It's all too much

I'm having one of those days where I just feel totally overwhelmed. I'm allowed, right?

Here's a list of what's going on.

Bumpus is rolling. A LOT. Which means he's not content just lying on his back - he has to flip over, at all times. But then when he's on his stomach he gets frustrated so I have to flip him over...only to have him flip right over to his belly again. Last night he had me up practically all night doing this over and over. This, and peeing all over the bed, and then pooping all over the bed, and then spitting up all over the bed. I changed his diaper three times; normally I don't change it at all. It was a rough night. And makes me wonder how much longer we'll be able to co-sleep, as much as I love it. If he's going to flail around all night every night I don't know if I can do it.

My house is piled high with boxes from the event that STILL need to be gone through and put away. With all the crap I still have to do, I see continuing to live like this for at least another week.

I have no clean clothes, no food, and no clean dishes. I am out of food for all the animals; the office positively reeks of dog piss from locking her in there every night, even though I put doggy pads down, she often misses, and now I'm out of those, too. All of the garbage cans are literally overflowing. Everything is a mess and dirty. I would kill for a housekeeper right now.

After spending weeks on selecting nominees for this hall of fame group I belong to, and hustling to get these nominees' info to our web designer so they can be posted so the board members can start voting, discovered by accident today that all of the info on the web is all wrong, and people have already voted. It's a total disaster. I'm considering throwing up my hands and resigning from the board.

I have TONS of declined or invalid credit card slips to follow up on - which means calling the customers at home and asking them to recite their credit card numbers over the phone to me, which as you can imagine, makes them very happy. And just for the record, no, there is no way to run credit cards during the event; they have to be run once I get home. It's a real pisser.

The woman who shot my event video footage this year, who got a hotel room out of me ($500), several of her friends in free, and partook of the food I provided for my employees, has informed me that her hard drive has crashed, possibly taking all of my footage with it.

Yesterday someone left a long, whiny message on my machine telling me to move my event off of Labor Day because it's going to conflict with this other event in town that he goes to. I am aware of this event, but didn't think it would be much crossover. I still think this, but it does have me a little worried.

I keep telling myself that everything will get done, everything will get put away and organized, that normal life will resume and I'll be able to focus again. But right now everything is chaotic and messy and it has me very concerned - it's just making every day life very difficult. Now is one of those times when I could really use some frigging help, you know?

Settling back in

Bumpus had his four month checkup/shots today. It went much like the two month appointment. A lot of waiting around, a lot of "I hate this I hate this I hate this" playing on an endless loop in my brain, the baby turning bright purple and screaming when the shots happened, but then immediately forgetting about it as soon as I picked him up. One more of these two month-spaced appointments, then I don't have to bring him in again until March, then not again for another year. Love that. Even driving down the Kaiser portion of Sunset Blvd gives me anxiety. Reason # 5,486 why I should NOT have another baby.

I have not had a chance to rest since the event. There's a lot to do still - I am making my way through a giant stack of credit card orders (LOTS of declines this year, which sucks), I still have over $10,000 in checks to write and mail, and my dining room is full of boxes that have to be sorted and inventoried before being retired to the shed for another year. I figure it will be another week before I'm even close to wrapping things up.

Unfortunately I have to take Bumpus to the child care place tomorrow night as I have a singing gig; same deal Monday night. I am facing the unpleasant reality that I may have to start enlisting strangers to watch him - I've worn out my favors, my usual sitters aren't always available, and the day will come when it won't be practical to drag him out of bed at night to take him over to the child care place. Everything will change when he has a bed time, doesn't want me to leave him, and isn't as portable as he is now. But I know as with parents in general and single parents in particular, child care is going to continue to be a thorn in my side. If only we could leave little kids at home alone like it's the Depression again!

Bumpus is outgrowing the smaller of his onesies. Today he weighed in at 13 1/2 lbs. He has chunked up quite a bit in the last couple of weeks, and loves to lie on his belly with his head up, just looking around. It's hard to say how well he's sleeping - I know he wakes up a lot, but I long since stopped checking the times when he wakes and now just stick a boob in his mouth while half asleep.

I often wonder if I'm doing him a disservice by not setting up a schedule at this age. I know that he could have a bed time, feeding times, and nap times at this stage...but it's still a bit of a free for all around here. It's mainly because I don't have to set a schedule - there's no work schedule he has to conform to, and it'll be years until he goes to any kind of school. Does he need more structure at four months old?

Labor in reverse

So, another event goes down in the books. Despite my fear of forgetting something huge, or some unforeseen calamity occurring, everything went swimmingly, and today I feel terrific. This story would be dramatically different had you talked to me Friday night, however.

It's a natural analogy to compare running an event or any kind of production to birthing a baby. But it is kind of in reverse - starts off intense and like a steamroller out of control, then slowly gets easier and ends quietly. And after fifteen of these events, we're really down to just the minutiae - tiny little tweaks and details to make everything run perfectly. It's a far cry from the early days when I used to make huge mistakes and was such a ball of stress I couldn't eat or sleep for days.

The only thing other than the usual stressors that got me this year was Bumpus started to get sick - crusty eyes, coughing, hacking, labored breathing. I chalked it up to air conditioning and bad re-circulated hotel air quality that makes us all sound like Brenda Vacarro by the end of the weekend, but I wasn't sure. By the end of Friday I was so stressed out and convinced he was in trouble that I just lost it and started crying my eyes out - I could picture taking him to an emergency room in the middle of the night, him not being able to breathe, basically every parent's nightmare. But as my Doula Friend who was the weekend babysitter pointed out, he was still smiling and happy, not listless, and no fever. My hotel contact ran out and got a humidifier for me which I used that night, and he seemed to
improve. Also as the days went on it was clear he had not in fact contracted some virus and was not developing pneumonia or anything like that.

But here I was, dealing with uptight and intense dance competitors freaking out over every little thing - where are the pins for our bib numbers? My partner is going to be late, can we go in the last heat? What are the song tempos going to be like? And being so worried about the baby, all I could think was, "fuck off! I have a sick baby on my hands! I just want everyone to go away so I can breastfeed my baby and comfort him!"

It was challenging having a small baby during the event, for sure - and I definitely couldn't have done it without all the help. The whole time I couldn't help but think, "it's so weird, he'll never be a little baby during the event ever again!" By the next event he'll be 1 1/2 years old and into everything - but not breastfeeding, and probably with a bedtime and not waking up every couple of hours, which will be so different from this year, which was all about rationing the pumped breast milk (I didn't have enough - no surprises there), wearing breastfeeding-friendly dresses, and not getting ANY sleep. Next year there will be a whole new set of challenges.

So after Friday night's freak out, the rest of the event was all downhill as it always is. I haven't processed the credit cards so I don't know where I stand financially yet, but I am feeling pretty optimistic.

And now I get to enjoy a year of being with the Bumpus all day, every day. A few days of intense stress and risk is a small price to pay for that payoff, really.

Survived!

Too tired for a weekend wrap up, but here's some photos - story to follow!

4 Months

That old chestnut

I debated on whether or not to even write today since there are bloggers out there who are having real problems, and mine just seem so stupid and petty in comparison. They don't just seem stupid - they ARE stupid. So I hope if you read this you understand that I am not being normal and rational right now, and there's a reason. I believe with my event coming up in three days that I have been experiencing a return of my "old" self which is being brought on by anxiety out of control, and it looks a little like this:

I have been feeling like garbage lately, even though nothing is technically “wrong”. Because I’m doing all that old stuff. Nightmares. Horrifying scenarios running through my mind all day about Bumpus dying. Choking disorder when eating. Irritability. Impatience. Inability to get joy out of anything. Obsessing on tiny turns of phrase or tones in people. It’s that old anxiety monster. And there’s really no cure for it other than the event being over and my stress level going down.

I was actually so bitchy the other day that I caught myself thinking, as I turned on the amazing air conditioning in my car to cool down on a hot day, “of course it would have to blow right in my face.” I’m starting to sound like my mother again.

So this is what happened with my party. Even with my friend graciously helping, even with her picking up the food, even with everyone having a great time, getting to bond with an old friend and his new baby, even with getting gift cards which is far preferable to acquiring a bunch of crap I don’t want, even with everyone helping clean up so there’s nothing to do today, I still wasn’t happy. What the hell is wrong with me?

I was annoyed that many of the people who RSVP’d didn’t show. People kept pointing out, “there’s a lot less people this year,” which annoyed me.

I was annoyed that many of the people who did show had to leave early to go somewhere else.

I was annoyed that many people came late.

I was annoyed that once again only about half the food was eaten and had to be thrown away.

I was annoyed hardly anyone went in the pool.

I was annoyed it wasn’t hot enough.

 

I was annoyed by everyone’s toddlers running amuck and wanting to mess with the baby (toddlers just can’t keep their hands off of babies, apparently).

I was annoyed that I feel obligated to put on this party every year, yet I’m so over it – it’s expensive and a mountain of work and just isn’t fun for me. Yet at the same time I feel like it’s an important pre-event bonding experience, since it’s really the only time these people get together. But next year the event won’t be right on its heels, which means either a) I won’t be as stressed out so having the party will be a better experience, or b) I can feel free to stop having the party and travel instead, maybe go to Hawaii or see the family.

I feel like my party is a tradition…and yet like many traditions I believe it’s the type that gets taken advantage of; when people know it’s always going to be there, they skip one or the other. Lord knows I’ve had much poorer turnouts at my party than this year (like that one wicked hot year where everyone just stayed home because of the heat). I should keep doing it, really. But God is it a lot of frigging work!

Since I woke up all pissed off today, I thought I should try to look at the bright side of all the things that annoyed me – like, look at all those nice people who DID come to my party, spend the day, and bring me presents.  Don’t they get any credit? Look at the people who stopped in even though they had somewhere else to be. Look at my friend who helped SO MUCH and took so much of the stress off of me (and it was an enormous help). Look at how lucky I am to even know enough people to have a party.  Most people would just have awkward gatherings with old college friends and the guy who works in the cubicle next door.

But look at ME, who has this beautiful, perfect child, an event that’s successful, and tons of great friends, even if we don’t spend the time together that we used to, even if we are all kind of going our separate ways.

As of today I have 589 people.  That’s phenomenal! I hope I get to 650 by Weds night, although even if I don’t it’s no big deal – I’ve already exceeded all my own expectations. Of course the money still sucks, but I still maintain that it will even out in the end. There are TONS of extra women, and I know this will be a problem, but I have a plan to fix this for next year so I can at least stave off the complaints with that. And we’re moving to Labor Day next year. Apart from worry about the money stretching that long, I really don’t have a bad thing to say about that.

But much like my pre-eclampsia only being curable by giving birth, there really is no cure for my bad feelings other than getting through the event and it being over. All the self-talk in the world won't really help the fact that I make my entire living off of one long weekend a year and that long weekend starts in three days. I challenge anyone to remain cool as a cucumber under those circumstances.

God bless the helpers

Today I took on the odious task known as "party prep". Boy do I love entertaining, but do I hate cleaning everything up for it! Fortunately the gal who's house hosted my shower had offered to help, so she came by to help me scrape a year's worth of neglect off of everything in my back yard. It is a HUGE task.

Walkways have to be cleared and swept, furniture set up and scrubbed, garbage taken down two flights of stairs. Then we had to drop all of my unwanted kitchen crap at Good Will, then buy all the ice & drinks...and all this in the 90+ degree heat, in the direct sun, up and down stairs. This person is an angel sent from heaven, I swear.

Last year I did all this by myself, while pregnant. Of course I didn't know I was pregnant at the time; I wouldn't test until the following morning. I remember last year thinking, "I really shouldn't be lifting this, I really should take it easy," but luckily this little zygote had dug in and wasn't going nowheres!

I'm still always amazed when people put themselves out and help others. I mean, I love helping people, but why do I assume no one else does? My sister reminded me that our mother wasn't a helper, so we got this fear from her, that we'll somehow annoy people by asking them for things. I have a friend who I would never ask to come over and scrub my outdoor furniture, because I know she just wouldn't want to. So I guess there are people out there who are just selfish and don't ever want to be put out.

I had asked for help because I was afraid Bumpus may need attention - but short of one quick feed, it turned out he didn't; he just sat contentedly in his swing, playing with his toes. I only had to check on him from time to time to make sure he wasn't being eaten by fire ants, and that's it.

Some of you may not want to hear this, so skip this paragraph if you need to! The weight loss continues. I have now broken the 135 barrier and weighed 134.8 this morning. I feel like I'm 18 again and can eat whatever I want and still lose weight. But the big question is - what happens when I stop breastfeeding? Will I blow up like a balloon? Am I developing terrible habits? Once I have to make an effort again, will it be torture? I do worry about this. It's why I don't like extreme weigh loss, because it's impossible to maintain. But at this rate if I continue to breast feed for many more months I could waste away to nothing.

Bumpus loves rolling over onto his belly. The days of leaving him unsupervised on the bed are over! In good news, he has all but stopped screaming in the car, is very alert these days, and wants to see everything. He is a fascinating little guy, I have to admit!