…to me.
She keeps growing and learning. She’s getting better control of herself. Her hands in particular:
But her feet and legs are more active too. Here’s an example. I like it also for the song that’s playing on the radio as I record:
Cameo by Lucy Dog. Veronica seems to like her, judging from the happy expression on her face.
She is 15 weeks old today. In two more weeks, she’ll be 4 months old.
I think the clock got unstoppered this week, for me anyway. It’s progressing. One more day and the full first week back at work will be unwrapped and all the things it held will be revealed. We’ll know what we were waiting to know.
Chris did the first change to the schedule that I had established today. But I guess that’s okay. We’ll survive it, and maybe it’s an improvement after all.
So, it’s thursday and the first week back at work has gone okay. I can see how this will work out. I’ve gotten through the slightly less sleep (not too bad) and the handing off of child to her father (harder, but we’re doing it). I’ve managed the gauntlet of pumping and storing milk for the little one three times a day while maintaining my professionalism.
There is one more hurdle: hitting the road. My job requires that I travel. I have to figure out a way to do this. 9 o’clock and 1 o’clock I have to attach a milking machine to my mammaries and stay that way for at least 10 minutes. THEN I have to unattach and clean up.
All while maintaining my dignity and professionalism.
I really don’t want to have to pull over at gas stations and hog their bathrooms for 15 minutes. Not sanitary or comfortable. My thoughts right now are to get a big dark sheet and throw it over myself while I do setup and take down.
The DURING I have figured out and can maintain modesty if not dignity. But hooking up needs something.
It reminds me a little of when I went camping with my family, and had to change clothes INSIDE my sleeping bag.
Big dark sheet that allows me to move around to get set up…Deep breath….it’s just what I’ll have to do.
I made it through the first day back at work. Four months ago, actually 137 days ago, I left work a swollen person, but I was recognizable to myself.
In the ensuing days between I went through permanent and profound changes. When Veronica came out of me, she had her little fingers spread out (in a way that has become familiar to us now) and she was looking hard at her hands. It’s as if she was thinking “That’s what these are! That’s what they look like! That’s who I am!”
I’ve found myself saying similar things to myself. That’s what this is? That is who I am? This is what it feels like? When Veronica was born into a new life, so was I. It was unfamiliar and terrifying. Also, it was featureless; the landmarks I had learned to use in my life up to then were nowhere to be found and I was completely lost.
I was desperate to find my way from one hour to the next–from one second to the next! I was in so much pain and so exhausted and none of that mattered at ALL because I had a very big 8 pound 10 ounce load of responsibility to carry and it was heavier than the whole world.
As a matter of fact, the world had disappeared and I was afraid I had disappeared along with it. I was ALONE.
But then people reached out to me. I was in deep dark water, but like pings to a submarine in the dark, people reached out to me and gave me reassurance. There were emails and texts and lots of phone calls when I breathlessly told all about what was going on and what I was learning and trying to do. I was trying to say how things were going to be okay, and if I said it enough times I might learn to believe it.
People who loved me listened to me and told me that it would be okay. I was lifted up by a multitude of hands and carried out to when it finally was okay. I was so needy and people gave me what I needed.
A lot of what I learned is to get past what I needed. My daughter needs me and she can’t wait for me to get around to her. I have to get over myself and what I think I need. Even what I really think I really need. Sleep? I need that. But I’ll have to not need it for a while. Food? Going to the bathroom? I need those, but they come second. Because it’s not about me.
It was SO HARD. It was so relentless.
And now, it’s not that it’s over, but I’m at work and I get a break. An 8 hour break where the need relents.
It’s Daddy’s turn now. Mommy is at work.
And I want to tell him all about how to do it right. I’ve spent so much time with her and HE HASN”T. I know how this works and I know what she needs and there was been a PLAN and things are going WELL according to the plan. I have all this hard-earned experience and skill now and he needs to hear it.
Not only hear it but APPRECIATE all I’ve learned and appreciate ME. Because I need to be appreciated.
only…i just learned that it’s not all about me. and it’s not about what i need. i don’t necessarily need what i think i need.
What I need to do is find the answer that is not about me. When Chris tells me “She cried unless I walked around holding her while we listened to the annoying nursery rhyme CD!” I don’t need to say WHAT DO YOU THINK I’VE BEEN DOING FOR THE LAST HUNDRED AND THIRTY SEVEN CENTURIES?!
I don’t need to say “If you just held her in this one way while showing her this particular toy and …and…she would stop crying!”
I need to find the answer that’s not about me.
I’m back in my cubicle. First time this year. In a lot of ways, it feels exactly the same.
I promised myself to take it easy. Usually I break that promise, but maybe I have learned something since I had a baby. I feel like I have.
I’m not stressing about being away from Veronica. I feel like her daddy will do a fine job. I worry a little more about him, that he will find it difficult. But then, I found it difficult at first too. So I am not uncomfortably worried. I”ll be home before too long.
I have a huge huge amount of things to write about. I will get around to it. For now, I am taking it easy and not pushing it.
Isn’t most communication non-verbal, anyway?
I remember when my mother and I took a walk (for homeschool P.E. credit) around the block in -20 weather. It was windy too!
A little cat was outside. This cat wanted to be inside with us. She followed us for a mile. She found our sliding door and shivered dramatically outside until we finally let her in.
Mom was resolute. It took her more than a day. But she lived with us for years. She looked vaguely Asian, so we called her Chang.
Stray cats can be very pursuasive:
Well, the cat has been with me a long time and he is old and fat. But he is a happy cat, and does enjoy a good brushing:
Today is Veronica’s 3 month birthday. ‘They’ say that after three months, she is no longer a newborn and graduates to being an infant.
She is so much more capable now, that seems right. She started out barely able to do anything, but now she can can barely do a lot of things. She very adept at crying, and also very good at smiling. For both, she’ll put her whole body into it.
When she is delighted, she’ll open her mouth into a big happy “o” and shake her head from side to side. Even her hands and feet get into the act, with her fists scrunching up and her feet kicking like crazy. All this because I tell her she’s a good girl!
She is a good girl.