Humbled
Forgive my previous post. Do you hear in it the pride? Do you sense my will imposed on my child's life? Do you notice the joy that I have not been completely overtaken by my child.
Forgive my previous post not because of the pride, or my will, or even my joy at still being a person- but because I blinked and thought that I was in charge of how yesterday morning went. I overlooked the reality that having a newborn means that you are at the will of someone elses needs.
After my post yesterday Junia decided she was unhappy. Though she was fed, clean, and safe (though she might have been hot our house was VERY hot yesterday) she was inconsolable for several hours. She would calm down only enough to regain all her energy into another crying fit. As I had mentioned I was very tired yesterday which meant that at each new outburst of screams my final thread of patience wore down thinner and thinner. Finally I put her in her crib and went downstairs. There is Junia crying out of frustration (or whatever it was) upstairs and there am I crying out of frustration downstairs.
Eventually Sean came home and took over for a bit. When she fed the next time she konked out and ended up having on of the best nights of sleeping she has had in her 18 days of life.
Wow, though, what an ambivalent day. A morning of feeling like I wasn't trapped by my child, a morning of feeling like life will go on and normal will start again, a morning where people swooned over my child and it made me really like her (sometimes when people are happy for me I remember to be happy for myself) and then an afternoon where I couldn't control my rage, where exhaustion clicked into irrationality, and where my new normal reminded me that there is no such thing as normal.
This parenting stuff seems like it's going to be one very long lesson in humility. This is just the beginning. Hopefully though, it will some day become normal.
Forgive my previous post not because of the pride, or my will, or even my joy at still being a person- but because I blinked and thought that I was in charge of how yesterday morning went. I overlooked the reality that having a newborn means that you are at the will of someone elses needs.
After my post yesterday Junia decided she was unhappy. Though she was fed, clean, and safe (though she might have been hot our house was VERY hot yesterday) she was inconsolable for several hours. She would calm down only enough to regain all her energy into another crying fit. As I had mentioned I was very tired yesterday which meant that at each new outburst of screams my final thread of patience wore down thinner and thinner. Finally I put her in her crib and went downstairs. There is Junia crying out of frustration (or whatever it was) upstairs and there am I crying out of frustration downstairs.
Eventually Sean came home and took over for a bit. When she fed the next time she konked out and ended up having on of the best nights of sleeping she has had in her 18 days of life.
Wow, though, what an ambivalent day. A morning of feeling like I wasn't trapped by my child, a morning of feeling like life will go on and normal will start again, a morning where people swooned over my child and it made me really like her (sometimes when people are happy for me I remember to be happy for myself) and then an afternoon where I couldn't control my rage, where exhaustion clicked into irrationality, and where my new normal reminded me that there is no such thing as normal.
This parenting stuff seems like it's going to be one very long lesson in humility. This is just the beginning. Hopefully though, it will some day become normal.
hang in there. love you. good talking yesterday.
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