Do you know how many tries it took to capture even that crazy-looking picture of a smile? Many. It took many tries. I had to kiss him and make coochy-woochy noises, then quickly get out of the way, put the camera in front of his face, and hope the picture wouldn’t be all blurry from not using the flash. Repeat and repeat and repeat, until the poor baby wouldn’t smile anymore.

The little ingrate smiled first at Paul. Hey, no, don’t take into consideration whose nipples were all cracked but nursed you anyway, taking a layer of enamel off her teeth from clenching so hard with each painful latch-on. Don’t take into consideration who gets up with you at 3:30 in the morning when you want a little snack or a little company. No, no, I wouldn’t want to influence you by reminding you who it was who gave up her body as a vessel for nine months, barfing and barfing in what had better turn out to be a genetic advantage. Heavens no! Neither will I present Exhibit A: stretch marks, or Exhibit B: saggy tum flap, or Exhibit C: hormones you could sharpen a knife on. No! Go ahead and smile first at the other one, that’s fine with me.

I had a bad dream about my mother-in-law last night. She was telling me what a good cook she is (she does tell me this, repeatedly), and how I should really use her recipes if I want to make Paul happy (she doesn’t say this outright, but constantly hints it). I summoned up all my courage and told her that Paul doesn’t actually like her cooking (this is true). She said knowingly, “Oh, I think he does,” and then rapidly started talking about something else–which is EXACTLY what she does whenever I disagree with her on any subject: flatly contradicts me and then goes on to another subject in the same breath so I can’t argue. The whole encounter was so realistic. Thanks to my subconscious, I get extra time with my mother-in-law!

This is Day 5 of her not telling us that she’s coming for a visit. At first I thought–charitably, and then feeling righteous and lovely for being so charitable toward someone I can’t stand–that perhaps she was just waiting to mention it the next time she wrote to us, which would be a perfectly reasonable thing for her to do (more self-awarded points for me, for being so reasonable myself). But she has now emailed us, and has failed to mention the trip, which tells me that she’s hiding it. One thing I hate about Paul’s family is how SECRETIVE they all are. Last time she visited she took a plane, and she hid her departure date. As if we weren’t going to find out! She also won’t tell us how she meets her boyfriends, which of course makes me assume she meets them in some shameful, sordid fashion (I picture her hanging out in the hallways of nursing homes, licking her lips and waggling her eyebrows suggestively at all the old men wheeling by), but probably just means it makes her feel powerful not to tell.

I went to the dentist earlier this week for what was supposed to be just a cleaning. Actually, never mind, I don’t want to discuss this after all, forget I said anything. Suffice it to say that dentist stuff, it SUCKS. Sucks YOUR MONEY.

It seems like everything needs money from us right now: the couch is broken, the kitchen faucet is broken, the lawnmower is broken, the insurance copays have gone up and we got back-billed for two months’ worth of them, the hospital wants to see a little cash for that whole c-section thing, there’s our goddamned teeth which ought to be hand-crafted out of solid gold by the time we’re done paying for them, etc. Paul is all, “It’s going to be okay, it really is,” and I guess it will be, but doesn’t it sometimes feel as if it’s just one huge expense after another your entire life? When will there be big wads of cash that DON’T go for dental work and various insurances and car repairs? And then I can hear buzzing in the back of my mind about how we should have 6 months’ living expenses in savings AND be saving for the kids’ college educations AND what do you MEAN you don’t have a retirement account, you’ll NEVER be able to retire now, NEVER, NEVERRRRRRRRRRRR!!!

I found a couple of old posts I thought I had already posted. Or maybe I did post them and these are unused draft versions, so now I will seem to be repeating myself. Well, whatever, I’ve posted them now:

Now Is Not The Time
LYKWTAMBYTWAWTTO Day!

Go relive April and May!

Yesterday and today I have felt NUTS, like I’m going to fly up in the sky and shoot out sprays of irritation and anger over all the land. Everything is pissing me off, everything is stressful, there are too many stressful, pissy things happening all at once. I can’t even tell if this is a postpartum thing or if life is actually stressful and pissy right now. All I know is that I don’t like anybody or anything, and that it seems like it would feel really great to take a whole stack of plates out to the driveway and smash them one after another. Mmmmm, destruction.

Since we scared all the pregnant women with our postpartum discussion a few days ago, it seems only fair that we now share tips on the things that can help to alleviate the problem. Let’s try not to laugh a hard, bitter laugh as we try to think of things.

I’ve mentioned in another post that it helps me to have good food, and to try to do one small task per day. I’ve also mentioned that I do whatever gets me more sleep. Here are some other things I’ve tried with some success. And when I say “some success,” I assume you know I mean “It may keep me from packing my bag and heading for a hotel hide-out, but it doesn’t take that off the list of options.” These are just things that sometimes make me feel a little better, not things that “fix” anything or make any kind of huge difference. I assume you also know that I am in no way qualified to give out any kind of medical advice whatsoever, and that if you are feeling truly nuts you need to consult a doctor about it because postpartum stuff can be really serious and bad, right? Good.

1) Coffee, small amounts (too much can make me all jittery and snappish, and I think I have gracious plenty of that already), especially with a selection of flavored creamers to stir into it and a cookie to eat with it. I once read on a web site that 1/4th cup of coffee taken medicinally every hour can be helpful for mild depression.

2) Turning on lots and lots of lights. I read that tip on the same website that mentioned the medicinal coffee. I’d thought it wouldn’t help, but it did seem to improve my mood on dark, sad mornings.

3) Taking fish oil capsules. I read a long time ago that a study found fish oil helped with postpartum depression. That could be a total load, but it stayed with me and now if it’s not true I don’t want to hear about it. There is something to be said for the placebo effect.

4) Nice smells. A pretty shower gel, a good perfume–but not a scented candle in this state of mind or you’ll accidentally burn the house down and then think how sad you’ll be.

For the love of god, tell me you have more ideas, because that list is pitiful and the combination of insurance issues and the kids’ giddiness is making me feel like scorching the land with my wrath.

Here is a Swistle pregnancy tip: play The Sims computer game in your third trimester.

On The Sims, you monitor the mental and physical health of your Sims people by consulting a little panel of bars. There is a bar for hunger, a bar for fun, a bar for needing to pee, a bar for needing comfort, etc. A bar heading toward solid red means things are getting dangerously bad; a bar heading toward solid green means things are looking good. A little diamond hovers above the head of the Sim, giving a summary of all the bars combined: green is good, grey is getting bad, red is time to dive for cover.

If you experience postpartum the way I do, you will have times when you start feeling all darty-eyed and frantic and crazy and sad, and everything is bad at the same time, and it seems as if the only solution is to sit there and cry at the futility of existence. There are so many things I need, and I know that if I get them I will feel better, but I’m so overwhelmed by the sheer number of things I need that I can’t even do a single one. It feels pointless even to try to pee, since the house will still be a mess and I’ll still be starving and I’ll still need a shower and the baby will still want to be clumped sweatily on my shoulder every minute of every day and I’ll still have a dishtowel stuffed under my shirt because all my nursing bras are in the laundry basket.

If I’ve been playing The Sims for the last couple of months, however, I will be in auto-play mode, seeing little red/green bars wherever I turn. I will not try to get every single one of my bars to green but rather to improve the bar-averaging diamond over my head by fixing the things that are easiest to fix. It is helpful to remember that even just peeing will improve your overall situation; it works for a Sim, anyway. Eating a muffin improves things still further. Putting one dirty plate in the sink = even better. Every small thing you do will add up. And that is good, because there are times when a single small thing is about all you can manage. Go pee now, there’s a good girl.

This morning my mother has taken all five children. All five! I have 45 minutes of utter aloneness in the house before I need to go pick up three of them. So far I have used my precious, precious time to:

1) pee with the door open
2) eat four–no, five–Reese’s peanut butter cups

Woo hoo, party at my house!

I went to The Children’s Place store yesterday and bought a few more things to supplement last week’s online order. I found the pink patterned maryjane sneakers, which was happy: I’d only been able to get them in blue on the site. I also found the pink/orange hoodie in 4T for next year: there were none in 4T on the site so I’d bought it in 3T, but 3T is this year’s size and so probably I’ll return that one when it arrives (Elizabeth already has two spring-patterned hoodies in 3T). I also bought a pink crinkle skirt and a purple shirt with a huge ice cream cone on it. I’d wanted the huggable octopus shirt but they didn’t have any left in bigger sizes. I considered the striped crinkle skirt and maybe I will still go back for it, but yesterday the twins were falling apart and I didn’t have enough time to consider shirt options.

While I was out, I also bought the big bottle of Dove 2-in-1 moisturizing shampoo conditioner. I used it this morning but my hair is still wet so it’s too soon for a report.

So! On to non-retail news! My mother-in-law is in touch with my parents from time to time, and she emailed them yesterday to say that she is driving out to visit us this October. How many days do you think it will be before she tells us? Let’s start the count: today is Day 1.

So. October. And this is July. That means I have roughly three months to clean the house. It will not be enough time. I think I am going to have to bring back “Digging Ourselves Out” projects. I did one the day before yesterday but didn’t think to take a Before picture. We have a large endtable next to the couch, and it was piled so high with clutter, items were actually sliding down as if on skis. I’d intended to remove only the things Edward was actively getting into, but I inadvertently triggered a total-endtable clear-up. Now no one is allowed to put a single thing on that Lemon Pledge-shiny surface. EVER AGAIN.

One of my brother’s friends had a baby a few months before I had mine, and they gave out the web address of their blog so that friends and relatives could keep up with the news. One detail caught my eye: they wrote that they’d been told to allow for 200 diapers for the first month, but that “those people don’t know our baby–we used 500!”

I’ve never tracked my babies’ diaper usage, but 500 sounded high. It’s not the first time I’ve seen estimates that seemed high: because I had twins, I’m always reading about and hearing about twins, and I would keep hearing about twin newborns “going through an entire package of diapers per day.” Diapers for newborns are typically sold in packages containing 40-56 diapers. If the twins were sharing a 40-pack a day, that would be 600 diapers per twin in the first month; a 56-pack a day is 840 diapers per twin per month.

I’ve seen high cost estimates, too: in the cloth vs. disposable debate, figures are thrown around about how many hundred dollars per month it costs to keep a baby in disposables, and the number always seems higher than I feel like we spend–but who knows, maybe it just disappears into the rest of the shopping and I don’t notice it.

So now I had to know: how many diapers does MY baby use? and how much does it cost? I brought a notepad with me to the hospital, and as soon as the nurse put Henry’s very first diaper on him, I started tracking how many we used. Looking back on it, I realize it would have been way WAY easier to keep track of how many packages of diapers we bought, but never mind that, I didn’t think of it, let’s just go with what we have and not discuss how dumb I may or may not have been.

One month seems like a good time to check in. Does this mean he is one month old? NO HE IS NOT I REFUSE TO ACCEPT IT. Also, Henry is right now outgrowing newborn-size diapers, so the next package I buy will be size 1, which changes diaper count and cost: going from size newborn to size 1 is the only time you get more diapers for the same price; after that, you get fewer and fewer diapers for the same price.

So here is the report: In one month, Henry used 180 diapers. The newborn-size diapers I buy are sold in packages of 40 diapers, and it’s possible I missed recording a diaper change or two, so let’s round it up to 200 diapers, or 5 full packages.

I buy Target brand diapers, which cost $5.75 for a package. So Henry’s diapers for one month (5 packages) cost me $28.75. It’ll cost me less next month when I can get 56 diapers for the same price as I spend for 40 now.

William’s diapers cost us more, though, when he was a newborn. The Wa1mart diapers I was using at the time (we didn’t have a Target near us then) didn’t work on him; he kept leaking out of them somehow, with the diaper dry and his outfit soaked. Memory fails me, but I think I bought Luvs because they were the least expensive of the brands. Memory fails me again when I try to remember how much a package of Luvs cost, but I know it was more than the store brand ones, so that would make his diaper use more costly.

I just posted a little while ago, so don’t miss the cookie post below if you haven’t seen it yet. But pretty, pretty Mir alerted me to a good deal over at The Children’s Place, and we all like our kids to dress the same, right? …Right? Anyway, there’s a clearance sale AND a $10-off-$30 coupon AND a free shipping deal, so I got some stuff for Elizabeth for next summer. I tried to link to each thing I bought, but it didn’t work–but just go to the “outlet” section, and all the stuff I got was under “baby girls.”

I bought the cute false-advertising “Never Crabby” shirt that Shelly’s Peanut modeled the other day, and in fact I bought it in two sizes so Elizabeth can tell lies this summer and next summer. I bought the yoga skort in the same blue color (called “oxygen”), and then bought the white t-shirt with the blue “CUTIE” on it, and a dolphin shirt I think will go with the skort too, and the blue socks, and the blue patterned maryjane sneakers. Plus of course the hoodie in both colors it comes in, because I love both, and because I love the hoodies I got for Elizabeth in the spring clearance, and because Shannon’s Darsie has it (top photo) and I am so influenced by what other people’s kids look cute in.

Why did I buy nothing at all for the four boys? Er. I have no good explanation, other than that it is fun to buy girl clothes.

If you follow Mir’s link for free shipping, allow a little time for the coupon to arrive: I think mine came about an hour later. Do the dumb little game first (it wants personal information like your name and address, but you have to give them that anyway when you place an order), then shop, then see if the coupon came yet. And, as Mir says, you can use that shipping coupon along with the $10-off-$30 coupon, so as long as you order $30 worth of stuff, you get it for $20 and you get it shipped free. Awesome.

If you buy anything, tell me what you bought! I might have to place another order.

Today we will discuss markers of the postpartum time. I will tell you the things that, for me, announce its arrival, for the first baby or for the fifth, and maybe you can add others you’ve experienced or heard of.

Sometimes I feel like everything is going GREAT! I am incorporating this baby into the household SEAMLESSLY! It is NO BIG DEAL! It is like I am some kind of NATURAL! I could handle even TWO MORE babies! I have to tell the world that having a baby is not as scary as they think! EVERYONE should have babies! LOTS of babies! Babies are GREAT! I LOVE babies!

Other times I feel like this SUCKS. I can’t do this AT ALL. Furthermore, NO ONE could, because this is NOT POSSIBLE. I am twenty steps behind. Everyone is crying. Everyone needs something, and I’m the only one who can provide it. I will never catch up. I cut off one hydra head and three more grow back. I have to tell the world that having a baby is very, very hard and that they shouldn’t be alarmed if they feel like it is suckily impossible to cope with one.

Sometimes I feel soppily grateful to my husband. He is the only one who holds us together. He is the only one holding me together. I could never do this without him. He is so good. I am so lucky.

Other times I envy single mothers. I think about divorce. I wonder how I could have married someone so inconsiderate and insensitive and MEAN and YUCKY-SMELLING.

I feel waves of animal-like affection for the baby. I try to stuff him right up my nose, he smells so good. I snuffle his neck. I rub his hair on my cheek. I fiddle with his tiny toesies. I look at him and can’t believe how lucky I am to have him. So many reasons he wouldn’t be here! And yet he is! He’s my BABY! SNUFFLE SNUFFLE SNUFFLE!

I worry that I don’t love the baby yet. Other mothers describe feeling an instant connection to the baby as soon as the baby was born, but my babies always look like total strangers to me–and not very cute strangers, either. They could be ANYBODY’S baby. It feels weird to let a total stranger NURSE on me. I remember that I felt this way about each of my other babies, and that I always ended up loving them–but what if it doesn’t happen this time? What if I never love this baby? Sure, I feel like squeezing him too hard and that’s a good sign–but what if we never connect? What if I had too many children and he’s going to suffer for it?

I feel rage at everyone. The cats: they are pick-pick-PICKING at the door at 4:00 in the morning, and it is possible I could accidentally kick them so hard I injure or kill them. I have to make a conscious effort not to. I do still “help them along” with one foot, but stop abruptly because it seems like it would feel so good to actually hurt them. Rage at the kids, and at Paul: I feel like saying ugly things to them, and I do say some. As with the cats, I have to make a conscious effort to stop. It doesn’t always work. I hear myself saying the ugly things, most of them involving how much I have to do around here, and how little anyone else does, and how everyone else is driving me CRAZY. When the ragey feeling passes, I feel horrible. The ugly things I said are my fresh nighttime fret fodder. I suspect I’m damaging the children. I shouldn’t have even had children. I’m a terrible mother. Rage at the baby: how can he be crying again? I do everything for him, EVERYTHING! And he has everything he needs, EVERYTHING! I’ve fed him! changed him! snuggled him! burped him! Now why can’t he be quiet and needless for FIVE MINUTES?

I feel desperate and panicky for sleep, especially in the middle of the night. I feel as if I’m going crazy. I feel like I will throw up from lack of sleep. I feel like if I have to wake up one more time I am going to go out to the car and sleep there. I feel like killing Paul because he’s sleeping and I’m not. I think about how the nice thing about dying is you wouldn’t have this feeling of not getting enough sleep. I feel like hurting the nurse when she says sternly, “You’re getting enough sleep, right?”–as if I might be ABLE to get more sleep but am just CHOOSING not to.

I make plans to escape. I could go to a hotel, not tell anyone where I am. I could make up a dying friend I must go visit.

If I see a sad news story, especially if it has to do with children or pregnant women, I feel a weight descend on me. The world is a terrible place; we can’t live here. Bad things happen all the time; bad things will happen to us; bad things will happen to my children. Slide-show of all the bad things that could happen to my children.

If I handle a knife, I imagine it somehow flying out of my hand and hurting the baby, even if I’m nowhere near the baby. If I walk past the railing, I imagine myself somehow dropping the baby down to the first floor. If I bathe the baby, I imagine somehow accidentally letting the baby drown. If I put the baby in the car, I imagine somehow accidentally leaving him in there. It happens every time: every knife, every railing, every bath, every car trip. Every time, it makes me feel like throwing up.

I feel like I can’t stand to hear even one more stressful thing. Not ONE. If Paul tells me that he lost a contact lens, or that one of his teeth feels kind of ouchie, or that one of the kids has a funny-looking patch on his skin, I feel like I CAN’T COPE. I feel heavy and weighed-down, like I can’t move or breathe. It is too much. I can’t deal with it. I can’t turn my mind to it. He might as well not tell me, because I am already at maximum capacity for these things; I can’t think about anything more.

It feels especially awful as it gets closer to the time Paul gets home from work. All day long I might feel as if things are going well, but as it gets later I start picturing what the house would look like to someone coming home to it after a day at work. Clutter on every single horizontal surface, and creeping on up the vertical ones. Children everywhere, hyper or crabby or crying but all LOUD, with their hair uncombed and stains on their shirts and crust around their noses. Wife with matted-looking hair and shiny forehead and milk-circle-stained shirt, slumped despondently in a chair. Piles of laundry starting to smell like sour milk. Sheets unchanged since who knows when. Mess and noise and neediness EVERYWHERE, how can he STAND it? And picturing how bad it looks to him makes it look even more hopeless to me: everything needs fixing, and I can’t fix it, and maybe he doesn’t understand that this is a short-term thing, and maybe it WON’T be a short-term thing, maybe I’ll NEVER get it together.

If I felt like the crazy/sad/angry parts all the time, I’d go to my doctor and get a prescription. But mostly I feel okay, and the more food/sleep I get, the better I feel. Thus the 144 muffins. Thus the sleeping in the recliner with the baby to make the baby sleep more/longer.

I think it helps to know it’s a stage, and that it passes. It doesn’t help much during an individual bad time: if I’m feeling weighed-down and crazy, it’s not going to help to think, “Hey, this is just postpartum! I probably just feel like this because of my hormones!” But it’s there in the back of my mind, this memory of Being This Way and then, later, Not Being This Way, and I think it improves things overall. It also helps when I hear or read about other mothers experiencing similar states of mind.

I notice there are a surprising number of people who say “no one ever told me” that the postpartum time could be rough waters, so let’s make a big list, shall we? People want to be told; we will tell them. Fill up the comments section if you want, or make your own blog post about it and link to it in the comments section.

First, yay!, because Sarah’s pregnant! Go tell her eveything’s going to be fine!

Now, do you remember when I asked for recommendations for 2-in-1 shampoo conditioners? Lots of you gave suggestions, and then I bought five to try. Three were from the suggestions and two were just There and so I bought them. One I wanted to buy but didn’t was the Dove 2-in-1, because I could only find it in a huge bottle and I didn’t want a huge bottle when I was only using 2-in-1s for the last weeks of pregnancy.

I may change my mind on that huge bottle, because I’m continuing to find 2-in-1 products helpful even now that I’m not pregnant. I usually shower at night (I prefer mornings, but geez), and I don’t like to go to bed with wet hair. Recently, I’ve been washing my hair in the morning, leaning over the bathtub. If I use a 2-in-1, this is pretty quick and easy, and makes me feel all fresh and shampooey-clean in the morning, which is a pleasant change from the stale, matted feeling of hair that was slept on while wet.

Of the five I tried, there were 2 winners, 2 losers, and 1 fine. The losers were a Suave 2-in-1 and a Target brand 2-in-1, both of them Pantene copycats (words on label such as “pro-vitamin formula”). They made my hair seem darker and duller and yuckier and frizzier. When I used those two, I liked my hair less. The Suave one was the best of all five for making my hair easier to comb, but that was its only good point.

The fine one was Garnier Fructis Fortifying 2-in-1 Shampoo + Conditioner for Normal Hair. I liked it pretty well, but there were a couple of days when my hair looked like it needed to be washed even though I’d just washed it. Also, my hair was harder than usual to comb. The smell was pleasantly fruity, but I don’t usually like fruity scents.

The two winners were Pert Plus 2 in 1 Shampoo Plus Medium Conditioner for Normal Hair, and Herbal Essences Hello Hydration 2 in 1 Moisturizing Shampoo + Conditioner. The Herbal Essences gets an edge because of its cool bottle, pretty color, and yum coconut-y smell. The Pert Plus gets an edge for nostalgia (I used it in high school), and because I think it made my hair the softest and prettiest of all the kinds I tried. They both left my hair relatively easy to comb, and I didn’t think they made my hair look much worse than usual.