Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Labor Day, Birth Day

Cool and gray today.  It's Labor Day which means that most businesses are closed and the ones that are open are full of people.  We're in Minneapolis today to celebrate your sister's 4th birthday.  She wore her paper crown with the sticker jewels in the car, turning it upside down and backwards in her constant devotion to silliness.  Thisbe also reported on the status of your eyes: "They're open!  They're closed!  They're kind of open!  One of them is open!  Now it's closing!"  And Daddy reported on the status of Thisbe's feet on the back of his seat: "Stop kicking my seat, Thisbe.  Thisbe, put your feet down.  I can still feel that, Thisbe.  Stop.  Stop it now, Thisbe."


The more the tired accumulates in my body, the more the capacity for gentleness ebbs away.  Also, patience.  Baby 411, our go-to baby book, reports four kinds of baby temperaments.  40% of babies are "easy," 15% are "difficult," 35% are "mixed" and 10% are "none of the above."  (Does that even add up to 100%?  It does, I think.  But frankly, I don't have the book in front of me so I could be getting these numbers wrong).  Thisbe was a difficult baby.  No question.  You, however, are a mixed bag.  Most of the time you are either asleep or making noises that sound like a crotchety kitten.  Sometimes you make the crotchety kitten noises while you sleep.  This messes with Mommy because she wakes up and turns on the light and reaches into the bassinet expecting to find your eyes and mouth open and in search of food.  But instead you're asleep, your lips twisting around little perturbed yowls.

The point of all of this (can you tell I am tired?) is that last night Mama was up every two hours with you, sometimes when maybe she didn't need to be because you were just embracing your crotchety kitten self.  There is a very specific hierarchy of sanity that has to do with the number of consecutive hours of sleep Mama gets at night.  Two hour stretches make my mind feel like a Pollack painting or, occasionally, Dali.  Three hour stretches result in Rothko-brain.  The two times I've gotten a four hour stretch since your birth have made me feel decidedly Monet.  I cannot imagine anymore what five or six or seven hours would be like.  My capacity for imaginative metaphor doesn't go that far when I'm tired.  But  I think it might involve a scratch-n-sniff canvas and three dimensional wood nymphs. 

So the truth for today is that I am tired and I am not patient or gentle enough.  Today we are celebrating your sister's birthday and I owe it to her to be gentle and patient.  But anytime she enters a room it feels like a grenade has gone off.  All I do is say, "Don't touch the baby.  Please be gentle.  He's asleep, please don't wake him.  Not right now.  Not so close.  Be careful of his head."  Thisbe received a beautiful stamp set from her aunt Kaarn and uncle Cliff for her birthday and this morning she wanted me to play with her.  I had nursed you.  We had time.  She was sweet and eager.

And I said no.  I went up and took a shower instead.  I stood under the water longer than necessary.  I barked orders at Dada.  When you started to cry I put you in your car seat and got both you and Thisbe settled in the car so I could collect the last of our belongings without hearing your cry or your sister ask (for the 47th time) if that present was FOR HER?  After we got to Gak's house, I left as soon as I could to come here, to the coffee shop.  Today's deep dark Labor Day truth, Matteus, is that sometimes I like my life better when I am outside of it.  That today I am too tired to do the real work of love which would mean digging a little deeper for the gentleness and patience that I likely do possess.




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