12

BEAVERS

January 20, 2012

I usually like to try to be clever when it comes to post titles, but I’m pretty sure this one-word wonder tells you everything you need to know.

Actually, I planned to write this week about my experiences in a sorority, but I figured you guys would rather read about beavers any day, so you’re welcome.

A couple of nights ago, I was in another room when The Guy called out, “Baby, come in here! You gotta watch this movie! It’s hilarious!”

Being, as I am, a big fan of hilarity, I high-tailed it in there. “What’s it about?” I asked eagerly.

“BEAVERS!” he replied.

I walked away, but not before giving him The Eyes of Hate and Rage.

“No, really!” he pleaded. “C’mon, it’s funny, I promise. Sit down and let’s watch it.”

I don’t give a rat’s half-apple about beavers, but I’m almost as big a fan of sitting down as I am of hilarity, so I acquiesced.

Much as I didn’t want to admit it, the movie was pretty cute and surprisingly engaging. It was a documentary about these two beavers, a male and a female, beginning their life together (unlike many humans I know, beavers are monogamous and mate for life) and building crap out of trees, which is, as we all know, a beaver’s life’s work.

I never thought much about beavers before, but they’re really amazing little creatures. Who knew they could cut down enormous trees using only their teeth?! Well, maybe you did, but I obviously didn’t pay enough attention in fifth-grade environmental science. And apparently, they learn dam-building from their parents, so the knowledge is passed down through generations of beavers. Neat, huh?

Anyway, it was a fun show to watch while relaxing mid-week, and rather than refer to them as “the male beaver” or “the beaver with the lighter fur,” The Guy and I started calling them “Beaver Wife” and “Beaver Husband.” We enjoyed comparing and contrasting ourselves with our beaver counterparts, noting that we were really glad that, after we got married, we didn’t have to try to build the Hoover Dam or anything before we could have Harper. We tried to install a diaper sprayer this week, and we had to go to Home Depot four times.

I was painting my nails while we watched the movie, and at one point, I looked up to see a grizzly bear chasing after Beaver Wife. Poor Beaver Wife was waddling as fast as her stumpy little beaver legs would carry her toward the safety of their lodge with this giant, beaver-eating monster loping after her. You could practically see the saliva dripping from his hungry maw as he anticipated the deliciousness of his beaver hors d’oeuvre.

“YOU STOP THAT!” I shouted at the TV. “YOU LEAVE BEAVER WIFE ALONE! She can’t help it that she didn’t work out enough while she was pregnant with her beaver babies and now she’s having trouble losing the weight and she’s fat and slow! Stop it! YOU STOP IT RIGHT NOW!”

I could sort of feel that The Guy was staring at me, horrified, mouth agape, and some tiny, rational part of my brain was telling me very sternly to dial it back a notch, but I just couldn’t help it. Who did that bear bastard think he was?

“STOP CHASING BEAVER WIFE!” I screeched. “Stop it, damn you! You leave her alone! She doesn’t deserve it!”

The bear had chased Beaver Wife all the way out onto the top of the lodge she shared with her beaver family. Thankfully, she dove through a beaver-sized hole and disappeared under the water, safe from the ravenous, beaver-persecuting bear. The bear, however, was still sniffing around for her when suddenly, his heft broke a giant hole in the branches and mud. Now, on top of everything else, that son of a bitch had damaged their roof!

“I HOPE YOU DROWN!” I screamed. “I HOPE YOU DROWN AND YOU GO TO HELL AND YOU DIE!”

It got quiet. The only sound in the living room was the narrator of the documentary telling us in his calm, even voice that “Though the bear continues to search for his prey, the beaver is long gone.”

I looked over at The Guy.

Stephen King wrote in Bag of Bones that a kind of telepathy exists between married people, and I know that’s true, because just then The Guy was telepathically telling me that he was considering taking me to the emergency room.

He cleared his throat. “I think you might be over-identifying with Beaver Wife,” he said quietly.

—-

Last night, after a long, hard day in which precious little went right for me, I was just getting out of the shower when The Guy said, “You had to run from a lot of bears today, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, I sure did.”

Thank you for understanding, Beaver Husband. I love you with all my beaver heart. And Beaver Baby, too.

Now go bitch-slap some bears for me with that tail of yours.

Your dam-building
Kel

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12

Four Truths and a Lie

January 12, 2012

All of the following happened this week.

Or did it?

1. My career as volunteer librarian at the parochial school is over before it even had a chance to begin.

Some Protestants, The Guy included, get a little twitchy about the Catholic concept of saints, especially if they’ve never been exposed to the Catholic denomination or didn’t grow up around a lot of Catholic people. But once assured that it is not idolatry – we pray with saints, not to them – but a desire to commune with people who led very holy lives and who have special relationships with God, they’re usually cool with it.

Such is the case with The Guy. And after learning about a few of the saints, he became pretty interested in these seemingly ordinary men and women who nevertheless displayed an extraordinary devotion to God.

And, as a Catholic parent and a “Catholic sympathizer,” as I refer to my husband, we obviously want Harper to learn about the saints, too. And that was one of the objectives we had in mind when we visited the Catholic bookstore to buy a baptism gift for her. While we were there, I picked up a copy of a book called something like The Lives of Saints for Catholic Children.

(How many times can I use the word “Catholic” in a single post? Let’s find out!)

One night, while The Guy was cooking dinner and I was feeding the baby, I broke out the saints book and began to read to her. We learned about St. Angela, who started the Ursuline Sisters, St. Camillus, who ministered to the sick, and St. Helen, who, by her prayers and example made her son, Constantine, the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity.

Aaaaand then we got to St. Barbara.

“The Brave Martyr,” they call her.

Oh, poor Barbara.

When Barbara was a little girl, her wicked father imprisoned her in a high tower, where servants cared for her and she was very good because, hello, SAINT. Blah blah blah converted to Christianity, blah blah being a Christian was against the law, blah her assface father dragged his own kid in front of a judge…

“…and then they chop…oh God.”

The Guy looked at me expectantly, waiting for me to continue. “What? What’d they chop?”

“Uh…her head. Off.”

We both looked at the baby.

Then back at each other.

And then I quickly looked at the baby again because The Guy was glaring at me.

My children’s-book-buying privileges have been suspended indefinitely.

2. I took a picture of something that came out of our kid’s nose and texted it to The Guy while he was at work.

I no longer have any shame to speak of.

3. Despite my friend Andrea‘s NUMEROUS warnings, I decided to change Harper on our bed.

On MY SIDE of the bed. FOR THE THIRD TIME. Because this time will be different, right?

Right! Because this time, instead of a river of pee, it will be poop.

Breathtaking stupidity Optimism, thy name is Kel.

4. I told my seven-week-old daughter that she needed to put a quarter in the Douchebag Jar.

I have discovered that when Harper is fussy, only one thing makes her happy: bouncing her on my knees, a.k.a., playing horsey.

At first, playing horsey really freaked me out, because I was afraid I was going to give her Shaken Baby Syndrome. The Guy made fun of me and told me that giving Harper Shaken Baby Syndrome via playing horsey is akin to him breaking my arm by poking me in the bicep too many times.

But YOU DID NOT GO TO MEDICAL SCHOOL, PERKINS, nor did he make an A an anatomy like I did that one time, so I Googled it anyway. And then I got even more freaked out, because what if that urban legend about the FBI or the CIA or whatever monitoring everyone’s Internet usage is true? And here I am Googling “Is my baby going to get brain damage by playing horsey.” THE POLICE ARE GOING TO BREAK DOWN MY DOOR ANY MINUTE! And the house is a mess and there’s poop on the sheets.

“Are you going to be mad at me if I call Brandi?” I asked The Guy.

“No,” he said, “but I’m not going to console you when she laughs at you, either.”

Well, Dr. Brandi didn’t laugh at me (in your FACE, Perk!), but she assured me that as long as it’s a very gentle and low-velocity motion (similar to that of a bobblehead doll), then I would not injure Harper. In other words, you’d have to be playing Seabiscuit, not horsey, in order to do any damage.

And as anyone who’s ever wielded a nasal aspirator bulb can attest, if a baby finds something unpleasant, uncomfortable or painful, SHE WILL TELL YOU.

So Harper was able to continue playing horsey and I was able to continue getting a quadriceps workout and everyone was happy.

Until my muscles started burning and I stopped.

Then all hell broke loose.

Harper looked me straight in the eyes, furrowed her little brow, let out an indignant “Humph!”, then grabbed a handful of my hair and yanked. And then she began to wail like she was being eaten alive by a chinchilla.

She may look just like The Guy, but she is her mother’s daughter.

5. I had time to paint my nails. They look as good as these.

—-

So which one’s the lie?

Your pants-igniting
Kel

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9

Cover Me

January 6, 2012

I can never thank you guys enough for all your kind words and reassurances after my last post. If I had any doubts, you guys confirmed that what I’m going through, body-wise, is completely normal, and while that doesn’t make losing the baby weight any easier, it sure does make me feel a lot less lonely, and for that I am so, so grateful.

MUAH!

Now let’s talk about butts.

Bath Time.

Nekkid Babeh.

Specifically, how to cover them.

(Which we clearly need to do more of in the Powell household.)

Ever since I first heard about it, back when I was still very, very single, I’ve been intrigued by the idea of cloth-diapering. After researching it, I knew without a doubt that if I ever had kid(s), I wanted to cloth-diaper them.

“Kel,” some of you are thinking, “that’s admirable, I guess, but girl, you done lost YO DAMN MIND.”

I know what you’re picturing when I say “cloth diaper”: It’s a dish towel folded into a triangle and held on with a giant safety pin, am I right? The kind my mom tried because it was so much cheaper, but then they would get wet and fall down and leak pee (and worse) all over the place and finally Mom was all “F this S. I’d rather buy Pampers than eat. Mike needs to lose a few pounds anyway”?

Yeah. No. These ain’t your momma’s cloth diapers.

bumGenius.

The diapers we use are the one-size “pocket” style. “One-size” means that these diapers are so highly modifiable, through snaps on the front and/or adjustable elastic in the legs, that you can use them from birth until potty training. “Pocket” diapers have a waterproof outer shell that’s lined with soft fabric that wicks moisture away from the baby’s skin. You stuff an absorbent microfiber pad (or multiple pads, if your baby pees like a racehorse, which ours does) into the pocket between the shell and the liner.

After the baby does her business, you first attempt to make her smile by asking, in the highest-pitched voice you can muster, “Are you pooping?! Did you poop?! I think you pooped! Did you poop for momma?! Let’s see if you pooped! I bet you pooped!”

(The Guy thinks this is bar-none the most hilarious thing he’s ever seen, to the point that he’s started turning to me in public and asking, “Are you pooping?!”)

After that, the process is pretty much exactly like that for a disposable diaper except what you do with the dirty diaper. Instead of throwing it away, you fasten the laundry tabs (if it’s Velcro – these keep the tabs from picking up a bunch of lint and whatnot in the wash, which will make them stop sticking), shake out the wet or poopy microfiber pad into a “wet bag” (a washable, waterproof bag) or a lined diaper pail and throw the shell in after it.

Notice I did not say that you have to dump the poop in the toilet or hose it off with a diaper sprayer. As long as a baby eats only breast milk or formula, her poops are water soluble. Meaning they can go straight in the washer.

If that grosses you out, then think about this: I don’t know about you, but MY washer has seen a whole lot worse than a little baby poop.

Everybody thinks the washing process is some giant pain in the rear, but it’s really pretty simple, if time-consuming.

1. Dump the diapers and wet bag/pail liner into washer.
2. Add a little soap. (They recommend that you use special soap with cloth diapers. I don’t understand exactly why, but this is one area where I’m inclined to follow the rules. So we use Rockin’ Green.)
3. Run a short cycle to rinse out the nasties.
4. Add some more soap.
5. Run a regular cycle to wash them.
6. Run an extra rinse.
7. Put the pads in the dryer and line-dry the shells.
8. Once everything is dry, stuff diapers while you watch King of the Hill reruns.

Sometimes, people start having trouble with funky smells and/or leaking, and in that case, there are several things you can do, including soaking your diapers in Rockin’ Green for an hour or so between Steps 3 and 5. Since we’ve only been cloth-diapering for about a month, we haven’t had to do that yet.

Diapers.

It’s not bad, but it’s definitely more trouble than using disposables. Why bother?

Well, here are OUR reasons (in order):

1. Environmental

We don’t want to put any more diapers in the landfills than absolutely necessary.

2. Financial

While we’re not saving as much money with Harper since we’ve had to shell out for initial costs such as diapers, wet bags, the diaper pail, etc., all future Powell babies will be diapered at minimal additional cost.

3. Health-related

The bleach and other chemicals used to manufacture disposable diapers have been linked to some health problems (see here). While that’s not a huge concern of ours, we figure it’s never a bad thing to minimize your exposure to toxins.

bumGenius Rainbow.

So how much DOES it cost?

Because we plan to use these diapers for multiple babies, we decided to buy all new ones, but we went with the pocket style rather than all-in-ones because they’re a little cheaper. So far, we have 24 diapers (which is probably the minimum you need to diaper one baby full time), all of which are bumGenius and FuzziBunz brands. We did take advantage of a couple of sales wherein if you bought X number of diapers, you got X number for free.

What I’m driving at here is that you CAN buy cheaper and/or second-hand diapers and spend far less money than we did. So consider our costs more toward the high end of things.

24 diapers: $303
2 large wet bags: $38
2 pail liners: $17 (bought one with a gift certificate)
2 small wet bags (for diaper bag): $10 (got one free with a diaper order)
Diaper sprayer: $40
Detergent: $0 (purchased with gift certificate)
Diaper pail: Don’t remember, but it’s just a garbage can with a swinging lid that we bought at Target. Maybe $20?
Paper diaper liners (so that when I need to lotion Harper up really well, it doesn’t soak into the diapers): $0 (gift)

TOTAL: $428

Assuming everything holds up, all this constitute one-time purchases except, of course, for the detergent, which is kind of expensive at $15 a bag. I don’t know how long it’s supposed to last, but we’re a month into this and our bag is about half empty. Or half full, if you’re an optimist.

Also, cloth diapers require a few special products, like diaper rash cream. You can’t use regular ones, because they’re “barrier” creams, and they’ll ruin the absorbability (is that a word?) of your diapers. I mean, if it won’t let moisture into your skin, it won’t let moisture into a diaper, right? So I buy mostly California Baby products, which are all cloth-diaper friendly (and awesome) but HELLA expensive.

Do we still use disposables? Sure, occasionally.

We used them for about the first week and a half of Harper’s life; The Guy and I figured that we had MORE than enough to adjust to without adding anything else, thankyouverymuch. Once we started, we still had to supplement with disposables for a little while because we didn’t have enough cloth yet. And we let the grandparents use disposables if they want when they babysit, but so far, they’ve been champs about using cloth.

I’m not sure yet if we’ll have to use disposables when Harper starts going to Mother’s Day Out. Around here, most childcare facilities will allow you to bring cloth diapers, but they won’t deal with them at all except to dump them in a bag (without removing the pads or fastening the laundry tabs or anything). Which is fine with pee diapers but would be kind of gross if there was poop. Some people who really want to use cloth but have to do the daycare thing just cloth diaper at night but use disposables during the day.

So do I like it? Is it worth it? Am I sure I want to do this with multiple babies?

Yeah, of course. It’s not that much more work, and it’s no more disgusting, in my opinion, than handling a disposable diaper. It’s good for Harper’s skin, too; her rear would get really red when we used disposables, but she’s fine now that we’re using cloth. And I feel good that I’m not throwing diapers in the trash every day.

Plus, they’re cute.

9:49 a.m.

Going to lunch with the girls really takes it out of ya.

Twenty minutes to midnight. Passed out cold in some guy's lap. Wearing only her top, underwear and a bib. Happy New Year, everybody.

First Church Dress.

So what do you think? Is cloth diapering something you’d ever try? Or did God make Pampers for a reason?

Your quick-changing
Kel

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20

Losing It

December 29, 2011

So The Guy announced the other night that he hates blogs.

Well, of course he doesn’t hate ALL blogs (AHEM), just personal style blogs and, to a lesser extent, craft blogs.

As I’ve said many times before, my husband is one of the most laid-back humans on the planet, so you can probably imagine how taken aback I was by this statement. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve heard him say he hates something, and two of those things were Ann Coulter and green onions. That obviously doesn’t leave much room for anything else.

And besides, while he’s nowhere near as into clothes as I am, he does like getting dressed up, and he’s definitely not impervious to the charms of a really great tie or a cashmere sweater. So I couldn’t understand this vitriol toward style bloggers.

It all started a few days after we brought Harper home from the hospital and I realized none of my clothes fit. Yes, I tried on half my wardrobe just a few days after pushing an eight-pound human out of my body. I know, I know: rookie mistake.

Naturally, I was loathe to go out and buy anything, because it’s not like I’m going to be this size for very long, right?! Give me six or eight weeks, and I’ll be back in fighting form!

(Did you hear that gigantic CLUNK? That was the sound of all the readers who have ever given birth banging their heads against their monitors.)

Pretty soon, even my maternity clothes were no longer an option. My jeans were so loose that one evening while shopping at Target, I very nearly gave my fellow shoppers on the cat food aisle a free show. It only took a few days of rotating between the same two pairs of yoga pants before I gave in and decided to go shopping. But where could I buy a bunch of “new” clothes without spending a lot of money?

Why, the only place in the world where you can buy both a brand-new Moschino leopard print skirt for $100 and an entire tan polyester leisure suit for $2.50: Goodwill!

(Cue the foreboding music.)

Feeling very clever indeed, I wheeled Harper up and down the aisles of Goodwill in her stroller, picking up jeans, button-down tops and fitted dresses a couple sizes larger than I normally wear.

(If this were a horror movie, this is the part when all the mothers would start biting their nails.)

Confident that I was going to walk out of the store that day with a chic new wardrobe for less than $50, I took Harper and my selections to the dressing rooms.

(The mothers can see the boogeyman sneaking up, duct tape and hacksaw at the ready, but our intrepid heroine is frustratingly oblivious.)

I decided to start with the jeans. I couldn’t pull Pair #1 over my hips. Pair #2 fit like a sausage casing. And Pair #3 did appalling things to my poochy post-baby stomach. Horrified yet undeterred, I pulled on article after article of clothing, every piece worse-fitting than the one before it.

(“DON’T GO UPSTAIRS, YOU IDIOT!”)

After realizing that none – NONE – of the clothes I picked out fit me, I did exactly what you would expect me to do:

I completely lost my s–t in a Goodwill dressing room. There I stood, with my daughter sleeping peacefully in her stroller, bawling my eyeballs out over a pile of second-hand jeans.

(“I’M NORMA BATES!!”)

Needless to say, my headspace was very, very bad, and it only got worse from there. By the time The Guy got home that evening, I was practically hysterical.

After about the third straight hour of listening to me sob about how much I hated my new, postpartum self, The Guy kind of lost it. “It’s those stupid blogs!” he said. “They’re all, ‘Look at me and how perfect I am, and if you’re not as superficial and self-obsessed as me, then you’re doing it wrong,’” he ranted.

See, because I love clothes and fashion as much as I do, I read all these personal style blogs. And two of my favorite bloggers recently (as in, within the last couple of months) had babies. One of them is already back in her pre-pregnancy clothes, and the other apparently spent nine months shopping for this super chic postpartum wardrobe, so she looks like something straight out of the pages of Vogue when she leaves for work every morning (with her hair perfectly coiffed and her nails painted to compliment her outfits, of course). I’m no slouch (or so I thought), but my two pairs of yoga pants and I can’t even begin to hold a candle to that.

Why didn’t I do that? Why didn’t I watch my weight like a hawk while I was pregnant? Why didn’t I work out every day? Why didn’t I spend the entire time trawling painfully hip thrift stores for vintage Calvin Klein blazers and silk trapeze dresses three sizes too big? WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ME?!

“Um, nothing? You’re normal,” Dr. Brandi said when I called her in tears. While that may be overstating things a bit, she pointed out that those women and their fellow style bloggers make a living by their appearances. The whole time they were pregnant, they knew that very soon afterward, they would have to begin modeling their outfits again, and two pairs of yoga pants were not going to cut it. Therefore, they prepared accordingly. MY job, on the other hand, (thankfully) has nothing at all to do with the way I look.

Nevertheless, I still felt terrible about myself. Surely something was wrong with me. No one else had this much weight to lose after a pregnancy, and it seemed everyone else in the world was back in her pre-pregnancy clothes by the time her maternity leave was over.

The Guy tried to convince me that this could not be so. “How many women do you think feel the same way you do?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I answered.

“Of course you don’t!” he said. “Because these women are trying so desperately to convince the rest of the world that they’ve got it all together, and even those who do talk about it do it in such a joking way that they end up completely glossing over it too. Nobody wants to tell the TRUTH. They just want to say whatever makes them look good.”

But I didn’t even know what the truth was. Despite all the unsolicited advice and bizarre personal anecdotes everyone starts telling you the very moment you pee on the stick, no one talks much about what happens after, and I can kind of see why. Let’s face it, if, in my seventh month of pregnancy, when I was as big as the side of a barn, waddling to the bathroom every 38 seconds and bursting into tears at Fancy Feast commercials, Jessica had said to me, “Oh, and by the way, get ready for your favorite pair of jeans to not fit for a year,” I’m not sure I would have considered that helpful information just then.

So I decided to take one for the team and talk to my doctor (who had twins last year), poll my recently pregnant friends and visit a few message boards. Here’s what I learned:

–There really is no “normal.” Everyone is different.
–Acceptable weight gain is whatever your doctor tells you it is and can range from 15 to 50 pounds.
–You should not even THINK about trying on non-maternity clothes for six weeks after the baby is born. Probably more.
–Most people lose the baby weight between six months and a year after giving birth, but their pre-pregnancy clothes may still not fit for several months after that because their stomachs, hips and chests are bigger than before.
–Even some people who end up weighing less than they did before they got pregnant never fit into all their clothes again.
–Go ahead and buy some postpartum clothes. You may not lose all the weight for nine months, but you still have to get dressed between now and then. When you do get back to your normal size, you can either have the clothes tailored or donate them and take the write off.
–Yes, some people do fit into their pre-pregnancy wardrobes immediately after giving birth, but they are, according to my doctor, genetically gifted freaks of nature, much like Stephen Hawking or Victoria’s Secret models. Do not compare yourself to them.
–Post-baby, skirts and flow-y dresses are the most forgiving articles of clothing you can wear. Jeans are the worst.
–Many people can achieve a flat (or flat-ish) stomach again after having a baby (even multiple babies). It just takes a hell of a lot of situps.

I will probably not do that many situps.

Although I’m quite sure no one mistakenly thinks I’ve got it all together, this is one blogger who will tell the truth about trying to get one’s body back after having a baby: IT SUCKS. IT SUCKS REALLY, REALLY BAD. If I joke about it, it’s because if I think too long and too seriously about it, I’ll cry. And don’t give me a bunch of crap about how I should shut up and think about how much I love my baby. Of course I love Harper. Next to marrying The Guy, she’s the best thing I’ve ever done, and she’s worth ANY amount of pain, discomfort and tears. But this doesn’t have anything to do with her, except that I want to show her the positive example of a fit, healthy mom who feels good about herself.

And slowly but surely, that day is coming. I’m back to my no-grains-and-no-refined-sugar way of eating, and I feel better and have more energy every day. And I’m proud that, thanks to hard work and good choices, the weight is steadily coming off. But in the meantime, it sucks. It sucks to feel a reflexive panic every time anyone invites me anyplace, because I probably don’t have anything to wear. It sucks that even though I used cocoa butter every single day of my pregnancy, I still got stretch marks. It sucks to wonder if the skin on my abdomen will ever forgive me for doing this to it. It sucks that my days of wearing two-piece bathing suits are over. It sucks that I don’t want my husband to see me with my clothes off. It sucks to realize that despite the progress I’ve made, I still have a significant amount of weight to lose.

I certainly don’t mean to discourage anyone. I just don’t want my pregnant friends to be as stupid as I was. No one deserves to have a semi-public meltdown in a thrift store dressing room.

Babies are an awful lot of trouble, you guys.

But they’re totally worth every bit of the hassle.

Daddy-Daughter Doo Dah.

Your slowly shrinking
Kel

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10

I’m Still Here

December 20, 2011

It’s funny. Having a newborn is all at once much easier and much harder than I thought it would be.

When Cassie came down South for her epic visit with me and Jessica, I overheard Dr. Brandi say to her that having a newborn was much harder than her medical residency.

That scared me. Because I remember her medical residency, and…yeah. I used to get exhausted just listening to her tell me about her (often 24-hour) workdays.

But it hasn’t been that hard. Except for when it is.

What’s hardest, I think, is the inconsistency. My biggest weakness, I’ve decided, is my inability to deal well with inconsistency. I’m an all-or-nothing sort of person, and I guess on some level I naively expect everything in life to operate on my same full-throttle-or-dead-stall terms.

I thought my baby would either be 100 percent angelic all the time or a total freaking nightmare. Because those are the only babies you hear about, right? My mom swears I was God’s most perfect baby, who never, ever cried (RIGHT) and magically began sleeping through the night at precisely six weeks of age, which just happened to coincide with when she went back to work.

(I, um, think Mom might be idealizing things to the point of being practically delusional misremembering how I was as a newborn.)

Then there are those legendary babies who scream for the first four straight months of their lives and somehow defy human physiology and exist without sleep. Those are the babies who gave me nightmares.

But neither scenario is accurate. No person is perfect every second of every single day, just as nobody is unfailingly horrible their whole lives, either. Babies are just tiny, underdeveloped people, so why should they be any different?

Nine days out of 10, Harper is a laid-back, good-natured baby who sleeps and eats well and is, on the whole, very easy to deal with. Obviously, I am extremely blessed and lucky.

But on that 10th day, she acts like somebody peed in her Cheerios, stole something from her mama and cut in line in front of her at Starbucks. In other words, she is PISSED. OFF. And there’s really nothing you can do about it.

Today was just such a day.

Put it this way: While it’s pretty difficult for me to take a shower during the day (I’ve started showering at night), I almost always have plenty of time to get dressed, fix my hair, do my makeup, etc. And I do, because it makes me feel like my old self. But as I type this, it’s 10:28 p.m., and I am unshowered, unbrushed and ungroomed. I smell of baby formula and spit-up.

Also, that may or may not be poop on my arm.

Tomorrow will be better. Tonight, I am exhausted.

And I know that what I’m about to say sounds disgustingly cornball (not to mention disingenuous), but it’s true: Even as I’m bone tired, frazzled and frustrated, I try to find something to savor in every moment with Harper. Because even as it exhausted me to feed her almost every hour today (no, I am not even exaggerating), I remind myself that there will come a time in the not-too-distant future when she won’t need or want me to feed her anymore.

I said I try. I don’t always succeed. I reached a point this morning when I probably would’ve sacrificed a body part for an hour of uninterrupted sleep or the opportunity to think one single thought without interruption. When The Guy got home this evening, Harper practically caught air as I tossed her to him, and then I went and sat on the sofa and stared into space, mouth-breathing and simply relishing the time during which I am not wholly and solely responsible for this tiny, delicate, angry person.

But yesterday was every bit as wonderful as today was trying. Harper and I did some last-minute Christmas shopping, and it seemed every person we passed commented on how beautiful she is. “She’s a sweet girl,” I always say in reply. “She’s a good girl.”

And she is. Even when she’s not.

It hasn’t been easy, either, to find that mythical “balance” for which working moms strive unendingly. Babies are a lot more physical WORK than I was prepared for, but even when I can set the work aside (the work is never, ever done), leaving Harper to go upstairs and sit behind my keyboard isn’t as appealing as you – or I – might think.

Sometimes, when The Guy walks through the door at the end of the day, the house is shiny and sweet-smelling, dinner is bubbling on the stove, the baby is dressed in an adorable outfit and I’ve already done my workout.

Other days, the only thing I accomplish is loading the dishwasher, and I feel like June F–king Cleaver.

Even when Harper’s (finally) sleeping, when I theoretically have the opportunity to do anything I want, like write or sleep or do laundry or read or eat or contemplate the chips in my nail polish, I sometimes have to force myself to leave her be and not pick her up and kiss her and snuggle her.

Can you blame me? Really?

I never want to forget these cheeks.

I usually resist the urge. Except for when I don’t.

Anyway, I’m still here, but that’s why I’ve been pretty absent these past four weeks. I’m busy having, for better and for worse, the time of my life.

Wee little paw.

What’ve YOU been doing?

Your exhausted and ecstatic
Kel

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14

The Beginning

December 5, 2011

Like the grasshopper who sang all summer, I had every intention of procrastinating telling Harper’s birth story. Sometimes, big narratives like this intimidate me, I guess because the words on the page can never live up to the story in my head, especially in this instance.

But after almost two weeks away from my keyboard, my writin’ fingers are getting itchy. So away we go!

First, a warning: This is the story of my labor and Harper’s birth, and I think we’ve all watched enough National Geographic Channel and YouTube videos to know what that entails. Therefore, if you’re the kind of pansy who gets squicked out by the word “tampon,” then stop reading now.

In fact, if you don’t like the word “tampon,” then you probably shouldn’t be reading this blog at all. Off with you.

—-

On Friday, November 18, I got dressed to go to lunch with my friend Joy and her mother-in-law, Donna, at The Glenwood Village Tearoom here in Shreveport. Just before I left, I went to the bathroom and…recognized that labor had begun. (Even I have my limits, so we’ll just leave it at that.)

As anyone who’s ever had a baby knows, just because labor has technically begun doesn’t mean you’re going to have a baby any time soon. When I started having strong, regular contractions, I was hopeful but knew we probably had a while to wait.

The Guy and I spent the weekend in a buzz of nervous excitement. I decided I could not possibly have this baby until we found drapes for our bedroom, so he dutifully drove me all over town until I finally settled on some at the Home Depot less than a mile from our house.

We hung the drapes and cleaned the house and shopped for groceries and prayed fervently that the baby would come (or at least start to come) before Monday, but alas, the contractions started tapering off Sunday night, and by my OB appointment Monday afternoon, they had all but stopped.

By that time, I had hit the wall. This had been going on for 72 hours, and I was exhausted and more than a little discouraged, especially when I learned that I was only dilated about 1 centimeter. (For reference, at 10 centimeters, you’re fully dilated and ready to give birth. Clearly, I had a very long way to go.)

We decided to check into the hospital the following evening and proceed with The Plan.

I was emailing pretty regularly to let folks know what was going on, so I’ll just tell you now what I told them then:

—-

Wednesday, November 23, 2:07 a.m. (about 2 1/2 hours after checking in to the hospital)

Subject: At last, some real progress!

The nurse checked me before she placed the Cervadil (sp?), and I was already two cm dilated! Now that it’s in, contractions are pretty constant and intense, but so far, no pain, just a little discomfort (knock on wood, of course).

Please pray, pray, pray, PRAY that pitocin won’t be necessary!

My BP has been good, too, and that’s great news for Harper.

All’s well otherwise. B. and I are just so wired, it’s ridiculous. We get settled down a little, then we hear one of the babies on the unit cry and get amped all over again. The nurse said she’s going to bring me something to help me sleep, as I’ll need lots of energy for whatever tomorrow (today) has in store for us.

Ah, here she is! Ok, off to dreamland. I’ll let y’all know as soon as there’s any news that is news!

Love you all!

—-

Wednesday, November 23, 8:36 a.m.

Subject: Well, poo.

Dr. came in this morning and announced that while my cervix is indeed softer and thinner, it is still posterior and now completely closed.

Dear Cervix: WRONG DIRECTION, IDIOT. Love, Kel.

So now we’re trying a different medicine, Cytotec, which is supposed to be better/faster/etc.

I gotta hand it to Dr.: She’s doing everything she can think of to keep me off pitocin and give me the best possible chance for a [natural childbirth].

She’ll be back after surgery, at which time we should have a little clearer picture of the course ahead. Until then, I’m flat on my back. Literally.

If anyone would like to come visit, we’re at Christus Schumpert Highland (the one on Bert Kouns) in L&D room 133. If you can believe it, we have by FAR the smallest, least elaborate wreath on our door. And I AM OK WITH THAT. Dude, some of those things look like parade floats.

Hurry up, Harper Nell!

—-

Wednesday, November 23, 11:28 a.m.

Subject: Pitocin, here we come.

Welp, the Cytotec didn’t do a blessed thing, either. I am contracting regularly (about every three minutes) and toward the high end of “moderately,” but still no dilation whatsoever. So we’re going to give the pitocin two hours to work its magic.

The good news is Harper is healthy as a horse, and my BP has only gone up once.

—-

And here, as you may have guessed, is where things get interesting.

The nurse came in and started the pitocin drip, and I admit I was pretty bummed. I knew all along I would do whatever I had to in order to deliver Harper safely, but a selfish part of me was really disappointed that the chances of me getting the birth experience I wanted were, at that point, poor to nonexistent. But I had to make the best of it, so I decided to go as far as possible without anesthesia in the hopes of speeding things up a bit.

Also, being completely honest, the idea of a needle in my spine terrified me significantly more than the thought of an unmedicated childbirth.

WHAT.

Everybody’s afraid of something.

At first, everything was OK. Don’t get me wrong, I was hurting and hurting pretty bad, but I wasn’t, like, half out of my mind with pain or anything. I would characterize the pain as, say, really bad menstrual cramps times 10. Men, I’ve obviously never taken a hit in the misters myself, but based on The Guy’s descriptions, I’d say you can imagine a glancing blow (so to speak), or maybe the aftermath of a moderate injury. In other words, very painful but bearable.

The Guy stepped out of the room for a bit – his parents brought him something to eat, and he didn’t want to eat in front of me since I hadn’t been allowed anything but ice chips for the last 12 hours or so – and my doctor came in to check on things. Good news! The Alcatraz of cervixes was by then dilated two centimeters. So we were sort of back where we started. But I once more chose optimism and decided to take this as a positive sign. She announced that she would go ahead and break my water to help the process along. She pulled out this instrument that sort of looked like a very long, white, bendy crochet hook.

I was OK for about five more minutes.

Then I kissed everything resembling sanity goodbye as I slowly entered a brightly colored, Hunter-S.-Thompson-esque world of pain.

I have two tattoos, one of which took half a day to complete. I have dislocated every joint from the waist down at least once, and I have broken all my toes, many simultaneously.

And I have still never felt pain like that in my entire life. Never even came close.

As I sit here, I can sort of recall it, and just the memory of it makes me sick to my stomach.

Welcome to an unmedicated, pitocin-induced childbirth, a.k.a., The Seventh Circle of Hell! We’re so pleased to have you on board today!

I begged to get out of bed, but the nurses wouldn’t let me. If I’d had the wherewithal to focus on anything but not screaming in agony, I probably would’ve thrown one of the mythological Kelly Phelan Tantrums, but I was having trouble breathing, let alone forming coherent sentences.

(No, I have absolutely no idea why they wouldn’t let me stand up, and yes, it’s really weird. I asked ahead of time and was told I was welcome to move about and use my birthing ball and yoga mat all I wanted as long as I stayed hooked up to all the monitors, so I don’t know what changed. All I do know is we ended up carting a giant blue ball to the hospital that ended up being utterly useless.)

And so, relegated to my hospital bed, I had no choice but to close my eyes, concentrate on breathing slowly and evenly and try not to pass out.

It was in that moment that John McCain appeared to me.

No, not Jesus. Not the Virgin Mary.

John McCain.

Yes, that John McCain.

God knows which neurons were firing out of control, but suddenly, all I could think about was John McCain. And I made up my mind that if he could survive six years with broken arms in some North Vietnamese hellhole, then I could make it through the next contraction. And the next. And the next.

The nurse checked me again, and I was at 5 1/2 centimeters. A little over halfway there.

Finally, I decided that John McCain wouldn’t let a little old needle scare him, and I told the nurse I wanted an epidural AND I WANTED IT NOW.

But it wasn’t as simple as that.

(It’s never as simple as that, is it?)

Before I could have an epidural, I had to receive an entire bag of fluid through my IV. That, my friends, was the longest 15 minutes of my life. Thank God the nurse agreed to turn that son of a bitch up and let it run wide open.

John McCain and I begged The Guy not to talk, make noise or even breathe loudly and just sit with us while we tried not to cry.

Finally, the anesthesiologist arrived. And because I am Kelly Phelan Powell and my life is a comedy, I had to get the one anesthesiologist in all of Shreveport, Louisiana with a deplorable excess of personality.

You know what’s more fun than unanesthetized, chemically-induced labor and getting a needle the size of a fountain pen shoved up your back?

Having an unanesthetized, chemically-induced labor and getting a needle the size of a fountain pen shoved up your back while you try really, REALLY hard not to move so you don’t end up paralyzed!

I swear to God, life with me is one big barrel of monkeys.

Slowly, my body went numb from my waist to my toes, and the pain subsided.

A while later, the anesthesiologist came back to check on me. “Doing alright?” he asked. “Are you too numb? Do you need me to turn it down?”

Everybody’s a comedian, dude.

Blessedly, I slept for a bit, then the nurse came in to check my progress. “How do you feel?” she asked.

“I, uh…I kind of feel like the baby’s going to…”

“Going to what?”

“Going to fall out.”

She examined me, then hurried to find the doctor. Meanwhile, another nurse came in to prepare the room for the delivery and I tried really hard not to sneeze or anything.

Pretty soon, all the necessary parties were assembled and standing before a giant spotlight (I kid you not) trained directly on my naked ladybits. It was humiliating, but what can you do? I just rolled with it.

By that time, the epidural had worn off a little, so I could tell when to push. And after about 45 minutes and the strangest sensation I don’t think I can ever describe, Harper Nell Powell entered the world, and I burst into tears.

She breathed on her own right away, but she didn’t cry. Instead, she looked wonderingly around the room with huge almond-shaped eyes.

The nurse laid her on my chest, and she gave a little gurgling cry, and I fell stone in love.

Someone once told me that giving birth is like having God Himself in the room with you. At the time, I thought it a hopelessly melodramatic description, but turns out that’s just about right.

Snooze.

Fish Lips.

Family Portrait.

And call me crazy, but I’m pretty sure I want to do it again!

(But not right now.)

Your completely consumed
Kel

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17

In the Mother ‘Hood

December 1, 2011

Hi, y’all! I’m back!

And guess what!

I had a baby!

Baby Burrito.

She’s pretty much the best thing ever.

Eighteen Hours.

She’s only been with us for eight days, but I’m already having trouble remembering what, exactly, I did before I had her.

I seem to remember something about books, clothes and booze. Does that ring any bells?

OH MY GOD.

WAS I HELEN GURLEY BROWN?!

No, wait. Definitely not. I’ve never been THAT thin, even before I got pregnant and decided Krispy Kreme was the long-lost Fifth Major Food Group.

Whatever. Back to the babe:

Going-home ensemble, selected by her dad the day we found out we were having a girl.

So we’ve been together a week, and what a week it’s been. I’m sorry I haven’t blogged, you know, AT ALL, but guys, I am physically exhausted and emotionally spent. And my current state actually has relatively little to do with Harper.

In the past eight days, the Family Powell has experienced the following:

1. A three-night stay in the hospital
2. Enough childbirth drugs to induce a male elephant to give birth
2a) A labor-related back injury
3. Thanksgiving at our house (though we did NOT have to cook or clean or do anything at all, really, except let everybody in)
4. A small electrical fire
4a) Every repair person in Shreveport-Bossier making it his or her personal mission in life to empty my and The Guy’s savings account
5. Breast engorgement to the point that when I unhooked my nursing bra for the lactation consultant to examine me, I thought her eyeballs were going to shoot out of her skull and hit me in the boobs, thus causing even more pain
6. A trip to the emergency room

Naturally, each of these events comes with its own story that is equal parts woeful and pee-your-pants hilarious.

(Although if you, like me, just gave birth, chances are good to excellent that any strong emotion has the potential to make you pee your pants.)

The bright spot in all this drama is, of course, Harper.

Week One: Sunbather.

I could nuzzle those velvety little chipmunk cheeks every minute of every day for the rest of my life and still never get enough.

Cheeeeeks.

And my girl’s got her priorities straight: Eating. Sleeping. Snuggling. Sitting in a swing and contemplating the ceiling fan.

Bad Mommy. Mean Mommy.

Goodnight, everybody.

The Guy is off work until next week, so between now and then, we’re trying to squeeze in as much unadulterated Baby Time as humanly possible…

…and crossing our fingers and toes that nothing else catches fire.

But rest assured I’ll be back very shortly to tell you the much-anticipated Birth Story (complete with gory details), all about the time The Powells Three lay down for a nap and woke up to screaming smoke alarms and how John McCain helped me get through labor.

Until then, I’ve never been so happy, so fulfilled, so tired or so in love.

Waiting.

Your joyful
Kel

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