The Days Are Long?

"If I don't make eye contact maybe mommy won't notice that I'm breaking the rules."

I've often heard from moms that "the days are long, but the years are short?"  As I prepared for motherhood, I was anticipating this feeling.  Years of babysitting where minutes felt like hours made me realize this adage was probably true.  But the old cliche, "It's different when they are your own," really is true.  The days fly by.

We're living right now in three hour increments which really speeds things up.  Most of my time is spent caring for Joshua.  Beyond the typical feeding and rocking, I'm also readjusting his cannula every ten minutes, looking for cures to constipation, doing developmental exercises, rounding his head, massaging his legs and belly, responding to his monitor, and performing other tasks as needed.  (Jerry does all of this too, by the way.)

While Joshua is napping, I take a look at the clock and think, "Hurry, you have two hours!"  This never seems to be enough time to shower, eat, try new recipes, clean, do laundry, floss, read, do yoga, blog, learn some sign language, go for a walk, or even finish watching that movie that we started three days ago.  Even now I'm looking at the clock and realizing that I only have ten more minutes.  I was always afraid that I would feel like I couldn't get anything done.  I'm not really getting anything done except caring for my child and I'm okay with that for now.  (I do have a million projects I want to do.  I just have to figure out how to squeeze them into their allotted time slots.)

"Help me out here.  Just a little closer."

Then at the end of a short, but very exhausting day, I crawl into bed.  I hope rather that expect to enjoy some REM sleep before the next feeding.

Lest you think that I'm saying every moment of my day is peaceful and joyful, don't be fooled.  Today, my day started at 4:30 AM, and I'm still feeling a little bitter that I haven't gotten a nap.  It seems that Joshua has mommy's-napping radar and triggers his oxygen monitor by holding his breath. I have still not done half the stuff I wanted to do today and I'm okay with that.

I know that there will be long days.  There will be days with vomiting, and tantrums, and vomiting simultaneous to tantrums.  Some days will seem more boring than others.  But the years go fast and I want to enjoy them.  And so when I'm tired or don't know what to do with a screaming child, I keep repeating to myself, "Enjoy this because it won't last." 
 

"Yeah, I'm cute.  No reminder necessary."