Post-partum De-fuckery

I've been having difficulty with balancing time for myself and the shit I have to do, all while dealing with my second round of post-partum depression.

For the sake of blog continuity, that toddler in the last comic I managed to draw is now two and a half, and is a big sister to her five-month-old brother. I thought I was in the clear for PPD this time, but it turned out to be a late bloomer. I start therapy again later this month.

In some of my last sessions, my therapist encouraged me to make time for the things I love to do, things I enjoyed before becoming a mother. This was easy to do with a single kid who napped several times a day. Now I consider it a really lucky day if I can get the two of them to overlap naps for an hour. So many of the things I loved to do pre-kids and was able to dabble in with Kelsey are completely off the radar now.

And that, I think, is where I struggle.

I look back on those pre-kid days of drinking and playing World of Warcraft until 3 A.M. And being able to sit for hours and work on a cross-stitch or other tedious craft. I tried to get back into WoW after having Kelsey and could put in a few hours at a time during naps but never got very far after Cataclysm came out. I never level capped before Pandaria came out, and I got so far behind that catching up seemed hopeless. All the fun stuff, like raids, are in the end-game. And I was never getting there in half hour intervals.

So I quit renewing. David and I got free trial accounts and still haven't been on in almost a month.

I have a dozen cross-stitch kits sitting up in the attic, and at least two have been started but not touched in months. A two hour nap doesn't make for much progress, and I need to see progress in order to feel like I did something sufficient for myself.

My computer needed a new hard drive, so I have yet to find the software for my sketch pad so I can continue making comics here. I also had this page open for twelve hours trying to find the time to sit down and write a little.

But, when Kelsey was a newborn, I took advantage of the sleepy phase and taught myself how to crochet by watching YouTube videos. Now I'm quick enough that I can churn out a hat or get some decent mileage on a bigger project in a couple hours. I've also picked up on cooking and canning, which make me feel productive, and we often times have something new and flavorful to try out. I've been able to do a couple quick projects with my Silhouette Cameo, but it's been used only a handful of times since I got it two Christmases ago.

I know it's going to come up again in therapy next week, "what are you doing for yourself?" And I do make time for myself. Today, for example, I spent all day working on a batch of spaghetti sauce. David worked, so it was me with the kids (and the animals). The hardest parts are cutting the vegetables and then canning the sauce. Something somewhere has to give between all the needs of the day, so I cleaned jack shit. Kelsey chose to wear nothing but her pajama shirt all day and her hair was a mess. There are dishes everywhere and laundry is overflowing.

But a little well-placed child neglect goes a long way. While Evan napped, I put Mickey Mouse Clubhouse: Road Rally on Netflix for the billionth time and Kelsey stayed in one spot with a bowl of cereal for an hour. I got all the vegetables in the pot during that time.

It needed three hours or so to cook, and Evan slept pretty hard this morning, so I was able to give in to Kelsey's demands to hop around on the porch like a frog, eat pretend spaghetti sauce from her kitchen (which was ketchup bottles in a pot), and point out all the dead stink bugs on the floor. 

Before her nap, the sauce was cooked down enough to run it through the food mill, which she was hyped about.

She helped me crank it for a little while, then it was her nap time. Twenty minutes later, Evan woke up. He hung out in his bouncer chair while I finished up the milling, and I got the sauce back on the stove. I hadn't eaten anything but string cheese and the mushroom bits churned out by the food mill at this point.

A little while later, Evan went back down for a nap and Kelsey was already up but I ignored her for five minutes so I could eat a sleeve of Pirouette cookies without sharing. No regrets.

David brought home Chinese takeout since the stove was completely out of commission. As he sat down and fed Kelsey, I canned the sauce. Evan woke up howling at this time so David juggled both kids so I could finish sealing the jars and getting them back into the canner.

I sat down to eat a real meal with Evan (who snarfed a handful of mei fun and crushed my fortune cookie) while David took Kelsey outside to play in the rain.

The result of the day was a yield of seven quarts of homemade spaghetti sauce, two filthy but happy kids, dogs who weren't totally forgotten, and one hell of a mess waiting for me tomorrow.

The frustrating part is finding balance. Creative days, everything is a godawful mess and I have at least twice the work waiting for me the next day. Responsible days get shit done, but I'm left grouchy that I never got to have fun.

Enveloping all of this is PPD, which tells me "if mom is happy, everyone is happy" one second and crushes me with guilt the next. Guilt over feeding Kelsey cookies and juice all day and letting her boss me around about her lunch. Guilt over Evan sneezing because the animal hair and dander on the floor is overloading him, guilt that Kelsey watched three hours of Netflix and Evan spent almost as much time in the Jumperoo or Exersaucer so I could be a selfish asshole and do what I want for a day. But, hey, look at all these jars in the pantry. I made those and we're set on sauce and salsa for months. Now I wanna look through the Ball recipe book and find something new to try... But Evan is almost out of clothes that fit, they're all in the hamper waiting to be washed. And David is almost out of work pants. And, Jesus, when was the last time I cleaned the litter box? I definitely yelled too much today, Kelsey is gonna think I'm a jackass.

See how cyclical this shit is?