Depression is a sneaky bitch

You are rolling along, and things are OK, and then BAM - everything tastes like a penny, looks like a pile of Sunday night homework, sounds like soulless pop...

Depression is sneaky because it disguises itself, altering your perception immediately, making you feel that this state of bleak is normal...and having that feeling that your state of normal is bleak feeds into a dangerous downward cycle towards a more robust depression.

I hate feeling this way; I like to believe that I have achieved a heightened consciousness of self that allows me to recognize my own depression (to see through that disguise) pretty quickly, but that belief is likely delusional.

In Terry Pratchett's "Discworld" books, and specifically those dealing with the witches, he introduces this concept of "third thoughts" and "fourth thoughts" - the general idea is that everyone is capable of having "second thoughts" wherein they apply a basic level of analysis to their own thinking, but that sometimes it may be valuable to analyze your analysis.  The recursive nature of this analysis brings a danger of paralysis, and so must be applied judiciously.  I'm no master of the judicious application of self-analysis, but I would like to believe that such analysis has added value a time or two.

Month 13

Year one is in the books, and year 2 is off to a great start!

like I always say...

"... people tend to believe that they can communicate over e-mail more effectively than they actually can..."

[sad face]

some of my virtual friends are going through a trial separation in their marriage and it bums me out.

Also, I know I'm past-due on posts related to my 1 year old (and counting!) and some other topics, but my capacity for writing has diminished in recent weeks.  Sorry!

month 12 - Happy Birthday!

today was great, my favorite little man!

I will definitely write more soon about this first year, but I wanted to say today that I love you and you're number 1!

11 months

Happy yo 11!

Wait...that's from craps...

Seriously, Happy 11 months, little buddy.

I like to think this crying jag took place after you read the month 10 post and felt really bad about how you never sleep and your mother and I are at wit's end...but really, you were just having a grumpy moment and I was feeling picture happy.

The sleep really has gotten better in the last few weeks, although there are plenty of nights that you get your mom out of bed 3 - 5 times.  Those nights do not make for pleasant mornings.

In other news, you had your first Thanksgiving out of the womb and it went pretty well.  Now that you are officially the youngest member of both sides of the family tree, you get plenty of attention.  Your birthday the day after Christmas is sure to be a test of that theory, as most everyone is going to be partied and holidayed out, but for Turkey day you were a big hit.

This month has been a big one for your relationship with your big brother Frodo, in some complicated ways.  As shown here, you two like to hang out and have similar interests.  Frodo has also warmed up to you as a partner for play - he brings you his toys and gets you to chase him around the house.  But we also had a scary moment yesterday...you poked or pulled on the Grumpy Old Dog side of Frodo and apparently hurt him enough that he snapped out at you and we got this...

This was your first real injury and your mom and I were beside ourselves for most of the day, and still when we talk about it we both get a little weepy.  You are fine, and within minutes of the "incident" you were laughing and ready to play, and you and the dog have been trying to get close for some cuddling since, but Mom and I are going to take it slow with the reintroductions.  To be fair, my big sister split my lip a few times and my big cousin dumped me out of the back of a wagon for a broken collar bone, but the site of seeing you bleeding and those moments of frantic worry about how bad it might be and how bad it might have been came as a pretty big shock for tus padres.

So back to the happy stuff - you have become much more mobile in the last few weeks and you have learned to wave - it is still adorable, every single time it happens, when you see me walk into the room and you sit up and wave at me.  I can't even imagine what it will be like when you can talk (at least for that short window that you can talk but haven't yet learned to be ironic or sarcastic....)

We need to shoot more film, but this moment catches a lot of what was special about this month:



I love you so much, little Man.  One year is coming up so fast, and you and I need to come up with a plan for how to deal with your mom realizing her little baby boy is growing up!

Month 10 UPDATE

Maybe it was Jessica's threat of Ferbering, maybe it was the public shame the prior blog post, maybe it was the universe recognizing that the Time Had Come...but our little man has strung together a mostly consecutive series of nights sleeping 5+ hours at a time!