Tuesday, April 29, 2008

A message from the failed-post pile

This morning Law Student Hot Mama gave me an award on her blog with the hopes of prodding me into finally writing a new post. But since it looks like I won’t have time to write anything new until approximately the year 2028, I turned to my folder of failed blog posts. I wrote the following post a few days ago but realized that it was fatally flawed, thankfully before I made the mistake of publishing it. However, it does make me look like an uber-nice person, even though I’m not, so I figured it was a good one to resurrect. If nothing else, see if you can spot the major gap in logic before the end of the post.

Here it is:

As you may know from reading the comment I left on my post “Off the sauce,” I’ve gone back to feeding my baby breast milk. I’ll tell you the whole tragic story as soon as I get some free time (um, maybe after my baby graduates from college?), and in the meantime, I have this for you:

Before I fell off the formula-wagon, a friend of mine gave me a can of formula that expires next month. Since I can’t use it, I decided to donate it to a good cause. I did some research and found a homeless shelter in my area that takes in women and children and I decided to donate the formula to them.

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you may remember the sock party I had at Christmas. If I seem more altruistic than normal toward the homeless, it’s because many years ago, in Providence, Rhode Island, I came close to being homeless myself. Some people who didn’t have much to give themselves helped me out and I’ve never forgotten the fear, the shame, and then the incredible gratitude I felt in that situation. Now that I have a baby, I can imagine those feelings magnified a hundredfold by women with children.

So when I set the formula aside, I got to thinking (which is always a dangerous thing).

I have a package of newborn-size disposable diapers in my closet that I bought before the baby was born, thinking that cloth diapers would be hard to use. I figured I’d use disposables at night until I got the cloth thing figured out, but it turns out cloth diapers are easy, so the disposables went unused. Thinking this would be a good thing to donate, I threw them into the bag with the formula. Then I remembered I have a bunch of baby bottles I don’t like, and I threw them in there too. Then I decided I’d e-mail some other women at my law school who are mothers to see if they wanted to donate anything, as long as I was driving to the shelter.

And then I started thinking some more, and here’s what I came up with:

1. Lots of parents have disposable diapers in their houses that their baby has outgrown.
2. The more disposable diapers I donate to a shelter, the fewer disposables people have to buy, and therefore the fewer get manufactured. This is good for both the environment and homeless moms.
3. Lots of mothers read my blog, and they may have unused formula, disposable diapers, baby bottles, etc. lying around their house.


And that’s as far as I got before I realized my mistake. Apart from being unedited and therefore somewhat awkwardly written, do you see the problem with this post? Was I really going to ask my readers to send me their unused baby items? Apart from having to give my real name and address out over the internet, the postage alone would probably cost people more than the diapers themselves. Plus, everyone would think I was trying to cadge the diapers and formula for myself, especially since I just wrote a post about switching to formula. So as good as my intentions were, it's a good thing I didn't publish that post because I would have looked like a complete idiot. However, on the rare occasion that I do something good, I feel the need to broadcast it to the world, so thanks to Law School Hot Mama for giving me the perfect excuse to publish the post after all.

Now everyone get back to work.

Friday, April 25, 2008

Escape artist

The little bugger has escaped from her swaddle blanket and is plotting her next move.



































Monday, April 21, 2008

Off the sauce

For seven weeks I have been breastfeeding, single mothering, cloth diapering, full time law student-ing, job seeking, and, oh yeah, losing my mind. Something had to give, and I’ll give you one guess as to what it was. Here’s a hint:



Bad mother

This is how my baby looked when I got to Babysitter #1's house this morning:


Do you notice something wrong? Something missing? Something like, oh, I don't know, perhaps A GODDAMN SEATBELT?!?!

Apparently I'm trying to exercise all my bad mothering skills in one day. Go ahead, blast me for giving my baby formula and then forgetting to strap her into her car seat, all in the same morning. If it makes you feel any better I paid for my sins this afternoon when she gave me The Most Vile Poo Ever. I may have to seek out therapy to recover from the sight of it. Yeah, I know, it's the price you pay when you give a baby formula. That and $38.50 for one little can of the stuff that will last four days, if I'm lucky. Maybe this will help me get over my phobia of non-organic milk products.

Friday, April 18, 2008

Passing time

I haven't had time to blog much since the baby was born, and I'm afraid I'll start losing my audience if I don't provide you with at least something to look at while I spend the next three weeks trying to graduate. Until I find the time to write a real post, here are some pictures that might hold you at bay.



Here's what happens when overachieving law student meets anxious mama:








(Yeah, that's my diaper bag, and what you don't see is the single-spaced, two-page laminated instruction sheet I also keep in there, plus bottles, bottle warmer, bottle accessories, etc.)

Here's what my baby thinks about me taking her to three different babysitters in a single day:








Here's the new dress my mom sent that was so cute I couldn't even even wait to cut the tags off before putting it on her:











(There are sheep on that dress!)

Here's how Bad Mom does laundry:










Here's a picture of my Evidence book:




Oh wait, I have absolutely no idea where my Evidence book is.

Here's a before and after picture I find rather shocking (that's a different diaper cover in the second picture, two sizes bigger than in the first):
















And finally, here's my baby doing the hula:












To my readers who are probably annoyed with my sparse postings of late and to my friends whose phone calls I haven't returned in a month: be patient! Starting in June I'll be living the life of leisure and will blog my heart out and return an entire semester's worth of missed phone calls.

Monday, April 14, 2008

Frizzle fried

Because I love sharing the travails of my life with my readers, here’s what I did today:

1. Got myself and baby packed up and ready to go by 7 a.m. (If you’re a parent you know this is the functional equivalent of performing brain surgery on an angry weasel while drunk.)

2. Drove to Babysitter #1's house, gave up my child, had an inner emotional breakdown at leaving my baby with a stranger for the first time.

3. Sped to school, parked at a meter, put my child’s college fund into the meter. Ran a quarter mile to class, got there just in time.

4. Ran back to my car, found the meter expired, fled the scene just as parking enforcement arrived.

5. Sped to Babysitter #1’s house, picked up baby, who promptly threw up on me, sped home.

6. Fed baby, changed baby, burped baby. Threw some peanut butter on a piece of bread and stuffed it in my face while running down the stairs to my car with baby and carrier in my arms.

7. Drove to the law school, parked at a meter, ran up two flights of stairs, across a street and up a large hill carrying nine-pound baby plus fifteen-pound carrier plus backpack with laptop plus monster Environmental Law book plus massive diaper bag containing enough baby supplies for a year. Started to regret my decision to use glass bottles.

8. Met Babysitter #2 in the law school atrium, spent three minutes explaining everything she needed to know about how to take care of a baby, ran up two flights of stairs to class. Arrived five minutes late, endured professor’s withering glare of irritation.

9. Picked baby up from Babysitter #2. Sped home.

10. Fed baby, changed baby, burped baby. Spent a moment thinking about why baby seems to save up all her poo for me.

11. Packed baby back into her car seat for what felt like the millionth time. Endured baby’s withering glare of irritation.

12. Sped halfway to Babysitter #3’s house, realized I left baby’s bottle at home, turned around in a blaze of burning rubber and sped back home. Had an ethical dilemma about whether it was okay to leave baby in the car while I ran inside to get the bottle, decided it wasn’t. Lifted baby plus baby carrier and flew up apartment stairs with Herculean strength. Pondered the underrated strength of women.

13. Gave baby to Babysitter #3, attempted to speed to law school. Got caught behind the notorious Mills Street bus, arrived ten minutes late for Evidence. Wrote this blog post instead of paying attention in class. Wondered why I even bother to show up.

14. Ran halfway across massive campus to give a mandatory presentation for my Thai class (that I stayed up half the night preparing last night). Sped back to Babysitter #3, picked up baby, came home to an apartment that looks like a crime scene, a cranky baby, an empty stomach and an empty kitchen. Wondered how the hell I’m going to get through the next three weeks until graduation.

Friday, April 11, 2008

Cannibals

Weird things happened to my brain when I was pregnant (see my diatribe on British Flintstones, musings on why underwear is a pair, and my long battle with pumpkin angelfood cake). (Oops, I guess you'd have to read this first. Sorry, I was new to blogging at the time.)

Anyway, I somehow thought my brain would spring back to normal once I had the baby and the pregnancy hormones went away, but check this out:


Don't the nipples sort of remind you of how cannibals mount heads on stakes, and might this have something to do with my feelings on breastfeeding?

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

We regret to inform you...

We regret to inform you... that you have been rejected for every single research grant you applied for. Yeah, all five of them. Yes, we know that you spent the entire month of August writing five completely different 30-page research proposals (when August was the first time off you’ve had in three years and all you really wanted to do was sit in front of the TV and eat cookies). And we know that your research would greatly benefit third-world child prostitutes. We also know that you’ve already proven yourself by doing similar research and that you subsequently got published in a highly respected law journal. And that you won an award for the article. And since you’ve already done the preliminary research and made so many contacts in the field, you could do more for child prostitutes in Southeast Asia than anyone else. But we really don’t care.

We regret to inform you... that you have been rejected for the federal job you traveled all the way to Chicago to take a test for. Yes, we know that Chicago is a three hour drive from your house. And that Wisconsin got ten inches of snow the night before you had to leave and you spent two hours shoveling your car out of the driveway while you were eight and a half months pregnant. We understand that you paid $120 for a hotel room in Chicago and roped a friend into driving down there with you because you were scared to travel alone so close to your due date. We also know that you had to use the jaws of life to remove the high heels from your pregnancy-swollen feet and that your interview suit was ruined when you attempted to pull the jacket over your enormous stomach, causing a button to pop off with such force it took a chunk of fabric with it. None of this matters to us.

We regret to inform you... that we won’t be hiring you to work in our office, even though you worked here last summer and the people in your department wrote you glowing letters of recommendation and said you were the best intern they’ve ever had. Even though you performed better than 46 other interns at the mock suppression hearing we made you argue in a courtroom where the air conditioning was broken on a ninety-degree day. Sure you were two months pregnant and so nauseous and faint you thought you were going to die, but this doesn’t matter to us. Nor does it matter to us that you turned down several other internships, including two in D.C. and one at the U.S. embassy in Laos, because you thought there was a chance we would hire you after graduation. Hahaha, don’t make us laugh. Your grades aren’t good enough for us. Sure, we knew what your grades were before we hired you for the summer, but we just thought we would SCREW YOU.

We regret to inform you... that the job you interviewed for a mere three days after giving birth doesn't even exist. Yes, we understand that you arose from your maternity bed and put on your interview suit and drove two hours then answered difficult questions for three hours, all while in hideous pain. However, the state has cut our budget and now we’re laying people off, so please abandon all hope.

We regret to inform you... that you quit your easy but boring $70k per year job and took on $100k in debt to go to law school, then worked your ass off for three years, apparently for nada. Sure you moved away from the city you love more than life itself to establish yourself in a Midwestern college town populated entirely by frat boys and girls who wear Uggs and sweatpants with cutesy little words written across the ass. And now you’re a single mother and therefore in permanent exile from the only place you want to live, and you’ll soon be moving in with your parents at the age of 34. What happened? We’re not sure, but we think you suck ass and we’re not hiring you. Ever.

Sigh.

Sunday, April 6, 2008

Pay at the pump

Although I love getting comments from readers and probably wouldn’t be writing this blog without them, I somehow feel that if I respond to one comment I have to respond to all of them. Unfortunately, between law school and a newborn I never seem to find the time, but I was so impressed with the comments on my last post that I simply have to say something, so here goes.

LL said “...whatever brings you the most peace and a few extra seconds to learn at least three rules of Evidence. Maybe three short ones.” Um, Evidence has rules? And there are more than three? I think I’m in trouble. Along those same lines, andrea_frets mentioned sending me her Evidence outlines. Andrea, the problem with outlines is that you actually have to read and/or study them. I tried stuffing them down my pants, rubbing them all over my body, and even eating them, but this did little to improve my grades in Civ Pro and Property, and I’m afraid Evidence is heading in the same direction.

Law Student Hot Mama, PT-LawMom, and Katty all suggested that I invest in a decent pump. My friends, if you only knew what I’ve been through with the pump. Law Student Hot Mama says, “Buy a new pump! Madela doesn't hurt. But it costs a small fortune. WORTH IT.”

I love how breastfeeding is supposed to save you money. I currently have five pumps in my house, four of which are Medela. I started out with a cheap, no-name $30 electric pump. I was rewarded for my frugality with a hideous and tragic accident whereby the pump self-destructed and I nearly lost a nipple. Next, my mom bought me a $40 Medela hand pump. Although I love it, it’s no match for my enthusiastic boob and takes nearly an hour and a half to do its job. Then I tried to rent a hospital-grade pump at $3 per day, only to be told by every pump-renter in town that there were none available. I spent a few days on the wait-list but finally lost patience and bought a double electric Medela pump for $150 on Craigslist (for those of you who don’t know, when you buy a used pump you just buy the electric part, so no, I’m not in danger of getting boob-cooties).

Of course, the very next day I got a phone call from a pump-renter saying a pump had come available. Somehow thinking the rental was better than my new pump, I drove 45 miles and put down a $75 deposit for the rental pump, which weighs about 50 pounds. Upon lugging it up my apartment stairs I discovered that it works no better than my $150 pump. However, I haven’t found the time or energy to return it, so it sits in my house racking up charges like Sallie Mae. Finally, last weekend I went to a baby consignment sale and found a Medela hand pump exactly like my $40 pump, still completely sealed in its box and never opened, for only $15. Unable to pass up a bargain and thinking that perhaps four breast pumps aren’t enough, I bought it. You never know, maybe I’ll spring three extra boobs and it’ll come in handy.

Now, back to the comments. Moo says, “Have you tried eliminating things like onions and broccoli from your diet? Anything that can make your milk taste a little funny?” Damn, if hemorrhoids, foot fungus and morning breath aren’t enough, now I have stink-boob? My diet is actually pretty bland, but that’s good advice and I’ll keep it in mind the next time I sprinkle feta on my kimchi and wash it down with a pastrami sandwich.

Speaking of eliminating things from my diet, remember that two-hour-drive, not-covered-by-my-insurance, fancy-pants lactation consultant with an MD I was talking about in my last post? Complete idiot. When I went to see her I was a disaster at breastfeeding but otherwise in excellent health. She decided, for absolutely no logical reason, that my baby must have an allergy to the dairy I was consuming and I had to cut it out of my diet entirely. Then she decided, also for no logical reason, that I must have an infection in my breast and prescribed an antibiotic that I was supposed to take for six weeks. The antibiotic turned my intestines into a war zone and, combined with the lack of dairy, meant that I was getting approximately zero calories per day. With my ravenous baby consuming nine hundred ounces of milk every day, it didn’t take long before I was too tired to even stand up, much less take care of my baby, certainly much less make it to law school. Or blog. Which is the really important thing.

This post is getting way too long and my duckling is starting to wind up again, so let me try to wrap it up fast. Mahala, Shelley, and Cynical Nymph, your comments cracked me up when I really, really needed a laugh. So thanks.

Fluorescentmom, I’m getting some Mylicon tomorrow, and thanks for the advice. Maybe I’ll even take some of it myself after I eat that kimchi with feta and pastrami.

To the anonymous poster who suggested Lansinoh breast pads: you’re a genius. They’re amazing. But did you notice that when you open their little wrappers they tend to fly across the room? I seriously need to post a video of that on my blog.

Liam, Hyphen Mama, TxMommy, ProtoAttorney, Katty, Butterflyfish, Someone Being Me, and pbb, thank you for sharing your thoughts and making me feel like I’m not alone in this and that I’m not a freak of nature, a bad mom or, um, a dairy cow. Having read what so many of you said, I’m going to do my best to stick with this a couple more weeks to see if it improves, but I won’t feel like a failure if I can’t do it. Plus, Michelle informs me that stopping breastfeeding also hurts like a mofo, so why quit now?