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15 Apr

Our Dirty Little Secrets

When Her Badjesty kindly asked me to blogsit, I was more than happy to oblige her. Seeing as I’m a bad mother in my own right, I figured I’d be able to conjure something up to fill this wonderful space.

But then she told us to make it dirty. And I sort of freaked, because I imagine your hostess’s version of dirty is a bit classier than mine. It’s my dildo to her Dante’. My poopy jokes to her Plato. And my crotch couture to her Confucious. Basically, my raunchy diatribes on pubic hair and blow jobs would do nothing but insult the word “dirty” and its place on this highly intellectual blog.

I did consider providing a sociological comparative analysis of how the word “dirty” means both “unclean” and “sexy.” But, really, who I am to sociologically analyze anything when I’m walking around with two different socks on and a nursing tank with about 12 milk stains and a twisted strap.

Plus, who cares, right?

And so, I figured that instead I would share a dirty secret, something that I have never revealed on my own blog, or the scores of other confession blogs that are permeating the blogosphere (including your hostess’s fine establishment).

I get mad at my 3-month old son for not sleeping and I sometimes lose it.

I suppose it’s not the juiciest dirty secret that could be told, but it’s one that is haunting me as of late. Perhaps it’s because at any moment, particularly during the 14,572 moments in which I’m nursing him in the sling while bouncing on a large blue exercise ball so he’ll actually sleep, I feel like I might jump ship.

For the first year of my daughter’s life, I spent almost every day in a state of confusion, frustration, and then guilt over the same damn thing.

Why isn’t she sleeping? went to
Why the FUCK are you not sleeping? and turned into
Why did I just say fuck to my baby. I’m a terrible horrible mother.

I’ve never actually lost it, persay. I have yelled on a rare occasion and forcefully picked her up and plopped her in the crib (from whence she then jumped out and broke her leg) or the corner, but that’s the extent of my frustration and neverending guilt. I tell myself that so long as these incidents are rare, I won’t be causing any more psychological damage than what’s being caused by us living with my in-laws.

But behold my son. I had high hopes that he would not inherit the “no-sleep-ever-fuck-you-naps” gene passed down from my husband. But alas, I find myself holding a 16lb almost 3 month old in a sling for the majority of my day. In fact, I’m doing it right now as I write this post.

I’ve tried to do the “right” thing — you know, put him down at least once a day on a flat surface so he’ll wake up in 10 minutes kicking around like a pissed off beetle on his back. I’ve done the swing, the stroller, and the bouncy seat.

Hell, even my daughter would nap in the bouncy seat.

To complicate matters, he’s not such a boob man. With my daughter, the boobs calmed the savage beast. Whipping out a boob meant that all would be well with the world. But apparently my son is an ass man and would rather chew on his own hand (or maybe my ass if I’d let him) than nurse. The planets must be perfectly aligned, or he needs to be sweetly tucked into the sling for him to even consider nursing with intent. However, at a whopping 16lbs, it’s clear he’s getting food from somewhere so I need not obsess.

But yet, it’s fun, and hell I wouldn’t be a mother if I didn’t, so I do.

It’s not so much the pressure in my mind that he must sleep without me holding him or I will surely go to Mommy Hell or worse “spoil him and start him into very bad habits that will be difficult to break.” Ack. Thanks Dr. I Never Had Kids Ever and Make Money Guilting Mothers. But it’s that my back and neck hurt. I’m tired of holding him, damnit. I’m tired of feeling like I’m forcing my boob on him. And I’m tired of standing on my head and dancing an Irish jig to get my children to sleep.

My only saving grace thus far has been that his night sleeping and eating has been fairly uneventful. Until last night when for two hours, he laid on his back, sucking his hands, and refused to nurse back to sleep.

And so I sort of lost it. Between the harsh shushes, the tighter cuddles, the harder butt pats, and the loud “I carry you all day I cannot carry you at night” whispers, I almost lost it. It was probably fairly typical, but still not one of my finer mothering moments.

He finally fell asleep, and so did I — sore nipples, leaky boobs, and terribly guilty conscience. And I’m reminded that like everything else in motherhood, the bad and the good shall pass. What worked one day, will surely not work the next — Mother’s Law.

But like my favorite philosopher Anne of Green Gables said, “It’s nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet.”

Thank God for that.

Care to share your dirty secrets? Or commiserate with me?