borderline

Today’s baby is fairly calm, and currently in the midst of a three-hour-plus nap. Last night was horrendous. So it goes.

In a play I saw once about mental illness, one of the characters described borderline personality disorder this way: There is a borderline between sanity and insanity; one once in a while, you hop over the border and pay insanity a little visit.

That’s how I would describe new motherhood.

There are some good things:

Last night, between crying fits, the Boo had a quiet pensive moment on the changing pad. We have Hannukah lights rigged up on the ceiling of our bathroom from the holiday season two years ago. After we came home from the hospital, Scott plugged them in. Thus we don’t have to turn on the bright overhead light in the middle of the night when the baby needs a diaper, and he always has something interesting to look at while he’s being changed.

Between that and the nice comfy foam pad we bought and screwed right into the bathroom vanity (instant changing table), he tends to take his mellow moments there.

We’ve seen smiles on that changing pad. Not the full on ones I’ve been waiting to report, but smiles nonetheless. Like the sun coming out from behind the clouds. Just.

In his mellow moment last night, I poured olive oil into my hands (it’s already in the bathroom as I’ve been using it to treat his “cradle cap”), rubbed them together to warm it up, and gave him a little baby massage — rubbing his arms and legs, hands and feet, drawing clockwise circles on his poor beleaugured belly.

He seemed pleased. And he only smells like salad for a little bit.

Houston, we have achieved baby massage! (Yet another one of those healthful things I’ve been meaning and wanting to give him. If he would just stop fussing, nursing, etc. long enough.) I can’t say I’m fully trained in the art yet. We’d had one lesson in our childbirth education class, and I’ve been reading the baby massage book my aunt gave us, a couple of pages at a time, during feedings in the nursery (where the book lives).

Today, he’s mostly napped in the crook of Grandma Marcia’s arm, as my second set of in-laws, and our third set of grandparents, are in town visiting.

He’s very cute when he’s sleeping. She’s currently snapping photos of him with her one free hand.

3 comments for “borderline

  1. Grandpa
    January 13, 2008 at 10:04 pm

    Yeah!

  2. January 13, 2008 at 10:21 pm

    Grandma Dee recommends “Infants’ Mylicon, Gas Relief, dye free. It is an over the counter remedy for gas. I don’t know anything about it but her little Scarlett got relief from it. Just thought I would pass that along.

    Love you guys. Can’t wait to hold that baby again.

  3. January 14, 2008 at 6:14 pm

    I have also heard the Gripe Water is supposed to be good too. Hang on there you are doing great. I remember those days and nights and they go by all too quickly. He will grow out of it before you know it. I swear by the half moon massage, it works wonders!

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