Hibernation

I remember lazy Sundays in Seattle when I never left the apartment, preferring instead to nest at home with a movie playing, a slow braise on the stove, and a cake in the oven.  I imagined that winters in Fairbanks would pass the same way: languid afternoons spent knitting, listening to music, with maybe a moose bourguignon in the works, a cocktail crafted from homemade low-bush cranberry vodka in hand, and arts and crafts projects piled neatly on every surface.  Not having a full-time job would allow me to keep up on my blog, restart long-abandoned writing projects, and devote myself to rekindling the coals of long-dormant creative pursuits in printmaking and painting.

The reality is, of course, much different from that fantasy.  It's not just that we have Theo now.  Well, obviously, the care and feeding of an eight-month-old baby plays a huge role, the hugest of roles, in my daily routine.  But I seem to have nested even deeper than I thought possible, so much so that leisure pursuits, like reading, knitting, and writing, are mere memories of a life I used to lead, and the only things I can really focus on now are sleeping, eating and occasional forays into the outside world.

I haven't been nesting; I've been in hibernation.  For the past few months, my life has been structured around the very basic activities of life: sleep, food, and bathroom breaks in between.

A Day in the Life

Part I

Our day generally begins around 7 or 8, when Theo decides to officially roust himself from his fitful sleep by rolling over on his hands and knees and head-butting us, or attempting to crawl over the barricade of our limp and exhausted bodies to the freedom of the floor below.  We cosleep with Theo.  He has a little sidecar crib that attaches to our mattress.  The cosleeper is where he's ostensibly supposed to sleep, but he ends up in our bed halfway through the night so I can nurse him and fall back asleep. Now that he is rapidly approaching the weight limitation of the cosleeper and has recently learned how to crawl up and out of it, we are reevaluating his sleeping accommodations.

So, Theo wakes up and head-butts or babbles us (Na na na NAAAAaAaAAAaaa!) into submission.  John usually takes the first shift, leaving me to sleep for an extra few minutes to an hour (depending on that day's level of benevolence from Mr. Perreault or his schedule at school).  John plays with Theo, then John or I will put the porridge on.  Putting the Porridge On!  It's like we're living in Oliver Twist World with burlap sacks of wholesome whole grain oats in our larder.  In actuality, it's just Bob's Red Mill Steel Cut Oats (winner of the Golden Spurtle World Porridge Championship!) in our pantry, and this is our mainstay for breakfast.  When we sit down to eat, now that Theo is on solids, we attempt to feed him some of his own breakfast cereal (mushy and soft and definitely not steel-cut, because he stills gags on anything textured).  Half of what we feed him ends up on the floor, or on his sleeves, or in his hair.  (Note: oatmeal and rice cereal are excellent glues.)  One of us will hose off the baby and attempt to keep the dining area from becoming too sticky.  Mealtimes are exciting and fun!

If I see the grey jays flitting around outside (and they tend not to come out when it's colder than twenty below), I'll cut up some cheese and place it on the deck railing for them.  John will tell you that cheese is not bird food, and I agree, but these jays are spoiled enough now that they don't cotton to regular birdseed, they go to great lengths to ignore it, in fact, so what's done is done, and they get cheddar cheese.  At least it's discount cheese now and not the good Tillamook.  We are on a budget, after all.

It's at this point in the day that I usually remember that I've forgotten to take my pills.  John laughs at me because I indiscriminately guzzle mouthfuls of pills at every opportunity.  There's fenugreek to help boost my milk supply (I think I must have gone through fifty bottles of the stuff); calcium/magnesium (also to help with my supply); prenatal vitamins when I remember (because anything good for pre is still good for post, I guess?); probiotics; Metamucil fiber capsules and Colace (do you really want to know what Colace is? I don't think you do) because I now possess the GI tract of an 80-year-old thanks to the miracle of postpartum life and breastfeeding.

If I am lucky, I will heed nature's call (thanks to prune juice or the aforementioned fiber capsules) before John heads out for school.  I hesitated to even mention such an indelicate subject; however, considering the fact that I have spent the past eight months dwelling on the ideal of state of being, er, regular, such a topic is always very much on my mind and I feel compelled to make mention of this obsession, if only on the slight chance that the God of Constipation is listening to me and understands that I make this sacrifice of my modesty in an attempt to appease his anger.  Life before Theo: I would have blushed had you mentioned I possessed a digestive tract.  Life after Theo: I want everyone to be thankful for their working plumbing.  It is very, very important to get enough fiber in your diet and to keep hydrated.  I can't stress this enough.  You do not want to know what it is like on the other side.

So, after John leaves for school, leaving Theo and me to our own devices, Theo and I play.  Theo with his toys, me with my device, my trusty iPhone, which never fails to capture me in its carpal tunnel thrall of Words With Friends, Facebook, Twitter, and Scrabble.  Because I spend a lot of time with iPhone in hand, Theo has developed quite a taste (literally) for it, but he hasn't quite mastered its use yet, beyond stuffing its shiny black metal in his mouth.  Especially in the last few months, I have made a conscious effort to limit his exposure to this adult crutch.  I don't want his first memory to be of me staring blankly into my phone's ghostly screen, ignoring his infant accomplishments.

Naptime happens within two or three hours of Theo waking up.  I am very grateful for naptime.  You would think that I would take advantage of it and sleep alongside Theo, but somehow my mind can't slow down enough to fall asleep.  Or by the time it does, that's when Theo decides to wake up.  So naptime ends up being a time of relaxation but not quite rest for me.  But that's okay, because now it's time for a shower!  Yes!  Scalding hot water is a very effective restorative when sleep doesn't come.  Theo gets strapped into a little activity chair thingie while I hop in the shower and pretend that washing my hair is just as nice as a trip to the spa.

Stay tuned ... for the afternoon!