Mommy Mashed Potato

Right around 8 o’clock at night, I turn soft.  A chemical reaction occurs that somehow breaks muscle fiber from bone, flips brain receptors to OFF (!CLOSED FOR BUSINESS!) and triples the weight of my eyelids.  I become a root vegetable on the couch…a root vegetable that has been pureed, slightly warmed, inhaled and then spit back out by my child.  I am the leftover mush on his sticky bib.

The weird part is that I cannot sleep at this point, even though I am so incoherent that I cannot form full sentences or understand the complex narrative structure of THE OLD ADVENTURES OF NEW CHRISTINE.  It’s unfortunate that at this point I fall well below the line that separates human from jellyfish, since it is often a great time to talk to friends on the phone who I never seem to be able to catch up with.  But I don’t bother, since I know it would be satisfying for no one.  Their thrilling stories of boys and happy hours and big girl jobs would clash handily with my stories about poop and playgroups and teething, and I would get that funny crick in my neck having fallen asleep on the couch with the phone cocked up to my ear.

This also tends to be the time of day when I have dozens of thoughts to write about in my blog – about my child, other childs, the moms I meet (OH! THE MOMS!!), the irony of infant activities, poop, family time, suburban life and more poop.  But not only am I too tired to blog them at this point, I’m actually too tired to retain them long enough to even scribble down the essence for writing at another, future, rested (HA!) time.  Hundreds (millions!) of unwritten, unread blog entries fulfilling entire mini-life cycles (birth! death!) in nanoseconds in my brain.

If nothing else, this new exhausted existence has taught me about my own mother.  I *get* her now.  No, not about being a mom or the choices we all must make or the way we love our children or the things she wants most in life.  No, I mean I *get* why she falls asleep on the couch every single night before half-past (nine, often), regardless of what action movie is blaring on the tv, what chapter she has just started in her book or what level of solitaire (as if there were levels she could not beat!) she is up to on her computer (which is perched hotly, scorchingly on her lap.)  Nothing can stop the fatigue that follows.  She may not have kids at home anymore, but I realize now that she is STILL catching up on her sleep, all these years later.

Happy New Year!

Oh really?  She’s going to start blogging again?

Right.  Sorry about that.  I will add “keeping blog up to date” to my Things I Don’t Do Well list.  It also includes things like Keeping My Mouth Closed While Feeding My Son (I have this weird, instinctual facial tic – like the way women open their mouths when they put on mascara) and Spending Less Than $15 (who am I kidding?  less than $50) At Babies R Us.  It seriously does not matter what I’ve gone to BRUS to get.  I must compulsively walk the aisles, positive that every gadget in the store is crucial to good parenting and essential to keeping my child safe, warm, educated and loved.  How did I survive – nay, how did Z survive – the first nine months WITHOUT A MICROWAVE STERILIZATION SYSTEM FOR HIS BOWLS & SPOONS?  I can’t believe I was washing those things with a dish sponge.  Gross.

Spoiler alert:  there will now be discussion of menstruation.  Guys, menopausal ladies, Jeff (who gets squeamish about any mention of that red stuff that flows in our veins) — this might be a good time to RELOAD PREVIOUS PAGE.

The first day of this new year happens to coincide with the first day “back” of my ovaries.  Hello, ladies!  I’ve missed you these 20+ months.  Hope you had a nice vacation.  Needless to say I’m feeling wretched, but at least I won’t have any trouble remembering when “the first day of my last period” was.  I hate that the ObGyn always asks it like that, since I can never even remotely pinpoint when that might’ve been.  It’s like, “Hmm, I couldn’t find anything to wear to that party a while back and then when I OD’ed on chocolate that night I realized I couldn’t find anything to wear because I was feeling fat but then I fell asleep before I made the connection (because I was REALLY tired) which probably means that it was about 4 days before I started which I guess makes it, if I can just look at your calendar… Yup. That was 61 days ago.”  Oh, wait.  Maybe there was another one after that.

No such worries this time, as my body is all HELLO NEW YEAR and LET’S MAKE OUR FIRST RESOLUTION TO GO BUY TAMPONS.  The timing is actually kind of poetic, since I’ve been busy looking ahead to what I want in 2010 for Z and how I want to change up our daily routine to reflect his maturity.   This means more activities involving other children’s drooly germs and fewer activities involving my boobs. Had things been different, I might have been headed toward an intervention by close friends & family, embarrassed to see my 11 year old still nursing.  Part of me wants to continue forever.  But anyone who’s witnessed the circus that is our dinnertime can see that a few drops of maternal liquid can do nothing to fill the cavernous snake belly hiding underneath my son’s T-shirt.  He’s a jumpy, growy little man and at our 9 month checkup, the doctor more or less prescribed stuffing him with steak and ice cream to try to keep up.

Since I don’t want to put Pancho and Lefty on unemployment just yet, I’ve started instead to play the rationing game.  With my supplies dwindling, I’ve begun rerouting aid to the neediest feedings rather than spread them too thin to do any good.  I gave up a late afternoon feeding and was immediately rewarded with hearty meals to offer Z the rest of the time.  Plus, he loved holding a little bottle in his hand.  But then…I had to do it again.  And now, The Girls are in danger of becoming a (recognized) minority.  The bottles are going to have to start representing more than half of his feedings.  More than half!  Sigh.  But it’s time.

My hope is that this squirreling of milk will mean that I can keep a morning and evening feeding for a while longer, since that cuddle time is one of my favorites in the day – there’s no stopping him otherwise.  I love when people tell me to sit and read a book with him, like he’s just dying to kick back in my lap and lay there like a blob while I try out my rooster voice.  We have no such calmness.  Those precious nursing times are often the only chance I get to snuggle him, just the two of us in our own little world.  And it doesn’t hurt that he always acts like he’s been slaving in the mines doing a double-shift, dreaming of this moment when he could finally get to my arms.  When I sit down in that chair cradling him, he almost hyperventilates with excitement and need, can barely wait for me to move cotton out of his way to latch on, and then melts into a warm puddle of marshmallow.  Heaven.

So HAPPY 2010 and may the new year bring us all peace, love, success and a temporary boost in my milk supply.

Approximately 3:05pm

The cutest & saddest time of day begins like this:  mommy and baby are lying on their tummies, facing each other.  Z now insists on being on his tummy at all times – backs are SO last month.  (Backs are for babies, mommy.)  So there we are, on our tummies, looking into each other’s eyes.  Z wants to come climb Mt. Mommy.  Huge drooly grin.  He pulls his knees up.  Thrusts his arms out straight.  Pushes his head high in the air, so that he can see where he is going.  And then…boom, shuffle, shuffle.  He propels himself 3 inches backwards.  Knees up, arms out, head high…3 more inches backwards.  And again.  His smile dims with each attempt, until finally he is far away, marooned at the wrong end of the blanket.  Confused.  Alone.  Staring at mommy on her tummy, now so far out of reach.  Cry!