Big pumping, spendin' Gs redux and yet another reason I love Canada

So. Is it Gs or cheese? I think I wrote cheese last time. But Gs make more sense, no?

You know me, all Big ole Chedo Lino.

My sweetie sweetness and the entire reason I am doing this damn pumping.

And doesn't it look like she has a devil horn?

Anyway. The point of this post is not that I am an inane lyrics understander or misunderstander, although I am. The point is that I'm having a nipple issue and Medela is not helping.

And also that Canada is kind of like a magic place, and it seems to me that the next time I am looking for something, maybe I should just start there. like, why did I waste all that time on Match in my zip code? I should totally have been looking in Canada.

Even though I'm deliriously delighted about how things turned out in the end and thankthegoodlordImeetNickandlivedhappilyeverafter. But maybe if I'd realized the magic of Canada years ago, I wouldn't have had to wait so long before not dying alone, or at least had better experiences along the way, you know?

Recognizing, of course, the difficulty of going on multiple first dates with denizens of Canada rather than the District.

But back to the issue at nipple hand.

Oh, wait, before I do, I should put in a plug for Medela's lanolin nipple cream, which they gave me in the hospital. It's easier to spread than Lansinoh, and doesn't smell sheepy and just nicer all around. Also: I totally recommend using that stuff for chapped lips, dry cuticles, and generally everything except maybe as hair gel or for masturbating. I wouldn't think it lends itself to either.

So anyway, I've returned to work and to pumping and it just sucks in 54 different ways. No pun intended.

Also, let me get off on a side bar here and say that if you have ever squozen milk out of your boobs and then preserved it for future use and then someone like your husband just blithely defrosted something like eight ounces back when your baby wasn't taking a bottle, it might remain a thing for you for quite some time.

Like, sorry I forgot to turn on the stove fan and now the house smells like fried eggs but you wasted eight ounces of my milk without even blinking, you fucker.

Someday I will let it go.

OK, and now I must tell you that THIS is precisely why I haven't been writing. Because even when I have something to say, look how disjointed it is. I walk into the bathroom with a purpose and then I'm all, huh, wonder what I wanted here? I don't need to pee or brush my teeth...maybe I should take a shower?

And then it turns out that actually, that's where I left my shoes.

Now really really back to my point. My point is that I threw away my old pump breast shields because they weren't suctioning well anymore. And I didn't realize that they were like leprochauns and no matter how many places you thought you were about to find one, you couldn't.

You see, they were soft and siliconey and comfy. While it wasn't the boob equivalent of sitting in an easy chair and watching Downton, they were so much better than the alternative. I've recently learned.

Because now all I can find are these hard little sucker thingies. Which make my little cupcakes not quite so happy.

I thought I could get more with a trip to Target, but nay. Then I figured with a few scant clicks on the internet. Surely Amazon? Nay again.

In fact, Medela stopped making them and nobody has them! I've called and emailed a ton of small web stores that look like they have them up for sale, and they've all been like, "Oh, sorry. I shipped the last ones out yesterday."

These little suckers are impossible to find.

So I gnashed my teeth and raised my fist to the sky, cursing Medela and also whoever had bought the last ones at every last place in the U.S. of A.

And then, then I found them in CANADA! Oh, Canada! The land to the north of good people and universal health care and excellent maternity leave. I filled out the little BUY ME RIGHT NOW form. And then they said, oh, but you must have a shipping address in Canada.

Curses!

Not to be thwarted, I left a Facebook message for my Canadian in Canada friend Sophie asking if I could have these breast shields shipped to her. It turns out she thinks she has the very things I need in her cupboard! She thought they were weird and never used them! And was about to get rid of them!

We conducted the whole conversation on her wall, about which I didn't think twice, until a guy friend said he felt like a voyeur.

But once you've given birth, breast shields are the least of it, you know?

Plenty of time to develop the moves like Jagger before oh, prom, for example

Last night, I brought Jordan’s little friend Sasha home with me. She’s younger than Jordan, and still in day care, and her mom had asked if I could pick her up and have her hang out with us for a couple hours.

They live down the street, and Sasha and Jordan are good pals. She’s up for pretty much anything he proposes, so they have been known to crawl down the sidewalk together roaring like lions. For example.

Jordan was already home with Betty. He was sitting at the table playing with Play Doh, and although he likes her and they play well together, he did NOT want to share.

So I suggested they go in the back room, which is where his trains and cars are.

He jumped up and said, “OK!” He took her hand, pulled her towards the back, and asked, “Sasha, do you want to pee pee? Let’s go to the bathroom!”

Pee pee? I then realized my mistake. We never call it the back room. We call it the background. And back room does sound very much like bathroom, no?

But by that point they’d reached the bathroom door. He was enthusiastically trying to pull her in.  She’s not potty trained, and was not psyched. “No no no no no!”

“Jordan, don’t pull her. Let go. She doesn’t want to pee. She wants to go play in the background.”

He was about to let go of her hand. When it dawned on him that he had something awesome to offer. A trump card.

He beamed at her. “Do you want to see my poop?”

He was clearly about to pull her hand again. She resisted, looking as stricken as a two-and-a-half-year old can. She wasn’t falling for this bait and switch!

I, of course, rushed in.

There it was. A little tiny turd in the red potty. He stood over it like a trophy. Nanna let him save it to show Daddy and me. And anyone else important, it seems.

I high-fived him. Told him how proud I was, how impressed. And then suggested we take a picture for Daddy, and then flush it down the toilet.

Imagine you're a deer. You're prancing along, you get thirsty, you spot a little brook, you put your little deer lips down to the cool clear water...

The bulk of Saturday was spent looking for uniform pants for Jordan. Hunter green uniform pants.

Or, as I like to call them, hunter fucking green uniform fucking pants.

I was all ranty. "There's plenty of navy! Plenty of khaki! Who the fuck thinks green is a good idea? Hunter fucking green!"

And so on and so forth.

We went to the recommended uniform store in Silver Spring. They have no changing room, but fortunately, Jordan has no problem dropping his drawers anywhere. He was far more interested in the hanger ("Pinchy thing! Pinchy thing!" than anything else.)

This photo is of Jordan in 4T shorts. They don't seem to make uniforms smaller than 4T, at least not officially uniforms, which seem to be the only kind you can find in HUNTER FUCKING GREEN.

And so we put him in these shorts and discussed the possibility of taking them in...but the fact is that his whole little body can fit through one leg. If we were in Scotland I suppose we could just have him wear a kilt, which would also be helpful in the pee pee department.

We are, however, not, and thus we sallied on, looking for wee hunter green pants in 3T. We went to American Apparel, because it was right there. Then Kohl's. Then Target.

Throughout this adventure, Jordan kept saying he had to pee. So Nick would pick him up bodily and rush him to the nearest bathroom, where Jordan would stand and stand and then be all, "I don't want to pee pee."

There were a couple times while we were driving where we pulled off into a neighborhood and they went and stood in the bushes. If a grown man and a half-naked little boy don't look sketch crouching in the bushes together, I don't know what does.

He was, however, not about to pee just anywhere. That kid held it all day, until we got home. And then he would only pee on the deck.

In any case, at Target we got the one pair of 3T green (but not hunter) pants we could find.

And then, then my dear outing friend and I headed to the Carter's outlet, where they had the same pants, but too small and too large. I asked a guy working there if they had more in the back, in 3T.

He brought out a pair! I asked if they had more, and he said, "Yes, lots." So I asked for SIX MORE! And he brought them out, just like no big deal.

My friend said she almost hugged the young man, but she was afraid of startling him.

There were no green shorts to be had. So my boy, he has to wear pants on the hot days, but at least he blends.

Pretty sure at this point the teacher is more focused on a class filled with sobbing three-year olds (as was the case this morning, which made me feel better; the day prior it was only Jordan) than on which  fucking pants they're wearing.

Nanna's birthday and goodbye summer

Nanna's birthday was on Sunday. Here's Jordan singing Happy Birthday. I absolutely love it.
We took her out for brunch at Mintwood Place, which is both charming and delicious. 

Incidentally, he's wearing the hat I got her as well as his favorite pair of pajamas. The boy loves pink. And orange. And stripes. I myself would wear these jammies if they came in my size.

Which reminds me...I know that nobody thinks this is a good idea, but I did in fact buy myself this pair of stripey pink and purple leggings from Hanna Andersson. Benefit of being short enough for children's clothing.

I may also have gotten these boots, because there is just not enough whimsy in the adult world. And also, I am 12.

I sleep in them and they are ridiculously comfy. I mean the leggings, not the boots. I don't think I'm bold/foolish enough to wear them out of the house, although if I do, it'll be with both my children in stripes as well. Maybe Nick, too, although for him it'll be a conservative striped suit.

Not, however, his seersucker - he's already brought his suit to the cleaners, to be retired till next summer.

Which reminds me...what do you think about this no white after Labor Day and such business? I feel like it stays hotter longer than it used to. The light has shifted to fall, but it's still so warm and muggy.

The stuff in between

Perhaps you know what repointing is?

If not, it's when you remove the old cement from between bricks and put new cement in. It's a labor-intensive, messy process.

I myself had never heard of it until we bought a 110-year old house which, among other everythings, needed to be repointed. So much cement had taken leave of our house that in some places, luck was just holding the walls together.

It never occurred to me that cement between bricks wouldn't be forever. I mean, it's cement, right? It is not something to which one pays much attention, you know? It's just there because it's there.

But it turns out to be just there just holding up your house. It keeps it all together.

And time and weather and what-have-you chip away at it. You can let it go to a certain point, and then you really really have to tend to it.

So.

I myself have gotten thin on mortar lately. My fortitude has been eroding in such little, but continuous flakes, that I hadn't really noticed. I'm not underwater yet, but I'm heading there.

I walk a thin line in life. You know this about me. I'm an up-and-down-er, buffeted by the vicissitudes of life. Nick, he is strong like bull. Me, I'm rather a delicate flower.

I need a lot of sleep. I need to exercise regularly. I need sunshine. And I need to eat well. As long as I can maintain most of those things most of the time, I do well. My friend Mr. Zoloft gives me a little leeway.

But with a delicious little girl who wakes up a lot, I've rarely gotten more than three or four hours of sleep in a row since she was born 18 (19? I can't count) weeks ago. I know 18 or 19 weeks is not that old...but I am old. I'm too old for this.

There have been a few nights where she's woken up only once, at 2:00 or 3:00 am, and slept until 6:00. This was fantastic.

HOWEVER. Lately, she's been up five or six times a night.

I've been nursing her to stop the crying, although lately Nick has been going in and soothing her so we can break her of all the night nursing. She doesn't need it. She's just used to it.

But he can't manage all night. He works way too much to be a zombie.

I need repointing, stat. Because I woke up a couple mornings ago thinking how much I hate my life. I've had this thought a number of times since then.

And I love my family, and I love my life. Just not right now. I know this isn't coming from a place of rationality.

I'm constantly on the verge of tears. I'm angry and impatient and I just hate everyone. Myself most of all.

I've upped my Zoloft, with my doctor's blessing. I'm still on a very low dose, so there's room to go up - but I don't want to just keep pumping more drugs into myself and my milk just to keep myself from falling apart.

I returned to the office on Monday.  Today one of my colleagues dropped a piece of ice in the kitchen, and it landed near my foot. He told me not to move while he got it, lest I slip.

And I thought, oh, but if I slipped, maybe I'd wind up with a concussion, or something else bad but not life-threatening, and then they'd put me in the hospital for at least a day or two, wouldn't they? I could sleep and sleep!

There would be no infant waking repeatedly in the next room! No potty and meal negotiations! Nobody would scream at me for buttering his toast on the wrong side! Nobody would neeeeeeed me for anything!

You know, a friend of mine and I were extolling the virtues of epidurals after I gave birth. And she said she thought it would be lovely if you could just go in and get one when you were havnig a terrible day. Just check out.

It really would. You'd have that slightly out it warm feeling, and you'd be all, "Sorry, I can't help you with that. I can't feel my legs. So could you pass the remote and get me something to drink?"