Our captor is wearing us down. But just as we were seriously considering giving up, he smiled at us. Really smiled. The face-splitting, eye-squinting grin. And he wasn’t even on the changing table when it happened!
Hooray!
Note: I find it very difficult not to write in the “we” form here, whether I am describing his experience or mine. I suspect this has something to do with the way I feel like he’s not actually a separate being, but rather a part of me, a rogue organ that escaped; an additional limb. I also never thought I’d ever refer to myself as “mommy” in an out-loud voice, as in “mommy needs to change her shirt again because you spit up on it, yes; mommy’s right here, don’t worry…” But I do, frequently.
* * *
Life Serial:
1.
I can’t believe I have a baby. Me. Who is this person? How did he get here? Well, we know how, but still. (The WHO of him — baby, not band — is still in development.) And yet, as strange as this should feel, it doesn’t. It feels totally normal. Weirdly normal. I have a baby. This is my life now.
2.
The times I love him the most — I mean love like so sweet your teeth hurt but you still want more — tend to be when he is sleeping. Is that weird? This warm heavy fleshy BEING, eyes closed, breathing gently. I swear, he emits a soft glow.
3.
The biggest diaper blow outs seem to occur when he’s sitting in the baby carseat. Must be a good position for intestinal release.
4.
Yesterday I got to sleep in till 11. And yet I was still tired.
5.
I worry a lot that I’m not making enough milk. Apparently this is a common fear. (We’ll confirm or deny quantity concerns at his next weigh-in this week as sufficient weight gain is the only relevant barometer of milk production, at least according to pediatric medicine.)
6.
I worry a lot that he will suffocate — on too-soft bedding, in a *wrong* position in a carrier, or that he will fall out of his bouncy seat, the swing. Or that he’ll just stop breathing, mysteriously. Basically every warning label I read lodges somewhere in my overtaxed brain and grows roots, branches, leaves, fruit. (It doesn’t leave, although I’m hacking at the trunk with as much logic as I can muster, and every day the boy stays alive helps.)
7.
As always, Scott is a superhero. Not only does he get up and do all the diaper changes during the night (I’m in charge of input, he’s output), but he also brings me drinks, food while I nurse, bounces and rocks baby boy to sleep like a champ, sleeps himself in spite of the fact that I have the light and TV on while nursing at odd hours, does dishes and folds laundry and pays the bills, and more than just the manual labor, he ridiculously adores this little boy who has come into our lives and turned us completely upside down.
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