Chicken'd

I chickened out of the mums' group today. My excuse is that Noah gets his shots Friday so he should go play with all the polio carriers after and not before.

The reality is I had a dream about writing and I woke up thinking that I have to be writing so as not to be a mum who says she's finishing her first novel but a writer who has finished her first novel who is also a mum. Yes, it was some last minute identity crisis. Perhaps I am not ready to go out and interact as a parent as opposed to a political activist or a creative individual or a student or an editor. Or maybe I'm just lazy and the computer is closer than the rec hall.

And in any case I wrote during one of Noah's naps and then took him to Costco because, you know, going to Costco helps me meet all my personal goals. Were it not for my 45 minutes of writing (after the web journalling, email reading, and tea-making. Oh yes and note gathering), I would have to say that I had truly fallen to the dark side. But that ounce of redemption is there. And it was a nice 45 minutes. I spent last year being jealous of my character because her baby lived, and now we are somewhat on the same page again that way.

And... it is fun to take a baby to Costco, if said baby is my beautiful Noah and looks around at everything pleasantly with big eyes and approves of my buying pine nuts as if I were going to have time to make pesto. He really did. I held up the pine nuts and he smiled. Obviously the trip was necessary.

I also invented a new favourite game, which is inventively called Laundry: the folding. It works like this. Noah and I go down to the rec room and I place him gently on the folded-down futon, safely in the middle. Then I grab the clean laundry out of the dryer quick, quick, and bring it over. Then I swoop each piece of laundry in front of his face and say, "wheee, mummy's blue underwear" or "whee, daddy's black sock" and he watches them sweep by and wriggles and smiles. Then, when the stakes are raised, I actually rub the texture of something on his cheek or his hand like this: "ooooh, this sock is fuzzy!" See, whee for looking, oooh for feeling.

It's a great game. Really. I'm thinking of publishing the rule book for a fortune.

We had very frustrating nursing today: overactive letdown was us, although I cannot blame a long sleep on my poor over-endowed breasts, because Noah nursed every 2 hours all night. Maybe it's a growth spurt or maybe he'll never sleep again! In any case I tried pumping a bit out at the start of the nurse, and it didn't help. I tried applying a towel at letdown and it didn't help. I had to resort to lying on my back and having Noah nurse against gravity, which you apparently can only do so many times before mastitis sets in, but it worked. Thank god. The poor guy was very unhappy when milk was squirting in his mouth and up and out his nose. So was I.

And hmm. That was pretty much the day!

Shandra