Space-time
Nombre trente-trois / #33
I’m never really sure what day it is. This reminds me of one of the monologues from the Fight Club movie, but seriously in being the sole caretaker for an infant - I am never really sure what day is actually is. As you can imagine this makes thing difficult to get done. I don’t know how many times I have to stop and restart certain activities. I also have to break up small tasks into even ridiculously smaller tasks. Days go by in 2-3 day chunks that feel like one really horrible day - for months . I honestly don’t even care about eating I just know I have to in order to breastfeed. I don’t know why he’s crying MOST of the time and that feels really embarrassing to me for some reason because people have perpetuated this idea that a mother always knows her baby or you have some supernatural intuitive womanly knowledge but it’s not true. Scientifically. I read a research article that suggested otherwise. They had women (and men I think) listen to different baby cries and guess the need from their intuitive knowledge of a baby. Their guesses were mostly wrong. So if you are struggling with this strange expectation on yourself - don’t. Babies cry and you just go through the list of things to do (only using the knowledge of what happened in that day) for example their diaper or clothes are wet - I’ll change them or it’s been 2 hours since they ate- I’ll try to feed him again etc. By the way showing up after everything’s been sorted is very annoying and not calming. It spikes my blood pressure. I’d rather be left alone in the few moments of calm I get a day. One of the hacks I’ve been using is taking the baby out for walks in the stroller. I get about a 30 minute break from him trying to touch or eat anything dirty or dangerous or constantly falling and hurting himself. He’s strapped into the stroller . He enjoys nature . (We have a lot of beautiful large trees in our neighborhood.) He gets to be outside and he loves outside. He gets to say hi to people and kids and trees and cars. He usually enjoys . He sometimes just zones out peacefully. It’s a win-win for both of us as research has also shown that being in nature has a more calming effect than taking a Xanax. I try to do this once a day and if I’m lucky - twice. I know I sound like I’m complaining and I said I wasn’t going to do that . I just felt I needed to explain why I pop up and post 3 times and then no post for 36 hours. Often times I have already written the post but I fell asleep before I posted it. Or I started it but had to stop because of a minor baby meltdown situation. Also to just remark on how it’s such a strange phenomenon to experience 2-3 days as 1 day - it’s very trippy and I’m definitely “tripping “ lately .
