Downtime and a game of sorts

Ollie & Logan this past Monday

Well, it's nearly 11pm on a Sunday night and my house is unusually quiet - both Logan and Ollie are snoozing - and I have some energy.  When I have downtime, which is a rare occasion, I never know what to do with myself and I usually end up blowing this precious commodity on chores and errands.  Tonight though is different.  I'm going to think.

Before entering babyland, I used to think.  A lot.  Maybe too much.  Since my entry, gratuitous thinking has plummeted in priority.  I mean I still think a lot, but it goes like this:

"When did Ollie eat last?  I think 1.5 hours ago.  I should feed him again and put him down for a nap.  What do I need to focus on for work?  I need to write that report for the [fill in the blank] foundation.   That's right.  And I need to ask my colleague about our contacts database.  Good.  Okay.  Did I call the electrician?  I need to get Logan to bring the drywall guys back to sand and paint.  When did I shower last?  Crap.  I need to take a shower!"

It doesn't even feel like real thinking.

Lately, I've been wanting to think, reflect.  I've been reading Lamott's Operation Manual -- which I wouldn't recommend for other new moms* --  and last night I was reading a passage that I found so perfect that I wanted to write it down and carry it around with me.  And I don't ever write down passages from books or poems.  It's been so hard to capture how I feel as a new mom without using cliches, and even when I use them, they still don't seem to do my feelings justice.  Lamott's a genius though and gets at one of the sweetest aspects of motherhood.

Let me give a bit of context: she writes in the first person, her new baby is Sam, and Peg is her friend.

"Peg had treated herself to a manicure the day before, and she told me that the manicurist had her soak her fingertips in a bowl of warm soapy water and marbles, of all things.  "What were the marbles for?" I asked.  "So that your fingers don't get bored," she replied.  "So they have something friendly to do while they're soaking.  It was lovely.  They clicked softly between your fingers, and the water was like velvet."  I've never had a manicure, but I could picture and hear it perfectly.  It made me think of how Sam is in my mind when we are apart.  In the old days, before Sam, my mind would be filled with fantasies and ambitious thoughts and terrible worry about every aspect of my life, including global starvation and the environment and nuclear power and weapons and friend dying, and now that all still goes on, but there are a lot of times in a very real sense when images of him give my mind something friendly to play with, something lovely for a change to click between its fingers."

I'm introspective.  I care.  I'm a worrier by nature and I seem to lean toward feelings of anxiety and sadness.  My brain just spins and spins, and too often swims with the fears and darkness.  But now, I have this all-consuming addition to my life and my mind gets to delight in him instead of stress or sadness or anger.  This is not to say that those feelings are gone (ask my husband, he'll tell you), but the empty spaces that used to be filled with that crap are now brimming with Ollie.  And you've seen him, how great is that?  It feels so incredibly special and is probably the reason why those close to me keep on remarking about how happy I seem.

Ollie snoozing at my office on Friday

Ollie goes for his 4 month well visit this week.  In anticipation of more vaccinations, Logan is joining me;  I feel like I shouldn't be by myself for that sadness.  Of course, this time, I'm ready with a pre-visit dose of kids tylenol.

I'm so excited to see how big Ollie is now.  He started out on the light side, at the 20th percentile, and he's been moving up the chart with each visit.  At our 2 month appointment he was in the 40th percentile and I suspect that he's moved across the average line.  I tried to get Logan to participate in a "who can guess how big Ollie is?" game.  He participated, but half-heartedly.  Do you want to guess?  At his 2 month visit, he was 12 lbs. 10 oz.  I've posted a couple of recent pictures.  I'll report back later this week.

It's almost 11:15pm now and I still have half a beer and probably half an hour before I send myself to bed.  So, I'm going to go sit quietly and think.


*LaMott is incredibly skillful at conveying the highs and lows of the first year she spent with her son and this book is very funny and moving.  I really related to the range of intense emotions that she experienced, but her lows are really low (and far lower than mine).  The fact that I related to them freaked me out.  I just didn't want to connect with her through those moments.