All Weirded Out

In November of 2001, The Boy arrived 7 weeks early, a few days after we moved in to our new house, while we were still housesitting for my inlaws.  I spent a week in the hospital after he was born, and came home to our new house, leaving him in the NICU for another week.  That week was one of the most surreal weeks of my life.  I was no longer pregnant, yet I had no baby home with me.  I had to go back and forth to the hospital to feed him, but I was supposed to let him sleep as much as possible so he could grow and come home.*

So I was in this weird space between one state and another, and I spent a lot of time sitting in my new house, which barely felt like mine, listening to music and reading and wondering about how things would unfold from there.

Today I dropped TLG off at morning kindergarten and I am finding myself with the same category of feelings. I’m alone in my house, between being a stay-at-home mom (who squeezes writing and volunteering in when she can) and a mom of full-time school kids (who works from home), and I’m not sure how things will work.

TLG has been in Kindergarten for a couple of weeks now, but in afternoons.  And as anyone with a kid in afternoon K knows, the afternoons are no time.  By the time you get home (or back to work or wherever) and get settled in to a project, it’s time to go back and get them.  Add the fact that I was run off my feet for the first week, and then he was sick and then I was sick and the first days of Kindergarten passed in an absolute blur.

This morning, however, I left him at school at walked home with the morning stretching in front of me and I felt, well, weird.  Like I was shirking my responsiblities. And I felt a little anxious.  I want to make the best use of this time, so I feel a little less torn when I am hanging out with the boys later but I’m not sure what ‘the best’ is.

I figured writing something was a good start.

It’s 9:33, I’ve got 2 hours and 10 mins left.  Wish me luck.

*Depending on who I talked to.  That week I spent a lot of things doing things ‘wrong’, it’s hard to learn to mother with 6 nurses assisting.  Sometimes I was told to keep him awake as much as possible, other times I was told to let him sleep.  I was told to come to nurse him as often as I could, but I had no daytime transportation and no one told me I could stay in the parents’ room.  It was damn guilt inducing.  They don’t make people who have other kinds of abdominal surgery (I had had a Caesarian birth) face that kind of guilt.

One thought on “All Weirded Out

  1. It is guilt-inducing. I remember those days.

    I hope the schedule is settling into a rhythm for you and you are finding a good balance between momming and writing. I’ve been thinking of you, and wondering how you were doing (checking the blog should have been obvious, eh?).

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