Time Passages

When I voted, Finn was 5 months old and 11 pounds, 9 ounces or so. I was still using the sling when we went walking, rustling through autumn leaves. Now, we are finally about to have two senators, he's about 17 pounds and crawling, and the summer flowers are blooming.

Congratulations, Senator Franken.

yeah, he's crawling

Reunited, and it feels so...

Good?

There was a reunion at the NICU today, and I was eager to go. I know that some parents can't stand to go near the place, but I am thankful for my healthy son, and they were an integral part in making that happen. While we were driving into the parking ramp, Pete experienced the same anxiety he experienced whenever we came to visit Finn, but I didn't have that. The place is still as familiar as it was last year, but it doesn't upset me. All I could think was that it was interesting to be bringing Finn into Childrens'.

There were a lot of people there. More than I expected. Families were milling about the entire second floor. It must have been weird to be coming to see your baby in the NICU with all the festivities going on outside the unit.

They had a short program with former patients, now going to college, as well as a musical act and characters dressed up in Wizard of Oz garb. We did not get our photo taken with them. It creeped me out a little bit.

There were craft areas with stickers and face painting, but Finn is a little young for that stuff. We only saw one nurse who had taken care of Finn and none of the doctors. I had been hoping for that, but, heck, they are probably working, and if you are not working, then you don't want to be at work. They are putting together an album for them, though, with current photos and updates, and I submitted one of those.


We ate some cheese and fruit, talked to a couple of soccer players from the Minnesota Thunder (the coach had a daughter in the NICU 5 years ago), and went into the gift shop for the first time, where Pete bought Finn a Grover stuffed doll. We never went into the gift shop while Finn was a patient. There did not seem to be a need. I got some information on volunteering, and I am thinking about doing that in my "spare time."

When I find some.

Titanic

Pete's recording with The Hounds of Finn this weekend. I had the boy yesterday, and he took him with him today, so I could go to the Titanic Artifacts exhibit at the Science Museum. All in all, I would say that it's a good show, though I think that they should add some focus on the science side of things: how they retrieved the artifacts, how they are preserved... exactly why there is wood and leather, but I get no human bones (come on, everyone is wondering). You know, that sort of thing. It's a lot of history, which is cool, but this is the Science Museum. There's room for them to tell me how, at 12450 feet below the surface of the ocean, at 6000 psi, there are bottles of champagne with champagne in them. How did the face powder survive? What about the paper? What exactly is going on when iron brought to the surface explodes.

These are things that inquiring minds want to know.

Also, I'd like to know why I would buy my child a Titanic coloring book, containing scenes like this:

I mean, is this from the Disaster Series?

Can I get a Donner Party Coloring Book? September 11th? Antietam?

I always thought it was horrifying that this is considered an amusement ride:
Come on kids! Play while you can! We're going down!

As I drove home, I reminded myself not to apologize when I walked into the house. I had not given a time; I was not late. But it was 10:30, and I had just spent four hours with friends on Pete's suggestion, and I felt bad. I felt like I had betrayed someone or something, that I was wrong and needed to say I was sorry. When I got home, the boy was asleep, and Pete was editing video in the kitchen. All was well.

I didn't apologize.

Contemplation

I just took an actual lunch break: a period of time during which I sat down and ate a meal slowly and contemplatively, while reading for pleasure.

Often, I forget to eat, or I eat at my desk, or I consume a Mason Jar of trail mix over the course of a day. Usually, I am bolting my food, either while I feed Finn, or while I focus on what I have to do next, or, indeed, while I actually do what I have to do next.

So how about we talk a little bit about Motherhood and Resentment?

We know it's out there, though these two words are not tied together as much as "Motherhood and Fulfillment" or "Motherhood and Joy" or other cuddly comparisons. Motherhood and Resentment. Just this morning as we readied the family for work and day care, I remarked that, as a mother, I am now merely an extension of my family. This happened after Pete told me to stop getting Finn's bottles ready and get myself ready.

"There is no 'me' anymore," I said.

Being the mother is different, and there are biological and societal reasons for this sublimation of self. I don't know how much I feel like getting into The Patriarchy right now. Even on a full stomach, that's a big topic, which tends to provoke eye rolling from those who believe that we live in a post-feminist world (all evidence to the contrary). But biologically, I am dependent upon Finn, and he upon me, due to breast feeding. I need him to keep supply up, and he needs me to provide food. You could say that is my "choice," but I don't view it that way: it's my responsibility. And it means that, without a significant backstock, I don't have the freedom to just go somewhere for a night, or a long day, because I don't have the food for him.

It's something that is always on my mind, and I have to pump while at work, and sometimes at home, to have enough for him to get through his days away from me. I was short four ounces this morning, meaning I had to defrost one of my perhaps three extra bottles. Meaning that I have to come up with 12 ounces over the course of today and the weekend to be ready for Monday and to replace the one that I used. So I am pumping every two hours today at work, and I am going to try to either nurse or pump every two hours over the weekend, to get there and maybe boost my supply. I am adding supplements and loads of water to that equation to assist in this endeavor. It's very difficult to fit pumping in when you are with the baby. It sometimes results in pumping while nursing, which Finn finds enormously interesting, making it even harder to do.

Pete has the luxury, as I have written before, of "getting" to take care of Finn. He also has the luxury to go play music with friends, both at rehearsals and at gigs in bars. Where they serve alcohol. To adults. At night! I hear they do this now...

He does not have to think: "Oh man, I am up late, and this is totally going to suck when I get home and have to deal with the baby all night and not get any sleep at all." For me, going out often creates more work and exhaustion on the other end, thus not being a "break" at all.

Yesterday, I came home from work to find that Pete and my mom had created my evening for me. If I wanted, Finn and I could go up with Mom to my brother's house and have dinner, all while Pete went to rehearsal. After which, Pete would pick me up, and we would go home. I weighed these things as Mom and I picked up a reupholstered chair, dropped off books and DVD's at the library, and picked up our box of veggies. Did I need to wash diapers for day care? If I left the house, what would I not be getting done? What could I get done home alone with Finn? If I left, I would not be able to pump. If I left, I would not be in control of my comings and goings. I would be dependent upon Pete to pick me up on time, which is practically an impossibility.

Pete was late, and I was pissed. I was exhausted; Finn was tired. It would be too late for me to pump when I got home because I was too tired. Finn screamed half the way home. I got a headache. I was seething and filled with resentment. Over all of it. He gets to go and rehearse? Play music and have fun with people he likes? And then be late to get me, possibly causing many disruptions over the course of a night's sleep? He gets to do all sorts of things, and I "get to" be with the baby. Even the freelance work we both have taken over the summer: I am fitting mine into my time, and he is fitting his into our time, or that's what it feels like. I edit pages while I pump at work, when I used to be able to knit and listen to public radio. Or I edit pages while nursing. Or in the rare times Finn naps for me (when I should be washing dishes or sorting yard sale crap).

I resent that I am no longer the me who I once was. I resent that I don't have the freedom to just do what I want to do, not that I ever really did. Not that any of us really do. I just resent that it's glaring to me, every single day, that I can't... I can't... I can't...

It doesn't mean that I am going to run off and, I don't know, see the sights in, say... Buenos Aires, or that Pete and Finn's story will be made into a Lifetime Movie of the Week, with me as the Thelma AND the Louise. It doesn't really mean anything. It's just a testament to the roller coaster that is motherhood; another addition to the chronicle of American female existence; a minor addendum to the lactational litany; a simulacrum of... no. Not going there.

June 26, 2008

Finn sleeps with us. It just sort of happened. Who knows what we would have done had he been born like a normal baby, around his due date and toward the end of an actual third trimester. I always planned on having our baby in our room, and I was looking at getting a co-sleeper. He wound up in our bed through a series of changes in night time routines which always involved him falling asleep with one of us and his apnea monitor. Would he be a sleeps all night baby were he not a cosleeper? The world will never know. Would he be an all-nighter if he had not been born so early? His adoring fans can only speculate. It does not really matter, but it does not help me quell feelings of stabby rage whenever I hear another parent cooing over their 10 week old baby who sleeps through the night. Especially when my demon vampire baby is crawling out of his co-sleeper, into our bed to bite me on the arm while making hypervenitating sounds. It makes me think that the advocates of bedsharing are only doing it because they want other people to suffer their hell. Then again, I signed up for this, and I don't think that breast fed babies do sleep through the night commonly, and if you add the family bed to that, then you are most likely going to be awake a little more and a little longer.

He's asleep right now in his co-sleeper, and I snuck out to take out my contacts, wash my face, and write this. I'll sneak back in, and he will wake up in 1 to 3 hours. Then I'll move him into the bed, and we'll do the nursing tango until we get up for good.

His Indian name is Naps at Daycare, or Sleeps for the Sitter. Hearing about his three hour napathons just makes me sigh and shrug at this point. Then I go wake up all the cats. Because I can.

But I don't think I'd go back and change anything. There's no point in thinking that way, and I did get time with my baby; I do get time with him. And during the day, he's happy and charming. He's secure and adventurous. Happy Morning Baby often makes up for Thrashy McDiaperpants.

I guess I could think about night-weaning sometime soon, but then I also think that he's only almost 13 months, 9.5 months minus the hospital fetus time, and I don't want to risk a big drop in supply just yet. So I'll hang in there. We have moved into a different phase, the one where he actually does sleep alone for awhile and Pete and I watch library DVD reruns of shows we can't see because we don't have cable. Together, on the couch, like grown ups. And I obsess over whether or not Finn is still breathing, in the room all by himself.

I just checked on him.

He is.