My Giant

Big Head Milo and the Monsters

OK, so there's obviously some weird perspective at play in this photo of Milo and his grandpa, but I just thought it was so wild that I had to include it here.

RIP, Fezzik

Milo looks like the Yao Ming of babies.  If he were in the Baby WWF, his name would be "The Juggernaut."  Do you think it's worth printing up stickers like this ---->, but with Milo's head on it?

Incrementally Speaking

Gaining mobility, losing hair

So, I've either realized something very, very profound, or I'm the last one to board the short bus in terms of understanding what makes stay-at-home motherhood so exhausting.  It's that there aren't any weekends.  Ta da!

I recognize that working outside the home is obviously tiring in its own right, but I remember that even when I had stacks and stacks of papers to grade, essay questions to write, lesson plans to make and e-mails to respond to on the weekends, at least they were two days that were different from the rest of the week.  As God intended. 

Now, don't get me wrong.  Weekends are still pretty great.  Ben is around and often lets me have an hour or two extra in bed in the mornings.  He makes nice breakfasts.  We do fun stuff.  Or: we do the same stuff I do during the week, but we do it together, which makes it feel like fun.  We see family.  I get to take a load off more and sometimes even leave the house for extended babyless periods to have brunch with friends.  But weekends are really just variations on a theme, which gives a Groundhog Day quality to my life at present.

Motherhood appears to be very much about measuring time differently.  In the really early weeks, when Milo was a teeny baby and woke up all the time to eat and cry and he couldn't sleep more than an hour or two at a stretch, max, catching a forty-five minute nap felt sort of luxurious.  When he started waking up only two or three times a night, it felt like a victory.  And now, he's doing a great job of sleeping through the night; the kid even takes about three naps a day, although they vary in how substantial they are.  I mean, he is pretty much still wired to only be awake and alert for about two hours at a time, which means that a cycle of activities can happen and re-happen: diaper changing, feeding, playing on the floor gym, bouncing in the jumperoo, etc.  And each activity probably lasts for fifteen minutes, tops?  It reminds me of the character, Will, in Nick Hornby's novel, About a Boy, whose father wrote some stupid Christmas song, the proceeds from which have made him so indescribably wealthy that he has never had to work, yet he is so bored that he measures his days in half-hour increments.  

 

But so I always feel -- slightly less so on weekends, but, yes, even then -- like I'm waiting for a timer to go off, a timer that can often have a very jarring effect -- and I never know quite when it's going to sound.  And it's that waiting, knowing, anticipating -- one's ear always turned towards the baby monitor or waiting for the cute noise that turns into the feed me howl -- that can drive a person craaa-zy.

Not-So-Instant Karma

A baby, two enormous cats and an unmade bed

So, in the last post, I was all, "Yeah, we're tough; we're the nap police; a little crying never hurt anybody.  Attachment parenting be damned!  Boo yah!"

Yeah, well, in an overzealous fit of trying to enforce some nap justice for Milo (after a day of crappy naps), we let him do a cycle of crying, muttering, falling asleep, crying, etc., which ended up in me going in to check on him because of his pretty oversized wailing. 

Turns out, he had spit up: down his neck a bit, somehow in his hair, on his sleeve.  Not like a Jimi Hendrix kind of dangerous throw-up, but the kind that roused him from his near-sleep state and, what with being overtired, got him very worked up, indeed.  So, instead of changing his onesie immediately and then rocking him like I should have (I didn't quite understand the extent of the puke-spread), I calmed him down with some difficulty -- which is not, luckily for us, a trend; he's usually easily consolable -- and gave him a bit of bottle. 

OK, but then, I realized that he needed his outfit changed.  And as soon as I put him on his changing table, he began screaming bloody murder, enough that Ben came in.  And he just wouldn't calm down -- Milo, not Ben.  Like, he wasn't in pain, but he was clearly overwrought.  And finally, once his crying did peter out, I gave him a bit more bottle.  Which was a bad idea...because he was still on with those jagged, breathy little hiccups that kids do when they've been crying hard.  But he seemed to want the bottle!

Well: lesson learned.  He started up crying again and then proceeded to make a noise that Ben and I had only heard coming out of his behind before.  In fact, Ben whispered, "Was that a fart?" and just as I said, "No," out came the vomit.  With some amount of speed.  Right down my shirt.

It wasn't projectile vomit.  But it was something.  And after that, the nap police punched out for the day.  We just chilled out with him until bedtime.  He slept through the night, though, God bless him.

And it's all kind of ha ha now.  What a story!  But really, it's hard to articulate how, when your child is upset about something, you can be filled with this combination of intense pity and sympathy and adoration and knowledge of your own relative futility, and how you just want to do something, to be of some use in consoling him, and even after we put him to sleep, and late into the evening, I was still so upset on his behalf.  I just can't help but look years ahead, to his not making some team or getting chosen for a solo in chorale or getting rejected by a girl, or a woman, someday, and me not being able to do much to put those protective instincts to good use, because I won't be able to nestle him in my arms or kiss his head or pet him and tell him everything will be alright.  I look at my parents (and all parents) with such a different kind of respect and understanding now.  The phrase "You can only be as happy as your saddest child" holds a kind of resonance now that it didn't when I was only someone's kid. 

Sunrise, Sunset

Look at this little worker bee

So, all of a sudden, it's like Geppetto's house up in here.  Milo's a real boy!  He's sitting upright (with a little help, but still), he's bouncing around like a maniac in his jumperoo and will be starting to experiment with actual food, a.k.a. rice cereal doused in formula.  Delish!

I know he's still the same kid he was last week, but somehow, seeing him sitting in that little chair and offering him something other than a bottle changes my perception of him enormously.  I mean, I know we're not sending him off to college or anything, but it seems like suddenly he's this little person who has distinct preferences -- like sucking on the index and middle fingers of his right hand and laughing when I do a goofy dance to Der Kommissar (oh, wait, maybe that's my preference) -- and it's all just a matter of time before he becomes an avid environmentalist and demands that we reduce our carbon footprint or wants to do some sort of summer Outward Bound program. 

I bite my thumb at you!

It's just odd.  You bring this child forth out of nothingness and you say you're going to try not to project too much onto him.  But of course, just the way you raise him is an act of projection.  Ben and I talk to him non-stop; he's surrounded by music and singing; he shouldn't be afraid of animals considering what a zoo it is around here; we read to him as much as his attention span allows; it's just the picture of silliness most of the time, although I think we can be firm when it's called for, as well (if he's tired and he needs a nap and is all bleary and rubbing his eyes and he makes a fuss, tough luck; ten minutes of kvetching or crying never killed anybody).  And all of this notwithstanding, he might grow up and want to get an MBA.  What are you going to do?

A Transcription...

...of a recent conversation between me and Ben, to/about Milo:

Ben: You're going to be a genius, buddy.

Me: No pressure.

Ben: Yeah, either you are or you aren't.

Me: As long as you're curious.

Ben: It's even OK if you're bi-curious.

Milo: [gives us both a pitying smile]

P.S.

Just FYI: I recognize the high crazy factor in the last post.  People with two or more kids surely know that it's totally kimpossible to focus on one kid all the time.  Or focus on anything, ever, really.

I may be guilting out and wondering how much attention is enough attention (or possibly too much attention, honestly) because my own mom so had it together as a mom -- she packed our lunches every single day, like, through high school; did our laundry; cooked a kick-ass dinner every night; kept her monthly budget on the fridge (clean lines for the rows and columns drawn with a ruler); was, all around, the picture of assured competence.  Maybe she didn't feel like she had it together, and I'm sure it was far more of a challenge than she ever let on, but my mom mommed like Ginger Rogers danced: she did it backwards and in heels and made it look easy.

Louis, Louis...Oh, No

Why do all my damn hats have ears on them?

One of the things I've been grappling with of late is summed up by the Louis C.K. quote, "It's hard having kids, because it's boring."  Now, don't get me wrong; hanging out with Milo is basically the highlight of my existence, however, if I were to tally up the minutes a day that I am either sitting on the floor or the bed with him, lifting him out of or buckling him into some sort of chair or swing or jumper, cleaning one end of him or another, feeding him or telling him from the other end of the room that I will be feeding him shortly (as if that has any calming effect), or waiting for him to awaken from a nap so that we can go somewhere...well, that would be approximately eleven hours worth of minutes.

And, man, he flashes me all manner of amazing smiles in that time.  He giggles and coos.  He smells good and can disarm me totally when he leans his sleepy head on my shoulder.  The kid has all sorts of moves that just melt me.  I root for him to do new things, and I am amazed by the things about him that already seem to be consistent and really rather pleasant personality traits. 

But what about when he's not being awesome?  And I'm not really talking about when he's being cranky or difficult.  What about when he's just looking up at something and gnawing on his fist?  I have, up until this point, sort of felt guilty if he's up and in my line of sight (i.e. if I'm not throwing another load of pukey bibs in the washing machine or heating up another mug of coffee) and seemingly paying attention to me, but I want to check my e-mail or read an article or, God forbid, watch a t.v. show.  Am I going to ruin him?  Musn't I be singing the alphabet song or explaining string theory or some such?  Is every moment supposed to be educational and stimulating?  Must I be in babyland for every minute that I am with him, or can I, within the realm of reasonable, safe mothering, watch an episode of What Not To Wear without feeling like I should call Child Protective Services on myself?

Tough parental negotiations here on the homefront, people.