a six month retrospective - month four

It is the neatest thing to see how a baby’s personality emerges. They’re just blobs at first, little nothings, and then you start getting these little glimpses. By the time Evey was 4 months old we knew just what kind of baby she was going to be – happy, smiling, easy-going. At that point she was sitting up on her own, but she still loved to stand. She was still spitting up like crazy. She loved bath time and kicked and splashed around. When I would pick her up at Torrie’s she did what we called “Full Body Smiles:” she straightened up and curled her toes and patted her legs and just had the biggest toothless smile on her face. I remember one night J wanted to go wake her up just so we could hang out with her (we didn’t; we let her sleep).

For Thanksgiving we went to Othello to take some pictures of a friend’s family, and then headed over to Spokane to see the grandparents and Uncle Pat. Evey was such a good little traveler. On Sunday evening, as I was preparing to head back to work the next day, I was just dreading it. This wasn’t the life that I wanted. I didn’t want to be a full-time working mom. It seemed cruel that just when Evey was getting awesome was when I had to go back to work. I knew that depression was setting in again and finally I knew it was time to get some outside help. I called a psychiatrist and set an appointment for later that week. I knew J was getting frustrated with me because he had done everything right and I still wasn’t myself. But I didn’t know what to do anymore – everything overwhelmed me, even dirty dishes in the sink.

I sullenly went to work the following morning. My boss came out of her office and said she needed to speak to me. She was very matter-of-fact and said that the company could no longer afford to keep me on full-time. They would need to cut my hours back to 25 until we picked up more work. On my way to feed Evey at my lunch I totally panicked. I was sobbing by the time I got to Torrie’s house. I spent that afternoon just processing what was happening, mulling over how we were going to pay our bills. By the time I got home I realized that this was actually a blessing. I had been saying for a month that a part-time job would be perfect for me, and now here it was, forced upon me. My mind started filling with all of the things that I could do in the mornings when I wouldn’t have to be to work.

My 1st morning off I cleaned the bathroom. The 2nd morning I slept in with Evey. I cancelled my appointment with the psychiatrist.