The no good, very bad day

Okay. So I've officially experienced my first no good, very bad day. Err, days.

Crazy hormonal waves of hellatious emotions, crying because my 16 day old child wails for an hour while trying to figure out how to poop, getting into a yelling match over the cats with Jas at 4 pm in the afternoon in front of our daughter...

Yeah. The Shit-Hit-The-Fan list could go on for a couple more pages.

Starting on Wednesday, I just felt like I was going a little crazy. Thanks to the "You need to nurse your infant 10-12 times a day" rule, I wasn't sleeping more than an hour at a time. When I'd wake up to nurse Merri in the morning (5:30/6:00 am), I'd HAVE to shower after sweating enough to lose 5 pounds overnight. Then I'd make Jason lunch and see him off to work. Craving time to myself, I'd stay awake rather than nap after Jas went to work, blogging, wasting time on the internet, watching TV or catching up on my word-of-the-day crossword puzzle calendar (I just now tore off May 1st's puzzle). Of course, it wasn't until when I'd FINALLY remember to feed myself, Merriwether would rise with her little eyes and hungry cries, letting me know it was her turn to eat first. By the time I was done nursing her, I'd be so thirsty that I'd chug water in lieu of eating before beginning the day's chores of laundry, dishes and straightening up. By the time that was complete, Nursing O'Clock struck again.

Rinse and repeat the cycle until total sleep deprivation kicks in.

Seriously, sleep deprivation kinda kicked my ass. Like, completely. On Thursday night after napping with Merri on me, I woke up really disoriented and gave her to Jason saying, "Here, I think your Uncle charm will make her feel better." Needless to say, Jason wasn't just NOT impressed, he was pretty worried as well (And yeah, I went with the double negative there).

Aside from just being plain dumb (Hello...Jason isn't her uncle for crying out loud!) I found myself feeling really down about well, everything. The sun depressed me because I couldn't go outside with her. And, even if I DID go outside with her, I didn't have anything to wear aside from my gray and black maternity clothes. And with the humidity kicking in, those wintery clothes made me sweat double the amount I was already leaking! But I couldn't wear anything else! After all, while weighing only ten pounds more than my pre-pregnancy weight, I'm no where near ready to fit into my hipster jean shorts and cute summer dresses I donned last summer.

These postpartum blues, fueled by sleep deprivation, began to spiral into a tornado of a mess, disabling me from really taking good care of myself.

And what happens when a postpartum woman who's up for 18 hours a day stops eating and staying hydrated?

She has a total breakdown, which is absolutely what happened to me on Friday evening. After celebrating Epipheo's fifth year anniversary, I broke down crying.

And when I say crying, I mean CRYING. Ugly crying with unwavering streams of snot, bewildering moans, and eyes so swollen it looked like I had an allergic reaction to something. I believe the word that best describes these ugly cries is inconsolable.

But I'll admit, I'm damn thankful it happened. Had my breakdown not occurred when it did (Because let's fact it, a total collapse was inevitable), I wouldn't have been able to reset myself over the weekend. With some careful planning, incredible support and long conversations with Jason, I'm feeling more confident about being able to juggle being a new mommy, a wife and an adequately rested human being.

And so, upon the closure of my first Mother's Day, I go into next week with a badge of confidence I didn't have before: "First New Mommy Breakdown." Check.

Bring it on.

Oh my glob! We had a baby!

My daughter turned one week old today.

I'm still in shock that I can write that sentence AND have it be applicable to me.

When I look back at this last whirlwind of a week, the days and nights blend together, creating a homogenous splatter of diaper changing, animated movie watching, breast feeding, laundering (no, not the dirty money kind), and hormonal tidal wave riding.

I can't say it's been the worse time of my life; and that's because of my beautiful daughter, Merriwether.

Merriwether was born on Wednesday April 23, 2014 at 1:09 pm. She weighed 8 pounds, 15 ounces and measured 20 inches long. Every inch of her is perfect; however, I'm an incredibly biased judge. You can ask her father for a more evened opinion.

I went into labor last Tuesday late afternoon. I spent the middle of the day putting together boxes for Keep Covington Beautiful's Great American Cleanup, looking forward to the prospect of participating in the clean up that went off without a hitch this last Saturday. At 4 pm, Jason, Sara (his mama) and I went to our non-stress test where we saw our little Poppyseed just haaaaaaaaaaaanging out in my uterus with no real sign of coming out.

That changed within the hour. By 5 pm I noticed, for only the third time in all the nine months and nine days of pregnancy, contractions -- real, LIVE contractions. Not wanting to get any hopes up, Jason and I continued with our typical week night routine of hanging around in our tiny TV room, catching up on Jon Stewart and Seth Meyers; Jas finishing up some work for Epipheo, me diving into a magazine that had just offered me a job interview. We even had friends come over to snag an old sofa and ran dinner over to his mom who was strapped down with work issues.

The contractions, as they're supposed to, got stronger. By 10 pm, things that people who have never experienced childbirth will not want to hear about started to happen. In my heart and head I knew my body was finally doing what it was made to do. After 41 1/2 weeks of creating life...and stressing over the health of that life...it was finally GO TIME. As our practices in the Bradley Method of childbirth and the advice of our incredibly knowledgable and experienced friends suggested, I labored in the comfort of our teeny apartment, varying breathing through contractions by leaning on my exercise ball, throwing all of my body weight on Jas, laying on my side and walking around...a cycle that repeated itself for 7 hours. While I was able to rest and sleep in a meditated state in between contractions, the evening was fairly restless.

By 4:30 am, I knew I wanted to be in the hospital within the next 30 minutes (St. Elizabeth Edgewood is, like everything here, a 20 minute drive away from our apartment). Packing up our labor bag and briefly saying goodbye to the kittiez (we did have the wherewithall to feed them before we left!), Jas and I headed to the hospital in our Versa, nagivating through the early morning twilight and calming our nerves with the familiar melodies of A Charlie Brown Christmas.

By 5 am I was admitted into the triage center at the Family Birth Place. I'll admit, with the amount of pressure and intensity of the pain I was already experiencing, I was really scared I wasn't going to be dilated enough and that they'd send me home. Luckily, that wasn't the case and, at 7 cm dilated, I was admitted into labor and delivery.

That's when shit got real. Like, really real and really blurry. I can't recall all of the next 6 hours of breathing, bearing down and pushing, but minor, random memories spark up, like looking at the clock to my right and wondering how and why this could take so long; Jason's mom, peeking in to bring him chocolate milk and me realizing we didn't put my chocolate hazelnut milk in the fridge for after baby was out; A Charlie Brown Christmas playing on loop, thanks to Jason and our iPad; the FOX tv station being on THE ENTIRE TIME I was in labor (thank goodness it was muted); my doctor telling me that this is LABOR and labor is work and it's the only way to create life; Jason reading encouraging words from a coworker (I'm talking about you Lucas); begging for ice chips; Jason wrapped up in the purple blanket my Great Aunt Robbie made for me 10 years ago.

And of course, lots of yelling. The Bradley Method explains that women who go through natural childbirth (natural being totally unmedicated) armed with the Bradley Method don't scream and yell like those women you see on TV/in the movies giving birth. I call bullshit. I grunted, moaned, cried and yelled my way through three hours of being stuck at 9.5 cm and another three hours of pushing. I also drifted on and off into a deep meditation between contractions, enabling me to gain my strength for the next contraction. I altered positions on the bed, shifting from sitting down (ooooooooooh the pressure!) and kneeling backwards on the bed (ooooooh the weakness of my arms). After about 45 minutes of pushing while sitting, with the INTENSE encouragement of my doctor, nurse and Jason, I was positioned in the backwards kneeling position so that I could get baby out with one final push.

As you can assume, it worked and baby was born. Since I was backwards I had to turn back around while baby and the umbilical cord were both still attached. In the greatest feat of the day, I hiked a leg OVER the cord and flipped around, unveiling the site of my daughter. She was placed on my chest, after she sort of flopped out of the doctor's arms. With Jason on my left side and my daughter on top of me, life couldn't have been any better.

I'm seriously all teary eyed just reliving the moment.

And to think all of that happened JUST a week ago? That I had a baby inside of me 7 days ago? That my life dramatically changed FOREVER? Well, that's crazy. Super crazy...yet at the same time, absolutely right.

Fun Times at Findlay Market

After living here for three months, we finally made it to Findlay Market...

And it's just as freaking awesome as everyone's said.

Spring bloomed with full force the day after my birthday, urging Jason, his mom (who arrived two days prior to help us out with baby's impending arrival) and myself to get our pasty-skinned selves outside to hit that Vitamin D. Enter: Findlay Market.

Findlay Market, for those of you who don't know about it, is Cincinnati's most famous and most awesome outdoor market. It's a bit like Portland's PSU/downtown Farmer's Market meets Saturday Market: food vendors fill the air with the aroma of fried spring rolls, fatty gyros and wood fired pizzas; farmers line booths with freshly picked, brightly colored fruits and vegetables; local artists hock a plethora of handmade goods, ranging from baskets and bags to flattened bottles and ceramic pots. There's so much for the eyes, nose and mouth to take in, I'm not sure the brain can process the sensations fast enough.

That's probably why we went twice.

Mmmm. Meat. 

On the first, aforementioned weekend, it was easy to spot us as Findlay Market newbies. We came without extra bags (but ended up purchasing some really awesome totes instead), without cash (There are Fifth Third Bank ATMs) and with empty stomachs (although, come to think of it, empty stomachs may have been the secret ingredient to our late afternoon picnic at Eden Park that day). After making our initial round of the market to peruse the goods, we went to work, purchasing local honey (Great energy for our upcoming labor and delivery!), the most amazing English muffins I've ever made into egg mcmuffin sandwiches and pizzas, spices, hummus, fruit, local eggs with daffodil yellow yolks, salads made on site, local nuts, herbs and strawberry starters that now line our backyard 'patio,' the biggest, crunchiest dill pickles...

Oh the list goes on and on.

After spending way too much of my time here shopping at Whole Foods and Krogers, it's so refreshing to grab goods while catching some sun rays. The experience, finally, made me feel like I was home, in Portland.

Of course, this isn't Portland and Findlay Market has it's own back story making it unique and cooler, in some ways, than the markets in our Pacific Northwest counterpart.

As quoted/stolen from the Findlay Market website,

Built originally as an open-sided pavilion, the market was erected in 1852 but disputes with contractors and difficulties correcting problems with new construction methods delayed its opening until 1855. The center masonry tower was added in 1902. Soon after, public health concerns about the market, which was open to the elements and exposed to increasing urban pollution, prompted the enclosure of the market house and the addition of plumbing and refrigeration. Merchants previously has used cold storage in deep cellars beneath nearby breweries.

1855? Oregon was still so infantile it's statehood that it was dealing with treaties between the natives. I can't imagine there was any urban planning for an outdoor market taking place. 1902? Really, I'm always taken aback by the richness and depth of the history over here. I'm sure that's a sign of my Washington/Oregon roots.

After our first outing, the three of us celebrated the fruits of our labor by, well, gorging our sun-kissed faces, treating our bellies to some of the best (and most local!) food I've had since arriving here. Thank goodness for this gem!

In Non-Pregnancy Related News...

Believe it or not, I've found something besides pregnancy to spend my time on. Sure, it only took the entire last trimester-plus to do it, but I'm pretty freaking excited about this new opportunity.

"What's the opportunity?" you ask?

Well...

Drumroll puh-leeeeeeze.

You are currently reading the written words of the newest board member of Keep Covington Beautiful. Hooray!

Back story:

As everyone knows, we arrived in Covington in January, what we've been repeatedly told was the absolute worst time to move to the area in 25 years. Being the dead of a very cold, depressing and tough winter, we didn't spend a lot of time outside. My now-daily walks were non-existent, as were our Eden Park picnics and Findlay Market sojourns. It was, as Jason so perfectly puts it, balls cold.

But then March came and bloomed into April. While we've dealt with a few freak snow days (like this Tuesday, I kid you not), one can see that the warmer weather and beaming sun is working wonders on the city; once-dead foliage is erupting in greens, whites and pinks. The grass is sharpening it's hue from dull yellow to succulent green. For a couple of Pacific Northwesterners who are used to being surrounded by year-round green, saying this change is refreshing isn't quite enough. It's therapeutic, much needed and unbelievably appreciated.

That is...

Until you realize that beneath the green grass and behind the bubbly tulips is trash. A ton of it. Like, more litter than I've ever seen in one place at one time, save for the dump.

I really wish I was leaning here on my favorite literary technique of hyperboly, but I'm not. And it's super depressing.

While Jas and I commiserated for about a week worth of walking, we also talked about what we could do about it. No, we can't clean up the entire city but we can sure as hell get our neighborhood looking a bit shinier. So, after buying Costco-sized boxes of medical gloves and garbage bags, we made our after-work walks more productive and started picking up trash. It's made a difference already and has piqued the interest, thanks and assistance of our neighbors.

I quickly became addicted to the whisper of change and community betterment. Fueled by a newfound desire to clean up Covington, I visited the Keep Covington Beautiful (KCB) website after driving by an event banner for the umpteenth million time. The organization is awesome. They're dedicated to, as one can surmise by the name, making Covington a cleaner place to live through education and awareness. KCB aspires to create long-term change of conservation, protecting natural resources, accepting responsibility for maintaining public space, broadening community knowledge and maintaining a comprehensive beautification program for Covington.

KCB's main goals are to:

1. Keep Covington beautiful through litter abatement, waste reduction, recycling and conservation of natural resources.

2. Grow participation and generate citywide support of commercial recycling and environmental goals from public agencies, churches, neighborhood organizations, private owners of rental properties and non-profit organizations.

3. Facilitate and maintain beautification and greening projects along major entryways to and within the city through volunteer cleanup projects, the Adopt-A-Spot program and a Clean Catch Basin initiative.

4. Foster community and corporate pride and involvement through volunteerism.

And I get to be a leading part of this initiative! I became a board member just yesterday after attending the KCB's Wednesday board meeting. The board is full of community members who possess the same passion and desire for creating a better city today for the citizens of tomorrow that I do. It's an opportunity to make a real change and I'm really looking forward to getting my hands dirty. Literally.

The first event I may or may not get to be a part of (Depending on when this baby decides to evict itself) it the Great American Cleanup on Saturday, April 26th. While basically every aspect of the event is already planned and taken care of, Jas and I are planning on taking our bags, grabbers and gloves up Prisoners Drive and into/around Prisoners Lake to clean that area up (That way everyone can enjoy the lake's fishing without wading through beer cans and styrofoam cups). I also get to do some incredibly awesome packet-putting-together next week. Yessssssss.

I know, I know; becoming a board member 9 days before this baby HAS to be out of me seems insane. They understand I'm becoming a mom and it's okay. Regardless of how crazy and stressful being a new mom will be, I can't imagine there not being time to help out my community. After all, if I don't work to make a better world for my little one, why should I expect others to do so?

Two Months Later...

So it's been about a million years since I last posted a blog. If any of you have ever read or followed any of my past blogs, you know that I'm quite adept at not keeping up to date with my blogs (hence the phrase, "past blogs." Plural).

As much as I fully want to play the Pregnancy Card and blame my lack of writing on crazy hormones, terrible third trimester aches and pains, pregsomnia (Yes, that's pregnancy-induced insomnia), and the like, I can only, honestly half blame these last two months of pregnancy on my latency. You see, pregnancy hasn't been all THAT awful. Yes, it's been noticeable -- any of you who've seen me in the past few weeks have beared witness to my waddle (and if you're Jason, you've been witness to a LOT less flattering pregnancy symptoms than that) -- but it's been fairly manageable too.

I guess I haven't written lately because...well, I don't know...I've been lazy? I suppose my laziness could technically be blamed on pregnancy's curse of light sleeping and energy-draining existence, but I have a hard time not taking any responsibility since I feel a wee bit bad about being so mum these past eight weeks.

So here it is: I'm sorry I haven't kept up to date with my writing.

There are so many fun experiences, from our first 70 degree weather day and picking up litter to exploring the art museum and stalking Cate Blanchett, to share with friends and family, both near and far. I'm really looking forward to picking up my pen...err...laptop (?) and connecting with y'all.

That's right. I went with 'y'all.'

Don't worry. I haven't picked up a Kentucky accent...yet (gulp!).

PS -- Our Poppyseed is still nestled inside. Baby will make his/her appearance no later than April 27th!

A Little Taste of Portland

This past weekend, my parents traveled to Tacoma to welcome the birth of my second niece. When they had to cut their stay early due to a cold (What a bummer drag!), they were forced to drive down to Portland in lieu of going over Snoqualmie Pass (which was closed indefinitely, thanks to the weather).

Despite the fact that I knew their drive would be an extra 4 hours, I was jealous. Still am, actually.

Upon telling Jason he asked if they could grab us coffee, lemon poppyseed quickbread, charcuterie, a place to live and jobs as awesome as his current one.

Don't get me wrong; we are enjoying the heck out of our time here. We just miss the hell out of Portland. There's something comforting about the 45 degree weather, complete with it's gray skies and constant drizzle that feels like home. We miss the hippie kids sitting outside of New Seasons asking if we want to help "the, like, good cause of legalizing marijuaaaaaaaaaana maaaaaaan," the cheap movie theaters where we can buy tickets, two slices of pizza, candy and drinks for $18, and the entourage of tiny cars that made us feel like we belonged.

And of course, we miss our friends.

Luckily, on Saturday we found a little place that made us feel right at home.

Thanks to our friends the Beausejours, we finally went to this general store in OTR called Park + Vine. Sammy told me earlier last week that the store was having a killer baby stuff sale and that we should check it out, since many of their products are items we've put on our baby registry. Seriously, the store is awesome. After spending a solid two hours driving around to find a place to dump our recycling and buying apartment-repair goods at Home Depot, we walked into Park + Vine and felt...relieved. Comforted. Stoked beyond all belief.

The store is pretty awesome. There's a cafe that makes amazing-smelling vegan food. There's a marketplace that sells more kinds of kombucha than I've heard of (They even have Oregon Kombucha starter kits!!!). There's a home goods section that sells toilet seats for proper pooping (No I'm not kidding and yes this is awesome). And of course, there's the baby section.

This is the first time Jas and I have really BOUGHT stuff for baby and let me tell you, it was simultaneously fantastic and overwhelming. Perusing through the shelves of cloth diapers, I realized I have little-to-no idea what to do with one. Jas held up a package of what looked like rags to me, only to say, "Hey, these are what my mom put me and Bri in." He wanted to get them while I imagined being home alone with baby, trying to figure out how the heck to use them as I wipe baby poo off of the walls. Needless to say, we didn't get those.  But we did walk out with some diapers (that I am VERY confident I'll know how to use), locally made bibs, diaper liners and a diaper pale liner. I could have easily purchased one of everything there but I'm figuring it's probably more important for Poppyseed to have a crib with a mattress than fifteen bibs, a onesie that says, "My dad has more tattoos than your dad," a dozen pairs of booties and six baby carriers.

Priorities.

Upon checking out, I think the dude must have witnessed our "WTF do we do with these diapers?" scene because he mentioned that the store puts on cloth diaper classes, in addition to a boat load of other natural and hippy-ish classes. I'm very excited to be adding many of them to our calendar.

Like I said, it's a piece of home away from home...just without the smell of dirty hippy.

Fun Facts: Volume I

As I drive around, go out on coffee dates and surf the internet, I come across so many little factoids about Cincinnati and Covington that simply amaze me and make me think, "Hey, it's not so bad here after all."

I figured, for those of you who are lucky enough to still be in Portland (Ahem, Pat and Coco and Dr. Brassard) or who've found sunny reprieve in California (Ahem, KG, Eli, Selena and Erin) with Jason's side of the family or who live elsewhere in Washington (Hi Mom and Dad!) OR anywhere else in the US (Megs, Jacob), that I'd let you in on my list of interesting facts about the area.

Caveat: You may not find them even remotely interesting. No fear, I'll continue to post about our experiences in non-list form.

So, here it goes:

1. The dude who wrote the song, "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" was born and raised in Covington, Kentucky. His name is Haven, making this fact doubly awesome.

2. Running around the perimeter of Covington is exactly a half marathon. Yep, that's how small of a city I now reside in. I'm looking forward to rocking that half while training for the Flying Pig Marathon next year.

3. Cincinnati chili is unique because it uses sweet spices like cinnamon, cardamom and chocolate (And no, I still can't bring myself to try it. I'm still smitten with the Laurelhurst Market chili Jason and I indulged in months ago back in Portland). One of these days, Jas and I are going to man up and go to Skyline Chili with Epipheo's other newest Portland transplants, Chase and his girlfriend Cat, to see what the ado is all about. Once we've patronized it, we will absolutely require all friends and family who visit us to dine there, too. You've all been warned.

4. Front license plates aren't needed. Jas and I first noticed the very obvious lack of front license plates when Epipheo brought us here in September to woo him/us into moving here. We are particularly sensitive to cars without front license plates after a small fender bender dented ours. We took it off and realized that putting it back on so that it didn't hang crooked was a bigger pain in the bum than giving birth will probably be (Okay, that's definitley hyperbolic, but let's just roll with it). While that may have been fine and dandy here in Ohio/Kentucky, it wasn't in Portland. Driving around sans front license plate in Oregon got us a lot of tickets. From the same cop. Yes, we should have learned our lesson -- and we did -- and tried to fix it, multiple times. Nevertheless, neither Kentucky nor Ohio require front license plates. I guess it's a nice karma atonement for all of the freaking money we've already doled out for that damn front plate.

5. Speaking of cars, there's the honking. We're learning that honking is an oft-used form of communication here (and not in just a "Meep meep asshole" type of way). It could be too soon to fairly declare this as a Tristate area truth, but it definitely is in our neighborhood. Whether it's 6:30 in the morning, 4 in the afternoon or past the wee hours of midnight, the drivers in our neighborhood honk. A lot. You know, just to say, "Hey, I'm here to pick you up," or "Hey move your car from behind my car so I can leave," or "Hey I forgot something can you get it for me?" Isn't that what a cell phone is for?

6. Cincinnati is called the Queen City. Well, technically it was once called the Queen City of the West. I read that the term "queen city" refers to the biggest city in at state that isn't a capital (So I guess you could say we moved from one queen city to another). Cincinnati has Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to thank for the nickname, thanks to the homage paid in his poem, "Catawba Wine." There's a square in downtown Cincinnati that has the line from this poem etched into a stone wall. I noticed it first back in September while celebrating a rare bout of non-nausea with some Graeter's sorbet.

7. You can still smoke in bars and other public places that are notoriously forbidden on the West Coast.

8. I'm also pretty sure it's legal to drive and talk on your cellphone at the same time. It only kind of scares me, mainly when I'm getting onto the I-75/I-71S bridge, jammed between four semis, one with a driver whose talking on his mobile.

9. "Please?" means "Come again?" I noticed this when I had to go into the hospital a couple of weeks ago for a non-stress test for baby (Everything turned out fine, no worries!). When the nurse came in after I had changed into my gown, I mumbled that I could move up to the edge of the bed. She responded with a quizzical expression and the simple question, "Please?" It took me a moment to understand. When I got home I Googled "Cincinnati Expressions" and found out, thanks to this awesome city dictionary, that it means, "Pardon me" and the like. I like it. I think it's a much more respectful way of saying, "What the heck did you just say?" like I normally would.

10. BOTH Proctor and Gamble and Kroger's (a/k/a Fred Meyer's to my Pacific Northwest peeps) are both headquartered in Cincinnati. You know what that means? Cheap toiletries. $1.00 toothbrushes that are typically $3 back in Oregon? For this OCD tooth brusher, I couldn't be happier. My bright white smile will tell you so.

Okie dokie, ten is a good, solid number. Go ahead and call me Letterman, because I'm stopping there.

Until next time!