Define "Improvement"

     I am the most pathetic mom ever.  Children are going to read about me in their history books as the most ridiculous mother who ever mothered, and shake their heads in pity for me.

This is how I look now when I put LO down for a nap.

     "But teacher," one little girl will ask hopefully, "Didn't she ever bathe at all."
     "Not for days and days, Sarah. And she only buttoned up her pants if she went grocery shopping, but even then she unbuttoned as soon as she got back in the car.  It was a very sad and sorry state of affairs."
     Sigh.  I don't know how other woman do it.  I read their very clean and proper parenting blogs about their beautiful children of whom they take gorgeous sunlit photos, wherein they wax poetic about how to grow your own kale for baby food, and how refurbish an old dresser so that it can be used as a credenza.  I'll bet they have never discussed with their husbands the possibility of training a pack of dogs to raise a baby.
     Truthfully though, things aren't that bad (not that things not being bad actually changes any of my aforementioned behaviors, it just means I feel better about them).  Thanks to Ferber, LO is sleeping in five hour chunks, which is a massive improvement from two weeks ago when she was waking us up every 20 minutes.  The first night she cried for an hour at least three times during the night, but she was actually kind of doing that before Ferber, so that isn't that bad.  No, the hardest part of Ferber is definitely the heart wrenching guilt.  I still have to wear noise dampeners to put her down for a nap, even though she only cries for about five minutes.  It is really hard not just run into her bedroom and hold her to my chest.  When she is awake I am always searching her face for signs of resentment.  Poor little girl.  I know it is silly, but I can't help feel like this is ultimately going to affect which nursing home I end up in.
     I am also working through a medication change right now, which stinks.  My friend Kaitlin just had her book published (which has me in it and totally makes me famous. You should totally buy it right now!  Buy it!  Buy it!) about how antidepressants are a solution, but not in the way one might hope.  For example, when LO wasn't sleeping, I was getting super depressed and I had to raise my Cymbalta.  Unfortunately, the Cymbalta makes it really hard for me to sleep.  Now that LO is sleeping, I am not.  So they added risperidone, which definitely helps my mood, but makes me gain weight like it is my job- so not that good for my mood from a a certain perspective.
     Oh, and it sometimes makes me feel like I am going to throw up.  That doesn't really help my mood either.
     All in all, things are getting a little better.  Medications are tricky and you just have to keep working at it I guess.
Or find a very reliable pack of dogs.