hand face

He sucks his thumb like a real baby, fingers curled around his nose, and last evening we were lying on the floor together and he kept grabbing my hand, my pinky in his right hand and my thumb in his left, and pulling it to his face and scream-laughing into my palm. It was the funniest thing he's ever done. Oh man.

helpless

Sometimes I get overwhelmed by the thought of what it must be like to be in your first few months of life. Locked in a tiny body that can't properly express and can't properly contain nascent emotions and needs. If a baby is in pain, lonely, cold, hot, overwhelmed, hungry, wet, tired, all they can do is scream and hope someone (some dumbass amateur parent, who is just as new to this as they are) hears, can guess the problem, and is willing to help. It's horrible to be stuck in a state of discomfort and to not know that it will ever end. Hungry and unsure if you'll ever be NOT hungry again. Even minor inconveniences would be almost unbearable when you have no ability to problem solve on your own steam. What if my baby has an itch somewhere?? I'd never know. I think it's good that memory doesn't start sticking for a few years. I think it's a good thing M won't remember how miserable he is every time he gets stuck on his side against the wall of the crib and can't kick his way back to comfort. Ow, my heart.

this week

I haven't been writing things down, but I want to remember looking at S across a table full of Mexican food while we talk about the ways we need to love.


The vase of slowly fading mums on my desk at work, and the reasons why fall is (still) so good for my soul.

The quivering, sensitive, almost-crying face my son makes when he's overwhelmed and the way my heart echoes back.

The way it feels to mash my feet into the pedals of the bike, pistoning my legs faster and faster down the hill so I can crest the top of the next one at a glide.

The raspy laugh of the baby's hilarious, cotton haired great-great-aunt, the one who mispronounces 'peony' and to whom we are (what's yours is mine) in debt.

Sore wrists. Nodding off at my desk. Bare feet even in the cold.

babies who keep secrets

Yesterday was kind of gloomy, so today I'll mention a dear friend whose pregnancy is 40 weeks behind my own, who found out about their little one days after my little one was born, and who whispered her tiny baby's existence into my tiny baby's newborn ear, and who later announced the pregnancy out loud to a group of friends through a game of pictionary, and who keeps bringing food, her husband, and her good company over to our home. This is ungloomy.

lagging

I think I'll always feel a sense of loss when I think of the laundry list of [laundry] and everything else between the baby's bedtime and my own early one, and the way I used to be able to... not.

I don't wish I wasn't working because I like my job, we need the money, I like being out and about, I felt trapped at home with the baby.

I wish I wasn't working because I'm always tired, I'm always in a loop, I'm always in a loop, I'm always in a loop, I miss my kid, S and I are on different planets.

There's been this shared head cold thing for the past week. There's been night shifts and long nights and early mornings and miscommunication and snot. We are two solo parents. This is really hard.
 
I am not really a perpetual motion machine. I am not always in go-mode. I am (I was) pretty good at knowing when I needed to say no, or back away, or take some time to myself. But now I'm trying to fake it and stuff down my instincts, because now I'm not on my own payroll.

I'm wondering how to find restoration. Do I have a secret pocket of unsinkableness?

I had --HAD-- this thing where I'd just poof and go for a solitary walk for an hour or hours when I needed to clear out my cobwebs and level out my emotions.

I had --HAD-- this thing where I'd spend an extra hour in bed in the mornings and read, or I'd go spend an evening at a thrift store.

I had --HAD-- this thing where I'd make a week's meal plan and shop and cook and clean up the kitchen afterward.

Now what I have is... guilt and irritation and heavy eyelids. Frozen pizza and cereal and stagnation.

Now what I have is a wonderful, snotty, iron-willed baby, who squawks and flails and laughs and is a spit up houdini and who smells like old cheese/baby shampoo/poop/heaven and who needs me, and whose care and affection necessarily trumps everything I'd be doing instead.

What a trade.