Mar
12
He’s gotten better about feedings but sometimes he still eats like a total freak: sucking frantically, then pulling back to wail, then sucking openmouthed so that milk spills down his neck. He’ll eat about an ounce before we both give it a brief rest, then it’s back to the crappy feeding session that leaves him soaking wet and me thoroughly frustrated. In this manner we can pass hours out of the day, it takes all of my attention but provides little reward. He barfs less but is still unpredictable with his stomach contents: sometimes they stay inside his body, sometimes they end up all over whichever nearby household item is hardest to clean.
He wakes up from long naps seemingly filled with discomfort at his lengthy rest, he grouses and yells and turns bright red and rips enormous farts. He fusses for long, draining amounts of time, and has a knack for stepping up his complaints the instant I sit down to bolt my lunch or play a quick game with Riley. He wakes up at 3 AM and refuses to go back to sleep after he’s been fed, he kicks at his swaddle wrap and makes angry buzzing hornet sounds that escalate into full-scale howls. Most nights he’ll only go back down if I put him on my chest, then he spends half the night inching slowly up towards my neck, head-butting my jaw, scrabbling at me with his scratchy toenails.
He’s got zits on his tiny chin. His scalp and face is flaky. His hair is barely there on top but longer in the back, like an old man.
He gets big meaty hiccups that send little blorts of formula running out of his mouth. He poops four or five times a day, often while I’m in the middle of a diaper change. He grunts and grumbles and squeaks when he’s picked up, thrashes angrily when held, then yells with dismay when he’s put back down.
The only smiles I’ve seen have been in his sleep or as a prelude to a trumpeting emission from his rear end.
It isn’t entirely easy to love this little creature, is what I’m saying.
And still.
Dylan is over a month old now, and there are some days when I think I’m adjusting as well as can be expected and others when I cry in the middle of the afternoon because I cannot believe how relentless this is, how frustrating and how hard. There are times when I take great pleasure in threading his noodly arms and legs in and out of little outfits because I love the feel of his skin and the wide-awake expression he gets, there are other times when doing so makes me feel mired on some dreary treadmill, irritated with him for spitting up on another clean onesie, flattened by the never-ending loads of laundry.
His charming qualities include briskly marching his legs up and down and waving his arms when he’s in that precarious awake-and-kind-of-hungry-but-not-yet-starving state, making sleepy contented “eh, eh, eh” sounds during a good feeding, sighing like a tired puppy when he’s falling asleep in my arms. He’s started making a noise that is not a cry, sort of a staccato call-for-attention that sounds like a cat’s meow. The tiny suctioning noises he makes with his pacifier tickle the insides of my ears and make me yawn and stretch.
I thought I’d be better at things this time around and in some ways I am, but oh, it is a humbling task to become someone’s mother. I sometimes don’t know if I’m worthy of it, this massive honor and burden and joy, but here I am. Here we are.
Mar
11
JB and I were watching the show “Real Sex” on HBO last night — if that sounds kinky, believe me, it isn’t; that show is often fascinating and occasionally sort of shocking but it is never sexy, unless the image of doughy hairy people doing pervy things like, say, wearing saddles, bridles, and tassles shoved in their butts in order to look like a horse’s tail turns you on — and one of the segments was on “adult babies”. In order to forcibly tear the last shred of innocence from your brain I will explain that an adult baby is someone who likes to act and be treated like a baby, which includes being fed, dressed, and CRAPPING THEMSELVES IN THE GIANT DIAPERS CUSTOM-MADE FOR SUCH ACTIVITIES.
Maybe it’s the fact that I spend my days changing diaper after diaper, but the idea of cleaning up after an adult who purposefully shit themselves in order to experience some kind of fucked-up age regression fantasy makes me want to BARF. I mean, hey, normally I’m a whatever-floats-your-boat believer — like, you want to shove leather horse tails up your ass and gallop around pretending you’re a horny Barbaro, go for it; you want to cornhole various cavities in your teddy bear so as to better accommodate your mighty man-spear, CARPE DIEM. But adult babies . . . grah. I mean, what exactly triggers the desire to wear a size XXXXL onesie and have a pretend Mommy spooning Gerber’s in your mouth and powdering your genitalia? Other than a highly disturbing childhood trauma that should probably be treated with years of therapy and possibly a strong medication regimen?
Well, I sure sound intolerant over here, don’t I, over a harmless bunch of weirdos who are probably decent taxpaying citizens when they aren’t soiling their own pants. Blame it on Daylight Saving, which sent Riley’s sleep schedule straight down the rabbit hole and filled me with utter despair this morning when after my ususal wee-hour feedings with Dylan I got up for the day and it was DARK outside. There is only so much coffee can be expected to do, you know?
In happier, less ranty news: my bathroom scale read 148 this morning, down from 153 on 2/27. I’d like to thank Turbo Jam, fat-free Cool Whip, and the unholy prune-juice/watermelon taste sensation of Tab energy drinks for this encouraging progress.
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