Counting Down

There's something that happens to you somewhere in the last half mile or so of a cross country race. Your legs start to get a little wobbly. Your vision starts to get a little fuzzy. Breathing starts to get a little challenging. It feels a little like at any given moment your body will simply cease to function. Like if you take one more step your face will meet the pavement. You keep running of course--because this is high school cross country, and the finish line is at the football field where practice is currently being held and you certainly are not going to be the one who collapses in front of the guy you've had a crush on since sixth grade. Sorry, have we gone off topic? The point is that there's this part of the race where you're pretty sure crossing the finish line is a physical impossibility, but you push yourself and you force your body to do it anyway.

That's where I'm at right now. The six-week mark, where things typically start to get better, is my goal. But my legs are getting wobbly, and it's getting harder to breathe. Right now we're in between medications. We've introduced the new one (Omeprazole), but it takes two weeks to really kick in. In the meantime, we're slowly weaning her off the old one (Zantac). Yesterday was the first day we dropped one of the Zantac doses. Emma's last few nights have been getting much better, but yesterday was awful. I don't know if it was from dropping that morning dose of Zantac, or if it was the fact we actually attempted to have a normal day with activity outside of the house. Or maybe the combo of both. But girlfriend cried nearly all day. I think I spent a cumulative three or four hours throughout the day holding her as she screamed. And those were just my shifts--Matt took a couple as well. And on top of whatever she's feeling in her little digestive tract, she has a nasty heat rash covering her neck, head, and face. She doesn't sleep well unless she's swaddled, but I'm afraid to wrap her up when it's 90 degrees in here. And while I hold and rock my screaming, miserable baby all day and clean up her vomit, my three-year-old begs me to play trains with him. Needless to say, when Emma finally passed out at 9:30 last night, it was all I could do to not dissolve into tears and running screaming from my house.

To say the least, I'm ready to be done with this. I'm ready to have a happy baby who is not in pain all day long. I'm ready to get some sleep. I'm ready to play with my little boy. I'm ready to have a reasonably clean house. I'm ready to transition out of the newborn phase.

In a week and a half, on the very same day Emma will turn six weeks and Ben will start pre-school (it's also the first day of school for me, but I won't be there for another two months). I know that things don't magically become perfect and easy at six weeks. But that's when things start to gradually improve, and that's when a higher level of activity for me and Emma become a possibility. And having four hours a day where I only have one kid will prove tremendously helpful. Four hours where I can enjoy some sweet one-on-one time with my littlest Little, and maybe sneak in a nap or some reading.

And yet I want to avoid a proclivity I fall into all too often of waiting until the next thing. Of staring at the clock or the calendar and missing the life that I'm in the midst of in that moment. I feel like with Ben's first few months I was so stuck in the clouds of jaundice, hematomas, plagiocephaly, colic, and post-partum depression that I completely missed my sweet boy's first few months. All I remember is the hard stuff--I really have little to no memory of the good things, which probably were the majority of each day. I don't want to do that again. And I don't want to sit here and stare down the calendar, waiting for Ben to go to pre-school, because I don't want to miss out on my last precious week with him at home. And yes, obviously I know that the beginning of pre-school does not mark the end of my time with Ben. Obviously we have afternoons and weekends and holidays. But while there was a very good reason (the whole bed rest and childbirth thing), I feel like I lost my last summer alone with Ben, and I'm a little sad about it. And while I've tried to sneak in good one-on-one time with him while Emma's sleeping (which some days is a lot, some days is not), it's all been in the house, bleary-eyed with exhaustion, and punctuated with caring for the high-maintenance newborn. And somewhere around minute 30-45 of the nursing-burping-screaming-hiccups-puking-cleanup cycle that happens every two hours, the boy gets frustrated and tired of playing alone. And I feel guilty about that. Sure, he'll probably never remember this. But I will, and for me that counts. So I'm sad that right around the time Emma will (hopefully) be settling in to a more predictable routine with (hopefully) less screaming and puking, Ben will be off to school. On the same day I will be cleared by my mid-wife to play all I want, my playmate won't be there to play with. So all in the same moment, I'm giddy with anticipation at the coming of rest and reprieve, but sad that my summer with Ben is coming to a close.

I will find ways to make the best of it. By the grace of God Ben's pre-school is letting me take him part time until I go back in November, saving us a pile of money and giving me an extra hour before nap time to go to the park, have a special lunch, or do whatever with my guy. So we'll squeeze in special time there. And hopefully Emma will be less of a ticking scream and puke bomb at that point, so I can take the two out for dates in the evenings during the week again. That will be good. And with that few hours of just Emma and me in the morning, I will be better able to focus on Ben and actually enjoy my time with him with a little more energy.

So that's where we're at. Anticipating that Big Day, but trying to live in the moment until that time. Hopefully with less puke and screaming. Because seriously, that's gotta go.