Urban Drool

I continue to feel like I am in a major state of limbo here. I cannot figure out how I want to be in my whole “WMWAFN” (working mom with a fucking newborn) nightmare. What kind of a mom am I?? How do I go about this whole thing and still survive? I swap from extreme to extreme and stuff in the middle, trying to find a system and plan for every working day of the week so that I am not the most miserable bitch by 5 pm on Friday.

I have tried the following:

1. Nursing Lucy quickly and efficiently, putting her down in her crib and walking brusquely out the door to work – thus ensuring that I make it to the damn office on time and look see! What a great working mom I am! I can nurse AND show up to work on time and ready to go! What a power bitch! Go me!
2. Nursing Lucy for as long as she likes with lots of cuddles and sweetness and baby kisses on her head. Burping her and rubbing her back and rocking her for a bit and then gently laying her in her crib and then RACING LIKE HELL to work to make sure I am only 15 minutes late and randomly starting a million projects that will go nowhere by the end of the day. Hello! No anger or yelling at me please! I am a WMWAFN and cannot be expected to produce a thousand case resolutions for a thousand clients before lunchtime like I used to! Leave me alone in my misery!
3. Calling the Boy every hour on the hour, frantically asking if she is OK. How much has she eaten? Has she pooped yet today? Is she happy? Has she cried???
4. Limiting myself to TWO phone calls a day: one in the mid-morning and one in the mid-afternoon. Casually making sure that everyone is alive and OK.
5. Only pumping for 15 minutes at a time, no matter how much or how little milk is produced in that duration. MUST! Get Back! To….WORK!!!!
6. Pumping for as long as it takes (um…ow) to ensure that I take at least 9 ounces home that day for her to drink tomorrow. Because if I do not, I am (of course) the worst mother in all creation.

The result? A totally emotionally tapped-out Lumi who still feels like she is only really living between 5 pm on Friday and 6 am on Monday.

The husband? Doing the best he can to keep us all together and sane. Knowing he himself will be (hopefully) gainfully employed in a matter of months and needing to leave her with grandma(s) during the day. Knowing that is going to crush him utterly as well. Yeah, Boy. Welcome to my world.

The baby? Gorgeous and happy and squishable and growing up way too fast.

Damn. I gotta get a new system.

Last Friday was the day the Boy and I had to take Lucy in for her 2 month check up with the pediatrician (also known as the day I nearly clocked a random nurse in the soft part of the kidneys for having the unmitigated gall to spear my baby’s soft, gushy thighs with needles that were at least 2 feet long – three. separate. times.)

Nearly lost my shit, I did.

The pickle weighed in at an awesome 11 lbs, 3.5 oz. 22.5 inches long. This is a 2 lbs, 6.5 oz and 3.5 inch gain from the moment o’ her birth. Nice. She’s growing nice and big off of my boobs. Makes a girl feel good.

She was pronounced 100% perfect in every way. The doctor noted that she was unusually strong for an 8 week old. She can hold her head up for minutes at a time and is already rolling over. I thanked her for her compliment, while wondering if I should go out and purchase a masked-hero type outfit for my baby to wear whilst she whizzes about, fighting crime and seeking out liberty with her magical baby-strength.

Still cannot believe it’s been two months.

Here’s something odd: I am very accustomed to referring to my “baby” and people asking me about the “baby” and how old is the “baby,” etc. but seem to be thrown for a loop when I am asked about my “daughter.” Hm. I feel like I have a baby. Which I do. A sweet and squishy baby. But I also have a daughter. And that seems very strange to me.

***********************************************************

Work. Work is unbelievably hard. To leave her every day and just…be gone. It’s surreal. It’s also creating an odd psychological by-product where I feel nostalgic for the last few months of my pregnancy and the days in the hospital while she was being born and immediately thereafter. When everything about me and my existence revolved around her. She was so immediate and direct. I hate having to carve my day up and spread it out amongst my boss, my clients, my parents, the Boy and her. I don’t want to share me and my time with anyone. I feel like all of me should be for her right now. But it’s not.

I desperately want to win the lottery.

Sigh.

My little pickle,

Today you are 2 months old. This new space of ours may have been started a bit late, but I’ve been a wee bit busy the past 8 weeks, what with all the feeding and rocking and singing to and cleaning off of your little butt. {Disclaimer: I cannot put anything in here that does not sound amazingly gooey and cliché, so why fight it? Since your arrival my emotional being has been shattered into zillions of little pieces anyway, so I figure…what the hell?}

Your arrival. Wow. Someday, if you feel like hearing a horror story akin to The Shining or Halloween (the first one only remember – all the others sucked), I will relay to you the events surrounding getting you out here into the bright n’ dry. It involved 3 ½ days, 2 failed inductions, over 20 hours of unmedicated labor, an emergency C-Section and a few liters of blood for me, to replace all I lost. You were perfectly fine the whole time; it was me that nearly kicked it.

Know what made it all better? When I nursed you for the first time. When I saw your dad holding you. When you were curled up all asleep in your little crib. When you smiled at me for the first time. When Maude sniffed your head and Harold licked your right foot. Or….or…pretty much every minute of every day since the day that you came.

Yeah. It’s that good.

I was able to spend the first 6 weeks at home with you. We had an amazing amount of fun – me, you and your dad would stay up until 3 or 4 am every night (your idea) and then sleep in until 10 or 11 (dad’s idea). We learned how you like to be rocked (up and down at a brisk tempo), swaddled, which boob you like best (the right one), bathed and sung to (Elvis ballads, Ben Folds Five, Tom Waits and early Rogers & Hammerstein).

16 days ago I ripped my heart out, laid it carefully next to you in your crib, and trugged off to work. I am told that this is the best thing for us – as a family unit. I am told that you will not suffer any emotional or psychological trauma from my daily absence. I try to believe it. Some days are OK. Some days suck major donkey balls. But I console myself with the knowledge that in comparison to the children of a lot of other working moms, you have it pretty damn good. You get to stay in your own home, with your 2nd favorite person in the whole world. He sings to you and walks you around and around and around the whole house. He likes to take you on walks in your stroller – to the park, to the market, to the coffee shop. He stuffs you full of the breastmilk that I pump and put into bottles. He has a special song he likes to sing to you when he is changing an especially noxious diaper. He tries so very hard to get you to say “Daddy,” ignoring the fact that you are only 8 weeks old.

Yeah. Could be a lot worse.

But I still leave my heart next to you in your little crib when I walk out the door in the mornings. And I still live for Saturdays and Sundays, drinking you in like I am dying of thirst and you are the most incredible glass of water ever invented.

In the past 8 weeks you have jet-propelled yourself from a wee little sprite that would lay calm and still in a blanket, content to be nursed, changed and laid to sleep to a feisty 2 month old who demands to look around at the dogs, TV, kitchen stove, fish tank and backyard and who wants to eat every 27 minutes except when you want to eat only once every 4 hours, which interrupts the 90 minute naps you take except when you sleep for 8 hours in a row.

I have never been so sore and exhausted in my entire life. I cannot even begin to describe how much I adore you and I cannot wait to see what happens next month.

Wet sloppy kisses all over your belly,
Mama

Testing...testing.


Cough.

Um...anyone here?

Hi. I'm Aradia. This is my (new) blog. To those who came here via illumination, maybe, Welcome back! To those who don't know who the hell I am...

-28
-Clevelander
-working professional
-quasi-recovered mezzo-fertile
-new mom to the most adorable little bundle of 8-week-old girlytude

I like dumb things.

I'm kind of a dork.

I eat lots of pasta.

I drinks lots of wine.

I have an (admittedly) disturbing passion for Jack Nicholson.

I swear a lot.

My husband is damn hot.


I wanted to create a new physical space to blog in to match the new emotional spaces in my life that my little pickle has created. She's the absolute best, and the most gorgeous little bit in all the land.

So come on in. There's always plenty of candy in the bowl. And I totally don't care if you prop your feet up on the couch. Just don't feed the dog too many pieces of popcorn - it makes him fart.