oriented in high school and then went away to college, so his days as a farm hand ended years ago. We have talked seriously, though, about maybe someday moving back to the farm and starting a rural life for our little family. He has a plot of land on the farm that consists of roughly 40 acres, and it’s beautifully situated on the river that runs through their land. He has said how he’d love to build a little cabin up there for a weekend house or something like that, but we’ve also discussed relocating up there to start a hops farm. These are all just pipe dreams right now, but it’s something that I know would free his spirit and take him back to his roots.
Every time we start talking about this I can’t help but ask myself, would I really be good on a farm? To tell you the truth, I actually think I would. I obviously have never done farm chores (save the one time i helped pick stones in a field, but that doesn’t really count since i got to drive the tractor the whole time), but I absolutely love being able to spend days outside and see and enjoy the fruits of my labor. I think that’s one reason I’ve taken so well to gardening. Yes, I know gardening and full-on farming can hardly be compared, but I’m just saying I think I can picture myself in that setting.
And if we were to someday move to the farm, like I said, we think it would be to do hops farming. There is currently a rental house on the farm land that we could remodel and fix up to live in, then we could dedicate just a little plot to the hops. This is an enormous undertaking, and one that would take years to bring to fruition, but the more we talk about it, and especially when I see documentaries like the one we watched tonight, the more I can see it happening someday.
I’ve always said I never want to live up there, and I still have a hard time picturing myself living in Sheboygan Falls, but a rural life would be pretty great. It takes less than an hour to get there from Milwaukee, so we could still come down here whenever we needed pretty easily. And if I’m perfectly honest with myself, what’s the big thing we do around here now? It’s not like we’re going to the museums or theaters every night, or even out to eat. I would miss our friends most of all, but then I’d just have to come down for girls’ nights that much more often. Plus with all that land, we could have everyone up for cook-outs and camping and visits whenever they could come.
Having seemingly endless property like that to roam and explore would be wonderful for the kids too. Assuming D has a brother and/or sister someday, but even if it ends up just being her, having acres and acres of nature as your backyard is something amazing that there’s just no way she’ll get here. And instilling in her the importance of respecting and nurturing the Earth by experiencing that daily would be pretty cool. Obviously we could teach her that from the city (i grew up in the city and learned that lesson at a very young age), but being able to play in the wild blue yonder every day I think would help her appreciate that firsthand.
(another side note – we’ve also contemplated moving to a more rural area just north of where we live now, not going all the way up to the farm. that one is much easier for me to accept. i already love it there, and if we really wanted to get hops farming started, R could get up to the farm as often as he needed more easily than from where we live right now. and as long as need be, i could keep my current job because that move wouldn’t make my commute impossible, whereas moving to the farm would)
R thinks his oldest brother will probably take over the farm after his dad. I know his family has expressed interest in actually living there in the farm house after R’s parents, which would be fantastic. While watching the documentary tonight I just started worrying that no one would want to take on the full responsibility of the farm after their dad and all that spectacular land would end up being sold like so many of Farmer John’s neighbors’ farms. That’s what always spurs me to ask myself, “Could we do it?” “Would I be willing to sacrifice our city life to save the farm if we had to?” And I think that answer is yes. Because if I saw concrete being poured over all that precious black soil, I would cry too.
I went for a run again tonight, since I have that 5k on Saturday morning and I wanted to keep my legs loosened up. Well, as loosened up as they can possibly be after the first week in approximately 52 weeks (if not more) in which I have worked out 4 times. The 5k will make 3 runs, plus 1 workout with my trainer. Youch.
So anyway, tonight’s run started off horridly. My legs hurt, my ankles were stiff, my whole body just felt tired and lacking any semblance of speed. I even crossed the street at one point so as not to run up behind a couple pushing a stroller with my dinosaurish plodding and gasping for air. I seriously considered giving up and heading home at the halfway point, but then I thought, you ass, you’re only going 2 miles. Keep moving!
As I lumbered along in misery, I determined rule #1 of the universe. Even more important than the Golden Rule. Do unto others is great and all, but this one trumps even that. If you see me jogging toward you on the sidewalk, even at a ridiculously slow rate of speed, all out of both shape and breath, please, for the love of god, please, do not step / walk / fall / ride a bike / ride on roller skates / push a baby stroller / push an adult stroller / push a wheelbarrow / throw a toy or ball of any sort / sweep / or even try to glance across the sidewalk in front of me, for I am so out of both shape and breath that I will be unable to maneuver in time to avoid tripping over you and breaking my leg and possibly yours in the melee. Just stay out of my way! Mkay? Thank you ohsomuch.
Also, can we discuss the scents in the neighborhood while I run? I won’t even go into the extent to which my smells became fucked up while I was pregnant, because that’s an entire other post in itself, but let’s just say it’s taken me this long to finally be able to wear perfume and smell meat again without verging on vomiting. However, if I run through a cloud of smell when I’m having a particularly bad run, that gag reflex comes roaring back into action. So to those of you grilling burgers and doing laundry, let’s save it until I am safely past your house next time.
Fortunately I made the whole run again without walking (oo wee, all 2 miles of it), and after about the first half my joints sufficiently loosened up so that each step didn’t involve something locking up on me. I ran 2.09 miles in 18:56, a 9:02 pace. It definitely felt like about a 20:00 mile pace. I was glad I kept my butt moving there in the middle. I even had enough energy left to mow the lawn when I got done. Coolness.
