Or is there a dead horse being beaten among us? 

Thank you so much to everyone who is participating in these discussions.  If you haven’t taken a look or participated in the discussion below, please do.  Your personal perspective is important.

I have written several lengthy-responses…and then deleted them because they were truly just a second-helping of what’s already been said.  Here’s my distilled version of what I think I  heard you say:

Mindfulness runs the risk of transforming into harmful self-censorship when you are unable to say what you need to say in the blog-space created by you and FOR you.

So, here’s my question(s):

If you could sum up your blog in a phrase, what do YOU have to say?  Has that changed for you in the life of your blog?  How so? 

Love to all.

 Eve

I’ve been pretty-removed from the ALI community for several months, and so I was pretty surprised to see such an impassioned dialogue occurring when I popped over to Mel’s to see what was up.  The dialogue spoke to me on many levels…so I asked if I could be a part of the “Healing Salon” (and I dare admit that I picture a woman in curlers, a massage-robe, dipping into a pedi-bath).  That just goes to show how dorky I am.

Here’s my short intro for those who I don’t know me.  I’m Eve, formerly of Infertility Rocks!/Pour Away The Ocean.  I have two children on earth and one in heaven.  I dealt with 4 1/2 years of primary infertility, then secondary infertility, twin-pregnancy with IVF…in which we lost our precious son, Will, at 25 weeks.  I continued to carry Will and his twin sister, Abby, to 37 weeks.  My blogging started during my secondary infertility and was not just a personal diary for my own benefit, but was started with the express purpose of reaching out to fellow IFers who were beside me ‘in the trenches’ (to steal the term that keeps coming up in these recent discussions).  Maybe that is why I had such a hard time with all of the ‘post-pregnancy’ and ‘post baby’ AND ‘post baby-loss’ transition in my blog.  And frankly, why you can find me HERE instead of my old digs.  The public nature of my old blog was too much for me to handle – I never felt I needed to escape the ALI community…but I had no desire to air my filthy scivvies for all my RL friends, co-workers, etc to see.

I’ve bristled at several comments I’ve read about a blogger’s purpose, and marveled at those who state they use their blog much as a diary, to reflect on their own personal experiences no matter what the audience or what they say.  Dang it, I wish I could be that but I’m not.  And it made me feel rather inferior to be the other type of blogger who is constantly thinking about their audience, the interpretation of what’s said, the responses it might cause, and so on.  SO MUCH so that I have been completely censoring myself since I became pregnant over 2 1/2 years ago!  No one has ever written a nasty comment on my blog to be grateful for what I had…or belittled my Mommy-Experience.  I have been the one to shy away from the ugly-underside of my feelings.

So it occurred to me this idea, that I am not naturally-built to be a brutally-honest blogger.  I imagine that some of you aren’t either.  So here’s my theory:  There are Introverts and Extroverts (and lots in between, though we often fall at least partially to one side or the other).  Introverts love to be around people (sometimes), but gain their energy reserves from having time alone or with a small number of people.  Extroverts, on the other hand, love to be alone (sometimes), but replenish their energy reserves from being around others.  I think that blogs can really be the same way, some blogs are written from an Introverted perspective (a very personal diary of one’s inner thoughts with the purpose of self-reflection as the primary goal and connection with others as the secondary goal) or an Extroverted perspective (written with the intent of a specific audience, the forethought of how that audience might interpret the words, with primary goal of connecting/influencing others and the secondary goal of using one’s personal inner thoughts to do the connecting).

Most blogs most likely fall into the middle of these poles.   Being that I score as high as you can on the Extroverted Scale (via Myers-Briggs), it makes sense that my blog started out as extremely Extroverted as well…self-censoring was always a part of my blogging experience, as I already had a son before I even started blogging.  I had that concrete thought in my head:  DON’T HURT PRIMARY INFERTILES when I wrote.

More censorship came when I became pregnant through IVF:  DON’T HURT THOSE WHO AREN’T PREGNANT YET.  And even when I lost my son:  DON’T HURT THOSE WHO LOST A BABY BUT ALSO DIDN’T GET TO BRING A BABY HOME.  That self-talk was also followed by a lot of other messages I told myself (not just while blogging but in general):  Be grateful you have a child.  Your experience is not as bad as others’.  Suck it up.  No one wants to hear you complain about your two beautiful children.  Sure you lost a baby, but at least you have a baby…the list goes on and on.

Let’s save the therapy for me for now (and goodness knows I probably need it).  But I wonder if my experience doesn’t resonate with others?  The level of hurt and passion I read in the blog responses and comments over the recent turmoil leads me to believe that a lot of post-IF moms may be doing something at least somewhat similar.  This is the good news that I see out of such anger and frustration:  it means people care.

So here are my questions:  Please answer them in your comment or link us to a blog post where you address these specific ones.

1)  Where would you fall on the blog Introverted/Extroverted scale?

2)  If your infertility has resolved (be it pregnancy, adoption, child-free, etc), did your blog focus change?  (from introverted to extroverted, etc?)  ADDED:  by resolve, I mean that you have moved out of the TTC phase – or are you in that mix of motherhood and also TTC?

3)  If your infertility is yet un-resolved, have you noticed that your blog-focus has changed as well?  What can you attribute to that change?

4)  Do you self-censor and how so?  When did the censoring start and why?

5)  How does self-censoring help/hurt the ALI community?

OK, dang that’s a lot of questions.  I want to thank in advance anyone who comes here to share.  I have lost my connection in many ways with you all, and it has been a hole in my heart to have done so.  Sometimes family fights are the way that problems surface and new solutions come to be.  I see everyone here as my family, and I have missed you all terribly.  This recent stirring-of-the-winds has helped me see many of the reasons I became disconnected.  I hope that you all can find new insight for yourselves as well through these discussions.

Just as tree roots must drill through rock and clay to thrive – growth hurts.  But the hurting sees its purpose fulfilled.

I fight with it most days.

We heard that there was to be a Welcome Home Heroes Parade in St. Louis this past weekend, the first parade of its kind to welcome home new post-911 war veterans and show them the how grateful we are for their service.  It was not to be a ticker-tape, “We beat up a whole lotta people” parade (which the Pentagon has, of course, discouraged)…but a remembrance of all the sacrifices that the serviceman/woman of our country have made…even the forever-sacrifice of not coming home at all.

I knew instantly that I wanted to go when I heard about it…and I was so glad that Mark agreed with me that we should do this.   We made signs out of bargain manilla paper I had bought for Sam’s craft projects.  He chattered while we made signs and asked a lot of difficult questions about the wars and why there were people in other countries who didn’t like us.  We answered the best we could…though it was not easy, as I always want to protect my kids from the reality of the world.

So we bundled up and rode the Metrolink downtown, trundling in and out of many dark tunnels before emerging into the brightness of the most brilliant winter’s day.  We found our first spot on the steps of the giant post office, climbing higher to try to see beyond the thick wall of people lining Market street.  Two enormous fire trucks spread their ladders like goal posts at a near intersection, spanning a line and a huge billowing American flag above the street.  There were signs, and flags, and banners, and lots of cheering and thank you’s as servicemen and women walked by or road on truck-beds or a few hastily-put-together floats.  Sam covered his ears as VFW groups road growling Harleys past with huge flags blowing behind them.

As the parade drew on, we were able to squeeze our way down to the road, pressing up against the metal barricades, and feeling the buzz of the crowd as they burst into cheers each time another group went by.  It was a parade to remember…no flashy blasts of glitter, no obnoxious flying candy for children to scramble towards.   No angry protestors or drunken football players.  No political agendas.

Just people from all walks of life, standing shoulder to shoulder with the purpose of seeing something good out of something so awful. 

What especially got me were the families of the fallen soldiers, leading the parade, clinging to large posters or framed pictures of their loved ones, marching with tears streaming down their faces.  People clapped, soldiers saluted, people shouted ”we won’t forget”.

I read a few hundred comments on news sites after the parade, and was struck to hear the responses from people around the country.  Most said, “thank you”, as well.  But some could only see the politics of war.  One veteran’s comments struck me deeply.  He seemed to be deeply troubled by the simplemindedness of the American public’s sentiment.  He was angry that so many were lost in a war he felt was purely fueled by corporate greed.  He said that one parade was not enough to make up for the public’s lack of acknowledgement.

And I get this.

Not because I have lost a loved one in the recent wars, I have not.  Though my step-brother served in Iraq and my brother-in-law is an officer in the Navy.  I do not know this man’s pain.  What I get is the feeling that you are forgotten, that your loved one is forgotten.

And what I would say to this man is that, on January the 28th, those at the parade didn’t forget.  But for a fleeting moment, we remembered and were grateful.  And though it is not enough…it will never be enough.

I have learned that even when people acknowledge our loss, it is not enough…but those fleeting moments and unexpected cards, letters, or acts of thoughtfulness are all we have.

100,000 people went back to their ordinary lives after the parade.  And the streets were eerily quiet with so many people milling around.  There was a huge resource ‘village’ set up at the Old Union Station, and active military, veterans and their families had lots of agencies there to help them look for work, receive counseling, etc.  There was a huge wall display with thousands of pictures of military members, labeled, “Wall of the Fallen”.  Sam and Abby munched on Fruit Loops in ziplock baggies as Mark and I watched people crowd around the wall, people touching the pictures and taking pictures of someone they knew.  

I watched one man huddle around one picture for the whole time we were there…as if he was standing beside his lost loved one (I read in the paper later, it was his son-in-law).  And I did not know his hurt exactly, but enough to know that there was good in all this public remembering for him.

And I was glad to be a part of it.

Mark started calling it that, “Will Day”.  Seemed better than “The Day Your Brother Died Day”…or any myriad of alternatives.  And so it passed, our second Will Day.  Last year, on a very cold and snowy day, we spent Will Day at the Magic House, a children’s science and exploration museum.  And it was a fine distraction from the macabre significance of January 12th.  We have decided a few things about Will Day:  there is no working on Will Day (for mom and dad) and no normal boring daily routines either.  Will Day is special.

This year, we awoke to Sam bursting into our room with the announcement that SNOW had finally arrived here, much later than normal (much to any school-aged child’s dismay).   The news announced the roads were a complete disaster, though there was only a few inches, the Department of Transportation had seemingly forgotten how to plow snow off the roads.  Mark stayed warmly in bed thinking of his missed commute to work and announcing we should start Will Day at McDonald’s.

And so we did.

Next we packed up the kids in their warm gear and ventured into the city, across the cold Mississippi, and past frozen streets where manholes billowed steam.   The problem with Will Day is that it’s impossible to be put together completely.  Last year, I forgot my camera to the Magic House.  This year, we forgot money for parking.   As it was nearly empty, the nice parking attendant let us park anyway.  Into the City Museum we hustled, not taking time to marvel at the bus sitting on the top of the roof, or to marvel at the curious climbing cages that spanned many stories high into the air outside.

It was cold.

But inside, the kids (mostly Sam I guess) gasped at the expanse of it, and the magic of it.  The City Museum, was the brainchild of an artist, Bob Cassily, who recently died in a tragic accident.  Housed in an abandoned Shoe Factory, the City Museum is part playground, part museum, part aquarium, and ALL art.  Everything in it is hand-wrought, hand-painted, hand tiled, hand-made in some way.  It is really quite difficult to even explain it, and the pictures do it such poor justice.  But it’s as if the entire museum itself  is one beautiful work of art, and we are allowed to jump into it and explore every lovely, fun, quirky and dark facet of this gem.

We went cave exploring.  Mark, being claustrophobic, stayed with Abby while Sam and I crawled and climbed around dragon’s teeth, mysterious tunnels, up stairwells to an ominous pipe organ, and up up up ten stories (picture Sam climbing happily and me trudging behind gasping) to a SLIDE that spirals down those same ten stories.

Sam gladly hopped in and waved goodbye.  I realized that I had no choice but to follow…and so I rode a terrifying and dizzying decent down the longest slide I ever care to ride.  Sam greeted me happily at the bottom.  I sat for a moment and tried to right myself, suggesting that Daddy go with him next.

Sam and Abby climbed and bounced and threw themselves in the carefree way of children into ball pits and slides and what looked like a skateboard park.  Mark and I managed them as a waiter might juggle a heavy tray too full of drinks.  Mostly no major spills.  Mostly.

Sam was the star assistant of a magic show and performed a mighty multitude of  ”Tah-Dahs” to the audience’s delight.  We met a lady-story-teller who also taught us to make delightful snowflakes.  Sam chose a dragonfly pattern.  I chose a butterfly.  We listened in awe as she spun tales of a haunting at the museum by little orphan children who once worked there.  I could have sat and cut and listened to these stories all day, but there were more things calling us.  She laminated our snowflakes for free (since we forgot our money), and I quickly wrote down Will’s name on the back of mine.

We wound our way around the architectural ‘graveyard’…an enormous expanse filled with gargoyles, angels, dragons, and emblems all carved from marble or granite.  Of course the kids were easily bored in this section, but I tried their patience as I snapped countless pictures of tortured stone faces and stained glass windows.  It was a spiritual experience for me, this cast-away stone and pillar room, as if I was visiting an actual graveyard for Will, though we don’t have one to visit, as his remains fit in a tiny little box on our piano.  But I digress in run-on sentences…

We left begrudgingly as the museum was winding to close.  Abby broke our hold a few times to climb on top of a large sculpted whale’s fin.  Sam hurriedly skidded down a slide made of rollers.  And we were thrust out into an unbearable chill and a cold car that heated up far too slowly.

We ate at Olive Garden as it was fast and cheap.

I arrived home with a migraine, most likely a combination of weather-shift, activity and the weight of Will Day.  Mark put the kids to bed and I hid with a cold pack over my eyes.  And I thanked Will for such a nice day.

For the snow.

And the free parking.

And the fun.

And for all the things I’ve learned since he was here.

It really was a good day, our Will Day.  But wouldn’t I trade a million of those for just one day to have met his little breathing body and felt his warm fingers grasp my own.

But such as it is, we had a good day.  I worry about the Will Days to come when Abby especially understands the meaning of having a twin who died.  I worry what burden that will weigh on her. 

She is so fresh, my Abby, not knowing of any pain but that she didn’t get to finish her last cookie crumb or wear the shoes she picked.  Her pain is so temporary and easily soothed with a kiss and a cup full of milk.

Despite this, I told her again of her brother, William.  And whispered in her ear his story as we waited on the whale’s fin for Mark and Sam to ride down the 10-story slide.

And I almost didn’t cry at all.

Numbing is an art, much like glass blowing or origami.  But instead of making something out of nothing much – I make nothing much out of something. 

And I’m fucking awesome at it.

Tomorrow is two years gone since Will’s heart beat in me like a tiny tympani.  I relished the times I got to hear his heartbeat…that frenetic patter echoing from my belly.  It really never dawned on me that it would stop, until it did.  The empty search for his heartbeat two years ago still haunts me despite my greatest efforts to think of anything else.

I think of food a lot. 

And coffee.

And coupons and the price of diapers.

The cost of milk.

The 5-day weather forecast.

The daily deals on Groupon.

It’s not that I don’t think of William.  Of course I do, a heart that once beats inside you leaves a little nest.  Sometimes, mostly when Abby and Sam are sick or have had a bad dream, I get to fit them nearly as they might back into that nest.  Their heads rising and falling with my own breathing, their fingers tangled around my mine.  I get to bury my nose in their hair and smell baby shampoo and traces of maple syrup  or clementines mixed with their own unique earthy oil.

My ache to do this with William is something that will never wane  no matter how many years pass since he lived in me.

But I cannot function in that ache.  And so I hold it inside, this silent scream, and live in the world seemingly normal:  shopping, driving, working, talking, texting, sleeping, eating.

Grief is more solitary than I imagined.  The world must move on because it must.  I choose to move with it, often off-balance because I have one foot in honoring and remembering and other one busy walking in the present.

It occurred to me that it is altogether easier and dually more difficult at two years out.  I can be perfectly normal most times.  I can talk about Will and my experience in a practically existential manner.

And yet that empty pain for him still burns like new deep within me, and I let it out only once in a while, because…

well, sigh …because.

William, your momma misses you a million times to your star and back.  I am comforted by your precocious twin sister and philosophical big brother, and by the fact that one day I will get to put you back in my arms and hold you again and bury my nose into your hair.

Love and prayer to all the babylost mommas out there tonight.

And it’s good.

I’m almost off this awful Cymbalta which had gotten me into such a dank and dreary place.  It has not been an easy process, getting off this stuff – it’s been a horrible ordeal.  I realize the details are probably not important to anyone not taking this drug, but to those who may stumble-upon this post for the very reason that they have also found themselves hand-cuffed to this crap, I’ll tell you that I did a LOT of research, followed by a very assertive convincing of my doctor to help me choose a weaning process.  In a nutshell it is this:

• Week 1 and 2:  went from 30 mg Cymbalta  to 20 mg
• Week 3:  added 10 mg Prozac in AM + taking 20 mg Cymbalta at night
• Week 4 and 5:  10 mg Prozac in AM and 10-15 mg Cymbalta at night (have to do this by pulling apart capsule and trashing half of pellets, there is no dose lower than 20….grrr)
• Week 6:  10 mg Prozac in AM every other day
• Week 7:  10 mg Prozac in AM every three days
• Week 8:  10 mg Prozac every three days til out (only have month supply)

I’m on week 4 right now…and it’s going pretty well.  I am having some night sweats and some tightening in my throat (signs of withdrawal from Cymbalta), but my mood is not only stable, but it is that best that it has been in literally a year.  I feel like myself again.  FINALLY. 

For those more in the reasoning for using Prozac to help wean off Cymbalta…it all has to do with the half-life of the two drugs (how long they stay in your system).  Cymbalta leaves your system extremely quickly (so that you start feeling withdrawal symptom about 1.5 days into stopping it), where as Prozac has a very long half-life (4-8 days).  Read more about the mechanisms of action and SSRI discontinuation syndrome  here.

OK, so I’m done with the technical stuff.

I found myself singing “12 Days of Christmas” in the car as I drove to work today, and I smiled thinking… “I’m back, Baby!”

Sigh, I’ve been a long time gone.

A long time.

I faked it in my every-day pretty well.  This sort of numb-depression is stealthy like that.  You can smile and say things are fine, you can have meaningless conversations with others, you can feed your kids and sweep the floor…but there was no soul to any of it.  Like I was playing a Sims game about living instead of really living.

I’ve had a few kinds of depression.  Crying all day depression, not-eating-for-days-on-end depression, depression that felt like a turbulent tumble in a hole with no finish.  But this depression I think was the worst for me, as it robbed me of the two things that I need to live:  my feelings and my creativity. 

I cease to be to Eve without those. 

I knew Eve was coming back when I started meta-thinking again.  When I started grappling with words to wrap around my thoughts and felt the satisfaction of  fit as I were Cinderella sliding into her slipper.   I don’t know how it is that Cymbalta stole the writer, artist and photographer from me…but I swear to you it did.

I do not wish the robbery of one’s passion on anybody – well at least not on most (I mean, I guess if one’s passion were serial killing or racisim or something…well then, they deserve it stolen.  And much worse for that matter).

Ahem.

But I feel as if I am saying, “Hello” again as a writer on this blog.

Hello again.

Nice to be back.

*  *  *  *

What are any stumbling blocks you have had in your writing?  Anyone have a similar experience on Cymbalta or a similar medication?

We exhausted ourselves with three jam-packed days at Disney World, riding roller coasters and sucking down Dole Whip or other random ice cream treats we could find.  We wore blisters on our heals and toes from the walking and exhausted the tiny memory card on the mini digital camera trying to get in ALL of the Finding Nemo musical. 

We stuffed ourselves with turkey and potatoes and rolls and pie and cake.  We sunned ourselves in the humid Floridian air.  We played in the sand at Cocoa Beach and dug holes deep enough we hit water.  We listened to the surf rush the land and smelled the fragrant ocean.  We watched the sun rise above the water in a show more awesome than any Disney spectacular.

We wrote Will’s name in the sand and watched it slowly disappear into the tide.

The day we got home, I cried in an overwhelming sorrow that sprang upon me like the giant waves on the Atlantic.

…making me doubt if I had really had fun or if I had just been pretending, or maybe somewhere in between those two points.   Bah, this is a hard time of year, isn’t it?

Much love to you all who are missing your babies.

1. I think they suck.
2. I don’t have enough time.
3. I don’t have enough time, come back later to finish them and determine that they suck.

…and it’s not as if I’m looking for Pulitzer greatness here, just coherent thoughts and sentences.  It’s as if I can’t really say anything anymore.  And I DETEST that with everything in me.

So, I’m going to be traveling much of the rest of this month.  I have a trip to take with my sister and then another extended family trip going to Disney World.  Now, if I was my regular self, I would write it like this:  “another extended family trip going to DISNEY WORLD!!!!!!”.

But I can’t get myself to live exclamation points right now, and it seriously pisses me off to not be able to experience excitement in the presence of exciting things.

I went to my doctor and discussed the whole ‘get me the hell off this medicine’ thing.  He agreed that Cymbalta was seriously blunting my emotions and suggested I switch to another antidepressant “hybrid” aptly named “Viibryd”.

Well, it should have been named “add five pounds to my ass-bryd”.  There, I made myself smile.

So now I’m back to Cymbalta.  By the way, you can’t just quit this med.  It’s like heroin, you must slowly wean and sort of  ‘detox’ yourself.   How messed up is that????  Even then, I will need another antidepressant to get me through the serotonin ‘withdrawals’ of it because I’m a migraine sufferer, and lowering the dosage is triggering severe migraines for me.

So I’ve decided that I am getting myself off this crap, hopefully with the help of a low-dose Prozac and then evaluating myself med-free.  I think it is truly impossible at this point to determine  if what I’m experiencing is depression or medication-related.  I really think this is med-related at this point – and I’m pissed at myself that I’ve let this fester for so long until I’m practically shut-down socially and creatively.

So wish me luck, which was the point of this post, since Mel suggested that her posters make three wishes for the upcoming 11.11.11 date.  I need luck and prayers (if you are so inclined) to get ME back the way I know I should be.

Speaking of wishes and prayers, what is something you want to have back that you’ve been missing?

…Oh and here’s my little pig-tail princess.

We visited family out of town this weekend, and my mom gave Abby the most deliciously obnoxious orange tutu with little sparkly Halloween thingies sewn into it.  Perfect timing to wear at the school carnival we visited.  Sure she looked like a little horned ballerina, but she ROCKED that look.

Abby is sporting a new look today (just in time for Halloween pictures):  she got her first black eye.  Poor little thing fell off a chair at the library and hit the corner of her eye on the chair.  Not my finest parenting moment, watching her fall and yet being unable to stop time to catch her.  My poor Boo.  But she did look adorably pitiful with her bright purple-blue shiner and pig tails.  Or else I looked like a child-abuser.

Or both.

I can’t remember Sam’s first black eye – probably because he’s had so many.  The first REAL facial wound Sam had that I remember was when Sam was about 18 months old and he was still pretty wobbly going down steps.  Daddy forgot this fact and let Sam step down off the curb himself, to which Sam face-slammed into the pavement, skinning his nose the entire length.  He looked like he had strawberry jam tattooed on his face for about a month. 

Anyway… I’m not blaming Mark, by the way, I’m just sayin’.

We’ve already had a run-in with near stitches with Abby when she was pretty tiny.  Sam, in classic big-brother fashion, slammed a ride-on toy into Abby’s head and cut her eyebrow open into a small but gaping hole.  Mark and I proceeded to prove ourselves inept at parenting by attempting to glue her eyebrow back together with skin glue.  We first glued my finger to her eyebrow and then glued her eyelid open for a brief but terrifying 10 seconds.

So…really this black eye thing is no biggie.  I mean, after nearly blinding Abby practically a YEAR ago and all…

I’m sure Mark won’t let me live this one down though.

Maybe I should blame it on the dog?

“I threw up all over the basement,” he announced.   (Abby had been ’round one’ on Monday…doing her best to completely engulf our bedroom carpet, bed and Daddy with curdled sickness.)

“It was chicken night, and mandarin oranges,” Mark grimly reported.

“And green beans!” Sam added proudly.

“And milk.”

I gagged and ran to our bathroom, alerting the bell for ’round three’.  

Not good. 

Mark was scheduled to leave on a business trip the next day at 4AM.  Despite the fact that I was wrenched with stomach cramps and my own heaving, the basement carpet needed tending, so Mark went to the store to rent an industrial carpet cleaner.  This left me and Sam in our misery (Abby was, thankfully, asleep).

It pretty much went like this:   Sam groans, turns white, yaks in the trashcan.  I get up to rinse the trashcan, make it halfway to the sink before I must also yak in the trashcan.  Rinse the trashcan, rinse out my mouth, give Sam water to rinse…and repeat.

It was a loooooooooong night.

Longer still was Thursday when Mark was away.  I put Abby in bed with me and turned to the Baby First Channel.   Thankfully, this child is obsessed with this channel.  We discovered this a few weeks ago when Abby was cutting her upper molars and would wake around 3AM screaming in pain.  Milk didn’t work.  Binkies didn’t work.  Loving parents didn’t work.  What worked?  Baby First TV.

So, that was our Thursday.  Sam on the couch watching whatever he watched (and I’ll admit that I was sick enough that I really have no earthly idea what it was that he watched).  Abby happily trouncing around my room, emptying drawers, handing me random socks and underwear, stopping now and then to watch Baby First TV, and then getting back to room destroying.  And me just aware enough of Abby’s moves to not let her choke on nails or electrocute herself and vowing I would clean up the tornado of her actions tomorrow.

We are all feeling MUCH better now (just in time for Mark to be home, of course).  I don’t so much feel proud of getting through such mommy-awfulness.  I feel mostly RELIEVED that no one was irreparably damaged in the process.

The carpet, however, is another story.