Where I Am Right Now

Don't worry, I'll stop talking entirely about myself and get back to posting adorable baby pictures soon. But first, a word from our sponsor: barf.

I am a gross person these days. No seriously, I mean it. I get thrown up on so much and so often by Waylon that it goes something like this: (1) my entire wardrobe consists of long sleeved t's because I don't want to ruin nicer things, (2) sometimes I churn through multiple tops a day due to puke, (3) after several months of this, I've gotten used to it and therefore do not really care so much any more, so the threshold of liquid that must hit me before I decide it's worth a change keeps increasing, mainly because I'm sick of laundry, so (4) I often keep wearing the same shirt even if it has baby puke or leaked breastmilk on it, because a fresh one will only last about 5 minutes anyway, so what's the point of changing?, and (5) I also tend to sleep in the same collection of shirts.

Then there's the showering. It's essentially the same story: (1) I sometimes find it hard to make time during the day while taking care of the kids to grab a shower for myself, (2) if too much time passes but I know I'm going to try to work out soon, then I have a "what's the point?" attitude because it seems to make more sense to wait until after the workout to shower (note: this applies whether I actually ever do a workout or not), (3) in lieu of the workout excuse, I rely on the "Waylon's going to throw up on me anyway" excuse, which makes me want to wait until the end of the day after Waylon's in bed to shower. All of that together means that I seem to be averaging one shower every 48 hours. Maybe by European standards that's not bad, but I feel gross.  (Oh, and speaking of showers, I feel compelled to disclose that I've recently gone back to using real shampoo and conditioner about half the time, sticking to my simple baking soda and vinegar routine the rest of the time.  There's no real reason for the change, other than I got bored after a year and kind of missed the slippery feeling of true conditioner.) 

Look, I've read the style blogs, and I get it. I'm supposed to put in more effort for my sake and the sake of everyone around me, and it's all supposed to pay off under the theory of "look good, feel good, do good", but I'm just not there yet. I read this line from blogger Rachel Meeks and nearly fell out of my chair laughing: "Baby spit-up washes out of cashmere the same as it washes out of acrylic." Oh, woman, I love you but surely you must not have birthed spitters like mine.

In the clothing category, I'm also dealing with the fact that I've still got pregnancy weight to lose and therefore have no interest in buying clothes yet. I'm decently satisfied with my progress and trying to be patient, but in the meantime I'm wearing the same small collection of yoga pants and one pair of cords over and over and over again.

If I may, let me interrupt my own pity party for a moment of self-congratulatory positivity. Dudes, I've lost 55 lbs. since Waylon's birth! Holy crap that's a lot! And I've got about 10 more to go, so you do the math on how many I gained. Holy crap that's even more! But the point is, I'm getting there, and there is something fun about saying that you've lost 55 lbs.

When I pause and really force myself to think about it, I realize how far our family, and I in particular, have come since Waylon was born. I'm no longer bouncing him to sleep for hours, having him strapped to me all the time, and we're able to cook normal meals and stuff like that.  I have some weekday morning babysitting help, Georgia and June are both in part-time school, and I have enough pumped milk to just skip a feeding if I need to without worrying about it or feeling like my boobs are going to explode.  But when I'm not forcing myself to remember all that, I have to say that I feel like I'm stuck in newborn mode, wanting to play the "I just had a baby" card for everything from why I look gross, to why I need to lose weight, to why I'm not very involved with Georgia's school, to why I have the girls enrolled in zero activities, to why I'm doing a TERRIBLE job ever getting the girls outside, etc.   (I tried over the Christmas school break to promise myself that we'd make it out of the house every single day for 14 days no matter what, no matter the weather, and no matter how short of a time we lasted out there, but I aborted the mission in defeat on Day 4.)  It's like we're 5 months into this, and I still think the world should be bringing us food, and in awe of me any time I take all three kids out anywhere, when in fact, we've probably transitioned into "lady, you chose to have three kids, big woop, so deal with it" territory.

So, that's where I am. I'm still in newborn land but the baby's not. A five month old is not a newborn. He started rolling over in December, and in classic third child fashion it occurred while he was buck naked on his playmat (why? don't even ask - I have no good answer) and Joe, June and I were eating lunch and looked down to realize it after the fact. He should probably be starting solids in a few weeks, but I'm so lazy that I'm dreading adding in spoons, bibs, and clean-up into our already jammed day. (Jammed with what? That is a good question. We do no activities and go nowhere, and yet I often feel that we're in a hurry and that 85% of our day is spent preparing, eating, and cleaning up from food. Not including the cumulatively large chunk of my day spent nursing. Sometimes I think letting the girls watch more TV than they currently do (about every other day or every third day sometimes) would make life easier, but there's this perverse thing going on where I can't figure out how to fit it in the day. Seriously, I must be doing this all wrong*.) One more side note about Waylon and solids: dude needs to work on his abs! Given how briefly he lasts in the Bumbo seat, I'm a little concerned he's gonna slump over in his feeding chair. He's kind of a lazy tummy timer who would rather find his thumb and relax there on the ground.



As I was making New Year's resolutions, I considered committing to get up and be dressed with the bed made each day of January by 9:00 a.m. Surely that should not be so hard, right? Nine. But again, just to give you an idea of where I am right now, I thought better of it and decided that such a goal would be much too ambitious.  And I'm glad I scrapped the idea, because it would have been.  Come February, though, I think it may be time to up my game a bit.  I was supposed to be going back to work in February, which would have meant real clothes, a shower, and a definitive start to my day with a place to be, so surely I can muster clothing instead of pj's by nine, right?

Sorry if that was all a bit disjointed.  I probably could have saved a lot of words and summed it up as:  January in Chicago, two kids, no yard, and a spitty baby, plus playing project manager to a minor home renovation = I'm leading a full, happy life, but I feel gross.  Don't worry, though.  I've got all sorts of ideas about how to tackle the winter blues; I just need to stop the inertia here and put them into practice.

To end on a high note, here's a video that started out as a sweet rendition of "You Are My Sunshine" from June to Waylon, but was interrupted by a nonchalant wiping of puke.  As you can see, I'm not the only one who has become completely immune to it. 



*Team Umizoomi is on in the background and June is sitting on my legs as I'm typing this, so maybe I'm starting to get the hang of it? : )