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7 Quick Takes Friday: Mostly About My Head Edition

Oooh, an hour and a half left of Friday.  I can still make it under the wire for 7 Quick Takes.  (More here.)

1. I woke up this morning with a KILLER headache.  I've never gotten migraines but based on the symptoms I think this was one.  Normally 200mg of ibuprofen can knock my (infrequent, mild) headaches out; it takes 400mg for a really bad one.  That didn't even dull this one, and my head hurt so much I actually felt nauseated.  I ended up calling Bryan to come home from work.  He was here from 11am-3pm.  I napped, and felt somewhat better when I got up, so I sent Bryan back to work.

2. We went to my sister's house to kill time for the rest of the day, and it was she who prescribed my headache cure: caffeine (in the form of an iced cappuccino from Tim Horton's, since I hate real coffee) and a handful of almonds, since Branwen's mother-in-law says they help her headaches.  I like almonds and B had them, so I figured it couldn't hurt.  An hour later my headache was gone, hooray.

3. Of course I know that caffeine helps headaches, but I hadn't tried it until that point because of the whole nursing thing.  I am mad-sensitive to caffeine and so are both my children.  Drinking the iced capp this afternoon meant that Blaise did not finally fall asleep, strung-out and crazy, until about two hours past his normal bedtime.  But honestly, it was preferable to me having a headache all those hours.

4. Have I ever talked about how I used to get headaches constantly?  My mother-in-law does too, and when I joined the family I remember her saying, "You're the only person I know who gets headaches like I do" and offering to share her AC&C (aspirin, caffeine, and codeine) with me.  (You can buy AC&C over the counter in Canada, and my parents and in-laws live right across the border.)  Not long after that, I heard about many headaches being caused by dehydration and started downing more water on a regular basis, plus adding extra if I felt a headache coming on.  It worked so well that I have become a devotee of water-as-headache-medicine.  Still haven't converted my mother-in-law, though.

5. I Tweeted about this yesterday, but I'll put it here for posterity's sake too.  (I'm fully expecting to have my blog published as a best-selling book someday.  Aren't you?)  On Sunday Blaise was six months old (I blogged about that here) and yesterday morning he had his six-month checkup.  He is 28.5 inches tall, has a 18.5-inch head, and weighs a whopping 22lbs, 8oz.  Since he started out at 7lbs, 11oz that means he has gained 14lbs, 13oz, an average rate of 1.3oz per day.  But here is the part that blows my mind: since all the calories for every single one of those pounds has gone through my body, shouldn't I weigh less than I do?  Maybe I need to stop baking cookies quite so often, or something. 

6. I'm thinking the reality is that it's fine for me to bake cookies; what I really need to do is have the self-control to keep from eating a half-dozen in one (every) sitting.  There's a novel idea.

7. But if you are looking for a good cookie recipe, I recommend this one from Martha Stewart: Citrus Cornmeal Shortbread.  Crisp-tender, crumbly, with a nice crunch of cornmeal and the perfect hint of citrus.  Just as good made with lemon zest instead of orange.  I like to double it.  (The zest, that is.  Actually, I like to double the recipe too.)  The perfect cookie to have with tea, in my opinion.

We, her parents, are delighted with this. You might be slightly less so.

Last night was the first we all spent in our own bed since last Monday.  Bryan was gone for three nights; we were back visiting our parents for two nights, and then we were finally home.

So to celebrate, who wants to see a video of a two-years-and-nine-months-old child singing a song about sailing? 

What if I told you she uses the term "scurvy dogs"?  Twice! 

Erosion

Bryan caught the 4:30 flight instead of the 6:30 one this evening and walked in the door a full two hours before I expected him.  (I tweeted wrong about that, oops.  Just a typo.)

I'm so happy to have him home, but am bummed because as of right now he's got to go on another trip next week.  Three nights this time, Tuesday through Friday.

He waited a little while to tell me about it after he got home.  But I still cried.

I am so grateful for all the support that everyone has given me here.  I hope you know that!  And I certainly know that it could be so much worse, that there are people whose normal, everyday lives are harder than mine is when Bryan's away.  Heck, that's probably true for at least 90% of the people in the world.

But you guys, I am just so tired!  Being the only person responsible for the needs of two tiny, noticeably needy people from dawn until dusk - oh, and from dusk until dawn as well! - is exhausting.  I've done the single-parenting thing for eight out of the last thirteen days and I am ready to dig a hole under our house and hide in it. 

It makes me want to cry just thinking about doing it for another 72 hours next week.

There is the possibility that this particular trip of Bryan's - already scheduled and cancelled twice - may be cancelled again, so I'm trying not to count chickens until they hatch.  (Although doesn't counting chickens refer to expecting something good?  Maybe I should say I'm not counting tiny mutant killer dinosaurs until they hatch?)  But it's also not good to hold out hope - Murphy's Law says the trip will happen this week.  Four days from now.

But what I can do now is enjoy these four days!  And I'm going to!  Bryan's idea is that we make sure to give me some time "off" every day that he's home, so I'm trying to concentrate on thinking of fun stuff to do with my time.

I hope everyone has a great weekend.

The Powerful, Prayerful Point

I Tweeted this afternoon about how I wanted pizza for dinner.  My little sister, wise girl that she is, told me to get it.

This is the kind of advice that I am always giving her.  She is lucky to have me, right?

We did end up having pizza for dinner.  We actually went OUT for pizza, which is even better than ordering it.  We even walked to Pizza Hut (less than half a mile) and the weather was beautiful tonight (72° F and sunny).  It was good.

Not so good: the reason we decided to go out to dinner, which is that Bryan has to go on another business trip.  GAAAH.

I was on the phone when he walked in the door at 5:30 this evening.  He never gets home that early because he always goes in late because his mornings are busy with letting me sleep in.  (Best husband ever.)  After I looked at him and ascertained he wasn't sick, I said a bad word (not a *very* bad one) under my breath and mouthed, "When do you have to leave?"

Tomorrow evening.  Until Friday evening.  Only forty-eight hours, which is the good news.  The bad news is that I'm on my own this time.  And Blaise is teething, and Camilla has recently developed an extreme distaste for bedtime.  It's not going to be fun. 

But on the other hand...

Yesterday was a tough day.  Bryan had the day off because he worked on the 3rd, and our plan was to get necessary stuff done around the house.  Some of it happened, but the kids were being exceptionally needy all day.  Bryan and I kept getting frustrated with each other.  Things were just off, and we were all feeling it.

By bedtime, the you-know-what hit the fan.  Blaise went to bed fairly well, but decided forty-five minutes later that it had just been a nap, and he didn't feel like going back to sleep.  Camilla fought sleep tooth and nail, and freaked out every time we tried to leave her alone in the bedroom.

By 10:00pm all four of us were in the living room.  Bryan was pacing with Blaise; Camilla and I were lying on the couch.  We were all exhausted, and Bryan and I were both feeling the heat of parenting.

Given the option, I think either of us would have happily handed our children over to a nanny at that moment.

But they needed us.  They couldn't comfort each other.  They couldn't comfort themselves.  They needed Mama and Daddy, and no one else could be that for them.

As I lay on the couch and felt my daughter's sweaty curls against my cheek, I felt like crying with frustration.

But suddenly I found my heart filled with one of those epiphanies I used to have much more often before my days were filled with diapers and distraction.

It was a question, really, from God:

Do I want - like I claim - to have opportunities for him to work in my life?  Or not?

Because here is a big cross staring me in the face, and I'm fighting it tooth and nail.

Bryan and I talked about it in bed later that night, after the children had finally relented to sleep.

If parenthood is to be a source of our perfection - and all the signs seem to indicate that this is what He intends it to be - then we have nothing to gain by fighting its trials.  In fact, we have everything - truly, EVERYTHING - to gain by embracing them, accepting them with grace and patience and prayer.

So last night I decided to do this.  Today I feel like God is asking me if I really mean it.

On the heels of six nights of solo parenting, am I ready for two more?  Am I ready to put my head down and make it through the frustration and the exhaustion and all that goes along with doing the work of two parents when I am just one [small, weak] one?

Uh, I guess so?

A few weeks ago I wrote over at Faith & Family about God reminding me that I need to pray unceasingly.  By Friday, Bryan will have been gone 8 nights out of the past 13.  And I think that God might be taking his chance to pound his point home.

Pray for me.  You will, right?

Happy Home Again

We survived a week without Bryan!

(You can stop over at Faith & Family to find out how it went.)

He was due home around 11pm Friday so it wasn't until about 8pm that I let myself miss him.  And then he walked in the door just a few hours later!

I took my parents out to dinner to thank them for their help but in justice I should have bought them, at minimum, a new car.  That is how much they did.

Bryan has traveled on business before, although usually just one night at a time instead of six.  I've never liked it but until this trip I never realized how much worse it could be.  

He was in Lousiana, on Central Time, one hour behind us.

(Digression Poll: did YOU know Michigan is in the Eastern Time Zone?  I am constantly surprised by how many people do not know this.)

He was leaving his hotel each morning at 6 and not getting back until 11 each night.  With spotty cell service and the time difference, plus my going to bed around 10 to maximize my sleep time, this meant we couldn't talk on the phone at all.  I didn't hear Bryan's voice between Monday morning and Friday afternoon. 

I think that might be the longest I've gone without hearing his voice during our entire marriage!  Almost seven years!

I felt awful for my poor husband working such long days, so while he was gone I wrote him emails and left him voice mail messages and took pictures of the kids and me to send to him.  He missed them a lot.

And who wouldn't?