The baby woke up screaming, so this eliminates the hour of morning writing time I was hoping for. Instead, I offer this note I tapped out on my phone yesterday while trying to explain what was happening in my body:
The baby has been
Screaming at me since she woke up from her nap of just over an hour. I’m waiting for the Tylenol to kick in as my body is winding tighter and tighter inside with every scream, every strand of hair she rips out of my head, every time she turns her head away from the spoon I try to feed her with. I shake out a pile of “puffs” in front of her and this stops the screaming for awhile. I know she’s teething and I want to empathize, but I am tired. I have precious hours to myself these days. That’s it, two hours maximum. I’ve been waking up at 5 now instead of 6 so I can have an hour or more before the baby wakes up.
When she’s quiet I can try to regain composure. She’s very cute and funny and learning a whole lot, but she’s so fussy and needy, which means I usually have to hold her or strap her to my body in a pack. That’s okay, I know it’s temporary, but I can’t begin to explain the toll this takes on my body, physically, but psychosomatically as well.
I get a letter from a friend, the second letter from this friend. The first I meant to respond to and it didn’t happen. What am I supposed to say in a letter right now? It’s been a year of a pandemic with two small children and no childcare and taking over a business during nap time and those naps are so short now because two top teeth are coming in. Maybe it will look like: doing pretty well, how are you?
Nora Wormwood 