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[familyvalues]

IMAG0596, a photo by marymactavish on Flickr.

Apparently, Owen is the boy who has tiny little daytime naps, and sleeps pretty well all night.

He’s had three naps over the course of today, each less than half an hour, the last one out of desperation, in the car, on my way to pick his dad up at BART. He was talking to himself, then zonk, he was asleep.

Then tonight, I put him down to snuggle asleep with me on the bed, which was in the middle of a sheet-changing process, and now he’s been asleep for two and a half hours. When he awakens, I’ll bring him into Audrey for a nursing, but in the meantime, hey boy, I really want to finish changing my sheets.

I’m glad he mostly sleeps all night, waking every maybe two to five hours for a diaper and a belly-filling, but today I had things to do. We’re packing to move, I had laundry to finish, errands to run, and the more sleep debt the boy accumulated, the more shall-we-say extraverted he got, needing more of my focus and engagement.

So I managed. I got a couple of errands run, a load of dishes processed into and out of the dishwasher, half a load of clean clothing folded, and the sheets on my bed are fresh. And this is what it’s like for many stay-at-home moms: There’s the balance to be found between household needs and the baby’s needs. I was spoiled, during Casey’s paternity leave, and Audrey’s long maternity leave. We had all three of us to bobble the tot while someone else cooked, or nurse him to sleep while someone else ran the dishwasher. Now, though we certainly all three do chores in off hours, during the work day, I am maintaining a household on my own. I have spent a fair bit of my life wanting to raise a child for a living, and now I am. And it’s really hard work.

I did find myself wandering out of Target today having bought only a new purse (my first in years and years, I needed something bigger to tuck the occasional bib or bottle into) and a jingly baby toy. I felt so middle-american mom. At least I was wearing my faded sleeveless t-shirt that I bought at the Redwood Records Greek Theater concert in 1983. That’s got some degree of queer cred, no?

Comments

[marnanel]

These posts make me so happy.

[redbird]

I think as long as the household is you, Casey, Audrey, and Owen you've got some degree of non-mainstream if not queer cred (whether the latter depends in part on how you define queer).

[ocelot]

I was spoiled, during Casey’s paternity leave, and Audrey’s long maternity leave. We had all three of us to bobble the tot while someone else cooked, or nurse him to sleep while someone else ran the dishwasher.

I strongly feel that this is how it's supposed to be, and that our society would be emotionally healthier if it were the norm.