It is.
The weather has cooperated, I went outside, I played with my babies.
Also, I went down hard with a stomach bug for about twenty four hours. I vomited frequently and violently for about five hours in the middle of the night, with babies sitting on me because I could not stop throwing up long enough to get them nursed to sleep, and when they did sleep, I couldnt manage to vomit quietly enough to keep them that way. So I allowed a late-night Clifford the Big Red Dog watchathon until they were both too exhausted to stay up and bounce on my volcanic belly any longer, then shivered and slept for about two hours curled in front of a space heater on the basement floor with them so we didn't wake daddy up before his alarm, then moped around the house all exhausted, queasy and achy for another day. No sooner did I feel somewhat functional again, then Alex sat up in bed in the middle of the next night and threw up all over himself and me, so I sat up all night the second night with him as his tiny tummy expelled it's contents several times per hour for the requisite five hours. And then, a day later, as he was sleeping off his second day of feeling yucky, Daniel went down. He threw up for eight hours. Poor kid was absolutely miserable. He literally lay around moaning. I suspect his massive pity party was compounded by it being the last day of a five day steroid burst. He would have had 'roid rage if he had had the energy. As it was, he just had 'roid heartache. And then the next day, daddy had off, which was a good thing, because he spent it either in bed or in the bathroom. What must it be like to not have to also parent when violently ill? I wonder. To just hide under the covers in solitary misery. Because as I was curled up in a ball with my knees under me and my forehead on the bathroom floor, begging higher powers for mercy, I had a nearly three year old drape his slippery new fleece blanket over me (so sweet, I thought), then clamber up onto my butt and slide down the slippery blanket, down my back and onto my head. (Not so sweet after all. Just a child's logic- who can resist a frequently erupting human slipper slide when one is up four hours past one's bedtime and totally overstimulated?)
But to have that all in the rear view mirror slapped my attitude right back where it belonged. After my body stopped trying to exorcise everything it had ever ingested, nothing seems quite so bad. In hindsight, it was a great reminder that there are a lot of really awful things I am not dealing with. Like trying to parent through chronic nausea. I really do feel like a petty little whiner letting things get me down like I did.
Somewhere in there, the guest post I wrote last month about breastfeeding through my particular obstacles for Evolutionary Parenting (an attachment parenting website run by a PhD researcher mommy who I have a total girl crush on) went up, and like 70,000 people saw it, gentle mommies from all over the world read it and thought I was amazing and awesome. And then it was reposted on Kellymom.com's Facebook page. And another 300,000 people or so saw it. Which was incredibly validating, but also incredibly humbling. Because I do not feel like I am particularly amazing or awesome, I'm really just a one trick pony. And my one trick happens to be that I am breastfeeding my kids until they decide they don't need it anymore. And I am only doing that because I couldn't bring myself to fight the weaning fight when my kid was still so dependent on breastfeeding, and then balled up and got stubborn about it when my body tried to make me. And getting so many compliments made me feel like a total heel, thinking about the heroic battles every one of the women showering me with praise faces. Like working and parenting. Like low milk supply. Like lack of support. Like lives that are just too out of control to be able to sit with a kid attached to them for eight hours a day. Like depression, post partum or manic or just generally speaking. Like abusive and manipulative relationships that cripple their potential as mothers. Like romantic partners who refuse to acknowledge that breasts are not strictly sexual, but also feed babies. All the reasons some women aren't able to boob feed their kids at all, let alone for three years. And I realized I don't always give others the same affirmation I received from them. I communicate a lot, but it is all just talking about myself. This blog is my diary, but unlike my teenage self, I let everyone read it. I forget, sometimes, who all does read it. I assume that maybe there are a few who do. Like maybe my mom does. And a friend or two. But then someone I haven't spoken to in years reveals they know private things about me, things that are a little embarrassing and I haven't told anyone except... Oh. Right. The internet.
Then I realize, with great wordiness comes great responsibility to build up those who are struggling. While I'm struggling, others are drowning.
But you, our friends, have kept us from drowning. You really have. You have supported us with your own money, which has literally paid our bills and kept "real" food on our table while we have struggled with this ongoing employment insanity.
You have fed us. And clothed us. And made us laugh, cry, feel so loved.
Those of you in the religious sect we no longer belong to have not let what could be seen as our betrayal of your faith stand in your way of pouring your goodness on us. We have always assumed you already know this, but in case there's doubt, we have nothing but complete respect for your faith, even the few but critical parts we cannot wrap our minds around enough to find unity with you on, and to feel that same dignifying respect coming from you has been so comforting. You may not be allowed to share our table or our handshake, but you share our sorrows and joys, and this is worth so much more to us than the occasional sting of your church-mandated avoidance of us.
My fellow cancer-and-other-devastating-illness moms, some of you fighting a much, much more terrifying beast that we are, you beautiful, amazing, ridiculous people. You inspire the crud outa me. The first mom to pop into my hospital room came to the oncology wing from her own child's bedside on another floor. She bounced in big, pregnant, and beautiful, a lot of brilliant red hair and even more brilliant wit, and she made me laugh at the insanity that accompanies her child's terminal diagnosis. I feel like I should repeat that for effect. Laugh. Terminal. Diagnosis. Her daughter was born with Type 1 Spinal Muscular Atrophy. If you don't know what that is, it's basically ALS for babies. A steady progression of a degenerative disease that wastes a tiny, perfect body when muscles cannot receive signals from the brain to move, so they atrophy until even the ones responsible for the most basic involuntary movements slow and stop. The overwhelming majority of babies born with it do not celebrate their second birthday. And she made me feel like as long as we had life, we had everything. She greatly compounded my budding survivors guilt, but in the best way possible.
My parents, who dropped everything to drive five hours to see us any time we needed help, and who had to be convinced not to do it more often. The Alperts, who I feel like deserve their own category, they have done so much for us. Our new friends in our new town, who, in spite of us not being able to actually physically see them, have casually and easily stepped right into roles usually reserved for people we have known a long time. I feel strange about the fact that I consider so many friends here soul sisters, even though we've never even stepped foot in each other's houses. What can I say. Social media.
And the ones who stayed away. I know, the irony that is compromised immunity. The biggest gift some people have given us has been to love us from a distance. You have no idea how we wish that weren't the case. We miss your faces.
I know I'm writing as if this is all ended. And it isn't. We still fight until August 19, 2018. But why save it until then? Just know that when I do finally get over myself, I remember how incredibly blessed we are. And those blessings take the form of you.
Also, happy birthday to our little hero. We and almost everybody we know were too sick with digestive or respiratory maladies to throw him a party as we had planned, but maybe we still can, in March or April. Maybe we'll combine an "entering maintenance" celebration with a birthday celebration with little brother's first birthday in April (they're too young to know the difference anyway, right?) Last year at this time, his face started changing. I thought he was going through a growth spurt and it was just losing its rosy baby roundness. I thought wrong. What it was actually losing was enough blood to fill it up. But that was his second birthday. His third birthday he is emerging a happy, rosy-cheeked little warrior with almost normal amounts of blood in his face. His baby fat is coming back, thanks to ongoing avocados. B and I both got teary yesterday, going back through photos of his life so far. It has been the most wonderful experience, parenting that one. And his baby brother. Not that we haven't been elbows deep in body fluids a good part of it, and not that we don't miss the winter days we once spent knee deep in our favorite powder stashes as we sit in our house all winter shivering and poking our jellied midsections dejectedly, but still. Worth it.
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