The mother of all posts...

So yeah, we went to the hospital to get Miles checked out today and I wanted to blog about it. Only I checked my blog backlog and realized I never posted the backstory...or really about pretty much anything that's happened since Miles was like 2 months old. I was going to try for one gigantic catch-up...but the first part itself is a freaking book...so we'll go with installments. We'll see if I have the stamina to write it all up and you have the staying power to read through it.

Where to begin? Oh dear God...I just read through the last few posts and realized how very VERY far behind you all are. I can't even remember what all has happened since those few sparse posts. So, um, yeah. I guess we'll start with the Kita.

I'm gonna let it all hang out there folks and give you some real perspective on what life was like at Casa Schnegg there for a while. The unvarnished truth about how freaking difficult it was to make the transition to a family of four. Because that's where this all started...

You remember how I talked about Dylan and I being planets orbiting around each other and all that jazz? Yeah...pretty sure our insanely tight bond was a big part of the reason why we dealt with INSANE toddler jealousy. That and a colicky baby. And our ban on television. You laugh...but I'm dead serious.

In any case, there came a day when I had a mini-breakdown. Who knows how much of it was hormonal or simple sleep deprivation, whatever. Point is, I lost it. Really I guess it wasn't any one specific point at which it crashed down on me - more like an ultimate combination of all the lows on my crazy roller coaster of up and downs. Anyway, on this particular bad day I was on the phone with my mom gushing out all the pure shite that had been rattling around in my head for a while. Thoughts about how having a second child ruined my family and then guilt that thoughts like that implied that I regretted having Miles. About how sad/mad it made me that I couldn't give Dylan the same level of attention he was used to receiving. I believe I said something about "I hate the f*cker who said "your heart grows to make room"...sure, that's true. But nobody tells you that your heart might grow, but the number of arms you have or the size of your lap do not. So anytime Dylan hurt himself or just generally wanted the reassurance of his mommy because his world had been turned the hell upside down...I couldn't necessarily take him into my arms and comfort him (because I had a baby attached to my boob or a screaming-Mimi who just generally drowned Dylan out with sheer VOLUME...which, I think, is a big part of the reason why Dylan took to screaming in his brother's face whenever Miles started crying). When it comes right down to it, I think the transition might've been roughest on ME. To be perfectly honest, I still don't think I've managed to cut myself slack when I have to prioritize my children's needs. I want to be 100% to BOTH my children...and that's not physically possible and that just blows.

But back to this particular moment, my mom tried to talk me off my ledge. She told me the one thing that I have to continually remind myself of whenever I feel like I'm failing at the multi-child balancing act. She said, "I always thought that having a sibling made up for what attention you weren't getting from me." And when I look at it from my perspective, from the perspective of Erica - the child...I wouldn't have wanted it any other way. I love my brother and certainly never felt like I was getting the short end of my mom's attention - on the contrary, she's still the ideal that I try to live up to every day as a mom. Come to think of it...all this angst is probably her damn fault for always perfectly balancing this whole motherhood thing and never letting me see how HARD this shit is.

God...this post is rambling. Bear with me folks, apparently I have a lot of shit I need to get off my chest before we can get to anything resembling a point.

So I'm in the depths of insanity and mom's trying to shine a light and she tries to bring logic to bear on the situation. It goes something like this: "you're exhausted. You need a break. You need HELP. Since G's parents aren't an option right now...put Dylan in daycare for a half-day a week." (G's mom had two major operations right after Miles was born, so we lost our only real option for help). I resisted the idea wholeheartedly...until she reminded me, "you wanted to put him in daycare anyway (for socialization purposes), so what's the issue?" At which point the light went on in my head and I stopped focusing on feeling like a failure/like I was trying to offload the kid when he needed me most. The next day I called a daycare and made an appointment to check it out. So began the next chapter of "Schnegg trials and tribulations."

We tried introducing him to the daycare in the slowest, most gentle manner possible. The first week G went and stayed with him the whole time. The second week, I went with him and stayed with him the whole time - except for a brief stint of 30 minutes where I was in the office answering questions. (And those 30 minutes ended with a meltdown once he realized I wasn't around). Then came the third and fateful visit. I went with him and stayed with him for an hour...then I left him there for an hour. And the shit hit the fan.

From that point on Dylan refused to sleep without one of us in the room with him. Naps, bedtime...didn't matter. He would not sleep without one of us in the room and got completely and utterly hysterical if we weren't there. (Yes, we tried CIO at the beginning of this saga...and had to admit defeat when he was only getting continually more hysterical after an hour solid). He was waking up at least 5 times a night coming out of sleep totally panicked and screaming, "mommy!mommy!mommy!mommy!mommy!daddy!daddy!daddy!" We tried bringing him into our bed. No chance. He wouldn't sleep. Would just stare at you and whisper, "mommy. sleeping." Or poke at your closed eyelids. We tried putting him in a pack and play in our room. Which was the biggest disaster of everything we tried...he was up at least 6 times and each time it took 30 minutes of "we're here" type reassurance before he'd go back to sleep. Finally we landed on an air mattress next to his bed. Night time wasn't that bad...if you ignore the fact that G and I slept in separate beds for 3 weeks and one of us had to basically go to bed before 8pm. But it was a viable solution that G sleep in Dylan's room while I was free to get up to nurse Miles all 46 times (another story).

But naptime...naptime was tricky. I had to make sure Miles went down for his nap first so that I could spend at least 45 minutes with Dylan until he fell asleep...then I could sneak out...at least until Dylan woke up hysterical and I had to go back to reassure him again. It was after one failed naptime (Miles woke up before Dylan was out - so I had to leave the room) that I called to make the first appointment with a child psychologist.

Here's what I learned over the course of this whole Kita-saga...there's some kind of phenomenon that makes things psychologists say in their office sound totally plausible, until you walk out the door and go, "wait, what???"

So yeah, the first psychologist...totally shite advice. He basically told us to treat Dylan "like he was sick," meaning continue sleeping on the floor. Which sounded like good advice until we walk out and go, "wait...I have another kid. I can't just take 3 hours in the middle of the day to sleep on the floor next to Dylan." So we make an appointment with a second child psychologist...who essentially said the same thing. When I told her that I can't just leave my baby to lay down with Dylan, she suggested I bring Miles into Dylan's room with me. Which again sounded plausible...but is NOT. Yeah, that was a total exercise in disaster. To put it mildly, Miles was not happy at having to be in a dark room when he wasn't sleepy and bitched LOUDLY. Which meant Dylan wasn't sleeping. I tried everything to keep Miles happy, nothing doing. He screamed until he'd exhausted himself, at which point I finally had to take him out and calm him down enough to put him in bed...while Dylan screamed himself hoarse because he was left alone in his room. And that was my breaking point. That night we started CIO again. Our own version of CIO mixed with 2 parts baby whisperer, 2 parts supernanny and 4 parts instinct. The result? He slept through the night for the first time since this nonsense started. And continued to sleep through the night from then on.

One crisis managed (and daycare has been taken off the table until this summer at the earliest).

And that brings us to the end of installment one...tune in soon for part two, "the stress diet."