Giving up

There was a moment, when W was maybe 36 hours old, when I realised I had to stop waiting for sleep. Up until then, any time in my life where I'd been tired, sleep was just a wait away. True deep long uninterrupted sleep. I sat in the hospital room and felt this dawning realisation seep into me. He was ours. We had to take him home. Sleep as I knew it was a thing of the past.

Later, there was a moment when Jeremy left the house - to go to work or to see friends or maybe just to take the trash out - but I understood with a searing jealousy that when he leaves the house he really leaves. That he's actually able to just walk out of the house without a care. That his autonomy and independence is still wholly intact. I missed being solitary singular Me with an acuteness that felt physical. And I kind of hated my husband a little. 

At four or five months I had to accept that W was not a baby who suddenly slept through the night. People had told me it would change at four months - that it would get better - and I believed them. I was stupid. So we started co-sleeping because it was the only way I could get enough sleep to function during the day. And that is how we live now. 

I haven't eaten cheese since May. If you know me, you know that I alone do not have the will power to forgo cheese (or butter or cream or cake or curry or chocolate or ice-cream) for 24 hours. But W has a dairy sensitivity. I'm thinner than I've ever been, which is the one and only upside and I think I prefer eating cheese and having an arse. 

I've never been super well-kempt. But I'm down to maybe two showers a week and I let Jeremy cut my hair. And if you can't see the baby sick on my jumper, it was never there.

New mum hair