ChezPerky

Single Parenting

August 11, 2008 by chezperky

I have the utmost respect for single parents. I know I don’t have it in me to be a single parent. Not even remotely. That being said, Seth left for Pittsburgh yesterday for a two day conference. He’ll be back late Tuesday night leaving me with three dinner times, three bed times, and two morning wake up routines all to myself. Yay me. Yes, I am superwoman, thank you for asking. I need a cape. Though a sidekick would be more useful, don’t you think?

Of course, not five minutes after Seth left, one of the cats threw up on the stairs. It’s like they were mocking me. One of my rules is that Seth is 100% responsible for any bodily fluids which come out of the cats. I am not a pet person. I don’t like being responsible for animals. I would rather be pet-free (and thereby dander-free) than deal with puke, pee, poop, etc. If I wanted to deal with bodily fluids, I would have had kids. Oh, wait… I did that.

This morning started at 4:30 with an exploding diaper from Sam who then frantically nursed for an hour. Then J threw up on the stairs on his way down to get his patch put on for the morning. Also, he was bouncing off the walls all farkin’ morning. It was a good morning. I expect tonight to be more of the same. Good times all around.

I don’t mind the single-parenting gig, actually. I love my kids. What I hate is the feeling of being trapped. What if I needed to go out? I can’t. With four sleeping children, I’m stranded. How do single parents handle this? I leave in the morning, drop J at school, go to work, dash out of work, pick J up, run home, meet the nanny to relieve her, get everyone fed, into bed, get J fed, into bed, and then I’m stranded. There’s no time for an extra errand, like if I had to stop at the pharmacy or grocery store or pick up the dry cleaning or whatever. How would I do that if Seth weren’t coming home Tuesday night? I guess I’d get a babysitter, but if I were a single parent with four young kids, how would I afford that? Did I mention that I have the utmost respect for single parents? I don’t know how you guys (and gals) do it!

Did I mention Ellie’s teething?

How many hours left until Seth comes home?

Posted in motherhood ... at last | 11 Comments »

World Breastfeeding Week – Who Knew?

August 5, 2008 by chezperky

Hey, did you know that it’s World Breastfeeding Week?

I’ve been breastfeeding my triplets for 10 1/2 months now, and I love it. It makes me feel … well, I feel like my body isn’t betraying me. And I love that my babies are bonded to me, even Abby who doesn’t breastfeed, but gets my milk. She shows a definite preference for my milk over formula.

I never thought it would be possible to do this. I thought I’d pump for them while they were in the NICU and I thought maybe I’d struggle through a couple weeks at home, but I never really thought I’d make it through a whole year. And now I find myself wondering if I’ll be ready to give this up when they turn a year old next month.

I have these three babies – these three that started out teeny, tiny, helpless babies, that have grown from as tiny as 2 1/2 pounds (Abby) and are now as big as 20 pounds (Sam) and I helped do that!

So, um, go me!

Posted in breastfeeding | 14 Comments »

Good Things and Less Good Things

August 5, 2008 by chezperky

Good Thing: Having reached my absolute limit yesterday, I called my mother and asked her to stay with the kids and declared that Seth and I were going out after the triplets were in bed. We went to see a movie. Since he wasn’t on call this time, he actually got to see the entire movie, and we had a great time.
Less Good Thing: I really did reach my absolute limit on coping with my life yesterday. This PMDD thing? SUCKS.

Good Thing: Sam has figured out how to climb up stairs.
Less Good Thing: Sam has figured out how to climb up stairs.

Good Thing: Abby has one more physical therapy session, but will probably be discharged after that.
Less Good Thing: Ellie probably will not be discharged from physical therapy for a while. (That being said, she’s really doing fine, she’s just further behind than the other two.

Good Thing: My babies are almost a whole year old.
Less Good Thing: My babies are almost a whole year old.

Good Thing: I’ve talked with my friend about the misunderstanding about my blog compromise. Turns out that it may have been partially a miscommunication on my part.
Bad Thing: I may have hurt her feelings by having approached it through a vent in my blog.
Good Thing: The best thing about friends? We’re already over it.

Good Thing: We’ve added in a new medication to J’s regimen and it seems to be working nicely.
Less Good Thing: It’s a real pain in the tushy to deal with because we have to crush a pill, mix it into 1ml of simple syrup, and then draw up .2mls of medicine each time we give him the medicine (2x/day). Then, since he refuses to take any medicine of any kind by mouth under any circumstances, the only way we can get him to take this is to mix it in with ice cream. So he gets a couple teaspoons of ice cream BID. But the new rule is that he may never have ice cream any other time of day ever. Ice cream is now reserved for medicine taking. Still, it’s a whole lot of effort to go through twice a day.

Good Thing: My kids are awesome
Less Good thing: There is no "less good thing" for this one.

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

Compromised

August 4, 2008 by chezperky

One of the reasons that I moved this blog to TypePad was because some "real life" friends, who I had not explicitly given the URL to my blog (so I’m not referring to you, Julie or Diana, or any of you others that know that I explicitly gave you this URL), had found my blog over at My Perky Ovaries. Too many had found it, really. I had other things push me over the edge, but when I stopped feeling comfortable posting about my feelings about infertility, and knowing that I was getting closer to moving back to Ye Old Fertility Clinic, I knew it was time to pick up and move.

Some of my real life friends knew I was moving in part because I had been "found" and they felt badly about having found me, even though it was obviously through no fault of their own. I have a public blog, for a reason, and therefore, I can’t expect everyone to stay out, now can I? Even if I didn’t use my name, my likeness, or my childrens’ names, the fact that I’m an Orthodox Jew with triplets, an older child with a slightly-less-than-normal-legal-situation, etc. makes me pretty distinguishable to the people that know me in real life. So removing my names and pictures from my blog wouldn’t really help me, and I’m not interested in creating a whole new internet personality for the sake of anonymity, because I try to be ME as much as possible.

When one of my friends found my old blog, I told her specifically that the fact that she and others had found it was precisely the reason I was moving my blog. She asked with interest what the new name for my new blog would be and I very specifically did not tell her the new name of the blog. I clearly said that the things that I want the whole world to know, I post elsewhere, in a blog that she already reads.

I know that people I know in real life will find this blog. I’m not naive. I also know that the vast majority of them read this blog in silence, and I thank them for pretending to respect my privacy, though I recognize that the only way I will have true privacy is to password protect my blog, which I have my own reasons for not doing. They’re good reasons, which I don’t need to share at this time, but believe me, they’re good and valid.

But this friend, who I specifically told I was moving the blog so that real life people would not be reading my thoughts on infertility and the like… this friend apparently went looking for my blog again. And not only did she go looking for my blog, and not only did she find my blog and read my thoughts, she left footprints. She commented in my blog. Twice.

I recognize that I have no right to ask for privacy from the general public. But when I ask a friend explicitly to respect a boundary, I think that’s another thing all together. Find my blog? Sure. Read my blog? By all means, be a voyeur. But rub it in my face when I made it clear I didn’t want you here? That’s just tacky.

And now I feel compromised, even though I realize I have no right to expect privacy in the public world of blogging.

I will continue blogging, but I do know this: when I return to Ye Old Fertility Clinic in the fall, I won’t be blogging about it. Or if I do, I won’t be blogging about the specifics of dates of retrieval, transfer, test results, things like that. No one will know, from my blog anyway, what exactly is going on. Because I don’t even have the facade anymore of pretending that my friends won’t know the inner details of my pregnancy test results.

In my community, we don’t tell people we’re expecting until we are beyond the first three months or so, though I’ve been known to let a few people in on the joke. The first time I was pregnant, I told people in my community that I was pregnant when I got to three months, and a day later, I had a miscarriage. I’ve sworn I’ll never do that again. It’s one thing if people are reading and I don’t have it shoved in my face that they’re reading. It’s quite another if they are reminding me of it.

I never thought I would censor myself on my blog, and I’m sorry to do it. The reason I moved was so that I would stop censoring myself. Maybe I’ll get over myself and just write about it anyway, but right now? Right now I just feel… compromised.

Posted in blogarama | 27 Comments »

Because I needed the other shoe to drop

August 1, 2008 by chezperky

I stayed home sick yesterday, what with the obvious breast infection. Whenever I stay home sick, my nanny ends up sick or injured or whatnot. Yesterday it wasn’t she that ended up sick, but her niece, for whom she is the primary caregiver. Obviously, she had to leave if her niece was throwing up and sick and had a fever and whatnot. Poor M but also Poor Karen.

This morning, M called to say that her niece has chicken pox.

Let’s review.

Point the first: Karen’s babies are 10.5 months old. Babies receive the chicken pox vaccine at 12 months old (and another booster sometime later, I can’t remember when).

Point the second: Karen is not immune to chicken pox.

Point the third: Karen’s nanny has never, to her knowledge, had chicken pox OR the chicken pox vaccine.

Point the fourth: The incubation period for chicken pox is 8-21 days. Let’s average it out and call it 14 days.

Point the fifth: Regardless of the incubation period, her niece will need care and will not be able to return to her babysitter until she herself no longer has active chicken pox lesions, about a week.

This, suffice it to say, has not been a good week. I haven’t even gotten a shower yet today. For the good of mankind, I must get a shower today!

Posted in One of Those Not So Fresh Days | 17 Comments »

What the Frick?

July 30, 2008 by chezperky

Fever? Check.
Mysterious Breast Pain? Check.
Hard, warm, red area on my breast where the pain is? Check, check and check.

Hello? Déjà vu much? Haven’t I been there, done that? Like just recently? The last few times this has happened, I’ve just let it go. I’m wondering if I should call my OB since this is so close on the heels of the last episode. I just feel ridiculous.

I hate fevers.

Posted in breastfeeding | 11 Comments »

Medication Changes

July 30, 2008 by chezperky

We saw the developmental pediatrician today. We were going to spend about 10-15 minutes talking about medication and the rest talking about behaviour managment issues. That was the plan. But we’ve been trying to sort out the dose on the patch, and not been having QUITE as much success as we’d like, so we ended up spending the entire 50 minute session working out medication ideas.

Essentially, the patch is working really well. But not exactly the way we’d like. At the lowest dose the patch comes in, his hyperactivity/impulsivity was still not controlled quite enough. At the next dose (50% higher), his hyperactivity/impulsivity was totally under control, but he became melancholy, lethargic, disinterested, and sad. So we moved him to 1 1/4 patches of the lower dose, which is a pain in the neck, but doable. Unfortunately, we still saw the mood side-effects, though to a lesser degree, which is just not okay. It’s very difficult, this balancing act. It breaks my heart. I don’t want to lose my vivacious little boy who is so full of life and love and energy and hope and beauty.

Switching to another stimulant isn’t really the answer, because we’ve been there, done that, and getting him to TAKE it is impossible, plus it would be just like using the patch – they’re all closely related. We know the patch is working, using more of another stimulant isn’t going to change what the patch is doing at this point.

So we’re going to augment with another medication entirely and work with that. We’ll give it a few days and see how it’s going and adjust the dose as necessary. Dr. S. is going to Ocean City this weekend and into next week. I feel like my lifeline is going away, even though he told me not to hesitate to call if I needed anything. I don’t want to call him on vacation. He reminded me that he knew when he decided that he would not sign over his practice except if he leaves the country, that this means that he gets interrupted on vacation for five minutes several times a day, and he’s okay with that. Still, I don’t like it one bit. That being said, we’ll probably NEED to be in touch, since we’re moving into starting a new medication and will need to be monitoring J pretty closely.

We’re starting at a teeny, tiny, ridiculously small dose. 0.2 ml of the medication (there are 1mg/ml). I’m hoping we can get J to even take it. Really, really hoping.

I feel this tremendous responsibility to J through all of this. I feel like we are manipulating him, in a sense. I suppose in a way, we are, though we are doing so to help him be able to function in a positive way. We want him to be able to learn optimally in a classroom, function socially like a normal preschooler/kindergartner, behave appropriate as a typical child in society. We want him to feel like he is in control of his little world, and like he has a positive effect on the world around him. We don’t want him receiving only negative feedback from teachers and friends. We don’t want him to be ostracized for his inability to control his impulses. Still, this manipulation is a tremendous responsibility. It’s difficult to know that we’re always making the right judgments. I wholeheartedly believe that we are doing the right thing by choosing to medicate him, as we are also choosing a behavior management approach in tandem with the medication trial. I just sometimes wonder if I’m adequately assessing the effects of the drug. What if I had a bad day and I’m looking at his behaviors through tinted glasses one day? What if I’m being unfair or biased? What if I’m not the RIGHT person for this job?

People see me with my triplets and they say, "You must be so tired" or "It must be so hard to parent triplets." But they never consider that the triplets are the easy part. They practically parent themselves right now. But every time I turn around, I feel like I’m doing the wrong thing with J. What if I accidentally yell at him and scar him for life? He’s so sensitive. What if I don’t give him enough positive feedback today? What if I don’t choose the right routine for him? What if I can’t find the right scenario to help him control his impulses to avoid the temper tantrum or conflict in the store? What if I make the wrong parenting choices today? What if I give the wrong input to the doctor and we choose the wrong medication based on faulty input from me? What if this has long term consequences that we didn’t know about?

These are the things they don’t tell you about in the parenting manual. These are the things I’m kind of glad I didn’t know about ahead of time. If I had, I might have chickened out and missed out on all the fun stuff.

Posted in ADHD | 6 Comments »

Moments in Motherhood

July 29, 2008 by chezperky

We’re having a bit of a rocky time getting J’s medication dosage set. It’s a fine line between hyperactivity and listlessness. Frustrating, you know? We don’t want to lose the beautiful, full-of-life boy that we love so much, but we do want him to be able to control his world a little better than he had been before. A fine line, you know. Still, he’s so yummy… after all, who can pass up the opportunity to love this little boy!

He had a speech/language assessment this morning and apparently did very well with the therapist. I don’t know the results yet, but I’ll keep you posted. For all we’re paying for it, it better be one thorough report, that’s for sure. He had a complete meltdown in the car as we were leaving and I felt terribly for him. I wish I could do more to help him. I fear that part of it is the medicine making him a little melancholy. We might have to make another switch. No one warned me about this part of motherhood. The choices we make for our children. The balancing act between helping them find control over their bodies, but keeping the happiness within. I know we’ll find the right answer. I know we’ll find the balance. Right now it feels so out of reach, but I know in time it will feel within reach again.

Sunday I took two of the babies down to VA to meet up with Jessica and Pam and one of Pam’s yummy triplets, Oliver. Or was it Miles? Or Linus? Just kidding. It was definitely Oliver. Or Linus. Or, um… No, seriously. It was Oliver. He was even wearing a shirt that said "Oliver" on it. A good time was had by all. I brought Abby and Sam with me. Jessica was sans children, which left her able to hold babies and feed them and love them and all sorts of good stuff. We got lots of attention from other patrons at Starbuck’s which is a bit ridiculous, don’t you think? Three women, three babies. Doesn’t that seem totally normal? We told a few people that between the three of us, we actually have 11 12 children and that turned a few heads. Imagine if we’d brought all 11 12 children with us! Sheesh!

Not to leave my other darling child out of the picture. After I came home from meeting up with Pam and Jessica, Seth and I went out to the container store for the aforementioned trip to the Container Store (rock on!). And then we came home to feed the babies dinner. When I cleaned up the babies with a washcloth, I couldn’t help but use the damp washcloth to give her the trademark mohawk! So fun! She’s such a happy baby, and here she is. Finally, we scoff at "failure to thrive" diagnoses! She’s healthy and beautiful and just… perfect. We worked hard for this and I’m loving every second of it.

Does motherhood get anymore perfect than this? Really? I don’t think it does. I waited so long for moments like these, and I’m so grateful for every one of them. Thank heaven for digital photography, so I can capture so many of these moments. I wish I were better about capturing more of them. I’ve missed so many of them already.

In other moments in motherhood, ones that I’d rather not live through… my nanny asked for a raise today. She asked for a good enough reason… that is, her rent is going up exponentially, and she simply needs more money in order to be able to afford it, plus she’s taken in her 5 year old niece just this week and will be taking care of her indefinitely (possibly forever) just as she’s found out about needing to change apartments to the higher rent (her landlord has decided to sell her current place, so she’s stuck moving – no choice). Unfortunately, we honestly can’t even afford her salary now. We’ve paid her out of money that has come from random sources, like our tax refund, Seth’s father’s (small) estate, etc. But we don’t know how we’ll pay her once we’re through with that (soon). If we were to pay her any more than we are currently paying her, it would make more sense for me to just quit my job and stay home with the kids, but we can’t afford for me to do that either. We pay her more than any of the other neighborhood nannies are making (admittedly, none of the other neighborhood nannies are watching triplet infants). Sigh. I hate that money ever comes between people. She did call me later and tell me not to worry about it and that she’d work something out and figure it out, that she loves these babies and that she doesn’t want me to think that she’s going anywhere, because she’s not. That reassures me, but I feel badly. I wish I could give her the world, because I love her, but I can’t.

No one tells you about this part of motherhood, either. The part where you become this attached to their caregiver, because you know that you’re trusting this person with the most important things in the world – your children, and you know you want the best for them.

Posted in ADHD, motherhood ... at last | 8 Comments »

I’m Smarter than You Think I Am

July 29, 2008 by chezperky

You guys don’t give me enough credit. Several of you have pointed out that my bin system of organization just won’t last as soon as the babies get their grubby little paws on them. But hello? Don’t you realize I can outsmart a 10 month old?

The bins that are within the triplets’ reach have diapers and towels in them. These are easily re-stockable and re-foldable, and re-doable. These do not require serious reorganization if they are dumped out (so far, by the way, my triplets haven’t shown the least bit of interest in the bins). The bins with clothes on them are on shelves that are at MY eye level. Now, I realize that I’m pretty darned short (five foot nuthin’), but I do believe I’m a bit taller than my 3 ten month olds, unless you stack them one on top of another, but they’re not that good at balancing… yet.

Posted in Organizing | 8 Comments »

Organizing

July 27, 2008 by chezperky

We had a busy weekend, including having my grandfather visiting, having his dog with him, my mother in law’s cat here for the weekend, 13 people for dinner Friday night, an Emergency Room visit for Seth Saturday evening (nothing’s broken, but 14 xrays later, a sprained ankle, a sprained knee, and a bruised ego, and his prognosis is that he’ll be fine, though he might take as much as 6 weeks to feel totally normal again – no getting out of baby duty though), meeting up with some triplet mamas for coffee Sunday morning (me and two babies – more on that in another post), a trip to the aquarium for J with Grammy and Great Grandpa on Sunday, and a shopping trip to The Container Store for Seth, me and the triplets. You see, now that the babies are mobile, they have been messing with my system. Specifically, my system for organizing baby clothes. SuperNanny also messes with my system. I have a system for putting away the baby clothes on the two shelves below the changing table in the nursery. But SuperNanny, for all her super-ness, can’t seem to figure it out. She doesn’t fold clothes neatly, and doesn’t seem to put clothes in logical places (I put all the PJs together, all the onesies together, all the dresses together, etc. … she? does not). The babies also do not fold clothes neatly and do not put clothes in logical places. They, in fact, have taken to UNfolding clothes and dumping them all over the floor. So I can no longer completely blame SuperNanny for the disarray that the clothes are in. I could blame, her, I suppose, but it would be counterproductive. I didn’t take a before picture, but if I had, it would look something like this: Now that we’ve made a trip to The Container Store, and I have spent several hours going through the rubble, it looks more like this: And this: I feel much better now. We’ll see how long it lasts.