Like Speed, but with Babies Instead of a Bomb

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That’s the only way I can think to describe the drive to and from New York last week to have Miles’ and Emmett’s tongue and lip ties fixed by Dr. Lawrence Kotlow. I’ll write about the medical stuff later. This post is about how I will never again make a 1000-mile round-trip with two 5-month-old infants in stop-and-go traffic because ohmygodwhatwasithinking.

Princess Mommy knows how horrible it was because I called her in hysterics from an IHOP on the side of I-95 at 10 p.m. the night I was driving back. I’d dropped Daddy-in-Training off in Baltimore for plans with Auntie-in-Training, so it was just me and the babes for the 2 hours it would take to get home. It was bedtime, so I figured no problem, right? They’d sleep the whole way. Ha. I was such a fool. A naive fool. Three hours after I’d left Daddy-in-Training, I was still only about 30 miles down the road and had had to stop twice already because the babies were completely melting down. So of course, I was also melting down.

My conversation with Princess Mommy went something like this:

Heather: Hey, how’s it going?

Me: I’m driving home by myself and the babies keep screaming and I don’t know what to do and it’s after 9 and everything’s closed and I already stopped once for an hour because they were freaking out and then I got lost trying to get back on the highway and then I finally did but they were screaming again so I finally found an IHOP to stop at and I got them inside and they calmed down but as soon as I put them back in carseats they scream again and they’re not hungry because they won’t eat and they are clean and I even tried giving them Benadryl because it worked when we flew for vacation and they are still wide awake and screaming and there are no rest stops and everything is closed and I can’t get a hold of [Daddy-in-Training] and I’m scared to leave because there is nowhere else safe to stop with two babies and I don’t even know where I am and I think I’m going to be stuck here forever and then Miles peed all over both of us and I don’t even know how because he’s got his diaper on and I can’t get them back out to the car and get the diaper bag and get back in here and Emmett spit up everywhere and Miles is drenched in his own pee and we’re a total disaster and I literally don’t know what to do so I’m eating pancakes and crying.

Heather: [brief stunned silence]

Me: I’m completely freaking out.

Emmett: WAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!

Miles: Me, too! I mean, WAAAAAHHHHHH!

Heather: Pancakes and crying is totally okay.

Me: I’m never going to be able to leave. I will be stuck at IHOP in God knows where forEVer. This is horrible.

Heather: Back to basics — if they are crying, they are breathing. I know it doesn’t help, but it’s reassuring, right?

Me: Yes, breathing is good.

Heather: Did you try turning the radio up enough to drown out the crying?

Me: It doesn’t go that loud.

Emmett: WAAAAAAAHHHHHH! See, no radio could cover this up!

Miles: I scoff at your radio! I mean, WAAAAAAAHHHHHH!

And so it continued. After maybe 25 minutes she talked me down enough that I could eat my pancakes without gagging because I was sobbing so hard, and ultimately I managed to get calm enough to actually hang up the phone and get my act together.

Finally two waitresses got a clue and offered to help me, so I had them stay with the babies while I went to the car (10 feet from the front door and in plain sight of both kids at all times, I swear) to get new clothes and a diaper. They got me extra napkins so I could clean Miles and myself up and distracted Emmett while I did a complete wardrobe change on the little pee-pee monster. (I, however, remained in urine soaked clothing for the rest of the night. Fortunately it air dried on the way home.) When I paid my bill, I left them every penny I had on me in tip. It wasn’t much, but it was at least as much as my food cost, probably more.

I learned several things from this experience:

  1. If you must travel with small children, never do it alone.
  2. If you must do it alone, just stay home.
  3. If you must do it at all, find some way to keep your car moving at no less than 55 miles per hour at all times or all hell will break loose.
  4. If you can’t keep the car moving at 55 mph or more, stop for earplugs because there will be screaming.
  5. Never leave the car without a full change of clothes for every family member no matter how panicked you are.
  6. Heather is great in a crisis. I am not.
  7. Babies crying is not as big a crisis as it may feel.

Also, I hate the movie Speed. The end.

Mommyjacking is not cool

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I have a lot of mom friends on Facebook and I love that we can support each other and laugh together about the ups and downs of our days with little ones. Commiserating with other moms has helped me get through many a rough time these last several months. But know what’s not helpful? Mommyjacking.

When I post on Facebook I’m having an awful day, the last thing I want to hear about is how much worse your day is. That’s for YOUR Facebook wall, not mine.  I’m looking for someone to tell me it will get better, to offer me encouragement, to connect with me as an adult so I can feel like motherhood is not making me insane. I’m not looking for someone to try to “beat” me in whatever area is challenging at the moment.

Mom friends, please don’t think I’m pointing the finger at you. Actually, I’m pointing the finger at all of YOUR mom friends who I see doing this constantly when I look at the comments on your status updates. Who are these narcissistic women you’re friends with? Are they so insecure in real life that all of your conversations are about them when you’re face to face as well, or do they just reserve that for your wall so all of your online connections can see how awesome they are as parents for persevering through whatever trial is SO MUCH WORSE than what you’re going through that day?

There’s a time and a place for trading parenting war stories. Sociolinguist Deborah Tannen calls it “troubles talk” or “trouble sharing,” and it’s a way women in particular relate to one another. But there’s also a time and place for listening or offering a simple “Hey, that sucks” rather than turning the spotlight on yourself YET AGAIN.

For some hilarious (and at times sad) examples of massive mommyjacking, visit one of my favorite blogs, STFUparents. And while you’re at it, submit your own favorite examples of mommyjacking. Together, we can put a stop to this horrible epidemic of bad manners.

What’s your worst mommyjacking experience? Leave a comment with what you posted and how you were mommyjacked!

Bedtime and Other Lies

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Despite what his onesie may suggest, Miles is actually an excellent sleeper. Emmett, not so much.

Dr. Phil says the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior, so based on that I’m pretty sure Emmett is never going to sleep again. Which means I will never sleep again.

Today he actually took an hour-and-forty-nine-minute nap, the first burst of daytime sleep lasting more than 15 minutes in, I don’t know, weeks. Yet somehow it’s almost 11 and he’s only just fallen asleep — and I’m guessing it’s not going to last.

Last night he slept about 6 hours (after falling asleep mercifully around 9) and then woke up every hour on the hour demanding MORE BOOBIE, STAT! until about 8 a.m. when I gave up and just got both of us up for the day. Thank God Miles is a good sleeper. Otherwise we might all die of sheer exhaustion.

We had a magical two weeks or so when we first put the babies to bed in their own room and they went down at 7:30 and slept 8- to 11- hour stretches. It was glorious. I think of those days fondly as I’m staggering back up the stair to feed a baby YET again in the middle of the night.

I like to think I’m a realist, so I’ve given up entirely on the idea of a bedtime routine happening anytime soon. Our bedtime routine is: at some point the babies fall asleep individually between 6 p.m. and midnight and then if we’re not too exhausted we tiptoe upstairs and ease them into a crib / bouncy seat / swing and pray with our fingers and toes crossed that we will get a 2-hour break before the screaming starts again. Every night.

I said for weeks that it would get much easier once the babies put on some weight and started sleeping better and I was totally right. I just didn’t realize how much “better” would still suck the life out of me.

Pregnancy Loss and Secondary Trauma

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I will never “get over” my miscarriages. Regardless of the fact that I now have 4-month-old babies — two of them — it still hurts. A lot. The pain is less fresh, but it’s there. It’s like an injury that you’ve recovered from but if you move in just the right way it hurts all over again almost like it did the first time it happened.

The pain of my miscarriages is the reason I keep finding excuses to avoid my back yard; I can’t bear to look at the rosebush we planted in memory of our first baby, or the stump where I planted the tulip bulbs my best friend gave me in memory of our second baby. The flowers are beautiful, and they make me feel like I am going to vomit because every time I look at them I feel scared and I can’t explain why. Not scared like, I am in imminent danger, but scared like, When is the next bad thing going to happen and will it happen to my babies? Continue reading →

1 Year Ago Today – My Big Fat Positive(s)

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One year ago today, I was 14 days post-ovulation and had already been dead certain I was pregnant for about a full week. I had already peed on at least half a dozen home pregnancy tests (only two are pictured because hey, who wants to see that many sticks someone peed on?), and the blood test to confirm what I already knew seemed almost a waste of time. I would find out on May 10, 2011, that not only was my test positive, but it was very positive. Very positive, as in, my doctor seemed astonished at how positive. The range for “normal” HCG (pregnancy hormone) level is wide, but it was pretty high by all accounts. This was a good sign for many reasons, not the least of which was that my last HCG level for the most recent failed pregnancy had been a dismal 43.

Continue reading →