this woman’s work

You are browsing the archives from 2005 July.

Madison didn’t go to sleep until sometime past 10:30pm, which is a good long time past her usual bedtime. Maybe she snuck into the freezer and ate coffee beans or something — who knows with kids these days? Anyway, Brett and I were both ready to run away from home between her psychotic, joyful late-night dancing and Noah’s tears because her psychotic, joyful late-night dancing happened to be near his Pez collection (don’t ask). The flip side to this is that it’s 10am and she and I JUST GOT UP. Considering her usual wake-up time is usually three hours earlier, we’re both feeling bright and shiny.

My sister’s daughter is eight months old and yesterday I was at her house. Erica is also feeling unglued and stressed (Frankie is almost five, my sister is an artist and until Lucia made her appearance, she was making a reliable income). She said, “Someone told me it would be easier by the time she’s three or four but it’ll be easier sooner, right? Look at you, it’s easier for you now than it was when she was this age, right?”

Can’t you almost hear the desperation in her voice?

I said it was different kinds of hard and easy.

Easier: Madison can communicate now.

Harder: This week she decided that the screech she used to save for things like getting her hand caught in a door would now become her “look a pretty flower” noise, only I haven’t trained my body not to react as if there was bloodshed. All day I’m flipping around expecting horror only to find her cheerfully sharing some happy event with me.

Easier: Madison’s interests and activities are a lot less boring.

Harder: They’re also more death-defying activity, requiring constant chasing and supervision.

Easier: Madison gets around just fine, no longer yelling for me to help her do things her motor skills won’t yet allow.

Harder: Did I mention the death-defying activity and constant chasing and supervision?

Easer: Madison doesn’t need to be lugged around everywhere.

Harder: Lugging is not so bad if you have the right carrier but toddlers want to be carried a lot, too, especially if you’re doing anything they can’t be in the middle of like cooking, typing on the computer, putting on your bra, taking a shower, hanging the laundry etc. I need to try out the backpack again. Madison hated it before but maybe it’ll be a whole new world for her.

All in all? Absolutely more rewarding and a lot less boring — kids get better as they become more themselves — but still pretty damn hard. And boy do I miss the (all too brief) days when Madison would sit in her pack-n-play watching her mobile go around and feeling all was right in her world. That would net me enough time to: bathe, change out laundry, make a grocery list, or lie on the floor and get my wind back.

If I remember correctly with Noah, by the time he was three and a half things were really good. Maybe even earlier. Also by that age, he would play happily in the same room with me and chatter but not really expect participation. That was nice. I used to sit at the kitchen table and make the grocery list while he played with his stuffed animals and the laundry basket. (My how he loved that old broken brown laundry basket!)

I just wish I didn’t want to write for myself. I wish that I was happy just doing my ePregnancy work right now. If I wasn’t so impatient, I would save myself a lot of grief.

Thank you to Collier for making me aware of this.

Ariel Gore: Allison Crews Soul Sister Rebel Mom

Dammit.

OK, I’ll try again.

I’ve talked to Kelly and Eve about this and certainly Meagan and I have joked about it. My sister and I have this conversastion almost daily, too.

I love my kids and I love being the mother of two but you know, having children kinda sorta ruins your life — or at least derails it for two or three years.

Since Madison arrived, I don’t do anything well. I don’t sleep well (understatement), I don’t write well, I don’t parent well, I don’t cook or clean or manage the household well. In fact, I’m just barely holding it all together. I am hanging by the skin of my teeth. I am getting by with a lick and a prayer.

I’m certainly happier since Madison showed up but it’s happiness with a modicum of despair. Without fail, my first thought upon waking is, “Dear god, 16 hours before I can go to sleep again.” And a twisted, interrupted, desperate sleep it will be, too.

I’m an insomniac anyway — an insomniac who is also a light sleeper, which means that I get up anytime Madison snuffles, Brett snores or Noah rolls over in his bed and knocks his knee against the wall. And then I’m up for about 45 minutes or so, worrying, before I drift back to sleep.

I am exhausted.

By 3:30 or 4pm every day, I am literally counting the minutes until Brett gets home (and if he stops for gas, I’m in tears by the time he finally makes it through that door). He gets the very worst of me because in the evenings, it all comes to a head. There’s dinner to make, there’s the work to do that I didn’t have time to do during her nap, there’s the bed calling but by the time I fall into it, I’m so wired by worry that I even look towards that with dread.

I don’t really know the answer; maybe there isn’t one. It would probably help if I got some exercise but that’s not going to happen. (I tried doing step aerobics and Madison stood on my feet and screamed for me to pick her up. I tried dancing with her in my arms and threw out my back. I tried putting her in the stroller so I could walk and she fell asleep and I lost a nap to do work so I came home and cried.) It would certainly help if I got some childcare but that’s not going to happen yet either. (We all know how that turned out.) It would probably help if I took a weekend away except that I would be so unhappy and guilt-ridden and worried that I wouldn’t sleep anyway and for the rest of her life anytime Madison did something rebellious — shaved her head, dated a Republican, came home drunk — I would blame that weekend and regret it.

I think this is just how it is right now. I think it will get better. Meanwhile I remind myself how fortunate I am to have these two kids and this nice husband and this good job. And it’s wonderful that Madison screams for me a lot because if you’ve adopted and glanced at anything inspired by Nancy Verrier, you’re happy to see normal toddler signs of attachment.

But man, I’m tired.

I am fucking FURIOUS that Karl Rove still has a job.

He came home last night and I was lying on the floor, baby sitting on my sternum and my right eyelid was twitching as it has for the past week. Books, blocks and foam numbers were scattered across the floor. The musini blinked and beeped with every bounce Madison executed on my tired body.

“Daddy!” she said, with one great big satisfying (to her) bounce.

He picked her up and looked at my sad, broken body.

“You look beat,” he said. “I’m going to call off work tomorrow so you can sleep in.”

Then he made grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner, gave the baby her bath, rocked her down, read Noah to bed and then came down and popped in a video for me. (Oh and he cleaned the kitchen but he always does that anyway.)

Is it any wonder I married him????

Off to catch up on work!!