Back when the babe was first old enough to play, do tummy time, and wasn't spending ten hours a day screaming with colic, I made a few goals/rules.
I was going to do as much stimulating, educational play as I could with him, at the very least three separate hour long sessions. We would not turn the television on during the day. I would only turn it on after 6pm, and then , only when he was nursing so it didn't damage his brain too much.
I was going to eat three balanced meals a day with him to encourage him to have healthy eating habits, and hopefully never develop the disordered relationship to food I struggled with for so long.
So my days are a lot less like my goals and a lot more like this.
5am-Baby wakes up and starts climbing and squealing. I rush him out of the bed before he can disturb my Beard too much, because he has to get up and go to work in an hour and a half. I sit at the computer and nurse the baby for forty five minutes or so, an episode of Supernatural on Netflix, typically.
5:45am: We rug up and take the dog out.
6am: I put the babe in his high chair with a toy while I make him breakfast, usual a few spoonfuls of pureed fruit and oatmeal. Between feeding bites of mush, I drink half a pot of coffee.
7am: I put the baby in the Pack and Play. He screams for ten minutes then sits and amuses himself for twenty. This cycle repeats for an hour. I scramble to use this hour to do work. The herrband leaves for work in there somewhere.
8am: I put the baby in his bouncer and shower. Sometimes I am ambitious and try to do mommy and me yoga videos from youtube. It's usually about ten minutes of frustration trying to keep the cat away from the baby and the baby away from stuffing whatever hideous thing he's pulled out of the carpet into his mouth. As soon as the big tears start and the howling begins I know it's nap time.
Nap time is my chance to get errands done and fresh air.
I strap the babe into the ergo, put my wet hair up in a bun and grab anything I can think of that needs doing, bills that need to be posted, library books that need returning, money traded for laundry quarters, whatever. I have to remember what it is while the baby struggles against the carrier and yells and sticks his fingers up my nose and in my eyes because he is crankiest right before napping.
I run out the door. Is the baby wearing a hat?
No.
Fuck.
I run back.
Put hat on baby.
Did I lock the door?
I have no idea.
I'm not going back.
If we get robbed we get robbed. I don't care anymore.
About ten minutes down the street, the baby falls into a heavy sleep, and I breathe a sigh of relief. I run my errands. If I'm feeling fancy, I buy a latte or a chai. I walk by the ocean and berate myself for not enjoying autumn more. I think about all the things I should be doing but am not. I wonder how I'm supposed to get a real job after taking a year off with the baby in a country that insists doing so indicates my laziness and unworthiness of gainful employment. I work myself up to and talk myself out of several panic attacks. Sometimes I call my Dad for help with that.
10am: Home again. The baby wakes.
Shit.
I haven't eaten anything yet today, and after all that coffee and running around I am ravenous.
Bung a banana and a yoghurt into the blender with a handful of twigs or cardboard bits or unidentifiable green shredded thingies scraped out of corners of freezer.
Drink concoction and chase it with large spoonful of peanut butter eaten directly from jar, all while baby is hanging from nipple.
Baby is really awake now and requires attention.
11am: try to do another hour's worth of work while he screams and briefly entertains himself in Pack and Play.
Noon: Strap baby back in high chair. Feed him puffs, sometimes bits of banana, or spoonfuls of yoghurt. Enjoy having my skin all to myself for ten minutes.
Herrband calls to check in. He reminds me of several things I was supposed to do today and have completely forgotten about (calling pediatrician to switch appointment date, email his mother about baby's changing clothing size, cancel this subscription to that thing). By the time the phone call and the reminding is done, I have a choice, get more work done while baby naps at boob (because he refuses to sleep anywhere else), or strap him back into the carrier and run out the door for another hour.
The decision always ends up being whatever gets the most done. If I need to do more work, then it's boob time. If I need to get groceries, or if the Beard has reminded me of an errand that I forgot to take care of that morning, then on goes the baby and out the door I fly.
A couple of times a week, I actually have nothing more to get done of a grown up nature, and I get to meet up with a friend. We get coffee, or lunch, and we walk a bit. If the baby wakes up, we play with him and I feel significantly less subhuman and lonely.
Most of my friends are still childless, however, and have exciting lives. I'm often by myself with the baby from the moment the herrband leaves until he walks through the door. There are some days that go by so quickly it's all I can do to keep up. Other days, I find myself sitting in front of the television, pinned down by a slumbering, nursing baby. I've already done everything I can think of, and my sleep deprived brain is rapidly disintegrating. I am physically incapable of napping, so I put on a movie.
I can't focus on the movie about half the time I'm watching it though because I am having terrible guilt about how none of my parenting goals have been accomplished. I am exposing my kid to too much screen time. I am not contributing enough to our household financially. I grocery shop twice a week. Food costs are stupefyingly high and somehow we still have a completely empty fridge, and I don't even buy organic!
I should buy organic anyway.
My kid is going to have three eyeballs because I am feeding him GMO infected, pesticide soaked food.
My kid is going to have three eyeballs, breasts, and be addicted to screens, and we will most likely be destitute and homeless all before his second birthday because I am a horrendous mother.
I decide I am the worst.
Sometimes this decision prompts me to read a chapter in a book I should have finished reading months ago, back when I read books quickly because I could concentrate on something for longer than three minutes. Most of the time, though, I just silently berate myself while the movie plays.
If there is any food nearby me, I inhale it because sitting still will always remind me how hungry I am. It could be a bag of chips, a bowl of fruit, or a thanksgiving turkey, if it's within arm's reach, I will destroy it.
I have become a stereotype I think.
I read the mommy blogs. I watch the clever Buzzfeed videos. I know it's all designed to make legions of women feel less guilty about not being able to live up to the shining paradigm of motherhood the media brainwashes us is the expected norm.
We're all supposed to be wearing leggings, embracing our postpartum bodies, letting our hormone addled emotions fly, whether we're in public or screaming unreasonably at our partners.
We're supposed to drink obscene quantities of coffee and joke about how we don't remember the last time we showered. We're supposed to go to yoga classes, but be terrible at them.
There's this terrifying mediocrity we're meant to aspire toward. This flawed ideal that can't be too flawed, but can't be too perfect because then you're not likable.
And maybe that's why I struggle with it so much.
I can't stand not showering. I really miss running when the weather is nice.
I hate how cloudy I feel when I'm really sleep deprived, and I hate how forgetful it makes me.
I am struggling with intuitive eating and listening to my body's cues because my body's cues do not take precedent over my baby's needs. This means that occasionally I find myself standing in front of my kid while he plays in the high chair funneling a bag of tortilla chips into my mouth because I forgot to eat all day.
Afterwards, the flush and rush of shame is the same as it always was when I was bingeing and restricting as a lifestyle, but I have to breathe and tell myself that it was my body's natural response to the situation and I am not going to go back into the depths of my ED just because I ate a bag of chips.
Then of course, I realize the baby has been screaming for the last ten minutes because he threw his spoon to the dog, (oh shit, did I remember to feed the dog today?) his diaper is wet, and I have been having a self hatred/self love stand off instead of being caretaker.
I soak in my guilt as I clean him up and change him and pour extra dog food in the bowl.
A lot of times, I can't fall asleep at night because of how guilty I feel.
Please tell me I'm not alone in this.
I'm so tired. I waited all day to be lying in the dark with my baby, in my bed. I have a solid four hours before he'll wake me up, and I. CAN'T. SLEEP.
My brain races through the day's activities playing them over and over and correcting all the decisions I made that it deems shitty.
That bill you were going to pay? You forgot it.
You watched The Little Prince instead of a documentary on climate change while the baby slept.
You didn't do the laundry.
You forgot to email your mother in law.
You baked cookies instead of making a proper lunch for the baby and let him eat cheerios while you had a hot cookie and a cup of tea for the first time in six months.
You didn't go outside.
You forgot the baby's hat when you went outside.
You got mad at your one friend who made plans with you because she forgot and scheduled a dentist's appointment for the one hour your baby was going to let you hang out with her. You want to forgive her because you would have done the exact same thing pre-baby.
You will never forgive her because you'd been looking forward to talking in full sentences to an actual grown up all week.
You picked a fight with your husband just because you missed him so much.
Sigh.
I finally fall asleep after looking at instagram for an hour to find inspiration for the baby's first birthday cake.
I am already dreaming about the cup of coffee I'll make myself in the morning.
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