- It is ridiculously easy to mess with my mind right now due to exhaustion. Last night I reached my foot over to touch Wes' as we fell asleep and met the unfamiliar sensation of cloth. "Are you wearing socks?" I asked, because it is unusual. "No," he said, in a tone that made me doubt my toes' ability to sense. Then he laughed. Because he was, you see. And I was easily fooled. We laughed as silently as possible to avoid waking the baby between us. Then we laughed about other ridiculous things we've said and done this weekend due to sleep deprivation lunacy. We laughed almost as hard as we do when we watch this (the bit after 1:15 or so about the 'sh sound or ch sound' - I know it probably is only that funny to us - weird how certain things end up funny because you keep thinking they're funny and part of the funny is watching the other person laugh, you know?). Anyway, after all the laughing, I said, "But why are you wearing socks?" And he said, indignantly, "I'm not." And I believed him for a minute.
- Beck is 2 months old today and I am beginning to feel like a Beck expert. I have learned that he needs to be helped into a nap around this time each day and will sometimes put himself to sleep if I just put him in his crib and let him laugh at snail for a while. I have learned that there is a fussy noise that means overtired and another that means overhungry. And another dozen that are mysteries. And there are other mysteries, like why we have a week of good nights (3 hrs, 2 hrs, 1 hr, 1 hr, with easy nursing back to sleep = good night) followed by the last two dreadful ones (3 hrs commencing before Wes and I go to sleep, therefore first wake up coincides with us falling asleep, difficult fussbudget behavior, need to nurse forever, wake 20 minutes later and need to nurse again, wake an hour later, etc = dreadful). In any case, I am feeling better about things. I am not saying I don't flip out - Saturday night I was apparently a raving lunatic - but I feel better on the whole.
- The downside of becoming a Beck expert is that I am beginning to occasionally do that thing that Wes and I have always despised and that I promised never to do. I am sometimes, just for a moment, being THAT mommy, the one who talks to Daddy like he is a moron. We discussed this a zillion times before we had Beck, that even if one parent does things differently, he should not be made to feel he is doing it wrong because that just sets the other person up to end up doing everything themselves. We have watched a lot of our female friends do this - treat their husbands like they don't know how to take care of the kids, and therefore it's "easier" if they just do everything themselves and then act all bitter that their husbands never help. We swore we would never do this. It's amazing, though, when you spend all day with a baby, how you start to feel like the Only Person on Earth Who Knows What To Do. Ridiculous. I fight against this with all my might.
- This is, though, a separate issue from The Terrors, which I now believe to be some sort of biological motherhood imperative - maybe there are also fathers out there that get them, and I'd love to hear stories about that. The Terrors are the sudden and irresistible urge to be sure the baby is breathing. Another person checking is not enough. I must see or feel for myself that he is alive. This sometimes happens with such force I am driven across the room to him and end up almost waking him. This sometimes ridiculously happens while I am actually WEARING him on my chest in the Ergo. Yes. The feeling is so strong and impossible to fight that I believe it to be some sort of evolutionary thing. The Terrors must be humored. Wes accepts this, and lets me check the baby's alive-ness even if he is wearing him in the Ergo and can feel him breathing himself. He is nice like that.
- Another downside of being a Beck expert is that I have become THAT woman in my breastfeeding group, the same one I was in my childbirth class. I am a brown-nosing goody-goody. I answer every question. I talk. too. much. I am considering not going anymore, since I don't have any major issues (just the constant question of whether or not the thrush is gone - to be answered further by the pediatrician on Wednesday). I have just been using it as something to do. That's a valuable thing, though, and I'd hate to give it up. I may have to join the OTHER August Moms group in the neighborhood, the one that takes brisk walks in the park twice a week as opposed to my group which meets in restaurants and urges one another to eat gooey desserts. Hm. I am not sure I am desperate enough for company that I would exercise.
- There is no possible, earthly, fricking way that anyone could ever be prepared for having a baby.
- I fit into my fat jeans and am within a few pounds of my prepreg weight. This is huge, as the weather has now turned too cold for little skirts and that was all that was fitting. It's good that I keep shrinking in time with the seasons and don't have to buy too many new clothes. The postpartum body is a trip. Please realize (as anyone who knows me should) that this weight loss involved no exercise of any sort more than carrying a 13 pound baby all the damn time and did not involve any diet other than shoveling whatever crap is nearby into my mouth in the few spare moments when I am not carrying the Beck. Which usually means cookies.
- I have wanted to write a long post about why people have children but by the time I am able to write coherently on one topic for more than a paragraph, Beck will be attending the college of his choice. So I will outline my theory here. One reason we do it is because it is seen as a major life experience and many of us don't want to miss any Major Human Life Experiences. I wanted to be pregnant not because heartburn turns me on but because I wanted to know what it was like to Be Pregnant. Some people would rate Climbing Mt Everest or Jumping from a Plane or Performing at the Met as the ones they didn't want to miss. And Having Kids, and Being Married, and Renovating a House... all of these could be seen as Major Human Life Experiences that I have chosen as the ones I don't want to miss. And I have been lucky enough to not miss many of the ones I have wanted. We all miss some, of course. There was Having One's Mom Meet One's Baby. That would have been good. But I have gotten much of what I wanted so far. Ahead? Having Grandchildren
Wes thinks this is weird and doubts me when I say that I bet it's a reason (not THE reason, just A reason) that a lot of people have kids. Because it's something people do and they don't want to miss it. They don't want to look back and think, "I wonder what that would have been like."
Please note that this is FAR from saying Everyone Should Have Kids or Life is Incomplete Without Kids. I am counting Having Kids as ONE of the Major Life Experiences. It just happens to be the one that the majority of my readers are obsessed with, so I know it's touchy. Try to understand this merely as a Wes/Bri musing. And know that this is not my ONLY reason for wanting kids. That's a very long post, indeed.
- The Notorious Crazy Uncle Zach is annoyed with me for not posting here with my previous frequency. I don't like it much either. All I can say is that this post took more than 2 hours to write.
