THAT Mom, an explanation

I got interrupted during my last post before I could get to the part about my being "that" mom. I was referring to the fact that I went through an entire (week) day without taking a shower. That felt like crossing a certain threshold. I can remember hearing my mom friends say, through the years, that they had days where they didn't take showers, but I thought that was like a myth. You know, like Big Foot or straight male hair dressers.

It's no myth. It's actually really easy to just pick something else to do besides shower. The obvious choice is to sleep. I used to be unable to sleep if I was not clean and smelling good, but now I just rub some of Sadie's spit up on my face and snuggle under the covers for any shred of shut eye. It's so totally insane how much I covet sleep. There must be a better way to do this. I keep meaning to look up what anthropologists or Biblical scholars say about why the sleep piece is so difficult with a human newborn baby. When the baby wakes after 1.5 hours in the middle of the night and I am in my darling toile rocker wondering how a baby can eat through two breasts at 3:00 a.m. AND at 4:30 a.m., my mind goes to strange places. Some of them are dark. I wish I had religion in those dark and desperate hours. Anne Lamott's Operating Instructions, the journal of her son's first year, is like a Bible of sorts to me these days. I envy her deep religious beliefs, which led her to think about Jesus' compassion on those long colicky nights with her son. I mostly just think that I am going to go insane from the strange burden of being on call all night long with my breasts exposed and my baby daughter crying out for reasons that are more mysterious than whatever reasons made my ex-boyfriends date me when so many of them were clearly gay. (They had to be or why would they break up with me.)

So, I look for religion. Then I think bitter and vengeful thoughts about people whose children sleep through the night. Out of my reverie Sadie may made a heartbreakingly vulnerable sound that reminds me why I am sitting on a toile chair with a burp cloth on my shoulder. Sadie. Oh, you're still here. I like to ask her in a sing-song voice -- since babies allegedly love the sing-song voice-- what it feels like to have a self-obsessed martyr for a mother. Then I tell her that I will work as many jobs as I need to in order to be sure that she can have a great education, go to summer camp, and have as much therapy as she wants. It's the least I could do.

Last night, my entire world tilted when Jeff suggested that I sleep for the night on our first floor and let him handle the night feedings with Sadie. I was just ragged and twitchy enough to take him up on it. I figured it might feel far away to be two floors from my family for the night, but it would be closer than the psych ward, which was my next stop. I fed Sadie at 10ish and then she and Jeff said goodbye and left me in the quiet darkness surrounded by nothing but pillows and my own thoughts. Luckily, I fell asleep right away. I slept from 10 until 4, when I could hear Sadie crying upstairs. I tried to pretend I didn't hear it so I could keep sleeping, but I am pretty sure that biology is rigged so that a mother can't "forget" her baby crying once she hears it. I went upstairs to visit Jeff who was giving Sadie a bottle. I am pretty sure Jeff hadn't slept much at all since we parted at 10, but he was sitting up looking competent and happy anyway. That's the good thing about parenting with someone who used to do M&A work for a large law firm-- he's used to no sleep for days on end. God bless him for being able to run on no sleep and still be nice. The first time I worked an all nighter at work I wanted to quit. Not just the job, but the whole human race. I am not cut out for work that happens after the sun goes down.

And then I became a mom.

After our 4 am visit, I ended up downstairs again sleeping until 6:45 a.m. So, today was a very blessed day. The sharpest edgy desperation lifted with that spell of more sleep than I have had since Sadie was born. I felt lighter and more positive about everything. When I relieved Jeff at 6:45 a.m. I felt so happy to hang out with Sadie. We had a great morning-- I took 400 pictures of her, 3 of which are actually in focus. For the first time ever, I laid Sadie on the bed and she just laid there turning her head toward the night. No crying or fussing. Just hanging out. I never thought we'd be able to do that. At one point I picked her up so that she would know that I was game for doing the whole cuddling thing, but she didn't want to cuddle with me. She wanted to lay on the bed while I folded the clothes and sang old New Order songs to her. It was simple and it was a blast. Moments like that will go a long way on the road to having a normal schedule and having her sleep 7 hours at a time.

I also did a little fashion show for her. I showed her how my pre-pregnancy jeans do not yet fit me, which wasn't a huge surprise. It's only been 4 weeks. I do wish the swelling would go down so I could wear my engagement and wedding rings. I think it's been long enough and I am ready to get my bling back on. Other than that, I am happy to run around town in Old Navy jersey skirts and flowy dresses. Jeff says that my swelling will go down when I get to exercise. Judging by how much my uterus still hurts, it's going to be a while before I can really do any cardioo exercise. Right now, walking to the train and getting to therapy is about as ambitious as my fitness plan gets.

Oh, and speaking of therapy, whose idea was it for my therapist to be out of the office for THREE (3) weeks in September? That person needs to be booked on one of those flights that sits on the runway for 9 hours, in a seat next to a toilet that overflows. It's a bad idea. What if I develop serious post-partum depression? I am an overwhelmed, overtired new mom and now my therapist is leaving for three weeks. As the kids say, WTF. In all fairness to him, he is having surgery, so it's not like he's taking the money I give him and going to Bermuda, but hearing he's having surger is not exactly comforting, especially when I have a tendency to think about the worst case scenarios. There are moments in my toile chair when I think about him being in hospice and my having to look for a new therapist with all the other things on my plate. It's not like I imagine him having hair plugs or his appendix taken out. Behind my jokes that he's getting his nose done is a vibrant hum of neurotic fear that he'll die on the table, which would be terribly inconvenient for me and probably not good for Sadie either.

So glad our work on my extreme thinking and my flair for making everything about me is paying off.