Overload
The inlaws, they left. Thank god. I love them. I do. I love their unswirving support and enthusiasm for everythig we do. But sometimes I get overwhelmed. This visit was one of those times. Did I ever mention we have a 2 bedroom apartment? It has five rooms total, not including the bathroom or pantry. Yeah, that small. And five people in a five room shelter is just too much co2, I think.
When they left, Bean fell apart. I mean, started wailing with exhaustion. His nap schedule was WAY OFF. All the way off. Like, he didn’t get any naps today (except for maybe a 20 minute stint once or twice), and yesterday his nap times were short and scattered as well. A Bean with no naps is a very sad, very distraught little bean. He breaks my heart when he’s like that–sort of pathetic and inconsolable and huge-eyed.
After crying a lot I finally managed to rock him to sleep. And he slept and then nursed and then slept and then nursed and finally woke up, with a little wan smile on his face. DH put him in the Bjorn, as he does every morning when they do guy things–like make espresso and take out the trash–and we went for a walk downtown. By the time we got back Bean seemed more like his usual happy self. And when we put him down on a blanket on the floor with his rattle he was THRILLED to play there all by himself. Without anyone singing songs at him, or banging his toys, or cooing at him, or telling him to look or roll over, or picking him up.
And after about a half hour of delighted squriming–during which he had an extened babble conversation with our cat and we cleaned all of the crap that had gotten spread about our apartment (books everywhere, and magazines, and clothes, and newspapers, and dishes. Holy cow people, how on earth did it get to be like this??) he took a major poop. YAY. We love poop. This is poop number 2. In two days. A record of sorts, seeing as he’s been on this whole anti-pooping stint of late.
And tonight, after we had him all cleaned up, he looked so sweet and fragile in his new stripped pjs… and after nursing and rocking he ZONKED OUT, his little arms thrown up above his head like a conductor.
Mommy?! | Comments (2)Waiting for Birdy: A Year of Frantic Tedium, Neurotic Angst, and the Wild Magic of Growing a Family, by Catherine Newman
Before I knew about blogs (holy moly, was there really such a time?) I eagerly devoured Newman’s weekly installments on babycenter.com which were later compiled into this book. When I was gigantically pregnant and my stomach looked like a huge gibbous moon, I’d read excerpts from her weekly post to my husband over dinner. He thought she was making the stuff up. “Three year olds say stuff like THAT?”
But hearing the stuff that I read also made the whole “We are having a baby” bit a tad more real. And later, when the book hit stores during sometime during the gloomy early months of spring when Bean was just bean-sized and mostly just a pooping, wailing little wobbly thing, it helped me keep my sense of humor.
Newman’s writing is hilarious, but also self-reflective and filled with little gems that linger in your mind for days: making you want to be that kind of parent. Patient, forgiving, silly, and joyous. Perhaps my favorite quote of all:
“I’m a mean guy!” [Ben] snarled at his reflection, “Because my booty is itchy!” “Maybe that’s why the Grinch was so mean,” Michael offered—we’d just watched the classic cartoon together—but Ben said, “No, I don’t think so,” and screwed up his face. “The Grinch was mean because his penis was three sizes too small!” According to Dr. Seuss, the size problem was, of course, with the Grinch’s heart, but you can’t help wondering if Ben might be onto something …Bookshelf | Comment (1)