Babymoon, Schmabymoon
Posted by: LizzieToday marked six weeks since Timothy made his debut in the Grant household. I think these past weeks are all a blur because of more than just sleep deprivation. There’s also food-deprivation, affection-deprivation, and quiet-deprivation.
I don’t know why they call it a “babymoon.” Ok, sure, that first week when you’re sore and want nothing more than to ice down your lady parts and eat chocolate cake all day, you appreciate everyone offering to help you to the bathroom or bring casseroles. Your newborn only sleeps, poops, and nurses, so you can do things like lay in bed for hours at a time while watching Oprah.
But then your husband goes back to work.
It’s just you, the baby, and a three-year-old who refuses to do eat or wear clothes. I can’t tell you the number of times my mother-in-law came over and asked Simon, “Where are your britches?” Jamie is a saint and cleans when he can, but you can fight the forces of nature…or a household full of boys.
As I sit here in the kitchen, waiting for the Lipton Spanish Rice to cook for our Mexican Dip that we will eat for dinner, I see dishes on the floor under the table, a wooden alphabet block that’s been on the counter for days, not to mention a cat waiting patiently by an empty water dish. These are but a few reminders that a babymoon isn’t anything like a honeymoon.
- You can’t drink
- You can’t have sex.
- You can’t travel to an exotic location and do #1 or #2 for days on end.
My makeup has probably expired since it sat untouched in the bathroom drawer for months on end. There is a perpetual counter covered in dishes. Lucy is always reminding me to feed her and the other cats. And a pile of clean laundry always sits unfolded in the 10-year-old papasan chair. I could control these and all of the other everyday annoyances. I could spend every waking minute folding, wiping, picking up, and scrubbing. But it wouldn’t leave me time to watch the milk dribble from Timothy’s mouth as he nurses. And it wouldn’t give me a free hand to hold an action figure while Simon’s action figure punches it.
Maybe this is a different kind of holiday. If the next few years go by as quickly as these six weeks did, I should probably stop caring about the paper that’s been on the floor in the corner of the kitchen for days and enjoy snuggling the tiny baby who will one day be too big to give me a hug in public.
