Sunny Daze: The Big Bad World

When Sunny was in my belly for a whopping 42 wks, I could make all the decisions for us. I drank decaf coffee, forewent the turkey subs, swore off sushi, stopped surfing for a few months and got the flu shot / booster / Tdap shot. I was able to control what was going into us for the most part, able to keep her safe in the little swimming pool from which she kicked and punched me most often at night when a black bean burger w fries was cramping her living quarters. 

Now, she’s two wks old, and she’s IN THE WORLD. 

The idea is frightening at fuck to me and as I bounced her around our house yesterday, I realized just how helpless I am to keep her safe. 

We are doing the basic things: keeping her appointments and vaccinations, breastfeeding, allowing her to sleep, getting her outside but it all feels like so very little when there are nuclear arsenals, anthrax and the common cold looming around every corner.

I guess we just can’t think about it too much, can’t let our minds drift there. 

But I look at her little eyes blinking up at me and hear her little coos as she’s suckling or sleeping and I realize how much power she has to break my heart. 

I’d never seen her outside of ultrasounds a mere three weeks ago and now I would do anything for her, feel a love that is terrifyingly potent for her, feel my throat and chest constrict when my mind bends and thinks of losing her.

Researcher Brene Brown discusses this in her book The Gifts of Imperfection. 

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1141160-fear-of-the-dark-i-ve-always-been-prone-to-worry

I don’t know the solution other than to devote myself to loving her, to savor every moment, dwell in gratitude for her and the time I have w her, and to bravely go forward.  

Sunny Daze: Dispatches from my Time w the Babe

from Friday 3/11:

These were the things on my to do list today w sunny:

Listne to a Record / Music

Read her a Book

Physical time (Massage): https://www.whattoexpect.com/first-year/benefits-of-infant-massage.aspx

I had grand plans that instead were usurped by an all day booby buffet, a million poops and haggardly trying to stuff a bit of lasagna and salad in my mouth.

I thought I would have no time having a newborn. It’s not quite that though — I do have time. I just don’t have time when I want it. Sunny fell asleep on me for two hours—that’s two hours of “free time,” except my computer was downstairs out of reach. But the thing is — that’s ok. It’s better than ok really.

I’ve been thinking a lot about attention after spending time reading Cal Newport’s various works as well as being in the middle of Jenny Odells How to Do Nothing and my big take away is this: How we spend our attention is how we spend our life.

And right now, I want my attention wholly focused on Sunny.

I never had the inclination to have children — it seemed fairly boring and it seemed to take you out of the running of the fun adventurous things in life, at least temporarily, while you were cooking the baby in your belly and after they were born a bit too. The idea of just hanging around, taking a baby for walks, singing to the baby, tummy time, etc etc — boring, boring, boring. The idea slowly began to appeal to me as I got older—it couldn’t be that EVERYONE was wrong or lying about the joys of having children—but even when Nick and I decided to sign up for the grand adventure of having kids with confidence that we would love them and raise them right, I still wondered how I would feel in the thick of it.

Then she arrived and arrested my attention with her beautiful curious eyes, her mouth like an amoeba changing shape all the time w her reactions, her ire when she’s hungry and her peace when she’s restful. And I suddenly understood.

I’m home for three months with her — already two weeks are gone — and all I want is to know that I was truly present with her. In fact, I want that to be the case for our whole lives together— that she has my attention, that I’m here. That given the choice between nursing her and giggling at her ridiculous goat cries or missing them because I’m texting, I can assure myself that I did the former.

There are currencies of value outside of money that are challenged every day: our attention, our focus, our energy, our time. To claim ownership of our attention and proactively manage where we aim it is practically THE act of resistance in our age. 

No, we can’t all just sit and watch Sunny all day long. There are showers to take, insurance companies to haggle with, crunches to do (…in a few months) but the pockets of time that are mine to give to her, I want to know I gave her the deepest attention I could. That I didn’t miss anything. 

These three months I have at home with her I just want to focus on being g present. Whether things are going well, whether she’s screaming like a banshee, I want to be here. 

Anticipating the Great Journey, in Room 2

I’m sitting in the hospital, birthing room 2. I’ve mooned three people already but they assure me that I’ll stop noticing that stuff soon. 

One sock of mine has a hole in the heel so I feel the cool ground when I walk, though the labor and delivery ward is very warm today.

I’m at 41 wks and 3 days and the baby has mostly shown no signs of wanting to join this earthly party. Yesterday my doc did a membrane sweep to “stir up some trouble” as she called it and looks like she did. I was up all night w demonic cramps and I met my mucus plug this morning which was even more disgusting  than I was prepared for. 

I’m at the hospital for a Miso, which is the next lily pad in the steps we’re taking towards evicting my tenant. 

It’s strange to want Showtime—since Showtime involves your body cleaving into two people, lots of blood and hemroids but it’s as everyone said it would be — you just get to a point in pregnancy where you’re over it and you want the baby out. You’re ready to trade one set of discomforts for another. 

The past few weeks, as the discomforts of the third trimester mounted (the mortar and pestle grind of the baby’s head in my pelvic basin, numb hands, continued insomnia and blah blah blah more maternal complaints), I found myself complaining a lot and dwelling in a negative headspace. Work was insane-the project’s climax was pending (slated for 2/28) and every body was on edge. 

When we finally transitioned management of my project to my maternity leave xoverage person last wk, I found the quiet I needed to really stop and appreciate how I’ll be meeting and holding our baby any moment now. As happens, I was so caught up in the now and the hectic chaos of work, I hadn’t tapped into that feeling. It’s like when you plan a big trip and you only realize—like really realize—you’re going when you’re in seat 2d watching the plane’s wings cut through the clouds.

Even now it doesn’t feel quite real, sitting with the rhythmic heartbeat of our baby punctuating the air in room #2. My little kangaroo has been content to hang out in this nesty pouch for what seems like forever and it doesn’t seem real that I’ll be sweating and hollering and pushing a tiny little life out of me soon. But it’s nice to have these four hours where I’m just waiting and realizing it’s coming. It’s forcing me to appreciate that Nick and I have embarked on the big trip. That I’m sitting in 2d, that there’s turbulence coming and moments of calm, and at the end of the runway, a grand adventure or a return home.