Mommy update: 30 years, 6 months

I just had my half-birthday on May 3.  Exciting, right?

As obsessed as I am with my birthday, I’m not actually devoting  a post to my half-birthday.  But I decided I should give a proper update post about me if I was going to do one about Addison.  Minus the height-weight percentiles.

Unfortunately, just a couple of days after I triumphantly wrote about how much housework I was doing and how healthy I was feeling, I got sick.  And I’ve been sick off and on for about three weeks now.  Mostly with UTI problems that have never seemed to completely clear up since the birth.

Speaking of illness, I’m also a little sick in the head still . . . but at least I can laugh about it!  No, seriously, when I wrote about the baby blues two weeks after Addison arrived, I was really hopeful that it would be short-lived.  But I am still having some postpartum depression issues.  Sometimes I’ll be feeling upbeat for a couple of days and I think it’s behind me, but then, WHAM! it will really hit me all over again.  Feelings that I can’t do this, I’m too sick, I’m too tired, I’m too neurotic.  I’m struggling a lot with issues of autonomy.  Since I was raised by quite hands-off, empowering, respectful parents, I started to feel much like an autonomous adult at a young age.  And nothing has so challenged that feeling as this whole motherhood thing.  I have always said that marriage really wasn’t much of an adjustment for us; it seemed to flow so naturally and did not curtail my habits or plans very much at all.  I know just how true that was now that I am facing this adjustment and I can hardly make heads or tails of my life.  It feels chaotic and unsteady.  I have no time for the hours of contemplation that I have come to depend on every day.  And I have no snappy conclusion for this paragraph . . . that’s how lost I feel most of the time .

But like I said, at least I can laugh at myself . . . and I give myself plenty of good fodder.  Like this, for example.  Saturday was pretty much a terrible day.  We had a big issue with one of Neal’s school assignments, and I was really sick, and Addison would not give me a break, and basically, the whole world felt like it was crashing down.  So naturally, I couldn’t sleep that night and I was in that crazy frame of mind that happens to me in the middle of the night.  I was crying and crying but I didn’t want to wake Neal up since he had stayed up the night before.  I was making plans for him to drop out of school.  And then rethinking that.  I was considering erasing all his computer games.  But that would kill him; he would literally die inside.  I planned for Addison and I to drive to Arizona.  Even my crazed midnight self realized that was a ridiculous idea.  Finally, after a lot of concerted effort, I realized the obvious solution to all my loneliness and angst: Denny’s.  As in:

I could go to the nearby restaurant because it’s open 24 hours and I could just talk to the waitress.  I’m not sure where I got the idea that a Denny’s waitress would become my critical confidante, kind of like the pithy bartender role in so many movies, but by about 2 am, I was absolutely convinced that this was going to change my life.

And then I fell asleep.  Probably saving myself from a really embarrassing moment.

So if that narrative about my frame of mind seems messy or convoluted, then you’ve got the basic idea. Thankfully, I’ve had a lot of help from ward friends like Meghan, Rachael, Kjell, and Lindsey as well as my grandparents and cousin Emily.  I also got some sweet surprises for Mother’s Day from my mom and mother-in-law and cousin Audrey, who made us a smashing dinner and then held Addison so that I could eat uninterrupted.  What a treat!

And my long-distance girlfriends keep reminding me via well-timed phone calls that things will get easier and I’m not actually going insane.  Maybe.

I have also managed to do a few productive things.  Like baking cupcakes:

She loves licking the beater, can't you tell?

Our sweet handiwork

Only about the third cake I’ve ever baked in my life.  Not too shabby.  I felt like a superhero doing it with a baby strapped to me.

We’ve also been going for some walks:

(I cut my hair off since Addison was starting to get an iron grip on it)

I was hoping to raise a homebody of a child, but she loves to see the world — and she won’t be held back by some old shut-in.  I wouldn’t even mind getting out of the house, if Utah would just decide whether we’re in winter or spring!

This spring/summer holds the promise of a lot of fun things too, starting with a great visit from Robin-Elise and Diane yesterday:

Robin, the doting aunt

Sunday we are heading to Salt Lake for a quick visit with one of Addison’s honorary aunties, Andrea.  Then a week after that, we’ll be graced with a visit from Brandon, a die-hard Addison fan.  May is turning out to be a real ego booster for our little girl!

June and July will be real blockbusters as we spend a month in California meeting Baby Evie, attending the Larson reunion, and going to the best Fourth of July party around at Anne’s house.  Oh right, and working on my thesis.  Thesis.  Thesis.  Thesis.  I have to keep reminding myself, that’s the purpose of the trip.

Then we’ll head back to P-town for a Call reunion, or two.

Promising, indeed.

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