Prison break!

I am slow to adapt. It's taken me nearly 7 months to adjust to certain things about having a baby:

1. Sleep. You don't get much. Period. The end.

For a long time I kept hoping this would change. Oh, maybe tonight is the night!! Yeah right. There are some parents who smugly proclaim: Oh, my baby slept through the night starting at 2 seconds old. He sleeps 23 hours at a time. Yeah? Good for you jerk, is what I have to say to that.
Really though, acceptance has been a big factor in mood alteration on this topic. It's less frustrating if you just accept.

2. Help-take it. Don't feel guilty.

This is how parenting is bearable. With help! Friends, family, cartoons. Every day, a person needs even just a little bit of help, and by help, that can simply mean company, a phone call, dropping off a bag of cookies...

Bigger help is important too. Time off. One hour even. It makes a huge difference.

3. Live the way you want. Whether that's following a schedule or not.

Me? I loves me a schedule and thankfully, so does Leon. I tried to challenge this for a long time. I kept feeling it was too rigid and we should be able to be more adventurous and spontaneous. Phooey. We wake, eat, sleep and play on schedule and if it gets knocked off kilter, no one here is happy. So if that means the only time I have to do anything is a one and a half hour window between 2 and 3:30, so be it. I am so much happier after accepting this and ceasing to push Leon and I into doing more than we can handle.

4. A special place. Get one. Mine is the bathroom. It's an oasis. Even if I just go in for a pee, it's a moment alone to gather myself.

There is a window in my bathroom that looks out onto sky and trees. It never ceases to calm me and help me collect my thoughts. In the early morning, the leaves blow gently in the dawn light. At night, stars peek through the leaves and the moon shines if it's the right time of night. In the afternoon, blue sky beams above the trees. No matter how withered or outside myself or tired I feel, I look out that window and my shoulders relax, my head clears and I take a deep breath and think: The world is big and life is larger than this moment.

I especially love this window at night. I wake up numerous times with Leon still. We nurse, I rock him to sleep and then I go pee. In bed, I always feel like: good lord, do I seriously have to be awake right now? When I get to the bathroom though, I look out the window, the leaves may be blowing or they may be still, the sky may be speckled with stars or it may be clouded an opaque navy blue, either way, I think to myself: What a lovely night. How nice to be here noticing how calm and quiet the night is. And then I go back to bed, knowing that it's not all for naught. This is a capsule in time, my life right now, but things will change. Things will expand.

5. Leon. He is awesome.

Everyday he grows a bit and everyday it's rewarding to see him do his thing. I'm excited for each new thing he has to learn or discover and it pivots me forward. It takes a while for this to kick in. At first, babies just lay around and don't do a whole heck of a lot, but then all of a sudden, they start blossoming into giant, vibrant flowers of humanity and it's pretty groovy to help them get there.

Sometimes I wonder if this is how prisoners cope. It sounds terrible to equate the two, but I wonder. This going day by day, moment by moment way of life...finding small things to focus on and looking toward the future...also, the whole, having a small window to view a piece of the world with. Luckily, my window doesn't have bars on it and I am not incarcerated. I just have a baby that slows down life and brings in the scope of things for a while. I didn't know how to dig it at first, but I think I'm starting to get it now.