I was looking into new ways to help promote my work (blogging, the e-books, etc) and came across Buzzfuse. The way it works is as I understand it, is a group-sharing and expanding format. They use the word “viral marketing”, but it does not have a virus that can harm your stuff (or your friend's stuff). First thing is to register for free. Part of that process is to add contacts. You can easily send an automated invite to everyone on your contact list, or target the people who might want this the most. Again, that's free. After that you add a piece of content, like a blogpost you've done that seems pretty nice. This item is then sent out to everyone else on your contact list, as a “hey, check this out” thing. They check it out, and maybe they'll agree that it's cool enough to send on to their contact list. And so on, and so on, and before you know it that one post will hit a whole lot more people than you know personally. It would inspire someone like me to make my writing better and better so that those new readers decide to hang around. New traffic, new regular readers, and who knows where that could lead one day? I'm willing to give it a shot. Couldn't hurt, right?

This morning I woke up listening to legos bang together and thanked God for a gray sunrise. There are a few benefits to having these dull, gray, peasoup fog mornings, and one of them is that it convinces my daughter that it is earlier than it really is. Today that meant that I was able to close my eyes again and bury my face in the pillow for a few more minutes. Just a few minutes. That's not too much to ask, is it, and those extra minutes can mean the difference between being forced to consciousness and a foul mood for the next twenty hours or a slow rise to acceptance that yes, I have to open my eyes and tend to my family.

I do love them. That is why I accept the forced waking when it's needed. That is also why I have yet to run away from home.

Sunday night on my way out of the NICU I had a flashback to college days. I remembered what it was like to walk outside just after sunset in chilly wet weather, walking from building to building and climbing endless half-flights of concrete steps under equally chilly flourescent lighting. The ground is wet in the manner of springtime; petunias still survive in their flowerbeds and the rain is keeping everything just ready to explode with new growth. In another week I'm going to be hearing lawn mowers everywhere we go, and smelling that heavenly aroma of newly clipped grass.

It will be February, and seem like May in the small Eastern town where I grew up. Late April, even, but surely not the middle of winter. I'm experiencing seasons again after three years in Paradise and although I surely do miss that land of no real climate and timeless season I'm learning to accept the slow progression of time again. The land wakes up, is moist, grows. The mowers come, new sounds and smells. Summer lands hard on our heads with an equally endless time of oven-like heat as we're all baked dry and dream of water. Fall brings cooler nights and our thanks. Winter comes again with rain and fog and slow gray mornings.

Once again let me thank everybody who's been adding their clicks to the Goldfish Fund. It does make a difference, and I've been sleeping a little easier by knowing it's there. I promise to come up with something really whitty and funny later on, just as soon as I get Toddler lunched, changed, wiped, and decongested. Toddler-sized colds? Not horribly awful, but very sticky. And if you don't stay on top of a small, glazed, human child, they make an awful lot of laundry that doesn't have to happen.

I have a picture of another weekend in my head while I'm writing this. I'm dreaming of a weekend when the household isn't sick, where my Toddler is the bright-eyed hellraiser that I know she can be, when there's giggling and laughing going on all over the place.

Not this hushed quiet.

Since my mom and the Toddler both have this sickness I know it's a matter of hours/days before I get it too. I will write "return to sender" on the front with a large sharpie and that should be the end of it, right? The Boy is taking a well-deserved nap right now and then I get to drive into the city to take frozen breastmilk to my Robbie. Should I stay home? It's likely. Likely that I may be carrying some germ that will survive the scrubbing in procedure at the NICU, that I might deliver it unsuspecting to my precious baby laying there.

Is that risk worth taking so that he can have the breastmilk, as he is currently on the high-strength formula that is making him gassy, constipated, and miserable, and if I don't take it today I'm not going to have the window of opportunity to take it in until next weekend? I'd rather run that slight risk to make his known discomfort less.

But please, universe, I want to go do the milk run now while the Toddler is blessedly asleep. So that I can return to find her just waking up, or eating dinner, and so that I can sit up with her fevered little body while she settles off to sleep for the night.

Another sleepless night, tossing and turning and dropping off to sleep only to wake in a cold sweat from larger-than-life dream sequences. Have I been to the doctor yet? No. Should I get up off the butt and get the call made and go? Uh-huh. Can I summon the ability to do this yet?

It occurs to me that if I did get around to starting that serial novel like I've been promising myself I'd do, that it would provide a reasonable outlet for my drama needs right now. That pesky BPD diagnosis is pushing me for High Drama right now, and I don't want to be bothered with it. -Hey, that's actually pretty healthy of me! Way to go, me! When my subconscious starts acting like this, with the acting out in my dreams every night and somewhat in my imagination during the day, I've got to find a way to let it go before it spills over. Whether or not that's going to be in the therapists' office this time or on the Net, I don't know yet. Maybe I'll turn to my blogging for more cheap therapy.

One of the high points to having been so thoroughly therapied for so many years of my early adulthood is that I know that my particular flavor of PTSD responds well to the constant rehashing. For that I don't need to necessarily share it with the world, as long as I get it done in a safe environment. These days I can quite nicely get the work done wrapped up in a quilt with my knitting needles. And that need for high drama? Let's explore that some more from a different angle.

I can step back and look at the life changes we're going through right now. Micro preemie at the end of a highrisk pregnancy, emergency delivery, special needs toddler and special needs infant coming to join the circus, adjusting to having the family complete at this point. Those are pretty big changes. Some of them are fairly high drama all by themselves. Do I really need to upgrade that drama? Would it not be better to take that step back with a hot cup of tea and reassess my reactions?

At this point I've reached the following conclusions, subject to change at any moment. Keep looking on the upside. I already try to do this on a daily basis. Let's just make it official now. Fix firmly in my mind that this will not be forever, that the entire next year will just be an arbitary timespan that has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Before I know it both of my babies will catch up to their full term counterparts, and they will hit their teen years and want nothing to do with me at all. Maybe then I'll catch up on that elusive sleep. When I feel myself spinning out of control, take a breath. The Boy will appreciate a calm reaction because Lord knows he's going through a mess of the same depressive thoughts himself. Let's not add to his burdens with concerns about my stability when he could be concerned about his children (normal, and laudable to be concerned with his children. Not necessary to make him walk on eggshells for the mother of those children who provides their daily care.)

My Robbie is in the neighborhood of 1565 grams at the moment. 3 pounds, 7 and 3/4 ounces. He comes home at just about 1800 grams. That means that at the rate he's been going we're looking at a come-home date of days from now. It's not in the mythical realm of "eventually around his due date". His due date of Feb 11, which come to think of it is not that far off either.

The Toddler seems to have no concept that this is going to change her world forever. We don't know what she understands, even though she "speaks" of Robbie while going through her books and toys. She knows that Mommy pumps for Robbie, that certain changes to the old routine are for "Robbie", and beyond that? Who knows.

I'm not overly concerned at this point. Robbie looks like a Real Live Boy right now, except that he's really small and tiny compared to full term babies, and when I look at them I wonder how anyone could handle a baby that large as a newborn? My reality is warped by my two tiny babies; as I said often through my pregnancy I wouldn't know what to do with a baby larger than 5 pounds. I know how to handle a preemie, extra floppy with low or practically non-existant muscle tone. I know how to shoot the medicine into their mouths so they swallow it instead of choking. I know how to deal with the endless comments on how small my child is... some days more gracefully than other days.

Let's just keep on keeping on. Keep faith. Serenity Now.

Toddler who doesn't want to nap. Add a long day and you have the screamfest that started out as bedtime and ended up as a half-hour event whereupon the sobbing toddler tried to tell mommy that she didn't want to go to sleep.

I feel like such a lousy parent when I have to enforce bedtime when she's still crying. The more so because whatever words she has are forgotten in her distress. We're back to the communication of infancy. Is she thirsty? Hungry? Gassy? Is she afraid of something in the dark room or is she just too tired to remember how to sleep? Does her head hurt? Is it something else? Too hot, too cold? If she would be able to let me know this... it would be so much easier for both of us.

I'm earning my sleep tonight. Can I hope that tomorrow will mean more milk in the freezer for my little boy so far away from me? I'm starting to get so hungry again. The hunger cycle seems to come and go spiking slight increases in supply.

Yet another post about my boobs has been brought to you tonight by One Tired Mama. While I got away with relatively light toddler wrangling, I cooperated with the Boy and got a massive amount of paperwork and scheduling done. We're getting closer to D-day. Delivery. The Small Boy will come home.

Three pounds, three ounces. Today we settled down in the rocking chair for kangaroo care. The nurse positioned Robbie on my chest and drew the privacy screens close. Immediately he started fussing. Arching his back, throwing his head around. If his lungs were capable of it he'd have screamed to bring the house down. I figured out what he wanted.

I laid him down flat on my inner arm, cradling his head by my elbow. He opened his eyes wide, looking all around for the circus. Poor child, there was no circus. No party, no balloons, no elephants or clowns. Just his mama and his Gram. He still had to check though. After several minutes of looking for them Robbie figured out that they weren't coming. He closed his eyes again and let me position him back up on my chest where he fell asleep.

While I was gone his sister ran around the house. She poured rice from her sensory table into my shoes and destroyed one of my tapes. She tried to ignore me completely for the next two hours. Remember when I used to call her a little puppy?

Some things, I'm afraid, are just a natural for young mammals. At bedtime she brought her milk to me and climbed into my lap with her blanket. We snuggled. We cuddled. Then Mommy tucked her in and kissed her goodnight.

My two babies are sleeping now. I'm all relaxed again, with a cup of tea and a belly full of pizza, icecream, and the promise of midnight chocolate. That hopeless feeling I had the other night? Gone for now. The little newborn on my chest, fingers not much bigger than a mini birthday candle, his face pressed against my skin. That's why I'm driving myself nuts with this pumping. This is why I'm doing all this to keep whatever milk I have left coming. For him. Because this will help him continue to thrive, will lessen his reflux, will strengthen his immune system. Sure, it might save some pennies as well. As long as that's still secondary to all the other benefits.

One of the neat things that happens in a slowing economy, when people are being more careful in how they spend their money, is that lenders have to compete more for business. If, for example, you are looking at a Florida Refinance of your home, you can visit a website that brings multiple lenders together to offer you a bunch of different offers. One stop shopping with the benefit of your fuzzy bunny slippers. You don't have to call each one individually and listen to fasttalking customer service reps trying every verbal trick to get you talked into signing with them. I like the online method; it takes so much emotion out of a transaction. I can look at stuff objectively with the criteria that I choose foremost in my mind. So easy to be sweet-talked into options that really don't apply to your situation. And if my experience is only with car insurance which can be easily changed twice a year, think how much more important it is to get exactly what you're looking for when refinancing your home!

I wonder why I'm still depressed, and then I go to pump. I just spent the past hour pumping, one side at a time so that I could collect the milk in the same graduated nurser bottle. I like doing it in those, because the shape is narrow and makes my output look more than it is.

One hour, for 10ml.

Are there mothers out there who know how that makes me feel right now? I try and I try and I'm getting up twice a night all this past week because our schedule this past week has me going sometimes four hours between pumping. For what? 10ml. Oh, sure, this morning I got 18ml in a bottle. That's not making me feel much better. I know this is the best thing for my boy and I can't convince my body to give up the milk. He's probably getting two days of breastmilk a week now before they need to break out the formula again. I know it won't hurt him- he'll thrive on it like my girl thrived on her formula. You remember, the $15/12.8 oz can formula?

I don't know if this is the point at which I'm going to hang up the pumping horns.

I want to cry it out, but I don't think I should give in to it because I start being afraid that if I start crying tonight I won't stop. We've got to get up early tomorrow. I have to drop the Boy at work, and drive into Fresno to get Robbie's birth certificate. My little boy weighs 3 pounds this week and I want to have the chance to try and nurse him once before I lose my milk completely. I don't even know anymore why this is so damn important to me. I just know that it is, and that this is why I'm so freaked out at losing the supply completely, and I'm going to bed tonight scared and afraid.

I still lay in bed praying for the milk to increase. For one more miracle to happen for us even though I'm sure I've used my lifetime's supply of miracles. I don't deserve any more miracles. I should just be happy that I have two living children and a good marriage that can survive two preemies and my depression.

Tonight it's dark and cold, and I feel more alone than I've felt in months.

This morning started in one of my favorite ways. The Toddler has a large rubbermaid tote in her bedroom where we toss her legos and blocks, and when I went in to get her up for the day I found her sitting inside it burying her toes underneath the blocks. What a sight! Then she just had to wear a hat while getting dressed. Why is this? I don't know.

After the getting dressed she snuggled on my lap and ate breakfast. Isn't that a wonderful followup? Smell of cute toddler in the morning, soft warm head nuzzled up under my chin, warm body pressed up as close under my armpit as it was phsyically able to go. When she was finished she wiggled her way down to play. So long, Mom, I love you but you're cramping my style today.

The little one is doing well, he's just over three pounds now. Every day brings us closer to a family of four. Better load that car seat now, just in case. Am I ready? Am I really ready to bring him home? About as ready as any new mother is when her body goes into labor. This homecoming will be sudden, with very little warning, and I've got to get ready for it.

Where other climates get snow, we get rain. Where they get rain, we get fog. And yes, this means that it's foggy outside again. Peasoup fog, of the sort that I only dreamed about whenever I used to read descriptions of London's weather. It's so thick right now that I could cut it, only around an hour past daybreak can I see the tops of the houses just across the street. Earlier I couldn't even see that far.

I'm trying to get my routines in place this morning. A few of them that are designed around helping me get my mind ready for a day. Make the bed. Unload clean dishes from dishwasher and reload with dirty that have been soaking in the sink. Swipe the kitchen floor with a cleaning wipe. Dump the used coffee grounds from the Boy's morning pot. Dish out the Toddler's breakfast as much as possible so it will mean less steps when she finally awakes.

As my mother calls it, “The Robbie Report” is as follows: he now weighs 2 lbs and 10 oz. He is on room air, although it's being fed to him via cannula. This is a good sign. I've also now changed two diapers. Two diapers, in 6 weeks of life. It's reasonable to expect that this is the last time I'll ever be so lucky. Especially as neither of those diapers were dirty ones, they were “only” wet.

How am I doing? Today I decided not to call the doctor, in favor of getting the midmonth bills triaged and written out. Fun. The best part of the month for every household that lives check to check, right? This is the day where you almost have a nice chunk of change in the checking account and have to figure out which bills get paid and how much can be paid on them. After the fiasco with the electric company last summer this is nearly at the painless spot it was at a year ago; there's only one bill left that I am still trying to catch up on. Unfortunately I can't just pay the whole balance off at this point. I wish I could. I really wish I could. Then it wouldn't make my stomach all jittery. Unfortunately, that's not an option right now. So I'll put up with jittery stomach and work on my knitting. Or my blogging. Or staring at my boobs willing them to produce more milk, like, NOW.

Is it not incredible that one minute you can feel so defeated, and the next moment everything comes back into perspective? The world is not a horrible place, and although this winter has been gray and dull and damp more often than not there really will be a whole year full of bright sunny and clear days in front of us.

I don't know why I feel this burst of hope. Underneath the sadness is still a very real and hard load to shoulder. It's the knowing that it won't last forever- I remember that this will not last even though I can't see an ending to it. I know there will be sunshine again even though I don't believe it will ever return. This is one of the reasons I like the spring so much; the ground melts and flowers come back. Grass shoots are brilliant in the mud underneath my feet and new life is whispering that all is not lost. Do not give up hope. There will come a new day for you, for me, and the depression will not be this bleak forever.

I just feel so sad. I don't know why, other than that it's the product of my depression, hiding away in the back of my brain for so many (?) months. I don't count the situational depression, because I've got a fair grip on that. I mean the pervasive sadness depression that just is. It doesn't go anywhere, it just springs up one morning out of nothing and lays a blanket over my emotions and thoughts.

Guess it's time again to call the doctor, to get on some meds that will help lay this sucker down for the next few months/years. I don't want to be on them forever, and indeed it's when I'm going longterm on something that I run the biggest risk of waking up and having them stop working.

My baby? He is still well. My supply? Starting to taper back off. The past three days haven't helped; no chance to pump regularly, no contact with the new baby other than a brief phone call, and I've been stressed by sudden evaluations and the re-emergence of Female Issues that normally don't happen when you're pregnant.

My Toddler? Still cranky. She's tired and this evening we couldn't even try to feed her anything resembling a meal. Too tired to accept anything, including her beloved peanut butter. We ran out of store-bought bread so I baked, and the homemade bread was not the familiar texture or taste so it was flung aside with a wail. By "fling" I really do mean fling. With the violence you'd display if someone shoved a venomous snake in your face. Same with the sippy cup at first. Almost with the poppysicle. I started with the poppysicle then, moving slowly to a piece or two of the peanut butter alone on my fingertip. There were graham crackers in the pantry, so we tried them. Success! Graham crackers for dinner it is! Not long after that she calmed down enough to drink her milk.

Then she went to sleep. And me? I'm sad. So I'm having some water, some bread and butter, and trying to go to bed now. I don't even have much faith that I'll sleep. Is it possible to be too depressed to sleep?

While searching around in my copious (hah!) spare time, I looked into new glasses. My mom's frames broke earlier this summer, resulting in an odd fix with a spare arm off a way-different pair. I'd like to get her a new pair of glasses this spring, as a "thank you" that comes long overdue for everything she's done around here in the past year. Come to think of it, my own glasses could use an upgrade. I've had these since 2004 or so. Remember the superglue incident of my first pregnancy? Great Discovery: www.ZenniOptical.com which offers glasses very cheaply. They can do it because they only offer the frames that they manufacture. I don't care who makes my frames as long as the price is right.

Have you heard the news story about how phone companies have ended wiretaps not because of faulty warrant info but because the FBI didn't pay the bill? I mean, they can tap anyone they feel like (apparantly) but if they're late on the bill it's a case of "no tap for you!"

There is just much political stuff out there. What happened to the days when I could bury my head in the sand and be blissfully unaware of current events? I want those days back. I want my ignorance back! But no... I found that it's a lot easier to keep mildly aware of these things. I get the email daily digest from two papers, and even though I don't always have the time to read them it does take less room than two daily papers. I browse the headlines, I read the articles when I have the chance. If something annoys me I can fake ignorance of it for a while. If something strikes my interest I can keep current on it.

It's like the church issues that we're getting mailings on every Sunday. Our diocese broke away from the main church -I think, because I'm deliberately keeping fuzzy on it- and the church I go to did not break away, and now we're in some sort of limbo land. South America is involved at one portion. It was brought up at meetings, and church councils, and surveys and letters came out and there was a vote. Or several votes. And my position continues to be that I do not want to know. What the heck is wrong with wanting to just go to church every week? I do not want to get involved with beaucracy and church politics. I just want to attend in peace and be mostly left alone. I realize that attitude brings it's own set of responsibilities; that I give up my right to complain about future paths this church will take or how money gets distributed, and all of that- I can accept that. Just leave me alone to keep my head in the sand.

Now that the Boy has his license, we're one step closer to eventually getting a second car. But where to start? He says we'll just get a clunker that can get him from one point to another; I think we should get a car big enough to carry the two kids plus their gear plus a passenger or two. Yeah- me, a soccer mom with minivan and two kids? We've even got a fence around the backyard here. Bring on the station wagon!

One place to explore car leasing is a site that lets you search by various options. Stuck on a certain make or model? Search by that. My favorite is to search by budget. If you know you're limited by what you can afford, don't even let yourself see those options when you're doing serious shopping. If you don't see it, you don't get tempted to sign for a car you can't afford. And wouldn't it be really neat to have a car show up at your house, delivered? Ah. The benefit of the Net. To be able to do so much from the comfort of the fuzzy bunny slippers.

Where does all this guilt come from? Lately I feel so off, like there's more I should be doing. I want to keep the house spotless, be totally involved with the Toddler, and drive up to see the baby eight hours a day. I can't; it's physically impossible to do and be all these things at the same time. It's driving me nutty.

About the only thing I can do to alleviate all of this is to pump milk for the baby, try to love the Toddler, try to squeeze in a few chores and a load of laundry around the edges. This is where those routines are coming in handy. An added bonus: when it's written down in black and white I know when something is starting to become an unreasonable expectation. For someone with the inability to let stuff go, with the risk factors for a mild case of OCD, this is a blessing.

There's another article in my newspaper about weight loss and gain and the struggle that much of the population is struggling with. So many people don't know what is really healthy for them. Our perceptions continue to be slightly warped by our own reality. Advertisements, tv, magazines, the skinny neighbor who should wear more clothes before she gets pneumonia... all these things contribute to not knowing. Then you add in the food pyramid and fad diets, weight loss experts, diet pills. Who knows? Some things work, a lot don't work, some work some of the time and then stop leaving you with rebound pounds. And then there are the people who just can't lose the weight that they need to lose for health reasons. They suffer from so many issues and no amount of dieting or exercise is helping. If you've absolutely got to lose that weight and keep it off and nothing else works, consider a lapband procedure. It's reversible, unlike stomach stapling or procedures that alter the physical structure of your insides. Sometimes you just have to go with what works for you.