Some friends came by today with their daughter, who is exactly one month and one day older than Tankbaby (she is, however, about ten pounds lighter, not having been exposed to whatever superpower-giving radiation I accidentally breathed in). A and I reminisced wonderingly about where we were one year ago, with our giant bellies and approaching due dates and complete inability to imagine a year in the future. Which is today, when both babies were crawling around my house, babbling away, as Anne Lamott says, in their native Latvian, and daring each other to crawl into the open dishwasher.
My friends (both women) have only a month's more experience parenting than I do, but they seem to have their shit more together. They used to go to yoga together, so now they cycle, where A does the 7:30 class and K does the 9:00, handing their daughter off between them. K is back with her voice lessons and planning a trip to India this fall with the teacher. They travel, they make plans, they have this life with a baby that seems like their old life, but now with added cuteness and a diaper.
Me, on the other hand...I feel like I'm just now, after more than 10 months, figuring out how to have a baby and function. Things like dinners and shopping and showers were, not that long ago, cause for a damn ticker-tape parade if they were accomplished without tears on someone's part. I am finally starting to feel more even-keeled, able to think about a new sewing project or seeing a friend's show with a mere eye-rolling "How am I going to do this with a baby?" pondering, versus a garment-rending "HOW THE FUCK AM I GOING TO DO THIS WITH A BABY IT'LL NEVER WORK GIVE UP NOW I'D TURN BACK IF I WERE YOU" panic.
The child development professional in me points out that, while he may have the meatiest thighs in all the land, our beloved boy has not been the easiest baby, especially for the first six months. He doesn't sleep well, long, often, or solo. He wants to be carried and cuddled, except when he doesn't, in which case he wants you RIGHTHERE to watch. He is now smiley and friendly and fairly easy to soothe, but for a while, he was equal parts baby and time bomb, and my whole brain tended to be devoted to some bizarre algebra where x=minutes since last feeding and y=likelihood of him falling asleep and z=probability of needing a diaper change just as you try to go somewhere and by the way you do realize that you haven't brushed your own hair or teeth today, right? That professional points out that this is just who my baby is, and I did the best I could and the fact that all of us have come out of the other side means I did enough.
I get that. I do. But I think about how difficult I've found this (and by "this," I don't mean mothering, because--despite my anxiety-fueled-late-night-pregnancy-freakouts--I did fall pretty immediately in love with this tiny creature...although that might be because he DID sleep for those first few days, ahem) (wow, parentheses, em dashes, and an ellipse? Holy Fragments, Batman!)...where was I? Right. What I've struggled with is how to be the parent I want to be and still have enough of me left over to be the person I want to be. And I think about what I haven't done and what I wish I'd done differently and dear Lord, how does anyone ever do this with more than one kid?!
For now, I'm trying to be patient with myself. It hasn't even been a year yet. I'm cooking more. I'm teaching a class. I'm planning a trip to see a friend. I'm writing here. I'm beginning to be able to look at the future in weeks and months, rather than just getting through the next diaper change. Best of all, I'm really and truly enjoying (almost) every minute with my baby, and feeling, for the first time in a year, like I can start to relax.
I'm running out of steam here and now just want to go to bed and cuddle with my (miraculously) sleeping boy. Remind me of these warm gooey feelings when he decides at 2 AM that the first two feedings of the night didn't take. Or when I'm trying to convince him that it's naptime and he is, as MOTH puts it, "crawling around like a crazed badger on a sugar high with his hair on fire." I'll leave you with that image.
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He's got hair already?!
ReplyDeleteWell, I think the "hair" MOTH referred to was actually that of the imaginary badger. Tankbaby more closely resembles Alfred Hitchcock.
ReplyDeleteThat was hilarious. I spent the better part of the first year of #1's life with my head lowered and crying " we're just fucking doomed" quietly to myself. I also once broke the world record for days gone without any sort of hygene taking place. Two weeks if I remember correctly.
ReplyDeleteNow I have three kids and each one is equally screwed up and I'm shell of a human being....JUST KIDDING! I do have three but for some bizarre reason it actually gets easier. I actually miss chubby thighs though.
Oh my, this made me cry. Because I'm still there 3 years later. You said it so well...I'm not questioning my mothering, but I totally question how far I've veered from human, living on this new planet with anti-gravity and foreign languages and suspension of most of the rules of physics. I have a second baby coming soon and I hear two different opinions: 1)It was such a huge difference going from human to mother+baby that the second one is not as hard as you think and 2)1+1=17. I'm trying really hard to focus on argument #1, since I still only shower twice a week, as my intense and persistent kid still doesn't want me to leave the room, and since I only just began to write and think and exist again. And it all happened once he slept, so the prospect of a newborn...there I go crying again. I'll let you know how it goes. Good luck, oh radiation breather.
ReplyDeleteDufmanno--Thanks for stopping by! "We're just fucking doomed" elicited a woeful chuckle on my part because I Totally Get That. And yes, the chubby thighs (and Tankbaby's are the chubbiest of thighs) do much to ameliorate all of the above.
ReplyDeleteNaptime--Aw. I wish we could hug. I've heard both opinions that you mentioned, and I think they may both be true in different moments. But I'd add that Peanut has a particular temperament, and that I seldom hear of having two such intense kids in the same family. What I keep saying to MOTH is, what are the chances we're going to have another baby who sleeps less than Tank? It's basically impossible. (Who's that at the door? Hubris, you say? Well, do come in!)
You know, I cried too, at least every day for the first 3 months of Mr. Monk's life. He's not the easiest baby to take care of. And he's NOT my only child. Kudos to you for realizing that you are doing better, everything is going to get easier, and that you are still you (albeit a new you) and that you can still be you (albeit a bid different), on your own. Kudos to MOTH too for making you laugh and for producing one of the best imageries of a crawling baby. :-)
ReplyDeleteWhat I was trying to say was: Mr. Monk is not my first child so supposedly I should have known better and not a crying, stressed out mess. So if you are feeling lost with your new, first baby, it is totally within the realm of reason and you should not beat yourself up for feeling lost and stressed out.
ReplyDeleteHey, I totally empathize with how you feel. I marvel at how other women can just keep on going pretty much the same as they were before they had their babies. Not me. It's completely changed my entire life! Nothing is the same, and like you, I am JUST NOW getting to where I finally have some time to actually DO stuff!!
ReplyDelete-Jen