A Letter To My Sleeping Toddler

My sweet sweet Riley.

Your sleeping self conjures up nothing but maternal love within me.  Well, maybe also a big sigh of relief, but mostly an overwhelming, break-me-in-two-if-I-think-about-it, deep deep love for you.  Your little curled and twisty self, contorted beyond what my mind can comprehend as a viable option for sleeping, reminds me of all of the best things about you without any of the challenging parts.  

See?
Our days ARE fun!
Its just, when you're sleeping, you can't get any more toys out... :)

Our days are good and full and fun and I don't mean to sound as though I'm wishing them away.  I don't.  But when you're sleeping, the weight of my responsibility to you nearly takes my breath away.  It could be that you're so innocent there, so dependent and so confident in your daddy & I, I'm not sure.  I do know, looking at you there dreaming and snoring slightly, that we are going to fail you.

I hate that.

If I had my way with it, you'd never hear the glass break, never see the picture-perfect crumble.  We'd never disappoint you, let alone make you sad or less-than-pleased with us.  I can completely understand the parents who bend rules and move mountains to make sure their precious babe is never sad.  There's a part of me that wants that for you.

But God gave you a human Mama, and I've already failed you.  Heck, you weren't even 4 mo. old when I caught your arm in your zipper and caused that little blood blister.  It was almost a year and a half ago, and I still remember that sick feeling that comes when you cause your baby's pain.  Since then, I've failed you in bigger and smaller ways, and it'll continue in this vein, no matter how much I try to do anything but that.

I am trying not to hate these failures.  There is a reason that I can't make your days perfect.  I know that, in part because I will never be perfect, you're going to see God even more clearly.  When I mess up and have to ask your forgiveness, you'll see that everyone requires absolution from God.  When I somehow, in some way, break a small part of your heart (a phrase that it is killing me to write), you'll learn that anyone can let you down, but you've got a friend who sticks closer than a brother.  

If I could make your days perfect, dear one, you'd never have any reason to seek God.  You'd never know that you have a need, and so you'd never find the cure.  And that would be the worst.  As much as it tears me apart and makes me tear up (no lie, this is hard to write!), you need to feel the sting of failure, the pain of a broken heart, the disappointment of your Mama & Daddy coming up short.  I don't wish the hurt for you, but I would hate to see you go without the wisdom and insight that those experiences will bring you.  

All of these feelings, they hit me nearly every night when I check in on you before heading to bed myself.  You snooze and turn over, and my mind flashes through all of the things yet to come, the good and the bad.  You've got so much in front of you, and I hope that it is mostly full of joy and love and good times.  And when the hard and the bad comes, I hope you learn those lessons quickly.  And when they're my fault, I hope you're especially skilled at forgiveness.

You've captured my heart, you sleeping girl.  This love that breaks me apart, it fills me up too.  You being here, with us, given to us, is refining me, just as it will refine you.  We'll learn together through our days and I'll watch you sleep at night and feel all of these feelings.  The fact that someday you may do the same with your someday daughter, well, I can't even go there, I'm already too much of a mess.

Sweet dreams my girl.  Can't wait to hang out with you tomorrow!

<3 M.

Fall Back :: Say WHA!?

Extra hour of sleep.

Ha.

Similar to how I never really thought about handsome's having a "real job" impacting our Christmas vacay (everyone doesn't get 4 weeks off?  weird!)  I didn't think about how having a baby would impact the end of my daylight savings.  My sleeping in general, sure.  My dating and grocery shopping and wardrobe picking out, yes, yes, I know how she changes all of that.  But my extra-hour-of-sleep-because-I've-earned-it-just-by-being?  

Is nothing sacred?

And the answer is: no.  In this off-the-cuff, tongue in cheek conversation we're having here, no, nothing is sacred.  Babies weasel their way in to each and every aspect of your life.  I would compare my (now-but-not-at-5-AM) sleeping angel to something parasitic and awful, but in truth, I'm not even mad.

Sleepy, yes.  But mad, no.

Rileygirl didn't care that the clocks turned back.  She actually pulled a fast one on me, and woke up 30 minutes earlier than she usually would, which was then 90 minutes earlier than I usually would, which I would have ignored but I wasn't sure what time it really was.  I believe that is the definition of "insult to injury".  But since we were both up, and since I'm rapidly coming to the realization that I will never have a time like this again, where I just get to enjoy my girl and give her all of my lovin' I decided to just roll with it.

We snuggled and nursed, then I brought her down to the kitchen in the pre-dawn dark, and we ate waffles together.  Bless my step-father for installing the 3-levels-of-brightness under-cabinet lighting.  That glow was enough for me not to accidentally put fish in the toaster, yet still kept the ambiance.  It was sort of like a date, really.  We smiled and munched and laughed and cuddled.  It was really something.  

So while I'm still hoping that RG will hop on the "Fall Back" bandwagon, I'm going to try to enjoy these early, still mornings with her.  I'm also going to try to go to bed at 8 AM so that these early mornings don't kill me.  Because I've heard you can die from getting up to early.

<3 M.

Getting Out :: Lake Beach

"Deuces" she says.  She's outta here.  In my 4-month tenure as a mama, I've spent an inordinate amount of time at my house.  Partially out of exhaustion.  Partially due to a napping baby who likes her crib.  Partially due to my own neurosis that makes normal things seem hard.  Mostly due to that last one, yo.  Motherhood has introduced me to all kinds of crazy I've had hidden deep inside.  We're working through it.

Anyhow, I can stay in my house no longer.  I've gotta go places.  And so I'm attempting to challenge that crazy voice that says doing regular things is prohibitively hard.  Like going out to eat, checking out the thrift stores, and (today) hitting the beach.  I'm trying to fight the panic and expand RG's horizon's, introducing her to new and exciting things.  Today I told her we were going to the beach, and I took her to the lake.  Poor thing will likely grow up believing that the "beach" involves muddy, 92* lake water, but hey, there are worse things.

WARNING: You're about to be bombarded with cuteness.  If you can't handle it, or aren't in an environment where squealing is appropriate, you might want to forego reading the rest of this.  For you brave souls who can handle a little pudgy baby smiling at them, carry on.

Do What Makes You Happy

Please note that the title is not "Follow your heart", which is, in my opinion, one of the worst pieces of advice of all time.  If I had followed my heart, I'd be married to my 7th grade crush (who turned out to be not a very nice guy), I'd be a kindergarten teacher, I'd be eating cheesecake for breakfast each & every day... in short, I'd be making a lot of not-so-smart decisions.

Putting my little Helga in her Viking hat?
That makes me happy.
Shamelessly putting unrelated pictures of my uber-cute daughter on my posts?
Makes me happy as well.

When I asked my darling husband what I was even supposed to be doing with my days (You hear me, mommas?  You asked this question too, didn't you?) he gave me some practical ideas, like housework and dissertation work and going for walks.  Then he added that I need to make time to do something that makes me happy, too.

It took me a minute to figure out what that even would be.  I've been spending my days totally wrapped up in feeding and clothing and rocking and swaddling, with some napping and chores thrown into the in-betweens. I've been fortunate enough to be able to shower pretty much every day, but that's about the extent of what I do "for me".  And I'm pretty sure that's normal.  

The Two Stages

Yesterday, my friends, was a rough one.  Despite what the lovely Danielle told me in the hospital (she's the lactation consultant who I wanted to become real friends with, despite her references to my "equipment"), it seems that what I eat does have an effect on baby girl.  I'm guessing the culprit was pineapple, although it could have been the caffeine I had for the first time, or the Easter candy I've been downing by the fistful... either way, all three things are currently on the banned foods list, because there is no price to steep to avoid another yesterday.

Clearly, girlfriend hasn't been put off from eating all together...

So many tears.  And baby girl doesn't have functioning tear ducts yet, so... yeah, it was me.  The sound of your baby's pain, sadness, or whatever she was trying to tell me... totally undid me.  Like, totally.  In a "woe is me, I am undone" sort of way.  With crying.

But today, today is a better day.  Today, girlfriend has got her nap on, she chilled in her bouncy seat some, and I'm pretty sure I saw a smile, all before 9.  This new baby business, it's full of highs & lows.  Part of my dysfunction has been imagining that one day's events totally dictates the next 100 days.  If she doesn't sleep today during what I've dubbed her "nap time" then she's never going to sleep again.  If she does sleep, and puts herself on a tight little 4-hour schedule like clockwork, I get my hopes up that we'll be doing that until she's grown enough to sleep longer.  Basically, I'm nutso.