Ugly boots

 They're kind of like moon boots, but with less structure if that is possible. They're my "no one is out" dog-walking boots, for early mornings or late nights. I usually wear them barefoot, which is part of the whole problem of having to wear them at all during daylight hours.

Not much choice for the rest of the outfit when the footwear has already given up.

We're sort of at our limit, again, it seems. M is going for knee surgery soon because, remember that last post about the skiing? Well, he did, and then suddenly didn't and now blood thinner injections, crutches, braces, surgery, and 3 more months of recovery. Probably at least 2 months until he can walk around holding the little one. So, I'm tired right now. And that isn't going to stop anytime soon.

I go to sleep within 30 min. of the kids. the days of wanton TV watching until 10pm are gone. I have baby J every night now and he's got some illness or another every night now, so he's waking up a lot. If i get to bed when he does, I have a chance of getting the sleep I need. My husband and I don't see each other so very much these days.

And the times I try to do one thing for fun (or for moving), don't go all that well either. I went down to the basement a few days ago. Oh, yesterday. Whatever. Anyway, I went barefoot. Because I don't like socks on my feet at home and I didn't want to put them on. I went to get all the old kids' clothing that it is time to sell or donate. Lots of bags and boxes. Some baby bathtubs, some other stuff. And on my way back to the elevator, dragging various boxes through the firedoor way, guess what up and tried its best to close, over my pinky toe?

So, I'm wearing the ugliest footwear I own and pretending that I didn't break my toe even though it hurts like a swamprat. But I sort of don't have time for a broken toe this week. And it hurts only about half as much as the last time, 8 years ago, when I went to the emergency room to be told that I hadn't actually broken this same pinky toe. So I think my chances are pretty good. And if the weather can get a bit warmer, I can just switch to wearing flipflops in the cold spring days instead of these things.

Here's hoping!

I'm tired now. I'm going to go and stare at my computer screen some more.

That funky ski-boots walk.

I'm jealous.

I'm surrounded by mountains and quaint chalets, huge flakes of snow falling on already fallen feet of snow, quiet, pine trees, and whisper-loud gondolas cross my field of view, one every 10 seconds, a few skiers in each. Skiers ski down to just where my son and I have stopped, to play with the holiday village's vast array of tractors and trucks, and do that funky ski boots walk past us. Or below us to store their skis in the garage under the building. Or fly up the mountain, ready to fly down it.

And I'm jealous. I'm sad that we arrived 6 years ago in Switzerland with my husband's bum knee and my just-about-to-herniate disk. That one of the best things about this country - the fact that even my 6 year old is excited and happy about skiing, confident, already wondering where we'll ski when we move back to America - is the ubiquitous downhill skiing, and we're ill-equipped to take part.

I've been skiing many times in my life, but I was younger then and had never had to lie in a bed for the better part of 2 months with nerve and muscle pain filling my days should I move from my one safe position. I could try to strengthen my core enough to try skiing but if it isn't enough, the risk is too great. Two small kids, a dog, a job. I can't risk more time off than I already have to take for daycare flu and cold season. My body just can't handle skiing anymore. And that makes me jealous of all those couples, singles, families funky-walking past me. The college students that leave my apartment building in the city with their ski boots on and go the 5 min. to the train station and up to a slope for the day. The sales on boots, skis, gloves, helmets, jackets. It makes me sad. I can't go down a slope with my daughter who has just learned to fall in love with doing so.

So while school ski holidays this year (two weeks for going off skiing with your kids, of course) found me in a mountain village, watching snow fall, it also found me longing to be having the argument with my spouse about who could go skiing that day with my daughter. Even he shouldn't have (he busted his bad knee again), but it was probably less of a risk for him than for me.

I wish I was younger and stronger and my daughter and I could enjoy this together. But we can't. I'm going to have to deal with that.

And hope for one day of good enough weather and snow that I can go cross-country. For an hour or two, just to be able to say I went skiing while I lived here.

I suck at my job

I really do.

Sure, I have the gender equity and science education background to do my job. But I'm not an organizer, and I'm supposed to be. I work alone a lot. And although I'm an introvert, I get my energy and focus from interactions with a few key people in a job.

When I sew, I do it at the 75% level - all the seams inside are left raw. Sometimes the edges that you don't see aren't matched. If I can wear it out of the house (the house that is also done at about the 75% level), I consider it done.

And so, I make a kind of crap coordinator. I make a great ideas person. But please don't trust me with your budget or your meeting schedule. I'm easily distracted.

So I feel kind of bad about my job, too. And I wonder what kind of job I should look for next time, so that I don't spend so much of my time being bad at it.

Maybe I can take a quiz for that.

I get that I can't have a job I love all the hours I work it, but honestly, I'd probably pitch myself more at filing or delivering mail (closed ended tasks that don't involve phone calls) for that part. It is boring but I can do it. And now that I have small kids, I'd probably actually find it meditative - like I do with dishes (I get it now...a break from thinking and a feeling of completion without having to send the dishes into time-out).

Still, I have good ideas for the ideas part of my job. So for now I'll stay doing it, and do my best to swallow my pride every time I'm failing at all the little organizational stuff. And send off my missives about power and abuse of power. And forget to file my travel receipts. And what this week's meeting was supposed to be about.

My dog on the other hand, does not suck at her job. Actually she more licks at it. Ahem.

A whole lotta trees this year

How is it already 3 months since I've written anything new here? They have been a busy 3 months, I guess. Those are my trees. All, um, 10 of them, which means I'm behind on my paper trees advent calendar. But since it is supposed to be for fun and relaxation, that's okay.

The far right - those are many of the NYTimes I did and didn't read this year. Some crosswords worked, others just left completely ignored. On the far left - the Economist tree.

I've been out of touch with many friends these last three months, too, and am finally catching up. And remembering how good it is to talk with friends. About parenting struggles, about relationships, about life. I've been reminded that sometimes a TV show for both kids makes you a BETTER mother, and that other people struggle with their kids, too. I've been shown just acceptance and understanding. It is a huge gift to get, when you're struggling with all the supposed "best" things you can do for your kids. And I've looked forward to every single visit, coffee, and spa night. Because they are not about telling each other what we could be doing better, or should be doing. They are about listening and commiserating. They fill my empty mothering gas tank with ideas to try but also with the knowledge that I'm engaged in a difficult activity and not just falling flat on my face because I'm worse at it than others. There has never been a "God loves you" or "may Jesus bless you" or "I'm praying for you" that has helped me as much as 15 min with an understanding friend. No "we at least you have..." that has given me the renewed energy to try again to find compassion and kindness with kranky children.

Merry Christmas, you all.

Judgement day...

is every day! At least on Facebook. Let me be the first to admit that I am probably about to judge a whole mess of people in what follows.

Judgement has come up in a number of places this week - from The Mother Dance (a great little read about stories of motherhood from a woman therapist whose other books I've been through), to a new group I just joined on Facebook - the Grumpy Expat. What took me so long?! That group is my tribe. A place where you are supposed to complain about expat life instead of being eternally grateful and in awe of this wonderful place. All places suck at some level (and excel at other levels), so go ahead and bitch about it.

What is odd (but not really, because this happens in specialty groups all the time, right?) is that there are people who judge the grumping on that group because refugees from Syria and because it's not a problem of racism, it's an opportunity to open your own store! Really? First of all, it is a group called Grumpy Expat. Don't join if you love it here and have no bad days you want to share. Second, it's called Grumpy Expat stop judging people who are being grumpy and start stepping up with those stories of little things that make you swear under your breath. There was even a healthy dose of "white not grumpy expat man giving someone grief for interpreting her not white grumpy woman's experiences differently than his." Dude, you're behind even the old, white, astronomy dudes in how clueless you are about your privilege. That's embarrassing.

Back to the book. And another book that is on our parental reading list (I read, mark where I stop, transfer to M, he reads, marks where he stops....), Scream-Free Parenting. Both have been mentioning how heavily judged parents (especially mothers) are. And how damaging it is to feel responsible for your kids' behavior - they are individuals. You can't force them to do anything, if you're not willing to kill their spirit, so stop using their behavior as something that says anything about you. They throw a tantrum - that's them, not some embarrassment to your parenting. And anyone who says otherwise can just get over themselves. Guilt, says the Mother Dance book, is a great way for society to get you to spend all your emotional energy worrying about making mistakes and trying harder to be a good mother (or a good father), instead of having the waking moment available to question societal norms about what a "good" mother is anyway.

We had our annual daycare parent teacher conference this afternoon. I arrived 30 minutes late because 14.00h is not the same as 4:00pm. It is two hours earlier. Oops. My husband had been there for the first 30 min, and we tag team switched when I arrived. And now that this is kid number two, who is also doing great at daycare, and behaving much better (less throwing of food, dish, anything on the table items; less whining; less baby bottle using) than at home, I'm ready to learn from our first child. He is able to do all sorts of stuff at daycare, but not at home? Great. He's learning that somewhere and hopefully that translates to behavior in public. At home, I'm just going to have to get over the baby bottle thing and remember that A took a long time to give away her pacifier and is still a great kid. Who can eat without food falling out between her upper and lower teeth because THE PACIFIER DIDN'T LEAVE HER MOUTH HELPLESSLY DISFIGURED after all. Go figure.

Maybe she's born with it, maybe it's....totally not what I think.

She's probably my age. Over 40. She is heavily pregnant, on the hottest week of the last 6 years here in Zurich, and she's walking along the sidewalk holding hands with a 3 1/2 year old on one side and a 2 year old on the other. She's sort of smiling. No one is screaming. She's wearing skinny pregnancy jeans.

And suddenly all the little props I've given myself this last week, for keeping two kids basically hydrated and safe from sunburn, and a dog away from heat exhaustion, kind of seem little. Small. Ridiculous. How does she do it? How does anyone with more than 2 kids do it? How am I so lost with my paltry two children and measly 25% work?

Luckily, the next thing that comes to mind is the conversation from the other day with a mom of two from our daycare. And her story of one preemie and both kids being born within an hour (one, single, 60 minute hour) of the start of her contractions. Her good memories of birth. Her story that once again brought to mind how silly words are. She's given birth and I've given birth. To two kids each, roughly at the same time in history, and in the same place. Yet there are oceans and mountains of difference between our experiences. To the point where you almost shouldn't call them by the same term. Or at least we should start inventing a multitude of terms for "birth", to distinguish all the varieties it takes on - varieties of happy and sad, joyous and disappointing or scary, long or short, easy or hard. Why do we use just that one word?

And this brings me to remember comments I've gotten about birth and pregnancy and motherhood. The women who sound upset that my second child is so young and yet I've got no extra weight to speak of. I know that tone - it takes up a lot of time in my head, that "how come you got that and I didn't?" feeling. And if we don't have much time to talk, they don't know that I'm on antidepressants, on part time work, that I didn't eat milk products or onions or garlic for 4 months after my second was born. They don't know that the choices I've made are mostly due to fear - of not sleeping because my baby's tummy is upset, of being desolate and depressed, of having back pain. So I should be assuming that behind every smiling parent pushing a twin stroller is a story as well, instead of berating myself for being less than because I've seen the perfect moment by chance.

Because the bare minimum is actually good enough

Oh the vaccum cleaner. I've posted before how it is said to have damned all future generations of people who have a space that could be vacuumed. Before its invention, that level of clean would not have been sane.

I've had long lists in my life these last few weeks. In my head, on my phone, on scraps of paper. And although no one is ill, and I'm getting enough sleep and even enough me time (meaning, some each day), I've barely made a scratch. I'm not overworked. My house is most often a mess. My husband has pretty much taken over doing the dishes. But I keep choosing to rest or read or sit, instead of checking just one more thing of my list.

The things I actually check off, I've realized, are the only things that need to be on my list. And that is what I get done - I make sure Baby J has enough milk for an evening and morning bottle. I make sure we have something for dinner (we can discuss the quality of dinners lately...no one is starving, but we all get by with an extra yogurt to make up for some of what I've been cooking). I make sure the dog is covered for walks and food. I do the things on my work list. I pay the bills.

All else is non-essential. The clothes to recycle. The shoes and books to give away. The dress for my daughter to make out of my husband's Star Wars t-shirt. Picking up after pretty much anyone in the house (including myself) except on cleaning woman day.

And at the end of the day, no one has fallen ill because of a book I haven't sent to a friend, or that broken pane of glass that has sat there for over a month now. It will get done. It is out of kid reach, and it will get done.

So enough with all the shoulds. Bare minimum, plus an extra ice cream after kindergarten, is more than enough.

So, how come the men don't have to wear heels?

I've been thinking lately about shoes. My shoes. More specifically, my feet. They don't like many shoes anymore. They never liked many shoes, but these days they seem to like even less. Like heels. They top out at about 2" high cowboy boot heels. And as I've been thinking about how to keep getting rid of clothing, shoes have come under attack here at my house.

There are so many shoes of my size, even (these days a women's 11 or 12 depending on the shape of the toe part), that don't fit me or hurt my feet after only 30 minutes of walking around. I was going to write a post about flat shoes soon. About my hunt for nice, comfy, beautiful, funky flat shoes and my getting rid of my last two pairs of heels.

And then this showed up somewhere in my online reading today. It reads like it may or may not be true. But it doesn't sound far fetched to me.

*sigh*

Summer and shorts are back

I've had hairy, unshaven legs now for going on 2 years.

In that time I think I've seen one other woman with legs that were not shaved - there is of course the Hairy Legs Club tumblr, but I mean in person. I still don't think they look glamorous. I still don't wear my girliest clothes with them. But I also haven't spent a single minute on leg hair removal in two years.

It's funny, arm hair doesn't look unfeminine to me for some reason. Mine isn't as dark as my leg hair, so that could be part of the reason, but it surprises me how much my own gaze in the mirror stops me from wearing certain clothes with hairy legs.

After having, and nursing, a second baby, I've also lost much of what I used to have up top. My breasts are not coming back, and since they weren't very big to begin with, I've also been spending a lot of days without a bra. Deflategate on my own body comes at a lucky time because recently there seem to be more women in the media spotlight who are protesting how freaked out we get by female nipples. Tiny bikinis are fine, as are male nipples and breasts, but whoa, a female nipple?! Put that thing away. Because,...it is...the only one....that's....um...actually useful?

Men don't have a single purpose for their nipples. Women have evolved to breastfeed babies, and we know they have nipples. Why do they have to pretend they don't?

The other day, my 5 year old daughter saw a guy rollerblading by without a shirt on. And she wanted some of that freedom for riding her bike, too. So, off came her shirt, on came a LOT of sunscreen, and she went on her merry way around the square. And it didn't matter. People here in Zurich are less unsettled by kids being naked at play, but mostly people probably thought she was a boy. Because her hair is cut short (her choice) and "boys can take their shirts off"....otherwise, there is no other way to know if she is a girl or boy because at that age there are no differences when the pants are on. Especially if it takes a short haircut or lack of shirt to indicate to people she might be a boy. The only way people decide is by whether a child is "acting like a girl" or "acting like a boy".  Nature, my ass.

Just a day in May

It has been so long since I've written and that usually means that each day that goes by it seems like I should have something even more epic to write. But we all know that isn't how it works.

So here I am. Just because I haven't been in a while.

There are some things I think I've finally learned with the second baby in the house.

1. My clothes aren't "everywhere" for no reason. The more places I store reasonably clean jeans, t-shirt and pajamas, the more likely it is I can wear something reasonably clean even if baby J is sleeping in the room that holds my closet. Same goes for A's and M's clothing. It isn't chaos, its a PLAN.

2. You have to give things up to get other things in life - it is a zero sum game. I needed to simplify life last month, and in addition to getting off of Facebook and Candy Crush for 30 days, I finally started to clean out my closets, inspired by the recent "capsule wardrobe" trend. (Disclaimer: I'm working on a modified capsule wardrobe that does, in fact, include yoga pants and such, because see number 3 below).

3. Whatever you wear at the dining table is basically an extension of the baby's bib. Don't wear black. Or what you plan to wear to work that day. Or anything that doesn't incorporate 3-4 pastel babyfood colors in riotous print. Unless you want to change after the meal.

4. Part of simplifying was getting extra trips to the second hand store in to donate old clothes. So something else had to give. Some days, that was recycling and I just tossed glass babyfood jars in the garbage instead of taking 30 seconds to clean them. Having less clothing and toys around as a result of that time that was reallocated has made a net positive difference in my life.

5. Sleep training was useful last year, but really, apart from letting baby J cry a bit to settle into naps, we are finally getting enough sleep that it is okay by us if he still wakes once a night some nights. Or takes a bottle. Actually, this point is about the power of waiting (or rather, being able to wait because the way things are isn't damaging to health and happiness of the family) until a child is developmentally more than ready for a next step. And the calm that it brings and the minutes or hours it returns to your life. The number of times I fought with A about her pacifier, trying to get her to give it up at 1 year old, 1.5, 2 and 2.5 and 3 years old...those add up to a lot of lost time I could have just chilled out. Rested. Or had a better interaction with her. Because, when she was ready to give it up at 3.5 years, it took 2 nights of 15 min crying each. Done, easy. Trying to push a child at the first possible moment he or she is ready takes way more work than waiting when they're totally ready and maybe a bit past ready. What a difference in quality of relationship it makes!

That's what I've got today.

6. I almost forgot - conditioner. As far as my hair is concerned, the only thing conditioner does for me is make it necessary for me to wash my hair the next day because by then it looks greasy. I'm done for a while with conditioner. I shampoo and leave it. For 3 days sometimes, and it looks just fine. It makes conditioner and hair products seem like a total scam.

...and a partridge in a pear tree

If we'd only kept him home this year.

I think we would have had less sick days.

Then again, have to get them out of the way sometime, right?

So here's the current list:
rotovirus twice (this time, like yesterday and today, with a significant amount of vomiting),
5 days of pink-eye (on the tail end of a 3-day fever), two weeks ago,
3 rounds of croup,
1 ear infection,
lots and lots of runny noses,
and constant teething.

Whew.

Where did women's shoes go?

Seriously, what is up with women's shoes?

I got my annual fix of "trying on more shoes that fit than I wanted to buy" while back in the US over Christmas. Peanut butter, cranberries, Cheerios,...these goods have all made it to Switzerland. Women's shoes for a size 42/43 foot? Not so much.

My stomping grounds in America are Zappos.com, and a DSW store near downtown Chicago. Many a happy purchase has been made through each. This time, as well.

But the last few years I've noticed that more and more often, some of the purchases in a store have to come from the men's section. Not just because of size but because while men's shoes are still mostly made of leather, women's shoes are increasingly constructed of vinyl, Kleenex, cheap cloth and fruit rollups. What gives? Not only do we have to wear high heels but now they dissolve upon contact with water, mud, grass, and,....well, air.

Pair of black, lace-up boots - women's models looked like they were for playing dress-up and not for walking in. I may be missing something, but my personal car service has yet to materialize and I find myself still walking. Outside. For 10s of minutes a day.

Anyway, this is a pretty punky post for such a long absence, but I'll just say the the anti-depressants are settling into my system quite well and I'm feeling better. My fuse is longer, my reserves are higher, I sleep better, and I can even watch someone else breastfeed and not be upset in any way. Besides, with the arrival of teeth 7 and 8, little baby J has now taken to biting skin, hard, as a way to snuggle. I think. He bites, I yell "ow!", he smiles with his tongue out in a sort of mischievous way. It is cute and very thankfully not directed at any mammary glands in the house.

The reason we need more women doctors (or, things my male psychiatrists didn't warn me about)

Because, apparently, rapid weaning from breastfeeding can cause or exaggerate (wow, I had NO idea how to spell that word) depression. Yeah, so that can help explain some of what I'm still feeling. Especially, the difficulty sleeping. My anti-depressants, for which I had to wean, may have brought this upon themselves. They are definitely having to work double time.

Good to keep in mind.

Would have been nice to know ahead of time.

Thankyou...thankyou...thankyou...thankyou

I've started feeling better. So soon after starting the medicine. I'm no longer expending all my energy trying to keep from falling apart. It was as if there were 100 little strings tied improperly to each other, the knots constantly untying, to keep me together, and I was spending all my time retying them as they slipped apart. And I was a collection of marbles in the middle, about to disperse if any knot opened. And now, I'm just a solid piece of clay. The strings can fall, all of them. I won't fall apart.

Yesterday was going to be my first day of gratitude, too, with the end of breastfeeding. 

But I hadn't counted on my milk supply. My body.

Many women wean gradually, dropping one feed every week. Or at least every few days. I did that last time too, even though I was pumping exclusively, and over a month, I was done. There was a last pumped bottle before starting anti-depressants last time and the pump got stored.

This time it's different. I've been producing a lot of milk, and it is going to be an uncomfortable, sometimes painful process to stop. I need to watch that I don't get an infection, to pump only a bit of milk until things are feeling better. And it means I've been feeling like "I should really breastfeed" a lot these last two days. It is making the gratitude-by-way-of-ignoring thing really hard. I'm constantly reminded that I could still be breastfeeding if I wasn't depressed. I'm still having to spend a non-negligible amount of time pumping and throwing it down the sink. And when I go check Google for any more hints on "rapid/emergency weaning", I'm having to avoid the sites that, in the middle of all the good advice, have one bullet point like "#5 make sure you're really ready to wean. most medical problems do not require weaning and you can find a way to continue breastfeeding." Ouch. No, no I can't. I already tried my best and it didn't work.

I tried, in quiet moments, falling asleep (which I can finally do, again!), to tell my body I want it to stop making milk. But that's a lie. Sure, I've made a choice, but I don't love my choice and I can't say that honestly. And then I remembered a poster I'd seen online, which said something like "This Sucks and Thank You are impossible to think at the same time." And it gave me a little window to crawl out of, and I just started thanking my body, for all it had done in the last 18 months to produce and nurture life. For being pregnant, giving up nutrients, giving up energy, pushing a baby out, holding and rocking him, and, feeding him. And, finally, for taking to these anti-depressants so well and letting me start feeling better.

So that's where I've come to a stop. At "Thank You", especially to the breasts, whenever I can. Because "This Sucks" is also hovering around a lot right now. Just, not as much as two days ago.

Ripping off the band-aid...to put on a...cast?

Ok, that metaphor isn’t going to work. Is it even a metaphor? I kind of can’t think anymore, so I’m not even sure.

Turns out, I can start anti-depressants right away, yay! Which means I also have to stop breastfeeding at the same time, boo. But it also means I won’t have as much time to mourn the end and I’m probably mourning more because I’m not on anti-depressants. boo-yay?

Tomorrow I stop one to start the other. Tomorrow I will be all about gratitude for what I did have, and the upside of ending this phase of life. I’m good at finding the upsides. I’ve already bought pesto sauce to go with dinner because who hasn’t eaten any onions or garlic for 5 months? Yeah, over here.

But today, I’m still sad. And I still get to grieve. I’m letting myself still be sad (how is it that it is so hard to allow oneself a bit of sadness, too?), and tomorrow things will be different. And tomorrow night it may be Baby J’s turn to grieve a little. Or, he’ll drink his bottle, snuggle into my or M’s arms, and get all sleepy again anyway. Who knows.

All I know is that sad is ok. And then it is okay for me to do something extreme to make sad be over.

This is not going to be very coherent

It is time. To stop breastfeeding.

I don't really want to. We've worked so hard and it seems to be going well enough, and baby J isn't eating solids with much enthusiasm yet.

But he also isn't sleeping through the night, due to colds. And it is starting to take a serious toll on me. So here I am, a second time, ready to start anti-depressants.

I wish I wasn't here. I wish I were somewhere else. With him. With me.

But I can't sleep very well anymore, even when he is napping. My brain is just too alert. And I'm in tears a lot - once a day. That is a lot.

So even though many of those tears are about stopping breastfeeding him, the fear of being past my childbearing years, the fear of lost connection and not being able to soothe him as I have for the last 8 months, I need to do something to feel better again. To not see every day as so much of a struggle. To get a bit of levity back.

I've looked at each breastfeeding session over the last few weeks as possibly my last, so I've taken time to stop and notice and just be present. And I can tell you, that even having done that I don't feel ready. I don't feel like I noticed it or cherished it enough. It is a major milestone for me, for women who go through it, and it can feel so final, so sad, and I guess that is just the way it is.

I don't want to find any solutions for not having to stop, though, because I'm so very tired. Of all these work arounds to try to make things just a bit better, to hold on just a bit longer. And finding websites about drugs I could take and continue feeding just make me more overwhelmed and don't actually provide comfort. I need some chemical help.

So there we go. A new phase of life coming. And, as a friend very wisely pointed out to me, having gone through a similar stage, while it is the end of physical fertility for me, creativity is also fertility, and there is still a lot of that ahead. It doesn't feel like a great trade right now, at this moment, but I think on the other side of starting anti-depressants, it probably will.

Time to leap, and hope the net appears.

Practice what you...blog

Last night I was awake at 1am, unable to sleep, because I had just woken and fed the baby.

Tonight, I am awake at 1am, unable to sleep, because the baby hasn't woken yet.

In my tossing and turning and anxiousness because the baby wasn't crying, A, whom I was sleeping next to, and who had just clocked me in the head in her sleep, woke and started quietly crying.

"Oh no, just don't get louder and wake the baby!" my most contradictory brain thought.

"What's wrong?" I asked her.

"I don't want to sleep alone." She told me.

At which point I proceeded to not really listen to what I had written about last time. While I didn't try to talk her out of thinking she was going to be alone sometimes (like when I couldn't sleep), I tried to wrap up the whole interaction immediately. Turns out, I'm really bad with letting my kid have her worries or pain and sitting with her in it. I'm scared of where it is going, that it will get worse if I sit there with her in that emotional space. I'm scared that it will be about me, probably.

Let's just agree, I'm not very good at staying with her when she is sad. Or mad. About something that involves me. That is the part I personally cannot tolerate. And wish I could.

Tolerating someone else's suffering

I think one of the hardest things to learn is to let someone you love be in pain. To not try to take it away with one or a 100 different suggestions on "how to fix it", or to not just ignore it and tell them to "cheer up, it gets better." But to just be able to tolerate another person suffering, and to be able to sit with them, in person, on the phone, over email and let them have their process. And yet, I think it is the most useful thing, the most helpful, that any of us can do for someone who is going through some difficult time.

And I think it is selfish to try to fix it or make it go away, because we ourselves feel uncomfortable with it. It is not ours to dismiss or to pretend to take on for the other person. And it is one of the least helpful things a person can do.

I've learned this from the really excellent therapists in my life (and it is part of how I think you spot an excellent one). Their capacity to sit with me, in tears, and instead of trying to talk me past it, to say "I see your pain. I'm sorry. Tell me about it." and then just listen. Because I also think most of us are strong enough to endure much of the pain if we have someone to share it with, to air it out in front of and bring it into the light with. To talk about it and diffuse some of its power and know we are not alone in seeing it. To name it and know that it isn't so overwhelming that it incapacitates even those around us.

Because here is the thing. I've realized that breastfeeding is just getting more (not less) tense for me and Jonas. I can't feed him when he's sleepy during the day because that isn't helping his napping and nighttime sleep. I can feed him in the middle of the night. Other times, he's too distracted and the milk flows just so much more slowly than from the bottle. And I'm going to have to stop all this trying, which just ends up in tears and irritation. I can pump during the day and feed him at night while it still works. And what I don't need, is for someone to try to stop my tears, because then I don't get to mourn this ending, this never-quite-found-our-groove. And I don't get over it and find peace with the new solution. Because it is sad, and I will need to cry some so that I'm not crying more later. And so often every day. Because, sure, you can find 100 things I could try to not need to stop, and none of them make our family more peaceful with more time to be in the present with each other. And you can tell me "at least you fed him this long" and that isn't the point for me.  The most helpful things right now have been: (1) people who have been in a similar situation, whom I've found on blogs, and (2) people who have just expressed their sympathy and let me be. May I be so gracious as to offer similar behavior to others in the future.

Setting the bar low

Two cans of ready-to-go caffeine in the middle. Two small, shelf storage containers for my coffee at work.

And a photo orientation that pretty much sums up how life is going right now. Just trying to make it in to work on the days I'm supposed to be there, and keep up with the minimum I need to do.