Monday, January 27, 2014

The Very Real Urge to Hibernate




Negative 24 when we woke up this morning.  59 inside the house.  Brilliant blue sky and the cold glaring down. 

You are in much better spirits, bouncing happily in your exer-saucer, opening your lips for spoonfuls of pear puree, trying to turn the knob of my nose to open my face, etc.

I am not in such good spirits.  Somehow, your father coming home from the trip felt like it should be the end of a difficult month.  But it wasn't.  The temperature is still disturbingly low.  I'm still wearing only grungy, highly washable clothing items (since you're still a snot lord).  I'm in a rather unhealthy cycle of caffeine to get me through the day and alcohol to reward myself at night.  I should have taken you walking today but somehow lugging the stroller in and out of the car, lugging my shoes and your diaper bag in and out of the car, and then circling on the grey track for the twenty minutes you allow me before beginning to fuss seemed like too much energy, too much work.  Especially because on each go-round we pass the row of treadmills and stair-masters and the co-eds with bopping ponytails and i-pod budded ears, sweating off the fat free ranch dressing they had with lunch.

Instead of walking we went to Target.  I filled the cart with boxes of Kleenex and organic baby prunes and 9M fleece sleepers from the clearance rack.  I bought a latte from the Starbucks inside and pushed you in circles and hated being the suburban mom with a Starbucks buying crap out of boredom and desperation at Target.

I feel huge and ugly and sluggish.  I feel a very real urge to hibernate.  I can almost taste how beautiful it would be.  To bed down in a nest of fur, to sleep uninterrupted until the pull of birdsong and the clash of tulips woke me in the spring.  To be gone from it all, temporarily. 

I know, too, how ridiculous this is.  Our house is warm.  We have money and jobs we love.  Kids we adore who came to us without much difficulty.  We feel safe outside after dark.  We don't fear persecution.  We have community and computers and chocolate hearts in red tinfoil.

You still despise tummy time.  You look around for a few moments and then you lay your cheek on the ground, defeated and lifeless.  This is how I feel today, sweet boy.  As though someone has put me in a position that requires a kind of strength I'm not yet certain I possess.

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