Signs

So the Manling turns 1 in 6 days. What a wild rumpus the last year has been! I look at him everyday and see the little boy-child he is morphing into, and the sweet little infant that I cradled in my arms is fading away. I try to consciously remember these days, and I am very very glad that I took pictures almost every day this last year. I have recently put away (completely: washed, folded, "spacebagged," boxed up, and directed Mark where to stash) his 0-3 mo baby clothes, and have a whole stack of 6-12 mo clothes to do as well.

The weather has turned distinctly autumnal and the crisp days are kind of a welcome relief to those hotter than hell days of the summer. But still the seasonal change makes me sad as it always does. I just really do not like being cold. My lower core body temperature means that I will have icy-cold hands and feet and will have to wear sweaters for the next 7 months. I was trying to remember the weather that happened last October. I remember the 2nd as a very warm, t-shirt an maternity capris sort of day as I met Mark at work for a surprise lunch. But I can't for the life of me really remember anything after I delivered. I remember some days of sunshine, but only from the rays of sun shiny through the windows. I know we dragged the Manling out as much as possible, but I can't remember anything particular. I just remember the days getting shorter and my life being stretched out so that time crawled. I remember thinking I knew nothing about being a mother and not knowing what to do with an infant. I played WebSudoku and surfed the internet reading mommy-blogs, while the Manling slept on my lap or I gazed at his tiny face in his swing. I remember crying everyday when Mark would get home, just letting myself express the feelings I kept bottled up inside all day, trying not to let my oblivious infant know how overwhelmed I was. I remember feeling that my body would never stop bleeding nor recover from the incontinence. I remember the grief. Oh, do I remember the grief I felt for the person I was before: the scholar, the go-to-girl, the lover of live music, the drunk. I felt like such an inept failure; I had never even had an entry-level job in my chosen job field, I had a degree and 9/10ths, I wasn't contributing to my household. I felt like such a dependent little girl/housewife rather than the educated independent woman that I was, and am. I remember feeling emasculated, or whatever the female equivalent is, by having a man take care of me. I demanded and summararily received a direct-deposit "allowance" to partly alleviate these feelings. I remember hating Mark because I was now forced to wash the dishes, do the laundry, and do the housework all by myself when all I wanted to do was lie on the couch and cry. I remember Mark trying so hard to understand my grief, my confusion, my despair, and my still wildly out of control hormones. I remember the 2 hours twice a week when I went to my last class at college, bringing the Manling about half the time, and listening with pride to everyone ooh and aah over him and how quiet he was as we had lectures.

I was just thinking about those first few weeks when my friend Jessica had her baby, and I sent her a cautious email telling her about the need to grieve, and how the first three months are like triage and merely survival, and all these memories came back to me. Man, those first weeks were hard. And the lack of sleep! I can really relate to the use of sleep-deprivation as torture.


And despite all this, or maybe because of it, I'm still desperately, soul-searchingly anxious or eager or whatever to have a second baby. Goddamn the lack of libido. I can't make the Manling wean; he and I both love breastfeeding so, and I'm not going to pressure him to stop, even if it means I have to wait a while longer to hold Old Number 2 in my arms.