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Aug. 16th, 2008 01:10 pmG, the babysitter/nanny, is working out pretty great. Our tentative plan is for her to come on Wednesdays, Thursday and Fridays, from 9-1. So every other week when G is off on Wednesdays, that will give us time to go off on our own and do something together. We also have some Sunday afternoons now that his mom is willing to take them then and they all seem willing to be left there without much drama. Thursdays and Fridays, I'm trying to prioritize...I want to do a lot of schoolwork with A and A during those times, while G's here with the littles, and I'd also like to go swim for an hour at the Y once a week and possibly schedule some of my counseling appointments during her time. Grant really wants me to find a way to write while she's here. I'm having a hard time with the idea...it was such a colossal letdown to NOT get the year or two of full time writing that I've had to shove all that back and just not think about it, again, and so I'm sort of numb to the concept right now and it almost just confuses me when he brings it up. I feel like putting holes in the floodgates for anything less than regular opportunities is just going to have me going nuts with frustration all over again. I'm clinging to the assumption that soon all the kids will be older and I'll be able to write while they sleep, the way I wrote all of Cracked while A and A were in bed at night.
G, though, wow. She talks to them just like I do - no baby talk, and really hearing what they say. She makes eye contact, she squats down, she sits on the floor. She asks leading questions to make them think about things. She also has my exact amount of caution - she's fine with Jake and Isaac jumping on a bed, for instance, but moves in fast if Elise joins them. Things like this were really important to me but I didn't know how to "screen" for them. She handles Isaac so similarly to us, even - last night as she was walking out the door (she'd come later in the day so we could go see "Dark Knight"), Isaac really wanted to open the door for her to go out. But we were doing that hover near the door for half an hour talking thing I always end up doing with guests, before they actually leave, and anytime you open the door Elise makes a beeline for escaping and while you're trying to corral her, Jake shoots out past you. So I told him, G can open the door for herself when she's ready. You can close it behind her. And he was all moody overreacting nonsense, whining and moaning and crying and panicking about it. She said, "You have two choices. You can either close the door behind me like a big boy, or you can do nothing and Jake or I will shut it". He kept repeating that he wanted to open it with a lot of hysterics and she just repeated his options. After the third time, he sucked it up and opted for shutting it. I was impressed.
She also listens to ME, and I really appreciate that...last night she had all five alone for the first time, and I knew Elise would be upset about it at first, and I told her the fail safes for making Elise happy were outside time and the bath. When I got back, I found out she'd cried for the first 20 minutes, off and on, but then G had had her in the (giant) tub with Isaac and Jake or outside with everyone for the rest of the time, and she was fine. Things like this seem obvious but I've had plenty of experience with people acting helpless with one of my stressed kids as if I hadn't given them any options.
My moody and territorial Jake lets her carry him around. She didn't need me to explain about fuzzi bunz or longies because she has plenty of experience with them. She's as comfortable with me sitting there nursing two toddlers as you'd expect a doula who's with naked birthing women every week to be.
It's just really great. We just got two bunnies, and she has one, so it's a bonding point for her and the bigger kids.
She's a lesbian, which is interesting on a few levels. She's in an established, long term live-in relationship and they're planning on her getting pregnant in a year or two via artificial insemination. She'd like to continue working with us long term and possibly bring her own baby along at some point. This is awesome for my weird, insecure self because I don't have to feel any jealousy or insecurity about her around Grant, and yes I am that wack even though I have a completely trustworthy man. It's hilarious because it seems like any time I make a good female friend, all the way back to middle school, they're bi or gay - I even consider "lesbian" to be my musical genre of choice. It's awkward only because we are very obviously practicing, devout Christians. I don't know what G believes, although she's very respectful of our beliefs, but I can't help but hear Ananda's endlessly playing VBS cd through her ears, or wonder what she thinks of some of our art, and wonder if she wonders if I think she's a hellbound freak. It's not something she talks about with the kids, not really because she's actively avoiding the topic but just because it would be weird to bring up your personal relationship with the kids you're watching. I'm sure they'll eventually figure she has a friend and roommate who's a girl, that she mentions here and there to us?
The only thing about her that I don't like isn't her fault at all: it's just strange to have "hired help" with my children. Like, ok, nannies and babysitters do things parents would never deal with, like push a kid on a swing long after the novelty has worn off, or let a preschooler cover them with stickers head to toe and laugh every. single. time. a new one is applied - it's their job, and they go home at the end of it. I used to do these things, when I was a nanny in high school. Play cars on the floor for two solid hours, even though it's just a 30 second loop of play repeating itself 240 times - and never waning in enthusiasm! In a way, this is what I am paying her for and it's how it should be...in another way, I don't know how much I like them being drunk on that kind of power with an adult. Isaac especially cannot get enough of G, this is like his ultimate dream come true.
And, of course, there could easily come a time when Grant and I can't afford her anymore, or just don't need the help anymore, or she could move away or have scheduling conflicts or just get a better gig - basically this is a relationship they're going to get emotionally involved in just like any other, except this is - when you get down to bare bones - a job. She is most likely not going to maintain contact when it's over, you know? It's just kind of strange to me to see my kids all piled on and around someone reading them a story...for hourly pay. It's just weird, like, is she hugging them when she leaves because it's part of the job, or because she wants to hug them? Are there any she's just pretending to like?
Like I said, this is not in any way a reflection on HER, it's just stuff to ponder in any sort of paid childcare arrangement.
I'm still mulling over the idea of cleaning help. I spend A LOT of time cleaning. About an hour out of every day is devoted to floors alone - sweeping, vaccuming, and swiffering. There is at least another hour of "other cleaning" - dishes, laundry, picking up clutter, wiping down counters and tables, all that rot...Once or twice a week I spend 45 minutes just scrubbing the couches and chairs down. The Force Field stain-proofing stuff REALLY works, I've gotten pen marks, lipstick, ground-in cheese that had been stuck on someone's clothing after a meal so it slid past me, all sorts of things out of it - and all with just water and a dish towel! But until I get to it, it really shows every little thing...feet make visible marks on it, sweat discolors it slightly, it's totally gross if Aaron is wiping his nose on things :x I mean, it's beige microfiber, so of course, and yeah it's great to have it looking brand new everytime I clean it, but still it gets old spending 45 minutes going over all the pieces with a fine tooth comb to clean it all off (old stains void the warranty, should you call them about a new stain you can't get out, so I can't let it go or we're out a free couch should we need one...) Sometimes I think I've got it backwards, having hired a person to be my proxy to my kids and then ALSO spending all this time cleaning while they do their own thing later on...shouldn't I be paying someone to clean, so *I* can be mom more often? It's not that simple, though, because I can't afford to have someone coming in and cleaning every day, and they are often doing chores and helping out alongside me, and EVERY cleaning applicant I've had on sittercity is an older lady who can't speak english much, if at all - how in the world can I justify having some 50 year old woman on her hands and knees scrubbing up our messes? And how can I try to convince someone who's been using bleach and who knows what else for 30 years that I don't like chemicals, with a language barrier? I realize they probably really need the work, I don't know, I'm still thinking about it. All of this is just weird, though, having "help" at all is so surreal for me. I really have no idea if I've picked a good schedule out for G or not, as it is - we're both leaving it open for now, to see how we like it...
Counseling is irritating me and making me moody, by dredging up things I don't want dredged up. I think it's for the long term best, but it still mucks up the short term. I mean...it's kind of misleading to even blame "the counseling" when really counseling is gradually fixing things...bah.
I still have a LOT of nightmares. I'm still scared to go to sleep, waking frequently, all that...I'm having the kind of chronic sleep deprivation I've only ever had while Isaac was an infant, or while watching Elise for seizures. And that colors everything, to some degree.
I'm still having trouble not eating my way through every day.
My physical symptoms (discomfort and pain where I had my spinals, tension, sweat and heart palpitations when birth comes up, headaches when I talk about some things, this and that...) are not as severe as they were, but are still there.
The worst ptsd thing, because it's the only thing I can't internalize and deal with by myself, is these crazy ass mood swings that ruin several hours at a time for me/us. It comes out of nowhere, I just suddenly feel so hopeless and bitter and can't even think of anything that would help or make me happy. It annoys me for Grant to try to help, breaks my heart if he doesn't try to help, I want to be left alone and not touched by the kids, I can't stand to stay in but don't want to go out...usually this culminates in some sort of nap (because for whatever reason sleeping during the day is no problem at all), even though I hate that because then I feel like I wasted part of the day sleeping. It's awful. It's never all day long, and it's not every day, but it's a couple of times a week at least and I'm tired of it. Although it seems random, it can also be triggered, and more and more it's triggered by something to do with my diastasis. I increasingly just HATE the thing I have to wear constantly, and yet when I'm not wearing it, I'm so SO aware of this bulbous protruding muscular stuff, and it's all more surgery hanging over my head in the future. It's all the way past surgeries have changed me. It's all scars and violation. I don't yell at people or throw things or go crazy in those sorts of ways...I retreat into mindless cleaning, thinking all the while how I hate it, or find something solitary to do and try to ask all the kids to give me space. I cry at the drop of hat, mostly in a bathroom alone but sometimes in the front seat with Grant. It's ridiculous. don't get sentimental, it always ends up drivel
Other than napping, sometimes I can pray my way out of it, and sometimes Elise pulls me out. It's easy to love HER, even when I am in a bad way. I can just lay there passively with my shirt up and her nursing, and she's thrilled. I can just hold and cuddle her, and she's happy and gets me to smile in spite of myself. It doesn't require any explanations, if I'm obviously miserable, and so I often end up not miserable. I love that I am enough for her, as a baby, by simply existing. Also I feel like we have some level of solidarity, having come out of the fire of last year together. Tinaandelise.com, after all...*sigh*
Therapy is basically chronologically moving through my traumas with talking and emdr. We're about to age 11. Divorce, molestation, kidnapping and hurricane, check check check check. I've actually gained a lot of insight and felt lightened and good about a lot of things, regarding the stuff we've already passed. The problem is that now we're dealing with the whole issue of Jud, my x-stepdad, and I know we're moving towards my mother leaving me, and it just all starts to feel like I'm going to drown in it. Like it's a mountain I can't climb. And of course we divert for things as they happen, currently, and things that are bothering me too much to wait about. I'm glad I'm doing it, in the same way I'd be glad I'm getting a splinter out. I have a half-hearted hope that when I'm done, I'll be able to will myself towards getting my abs fixed. But just typing that puts a lump in my throat, so we'll see. This has been...uh...two months? Or three? I'll go with two and a half months of therapy, and we're at age 11. I'm only 26. I imagine the past few years will take a long time, though. Bah. Other than all the chronological trauma crap, we're looking to "change my belief systems" about certain things, like food and whether or not I can sleep through the night without nightmares. I have a homework assignment of sorts that I need to get to at some point. I keep meaning to stay up to date in a paper therapy journal but it hasn't been working out. There's just too much happening.
Everything with Grant is awesome, except for what I put him through when I'm in a funk. Lots of talking and laughing, lots of helping each other, lots of great sex, lots of mutual attraction and mutual appreciation. He makes me laugh, and makes me believe, and it's so great to have these kids together.
I have some pictures I've been dying to post and I will try to get to that soon...I'm on this new laptop, our old computers are still at Grant Sr's house, and this one has neither an FTP prograp or Paint Shop Pro, and those things are usually my picture posting tools.
I've been thinking some about "my passion for nurturing life". It's so deeply satisfying to me to dig and weed and plant and water, and have filthy hands and sweat all over me afterwards. I love cooking and baking for my family, love nursing and reading to. I love setting up a big pen for the bunnies. It's a good thing. Life, I mean :p It's good to shop for fruit trees in nurseries and to put herbs in my window garden and to see that, somehow, Isaac is writing letters and Aaron is reading books. It's even nice to watch Jake's hair grow back ;)
I think it's really vital to be near kids, once you are no longer a kid. I think it's natural to always have kids around at least in a peripheral way, to remind you of innocence and sincerity and newness. Like Christ said we had to be like little children to see God. I think it's making people cold and depressed, the way it's become normal to spend 10 or 20 years of your adult life around grownups before you decide (maybe) to have a baby. Yeah, I know that's controversial, ask me if I care. People like G our nanny and julierocket make a lot of sense to me, being 20 something childless folks who choose to put themselves around kids as a vocation.
I'd say I'm sorry this is so long, but, well...I'm not.
G, though, wow. She talks to them just like I do - no baby talk, and really hearing what they say. She makes eye contact, she squats down, she sits on the floor. She asks leading questions to make them think about things. She also has my exact amount of caution - she's fine with Jake and Isaac jumping on a bed, for instance, but moves in fast if Elise joins them. Things like this were really important to me but I didn't know how to "screen" for them. She handles Isaac so similarly to us, even - last night as she was walking out the door (she'd come later in the day so we could go see "Dark Knight"), Isaac really wanted to open the door for her to go out. But we were doing that hover near the door for half an hour talking thing I always end up doing with guests, before they actually leave, and anytime you open the door Elise makes a beeline for escaping and while you're trying to corral her, Jake shoots out past you. So I told him, G can open the door for herself when she's ready. You can close it behind her. And he was all moody overreacting nonsense, whining and moaning and crying and panicking about it. She said, "You have two choices. You can either close the door behind me like a big boy, or you can do nothing and Jake or I will shut it". He kept repeating that he wanted to open it with a lot of hysterics and she just repeated his options. After the third time, he sucked it up and opted for shutting it. I was impressed.
She also listens to ME, and I really appreciate that...last night she had all five alone for the first time, and I knew Elise would be upset about it at first, and I told her the fail safes for making Elise happy were outside time and the bath. When I got back, I found out she'd cried for the first 20 minutes, off and on, but then G had had her in the (giant) tub with Isaac and Jake or outside with everyone for the rest of the time, and she was fine. Things like this seem obvious but I've had plenty of experience with people acting helpless with one of my stressed kids as if I hadn't given them any options.
My moody and territorial Jake lets her carry him around. She didn't need me to explain about fuzzi bunz or longies because she has plenty of experience with them. She's as comfortable with me sitting there nursing two toddlers as you'd expect a doula who's with naked birthing women every week to be.
It's just really great. We just got two bunnies, and she has one, so it's a bonding point for her and the bigger kids.
She's a lesbian, which is interesting on a few levels. She's in an established, long term live-in relationship and they're planning on her getting pregnant in a year or two via artificial insemination. She'd like to continue working with us long term and possibly bring her own baby along at some point. This is awesome for my weird, insecure self because I don't have to feel any jealousy or insecurity about her around Grant, and yes I am that wack even though I have a completely trustworthy man. It's hilarious because it seems like any time I make a good female friend, all the way back to middle school, they're bi or gay - I even consider "lesbian" to be my musical genre of choice. It's awkward only because we are very obviously practicing, devout Christians. I don't know what G believes, although she's very respectful of our beliefs, but I can't help but hear Ananda's endlessly playing VBS cd through her ears, or wonder what she thinks of some of our art, and wonder if she wonders if I think she's a hellbound freak. It's not something she talks about with the kids, not really because she's actively avoiding the topic but just because it would be weird to bring up your personal relationship with the kids you're watching. I'm sure they'll eventually figure she has a friend and roommate who's a girl, that she mentions here and there to us?
The only thing about her that I don't like isn't her fault at all: it's just strange to have "hired help" with my children. Like, ok, nannies and babysitters do things parents would never deal with, like push a kid on a swing long after the novelty has worn off, or let a preschooler cover them with stickers head to toe and laugh every. single. time. a new one is applied - it's their job, and they go home at the end of it. I used to do these things, when I was a nanny in high school. Play cars on the floor for two solid hours, even though it's just a 30 second loop of play repeating itself 240 times - and never waning in enthusiasm! In a way, this is what I am paying her for and it's how it should be...in another way, I don't know how much I like them being drunk on that kind of power with an adult. Isaac especially cannot get enough of G, this is like his ultimate dream come true.
And, of course, there could easily come a time when Grant and I can't afford her anymore, or just don't need the help anymore, or she could move away or have scheduling conflicts or just get a better gig - basically this is a relationship they're going to get emotionally involved in just like any other, except this is - when you get down to bare bones - a job. She is most likely not going to maintain contact when it's over, you know? It's just kind of strange to me to see my kids all piled on and around someone reading them a story...for hourly pay. It's just weird, like, is she hugging them when she leaves because it's part of the job, or because she wants to hug them? Are there any she's just pretending to like?
Like I said, this is not in any way a reflection on HER, it's just stuff to ponder in any sort of paid childcare arrangement.
I'm still mulling over the idea of cleaning help. I spend A LOT of time cleaning. About an hour out of every day is devoted to floors alone - sweeping, vaccuming, and swiffering. There is at least another hour of "other cleaning" - dishes, laundry, picking up clutter, wiping down counters and tables, all that rot...Once or twice a week I spend 45 minutes just scrubbing the couches and chairs down. The Force Field stain-proofing stuff REALLY works, I've gotten pen marks, lipstick, ground-in cheese that had been stuck on someone's clothing after a meal so it slid past me, all sorts of things out of it - and all with just water and a dish towel! But until I get to it, it really shows every little thing...feet make visible marks on it, sweat discolors it slightly, it's totally gross if Aaron is wiping his nose on things :x I mean, it's beige microfiber, so of course, and yeah it's great to have it looking brand new everytime I clean it, but still it gets old spending 45 minutes going over all the pieces with a fine tooth comb to clean it all off (old stains void the warranty, should you call them about a new stain you can't get out, so I can't let it go or we're out a free couch should we need one...) Sometimes I think I've got it backwards, having hired a person to be my proxy to my kids and then ALSO spending all this time cleaning while they do their own thing later on...shouldn't I be paying someone to clean, so *I* can be mom more often? It's not that simple, though, because I can't afford to have someone coming in and cleaning every day, and they are often doing chores and helping out alongside me, and EVERY cleaning applicant I've had on sittercity is an older lady who can't speak english much, if at all - how in the world can I justify having some 50 year old woman on her hands and knees scrubbing up our messes? And how can I try to convince someone who's been using bleach and who knows what else for 30 years that I don't like chemicals, with a language barrier? I realize they probably really need the work, I don't know, I'm still thinking about it. All of this is just weird, though, having "help" at all is so surreal for me. I really have no idea if I've picked a good schedule out for G or not, as it is - we're both leaving it open for now, to see how we like it...
Counseling is irritating me and making me moody, by dredging up things I don't want dredged up. I think it's for the long term best, but it still mucks up the short term. I mean...it's kind of misleading to even blame "the counseling" when really counseling is gradually fixing things...bah.
I still have a LOT of nightmares. I'm still scared to go to sleep, waking frequently, all that...I'm having the kind of chronic sleep deprivation I've only ever had while Isaac was an infant, or while watching Elise for seizures. And that colors everything, to some degree.
I'm still having trouble not eating my way through every day.
My physical symptoms (discomfort and pain where I had my spinals, tension, sweat and heart palpitations when birth comes up, headaches when I talk about some things, this and that...) are not as severe as they were, but are still there.
The worst ptsd thing, because it's the only thing I can't internalize and deal with by myself, is these crazy ass mood swings that ruin several hours at a time for me/us. It comes out of nowhere, I just suddenly feel so hopeless and bitter and can't even think of anything that would help or make me happy. It annoys me for Grant to try to help, breaks my heart if he doesn't try to help, I want to be left alone and not touched by the kids, I can't stand to stay in but don't want to go out...usually this culminates in some sort of nap (because for whatever reason sleeping during the day is no problem at all), even though I hate that because then I feel like I wasted part of the day sleeping. It's awful. It's never all day long, and it's not every day, but it's a couple of times a week at least and I'm tired of it. Although it seems random, it can also be triggered, and more and more it's triggered by something to do with my diastasis. I increasingly just HATE the thing I have to wear constantly, and yet when I'm not wearing it, I'm so SO aware of this bulbous protruding muscular stuff, and it's all more surgery hanging over my head in the future. It's all the way past surgeries have changed me. It's all scars and violation. I don't yell at people or throw things or go crazy in those sorts of ways...I retreat into mindless cleaning, thinking all the while how I hate it, or find something solitary to do and try to ask all the kids to give me space. I cry at the drop of hat, mostly in a bathroom alone but sometimes in the front seat with Grant. It's ridiculous. don't get sentimental, it always ends up drivel
Other than napping, sometimes I can pray my way out of it, and sometimes Elise pulls me out. It's easy to love HER, even when I am in a bad way. I can just lay there passively with my shirt up and her nursing, and she's thrilled. I can just hold and cuddle her, and she's happy and gets me to smile in spite of myself. It doesn't require any explanations, if I'm obviously miserable, and so I often end up not miserable. I love that I am enough for her, as a baby, by simply existing. Also I feel like we have some level of solidarity, having come out of the fire of last year together. Tinaandelise.com, after all...*sigh*
Therapy is basically chronologically moving through my traumas with talking and emdr. We're about to age 11. Divorce, molestation, kidnapping and hurricane, check check check check. I've actually gained a lot of insight and felt lightened and good about a lot of things, regarding the stuff we've already passed. The problem is that now we're dealing with the whole issue of Jud, my x-stepdad, and I know we're moving towards my mother leaving me, and it just all starts to feel like I'm going to drown in it. Like it's a mountain I can't climb. And of course we divert for things as they happen, currently, and things that are bothering me too much to wait about. I'm glad I'm doing it, in the same way I'd be glad I'm getting a splinter out. I have a half-hearted hope that when I'm done, I'll be able to will myself towards getting my abs fixed. But just typing that puts a lump in my throat, so we'll see. This has been...uh...two months? Or three? I'll go with two and a half months of therapy, and we're at age 11. I'm only 26. I imagine the past few years will take a long time, though. Bah. Other than all the chronological trauma crap, we're looking to "change my belief systems" about certain things, like food and whether or not I can sleep through the night without nightmares. I have a homework assignment of sorts that I need to get to at some point. I keep meaning to stay up to date in a paper therapy journal but it hasn't been working out. There's just too much happening.
Everything with Grant is awesome, except for what I put him through when I'm in a funk. Lots of talking and laughing, lots of helping each other, lots of great sex, lots of mutual attraction and mutual appreciation. He makes me laugh, and makes me believe, and it's so great to have these kids together.
I have some pictures I've been dying to post and I will try to get to that soon...I'm on this new laptop, our old computers are still at Grant Sr's house, and this one has neither an FTP prograp or Paint Shop Pro, and those things are usually my picture posting tools.
I've been thinking some about "my passion for nurturing life". It's so deeply satisfying to me to dig and weed and plant and water, and have filthy hands and sweat all over me afterwards. I love cooking and baking for my family, love nursing and reading to. I love setting up a big pen for the bunnies. It's a good thing. Life, I mean :p It's good to shop for fruit trees in nurseries and to put herbs in my window garden and to see that, somehow, Isaac is writing letters and Aaron is reading books. It's even nice to watch Jake's hair grow back ;)
I think it's really vital to be near kids, once you are no longer a kid. I think it's natural to always have kids around at least in a peripheral way, to remind you of innocence and sincerity and newness. Like Christ said we had to be like little children to see God. I think it's making people cold and depressed, the way it's become normal to spend 10 or 20 years of your adult life around grownups before you decide (maybe) to have a baby. Yeah, I know that's controversial, ask me if I care. People like G our nanny and julierocket make a lot of sense to me, being 20 something childless folks who choose to put themselves around kids as a vocation.
I'd say I'm sorry this is so long, but, well...I'm not.
