The Politics of Sleeping, Waking and Parenting, Part 1

Miraculously,
my husband and daughter are sleeping at the same time.

(not in the configuration they are currently sleeping, but an adorable enough pic I thought it would would best illustrate)

In the room as I now type, the only other sound the wave sound machine from Walmart I lent my best friend to help her sleep. She was just staying with us for a week, a very special time in both of our lives. Especially considering that while we spent most of our time being wild and gong out dancing in outlandish outfits whenever we could,we were both taking our first stabs at motherhood, albeit her new baby is actually a dog.

It's a long story, but to tell it shorthand, my dog Lulu (for all intents and purposes my baby before the event of my actual baby) had puppies and Farrah fell in love with a little squirrel colored one and took it on the plane with her, in a 25 dollar Walmart bag she bought this morning. ( I swear Walmart is not paying me to plug their store, though I wish they would. Apparently I spend more money there than I thought, which is what I suppose happens when you grow up an anti cooperate liberal in a town where there are various options of where you can buy things super early and super late, and then move to a town where there is only one. )

(the one on the left is LuLu)

Anyway, neither the event of Lulu having puppies nor Farrah taking one was entirely planned or entirely spontaneous. (The child stirs and fusses in the background, will she stay asleep? I wait with baited breath....)

aaaaAAAANNDDDD...she wakes. Two feedings, two diaper changes, a leisurely reading of this months W magazine while breastfeeding and a bowl of pesto pasta later (made entirely from the pantry, garden, and fridge), I return to my blog.

Oh and I have also made myself a cocktail, also from around the kitchen ingredients, and am now feeling quite fine. Especially since I handed the kid off to the now awakened Papa and can luxuriously type with BOTH hands!

and just then the baby wakes up and it's the next day before I get to get back to this.

Now the only sounds are the birds singing in the back yard and the quiet sounds of Piper breathing, thankfully fast asleep in her crib behind me.

There were a whole lot of thing I was planning on writing about as soon as I got this precious time, and now that I have it I can't think of it. So I suppose I will free associate a little bit.


and she cries suddenly. no body likes a rambler anyway...
Do I dare pick her up immediately and perhaps waste the chance that she go back to sleep?

yes. just after finishing typing the sentence before last.That's what new moms do I suppose. That and check after the babe has been sleeping for more than an hour and a half if she is still ALIVE. sigh...

moments later...
and she apparently after an minute of holding and an offer of boob drifts back to sleep...such is the way of having a two month old. Asleep...nooo awake and bright eyed!

and in a few minutes she will be crying again. and sometimes mamma feels like crying too. because, for instance, that is the sound mamma got woken up to twice last night, once at 3:30 and once at 5:30, both before dawn!

sigh...it's lucky they are so darn cute. It keeps you from throwing them off a bridge. Or yourself. If anyone knew exactly what they were in for when they have a baby, no one in their right mind would do it.

but I love her. Gosh I love her. How can you resist that smile?

I suppose I will keep her and hopefully my sanity another day.

have a great weekend.

xx jEss

ps. she had her SECOND bath today (to those of you counting, yes she has only had two baths in two months, don't judge! she's a um..."natural" baby! anyway, adorable video taken by daddy and pics coming as soon as we get a new card reader from Radio Shack)
pps. speaking of adorable and natural babies, thank you auntie Gillian for the organic cotton Kale onesie. so hip and appropriate! Thanks to the advice of midwife Barbarra Pepper, this kid was partially made out of a lot of kale!