11/27/22
he’s making sentences now. He just said “hold silver” bc he wanted to hold one of my Silverettes while nursing. the tone of absolute certainty he has, in such a young voice, is really cute. i feel blessed to witness all this growth.
A few times already, I’ve bent over to pick something up and knocked baby right on his butt with my butt, because he follows me so close all the time now – he really tailgates me. i’m trying to remember now when I move, that he might be within inches of me, so I stop knocking him over.
12/1/22
I just want popular media/literary outlets to acknowledge that waking up all throughout the night for baby is torture. I want them to stop glossing over it, ignoring it, or sugarcoating it – it is torture. It’s the same as the torture device used in war: just when I’m falling into deep sleep, the sleep my body and mind need most to repair and rest, I’m woken up, and have to stay up, and have to keep my body in a certain position until he’s done, which can be an hour or more, even if the position is so uncomfortable I can’t fall asleep during. And this happens multiple times a night, all night, every night. What would you call it? How would you describe it? And would you wish this on yourself? I just need people to acknowledge this so I can stop feeling like I’m abnormal for viewing my nightly breast-feeding routine this way. it’s torture and it brings along all the same side effects of torture: weight loss, loss of appetite, loss of mental clarity, mood disorder, physical degeneration. every night I sit up awake is a night of healthy sleep I can never get back. The only difference/respite is that, because of help from my parents, and if I don’t have any urgent work, I can sleep for a few hours in the morning. He kept me up for so long last night that my body was exhausted and I needed to sleep this morning (and i did), but I feel that when I do this, it just perpetuates the cycle, because then I feel wide awake early at night (like 9-10 pm), so I go to sleep late (like 2 am), then lose sleep because of breast-feeding, then am tired in the morning again. I love this amazing, innocent boy so much that if given the chance, I would (insanely) do it all again. But I’m just confiding to you, diary: though I want to be this lovely, skipping, lighthearted mother, these nights are fucking, fucking painful.
12/2/22
today R’s mom came from Brazil and brought me medicine from R’s coworker’s mom, it’s homeopathic for my skin, called calcaria carb psorium, I’m taking six drops three times a day. it’s OK, just tastes like alcohol and a little bitter, R said to stick with it because it takes a long time to take effect.
realized i’m living with two men who both need different things from my body.
12/3/22
an unexpected wish as a result of all this childcare: all I want to do is sit with my husband and watch a movie all the way through undisturbed with him, like we used to do pretty much whenever we wanted when we were a childless couple; we haven’t done that in over a year, maybe longer. I’ll even take a kid’s movie, but baby’s still too young to pay attention to one or let us watch one; we’re just watching Hickory Dickory Dock vids on YouTube all the time, cause that’s what he wants.
Marriage Journal 