I love being Baby Girl's mother - I love the little moments like I had last night, with her lying and me sitting on my bed making faces at each other and laughing (well, I was laughing - Baby Girl was smiling enough to be laughing, but isn't coordinated enough to make much of a noise - it's like watching Charlie Chaplin laugh in a silent film).
However, it is becoming increasingly apparent at how easy it is to lose oneself completely when one becomes a parent.
I barely have the time and energy to come home from work, cook dinner, clean up from dinner, feed Baby Girl (sometimes twice), get her ready for bed and do the laundry (which only ranks as a top priority because Baby Girl can go through enough clothes - hers and mine - and pajamas to justify a couple of batches of clothes a week), let alone think about me as a person or as a wife.
I don't even like cooking lately because it takes three times longer than usual and usually results in me eating a cold meal sometime after Baby Girl has gone to bed. I have stacks of thank you notes and baby announcements on the coffee table - some are even written and addressed - that haven't been finished enough to schlep them to the post office. My winter clothes (who am I kidding? Most of my non-maternity clothes) are still packed in boxes. Each morning I engage in a ritual of shoving my hand in the box, grasping an article of clothing and then running around like a mad woman trying to complete the outfit.
It scares me that I find myself looking forward to my twice-a-day stints as a milk cow, where I sit in my car and replenish Baby Girl's food supply. It is two 15- or 20-minute stints where I am able to semi-relax (complete relaxation is not possible when one is hooked up to a machine that looks like it originated in a dairy barn) and listen to NPR or catch up on my ever-growing pile of trade magazines that need to be read.
Yesterday I even managed to go through the day without ever setting foot in the shower, prompting me to consider showering after the 2 a.m. feeding, just so I could have hot water (the Hobbit Hole only produces enough hot water for 1.5 showers in a two-hour span) and not have anyone else needing the bathroom or screaming at the top of her lungs that I'd abandoned her. I held off, but it just meant that Himself held Baby Girl as she screamed this morning while I scrambled to take the world's fastest shower so he wouldn't be late to work.
One of my favorite musicians is coming to town in three weeks, and Himself promised to take me as a belated birthday present. As I went to buy tickets this morning, all I could think of was the logistical nightmare it poses and how I'm probably going to fall asleep in the first five minutes. I didn't buy the tickets. Himself told me I was boring. I feel anti-social while feeling a desparate need to socialize. I found myself having a great time on Monday at a wholesale food warehouse with my mom because it meant being somewhere different. Even then, I could only look for a few minutes - Baby Girl needed to be fed. The thought of preparing for the holidays fills me with something akin to nausea.
I think I'm lost.
2 comments:
Very easy to feel like this. You should emerge in a few months. :)
It is so easy to lose oneself in the role of parent. Doubly more so for a woman than a man. By making time to do those things that are outside of the realm of parent we keep our claim on our identity, who we are outside of the relationship with the child.
I remember when I first realized that not every moment of my life would be shared with my wife. There are important moments we are together, and there are important moments we are apart. The relationship is strengthened by such times.
So it is with child. The time away rejuvenates, making the time not away all the better.
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