If you’re looking for a coherent post, you can skip this
However long it’s been since the last time I wrote to you is however long it’s been since I had the capacity to show up in this way.
It’s ironic that the more that happens the less I’m able to document it, though I’m sure I’m not the first “mommy blogger” to make this discovery.
My son is sleeping about a foot away from me right now, which is about a foot further than he normally is. He just turned fifteen months old and I believe we will sleep in separate rooms eventually, but I don’t know when. I figure I’ll let him tell me, though I’m mentally preparing to share a bed till at least age three.
It doesn’t matter to me anymore if anyone else thinks that’s weird, although I do wish I knew people in real life who are choosing to bedshare and nurse into toddlerhood. I’m grateful for the Reddit threads and Instagram accounts that affirm my instincts with neuroscience and logic, but it’d also be nice to have an in-person friend dealing with the same situations.
Because being a human bottle, pacifier, and pillow every single day and night has its irritations, but if I complain I’m likely to receive judgment or advice and I don’t need either of those. So instead I’ve gotten good at enduring, and when I feel especially impatient I remind myself that Future Me will never regret my current choices, and I’m confident that’s true.
My son only has one infancy, and it’s not his fault that infancy lasts three years or that the society he was born into values capitalism over child care. So yeah, it feels like I’m pushing against a current, prioritizing his needs and making myself as available as physically possible while still clinging to my professional livelihood.
Though all in all, I think I’m doing pretty good. The babysitter comes for 15-20 hours a week, which is how much time I get paid to work, and after taxes and paying her I even get to keep about a third of my earnings.
It’s hard to imagine a better work situation—I’m consistently challenged but not excessively stressed, I’m paid well, and I enjoy being part of a team with a mission that means something.
Still, work nearly always requires me to be away from my son, which is a regret or a relief, depending on the day.
I don’t believe women—or anyone—can have it all, but I can’t help wanting it both ways, to be a constant presence throughout my child’s years of infancy while also retaining professional relevancy.
So working three or four hours a day and paying for 1:1 in-home child care is my compromise so far, and so far the compromise is acceptable.
But even if I’m “only” working part-time, I’m also a full-time parent and spouse and homeowner—and that last label is especially evident as we prepare to move to a new house next week. No wonder it feels like I hardly have time to breathe, much less write to you.
In the last few weeks, one of our cars was stolen, the other broke down, the baby got sick, I got sick, we went under contract for a house, we decided to rent out our current house, the baby’s main stroller was stolen (it was in the car), and the backup stroller got a flat tire.
At this point I feel pretty detached from all of that, although I did cry tonight during story time at the thought of leaving the only nursery my son has known. But, like, he doesn’t even sleep in there, and we’ll make more memories in different rooms.
Anyway, if you’ve read this far expecting a point or a purpose to this post, I’m sorry to disappoint. I just felt capable of showing up her for the first time in a long while, and so here I am.
And I wish I had more energy to tell you more. Like for example I had a temper tantrum over the weekend. It was a for-real, full-on, screaming-into-my-pillow, shriek-crying-at-my-spouse, lid-flipping meltdown.
But I barely had the energy to get through the tantrum, much less write about it or its aftermath of healthy outreach and restorative action.
And it seems similarly appropriate to share about this excellent course I’m currently taking on the topic of the Mother Wound—but again, I barely have the capacity to experience the course, much less talk about it.
I’m hopeful I won’t always feel so underwater. One of my friends with older children assures me things will get better in a few years. In the meantime, it’s interesting to discover I can breathe underwater, somehow, and really, the water’s fine.*
Love > fear,
(M)om
*If you’re not sure what I mean by “fine,” like, fine as in grand/divine/wonderful or fine as in it’s-fine-we’re-fine-everything’s-fine, well, neither am I.
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