June 27, 2012

“When Poop is No Longer a Gift”	“Oh, No…”
BC didn't sleep well last night. At all. The little sleep he did get was restless. We co-sleep and bed share so BC having a restless night means we did too. I woke up exhausted and, naturally, I had an important work meeting today that would have been nice to be well rested for. I was bemoaning the fact that I'd not gotten much sleep when I ran across the above graphic.  I'll give you a minute to read it.  Okay. So here's the part where I'm supposed to say that I read those words and my exhaustion from the night before seemed insignificant; that the sleepless night was of little consequence because of all the blessing inherent in motherhood. "Children are miraculous." But I'm not going to say that.  See, I do believe that children are miraculous. And I know that the blessings inherent in motherhood are too numerous to count. All that doesn't change the fact that I am exhausted. I think a lot of attention gets paid to all the mushy stuff that is part of new parentdom. And while that's all well and good (believe me, I spread quite a bit of the mushy stuff too. Just read these blog posts...), it's not all there is.  I once heard an interview with a new parent who was talking about the "babymoon" phase of parenthood and about how, eventually, that ends and life begins. Her way of putting it? "When poop is no longer a gift, you know it's over." Yeah. When the exhaustion is no longer a gift...     I'm not going to write about how I love even the sleepless nights because it means I get to see my son's eyes light up a few more hours that day. I'm not going to do that because I like sleep. I don't think that makes me a bad parent, just a real one. I think anyone who says they never had a night when they wished their kid would just sleep is either lying or delusional. Because my kid is pretty new and I've already wished for that - more than once.  But, and you knew there'd be a "but", I wouldn't change my life right now for the world. Know why? Because my child truly is miraculous.  -M	Version 4.0 is taking on the big brother role quite nicely.  I have to admit we weren’t sure because for nine and a half years he was the baby and embraced that role whole heartedly. He loves holding SJ and talking to him.   They all do really, but there is something so sweet about listening to 4.0 talk baby talk to SJ. This evening I asked him to come talk to SJ while I put some laundry away and did a few chores.  I listened to the conversation that went much like this. “Hi baby.  How are you baby?” “aaaahhh” “Did you have a good day?” “naaaaaaaahhhhm” “a bo bo bo bo bo. I’m gonna get your foot a mah mah mah” “naaahh ahhh” Then I heard gut wrenching laughter.  I had a feeling I knew what had happened.  4.0 was cracking up!  This laughter was broken up by the following phrase repeated throughout. “Oh no!  Did you make a stinky?” Yes SJ provides much entertainment for a young boy who thinks that burps, drool and poop are very very funny things! ~A