I’ve had this same crud for a week now. The kids started it, and it’s a bug that adults rarely seem to get. C had a mercifully mild case, the cousins passed it around, and I have it. Yipee!
I’ve been moaning over feeling so bad for so long until this morning. It occurred to me that if baby GA – at 3 1/2 weeks – had it, I would have gladly traded with her to make her well. So really, I got my wish, or would have.
So it’s good that I am sick, then, right?
It’s hard to believe that C is going to be three in a week. It’s even harder to believe that she has a little sister.
One thing I love about newborns is how they turn your entire focus onto family; really that’s all you can do.
Today I hope to sit and hold the baby. I hope to read some and maybe clean some. And then I’m going to hold the baby some more and play with the toddler.
This morning I had my first up-early-with-the-baby day since GA was born. Since Katie is Super Mom, she does the bulk of the sleepless duties, as she did with Charlotte. But occasionally I find myself up at ungodly hours with a baby.
Anyway, that’s all a preface to saying that I didn’t realize until this morning how wonderful that one-on-one with the baby, everyone-else-in-the-world-is-asleep feeling truly is.
And it is, although I’m still hoping tonight will yield more sleep.
Honestly, I’m grateful that I got a week off from work when GA was born. And I’m grateful that it’s easy for me to take off a half a day as needed to go to early pediatrician appointments.
But one week really wasn’t enough. And every day as I leave home, kissing Katie and GA goodbye, and walk out the door I feel sad (it does help that C comes with me – it helps A LOT).
A major benefit of maternity leave is bonding. Katie gets to sit in a chair and hold our child while they get to know each other. And I really wish I could do that, too. I want to sit in that chair and think only of this new person in our lives – this person who will forever change who we are as a family and as individuals.
And I don’t want to try to focus on anything else when I should be at home with my family.
I hate it when people say “I’ve been known to,” as in “I’ve been known to eat corn on the cob without buttering it” or “I’ve been known to shift straight from third gear into fifth” as if it’s a well-established fact and documented in their forthcoming biographies.
When I was a child, I always imagined that I had a crowd watching me all of the time, and I think that’s normal for children raised by attentive parents in our culture. I’m sure most kids get to be three years old before finding out that the world no longer revolves around them.
I guess some people never learn that?
Anyway, that’s my pet peeve.
C is not having a good time lately, as Katie said. Basically, she’s been living in terrible drama for a quarter of her life. And now she is sick and has a terrible fever. She is leaning against me now, and I can feel the heat radiating from her.
Yet she is in a wonderful mood. I lean over to her to give her a kiss and she wraps her little toddler arms around me and tells me she loves me. Maybe she knows things are getting better. Or maybe she just understands how loved she is.
She’s pretty wonderful.
