how much can I give?

2/20/23

holding baby’s now-familiar hand in the dark at 1:43 am while he nursed, both of us calm, i thought: “we had language before we had language.”

2/21/23

he nened until 1:25 am tonight- near end, again so tired and wanting him to let go, and he’d also started biting- i did a weird thing but it worked. I was pretty calm when I attempted, which is why I attempted it. pressed the boob he was sucking against his face so that it was uncomfortable so that he had to move his face- i was over him, but i never pinned him down and always gave him different directions he could turn his head- we struggled for some moments with me doing this, interspersed also with me trying to pull away multiple times and him not letting my nipple go, until he just let go. i think if he wasn’t about to fall asleep it wouldn’t have worked. but i think he was so tired at that point (it was almost 1:30 in the morning) that he let go in order to stop struggling. but i avoided that hard tear-jerking bite he does at the end using this method, which is like everything.

lately realized i have not been wanting to use phone while nursing. like the past few weeks. i sense it ending soon, or like this is the second half of it, and that time looking into his face is precious.

2/23/23

throughout the months since he started solids (so like the past 12 months), i noticed myself consuming and enjoying the puréed pouches maybe even more than baby. Why: convenient, fast, easy hunger-quencher i can eat (more like gulp) while cleaning, nursing, doing other stuff. Usually tasty, sweet fruits. but most of all i think: metabolism way slowed down because of not enough sleep, and puréed stuff seems easier/puts less burden on my tired digestive system.

something i just kind of realized: thinking of when I was really sick, right before I went to the ER, the worst day of it, my body craved no sweets at all, and I remember being surprised that I went all day without wanting to eat anything sweet (usually not a day passes where i don’t have a sweet craving), whereas in the days surrounding that worst day, sugar addiction was present. This says to me that…like…sugar is really non-essential (even detrimental, i know i’ve read it time and again) to healing. And looking back on whenever I’ve been really sick, I think the same temporarily-missing sugar craving has always happened, and this must be my body saying something. I realized I should listen to it in daily life if i want the best health- not just when I’m sick.

this week, started staying at parents again, overnight every weekday, and only going home on weekends. This is so dad doesn’t have to drive to my house every morning to pick up Baby (and drive him back at night), and my burden is eased some too: in the morning I just hand him over to mom or dad in the next room and go back to my room, instead of calling them and waiting for them to come over; and I don’t have to worry much about cleaning here, or cooking at all. But I really miss R, I miss our nights together when he comes home and it’s just us and Baby, and I think Baby might miss it a little too- the first night or two, he was saying “Dada” a lot. but I was talking with R tonight- he comes by my parents every other night or so to see us when time allows- we were talking about how since he’s been sleeping with Baby the past two months, he’s been more snappy and easily stressed, and I told him I recognized it as a symptom of sleep deprivation, because the same thing happened to me. he didn’t deny it, and I knew his nights with Baby getting woken up throughout the night were starting to wear on him, even though he wouldn’t admit it to me at the time. So me being at parents lets him get the sleep he needs, but now I am sleeping with the baby and getting woken up throughout the night again (mom/dad don’t seem to really want to sleep with baby, and I wouldn’t dare push this extra burden on them unless they like insist, and anyway, baby wants to sleep with me most of all, reaching to nurse whenever he wakes and crying for “mama” whenever he sleeps with anyone other than me). R and I both admitted tonight we didn’t really know what to do- that either R loses sleep or I lose sleep, depending on who sleeps with the baby. but he has to wake up earlier, and his job is much more physical. I don’t know. I didn’t realize, pre-baby, how important childcare was- having someone to watch the baby- it kind of directs and decides everything in the first years- things as big as your living situation.

2/25/23

Today had, unexpectedly (because I’m in the middle of a breakout), one of the best days I can remember in recent history. Most of why, I realized, was because I was expecting to feel skin pain today, but didn’t all day (I suspect this new cream, L’amarue, I’ve been using, is what’s helping, but have to use a while longer to be sure). Whatever it was that stayed my pain, I was so happy today that actual tears came to my eyes when we were just sitting in the Dunkin drive-thru after R ordered his caramel cold brew. I just felt so content in my body- nothing was stinging or aching- everything felt fine, and was so grateful for it, and was with my husband and baby going on a trip, and the sun was out and then I just felt tears in my eyes, and it was from happiness. It made me realize that all I really want from life is to be healthy (bodily) and pain-free (or at least pain-free for LOOOOOONG, long stretches), and that is enough for me to be happy. I don’t need anything else/anything else is just cake icing.

But today’s trip, we went to American Dream (the mall) near Newark, it was so cool. The enormity of it – I described it to R as “insane” and “crazy,” and I try not to use those words to describe really anything, but I didn’t know how else to say it. The highlight for me was near the end before we left, we used the restroom (there were also “family restrooms” where I guess we all could’ve gone in? but we didn’t use any of them today), and coming out, I passed a NURSING ROOM. When I walked by and noticed it, I asked baby if he wanted to nene and he said yes, and we all (me, baby, and R) went in (it was empty, which I was surprised seeing how crowded the mall was) and it was beautiful. About six different stalls, which were all divided by beautiful velvet curtains, and ornate floral strips of wallpaper, pretty low lights, and in each stall, a freaking comfy, cushiony nursing chair with a freaking FOOTSTOOL FOR MY FEET and little table on the side. I liked all the different chair colors (the footstools matched the chair colors), they were like dark teal, or magenta, a hip yellow, etc). And the little table was made of blue and white porcelain, like the good china kind. Comfort and privacy and convenience and just space to serve this special but also demanding time in my life. I sat down and put my feet up, and drew baby close to me, and we were both in heaven. I felt seen and validated just sitting there in that space built specifically for this, for us.

2/26/23

Realized today what having a child is. It’s a daily, hourly (and ultimately lifetime) test of, and simultaneous answer to, the question, “how much can I give?”