No doubt the day would have receded into the fuzzy-headed distance of a sleep-deprived decade except for the fact that a picture exists.
Back then my long dark tea-time of the soul began in mid-afternoon. Having already been awake since 5am and expecting no adult company until at least 6pm, the afternoon hours stretched out in a crushing monotony of nursing, diaper changes and — I prayed — naps. On the days my first-born chose not to nap, instead preferring to spend her time complaining about the various indignities thrust upon her by a pitiless world, my despair at not being able to give comfort made the idea of quietly placing her car seat outside the back door and retreating to bed forever seem perfectly reasonable.
On this particular day the child was bent on being nursed almost non-stop, interrupted only by ten-minute naps spent entirely in my arms. Such a novice was I that putting her down seemed impossible, so we spent the day on the couch with my shirt hiked up and her rapacious mouth never more than a few inches away from the food source.
I don’t know what prompted me to take her picture. In it she looks just as miserable as I remember the day being. She’d required so many changes of clothes that I finally gave up and left her in only an undershirt. By then she’d nearly outgrown the three-month size; the shirt she sports in the picture stretches tight across the belly and is stained around the neck with spit-out iron supplement and spit-up milk. Utter exhaustion shows on her face. Even her usually ebullient black hair drags flat and scraggly across her head.
This picture appeared in my head the other night as the boy fought against sleep after having brought home from school the year’s first cold. He was miserable; even pain killer, cough medicine and a couple hard-fought rounds with the nebulizer couldn’t eradicate his cough or allow him to breathe. I put him in my bed, more willing to catch the bug myself than to expose his sister to an all-night hack fest. Surrounded by his stuffed animals and enclosed in my arms he thrashed. Each breath was accompanied by a piteous whine.
This is going to last all night, I thought, certain that neither of us would get a bit of sleep. As my crankiness approached that of my sick boy I remembered the day nearly ten years before when I’d felt so annoyed with his sister, and I wondered why I’d grown so impatient with her. What else did I have to do but comfort her and nurse her? My attention wasn’t divided amongst additional children. I worked no other job. Laundry then was light, at least by today’s standards. And the husband surely wouldn’t have minded picking up tacos or burgers for two on the way home from work. What was my problem? Had I really been so selfish then that I couldn’t happily spend a day — only a day! — meeting her needs?
I stroked the boy’s head, listening to his gradually quieting cough. As he fell into a hard sleep wedged against my stomach I wished I could do that miserable day with my daughter all over. I’ve grown used to the guilt that of necessity I can’t give the other children the focused attention once reserved for the first-born, but maybe I’ve been thinking about it all wrong. While it’s hardly debatable that they get less alone time with me, perhaps my care for them is better.
Perhaps.
So mote it be. Amen.
i can only hope the same is true for my own three. Though i was a SAHM with my firstborn and second born, but have not ever been with my third, i can only hope i learned something the first two times around that makes my parenting of her BETTER, even if the quantity is not so much as they got.
As to your guilt from your impatience, remember that a baby’s cry is the most compelling and demanding sound a human can make to other humans.
Our daughter, our firstborn, seemed to do nothing but eat, sleep, poop, and cry her first year. I still wish we could have found the source of the pain and helped her. It seemed as if we tried everything. If our son had had the same first year, our sanity might not have survived.
I am the first child and my sisters whine about my getting to do things that they cannot. One thing I’ve realized over the years though is that I may be able to everything first but they will always get to do things better than I will. My parents are human and are not perfect, although they certainly try. Hopefully, your oldest (and you) will learn to cut you some slack and know that your heart is in the right place.
‘Eat, sleep, poop & cry’ seems to sum up the first year completely.
Expecting more seems unrealistic.
Yes, exactly. The same four things apply to the baby as well. :)
But when you tell this to new parents, they promptly ignore you. “My baby will be different,” they think.
This is, I’m convinced, the only reason humans are still on the planet.
I was totally ambivalent about circumcision, but this? I’m SO glad to be a second child rather than first. My older sibling “broke in” my parents, I am less “messed up” because of it. At the same time, we were nearly a decade apart, so essentially an only child, I get none of the sibling support those closer in age have. (Of course my parents were also a decade older by then too.)
Perhaps? Definitely.
That was a beautiful entry.
still you can bring a tear to my eye when no one else can… Your writing is amazing.
Thanks guys. I appreciate the kind words.
I love the reference to Douglas Adams. One of my favorites of his, after the first of those, Dirk Gently, Holistic Detective.
PS– Kids are hard. Harder when they are the first and you don’t have a clue as to all you are supposed to do.
As for her, she is fine, I suspect, from all you say about her. Didn’t even notice the neglect! :)