I used to have a life where I did productive things and went for nice lunches and had lovely pockets of me time. Those days were good but they’re gone now.
These days, I have just one goal in life – to survive from wake-time to bedtime. And by survive, I quite literally mean to exist without dying because multiple times a day, I feel like I might actually die from exhaustion. Also, as a bonus, if neither one of us spent the day in tears (that much), then it’s considered a huge, huge success.
My countdown starts at 7.30 in the morning when the baby wakes up and I watch the minutes tick by till it’s time for bed at 9.30 at night. It’s not like bedtime is some kind of welcome relief where he falls into a deep and restful slumber because oh no, it’s not. The nights are definitively worse because having to wake up to an angry baby at 90 minute intervals is a whole new level of wretched. But it just seems like bedtime is a reasonable milestone to break up my day into two slightly less overwhelming parts.
If the future me was looking at myself right now, I’d tell present me to suck it up and get it together because in 6 months, things will get better and I’m going to wax lyrical about how I should have embraced the moment.
And present me would then proceed to punch future me in the face.
Not because it’s terrible advice but because it’s exactly what I need right now. Urgh, I hate it when my smug future self is right in giving me sagely but difficult advice.
Especially since this is going to be my last baby and I’m never going to be able to breathe in that newborn baby scent once this baby stops being a baby. But then my exhausted brain tells me that I ACTUALLY DON’T CARE ABOUT USELESS THINGS LIKE SMELLS BECAUSE ALL I WANT TO DO NOW IS LIE DOWN FOR 30 MINUTES IN SWEET SILENCE. And then I feel like a terrible mother who’s not seizing the moment with my precious little snowflake.
I guess the only good thing about being in survival mode is that I also have very little bandwidth left to feel that choking mommy guilt. Ain’t nobody got time for that. Besides, I just embraced that one moment last Wednesday when Theo gurgled at me for the first time so that should last me for another week or so.
Today, I just have 9 more hours to go. And this baby face that’s so deceptively demanding.
