Monday, September 9, 2013

Notes From The Road - Seattle - Part Four

The Blogger app has this really nifty feature where if someone calls you while you're in the middle of writing a new entry and you take the call everything you just spent the last HOUR working on gets deleted.  ...

It's day 372 of our trip to Seattle.  What's that?  It's only been six days???  Well, I don't know what kind of calendar you're using, but I assure you we've been on this trip for over a year now.

When I think that just one week ago Kurt and I thought we could operate according to a plan, all I can do is shake my head and have a good laugh.  We were so young and naive back then.  Turns out there's no such thing as a plan when you have a four month old.  For example:

The whole we're-never-using-formula plan?  After it took us seven hours to go 250 miles on Wednesday I called the pediatrician who surmised that Monty probably wasn't getting enough to eat.  He is probably going through a growth spurt and a cognitive surge (according to the schedule all babies keep apparently).  The Doc, despite being all into homeopathy and all natural remedies and shit, told me to stop beating myself up and get some organic formula and some sleep. 

Side note on formula: My reticence to use formula was not because I thought it would make him stupid or whatever.  The main concern was about how it interacts with good bacteria in the gut and can cause some g.i. issues.  Considering that my gang name is Gaseous Clay, I want to do everything in my power to ensure that Monty has a stronger system than I do.  A secondary reason for my opposition to formula is that I think the formula industry is evil and has caused a lot of harm in the name of making money.   Formula is a wonderful convenience for people who need it.  But the marketing has made people think it's comparable to breastmilk and has made giving up on breastfeeding far too easy when it is far and away the best thing you can feed your child for the first six months of his or her life (at the very least).  The real trouble with this is that the popularization of formula has caused all kinds of problems (from health to financial) in poor communities here and abroad.  Like a multivitamin, formula ideally should be used as a supplement not a replacement (Please note, I'm talking about people who have no or few actual problems breastfeeding and/or can't pump for whatever reason.)

Getting off my soap box now.

One of the supposed benefits of formula is that it takes longer to digest than breastmilk so it helps babies sleep longer.  The night of the day we introduced formula was a personal best for Monty if his goal is to make our lives completely miserable.  He woke up NINE TIMES between 9pm and 5am.  For those of you who have trouble with math, that's once an hour plus one.  And who has two boobs and fed him EVERY TIME HE WOKE UP like an asshole?  Need a hint?  It was me.  Kurt finally came in at 5am, found me weeping while feeding Monty for the 6000th time that night and insisted on taking him so I could sleep because he is an awesome human being (also he knows that without sleep I may go on a murdering spree).

So, the ONE THING I wanted to do while we were in Seattle was visit Pike Place Market and go to a seafood joint I'd seen a segment on on The Travel Channel.  Our PLAN was to get there at 10am, go to town on some crab cocktail and chowder, then head back over to see the family one last time before getting back on the road for home.  But Kurt let me sleep til 10:30 and we didn't even get going til noon.  I'm not going to get in to the details of it because living it was traumatizing enough.  But here are the highlights:

Pike Place Market on a Sunday is a MAD HOUSE of tourists and I have a rough time in crowds.  Pike Place Market has no directory or map, so good luck finding anything.  Monty took a huge dump just as we found the seafood place and we forgot the diaper bag in the car.  Kurt demanded we go back and get the God damned crab cocktail because we had to "conquer this".  We had to move the car from an underground lot (Which, incidentally was the lot for City Target which is a fancy way of saying "The Target that doesn't stock anything you need" and at which we stopped because I lost my pumping bra.  They didn't carry the pumping bra, so I got a sports bra and cut slits in it.  It works just as well and is half the cost of a proper pumping bra.  And if you guessed that the pumping bra was in a side pocket of the pump bag all along, you win!) to an above ground lot which aside from costing $17 for an hour would have meant the dogs would have died from heat stroke. 

We didn't get the crab.

By the time we got to Kurt's brother's place all I could do was sit in the car and silently cry.  I was crying because I was exhausted.  I was crying because I was hungry.  I was crying because I was overwhelmed and completely in over my head.  I was crying for my loss of freedom.  I was crying because I was angry at my son.  I was crying THAT I was angry at my son.  I was crying because I JUST WANTED TO DO ONE THING WHILE WE WERE IN SEATTLE.  One thing.

So, we're on the I5 again.  The PLAN was to take the 101 on the way back down and sightsee.  Hilarious.  We made it back to Halsey, Oregon last night.  It took us about four hours this time.  We stopped at the same Travelodge we had on the way up.  We felt like we had just survived a tornado.  We ordered dinner from the trusty Pioneer Tavern, got a six pack of local beer and nonchalantly discussed which five albums we would bring to a desert island while Monty ... SLEPT.  And then I cried again.  This time for the enormity of this job we have taken on.  We know we have to start letting Monty soothe himself back to sleep when he wakes up and we know that sitting on the other side of that door while he screams for us is going to be monumentally hard.  It will be hard for him, sure, but it will also be hard on us.  All we want to do is make him feel loved and safe.

Monty slept from 8pm to 1am and then again til 5.  He's also on his third nap in the car right now.  It's amazing what a full supply of bottles can do.  That and I think he's done with this particular cognitive surge.  I'm expecting him to be able to do complex algebra any minute now.  And so, probably very foolishly, we're making our way to the 101 thinking we might actually get away with a stop or two in a nice scenic town.

We are out of our fucking minds.

Desert island albums:

Paul's Boutique
Revolver
The Bends
New Favorite
Graceland

Is it just me or does my man look like Alfred Hitchcock?

Thursday, September 5, 2013

Notes From The Road - Seattle - Part Three

We didn't make it to Seattle by Wednesday.  We didn't even make it to Portland by Wednesday.  Monty had an epic melt down some time around 4:30pm on Tuesday and would not be comforted unless he was out of the car completely.  With frayed nerves, we pulled off the interstate in Halsey, Oregon and into the parking lot of a Travelodge.  We decided we would eat at the Pioneer Tavern and assess the situation.  I thought the diner smelled like B.O.  Turns out it was me.  Halfway through dinner we realized getting back on the road for the four more hours it would take to get to Seattle would be tantamount to child abuse.  So, we called it a night and got a room.

An hour after dinner which consisted of an 8 ounce sirloin, a baked potato and a salad, I was hungry again.  I sent Kurt back to restaurant for spaghetti and a piece of pie.  Pretty much the instant I was done shoveling my second dinner down my gullet my stomach began hurting.  I spent the next hour doubled over in pain, sweating, and moaning as quietly as I could on the bed next to Monty who had finally fallen asleep.  Kurt dutifully ran out to the truck stop convenient store and got me some kind of medicine which I chugged down with no regard for dosage.

Here's the thing about these intense bouts of abdominal pain I've been experiencing, it feels like gas.  I should be farting enough to burn a whole through the mattress. But I'm not.  And I'm not being modest.  My dog farts a lot.  If you catch my (smelly) drift...  But these painful episodes are not accompanied by any wind-letting (if you will).  Most of the time I wish I could control my back door emissions.  When I'm writhing on the bathroom floor with what sure feels like gas, I'm begging myself to just fart already, and not so much as the teensiest toot will issue forth. 
So, it's probably cancer.

Also, I should probably take it easy with the meat consumption.  I was a vegetarian up until about a year and a half ago.  When I started eating meat again I was careful to limit it to organic and humanely raised and slaughtered.  Now I'm eating steak at motel diners off the interstate and telling myself that because the name of the cattle ranch the cow supposedly came from is "proudly" printed on the menu, the cow was treated well and hugged to death and definitely did not spend its days huffing big rig exhaust.

I didn't post an entry yesterday because I was too busy fantasizing about suddenly opening the car door and jumping into traffic.  Monty has had it with the car and his car seat and screamed pretty much the whole way to Seattle.  We stopped five times to feed him or change him or just calm him down before we got to our final destination.  The fact that he calms down instantly when we take him out of the car is encouraging in that at least it indicates that he's not in pain.  He's just bored and annoyed and is over the car.  And frankly, if he didn't need to stop, I needed to pee every half hour anyway (Because of the cancer, I'm sure.).

We pulled up to Kurt's buddy's place where we're staying for the (now) three nights that we'll be in town around 5pm.  I'm not ashamed to say I had a couple martinis.  If you're judging me you've clearly never been in the car for three days with a four-month-old who's going through a growth spurt.  So, save it.

In a rare quiet moment, Kurt sank into the bed, rubbed tears from his eyes and quietly said, "He's so little and he's kicking my ass."

I'm not even going to get in to the night we had.  Monty hates us.  Monty hates the world.  Monty hates being away from home.  Monty is growing.  Monty's bones hurt.  Monty's brain is full of new and confusing things.  Monty needs to eat all the time.  Monty needs to be IN BED with me.  Monty needs Daddy to sleep on the couch so Mommy can have more than three inches of the bed to sleep on.

Suffice it to say that at about 2:30am a high pitched alarm went off in our room.  Kurt ran around frantically trying to figure out its source while I yelled from the bed, "It's behind the TV!  It's over by the chair!  It's under the window!  FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST, TURN IT THE FUCK OFF!"  I'm super helpful in a crisis.  Turns out it was a "water alarm", alerting us that the crawl space under the house was flooding.  Because it rains all the time here.  All the time.

I want to put my fist through the wall.  But I don't have health insurance so I can't afford to break my hand.  Especially since the cancer is already going to bankrupt me.

Want to hear a funny joke?  We have to drive home on Sunday.

Here's Monty sitting on the couch like nothing is wrong:

This is what makes it all worth it.

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Notes From The Road - Seattle - Part Two

Let me just start off by acknowledging that when we got to the motel last night I found the damned battery pack for the pump.  It was in the pump bag.  So, yeah.  I'm THAT guy.

We made it as far as Corning last night.  We pulled off the road just before 11 and just as delirium was setting in.

Once again Monty woke up every one or two hours last night.  At 4 am I finally caved and let Kurt give him a bottle.  Today he's eating like a coke head does coke.  Frequently and a lot.  And he cries if he doesn't get it fast enough.  I swear tomorrow he's going to be a pound heavier.  Consequently we only have half a bottle left and at least five hours til we get to Seattle.  If we don't stop.  Which, of course we'll have to.

Speaking of which, I have to pee.  Again.

My body is falling apart.  I've got a pinched nerve in my right shoulder and some jacked up nonsense happening in my lower back.  When I get out of the car after any stretch of travel I hobble for a good ten feet before I can manage to bring myself upright.  It occurs to me that if I don't start doing something about this now, I'm going to be in a wheelchair in five years.  My 71-year-old father has fewer aches and pains than I do.

Meanwhile, my skin is broken out like a 16-year-old Pizza Hut employee's. The Bugles, Chex Mix, Good n' Plentys, and Cinnamon Bears are probably not doing wonders for my complexion. I have a compulsion any time I'm in a gas station convenient store to buy crap. Also, I get really into truck stop diner food on long hauls. I could feel my skin breaking out as I was jamming biscuits and gravy from The Iron Skillet into my maw this morning Between my old man hobbling and my bepimpled (It's not a word, but face it, it totally should be.) face I am looking SUPER hot, guys. Try to contain yourselves.

A road trip seemed like such a good idea when we were mapping it.

We're about 200 miles south of Portland.  We just passed a sign that read "Wake up America.  Obama is killing us."  Maybe that's why he wants us all to have health insurance?  We stopped for lunch in Ashland at The Wild Goose Cafe where we had some dangerously good cherry pie and fantasized about buying a house in Ashland and working at Oregon Shakespeare Festival. 

We're passing miles and miles of grazing cows.  Does it worry anyone else that our meat and dairy cows spend a good deal of time breathing in car and truck exhaust?  I don't know.  It just seems... gross? 

I did an episode (is that what they're called) of Ryan O'Conner's Tell All podcast.  You can listen to it at www.tellallpod.com.

Here's what Monty looked like just after we passed from California to Oregon:

Over it.

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Notes From The Road - Seattle - Part One Update

This is Kurt trying to comfort Monty to sleep after he screamed his head off for an hour.  Monty screamed.  Not Kurt.  If Kurt had screamed his head off for an hour I would have left him on the side of the I-5.
Remember that time I said Monty was chill?
On the plus side, we found the AC adapter for the pump.  Turns out the one we found at a gas station 300 miles back but thought wasn't the right kind totally was...

P.S. Only two and half more hours to Redding. THIS WAS SUCH A GOOD IDEA.

Notes From The Road - Seattle - Part One

Day one of our road trip to Seattle to introduce Monty to his Grandpa, Uncle, Aunt and cousins on Kurt's side.  We got a late start.  I collapsed into bed at 9pm last night after a long day and some white wine.  Monty woke up every two hours to eat.  Kurt usually does one of the night time feedings, but we needed to save the bottles for the car trip.  He kindly let me sleep in until 9 which is when we anticipated leaving.  And of course I hadn't packed.  I'll hand it to us, though.  It only took us two hours to get out of the house.  That with the showering, packing, feeding Monty, shoving scrambled eggs and coffee in our faces, and loading the stuff, the boy and the two dogs into the car.  We would have hopped right on the 5 north, but I had to deal with some finances on the west side which was well worth it as I'm now the owner of a used Prius that I got for a song from a friend who's upgrading to an electric version.
(Side bar:  My 1996 Honda died on the off ramp of the 10 Freeway a few weeks ago.  I'm lucky there wasn't any traffic because if I had had to stop on the freeway, I would have been broken down in the middle of traffic.  As it was, I knew the car was about to go and I was praying it would wait til I got off the freeway.  So, I made it to the off ramp where she quietly passed over to the great parking lot in the sky.  Before I had the chance to call AAA, a sheriff came by.  He found me weeping behind the wheel and asked me what was wrong.
"My car broke down," I sputtered.
"Is there anything else wrong?"  He asked.
"Well, it's a million degrees and my baby is in the car."
"Okay.  Is there anything else?"
In lieu of saying "Is that not enough things wrong?  Because that feels like a lot of things wrong." I just cried harder.
He pushed me to a gas station where I called AAA and tried to feed my screaming son under the glaring sun and withering stares of customers.  My therapist showed up with a banana and a protein drink and entertained Monty while I dealt with the tow truck guy and waited for Kurt to show up from clear across town.  Oh yeah, I was on my way to therapy when this all went down, where, I should mention, I was planning on complaining about the enormous stress of driving around in a dinosaur on its last legs with a very young infant in the car...)

It's 4:45pm and we're about 160 miles south of Sacramento.   We're hoping to make it to Redding before the end of the day. 

Monty is a trooper.  He's pretty chill.  He cries with purpose.  He's hungry or he's tired or he has shit in his pants.  Frankly, those are all things that make me want to cry, too, so I can't really blame him.  More often than not, it's something we can fix. 

In the department of TMI, my digestive system seems to have rewired itself since I gave birth.  I've never had the hardiest system, but ever since I gave birth I've had one bout of gas that almost took me to the hospital and often my stomach hurts within minutes of eating.  The pediatrician recommended I cut out dairy, all green vegetables, beans, soy, onions and garlic in order to keep Monty's gas down to a minimum.  We stopped at Taco Bell a couple hours ago as that was the lesser of about five available evils at the rest stop.  In one meal I had four of the six forbidden foods.  So, you know, go me.

We meant to stop at The Pump Station before we left town for a car adapter for my pump, but we forgot and somehow there has not been a single Target in the 235 miles we've driven so far.  Target, like Starbucks is one of those place that is everywhere until you actually need it.  So, I have neither fed Monty nor pumped since 11 this morning.  I'm probably irrevocably diminishing my supply and am therefore the worst parent ever. 

I haven't taken any pictures of Monty today, so here is one from a couple weeks ago.  He has started rolling over and laughing.  He is the absolute tits.  I swear.