Suffering the Plagues of Manhattan

Forgive me, blog readers, for I have sinned. It has been eight days since my last confession, er, post, and I hear that worry about us is approaching panic levels across the land. We've been worried about ourselves, too ... or, more accurately, I've been worried about Greta. Here's what she's suffered over the past couple of weeks:

- Severe post-partum depression ... not so bad that I ever thought she would hurt herself or Seamus (for some reason, that's the first thing that many people think when they hear "post-partum depression", probably because of that woman in Texas ... but she actually had post-partum psychosis), but bad enough that I felt like I was subjecting her to torture by leaving her to go to work.

- A milk-duct abcess ... which is every bit as much fun as it sounds. I had to take her to a breast surgeon to get it lanced, and she was also put on antibiotics, which led to ...

- Thrush.

- And then our landlord sent us a letter saying that he was raising our rent by more than 15%.

The first three of these plagues led me to first take a week off of work, and then, when that was over, to pack up Greta and Seamus and bring them to her mother's place in Connecticut. That's where I'm writing from right now -- piggybacking on a neighbor's unsecured wireless signal. Ooh, I'm bad.

Before we left, though, we visited a crazy-doctor and got her some crazy-pills. After about a week and a half now, they seem to be kicking in: Greta noted that yesterday was the first day in many weeks in which she hadn't cried.

The fourth plague has led us to decide to actually move to Connecticut, since a) rents in Manhattan continue to rise at a rate that far outstrips our annual salary increases, and b) Greta's mom found us a nice little apartment on the beach just a mile from her house.

I always wanted to raise our kid in New York City: I love that nutty place. But raising a kid on the beach shouldn't be too bad, either ... our apartment is literally fifty yards from a beautiful sandy beach (it's just the Long Island Sound, though, so Seamus will not be following in Steffi and Danny's surfin' footsteps), and about a quarter mile from a nature preserve. On Thursday night, when I went to look at the place, the landlord was showing me the beach, when I noticed that there were about a half-dozen deer grazing in the scrubby grass that bordered the sand. Deer on the beach! I took it as a sign that we are making the right choice.

Most importantly, though, we will be close to Greta's mother, who is a rock (and she rocks, as well), her grandmother, her sister, her aunt, and her nephews. Doing this baby thing without help has proven to be too much for us. Of course, Greta's plagues are all fading away, but the experience of the last couple of weeks has led us to appreciate the value of a reliable safety net.

And in any case, we have to move somewhere, since we can't afford to stay where we are. We were considering Brooklyn, but Greta says she longs to move somewhere with more trees and open space, and less spitting and honking. Our beach apartment has a balcony with a view of the Sound and a huge lawn. I envision myself sitting on the balcony at sunset with Greta, enjoying a Connecticut microbrew of some sort, watching Seamus play tag with a neighbor's kid on the lawn.

The only real downside is the deadly commute from here into NYC ... an hour and a half each way by commuter rail. I plan to use the time to catch up on Battlestar Galactica via my laptop.

Anyway ... thanks to all of you who have offered prayers and support during the past couple of weeks. Things are going to get better for us now ...

PS: There actually was a fifth plague, which struck me instead of Greta: I accidentally caused a huge amount of data loss at work. I'd like to think that stress and fatigue were to blame, and not basic stupidity.

PPS: We can't have a post without a Seamus picture ... so here's a photo of him befriending a savage beast: