Down for the Count

I just put Wren to sleep. More acurately Wren put herself to sleep. I was watching, as usual this week, Buffy the Vampire Slayer when I noticed that Wrennel's sweaty little head had neslted into my neck and she was just seventeen and a half pounds of dead weight on my chest. What a dear.

She hardly ever does that anymore. Putting her to sleep is usually a marathon session including feeding, swaddling, jostling, pacing (I'm guessing about 2 miles) and the occasional deep knee bend. Accompanied, of course, by the white noise of a hummidifier and a window unit. She has to be pretty damn tired (or drugged on infant tylenol) to just fade out in my lap in front of the noisy laptop. But we're in the traditional week of post-immunization hell, and Wren's not up to her usual standards.

When she's asleep and I'm holding her and rocking her and smelling her hair (in a non-creepy way) she's so heartbreakingly perfect and it's so easy to love being there and taking care of her. And then I sneak over to the crib and slide her so so carefully onto the mattress and back away slowly avoiding that one creaky floorboard and ease open the door and slide out, and then suddenly watch her eyes snap open accusingly and hear the start of her thin piercing wail...

Argh.

Of course the shots make her feel crappy. She doesn't say, "Mom, I feel crappy" in so many words. But she cries and cries and cries, and it's like, for three days, my sweet-tempered dear-hearted easy going baby girl is switched out with every awful clingy monster baby I ever nannied (you know who you are). The whole time I'm trying to remember that she feels awful. No one's happy when they feel sick. But there are moments (backing away from the crib, for one) when it's so frustrating. I just want to snap to 20 or so years down the road, Lazlo and me puttering around the house (assuming we're homeowners), getting phone calls and emails from our happy, well adjusted (perhaps even college educated) brood of adult offspring. Looking forward to seeing them home on Thanksgiving. Having years of fond memories of child-rearing successfully accomplished, and looking forward to passing any fussy grandchildren back to their own parents.

But for now we just have to get through the next few days, of course also the days when Lazlo is gone for 14 hours at a time. Poor Lazlo is so busy with school and work I'm surprised he can keep his eyes open during either one. He's on his way home now, from some class or other, and I'm going to abrubtly end this overly long post to make him a snack.