I need Mary Poppins

[judecorp]

hopemcg and meglett and Quinn are coming to stay with us on Friday. OMGSQUEEEE, I am so excited I could pee my pants. Yay!

But there's nothing like impending houseguests to really point out how dirty your house is, you know? Oh, I don't mean we live in filth or that our floor is lined with dirty dishes or anything gross like that, but certain things tend to get left out because they're tough to do with a baby. Things like vacuuming.

Today I put the Punk in the Moby and proceeded to vacuum the entire house. And I do mean the entire house. And oh my god it needed it. But trying to vacuum a whole house with an 18lb kid attached to you, trying to get away? Hard. Much harder than it was when she was about 1 month old, which I think was the last time I did it. But yay, done.

I also finally pulled the couch cover off so it could be washed. It was lovingly stained with months of spit up. Now that she doesn't spit up so much, it's time.

That might not seem like a lot of work but you don't really understand what a day with Punk looks like. Unless she is asleep, I cannot be doing anything else but interacting with her and holding her and touching her and going from activity to activity so she does not yell and cry. If I want to eat, she needs to sit on my lap. If I have to go to the bathroom, I take the Bumbo seat with me. If I need to do something where I can't carry her (like put laundry away) I can put her in the exersaucer IF I can get it done in 6 minutes, which is her limit. And I can hardly vacuum while she is sleeping.

Speaking of sleeping, I tried to get her to nap without the swaddle again today. After an hour, and her becoming totally hysterical, I broke out the swaddle. She is still sleeping. But I may never recover. I don't even know what to do anymore.

But when you DO manage to vacuum with an 18 lb kid on you, AND you get the couch covers washed and dried, AND you managed to entertain a baby all day, AND you spend an hour making a baby hysterical because she just can not sleep unless she is totally immobilized (no matter how much she hates it), the last thing you want to hear from your wife is, "So did you get anything else done?"

Yeah. I got to eat lunch. At 2pm. And I e-mailed the information to the accountant. And got the mail. But I still haven't had a drink today. Aah well - it cuts down on the bathroom trips for sure.

I have fantasies sometimes of having that baby you can put down on the floor for a few minutes while you eat or check e-mail. Like real fantasies. I also have nightmares of what will happen when my child, who needs constant one-on-one attention and copious amounts of parenting to sleep, needs to go to child care. Sometimes I don't know how much longer I can do this... or if maybe she whines and cries so much because someone else would be a lot better at taking care of her. Heaven knows I'm not able to take care of the house at all, and maybe a better mama would be able to keep my kid from crying all day.

I need Mary Poppins.

Comments

[fleur.livejournal.com]

Good times. 2 of N's kids were like that as babies; they *literally* had to be held every nanosecond that they were not asleep or they would scream like they were being stabbed. Literally. Every. Minute. Sometimes ONLY mom could hold them, other times someone else was fine as long as they were being held. The good news is they do grow out of it!

[amyura.livejournal.com]

She's 18 pounds?!?! Dang I'm jealous!

No, she's at a normal age to cry and I think you're an awesome mama. It's HARD taking care of a kid and a house at the same time. Mary Poppins didn't have to. I think it was the Bems who came up with the line, "Mary Poppins wouldn't have answered an ad for a housekeeper," to remind us of how important caring for children is and why the whole notion of a "housewife" is so sexist.

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

WHEN??!?!?

I mean, I love my kid and I like holding her and playing with her... but sometimes ya just gotta go to the bathroom. :)

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

She was 18lbs two weeks ago. BIG BABY. She is also, get this, 28 freaking inches long. SHE DOES NOT GET THIS FREAKISH HEIGHT FROM ME.

It's not even like I do a majority of the housework. Well maybe I do. I don't know. I do a lot of the tidying up but most days that's whatcha get - tidying. When something has to be really CLEANED, Jen does a lot of that because I'm usually totally spent. But I do do a lot of picking up. Bleh.

I need to be independently wealthy so I can hire someone to clean the house. Also I need the weather to get nicer. ACCIO SPRING! Because Punk is much more chipper and antiwhiny when we can go outside, and I can't do a ton of inside things up in here because they cost money.

Money. It all comes down to money.

[hyperpurple.livejournal.com]

Eee-gad. I imagine vaccuming the whole house with an 18 lb kid on your back is something like vaccuming the whole house with a 24 lb kid on your back, something I've spent a fair amount of time doing. Boy, do I feel for you!

It's times like this where I wish I lived much closer to you. My best friend and I get together once a week: I hold the baby and interact with him, while she cleans, and we chat. It works mainly because aside from her, I'm the person who spends the most time with him and he thinks of me as a parent, so we don't have the "I WANT MAMA NOOOOW!" issues.

I do want to put this out there; If you need to get something done, and need to put her down and let her cry for 20 minutes to accomplish this, no one is going to say "wow, Jude is a horrible mother!". both you and the punk will recover from the trauma, I promise, and everyone in the entire world who has ever spent lots of time with a baby has done it from time to time.

[fleur.livejournal.com]

Haha! I think hers had both basically let it go by the time they were 1.

Now, after you've picked your face up off the floor, I remember having a couple of intense conversations with her where she said "you know how much I love my kids, but I have an entire household to run and that means sometimes I have to have both hands, which means I'm going to put you down and you are just going to have to cry and be mad at me. Either that or you don't eat and neither does anyone else". Which, while frustrating, she said was ultimately more rewarding than just being upset that she didn't ever get to anything for days at a time.

[thatpatti.livejournal.com]

when i started reading this comment i totally thought, "oh cool - she got jennifer's tall genes."

hehe :)

[thatpatti.livejournal.com]

i would be insane by now. and i totally know how it feels when people don't realize just how extreme your situation is. when they're all, "oh yeah - my dog sheds a lot, too." and i just shake my head because THEY DO NOT KNOW.

you need to take more pictures of her screaming, so we get a better feel for what she's actually like. :D

at least she's REALLY FREAKING CUTE, right???

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

Well, there are definitely times that I just have to let her get upset. Like that moment when you realize you HAVE to go to the bathroom and you cannot wait another second. So you call out from the bathroom, "Don't worry! I'm coming back!"

I also can occasionally get 15 minutes out of the doorway jumper. This is a new phenomenon, but it means that I can often do some dishes. Exciting, right?

I don't do the cooking, because it would be a lost cause. Jen ends up cooking while I am putting the baby to bed.

1 is do-able. Just not 2. :)

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

Ha!

But Jen's only like an inch taller than I am. :) She just wears BIG SHOES!!

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

Ha ha ha, that's like the time when I was talking about her spitting up and someone said, "There is no spit up in any of those pictures, so I don't believe you." So I had to start taking pictures like this:

(http://www.flickr.com/photos/judecorp/2213436246/)

It would be hard for me to get a picture of the screaming because I would have to be hiding or something. But I will work on this for you. :) Because I love you.

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

p.s. I will totally vouch for you. Millie sheds LIKE WOAH!!

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

Thing is, she's too spastic for me to wear her on my back. I had to vacuum with her ON MY FRONT, YO!!! And I had to try not to hit her with the vacuum! It was craziness, I tell you!

I would love to have someone who has hung out with my kid a lot that could come and amuse her so I could run down to the basement to do laundry. Because really, I can let her scream for five minutes while I put some clothes away or while I go put something in the fridge or whatever, but I don't feel comfortable going down to the basement when she's upset. (What if she bonks her face or something?)

I don't think anyone on teh internets would say I was a bad mama if I let her whine for 20 minutes... but *I* would. And that's enough for me, dude. :)

[juju-bug.livejournal.com]

Yea, give yourself some credit there - you're doing awesome - and probably a lot more than many other folks would be willing to put up with? I can totally relate on those points... I need mary poppins too!
Rio is sort of a high needs baby - I guess - I mean, I have some days when she's happy on her own - then there's the rest of the day (which is most of the days) - that I can't put her down for a second. She has made a permanent seat on my left hip - I carry her there ALL the time. Even when we go out - a stroller is only good for about 10 minutes in a store - then I have to carry her and use the stroller as my basket. My knees are busted from bending up and down incorrectly, and I'm convinced my left wrist will eventually fall off from holding her weight. (which is really bad because I work on computers all day, and its really hard to type and use the mouse pad with one hand.) And even with all that - she'll still cry and protest and I just feel like a total failure. :( But we do our best, you know?
Hang in there - you're not alone in this. :) *hugs*

[oppendonnell.livejournal.com]

I, for one, am impressed with the number of things you got done. I would call just *one* of those accomplishments a victory.

[katishna.livejournal.com]

Evan was so similar. I had to entertain him constantly. He put me off to babies for nearly 4 years! Laurie is my reward for having dealt with Evan, she is so easy to put down and let play for long stretches. So have heart, even if Punk never improves as a baby from this, as a preschooler Evan's not so bad and can play on his own, and if you have #2 you might get a lucky break.

[lelumama.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a looooong day.

I hate hate hate to clean while my kids are awake, it's practically counterproductive because as soon as I get something done, another part of he house is destroyed. The only thing I do during the day is dishes and sweeping, washing and drying laundry, and folding while they nap, making my bed and scrubbing the toilet. Vacuuming waits until Mark is bathing them at night before bed. Everything else is done on the weekend in shifts.

Or it doesn't get done. Period.

[mlove.livejournal.com]

set that shit to music, sister. for real.

[whuffle.livejournal.com]

You don't need Mary Poppins and neither does Punk. She needs you, her mama, who understands her better than anyone else because you ARE there every moment. I have a ton of respect for you and for how hard you've worked to make her happy. Don't discount how much of a full time job that is. And I know that despite an occasional thoughtless comment like "what else did you do?", your wonderful wife also knows that your time with Punk is a full time job.

BTW, really weird case of syncronicity; I read two posts (yours being the second) both of which mentioned visits by hopemcg and meglett. The really weird and neat part of this is that I know that you and the other poster do NOT know each other. The other poster is mamajoan, whom I've known since college. And weirdly enough, meglett and hopemcg and also listed as friends of oppendonnell whom I have known since high school.

[meglett.livejournal.com]

on the synchronicity: WEIRD!! hope and i know joan via various online trying-to-conceive/parenting sites, but this will be the first time meeting her and the kids. and we've met The Family O, but in a big group setting and we didn't get to talk much. we've gotten to know them better online....

it seems like i should friend you, okay? :)

[meglett.livejournal.com]

okay, so i am NOT suggesting that gus needs to go to childcare in order to get "better" care. not.at.all. but i wanted to address your concern about the potential of gus going to daycare and being high needs. we had very similar concerns--and i know quinn wasn't as high needs as gus, but the first 12 months were a doozy. it was hard to get her to sleep, definitely required lotsa EMB/formula [and, uh, she still gets a bottle at nap time when she's at home. shoot me. we know we've got to stop, but when you have a good thing going, it's hard to give that up.] and a quite involved rocking/patting/swaying routine.

her first daycare was home-based, and well, that didn't work out b/c of sleep issues. but it was more related to the caregiver having 2 other toddlers. once we got her in a daycare center, it got better. we were afraid of getting kicked out or at least worried they'd hate us for being "those parents," but quinn adapted. she never took long naps, which sucked (like most days, she'd sleep for 30 minutes. for the whole day.). but the lack of sleep didn't make her grouchy--something we never understood. we think there was just so much more going on there than at home--all of the kids. the various kinds of toys. the gym mat thingy.

so try not to stress over this. looking back, i wasted a lot of energy doing just that. i know this is easier said than done, and i hope this isn't too assvice-y. mainly i wanted to say that we've been there, and it turned out okay. *hugs*

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

But see, this wasn't even a bad day.

On the bad days, I cry and Punk laughs at me.

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

I, too, have mastered the art of the one-arm-stroller-pushing. When I have a stroller. Which isn't often. But even if I have her in a wrap, by the time half an hour has gone by, I am wearing the wrap AND carrying the baby. Whoops. She just likes to have things Her Own Way.

What's funny is that she doesn't much like to be held or carried, either. So she whines and cries when she is on the floor, and then I pick her up and she just writhes out of my arms over and over. So I put her down. And she cries.

She doesn't know what she wants!!

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

I feel like I did a lot, too!

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

Well, if we do have a #2 it will be Jen's turn, so it's like starting from scratch all over again. I don't know if I can realistically handle a #2, even though I want a lot of kids. I just know that if I get to a place where I get to shower and sleep again, I will be scared to go back. Right now it just feels "normal."

I'm glad Laurie is good to you! :)