bleh

As a kid it seemed to me that one of the jobs of adults was to "make" me do things I didn't want to do-chores, homework, put the book down, go to bed, you know how it is. I looked forward to the time when I would be an adult myself and no one could make me do any unwanted activities. Imagine my dismay when I discovered that as an adult I still have to do things I don't want to do, but I have to make myself do them. In fact, I end up doing more disagreeable tasks now then I ever did as a kid. Sigh.

Spring Cleaning

My mom had something she would often say when we were kids: A place for everything, and everything in it's place. It used to drive us nuts because, of course, it was usually followed by firm instructions about cleaning up our rooms. Many times since then I have seen the value of such advice. I've come to really enjoy organizing to make places for things. I don't always like putting things in their places quite as well, but I feel much more at peace in a tidy environment, so I do it. Recently I've realized that there are too few places for all the things in our home. B and I were both 30 when we married, and had accumulated quite a bit of stuff in our single lives. Adding all that comes with a business and a baby, and you have a lot of stuff! It is time for some of it to go. I often feel like "Spring cleaning" in April or May, I've discovered. I have begun this year with a "grand tossing-out" of stuff we don't need in order to make places for the stuff we actually use. J reminds me that I just have to take this project in small bites rather than diving in like I am want to do.

More Than I Can Chew

Sometimes I want to post on my blog, and I have all kinds of lengthy and eloquent thoughts, but not enough time to format them...so, I don't write anything. Sometimes I want to exercise, but I don't have time for a full-out hour long run...so I don't do anything. I need to clean the kitchen, but I don't have time right now for the good scrubbing that it is called for, so I put it off hoping for more time later. It will never come. Oh, I know that I have the same amount of time as everyone else, but I am still getting used to fitting other things in the pockets of time not spent on J. I don't begrudge the time I spend with J at all, in fact I quite enjoy it, but I'm finding that I often have to drop what I'm doing to care for him and come back to it later. Perfectionist Emily doesn't like this. She also doesn't like how SleepDeprived Emily forgets what she was doing before she stopped to care for the baby and never finishes it. She's just going to have to take a back seat, however. I'm learning that it is okay to "take smaller bites."

Interumperoo

J has a Jumperoo, which is basically a seat hanging from springs in a free standing frame. This, however, is not just your ordinary "stick the baby in so he can jump up and down" toy. It is a brightly colored, Fisher Price created, jungle themed, light flashing, music playing, toy covered, battery operated contraption. The thing takes up a large corner of our already small living room, and I would be annoyed by this if J didn't enjoy it so much. On one setting it silent until the baby jumps whereupon a snippet of a peppy tune will play and lights flash. On the other setting, a peppy tune plays continuously and the baby's jumping is marked by animal sounds. J will sit quietly and listen to the music, then bounce furiously up and down for a few seconds, so that it sounds like monkeys and elephants and tigers and birds are frantically trying to interrupt each other. It makes me laugh.

Tags

As I was folding the laundry the other day, I noticed I was ripping all the tags off my new dishtowels. I realized that this is standard procedure for me. Why does everything made of fabric come with a tag attached anyway? Is it illegal to sell something without a tag? I find them annoying. Tags on clothing are itchy. If a tag is sticking out the neck of my shirt in the back, inevitably someone will come tuck it back in, then pat me in a condescending way. I suppose washing instructions are helpful, but often after many washes, the words fade right off the tag and then you are left with a tiny flap of fabric that is useless except to stick out of your shirt and earn you condescending pats. The most annoying thing of all is large tags on small items. Each tiny stuffed bear hanging from the mobile on J's crib has not one, not two, but three tags flapping from its rear. The tags are bigger than the toys! I tried ripping them off, but they are sewn on tightly-much more so than those on my dishtowels which are now...tagless.

Perfume

I decided that what I wanted for my birthday was perfume. I've never had real perfume. I'm fairly casual most of the time, and when I do want to dress up, I'll maybe use a spritz or two of some light, fruity, body spray from Bath and Body Works. I thought it might be nice, however, to have another option-something more grown-up, elegant, and long lasting. It was fun to go perfume shopping with B. We wandered around the cosmetic counters, sniffing different fragrances and spraying the ones we liked on sample cards. B was so methodical about the whole thing that I found it funny, but he was also very helpful. Buying something like perfume was a bit overwhelming because there are so many choices, they can seem so similar, and perfumes smell very different on a person than they do on a card. B spread out the cards we’d collected, made me close my eyes, and held up each card in turn for me to smell. He’d say, “Do you like #1, or #2?” like an optometrist. It made me laugh. Still, it was a simple way to eliminate scents I didn’t like, and select those I did like. By the time I was slightly dizzy from sniffing so much, we had a reasonable number of fragrances to try. We sprayed them on different parts of my arms, then I decided which one I liked best, and we bought it. The most amusing part was walking around for the rest of the evening with six different scents wafting from me. I’m sure I must have given several people olfactory overload, especially when they encountered me in the close quarters of the shelves at Waldenbooks. I could hardly tolerate myself, so who knows what others thought! I washed my arms off with soap in a restroom, but I was still pretty pungent. Luckily the scents wore off before I went to church today.

Prozac and Perfectionism

I've taken Prozac (or rather, the generic version) for the past eight years. I HATE it!!!! I hate it that I need a drug and can't just talk myself out of depression. (Believe me, I've tried.) I hate the stigma society places on any kind of mental disorder ... in spite of the fact that half of the population of the developed world seems to be on some type of antidepressant! I hate the fact that half of society takes antidepressants, because it makes me wonder how over-prescribed they are, and if I really need to take Prozac at all. I wonder this until I stop taking it for a while. Some studies have shown that when women take Prozac in the third trimester of pregnancy, their babies' respiratory systems have trouble developing. There is no conclusive evidence that this happens for everyone, but it is a risk. So, my doctor suggested I switch to Wellbutrin. The difficulty is that Wellbutrin, excreted in breast milk, causes problems for nursing babies. I would have to switch back to Prozac after the baby is born. This all seemed like such a huge hassle and risk. I know how my body reacts to Prozac, but have no idea what Wellbutrin would do to me. So, with my doctor's approval, I decided to taper off the Prozac and then not take anything until after the baby is born. This seemed like a good idea, since summer sun and the reduced stress of not teaching school always help me anyway, and in the past I've been able to get by with half doses of Prozac during the summer. Now, however, I'm starting to question whether I've made a mistake. I am not out of control, but lately it is MUCH more difficult to deal with life logically, and to convince myself to be happy. I made an interesting discovery, though. As my emotions get a little out of whack, I tend to be more rigid about things I can control. I clean stuff meticulously. I plan events down to the last ticky little detail. I didn't even realize until now that this is a coping mechanism for me. It can be effective one. I feel a sense of satisfaction when I look at the sparkling clean newly mopped floor. This is far preferable to a sense of worthlessness and impending doom! Unfortunately, the "Meticulousity of Control" method of therapy has inherent flaws. There will always be something outside my influence that can ruin my best laid plans. (I spend hours washing every window in the house, and then it rains. I plan a fun outing with my sisters, but they want to do something else. I pick out the perfect sofa to go with our livingroom decor, but B hates it.) Luckily, I've learned enough about myself and my own cognitive distortions to recognize when I am being too perfectionistic (is that a word?) and rigid. I've learned to chill out. After all, if I try to distract myself from emotions which I can't control, by being a perfectionist about things which I can control, and then end up feeling upset when things which I can't control interfere, I've just created a vicious cycle spiraling down into a an infinite chasm of depression-a sucking, draining, inescapable doom-a black hole of despair sprinkled with a few brief sparks of false hope ... OKAY! Guess I'd better get back to picking those lint balls off the bathroom rug! ;)