Wednesday, May 19, 2010
attention! your shoe.
when the one who's least afraid and some other girls and i were crossing the border from spain to france one day, the border guard guy--who hadn't even looked at my brand new passport, to my disgust--called out, attention! attention! as i walked by. i got all excited; something was happening. then he said, "your shoe!" which was untied. that was the border skirmish: an untied shoelace.
third trimester is sort of like attention-your-shoe. exciting stuff could be happening, but it's not, really.
people who have kids say a lot of stuff about how tired they are. i mean, i'm sure they are. i don't mean they're being big wusses about it. but it's daunting. i hate being tired and stressed out, and apparently this is what children do to you. i've heard it too constantly from too many friends and acquaintances to doubt it. it makes me fear that, even once the crazy baby part is past, what we're headed into is a life that is richer, but somehow less satisfying. more full, but more lacking--in time, in . . . satisfaction. i'm talking in circles. someone was just telling me how she feels like she never *pays attention* any more, that she used to be a better listener, and now she just has too much going, all the time, all of it important.
i can see this happening. specifically, to me. the monkey has many wonderful qualities, but keeping balls in the air is not one of them. he has not read a baby book. he has not researched bottles. he doesn't know how to change a diaper, and hasn't considered finding a class that will teach him how. i love many things about him, but it's easy to look at what's coming down the pike and think, uh-oh.
i don't want to drive this baby the way i drive our budget, drive our schedule, drive our grocery shopping. i don't want to be head parent. i don't really want to be head spouse, either, but so far, efforts to avoid it have been frustrating and unsuccessful.
so, cogitating.
in the meantime, i'm tired and hungry and feel simultaneously like i'll be in this holding pattern for a Long Time, and that there is no time, he's practically here, whatever i was going to do in the next month is a pipe dream. i remember this one time when i thought i was going to write a dissertation. HA.
