Too much time alone...

...does not a happy mama make.

Today was the first day since George was born that I felt all the old bad feelings from my first months of motherhood, the first time around - the frustration, the feelings of futility, the tunnel vision that results from too much attention to the things that don't matter much in the long run. George has been having a fussy period, likely due to some developmental spurt or something. The first few days were fine: I handled the fussing with patience and loving care, didn't mind much if he didn't sleep in his bed, didn't mind holding him for most of the day.

But that shit starts to wear you down after a while. Today I felt a little of the darkness creep in, during a long morning stretch with a non-napping, super-fussy baby. I looked up at the clock at noon and suddenly felt so stupid for having allowed five hours to pass without having done anything except get myself dressed, eat breakfast, and try (and try and try, again and again) to put George down for a nap. I had lost my sense of perspective, all that wisdom I thought I had gleaned from my first newborn experience had evaporated and I was right back in the same old ditches I had dug with Jupiter, forgetting that these phases are short-lived, focusing obsessively on trying to get him to SLEEP FOR THE LOVE OF GOD in a constant cycle of nurse, shush, put down, pick back up, shush, put back down (repeat three times), nurse, shush...

So I went out to lunch with a good friend. Had a delicious burger, got outside of my house, talked about things other than sleep and babies and, over the course of the lunch, lifted myself out of the ditch I had fallen into earlier that day. George dozed (finally!) in his car seat. It was lovely.

When I got home, George took a short nap. While it was nice to finally see him sleep, more gratifying was the sense of perspective I had regained. As a mother of a very young baby, it can be difficult to remember that there's a whole wide world outside your door and whether or not your baby naps on any particular day doesn't really matter much. It is so important to get outside and be in that world as much as possible, to remember that you're a person outside of motherhood and possess interests and abilities other than sleep induction and milk delivery, to exercise your mind (and your credit card, at Target of course). I need to do better about exercising my body, too, since that always makes me feel energized and optimistic, beating back the feelings of constraint and frustration that can creep in.

The only problem with this approach, especially in the hot summer months, is the lack of free things to do in the air conditioning. Walking outside is so HOT. I end up spending far, far too much money at Target. Maybe I'll go to the art museum tomorrow. What did you do when you had a small baby? How did you get out of the house?