Who Needs Sleep
Every new mother parent knows about sleep deprivation. I was curious (and fearful) to see how it would impact me. In high school and college it sometimes seemed like I hardly ever slept, but somewhere in the following years sleep karma came crashing down and I turned into a zombie anytime I got less than a solid 8 hours.
I got my first taste of long term sleep loss in my final trimester. It wasn’t so much the frequent bladder demands- I am a rotten sleeper generally, so frequent waking wasn’t too much of a change. The bigger issue was the pain… one of the pregnancy hormones, I think its relaxin (?) makes all the ligaments stretchy, and it gets excruciating in the middle of the night, mainly around the hip region (not coincidentally).
But of course a newborn is a totally different ballpark.
Things got better around the 2 month mark, then much worse for a while, then way way better (with a few hiccups) around 4 and a half months. It’s all relative though. I’ve always assumed I was nocturnal through practice rather than nature, but it seems I lean that way even given incentive to change: now, waking consistently at 7 or earlier, I still have trouble falling asleep before 1 most nights. It’s a problem.
I have certainly adjusted though. I have not (that I am aware) become a zombie. I’m pretty much always tired, but you get used to it.
This weekend, thanks to an abundance of extra willing hands, I got some sleep. Every morning Ender went down for a two hour nap and every morning I went down for a two hour nap too.
Now, I have never been a great napper, but since having a baby I have managed to start taking naps at least when I REALLY need them. When I’m especially tired I do try to take naps in the morning with Ender. It’s amazing though what a difference having family there makes. Sleep is far more restful when I’m not sleeping with my ear cocked for the sounds of him waking up. When I know that I don’t HAVE to get up right when he wakes because someone else will go and cuddle him when he starts crying. Matt usually can’t fill that spot because generally if I’m tired enough to need a nap, so is he, so
we nap together, and when Ender wakes up, we get up together.
It’s funny. Getting a bit of extra sleep seems to be like having a bit of food after starving for months. I was more dopey with sleep this weekend I think than I have been the weeks before.
Today though? I feel great. It’s hard to pinpoint the difference, but it’s not just mental, even my body just feels better. Usually holidays, as fun and enjoyable as they might be, wear me out. And this Christmas, especially seeing it as I imagine Ender must be seeing it for the first time was no less tiring than any other holiday, but I feel energized instead of exhausted
Now if I could just start getting to sleep before midnight, maybe I can hold on to this lovely feeling of rest.
Garden Drawing
It’s been a productive weekend (which isn’t necessarily all you want from a weekend, but the weekend before Christmas, necessary) so I forgot to post yesterday until I was already in bed. I’m not sure I would have had time to write anything of quality anyway.
Speaking of not having time to write anything of quality.
Here’s a drawing:
Click on image for larger version. (I recommend it, shrinking didn’t really agree with the line quality here.)
I drew this while I was pregnant. I’ve got a thing for intricate organic shapes. It’s labeled “Golden Gate: February” which I assume is the Magazine I was drawing from. I don’t have the magazine because I did my drawing in Borders. Ahhh, Borders.
Unfortunately I didn’t note down the type of flower. The drawing is done in fine tipped ball point pen and graphite (which is pretentious for pencil).
Out of Reach
One thing that has surprised me about being a parent is how fascinating babies can be. Don’t get me wrong, by the time bedtime rolls around it seems way past due, but I can spend so much time just watching Ender puzzle out the world. Even when it seems like there isn’t much going on, he’s working on putting it all together.
The most recent observation on my mind is the question of why Ender is not crawling yet. I don’t mean in terms of hitting milestones — Ender is 6 months old which is still early to be crawling. I just mean the physical and mental hurdles that are keeping him stuck like an overturned turtle.
Pediatricians stress the importance of tummy time because it allows babies to develop the muscles they need to crawl, and eventually walk. Supposedly they develop the necessary muscles around 6-10 months. It seems like the going theory is that as soon as they are strong enough, they up and start crawling, but I have my doubts.
Ender is STRONG. He was born able to hold his head up for short periods of time (and peck us like a bird, mouth agape, when he wanted to be fed) and support his own weight with his legs. The first time I laid him on his tummy, about a month and a half, he rolled over. Which is NOT to say he rolled over early. I count his real rolling over somewhere between 3 and 4 months. At a month and a half he had NO idea what he was doing, he was just angry to be on his tummy and flailed his way back onto his back.
My point is that I don’t think strength is what is keeping him from crawling. I may be wrong. He could sit with support — I thought just balance — for a long time before he was able to sit unassisted, and he was quite shaky at first. He would sort of gradually lean forward until he was almost on his tummy with his legs out next to his head (which, btw, he really did NOT like). So apparently his back muscles weren’t as developed as I thought they were. And maybe now, they still aren’t as developed as I think they are. Nonetheless, I think there’s something else going on.
A baby has no understanding of perspective. There is no near and far. There is just, I dunno, here? And not here? In my hand, (or usually in Ender’s case, mouth) or want it in my hand? It must take a lot of new brain power to understand the concept of traveling, because from the baby’s perspective, objects move to them. Or they don’t. True, much of a baby’s life is being carried from one place to another, but since the baby exerts no effort to get there, since they have no control over where they go, it is as if their entire environment is one big object being turned and brought to them.
So when you think about it, crawling is quite a leap. Even reaching is a leap. We think it’s lack of hand-eye coordination that prevents small infants from grasping objects (and obviously that is the main issue) but maybe part of it is that it just doesn’t occur to the baby that an object CAN be effected by their hands, maybe a baby needs to concentrate over months and months to understand that they have the power to move themselves from one object to the other.
Ender is not quite there yet. He is trying, oh so hard to crawl, but he just doesn’t quite get how it works. I have no idea if the motion is instinctive, or if he’s imitating other babies he’s seen at Story Time, but he makes quite convincing swim-crawl motions with all four limbs that do absolutely nothing to help him. They are so convincing that I can’t quite see why they AREN’T moving him. He’s probably further frustrated by the fact that in his crib, he gets all over the place, assisted by having walls to kick off of from every direction. I’m not even sure if, in his baby brain, the movement has a purpose, if he thinks it will move him, or if it’s just a Pavlovian response to wanting something out of reach.
My favorite motion, and I’m pretty sure this is a legitimate intentional attempt to move, is his inch-worm. This is the most hilariously ineffective thing I’ve ever seen.
He does this mostly when we put him on the bed, I have no idea why, and he doesn’t necessarily do it to try to get anywhere in particular, it’s like he’s really just practicing. First he kicks his legs about for a while, like he’s trying to remember what to do with them.
Then he bunches them up under his belly, and squishes into a potato bug like ball. Sometimes he falls over at this point. Next, he sort of straightens his legs and pushes his butt way up into the air. He falls over even more often at that point. Often enough though, he balances, perched on the verge of motion.
He LOOKS like he’s going to do it. Surely, he is just seconds away from pushing himself a few inches forward and experiencing the triumph of movement.
But no. He only makes it halfway. Once he gets his butt in the air, he seems to think he’s accomplished his goal. Rather than pushing forward, or even slumping, or falling, or sliding slowly forward, his legs SHOOT back out and he ends up right where he started.
Fortunately, he never minds when I laugh at him.
Olivander
Olivander Call Neely, born at 12:15 am June 1st. We’re calling him Ender for short.
Warning: many bodily fluids described ahead. If you aren’t interested in reading about the birth, skip the bulk of the text here for photos below.
My water broke at 4:30 am on Tuesday. I had been feeling little trickles for about half an hour, but kept saying, no, it’s NOT my water, until finally I decided to get up and use the restroom and WHOOSH, just like in the movies. Ender wasn’t due until June 11, and with a half constructed changing table, giant boxes waiting to be broken down and removed, and all sorts of pre-baby chaos in the house, Matt and I were hoping for just a LITTLE more time, but just as everyone who took a look at my giant belly predicted, Ender came a little early.
If you want to see a sleeping man leap straight to a standing position, “damnit, my water broke” are apparently magic words. Actually, a week later, Matt is still a little jumpy whenever I say the word “water” in the bedroom.
Though we’d been warned in our childbirth class that when the water breaks it doesn’t just stop… I wasn’t fully prepared for the fact that it just. kept. coming. I called my midwife Colleen from the bathroom and left a message with her answering service, then texted my doula Kim, and our friend Willow who is thinking of becoming a midwife or doula and who we had invited to attend the birth. Irregular contractions started shortly after my water broke, but they were so mild I wasn’t sure that’s what they were. I called the midwife again a couple hours later when I didn’t hear anything (she was sort of busy in another labor).
We put a towel down on the bed and Matt and I took a nap, figuring the easy part of labor would take a while, and we ought to get some rest while we could. Shockingly, we both managed to get a couple hours of sleep in.
When I woke up contractions had stopped entirely. We heard back from Colleen’s office around 10 or 11 I think. I was told that normally they’d recommend I stay at home and labor there as long as possible to avoid ending up with Pitocin, but because I was group B Strep positive and had ruptured membranes (water broken) they wanted to get me in to be checked and figure out what to do from there.
On the car ride over to Colleen’s office, contractions had restarted, were consistently 5 minutes apart and irritating but still not especially painful. I had a couple more painful contractions walking to the office, and then once I was set up on the table to be checked, they stopped entirely again. I found this confusing, but I guess that’s all pretty normal. I was at 3 cm, so Colleen recommended Matt and I go to the nearby mall (air conditioning) and walk around for an hour or so, to try and get things going. I think this was around noon, but I’m not entirely sure. She asked us to call and check in at 4 (pm) and I assume at the point we would have needed to start talking induction.
As soon as we started walking, contractions started again, and they became more painful, though still tolerable. I was a little worried about how bad they’d get though, because they seemed to be almost entirely in my back, and I’ve not heard warm fuzzy things about back labor.
By about 2, contractions were getting to be less what I would call tolerable. We wanted to get a meal in me before starting what we figured would be a loooong day(s), so we drove to Liquid Planet for a smoothie and a pita. I didn’t manage to eat much. We left after fifteen minutes or so to go to the hospital, where I was pre-registered.
I should probably explain here, that I was trying to go for an unmediated birth. This is not for any philosophical reasons, it’s for phobia reasons: I hate needles. Pregnancy HAS actually reduced this fear considerably, along with years of annual flu shots and now, weekly to twice monthly allergy injections (2 in each arm), but the idea of a GIANT NEEDLE in my spine freaked me out, and I was way more afraid of that than the pain, so epidural was the course of last resort. I’d requested the holistic birthing suite. It’s a recently added labor room with a large jacuzzi bath for laboring and is generally set up for natural birth. That room was already occupied however, so we were put in a different room with a big baby pool instead. All the birthing rooms at St. Johns are private, so I didn’t really mind.
Colleen was still in another birth (I think a different one, apparently May has been insane for births) so the nurse set me up on a fluid IV until she could get a script for the antibiotics (for the GBS). They wanted to get me two doses before the birth. I think I threw a wrench in the works here… I’d forgotten to mention an amoxacillin resistance. They always ask about allergies… but resistance just means it stops working, and so I never thought to mention it. It was lucky I was reading about GBS treatment a few days earlier and saw that the normal treatment is penicillin. So I think it took longer than expected to get me sorted with antibiotics, and as a result I was laying in bed for a couple hours with a fluid IV and increasingly bad back labor. The nurse who set me up was very sweet and, reading my needle phobia, got my blood draw done at the same time as the IV poke (not exactly sure how that works).
At this point no one really knew how far along I was, because the plan had been to wait for Colleen to check me to avoid extra risk of infection from lots of checks, and Colleen was still caught up in labor. I hadn’t called Kim (doula) or Willow (trainee doula) yet, because the idea is to wait until active labor, and everyone figured I should wait to hear how far along I was. I knew I was in pain, but since I had no idea how BAD the pain would get, I wasn’t sure. When Colleen arrived, she took one look at me and said we should get me up and moving. She was a little surprised that I was still on an IV instead of just the heplock, and got the antibiotics truck rolling so I could be a little more mobil. Colleen suggested I move to the toilet in the meantime, which I found pretty gross, but the change in position did seem to help for a while. She also said yes, for the love of all that is holy or unholy, call the doulas (she may not have put it like that, I think my pain was starting to translate language in interesting ways). I was only at 4cm, which probably should have been discouraging, but Colleen made it sound like good progress.
Both Doulas were on the way, but I think I was still on the toilet when I said, get me some drugs, PLEASE. I had been mildly freaked at having a heplock, though mostly distracted by contractions, but at this point I was wholly thankful to have it, as it made the nubain that much easier to get into my blood.
Can I just say, nubain is awesome? I moved from the toilet to the rocker and the contractions still hurt, but I didn’t care that it hurt. I LOVED the nubain. The nurse said, “Oh yeah, you’re high,” and I said, “YES I am.” Anyway.
Kim and Willow showed up at around the same time, with me still flying but the pain sharpening through the drugs. When I started to have a hard time again, Kim got me up from the rocker, and had me kneel, leaning on a birthing ball. This helped some, but not enough. What DID help was the pressure Kim applied to my lower back. I think she showed Matt and Willow how to do this as well, but I was starting to lose track of who was doing what at this point.
For some reason they want you at 5 cm before you can use the birthing tub, but my pain levels were rising rapidly, and the second dose of nubain didn’t help for nearly as long as the first. I started to talk about an epidural, but Kim suggested I get checked to see if I was far enough along to use the tub. So we did that.
I don’t think anyone expected me to be further along than 5 cm, but I was at 7. They started filling the tub, and I tried to figure out what I wanted to do. I had a pretty good idea about how the rest of the night was going to go.
I think I was progressing faster than people thought I was. Colleen had predicted (out of my earshot) a baby sometime after breakfast. First time labors aren’t supposed to move all that fast, but the pain seemed to be escalating fast… I had a feeling if I got in the tub I’d lose my window for an epidural by the time I needed one. In the end I figured I’d give it a try, and if it didn’t help enough, I’d get the epidural.
It did help, a lot, especially with water on my back and Matt stroking my hair. It ended up working out really well for me that the birthing suite was occupied: the baby pool used as a replacement was padded everywhere so I could move around without fighting hard surfaces. The walls were like vinyl couches.
Everything still hurt more than I felt I could cope with. At this point everything goes from kind of blurry to almost blank in my memory. I think I went into transition almost as soon as I got into the tub. It was horrific. It’s as close as I’ve come to crying from pain in my adult life. Friends had told us that the screaming you see on TV is unrealistic, but let me tell you, I am a screamer. Also a curser, though I’d like to point out that my swearing wasn’t directed at anyone, and I don’t believe I ever resorted to screaming, “you did this to me,” at Matt.
I think the only reason I didn’t say, “that’s it, get me the epidural,” is that I sort of zonked out in the short peace between contractions and couldn’t focus long enough to say anything.
I have no idea how long transition lasted. At some point I started feeling “pushy” and when I mentioned it Kim and the nurse said to go ahead and push. Colleen wasn’t around at that point, I think she was nap-recovering in another room from her back to back deliveries, so I started pushing halfheartedly, not really sure.
I think at this point I managed to vocalize that I wanted an epidural if it wasn’t too late. I was pretty sure it was too late, so I wasn’t too crushed when they got me out of the tub to check me and announced I was fully dilated, and someone ran to get Colleen.
Kim kept saying, “push through the pain,” and eventually I realized that pushing actually made the pain of the contraction LESS and I started pushing with a lot more enthusiasm. They asked me if wanted to get back in the tub, but I was pretty sure I didn’t have the energy/coordination/balance to get back in, much less back OUT again, and I did not want to deliver in the water, so we continued in bed. I don’t remember when Colleen got there, or when they added the birthing bar, and when I look at the nurse in the photos, I don’t even recognize her (there were a couple shift changes while I was in labor).
The pushing actually hurt much less than transition. It was incredibly HARD, but such a relief to be in less pain that I was able to joke around a bit with everyone in between contractions. There was still considerable pain, I was still yelling and cursing, but it was more about the exertion than the agony. Colleen was awesome about explaining that the almost unbearable pressure/pain/stretching at the end of each contraction let me stretch more slowly. Kim managed to get me to relax between and prepare for the next. For the most part, I think pushing was within my coping range, but it was probably the most physically taxing thing I’ve ever had to do.
At first pushing was fairly productive, according to Matt, Kim and Willow you could physically SEE the difference as Ender moved down. One of the few times I opened my eyes, I glanced down and was startled at how flat my belly was. Progress seemed to stall right at the end though, and everyone kept telling me I needed to push harder/more. I didn’t exactly have more to put into it. Eventually Colleen said if we didn’t get him out soon she’d need to do an episiotomy or get the vacuum. She was actually numbing me up for the an episiotomy which got me a bit panicky (the needles, not the thought of cutting which I wasn’t thrilled about either) but I finally managed to get him out in the next push.
Before, they kept talking about how he would “pop” out once he got over that edge, and that’s really what it felt like.
I actually thought Colleen had bopped him on the head to somehow get him to jump out (it didn’t make any more sense in my head to be honest) and then there was this wiggly mass of baby on the bed. Matt was supposed to get to hold him first, but the umbilical cord wasn’t quite long enough for that, so they put him on my chest. He was sort of greyish blue, which really worried me while they were suctioning out his lungs. The first of many freakouts in parenting, I realize. I’m pretty sure it was only a matter of seconds before they cleared his lungs and he started screaming in earnest, but it felt like quite a lot longer. He pinked up pretty soon once they got him crying, though his feet and hands stayed purplish for a bit.
I literally do not remember ever seeing that nurse. I was pretty content to just stare at Ender, though I think it took about a day for the real awe to set in.
The name Olivander doesn’t have any special significance for our family, we found it in a baby name book, and both quite liked it. We figured it’s nice and unique without being so weird sounding that he’ll get teased or be embarrassed. I have no idea what the “right” way to pronounce it is, but we’re saying it like a mash-up of Oliver and Alexander.
Olivander means “protector of the olive tree” which we thought was kind of cool. As a side note, Oliver means “olive tree” but it can also mean “elf army,” which is sort of awesome. We did NOT get the name Olivander from Harry Potter, though one of the characters is named Mr. Ollivander, and I’m sure people will assume that no matter what we say. Ah well.
Ender is a character from a favorite sci-fi book, Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card. We figure if he doesn’t like that nickname when get gets older, he can always go by Ollie or Van or even Oliver. Olivander is the name I used while he was in the womb, and Ender seems like a different creature than the imaginary baby I carried around for nine months. To us he looks like an Ender.
Willow was our wedding photographer, and she took most of the photos during the birth, as well as keeping me stocked in ice chips (love ice chips) and probably helping out in lots of other ways that I was too busy to notice. She also took a flipbook worth of photos of Ender crowning, which I will not be sharing, and which make me wince. Lots. I have a second degree tear, which I’d hoped to avoid, but I realize in terms of tearing it could be much worse.
Of course, every minute of the pain was worth it, but I wouldn’t say it was necessary. I wasn’t sure where my needle fear would balance with pain tolerance, and now I know: next time I’m getting the epidural.
It’s interesting to me that some of the people who set out to have a natural birth say they’re doing it that way because they want to be “present” for the birth, to be aware of the whole experience. For myself, I think I would have been much more aware and present had I had less pain. I think I would have been mentally defeated pretty early on without the nubain and the support of both my husband and doula(s). Transition was impossible, and I kept repeating, “I don’t want to,” because I realized, “I can’t,” was pretty much unhelpful and, frankly, untrue as evidenced by human history. The only real upside I can about the pain is that it made the pushing phase seem tolerable by comparison, but even with that, I think I may have had more energy for it if I hadn’t been so spent by transition.
I am glad it went the way it went. I am also glad it’s over.
The next morning:
Look at me, wearing clothes. That didn’t happen much while at the hospital, they aren’t kidding when they say modesty flies out the door.
Holding him is incredible. I can’t believe how soft he is.
With our insurance we get two days at the hospital from time of birth, and since Ender was kind enough to be born just after midnight, it was closer to three days, which made me feel much more secure about the whole healthy newborn thing, especially since my labor was fairly short- they only had time to give me one dose of antibiotics for the GBS.
I kept asking people if his nose looked yellow, but they periodically tested his bilirubin levels (the way they measure jaundice) and they were fine… right up until the point that they jumped up to not fine. I think that was sometime late Thursday, and unfortunately they weren’t able to get a blood test on him until Friday, when we were supposed to be discharged.
The levels were high enough that they told us he needed to stay another night… and under the UV lamps the whole time.
That was tough news… one of the things we loved about the hospital was that we had the option of keeping him with us the whole time we were there, and the UV lamps meant our time with him was limited to half hour feedings every three hours.
There were a few upsides to this though. The first one was that they wanted to supplement my milk with a little formula after each feeding to make sure he was getting enough (and flushing out his system). This gave Matt and opportunity to feed Ender, which he wouldn’t have had otherwise since everyone says don’t introduce a bottle until 4 weeks etc, etc.
Probably the biggest upside of being separated from him is that, as much as it sucked, it gave us a chance to sleep in solid 3 hour blocks. The last two nights had been disrupted by every little sound he made, every big sound he made, as we struggled to figure out how to get him to sleep, and the frequent checks by nurses on both his and my health. The third day, where I was technically discharged from the hospital (we stayed on as “boarders” at no cost) there were no checkups, and no fussing, but we still had access to lactation consultants and knew our baby was being taken care of. So even though it was emotionally rough, we both felt much better for the extra rest and support the next day, and I think we went home from the hospital much more recovered than most people do. We had to continue to monitor Ender’s bilirubin levels, and today they finally went down on their own. He’s still a tiny bit fake-tan looking, but he’s beautiful anyway and with any luck his color will return completely to normal over the next day or so.
Of course the final benefit was that being away from him made us appreciate being with him, and gave us an extra drop of patience for the next week of sleep deprivation. It’s anyone’s guess how long that will last, but for now, we’re all three feeling pretty good.
I’ll try to post more photos later this week.
Octopus’s Garden
Here’s some art:
I started this piece several months ago. Somewhere along the line I went mad with power and blacked in way too much, and once I realized it, I sort of stopped liking it. I’ve been trying to use more contrast of both black vs white and texture vs space, but I think this one would have been better sticking to the texture play. Now it’s a bit too heavy, but it’s still technically worth showing I suppose, so here you are.
I could probably help the balance of this piece by putting a bit more black in the white areas of the top right quarter, but for the moment I’m sick of looking at it, so I’m calling it done.
Fast Drawings
For this week’s Illustration Friday, “Fast” I thought I’d do a set of quick sketches.
Click on any image to see a larger version. Everyone knows cheetahs are the fastest land animals:
According to wisegeek, cheetahs run up to 70 mph. I run about 0.70 miles per hour on a good day.
The fastest water animal, I had to look up.
This is a sailfish, which I had heard of but had never really thought about much. They’re actually pretty cool looking, like a dinosaur mixed with a swordfish. Like the cheetah, sailfish travel 70 mph, so in a triathlon I suppose they’d be about evenly matched. Until they got to the biking portion, because everyone knows fish can’t ride bikes.
Finally, the fastest animal of the air is the aptly named Sir Not Appearing in this Film. Wait. I mean the aptly named swift.
Swifts fly through the air at 106 mph, making them the fastest animal in the world (probably not great in the triathlon though).
I’m pretty happy with how the sailfish and the swifts turned out. I got the cutout effect by reverse selecting the subjects, and darkening the paper grain to add in a more noticable texture. The cheetah is ok, but I always have a tough time with cats for some reason. This one looks a bit like a monkey or a hyena, but as my cats go, it’s acceptable.
Nature Bites
There are certain phrases in the English language that, once uttered, spell doom for the speaker. “What’s the worst that could happen?” is one example, along with, “Well at least it’s not raining.” Of course we can’t forget the horror movie classics like, “I’ll be right back,” or Darwinian helpers such as, “Hold my beer and watch this!”
And then there’s, “Aw, I hate bug spray. I’d rather have a couple bites.”
I went camping about a month ago and came home with 78 bug bites. Most were probably mosquito bites but there were also blood flies and at least one spider bite.I generally consider bug bites slightly worse than annoying, but this was downright agonizing. The first night, depending solely on calamine lotion, I didn’t sleep at all. By the way. Calamine lotion is worthless.
So 4 am found me googling bug bite cures. Twitter and Facebook also yielded some helpful suggestions, but stuck at home the next day, I tried the only “cure” available in the house. Scotch Tape. This sounded unlikely, but I was desperate, so I figured what the heck.
Most of the bites were on my legs, so I mummified my calves in transparent strips, covering every bite. It worked much better than I expected (in that I didn’t expect it to work at all) but certainly wasn’t 100%.
The main usefulness of the tape seemed to be reducing friction on the bites. Protected by the tape, my bites weren’t constantly irritated by my clothing, or even the air. Miraculously, I could also scratch my bites without bothering them, as the smooth surface of scotch tape let me rub without abrasion. The forum that suggested this cure claimed that the tape sucks out mosquito venom (total nonsense) but I’m pretty sure the stickiness has nothing to do with the relief. I think this is entirely caused by protecting the bites. I didn’t realize how much the tape was doing until I took it off. Then the itch-burn returned full force. While Scotch Tape isn’t perfect, it helps far more than you’d expect and I highly recommend it as a home remedy.
The down side to the tape was that I could feel it when I moved, which meant every step I took reminded me that my body was covered in mosquito bites. As you’re probably aware, the best thing you can do for bug bites is forget about them, and the tape made this almost impossible (not that it was even remotely possible WITHOUT the tape).
I asked Matt to ask the pharmacist what to use, and he brought home some AfterBite (ammonia) and Cortisone. The instructions were to put on the ammonia (stings like a scorpion), wait for it to dry, and then smear on the cortisone.
The effect of the ammonia was immediate, after the sting dissipated, the itch was GONE, though it didn’t last too long if you left it at that, and itching reawakened at the slightest breeze. The cortisone is supposedly a longer term effect, up to 24 hours before it has any impact. I can’t testify to that, since I have no idea what the itch would have been like if I hadn’t used it.
I do know that the chemicals were sanity saving. The pharmacist said nothing about covering the bites after, and I’m not sure whether health wise it’s a good idea, but I’d already witnessed how much scotch tape helped and I wanted to get rid of as much itch as possible. I wanted to SLEEP, thanks.
The scotch tape was not ideal. For one thing, taking it off left painful red marks, especially at the back of the knee, where it actually caused a friction rash, and seemed to make the bites worse. For another thing, I mean, it’s scotch tape. That can’t be healthy, right? Some people online were using duct tape, and scotch tape is probably better than that, but I thought surely there were better options.
I picked up some medical tape, and this was a huge mistake. Nowhere near as effective as scotch tape, the huge strips of medical tape dragged constantly at my skin, a painful reminder of my itching bites. Since the tape is designed to breathe, air could get in to bug my bites, but it was somehow still hotter, more sweat inducing than the scotch tape. The only plus I can see is that it would have made a good Halloween costume. Scotch tape, surprisingly, was a clear winner here.
Better though, if more ridiculous, were individual band-aids.
It took me more than an hour to cover all my bites with tiny round bandages, and it seemed like a complete waste of time, but even more than the tape, the band-aids worked beautifully. I can’t think of a better use for the band-aids, I’ve always wondered what they were for, so maybe this is it. Though time consuming, the band-aids, coupled with the ammonia and ointment, were the best by far at relieving the itch.
They’re less conspicuous than the medical tape (though not as invisible as scotch tape) relieved 95% of the itch and burn (enough that I could forget it), and most importantly, didn’t pull at my skin at all, or give any reminder that they were there.
I also tried to defend my band-aid use by claiming that they must be attractive. After all, Anime characters are often covered in band-aids and everyone knows Anime characters are hot. Right? Matt has informed me however that, while I am always hot in his eyes, being covered in band-aids is not at all sexy, and should be avoided whenever possible. Especially if they’re covering itchy bug bites.
Ah well. Half my friends on the camping trip ended up with poison ivy, so I guess it could have been worse. I’m pretty sure calamine lotion doesn’t do much for that either.
Striped African Tree Rat
Last month my dad had a Realtors’ conference in DC, so Matt and I decided to make a vacation of it, which gave us a chance to actually see my parents this year (it’s not easy to get to Oregon).
Dad didn’t have a whole lot of time for touristy things, but he was able to join Matt, Mom and I at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum before the conference started. Everyone else wanted to see the rocks and gems section. I wasn’t too enthused about that part, until I remembered that it’s only gems I could care less about. I actually quite like rocks. In the display I was especially fascinated by all the cool rock formations, the amazing variety of shape and texture. The above reminded me of nothing more than an alien city, and I though several crystals made such pretty patterns that they’d also make excellent computer backgrounds.
I didn’t need to warm up to the rest of the museum, I mean, who wouldn’t love looking at deep sea animals, frozen hunting scenes, and dinosaur bones?
I guess my dad loved it even more than the rest of us.** I enjoyed the bones, and they made such cool light patterns in on the floor that I think I’m going to need to draw them at some point, but my favorite part of the museum were the current animals. True, they’re dead, but it’s pretty rare that you get to look at animals up close, to get a sense for their details, scale, and posture. We have a natural history museum in Cleveland, and it’s actually quite good, but it’s hard to compete with the National Museum.
** I am SO not responsible if you try to kiss the T-Rex and get yourself kicked out or arrested.
I probably spent far too long in the mammal room, taking photos of creatures great and small. When I get an opportunity like that it’s hard to think about anything but how many great photo-references I’m getting for drawings. Natural-ish zoos are great, but sometimes the animals move too quick to capture, or don’t appear at all. When they’re stuffed, it’s not exactly a problem. I especially liked the bats. I don’t often get to look closely at bat wings, and I can’t wait to do some sketching.
Now for an apparently unrelated aside.
I have to tell you a story. Almost ten years ago, I started my first year at the University of Notre Dame. There are small differences in the natural worlds of South Bend and Eugene, possibly caused as much by perspective, my newfound freedom, as distance. I saw birds hopping around amongst the fall leaves and noticed that the way they moved made them blend perfectly with the leaves rolling in the wind, effectively hiding them. Some differences however were not due to mere observation. The climate in South Bend is more extreme, there aren’t as many evergreens. And within my first few days there, I started to glimpse a timid little creature with dramatic markings on its face and sides, which I didn’t recognize at all.
It never occurred to me to ask anyone what they were, instead I referenced my mammal book, which I’d conveniently brought from home.
It took me a while, but I eventually found an entry that seemed to match the creatures. After closing the book I immediately forgot what they were called, confusing several adjacent pages, and mentally labeled my find the Striped African Tree Rat. I couldn’t imagine how they’d made it all the way to Indiana. Possibly they were an invasive species, brought over in fruit boxes. There certainly seemed to be a lot of them.
I didn’t think too much more about it. The world is flat does not just apply to computers and germs, little creatures can get all over the place thanks to our carelessness, so really, it seemed only mildly strange.
About a year later, I went on a week long trip to Sunriver, Oregon with a couple of my fencing buddies and my godfather Mike. We’d been there for a couple days when the four of us were hanging out on the second floor porch, among the pine trees. I looked out at the endless poles of tree trunks, and on a tree just fifty feet away, I saw one of my Striped African Tree Rats.
They’ve spread, I thought, and before I really had a chance to think, I pointed it out. My godfather gave me his best incredulous look. “Meagan. That’s a chipmunk.”
I know. You’re thinking I’m a moron. Maybe I am.
But last month, with Matt and my parents, I was wandering around the small mammals exhibit when I came across unexpected redemption. In fact, I came across a chipmunk. Behold:
*Ok, yes, I know Cambodia is nowhere near Africa but you have to admit, it’s a freaking chipmunk.
April Camping
My favorite season to go camping is fall. Summer tents get very hot, spring can be tick/mosquito heavy. Bugs aside, spring camping is a close second, assuming you’re the type that enjoys being outdoors. If you define nature as lawn care, preferably done by someone else, camping would obviously be the furthest thing from relaxing or enjoyable, so if you are one of those, you may want to leave my blog before the nature-y pictures make you itchy.
We decided to go on a camping trip for my brother’s birthday this year, but this presented a couple problems. The choice was made only a week and a half ahead of time, and though it was easy to reserve a site (weirdly, not many people want to go camping a few days after snow) it wasn’t enough time for people with jobs to prepare the time. Also, while it was a beautiful weekend in spite of the snow earlier that week, it was a beautiful APRIL weekend, a bit colder than any of us were really equipped for.
So we decided on a day camping trip instead. The woods in spring are still brown, with shocking bursts of green popping up from beneath the dead.
We started the day with a hike. We pretty much had the trails to ourselves; I think there were maybe 5 other groups on the whole site. We went to Findley, because it’s relatively close, and a decent park for the distance. Partway through our hike, Matt, Jack and Kim apparently had to pause and pose for a Jay Crew Catalog (above).
I am not a power hiker. Amy and I kept trading places at the back, because we were the ones with cameras. The thing I love about hiking is it gives you the chance to really look at things. I consider myself an artist, and that’s supposed to mean I’m observant, that I look at the world through some special filter. In truth I spend much of my time in day dreams, and often don’t look at the concrete world at all. I have to remind myself to look closely, to see beauty. I think that’s why I like taking pictures. Simply having a camera hanging around my neck forces me to notice things, to see how fascinating something as simple as dirt can be, the intricate patterns made by tree branches.
The best parks have some kind of water feature. Findley has a lake, and a dam, which is for some reason more fascinating than the lake.
Maybe it’s the way the man made elements intersect nature, the industrial concrete against the lines of the trees. I’m not sure it would be so striking with the trees fully greened. I like the starkness.
But then I’ve always been a huge fan of visual contrasts between life and death. Structure and disorder. I also find myself concentrating on the simple shapes, and lines, almost to the point that I hardly see what I’m actually looking at. Not “can’t see the forest for the trees,” I can’t see the trees for the lines.
This only comes in waves however, so I do still get a chance to enjoy the nature walk. It was crisp and sunny, I’m glad I dressed warm, in a long sleeved t-shirt and fleece jacket. It’s easy to either over or underestimate the temperature on a early spring hike. It looks sunny so you think it’s warm and you freeze, or you remember it’s actually pretty cold, and end up sweating from the exercise.
I stole this photo idea from Amy. I waited until she moved into frame and all five of them were well down the trail. My friends eventually got used to me lagging behind.
Whenever you go camping or hiking, it’s a good idea to take along a pair of extra shoes and socks (if you’re going multi-day camping, MORE than one pair of extra socks). Especially if at the end of the hike you come to a river between you and your campsite. You find a log bridge. Ignoring common sense, you start tentatively to cross it. It’s pretty sturdy, so you walk more confidently, and as you get to the end, Jack says, look out, it’s slippery there. Just one more step before you jump onto the ground. Like I said, extra socks.
We sort of overestimated one day’s food, but we ate more of it than could be reasonably expected. It would be nice to claim that we earned it, burning off the calories on our rigorous hike, but since I was the one wandering at the end, taking pictures of interesting tree bark, I wont even try.
No camping trip is complete without cheesy-injected goodness (pork franks with cheddar). We also brought along food for foil wraps, the holy grail of camping food. Most people probably know what a foil wrap is already, take random roasting veggies (potatoes, onions and carrots are the best staples), some meat or not as you prefer (steak works best, but I don’t eat beef so I used pork, which is a little less tricky than chicken) wrap it up in thick foil, and stick it on the embers (not fire) for 30-40 minutes. Salt, seasoning, herbs, and olive oil can all be a nice addition, but it tastes good without.
Jack and Kim didn’t really believe us about the foil wraps. Kim’s surprise when she tasted the contents was worth the 40 minute wait.
For dessert we had apple crumbly things. Again with foil, a bunch of oatmeal at the bottom, apples, brown sugar, cinnamon, and lots of butter. It’s got fruit in it, so it must be healthy.
It was hard to see by the time we got to the foil wraps, and it was extremely cold even a few steps away from the fire. We had a good fire going though, which kept at least one half of us nice and toasty. I was actually not as cold on this trip as I have been on some others. Maybe because I expected this one to be cold, and dressed warmer than I usually would.
Day camping isn’t quite the same as a weekend long trip (or week long trip if there’s time) but it was surprisingly relaxing. It’s not something that would occur to me most of the time, and now I hope it will. Sometimes a full out camping trip is just impossible, but a lot of that time, fitting in a day, or a half day is way more doable. And definitely worth it.
Photos from Bend
Still thesis-ing (well it’s a word NOW) so here are more photos. Hope you enjoy.
A couple months before the wedding, I went home for a week to visit my parents in Oregon. Dad and I went on a few hikes, especially in Bend.
I was mainly home to see my parents, but I also wanted to get some good shots of the landscape of Bend since a couple unwritten books in my series will be taking place there. The first book, the one I’m agonizing over right now in fact, takes place in Eugene, so I needed to get some photos of that as well, but since I lived there for the stretch of childhood within the reach of memory, Eugene is less essential.
This photo probably won’t be all that useful for my book, but I think it’s one o the more print ready photos I have. For a while I was toying with the idea of selling photography, but I probably won’t get around to pursuing that particular avenue any time soon.
Another of my favorites. This really ought to be a panoramic shot, but I think it’s lovely as is.
Another cool view.
I like getting trees from strange angles. I especially like in this one how the blue of the sky seems to gather at the edges. It’s almost amoeba-ic (also suddenly a word)
Technically this isn’t in bend, it’s from Sahalie Falls a scenic shot on the way home.
The sky here is so blue that it doesn’t look real, but I didn’t even do any color enhancing. I was afraid to.
Actually, I guess none of the photos from around the falls looked quite real. The mist was part of it, but mainly it was just the scale. Or something. Pretty views anyway.
Click on the photos for a bigger version. More photos tomorrow. Should get back to normal posts by Monday, I hope.