creak
I spent Sunday morning horking instead of going to Mass, so that was no fun. I think it was a stomach bug, not morning sickness, because of other symptoms. I'm feeling mostly recovered now.
I learned a new clever trick for entertaining toddlers while lying on a couch.
You lie on the couch with a broom.
When a toddler approaches, you sweep towards their feet saying "I'm sweeping up the dirt! Gosh! This place sure is dirty!"
This causes intense giggling and momentary retreat.
When they approach again, repeat. You can keep this up for like half an hour.
Whenever my husband has to go to Mass alone (which lately has been more often than not), he comes home and says people have been asking about me and what's wrong. Which I guess should make me feel good that they notice I'm not there and are concerned, but it makes me feel under a lot of pressure. This is something I'm not used to since becoming a Catholic, because in the past, nobody ever kept tabs on my Mass attendance that way, simply because I might be attending Mass at any one of several churches, or even a different Mass time at the same church, and so how would anyone know if I missed Mass or not? But now that we always attend the SAME time at the SAME church (because The Husband sings), suddenly everybody is keeping tabs on me.
I've also felt that The Husband tends to play down/minimize (not intentionally, I think, but he does) whatever I'm experiencing. "X, Y and Z were asking why you weren't there," he says, after coming home. Anxiously, from my position at the couch and/or basin, I ask "What did you tell them?"
Unable to move from bed/couch due to back pain = "she wasn't feeling very well." LB has pneumonia = "the toddler we watch wasn't feeling very well." I'm vomiting every hour = "The first trimester has her down." (That last one is a self-reported direct quote!) Etc. It makes me feel very self-conscious when I DO go that everyone just thinks I'm some slothful neurotic hypochondriac.
It's not like I'm just missing Mass and somehow manage to live my life normally the other six days of the week--in the past month, I would say I've only managed to make it up/out one morning per week. It's always something. First the morning sickness, then the fatigue exacerbated by the Diclectin, now my main enemy is back pain. I'm actually getting concerned that I'm starting to have an arthritis flare up, which I haven't had since 2009. I want to get a whole body pregnancy pillow soon, because maybe that will help with my sleep (since I wake up with the back pain). Sealy vs. Boppy vs. Snoogle--anyone have advice?
My hands are acting up too, which also has me concerned, as I've already been diagnosed with osteoporosis in them.
IDK I know the weather affects my joints but I really feel like an old woman lately. It's depressing just in itself.
---
I had a great idea for a way to "volunteer".
Most volunteer opportunities seem closed to me as primary caregiver to toddlers. But, there is a local charity/health initiative called "the Period of PURPLE Crying" which works to prepare new parents for the period where babies frequently cry without obvious cause and where it's very difficult to soothe them. The idea is to prepare them so they don't get overwhelmed when it happens and shake their babies (which can seriously injure or even kill a baby). Since the introduction of the program, deaths and injuries due to baby shaking have gone down 63% in BC. That's fantastic!
Anyway, one "awareness program" they do is giving purple baby hats to parents. When you put the purple hat on your baby, you remember what PURPLE crying is, that it isn't your fault, that it's temporary, and if you find yourself getting overwhelmed or angry, it's ok to put the baby down in a safe place and take five to ten minutes to cool down--not only does this prevent baby shaking, but it is really hard to soothe a baby if you're overwhelmed with stress hormones yourself. You are not a bad parent for needing to take a break like this.
Anyway, they do a "hat drive" every summer, collecting handmade new purple baby hats. You have to donate at least 5, so since I'm a slow knitter, I should probably start now if I want to participate. You can also write a little card to go with the hat.
I definitely used the website to encourage me when I was going through Pippa's peak crying time so this would be a wonderful way to give back and help other parents and babies.
I want to make one for Mr. Bean, and I might also make some to give to other parents who are expecting--although, I'm worried that maybe that would sound like "Hey, you seem like the kind of people who would shake your baby, here's a hat to remind you not to do that." Do you think it would be an offensive gift? You only get a hat from the program if your baby happens to be born during the period they're giving the hats away--when they started, they collected enough hats to give away for a week, last year they collected enough hats for a month, and hopefully this year they will collect enough for even more, but it definitely won't be enough that every baby born gets a hat. All the babies I know about coming locally are due well before November (when they've handed them out in the past).
---
I have a brilliant idea for a dessert for my raclette party. I was going to do chocolate fondue, but I was worried it might be too heavy. Well, it turns out that I'm having my party on the first day of Chinese New Year, year of the snake. So I had the great idea to make some fruit sushi (there are countless recipes all slightly different for dessert sushi--I'm planning to make rolls with rice crispie treat "rice", fruit filling and fruit leather "seaweed"). I've seen regular sushi rolls arranged into a snake shape before, and I can use a whole strawberry to be the snake head.
It's one of those "so crazy it just might work" ideas.
I learned a new clever trick for entertaining toddlers while lying on a couch.
You lie on the couch with a broom.
When a toddler approaches, you sweep towards their feet saying "I'm sweeping up the dirt! Gosh! This place sure is dirty!"
This causes intense giggling and momentary retreat.
When they approach again, repeat. You can keep this up for like half an hour.
Whenever my husband has to go to Mass alone (which lately has been more often than not), he comes home and says people have been asking about me and what's wrong. Which I guess should make me feel good that they notice I'm not there and are concerned, but it makes me feel under a lot of pressure. This is something I'm not used to since becoming a Catholic, because in the past, nobody ever kept tabs on my Mass attendance that way, simply because I might be attending Mass at any one of several churches, or even a different Mass time at the same church, and so how would anyone know if I missed Mass or not? But now that we always attend the SAME time at the SAME church (because The Husband sings), suddenly everybody is keeping tabs on me.
I've also felt that The Husband tends to play down/minimize (not intentionally, I think, but he does) whatever I'm experiencing. "X, Y and Z were asking why you weren't there," he says, after coming home. Anxiously, from my position at the couch and/or basin, I ask "What did you tell them?"
Unable to move from bed/couch due to back pain = "she wasn't feeling very well." LB has pneumonia = "the toddler we watch wasn't feeling very well." I'm vomiting every hour = "The first trimester has her down." (That last one is a self-reported direct quote!) Etc. It makes me feel very self-conscious when I DO go that everyone just thinks I'm some slothful neurotic hypochondriac.
It's not like I'm just missing Mass and somehow manage to live my life normally the other six days of the week--in the past month, I would say I've only managed to make it up/out one morning per week. It's always something. First the morning sickness, then the fatigue exacerbated by the Diclectin, now my main enemy is back pain. I'm actually getting concerned that I'm starting to have an arthritis flare up, which I haven't had since 2009. I want to get a whole body pregnancy pillow soon, because maybe that will help with my sleep (since I wake up with the back pain). Sealy vs. Boppy vs. Snoogle--anyone have advice?
My hands are acting up too, which also has me concerned, as I've already been diagnosed with osteoporosis in them.
IDK I know the weather affects my joints but I really feel like an old woman lately. It's depressing just in itself.
---
I had a great idea for a way to "volunteer".
Most volunteer opportunities seem closed to me as primary caregiver to toddlers. But, there is a local charity/health initiative called "the Period of PURPLE Crying" which works to prepare new parents for the period where babies frequently cry without obvious cause and where it's very difficult to soothe them. The idea is to prepare them so they don't get overwhelmed when it happens and shake their babies (which can seriously injure or even kill a baby). Since the introduction of the program, deaths and injuries due to baby shaking have gone down 63% in BC. That's fantastic!
Anyway, one "awareness program" they do is giving purple baby hats to parents. When you put the purple hat on your baby, you remember what PURPLE crying is, that it isn't your fault, that it's temporary, and if you find yourself getting overwhelmed or angry, it's ok to put the baby down in a safe place and take five to ten minutes to cool down--not only does this prevent baby shaking, but it is really hard to soothe a baby if you're overwhelmed with stress hormones yourself. You are not a bad parent for needing to take a break like this.
Anyway, they do a "hat drive" every summer, collecting handmade new purple baby hats. You have to donate at least 5, so since I'm a slow knitter, I should probably start now if I want to participate. You can also write a little card to go with the hat.
I definitely used the website to encourage me when I was going through Pippa's peak crying time so this would be a wonderful way to give back and help other parents and babies.
I want to make one for Mr. Bean, and I might also make some to give to other parents who are expecting--although, I'm worried that maybe that would sound like "Hey, you seem like the kind of people who would shake your baby, here's a hat to remind you not to do that." Do you think it would be an offensive gift? You only get a hat from the program if your baby happens to be born during the period they're giving the hats away--when they started, they collected enough hats to give away for a week, last year they collected enough hats for a month, and hopefully this year they will collect enough for even more, but it definitely won't be enough that every baby born gets a hat. All the babies I know about coming locally are due well before November (when they've handed them out in the past).
---
I have a brilliant idea for a dessert for my raclette party. I was going to do chocolate fondue, but I was worried it might be too heavy. Well, it turns out that I'm having my party on the first day of Chinese New Year, year of the snake. So I had the great idea to make some fruit sushi (there are countless recipes all slightly different for dessert sushi--I'm planning to make rolls with rice crispie treat "rice", fruit filling and fruit leather "seaweed"). I've seen regular sushi rolls arranged into a snake shape before, and I can use a whole strawberry to be the snake head.
It's one of those "so crazy it just might work" ideas.