Just as Sane as I Am

So. It's officially the apocalypse. School's closed, which means we're stuck at home. And how is this affecting us? Honestly? It's great . Remember how I ranted about not having enough time with Lily? How awful it was to have to leave her every morning and be hooked up to a pump all the time so she could eat and not really even know if she was getting enough food? With one swift kick of a pandemic, none of this is a concern anymore! We're "stuck" at home with all the Lily time we could want! Seriously. Though I'm usually quite sarcastic, there's none of that here. We get to wake up and take her out of her crib every morning, and she's always smiling and happy. I can nurse her and play with her to make sure she gets plenty of tummy time, back time, time in her Bumbo seat and her jumper to practice sitting and walking. We can play with all of her toys to help her pick things up and show interest in different items. We can read to her. Make ...

Saturday night. Driving home. Jon and Lily in the back seat. Coming around the traffic circle two minutes from our house. Blinker on to get off at our exit. "Watch out!" from the backseat. Bam! They hit us. I hadn't even seen the car come up on my left side. They hit near the wheel well of the passenger's side at the front of the car. I was exiting the circle, they were entering; at least neither of us was going particularly fast. I'm 34, and I'd never been in a car accident before. I started shaking and blinking and just saying, "Oh my god. Oh my god," over and over again. I knew I had to pull over. Started driving slowly - well, I couldn't drive anything but slowly. The front of my car was apparently hanging off and dragging along the road, scratching against the gravel in protest. Thank god  Lily didn't flinch. Thank god  our cars were moving slowly. Thank god  no one was really injured. I guess my left hand flew off the steeri...

I'm about a month in to being back at work, and so far it's... well. It's not my favorite thing. My first day back, I have to be honest, I was surprised at how well I handled it. I didn't even cry. I got a little choked up when I left the house, but that was it. No tears. Did that make me heartless? Of course I worried about not worrying. My mom sent us pictures of Lily throughout the day, and I live (still) for those texts. When I got home that first day, Mom told me Lily had had a tough time, which I probably could have done without hearing. She apparently cried more than usual and didn't eat that much - maybe 4 oz the entire time I was out. Something else to worry about. Would she resist eating if she got upset everyday? How would that affect her healthy weight gain? Work itself has been pretty decent. On the walk down to my classroom on day 1, it felt like I had never left. That was part of why it was so easy. There was some minor resistance from the stu...

(Warning - I’m about to get political, but it only lasts a paragraph, so if you don’t agree with my angry liberal spewing, it doesn’t go on for too long. Don’t worry.) The older I get, unlike most people, the more liberally angry I seem to be becoming. (Health insurance is a big focus of this – I hate that I had a procedure that may be billed to my insurance company at $35,000, but my insurance only pays $10,000 of it and I am not asked for any more money. Meanwhile, because of whatever circumstances that may be out of people’s control, and we’re not gonna argue about what those are right now, some people don’t have health insurance and they’re asked to pay the full amount. Um, if they can’t afford health insurance, how are they going to afford procedures that are ridiculously expensive and clearly not even worth a third of what people are being charged? People in America degrade social healthcare, when most first world countries have it, and it really does work pretty well. Mo...

Or the One about family restrooms. While I was still pregnant, we stopped into a “family restroom” in one of the many local malls to see exactly what it entailed. It was gorgeous – you had to walk around a wall, but on the other side were two leather gliders where you could nurse your baby. Off to either side of that were two bathrooms. What a relief to know such a wonderland existed! We were pretty impressed and figured this is what most places would be like. Not true. When you have a baby, you start to find all kinds of inclusive and non-inclusive parenting places. Not every place of business even has one of those pull down changing table wall units for you to use. When we took Lily to the oral surgeon, Jon had to use one of our portable changing mats to change her on the floor. And that was relatively new, clean building. How much can those wall units possibly cost? For a place that does pediatrics, you would think investing in one of those would be thoughtful. I think my favo...

Or Even more health issues So does Lily mind her harness? Not particularly unless we try to put her on her stomach. Tummy time is really important for infants, as I’m sure many of you know. When we put Lily on her stomach, no matter how many blankets we have on the floor, she loses her mind. It’s probably due to the fact that she has a strap going across her chest, and when it is pressed into her, I’m sure it’s uncomfortable. She had an appointment with her pediatrician not long after her harness was put on. The pediatrician wanted to take the harness off to weigh and measure Lily, but we swiftly insisted she not do that since we didn’t know how to put it back on. She was horrified. She had never heard of leaving a harness on 100% of the time. She told us that usually, parents are allowed to take it off for doctors’ appointments and bathing, as well as tummy time, which she also wasn’t happy to hear isn’t happening too much these days. I mean, it can still happen while Lily la...