I really shouldn’t sit and write blog posts after midnight when I just want to sleep. I fear I’m giving the impression that I’m unbalanced and perpetually miserable, which isn’t the case. In daylight, everything seems more manageable once I’ve had a shower and some breakfast and watched my son sleep for a minute or so (which I do every morning before I leave, because he’s just so easy to love when he’s out cold). The daylight hours are my busy hours, filled with work and, um, more work. I have less time to ruminate on my misery, and more often than not this kid is settled down low and I’m breathing fine, though we do have our moments (the entirety of Sunday I was panting like a dog, but today I feel great). At night, though, I get very lonely and frustrated, and far too frequently turn to the internet to soothe my tortured soul. Thus does my lovely new little blog turn into The Diary of a Miserable Wench, and give an improper impression of Life with the Reluctant(ly Pregnant) Grownup. (Though I should note for the record that I am tremendously irritable when at home and my husband deserves a medal for putting up with me). The wee hours are the cruelest to the insomniac, and I should get into the habit of NOT only sharing my innermost thoughts during the 12am-4am window.
Meanwhile, in non-pregnancy misery news, my mother got Jack an inflatable wading pool for this summer, and yesterday while he was napping my sister and I blew it up and put it in the backyard. It’s shaped like a crab, with an overhanging mouth sort of thing that is supposed to rain down water on the kids as they sit inside. What’s that? Did I say ‘overhanging mouth sort of thing’? Because I may as well have said ‘gaping maw of Black Doom’. Jack gave an appreciative “Ooooh” at first sight, but once we began carrying his swimsuit clad little body towards the Scary Crab Pool, and he realized that we were going to try to get him to TOUCH it and possibly get IN it, he began to scream and paw to get away. Patrick put the upper half of his own too-big body in it, which gave Jack the courage to stand about a foot away and reach wayyyy over and try to splash a little bit, but this was as far as he was willing to go.
We finally deflated the top bit and turned it into just a regular old wading pool, and after about twenty minutes he finally agreed to step into it, though he never would sit down. Good golly.
I am remembering now in his infant days how a toilet flush in Babies R’Us made him lose his mind with fear, and how my sister once did a fabulous impression of an elephant’s call (I can’t do it, press my lips together and buzz, but she’s good at it) and it terrified him. I was reading him a board book about a Dinosaur once and said RAWR, and he cried for ages. He’s not quite so sensitive these days, but I guess this is just one of those personality traits that are inborn. My quirky kiddo.
I wrote that earlier today, and am posting it now, near 11pm. I am carrying around one of Jack’s toys, a Cookie Monster that talks. He left it in the bathroom and I picked it up and I’m holding it with me, my late night companion. My little blue friend. There is something terribly forlorn about an abandoned toy, so right now I feel like we are MFEO*, Cookie and me. Sigh. Just a few more hours until the magic hour of 2am, when I usually can fall asleep. Just a few more weeks until the magic hour of labor day. I can do it. With Cookie by my side, I can make it through another night, and another day, and on.
*(Made For Each Other)