Down the Rabbit Hole

Let's hobble away from the subject of knees for a second.

I feel a little bit like I've disappeared down a rabbit hole lately. Silas is in this "place," baby-wise, where he's not sleeping very well at night and kind of mega dependent on his naps during the day. I'm happy to report that the night sleep disruptions are due to a manic desire to roll over again, and again, and again, but it's like he gets stuck in a half push-up and can't relax until we come in to reset him. 99% of time this is my job, and 99% of the time, he cannot resist the alluring closeness of the mammaries, so I end up nursing him to get him settled.

This worked well before he got into this rolling over loop, because I would just lay down on the bed in his room and smush him up to me. Now, however, he wants to roll over when I lay him down with me, so he's caught between his desire to nurse with his desire to be on his tummy, and I have to wrestle him back into position. A half an hour of this at 12:30, and again at 3:30, and again around 5:00 means Mama is pretty freaking exhausted.

Anyway. Add a bleary-eyed mother to an equation with a baby who's demanding to nap a couple of times a day and a three year old who has suddenly sprouted horns of Satan (this could be another post), and we're not getting out much these days.

The main thing that's helping me cope with this is the memory of the exact same feeling of trapped-ness when Eva was a baby, and the knowledge that it will subside. I'm also heartened by the friends that reassure me that three is the new Hell, and that the fact that Eva can have a temper tantrum over the fact that she has to climb out of her car door rather than the any of the other car doors is perfectly normal. Both Mr. Milkweed and I have been told that she doesn't want us in the family anymore, and the other day there was a fit so bad that she pulled the drawers out of the chest in her room and flung them aside, like some kind of super-short Titan. (That was the day that I shrieked "THIS. ROOM. IS. A. DISASTER!" so loudly that Eva had her toy bears repeating the statement for a few days in some kind of trauma reenactment therapy. Oops.)

Anyway, I've got this feeling like the real Cary Milkweed has been bound and gagged in a closet somewhere, and there's this thick-limbed automaton shushing, soothing, and scolding in her place. I kind of feel like the guy stuck in the well in the Ira Sher short story on this episode of This American Life, which I highly recommend you listen to if you want to be creeped the shit out.

It will get better. I know it will. In the meantime, I'm grateful that it's spring, and that we have an enormous back yard into which I can escape with a massive glass of wine while Mr. Milkweed gives Eva her bath. Which I may or may not be doing right at this very moment.