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If you have found some of my more recent posts to be less than uplifting, I am making the commitment right now to provide some comic and mama-dramatic relief.  I have started several promising and cheerful posts, such as “Operation Blankie”, “Parents a la Super Fly”, “Sleep, Sweet, Sleep”, “It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane!” and several letters to Silas.  But, like any good parent, I am constantly interrupted from my task of finishing these more delightful and less depressing gems.  Please, if you’ve been reading (thank you, thank you, thank you) don’t turn a cold shoulder on me yet.  Never fear, comic relief is near.

And again, thanks for reading.

I would be nothing without my fan base…  that means YOU!

My sister has recently pulled the twigs and leaves and ladybugs of Maine from her dreads and has driven down to stay with us awhile. She has come to NC, I believe, under the pretense that she is my daily assistant. Folding laundry at my side, preparing healthy dinners of fiddlehead spaghetti, and sweeping up Silas when his whining (it’s this new independence thing he’s into) gets to me. And pointing out, whether I like it or not, that I am an unfaltering stream of negativity.

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I know that in earlier posts I admitted to constantly comparing Silas to other babies. Generally fictitious babes or those in memoirs, like Sam in Operating Instructions. But, you see, at that time I was only speaking in jest. Well, mostly. Of course, I thought of Silas as the Supreme Being of all Babes. But, still, I think I managed to keep my competitiveness to a minimum. Until now. This damned crawling business is starting to make me feel like one of those child pageant moms and I want Silas to have the best baton twirling act… or else! It’s just that all the other parents are just so damn smug.

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So, maybe you’ve missed me. I’ve been gone awhile.

You might say I’ve had a breakdown of sorts.

But, I can tell I’m getting better. I can tell because I just used the age-old “sweep everything into the closet and tackle it in the morning” technique. Two weeks ago, I wouldn’t have done that. Two weeks ago, I would have stood for countless moments staring at the pile of clean but unfolded laundry and reflected on how that pile represented the vile garbage dump of my personal failures. Then, I would have either maniacally begun sorting, hanging, and folding the laundry (despite the fact that it was near midnight and Silas would be up at 3am) while becoming increasingly irritable and frantic or I would have climbed into my bed and rolled up like a boxer’s fist and stared at the wall praying that my husband wouldn’t touch me and thinking about what an utter wreck of a person I was, what a poor, poor excuse of a woman and a mother.

That’s the truth. Just because of the laundry.

So, as I have said, since last we spoke, I have had a breakdown of sorts. I have been diagnosed with a postpartum condition. And, on top of that, the subject of my apparent bipolar disorder has resurfaced. Yippee. (That’s sarcasm.) (more…)