Chair sleeper

  

Temple falls asleep in her bottle feeding chair.  Like a drunk on a Lazy Boy, the sated T dozes in her Maclaren.  You should see the empty bottles of breast milk strewn around her.  I think she needs meetings.  This type of thing is hereditary; Temple comes from a long line of chair sleepers. 

Premonitory dreams

I might be psychic, or maybe a prophet.  I have dreams that predict the future.
In college, I dreamed who the new director of the student run coffee shop would be before anyone told me.  I actually dreamed that Adam, one of the people who would chose the new director, told me who they had selected.
In 2006, I dreamed that Joe's wife was 7 weeks pregnant, and she really was.
In December, I dreamed that I had a c-section, and that they had to use general anethesia, and I slept for 3 days and never got to meet the baby.
I did get to meet my baby; in fact, I see her all the time.  But, as I have written about before, I did have a c-section, they almost had to give me general anesthesia, and I was in a fog for my whole stay in the hospital.  During the handful of moments I have had alone since T was born, my mind has consistently wandered back to her birth, and how difficult it was.  It didn't go as I imagined it would.  I thought I would deliver in a bed, sitting up, intensely but quietly pushing and breathing, an angelic glow on my cheeks, a crystal tear running down my temple, and she would be born and we would look each other in the eyes and instantly know that we were meant to be.  Then the violins would start up.  Then, the birth went the exact opposite way than I expected.  I had surgery, which was the very last thing I wanted to do, I didn't get to hold her for almost an hour, I was drugged up, sick, in pain, exhausted, I had trouble nursing, I cried for 3 days, and so on and so on.  I said I was prepared for it to go other than I imagined it, but based on my reactions after the fact, I clearly wasn't.  I didn't think I was the type to have rigid expectations for birth, but I was, and now I know that about myself.  I should pay more attention to my dreams.  Although, these days, my dreams are mostly about nursing.  No symbols, no metaphor, just reliving the events of the day.  They are the dreams of a dog.  Or a cow.

I thought about the army

Reasons Temple can't join the Army:

• too short
• doesn't speak English
• can't do a pull up
• dietary restrictions
• soft head

The Sads

The following are some items that give me the sads:

• The Wire is over.  I was a latecomer to The Wire.  I am a latecomer to many outstanding TV shows, mostly because I don't like new things.  Like, Matt got the first season of The West Wing on DVD when we moved in together in 2003, and I bitched and moaned about how much it sucked.  This is because the first and only episode of WW I had seen was a "very special episode" that aired right after September 11, 2001.  The characters all have monologues wherein they educate the children about Islam and prejudice.  I thought the show was a little preachy.  I finally gave it a shot, though, and I have now gone through the whole series literally dozens of times.  It was like that with The Wire, too.  I don't think I watched one episode live.  I prefer to watch whole series in marathon form.  It's just my style.  I don't like the suspense.  Anyway, I've watched  The West Wing to death, and I really didn't want to do that with The Wire.  Matt and I watched it over the Christmas Holiday, and we started it up again when the baby came home.  We finished the last episode of season 5 last night.  It makes me terribly sad.  These past few weeks, when I am feeling exhausted and frustrated and blue, it was so comforting to sit next to my husband and watch the Baltimore murder police solve the case.  Season 5 is my favorite.  I won't get into a discussion about which season is the best, because there is no best, they are all outstanding, it's just that 5 is my favie.  I'd make the argument that Scott Templeton, the dishonest reporter, is the most irredeemably despicable character in the whole series.  The man has no code.  Anyway, it makes me sad that not only is the series over, but our most recent run through of it is over, as well.  What are we supposed to watch now?  I'm open to suggestions.
• The Cluck U near us closed.  Cluck U has delicious boneless, skinless, buffalo chicken breasts.  I didn't appreciate this until I was pregnant, and by that time, the Cluck U that was 10 minutes away and delivered to our house (!) had closed because they hired incompetent teenagers to run it.  Seriously, once they delivered to our house when we hadn't even ordered.  We still took the wings, but that's no way to run a business.  Now, we have to go all the way to Parole to get the fix.  That's 25 minutes away.  
• Flagler is rubbing his butt on the carpet again.  That only means one thing: the pug needs his anal glands expressed.  
• My weight loss has slowed.  I lost 25 pounds in the three weeks since Temple was born.  Now, I acknowledge that most of that was baby and baby's house, but it still felt like an accomplishment. Between last Sunday and yesterday, I gained a half a pound.  This means, of course, that I am going to be a dumpy overweight hausfrau for the rest of my life.
• I had a C-Section.  I still can't believe that I wasn't able to give birth the old fashioned way.  I suppose it was the right medical decision, but I feel like a failure.  I feel like I missed out, and if I had done something differently, I may not still be recovering from Temple's birth, and caring for a three week old would be just a little easier.  Not to mention I now have a classy scar.  The surgery went perfectly, and I am recovering very well, probably better than average.  I know that the important things are a healthy baby and healthy mamma, and I have that, but I can't help it.  I have regrets.  

I think I am supposed to be making a list of things I am grateful for everyday, rather than a list of things that make me sad.  That'll be my next post.  

Stef made me do it.

I have submitted.  I had a baby, and now I'm writing a blog about her.  Damn me.  

She is 11 days old.  Her father turns 33 today.  So, in May, our family will have Temple's birthday on May 1, Mother's day whenever that falls, Matt's birthday on May 12, and my dad's on May 18.  Which of us 4 will be wearing conical paper hats, though? 

Temple looked like an elf when she was born.  Now that she is gaining weight, she is beginning to look more like Matt.  Since we started trying to have a baby (almost 3 years ago), I have done a lot of reading about babies and pregnancy.  One of my favorite sharable facts is that babies tend to look like their fathers when they are born.  Check out your own baby photos if you don't believe me.  A drunk Japanese man in Vancouver once shouted, as my mother and I walked through the gaslight district, "ah, mazah and daughtah rook a just arike," but if you see my baby photos, I look like Tobey, not Danielle.  This is nature's way of keeping fathers from eating their young, and I think it is elegant.  Maybe I just want Temple to look like Matt to validate the evolutionary poet in me.  She has my hair color, and my cleft chin.  The nurse at the hospital told us that she recently learned that if a baby has a cleft chin, one of her parents has to have it.  Then she told us that she learned that on Gray's Anatomy.  Comforting.  

Gotta go.  Baby's crying.