Okay, so I know it's been almost a month since I posted, and I know this post doesn't contain any photos (I've taken some, but they're still living in the camera), and I know this post is short and generally uninformative. But why doesn't everyone take a moment to be proud of my one-handed typing here. That's how dedicated I am, people. One-handed!
Anyway, I have a newborn, see...and I uh...lost my marbles? Evidence of this can be found in my solid belief that Iris and at least the cats, but maybe also the demon white dog, have formed some sort of axis of neediness whose sole objective is to turn Kyle and me into sad, drooling, babbling heaps of our former selves.
Iris sleeps! In the swing! For like three hours at a stretch sometimes! So the first few times it happens, you're not prepared. She'll be up in ten minutes, you smugly say to yourself. I'm so smart for knowing my child so well, for knowing that I couldn't possibly have time for a meal/shower/nap/humanizing activity of any kind, you say. So you wait with a book, and possibly a cup of coffee, for that first little squeak through the monitor. When 20 minutes pass by, you think maybe there's time for a quick dart to the bathroom, but this is probably - no, definitely - pushing it, and you just KNOW she'll start howling while your pants are down around your ankles and your hands still need to be washed.
Bathroom break successfully accomplished with nary a peep from the baby, you scurry back to the book (nonfiction, clearly. Everyone knows you can't read a novel one sentence per day.) hoping for maybe another five minutes before Defcon One erupts from the child. This is most definitely the smart thing to do because she will wake up the moment your dumb ass decides to shampoo your hair.
The first two times this miracle nap happened I foolishly wasted my time, assuming I always had just five more minutes before all Hell broke loose. On the third day of solid naps at approximately the same time of day, I took the fastest shower ever with the baby monitor blaring from its perch on the back of the toilet. She then slept another two hours beyond that shower. These naps kept happening and I kept steadfastly refusing to make plans for Actual Productivity during them because I knew it couldn't possibly last. I was happy with my newfound ability to eat, pee, and shower without interruption or assistance.
Last night, I guess I just got cocky. I couldn't get Iris to sleep, but she was just so darn cheerful from all that napping that I decided it would be okay to walk up to a neighbor's house that I hadn't seen in a while (just for an hour!) while Kyle watched her. When I arrived home, they were sitting on the couch watching whatever weird German noise-rock they like so much. Everything seemed fine. Kyle swiftly corrected my assessment of the situation to say that everything was fine then, but things had only just become so. Apparently she screamed for 50 of the 60 minutes that I was away, and Kashmir (the cat) was so disturbed by the noise that she bit Kyle. Twice.
Then today I finally made Actual Plans for nap time (sweet, delicious yard work. I'm serious - I love gardening), only to relive the up for three million years/down for eleven minutes routine that has become Iris' calling card of sorts. AND every time I went upstairs to put her down for her nap, Kashmir thundered up the stairs, ran a few laps around the room & hid in the back of the closet while meowing piteously (and loudly. can't forget loudly). Harriet (other cat) just likes to hang out underfoot and occasionally cough up hairballs in all of the areas most frequented by bare feet. And while I'm complaining about animals I'd just like to add here that Ida (demon white dog) barks incessantly at passersby, but only when Iris is aaaaaalmost asleep.
Anyway, I don't have any neat way to wrap this up, but since I've been writing this post off and on since this morning, I had time to rescue the photos from the camera! So as a thanks for sitting through the whining:
(Zee Preshus Baybee)
