this is life

Last night, she drank the whole 4 ounce bottle. She burped without much fuss. She sat, wide-eyed and quiet, in her bouncy chair and watched me watch her. She let me pick her up, let me put her in the baby bathtub I’d gotten ready in the kitchen sink. Instead of shrieking, she sat contentedly as I poured water over her and shampooed what’s left of her feather-soft hair and washed all three of her chins, and the rolls on her chubby arms and legs. When I scooped her out of the tub, she locked her legs straight and howled a little, and I folded her into a towel and dressed her, and she stopped crying. Her body went soft and was still a little damp in the creases of her elbows under her pajamas with the elephants and cupcakes on them and I cuddled her to sleep. She smelled like baby shampoo. Her hand curled around my upper arm.

THAT’S why people have kids.

If I could get the way I felt during bathtime last night in a pill form, I’d be able to get through this a little better:

I’m on a crusade — the kind only undertaken by crazies who should maybe be on medicine. Or the people who need fewer hours of fuss in their lives.

The crusade is against all those free “magazines” that formula companies send with their cheap coupons. Am I against saving $2? No. I like money. I’m against the fluff. I take special offense to the fluff. The “when my baby looked into my eyes for the first time, I knew I was a mommy!” “articles.”

Formula companies publish these “articles” in their “magazines” for the protection of the species and the product: Tired new mom gets “magazine” in the mail, leaves on table for a visiting childless, unsuspecting woman to stumble upon. Unsuspecting woman’s ovaries start twitching at the sight of a cute, doe-eyed babe. Nine months later, previously unsuspecting woman has child, gets free “magazine” for her friends to find when new mom is in the bathroom. Voila.*

I know what an “article” is and what an article is. “I knew I was a mommy” — exclamation point! — was not written by a journalist. I know this. I know no one’s trying to pass it as Pulitzer-worthy stuff. But still.

Bad writing aside, the fluff is alienating to all of us who aren’t born to speak the language of Exclamation Point. There probably are some women who feel that exact heartwarming sensation. I, on the other hand, often suspect that when Alice stops crying long enough to peek into my tired eyes, she’s thinking, “YOU HAVE NO IDEA what you’re DOING.” So I don’t so much feel like “a mommy!” I feel like a mom. A tired mom.

And I’ve Googled enough to know I’m not the only one who’s ever felt this way.

*For the record, babies are awesome. I’m not trying to stifle population growth or prevent future generations of blog readers. I just think formula companies should nix the “magazine” and ship off the coupons with free notepads or magnets or perhaps a free pen. I could use free pens.

I just have a fussy, colicky baby. That’s all there is to it.

I’m going to stop pretending that it’s easier when we make small diet changes. I’m going to stop pretending we have options we’ve not exhausted. I’m going to stop hanging hopes on tricks we hear about on the Interweb.

I’m just going to stand up here and say it: It’s probably colic. Maybe reflux. OK? OK. I feel better.

Soy formula helped for about a minute and a half. Gas drops help occasionally. But, really, when it comes down to it, we’ve done just about everything we can short of taking her back to the hospital and saying “This one’s not right. I kept my receipt — here, it’s around my waist. Can we have a new one?”

I came to this colic or reflux conclusion when I was reading about what babies do when they’re one month old … And I didn’t see “they’ll cry every hour they’re awake” or “the only object the baby will occasionally show interest in is a vibrating bouncy chair” anywhere on the list.

Last night, after she’d been crying for three-and-a-half hours, I laid my screaming bundle of unhappiness down in her crib, cooed “I love you, Baby, but Mama needs a minute,” and cried for a few in the bathroom. Loudly. Unabashedly. Without shame. I cried because I wanted it to stop, and nothing I was doing was helping. I cried because if we had two cars, I’d have packed her up and taken her to my mom’s house — yeah, in Ohio — and said “You do it. Please. I’ll be back in a year.” I cried because I knew even if I called Dave at work and said “Please come home,” he really couldn’t. I cried because hearing “it usually goes away by the third or sixth month” does not console anyone now.

She finally collapsed (figuratively) around 2 a.m. When I woke up at 8 today and saw she was still conked out, I realized she’d not eaten in, oh, nine hours. You’ll be happy to hear she’s breathing, eating and not crying right now, though. And neither am I.

I’m going to keep it low-key on my expectations for now. I plan on listening to the message on the answering machine today. I plan on napping when she naps. I plan on brunching with some good friends who say they don’t mind a screaming baby. I plan on enjoying Dave being here for the holiday. There aren’t fireworks or anything in the agenda. Just, you know, hopefully less crying.

Mr. Big’s not dead.

He’s going to be on a diet of special canned food of some sort, antibiotics and some medicine for his fragile GI tract. But he’s not dead! WHEEEE!

I’m glad for this, despite having to carry a handful of vomit-stained towels in one hand and spit-up stained burp rags in the other to toss by the washer this morning. THAT, my friends, is when you know you’re a real mother, and your life as you used to know it — full of purses and music and going out and fun — is dead. Or at least in hibernation. You may re-emerge from the den that is motherhood later, probably a lot crankier than when you went in.

I’ve not technically been OK’d to start working out, so I’ve yet to pull any magical running shoes out of my closet … which is also due to my not owning running shoes. But, um, moving on.

I’m depressed. Surprise!

No, OK. You got me. This is nothing new. Unlike the vague depression I’ve had in my back pocket since 2001 or so, though, this depression is probably directly tied to lack of sleep, those pesky life changes, money worries, geography, colic and the fact that the aforementioned back pocket is now attached to maternity pants. Which brings me to my point …

Sitting on the couch while she sleeps isn’t getting my thighs any smaller.

So here are the conclusions I came to while pulling my stretchy material over my new bulges yesterday: I get irrationally angry when I sweat. I know this. I hate walking alone, and Big dawdles. I don’t want to keep hiking up maternity pants and scowling at my used-to-be-fat-jeans-and-now-I-would-pay-good-money-to-fit-in-them jeans that lay over my bar of pre-pregnancy clothes hanging, taunting me with their cuteness from the closet. Mini-panic attacks hit when I think about running outside, where people might see me. Don’t want to go to a gym. Haven’t actually been inside a gym since … um … freshman year. Of high school. Gasp.

So, I got a couple yoga DVDs from the library. I’d have chosen some form of exercise that I could hang more cheerful hopes on, but the other DVDs there on the shelf had “for seniors” or “for the rest of us!” emphatically scrawled over the titles. I don’t want to be in with the “rest of us.” I just want something that sounds like it’s going to work. And the chick on the cover didn’t look like she’d have made fun of me in high school, so I felt safe enough to bring her home, and introduced her to me, in my pajamas.

But after I completed the last namasdae, I didn’t feel tighter. Or even stretched. Or anything but the same.

She smiled too much. She said, happily, “Pull your lower abs IN!” and I was gritting my teeth and saying, “WHAT lower abs? I have no control over those muscles anymore — and haven’t for nine months. THAT doesn’t even move when I suck in. WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT SHUT UP WOMAN I BET YOU’VE NEVER HAD KIDS LOOK AT YOUR STUPID ABS I HATE YOU.”

And that’s when I decided walking wasn’t so bad.

“You need to call the vet. Right now,” I said to sleeping Dave not an hour ago.

And so began our morning. Full of bloody dog diarrhea (you’re welcome! Hope you’re enjoying your breakfast), bloody spots and bloody vomit all over the first floor of the house. Oh, and my crying, thinking he’s dying.

The vet said to bring him in right away, so after we walked around with Resolve and bleach in our hands and cuddled the poor, probably confused animal, Dave put him in the car to go get him checked out.

Will he die? Probably not. But I’ll be damned if I can comprehend that fact right now. But what if he DOES? I keep stumbling on the poor little guy’s tiny argyle sweater in the bin under the coffee table. His orange ball. His favorite toy — Dave’s socks. And the fact that the messes were all around the first floor, mostly by the back door. He was probably just waiting for one of us to come see what was wrong — SOB! I didn’t even notice him not in the bed with us.

I’m a bad doggy mom. OH MY GOD ERIN PULL IT TOGETHER, MAN.

And in posting this I also want to cry because since Alice has come, the only photo I have of Big, our favorite old photo prop, is one with Alice in it. Oh, Mr. Big, I’m so sorry.

Before I fled the office on maternity leave, I looked around my desk for items I’d need while I was gone. I grabbed my uneaten granola bar, my page-a-day calendar and my favorite purple Sharpie from home. Then I stared at my work calendar.

Do I … or don’t I, I thought. Ugh.

I picked it up out of digust and resentment for its stupid contents; inside that calendar is ever-y-thing. On its wire-bound pages are numbered boxes that hold the keys to deadlines, publication dates, vacations, meetings and the like. Would I really need it, though, I asked myself, knowing the answer was “you’ll wish you had it …” But, I thought, couldn’t I go on believing that once I got this baby out, I could just live somewhere between early June and mid July, never having to go back to work, ever?

Sigh. No.

I tossed it in a bin June 2 and promptly ignored it, pretending I didn’t see it every time I walked past the wicker container, but knowing the calendar was there, like it was a glowing book that would taunt me as I walked by it. Yesterday, I pried it out and cracked open its pages to July. I located the box in mid July where I knew “doctor’s appointment” would need to go, and walked my fingers down to the date I knew I’d have to face reality — life beyond Elmo diapers and formula.

I then solemnly walked to the computer and composed an e-mail to my boss to let him know the schedule I was thinking about:

I’d rather put my hand in a meat grinder than come back to work …, I started, mentally wondering where one procured such barbaric kitchen gadgets. Bed, Bath and Beyond? Perhaps. Must check. Hm. Highlight all, delete.

I began again.

I’m not coming back ever. I’m going to sell the house, take the kid and move to a ranch somewhere to live off the land … Apple-A, deleted that one too. I hate hoeing. And gardening food. And garden-originated food. And making food.

So I sucked it up and wrote a real e-mail.

I know it’s only part-time work until fall. I know it’s more than a lot of people get. I know I’m lucky our schedules work out so Alice won’t have to stay with some creepy babysitter or “20/20″-Russian-orphanage-like day care center, at least until my 12 weeks are up. It’s also not a sweatshop job. This has nothing to do with my place of employment at all.

I just don’t want to leave Alice.

When I pull out of the driveway on July whatever-date-it-is and leave my baby at home, I already know I’ll be bawling all the way to work — and not just because I’ll probably still be in maternity clothes then. Although that won’t help, honestly.

That’s going to hurt worse than any meat-grinder episode.

I had a blog post for today already written in my head. It was witty. It used the word “superfluous” — correctly. But then I got tired.

Today was another Long Day, from the 4:30 a.m. start to a two-hour crying session (Dave, I owe you) to an afternoon full of no-eating and crying, it was just another day of Real Life. No big deal. We held our own in the battle of the whine.

So, instead of blogging about it, I’m just going to post this picture of the moment she let go in my arms and just relaxed. Her arched back curved the other way and she curled into the crook in my arms. Her screaming quieted into coos. We cuddled, she nodded off. And then I had a sip or two of wine, and she had her pacifier and a nap.

It’s just one of those days where I don’t even know where my cell phone is. One of those times when I look at the clock and say “It’s only 3? It feels like 8.” And also one of those days when I say to Dave, while looking at her sleeping face, “She’s a screamer, but I love her, ya know?” He knows.

More words later.

Krista and Badgergirl came over to meet Alice on their Friday night, between their dinner and going out, and I was painfully aware of being, well, home bound with an infant.

They didn’t gush about margaritas or dancing, but I knew it was out there. And I was in here.

Not that I pine for the days of drinking at any favorite establishment, or even for a good spicy burrito. Nah. I formed emotional attachments to bars in Ohio, but missed that chance in Wisconsin, and Dave makes a good enough burrito and takes orders just like any waiter can (and I don’t even have to leave him a tip to get a peppermint). I didn’t even go out much when I was less-mom-like. It’s not that.

I just felt unequivocally tied to my house, and alone. Alone in Wisconsin. Highlighting the point was their farewell — as I held Alice in the doorway, Krista rubbed Alice’s head and joked, “Ooh, Alice, I hope I see you again before you turn 17.”

And my heart stopped.

“That is a mean-spirited thing to say!” I said, feeling each and everyone one of Alice’s 8 pounds in my arms. “You can’t just leave me like that for 17 years. Please? Guys? Don’t go!” I was joking, but only kind of.

Because here I sit, alone, most times, in this old, buggy, stinky house in a state I only call home when I don’t feel like explaining to the hairdresser that actually, no, I’m from Ohio, yeah, northwest Ohio, about an hour-and-a-half south of Toledo, yep, mmhmmm, winters are just like Wisconsin pretty much. Nope, moved here for a job. Yep, three years ago. Mmhmm.

It’s a house where I don’t get random visits from local friends, mainly because I don’t have many, or any with whom I’d reveal deep, dark mommish secrets. It’s one where my own mom doesn’t drop by for dinner, where Dave works nights, where we have one car and therefore I’m tied to the whole situation in a big, tangible way. One where now, there’s an infant who relies on me for her entire survival, too. No pressure, though.

I’m not saying this for pity. I put myself in this position. I love my messy house, my marriage, my baby. I’m saying this because I’m all about this new honesty thing. Right now, I’m feeling whelmed. Not overwhelmed. Just whelmed.

I’m in love with a baby and being a mom, but slightly bored and discontent with almost everything else in my life. Wondering what comes next, and where. Wondering if I have a right to wonder what comes next when it’s not about me anymore.

“I’m totally blogging about this,” I said from my cross-legged position on the floor, in front of the bouncy seat in which Alice was chilling, in the living room. In hand was my bowl of 33-cent creamed corn. On the coffee table to my left sat my two off-brand turkey “hot dogs” on my Wal-Mart-brand wheat bread and a glass of pinot grigio — the bottle from which it came a Christmas present to a then-pregnant lady. “It’s a recession-proof dinner.”

I do believe it’s a step-down from living the High Life, even. But it’s so cheap you can taste the savings, right? It kind of tastes “fresh, fruity and delightful.” Or so the bottle tells me.

Since she’s been having a better week, we’ve got to cram in some hard-core studying.

She’ll be the smartest kid in kindergarten. It’s never too early to learn about John Adams’ trials and tribulations. Next week, we do algebra. She’s going to teach me how, of course.

I have a confession to make.

I used to think muffin tops (see also: midsection hangovers, Dunlap disease, etc.) were hilarious: the comedic equivalent of someone dressed as a Christmas elf getting hit by a car and bouncing off the hood (uninjured, come on, I’m no Scrooge). What’s not to love about muffin top? It’s got all the classic comedic signs: Honesty. Discomfort. Ill-fitting, stretched-out material. Women shrieking, “But I fit in a size four! Look!” while the button at their waist protests.

I’m sorry, everyone. I thought it was funny.

Til I got a muffin top.

Now I don’t so much laugh as cry as I try on everything in my wardrobe — maternity or not — to try to get a smooth (albeit much more curved) line around my midsection. It doesn’t happen. You don’t carry a child for nine months and then get flat abs — pregnancy is not a great workout plan, if you were looking around at available exercise options. Go with the pilates instead.

So now, instead of laughing at a bad muffin top, I instead think we should be saying, “You know what? Maybe she knows she has one. Maybe she only has two pairs of maternity pants that fit and they’re both dirty, and her pre-pregnancy jeans are stuck at her thighs. Maybe she’d like to start exercising more but she hasn’t gotten the OK from her doctor yet. Or, I don’t know, she’s tired from being a new mom, and she just doesn’t feel like it right now. She’s probably busy and I bet her hair smells like formula, too. Let’s cut her a break. She’s probably trying. I bet she even had a Lean Cuisine for lunch today. And yesterday. Right?”

And if that doesn’t change other people’s opinions of muffin top, I’ll consider throwing Christmas elves in front of traffic for a comedic distraction instead.

Or else I’ll rock out with an authoritative fanny pack. (Where does one get a fanny pack in 2008? Must check eBay or 1989 …)

Unless you’re absolutely dying to live vicariously through someone who can’t find the energy to blow-dry her own hair anymore, chances are you don’t really want to hear about the daily life of a three-week old and her mom.

That basic understanding is why I don’t want this to become one of those blogs (rolling eyes): “My God, does this woman do anything other than talk about her BABY and sleep and formula?”

Uh, yeah, I’m quite interesting, actually, in real life. I have hobbies and I can be witty if provoked. I have vinyl records and an iPod. I like pop culture like most human beings. Like, yesterday I watched a movie with subtitles, and the day before that I watched a movie from the Lucky Day shelf at the library … so, yeah. Ooh, I also read a whole article in Esquire a couple days ago. And I’ve been watching the news. I’m all up-to-date. I’ve got some secret moves if you want to do a who’s-cooler dance-off.

But, please, screw interesting for now. She’s had two-and-a-half really good days, so I’ve not felt like hiding under the bed in two-and-a-half days, which is big news for someone who used to be afraid I’d never feel normal without medical intervention. I used to take 300 mg of Help to feel this good. Now, it just takes a night or two off from crying. On both our parts.

So, I’d like my money back for those first few weeks. I want a do-over for those days filled with the screaming that broke my heart and my will to live (see photo). I’m better. At least for now.

The Target formula may be working. She’s not had an “Exorcist” moment in like, two days.

But that’s all I’m going to say about that, because I don’t want to jinx anything.

Me and my pink sunglasses were tugging Mr. Big, three-time-a-walk pooper, on a stroll down Jackson Street. Occupying my moody thoughts were the five pounds I gained since Saturday (how does this happen? I ate 70-calorie turkey dogs, HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN?), and kind of wondering if the now 20-pounds were ever going to come off.

Then it happened.

“HEY!”

I don’t know anyone in Oshkosh who’d be on Jackson Street at 10 a.m. on a Monday. Or, to be more honest, I don’t know anyone in Oshkosh who wouldn’t be at my place of employment, now that you questioned it.

Yet, there it was again: “HEEEY!”

My eyes shot around, looking for someone yelling at a friend, or to see if Big had dropped a present on a sidewalk that I missed.

Then I spotted him. Across the street, to my left, wearing Oshkosh’s sanitation crew’s finest neon yellow. He was tall, tan, wearing sunglasses. I am short, pale and wearing sunglasses to hide my no-sleep agenda. This doesn’t happen.

“Hiiiiii,” he waved and smiled.

Uh, say what? Not accustomed to talking to strangers or being maybe-hit on, I just smiled and half-waved and said “Um, hi,” and kept walking.

But inside (and to a less-than-thrilled Dave, later), I was all, “OHMYGOD, A MAN TALKED TO ME AND I’M WEARING MATERNITY PANTS.” Did you get that? A man I didn’t know said “hey” — TWICE — followed by a “hi” and a wave — and I have pants with a stretch material that goes to the bottom of my unmentionables. He ignored the phantom baby pouch and all. Wow.

Oooh yeah. Let’s talk trash, baby. Or maybe recycling. I didn’t quite see what he was tossing out there, beyond unsolicited “hey”s. Does it matter? No, not really. A woman takes what she can get.

Dave’s on the phone with someone from his family, and I’m guessing the topic of when we’re moving back to Ohio came up (it’s a favorite lull-in-the-conversation filler).

I overhear, from Dave: “I don’t know, we’ll probably have to have that discussion in the next couple of years, because this house isn’t big enough for two kids.”

What his family member probably heard is, “Dave and Erin’ll move back in a year or two.”

What Dave meant was probably, “You wanna sell a house in a recession? Right.”

What my ovaries said in response was “Aw, another baby!?”

What my brain said in response: “ARE YOU BLEEPING CRAZY? You’d willingly do this again?! Has our lifetime avoidance of crack not taught you ANYTHING!”

So remember that formula fiasco? The one where Target didn’t have their own dang brand and we spent $25 on a can of formula (For your reference, situations I handled similarly include getting my braces tightened, slamming my hand in a sliding mini-van door and panicking after ripping my tongue stuck from a freezer shelf that looked like it would taste like a Sno-Cone — it didn’t)?

Yeah, well, switching back isn’t any easier. The pediatrician said, “Well, logic would tell us first to switch back to what worked — try the Target brand, and then if that doesn’t work, try soy.”

Well, that sounds easy enough, til you’re on the bedroom floor sobbing with your also-sobbing infant, and it’s been an hour-and-a-half and you’re tempted to wake up your husband and say “TAKE HER” but you don’t because in a short hour-and-a-half she’ll want to eat again and it’ll be his turn and you won’t want to be woken up then.

Long story short, there was some puking, some walking the stairs (great exercise, I reasoned), some laying on the couch, some infomercial watching (guess who’s getting Scalp Med for Christmas! You’re welcome, Dave!), some collapsing on the couch.

Then, gloriously, some waking up at 8:55 to hear Tom Brokaw’s taking over “Meet the Press.”

What? She slept from 4:30 to 8:55? Yes. Because an angel came down and whispered in her ear: “Mommy’s going to collapse into a snotty mess on the floor if you don’t sleep. Best just let this one go, Alice.”

So how long til we try the soy formula? I have no idea. I have no idea what I’m doing. I have no idea why she’s crying, or why the Target brand of formula would matter so much, or why Mylicon is so expensive. I have no idea why I’m in such a bad mood all day, or why everything is so annoying. I have no idea why my mom lives eight hours away, when I need her RIGHT HERE. Or why Dave’s gotta talk so loudly on the phone when she just fell asleep.

I just don’t know.

I just thought this was funny.

Sometime between the 4 a.m. feeding, the 4:30 a.m. headache and the 5:30 a.m. screaming, I decided I’d had enough. I took my frustration out by showing the overfilling Diaper Champ who was boss, and then I sat and had a good rock with Alice on my lap, her fighting sleep with her arms flailing and her knees locked in the Tin Man position.

As I laid her down at 4:45, I collapsed in bed, face-first, kind of hoping to wake up around 2010. She had other plans, and Dave graciously did his fatherly duties and got up at 5:30 to rock her some more.

Enter: the urge to get out.

Not permanently. I’m not writing this from a Wi-Fi truckstop somewhere on I-90, a change of clothes in the trunk and some caffeine pills in my belly. Nope. I just needed 20 minutes. Just 20. Twenty silent, glorious minutes.

So after I fed her at 7, I showered, dressed, ate breakfast and tip-toed past her bassinette to tell Dave I was taking a walk.

“Are you OK?” Dave asked, the pillow marks on his face.

“Yeah, I just need to get away.”

“Are you sure?”

And instead of being swept off my feet with his concern, I was annoyed he was talking so loudly, and feeling a little claustrophobic.

“I’m sure.”

So Mr. Big and I walked. We strolled the same path I took a few weeks ago, painfully pregnant. I walked it out. I breathed the air and watched the cars and thought about funny things like one-liners from “30 Rock,” mom jeans and hearing news about an ex you’d kind of forgot you had because you were busy with your New Life.

I thought I’d feel bad about not feeling bad about my escape. I thought I’d feel like a bad mother for just needing to get away. But I didn’t. I didn’t really feel anything but kind of tired and sweaty.

See, being a new mom is kind of hard. It’s like you get these two- or three-hour pockets of time where you’ve gotta do dishes and clean and shower. And that’s IF she’s not screaming. You send your husband out to get groceries and library movies because you don’t want to leave the house, and you start to smell like cat pee even though you don’t have cats. And your hair’s frizzy, though not because it actually IS, but because it fits the stereotype. It’s a lonely feeling because no one wants to cuddle with a bag of hormones, though your husband does his best to tell you that you’re looking, um, better?, and to remind you jokingly (ha!) how long six weeks is (uh, what?).

I WOULDN’T trade motherhood for anything — not a body that would accommodate size-zero pants, not a hot social life, not a Jude Law-lookalike boyfriend, nor eight hours of blissful, non-interrupted sleep. Don’t get me wrong. Alice is great, even if I do think she’s colicky.

I’m just sayin’. It’s not easy. And sometimes I gotta get out.

While drying my hair this morning, I should’ve been rejoicing over the two pounds I magically lost overnight (I’ll save my rejoicing, though, for when I can wear pants with zippers and buttons). As we fed her a bottle at 9:30, I should’ve been concentrating on, you know, feeding her. As we walked into the doctor’s office for her two-week checkup at 10:15, I should’ve been soaking up the “oohh, a new BABY!” vibes nurses, receptionists and strangers were giving us.

Instead, throughout all this, I was just thinking “any minute now, she’ll start her 20-minute crying jags and I’ll look like a fool.”

And after we got the insurance cards copied and sat down, that’s exactly what happened.

She screamed. I blushed. I know, babies cry. My baby definitely got that memo. She LOVES crying. It’s one of her favorite pasttimes. Mine is apologizing, which is what I did to the nurses, the doctor. Alice screamed with her clothes on, with her clothes off. As she got measured (20 inches) and weighed (8 pounds). As I held her and rocked her as she peed on the paper sheet they gave us to wrap her in.

And as soon as she was back in her carseat, she was patient, pretty, attentive. When we snapped it back into the car base, her eyes closed like someone’d flipped a switch. And I finally breathed.

I gotta learn to relax.

Dave went home to let the dog out while I was in the hospital, leaving me and Alice alone for a few hours in our room. I sat there and said “Please don’t cry, please don’t cry,” because I couldn’t get up myself to grab a bottle or a clean diaper. But, honestly, I knew a nurse was no further than my antsy finger could push that little call button.

Last Wednesday, Dad left a half hour before Dave came back from the airport with his mom, but Alice and I just slept on the couch. I didn’t even notice we were completely alone, save a small, yippy dog.

But today, as Dave drove his mom back to the airport before he went to work, it sunk in. I would be completely alone with an infant for an extended period of time. For hours a day. Five days a week. For weeks.

Alice showed she had her own reservations for my ability to keep it together by screaming from 11 to noon, and then again from 2:30 to 3. She was especially excited, so she wet herself while I was changing her. She then showed her appreciation for my patience by sleeping for four hours, before spitting up on herself.

While she snoozed, I slept so deeply I woke up with a dry mouth and couch cushion marks on my face. Then I waited (checking the clock). And waited (”Nightly News” started, where was Dave?). And waited (checking the clock again, looking at my sleeping baby, where was Dave?) for Dave to come home on his dinner break.

It was weird. It was an alone-not-alone feeling. I was more aware of outside noises — lawn mowers, the mail being delivered, sirens — because I just felt really, I don’t know, here. Maybe I’m going crazy. I think it’s partially sleep deprivation, and partially reality firmly planting itself on my loveseat.

Anyhow.

Tomorrow, we’re gonna do it all over again. And Friday. And Saturday. And Tuesday. Etc.

(Mom!)

Alice is two weeks old tonight and in the spirit of writing regular monthly updates (like Dooce or Leighnut both do) (while acknowledging that I don’t think I’ll be able to keep it up like the two of them), I’m going to write a letter to Alice. My second. And because it’s not a monthly thing, I may write another or a series of posts, or a whole dang book of them. Or maybe I’ll get bored and resume my blogging about Dave getting the brunt of my hormonal rants. Who knows.

Dear Alice,

When you were just a cashew (as we called you), I remember laying awake at night at Grandma Kleman’s house, hand on stomach, wondering if what I was feeling in my belly was you moving around. I don’t think it was, but I lay there, holding my breath, hoping you’d finally become more than an abstract concept to me. A few weeks after that, Daddy felt you too.

As your tiny body grew in my growing belly, your chubby little knees and feet would poke out, and you’d turn waves on my stomach. I could push against your foot and you’d kick back, or move out of my reach. At the hospital, as I was being, uh, finished and you were a warm and messy, squirmy object wrapped in a hospital blanket on my stomach, I noticed your knees and feet felt exactly the same way through the thin flannel as they did just hours before through my stretch-marked skin. I would’ve known you anywhere, Baby.

Since June 3, I’ve spent most of your first days at home awake, just staring at your features that look so much like your dad’s.

When I close my eyes, I see your face. When I look at inanimate objects, I see oddities that remind me of you. You’re burned in my retinas. I’m in love.

I won’t pretend to love all of it. My body and I aren’t speaking until it realizes maternity clothes look better on those who are being all pre-maternal. Peanut butter-textured gifts in diapers doesn’t top the list of items I need more of from you. I do miss sleep, a bit. Projectile vomit, while fun to watch, is less fun to clean up. But I wouldn’t trade any of this.

The first week, Daddy and I giggled over what we’d done to have you. He just keeps saying “I can’t believe she’s here.” I can. I lay awake watching you breathe. This is all very real to me.

I want to remember your sweet formula breath. The way you round your lips into an O when you’re sleeping. Your smiles that mean nothing. How Daddy looked like he was going to vomit or cry in the delivery room. How big his hands looked holding you. How you were born during track 16 of a CD Daddy got at a kiosk in Target, which I made fun of him for. Your tiny booties. How it’s so warm to doze with you in the rocking chair — I’m talking cozy-warm, like drool-inducing REM napping. It’s good stuff.

So far, I’ve not posted too much embarrassing stuff about you on my blog. Well, except for that time your umbilical cord fell off and we couldn’t find it anywhere, and we suspect the dog may have eaten it. But I guess that’s more embarrassing for me, not you. OK, forget that.

Welcome, baby.

Mommy

We went to go get more formula the other day, and they didn’t have the kind we use. And it’s a store brand. I stood, staring incredulously at the empty shelf where our brand should be, and started sweating. Another decision I’d have to make … So I picked the name brand version of the off-brand she’d been enjoying (which feels like a punch in the stomach because of its high price tag — seriously, more than twice as much as our store-brand formula).

And I don’t know if it’s THAT (the switching the formula, not the price tag) that’s making her baby-bipolar, or if I just am a new mom who has no idea what I’m doing. Always a possibility.

For the last three days, her favorite after-bottle activity has been screaming — italicized to emphasize just how maddening this can be at 3 a.m. after an hour-and-a-half. Rocking, standing, swinging, bouncing, singing, praying, begging, telling life stories, silence, one-handed blogging, laying on her back, laying on her side, laying on her belly on my chest, listening to the hair dryer, crying it out, changing her, music, no music, Dad saying “Alll-ice, hey,” Mom saying in her nicest 3 a.m. voice “I don’t know what you WANT, Baby” — I’ve tried all these things.

I know enough not to take it personally, and to know that it’s probably just her stomach. But dang if I don’t feel like a horrible mom, trapped in my home because I don’t want to be trapped anywhere else with a screaming baby so the world will see what a no-good mom I am because I can’t get her to quiet the meltdowns.

I confessed some of this to Dave this morning on the deck, my tired eyes watering.

“I feel like a bad mom,” I said.

“You’re not. You’re just a new mom. And I’m a new dad. We just have no idea what we’re doing,” he said.

Right.

We laid down on the floor and played “Where’s Mommy? Follow Mommy with your eyes!”, which is about as exciting as it sounds to anyone not participating in the game. It held her attention from 7:30 to 9 last night, which is longer than she’s ever had her big blue eyes open in one stretch before.

Was this purely an act of infant-mother connections being made? Uh, yeah, that’s it. It had nothing to do with my need to sleep more than 45 consecutive minutes a night. Pay no attention to that nagging voice in the back of your mind that says “She’s lying!” Really, I didn’t even give it a thought that she slept four hours between feedings, or that when I woke up to make her morning bottle, my eyes didn’t burn and I didn’t stumble from the bed to the faucet, bumping into the walls and doorframe in what feels like a half-drunken stupor.

Nope. Just making a connection.