The Trifecta of Badness:
Monday my MIL came up to visit and watch B for half the day. As MIL visits go, it was not so bad. She only insisted on a brief conversation about all the happy pregnancies in her neighborhood. It's her new theme - A thinks she's trying to reassure me that pregnancy can be lovely and wonderful, in hopes that I'll give my uterus another shot at the majors. A big improvement over the days when she'd tell me pregnancy loss stories over and over in gruesome detail (she's available for parties), but I still just don't have much to say when it comes to strangers' happy pregnancies. Great? Good luck to them? Meh. Aside from hearing about people I actually know, it's just not a topic that interests me. As someone who was in a terrible car wreck, I don't really care to hear about what a lovely drive in the country everyone else is having.
So, not the worst, but seeing MIL is always a bit stressful. Then Tuesday we had a hospital day, with a swallow study down at Children's. The Stupid Clinic (their new name) has been agitating for a swallow study for ages, even while B was steadfastly refusing bottles. Practical considerations in pursuit of data is not their strong suit. So I agreed, finally. It was a disaster. He had to go without food or drink for 5 hours prior and missed a full nap. So tired, hungry, and placed in a feeding chair with an x-ray machine inches away from the side of his head (he's not allowed to look at it or raise his arms - yet the stupid thing is covered with disney stickers), and he's expected to eat normally from a barium-laced cup while four strangers chirp 'HEY BABY, HEY BABY, OVER HERE!!'. B gets more hyper when he's tired, hungry, and overstimulated. It was insanity and didn't really offer us new information. Sippy cup ok, open cup bad. Thanks, Stupid Clinic.
Turns out the barium made him horribly constipated, so for a day and a half after the study B refused to eat or drink. Extremely stressful, terribly upsetting. Things had been so incredibly wonderful on vacation. All his feeding issues went away; his GI issues, too! So a hot day with a baby with 'The Way Is Closed' tattooed on his forehead sucked. I cried.
In sum, cruddy week but things are improving. B is still having belly issues but he's far far happier as of yesterday. We'd been so worried about him that when he started eating and drinking enthusiastically all of a sudden, A and I celebrated in all caps text messages. Phew. I also resolved to give Stupid Clinic the heave-ho and just ask for an individual specialist to follow us. Life is too short, friends, for other people's nonsense.
The Good! There is Good!
However! Not everything is cruddy. Here are some awesome things:
- I started a boot camp program and I love it. Love, love, love it. If they had locations outside of my county, I'd link to it so you all could try it, too. It's basically 6 to 10 of us sharing a personal trainer 3 mornings a week in a public park for a decently low price. I get someone to push me when I need it and remind me to back off when I forget that 2011 me is a far cry from 2009 me. Mix that up with yoga and running and I already feel one thousand million times better. And that's a lot of better.
- Southern Living Magazine. In my ongoing search for fatty high-calorie recipes to tempt my miniature tyrant, all roads lead back to Southern Living. Cream cheese pound cake, people. Oh my god.
- Which is to say, I'm still on the straight and narrow. I eat non-fat yogurt and 150 calorie salmon burgers with green chili (yum), the dudes eat the cream cheese pound cake. It's getting easier, surprisingly so.
- Classes and my externship start in a week. I have never been so excited to get the hell out of the house and back to work. 9 credits until graduation. I can practically taste it.
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