goodatnothing

Right now, I feel like I’m failing at everything. This sounds incredibly dismal and dire but for the most part, I am only stricken by a lightning bolt of anxiety and despair 1-2x’s per day. Most of the other time, I’m swimming around and flailing and washing bottles by the sink or scribbling more to-do’s that I’ll forget in five minutes.

I’m not really sure what I do most days—seems like laundry gets done occasionally, I empty the Diaper Genie when it’s full 5 out of 6 times and my gas light has been on since Tuesday. It’s simply utter chaos and we’ll wake up and do it all again tomorrow.

If my brain were a shoebox, there would be no shoes in it. The place feels totally empty. I feel like the best example of the emptiness is this: I have no desire to read or forage for good books. Thank God Lisa and I walked into River Run today and she pointed to a book “This book is amazing” and so I bought it. That’s what I need. A best friend handler who shoves things into my hand and says “This is for you.” It would be fantastic for food, workouts, books, anything.

My other friend said Tired is your new friend. I was railing against that for a while. But what if I take a supplement? What if I eat really well? What if I go vegan, go pescatarian, go Atkins, go something. Can I evade Tired then?

Nope.

Tired crept into my shadow and we are Now One. I knew it would be this way but I didn’t know it would become the marrow of my bones. And you can’t run from the marrow.

Somehow, new parents are allowed to operate heavy machinery — drive cars and such — and sign legal documents. Doesn’t everyone know we are not of sound mind and our fine motor skills are toast?

Anyway, right now my finest skill is smiling at the baby and not losing my car keys, and perhaps that’s the best I can do right now. In fact, it is.

A Supposedly Peaceful Experience: Walking with a Baby

The baby is crying for you but you’re trying to pack the stroller for your immensely peaceful fabulous morning walk. You need

• a pacifier

• a bottle of water. this is the only water you’ll drink all day and you’ll chug it desperately at traffic lights while you’re waiting for the crosswalk sign to blink on and if it happens to blink on the second you touch it and you don’t have those three minutes to wait, you won’t drink any water all day.  

• hand sanitizer

• a muslin cloth: when the sun threatens to hit the baby’s sleeping face, you’ll frantically drape the muslin cloth over the strollers sun shade. But you can’t drape it when she’s awake, otherwise she’ll lose her mind. She needs to be asleep with the sleep of a thousand dreams in order for this to work. 

• clothespins to pin the muslin cloth

• a snack. this is the only snack ull eat all day and half of it will fall onto the ground and fall through the sewage grate so even if you wanted to employ the five second rule you can’t. 

These items are surprisingly hard to gather and you’ll think “I should really procure and prep a little stroller go-bag so I’m always ready!” You’ll think this every time you’re prepping the stroller for about two months until you just accept that you’ll never procure a stroller go-bag. 

An hour later, you’ve amassed the goods. But it’s taken so long that the baby is hungry again, and as you’re feeding her, you feel a blowout ensue, the telltale warmth on your leg, so once you’ve fed her third bottle and changed her for the eighth time and changed yourself as well, you strap the baby in and, you’re off! 

Ahhhhh. 

She’ll get some good sleep today! you cluck.

The birds are chirping, the motorcyclist is revving the engine, the barge is honking its horn and an ambulance is bleating it’s siren. Each time the baby’s eyes flutter to close, one of these sounds launches itself across the air and she is jostled awake again.  And so the baby bucks sleep for the next 20 minutes then wakes up and cries to be fed but you forgot a bottle so you lift up your shirt while perched on a decorative rock on someone’s lawn and pray they aren’t home. 

Now you’ve got to add another 2 miles to the trip because baby finally fell asleep but your plantar fasciitis is flaring up again so you clutch the stroller like it’s your lifeline. The whole point of the walk was for her to sleep. but at this point the sun has gotten higher and so every path available, every turn you make, the sun is in her eyes and she opens them and starts to squawk. 

Defeated, you limp home and attempt to bring her inside—her eyes just closed!—but you accidentally bang the car seat on every possible wall and doorway and she awakens indignantly and you stare at each other.

Your eyes plead Please sleep. You watch praying that her eyes get heavy but they zing open, the size of pogs, and you know it’s all over. 

And people ask how things are going and you say we take lots of walks, it’s so nice! because you forget.

Ah how we forget.