Seattle Summer & Divorce Rates

Every year I am shocked by the intensity of our heat waves. I feel that it’s early this year, usually happening later in July, so I hope that it doesn’t happen twice. It’s usually this five or so day stretch with temperatures heading into the 90’s and beyond. While the rest of the country swelters under MUCH HOTTER temperatures, there is something sinister about our heat, here.  Or maybe it’s the lack of AC in any of the houses, so we’re all forced to deal with skyrocketing temperatures…in our bedrooms.

To beat the heat during the day, I’ve been spending time with a good friend and her two sons. And for all my uncertainty about being a mom, let alone a good mom, there is something so refreshingly nostalgic about watching my kid run in the sprinkler and eat blue otter pops. And we sit in the grass sunning ourselves, drinking beer and watching the two kiddos splash in the kiddie pool. If only I could sleep in the kiddie pool, that would be cool enough!

Potamus is definitely weaning. He’s not happy about it, and neither am I (in some respects), and napping and sleeping is super hard for all of us. It’s taking about two hours to put him down at night, and the other night, after nursing, he fell asleep drinking from his water bottle…after wiggling and playing tent and wanting to dive off the bed to start playing with legos. It’s a challenge to my patience, to say the least, and it’s worse because I’m sweaty and wish that he could just nurse to sleep like when he was a wee baby. I feel like my milk is drying up and he’s frustrated that my boobies aren’t working like they used to. But the night he fell asleep drinking water he slept really well, so I think that we’re in this place of transition and both aren’t wanting it to end, but I think it’ll actually help. Sigh, I’m so torn.

There have been a few years where Boof and I head over to his parent’s house to sleep for a few days to save our sanity. They have air conditioning plus all the bedrooms are in the basement, so it’s almost TOO cold over there. But we’re actually heading on up to a local island to stay in some cabins for a few days with my parents. While it’s not going to be cool, hopefully it’ll be cooler by the water. In India when it was hot I slept with wet woolen socks and a wet dupatta pulled up to my chin. Not sure Boof would want me to re-create that scene in our bedroom now!

How do you beat the heat? Tried and true tricks?

Word Vomit

-I was in a car accident on Tuesday. The first one that has ever been my fault, and wed are crossing our fingers that it isn’t totalled. Worst part (beyond the pain and wrecked car) was that it wasn’t due to anything but a brain fart. I wasn’t txting or even pumping (though I had finished pumping recently)…it was simply a moment of distraction. And a lack of sleep, I suppose.

-Potamus is 5 months old today. He has been Teething and has a bum rash which has left him (and us) crabby, with not very much sleep. My heart breaks every time he goes to nurse and cries and cries because of the pain. I finally have given in to liberal amounts of tylenol and gum numbing liquids and he finally comfort nursed and fell asleep today. Hallelujah. But mama needs some sleep.

-my sister-in-law is filing for separation from my brother and is refusing for him to see his daughter unless he is supervised. My heart breaks for him. She is only 1 month old and already her life is in tumult. I tell him to hang in there, that the first few months of parenthood are SO hard, and she may be suffering from post-partum depression/anxiety/ocd/or psychosis. 

-Potamus is doing this sweet things when he falls asleep. He likes his back to be patted, but he also likes to hold onto my thumb…and with his other hand, he reaches out, and grabs a fistfull of my hair, or strokes my face, or jams his fingers into my mouth (or, ooops, eyeball). It’s like he is memorizing me. And while it is startling, when he wakes up sort of suddenly, and reaches out to touch me on the arm, or face, as if to say to himself “are you still there mama? Oh yes, phew, you are.”

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My brother and his wife had a baby about 3 weeks ago. I went and saw them a few days after the birth, and then yesterday I learn that my brother was in a car-accident.

He has been drinking again.

And apparently taking her prescription pain pills.

And they have been separated for a week.

My heart hurts so much. I am looking at pictures of him holding his sweet daughter and I can’t help but ache for him, and his daughter, and his wife, and the pain that addiction brings into our lives here on Earth. To be honest, their relationship is tumultous at best, volatile at worst, with a combination of her bi-polar and his addictions, but it’s always been the two of them working through it. They’ve been separated more times that I could probably count in the short 5 years of their marriage.

But now there’s a baby involved.

A sweet, innocent bundle of dark hair and love, that is here on Earth experiencing turmoil from the beginning. I feel sad. And angry. Angry at my brother for his choices, at his wife for hers, at God and the World for all of the pain we must endure in this lifetime.

I look at my sleeping boy and think back to times when Post Partum Depression has raised its ugly head within me, and the stress that Boof and I have been in, and under, with work and life and love, and yet this pain we have experienced in our own little world does not seem to compare to my brother’s pain.

Not to mention, I go to work everyday with families on the brink of collapse or implosion or explosion. It all seems to much to bear at times. Like I want to curl up and sleep forever, with the sweet breath of my baby on my face, my dog curled at my feet, and my love holding my hand.

Will I ever stop crying for all the pain I see around me and in me?