A baby is an inestimable blessing and bother. --Mark Twain
Ask my three-year-old what babies do and she will respond with some varied order of, "They eat. And they sleep. And they poop. And they cry." It's such a simple life plan that anyone should wonder what could be so difficult about newborn care? At five weeks postpartum with my second child, I'm submerged in the absolute rule of a tiny, helpless being--an experience that so easily and utterly faded from memory after my older child's infancy melted into toddlerhood. Overall, I would say this second trip to the circus has been much easier--in that my husband and I are not bat shit crazy over every hiccough, sneeze, and gas pain cry. There is, however, an attention demanded that is completely exhausting and that, if I'm being completely honest, sometimes invites the question, "Why did I want to have another child again?"
"Breast is Best," They Say . . .
Breasts are a scandal because they shatter the border between motherhood and sexuality. --Iris Marion Young
Let's just begin with the breastfeeding. This mission, should you choose to accept it, enslaves you to the time frame of a teeny gastrointestinal system. Every 2-3 hours, and at times more often, the baby needs to be fed. There are women out there who have mastered the art of public breast feeding. I am not one of those women. The thought of being caught in public and having to feed my child is so unappealing to me that I will, at all costs, make sure it does not happen. I remember a couple of wretched occasions wherein I had to nurse my firstborn in the car. This time, I have planned my outings and ignored a screaming infant in order to be able to nurse in the privacy of my home. To those women who can throw a blanket over their hungry baby and proclaim to the world "To hell with it," I salute you! You make me and those around you uncomfortable, but I salute you nonetheless.
Sleep No More
The best cure for insomnia is to get a lot of sleep. --W.C Fields
I have a theory that the true reason for Lady Macbeth's insomnia (and subconscious fascination with milk) was a restless infant that Shakespeare forgot to tell us about. The decision to nurse also means a decision to be sleep deprived. No one can feed your child in the middle of the night for you. This is not to say that midnight and early morning feedings are not disruptive to my husband's sleep--I'm sure they are--but it's not nearly the same level of disruption, right? It's the difference between being aware of the screaming child at the back of an airplane and actually having that child sitting on your lap. I'll admit it--I LOVE to sleep. It's one of my favorite things to do. At present my rest is broken with 3am and 5am feedings--motivated only with necessity and made bearable with I Love Lucy and The Golden Girls reruns. And while "sleep while the baby sleeps" may be words of wisdom to help someone avoid the insanity of sleep deprivation--I don't know how anyone with an older child or house to run can actually follow this advice. Therefore, mom's increasingly nutty, but the bills are paid and laundry smells great!
**I will mention here that in neither of the two areas above have I ever garnered sympathy from my parents (who, incidentally, had FIVE children over the span of 11 years). On a visit to Virginia during my oldest child's infancy I remember my mother, after a pronounced "Ugh," asking "How long are you going to do this [read: breastfeeding nonsense]?" Evidently, she was tiring of the backward planning required when adhering to a command feeding schedule. On the second point, I recall her saying around the same time, "Well, you kids either never cried in the middle of the night, or we never heard you." God bless the stock of previous generations.
There Will Be Poop
Politicians and diapers should be changed frequently, and for the same reason. --Eca de Queiros
Having successfully potty trained my daughter months ago, I did not begrudge the loss of diapers. The infant tyranny emerges in this area for a few reasons, but not the least of which is the dreaded diaper rash! Along with hunger and gas, this affliction must be in the top five reasons why babies cry--so, the call to change the diaper is frequent. To all those moms out there (there must be a few of you!) who choose to diaper your child with cloth, I again salute you and your efforts to save this planet as I simultaneously counteract your benevolence with every 50-pack of disposable diapers I burn through. I realized with some horror yesterday that we had ONE diaper left in the house. To feed, dress, change, and load up the baby in time to drive to a store and buy another pack before he needed to be changed again was not within the realm of possibility, so I enlisted the help of my angelic mother-in-law who ran to Walgreens for me :-) Thus, the tyranny extends itself beyond this kingdom and into the universe at large.
Cry Me a River
I don't know why they say "You have a baby." The baby has you. --Gallagher
They say "Misery loves company." Well, being an infant cannot be easy. Let's just take the journey out of the womb, for starters. You leave a place that's warm, dark, cozy and quiet. A place where you float in euphoric dependence--where all of your needs are met without the slightest bit of effort. You enter into a place that's freezing cold, blindingly bright, horrifyingly open, and disastrously loud. And if you've been born vaginally, all of this has been achieved only after you've banged your head a few hundred times against a wall and then squeezed out of a hole one-tenth the size of your body. All of a sudden your body has to WORK. Your lungs have to breathe (ouch!), your esophagus has to swallow (choke), your bowels have to move (arrrgh). You'd cry your ass off!
There's something unignorable about the infant's cry--and this is clearly to secure survival. It is the only tactic the infant has in this new abominable world. One of the weirdest jokes God played on man was to give him an utterly helpless, constantly dependent being and deprive the latter of any clearer form of communication than the ability to cry. Babies cry because they're hungry, too full, tired, bored, overstimulated, gassy, too hot, too cold, itchy, malpositioned, irritated by clothing, naked, dirty, being washed--really for any possible state of human condition that does not directly mirror life in the womb. The fun part is the guessing game for the caretaker who believes it is his or her obligation to stop the crying once it has commenced. And it's in the time and energy devoted to this quest for serenity that an infant's tyranny has the most sway. In my experience, nothing gets done as long as the baby is crying. My poor daughter has ill-timed some personal need of hers when the baby is screaming for one reason or another and has met with, "I can't help you until I get the baby settled down." In her infinite patience, she will slink off to either develop her skills of self-reliance, or wait until the hissy fit has abated. In truth, I'm not sure I could, over a lifetime of instruction, ever cultivate in her the quality of patience that a month-old infant can foster in a couple of weeks. She, like I, has absolutely no say in the matter.
So, we will continue to press on under the rule of the tiny dictator. As he becomes more accustomed to this world, his power will weaken. He will begin to socialize himself with smiles and coos, and this is truly the beginning of the end for him--as his authority will slowly but surely yield to social conformity.
