No Time to Write

I am stealing a moment. Where to begin. The beauty of baby Sophia. The sweetness of daddy Dave and sister Claire. The joy of breast feeding. The limits of my 45-year-old body. Tired. A joy and an ordeal.

Feeling fat and old (and tired). Feeling content and happy. Feeling scared for the future for my daughters. Feeling optimistic. Feeling like a zombie mother. Eating lots of sugar. Happy about no nausea. Etc etc.

I've also been pondering the Human Body Project. Some days I feel so content, I think I'll just let it go and be a normal person. Then some days I get angry again and think my next step will be naked monologues. Yesterday a line I was thinking of went something like this: the vagina, the world's most harmful birth defect. Some days I get so angry about the world available for my daughters. And historically, of course, they've got it good.

In a related aside, someone I was talking to recently wondered why women haven't "done anything" throughout the centuries to improve their lot. Like they could/can take time out from their leisurely days of childrearing and cooking and harvesting and cleaning and paying attention, etc--all while they didn't/don't have the physical/economic/political power and were/are culturally indoctrinated to be submissive. What I wonder is why men haven't done anything. Their only excuse being their cultural indoctrination. They have mothers, daughters, sisters, wives yet seem quite willing to let them get/give them the shit end of the deal. Easier to get fed then go sit at the taverna and play cards, so to speak (I'm half-Greek so I'll use that cultural example).

I'm still doing the diaper-free thing with baby Sophia. I prefer to call it Potty Awareness. She's not diaper-free because I am not able to always pay attention to her signs (I don't hold her all day and I don't do it when she's sleeping). But my 8-week-old baby almost never poops in her diaper (maybe twice a week) and I catch many of her pees. I coordinate her potty time with breastfeeding and I catch a few other times each day when she makes unhappy sounds. It's easy and when I have more time I want to write more about it and be more of an advocate for the technique. The book I recommended (Diaper Free by Ingrid Bauer) is great but I think might intimidate most mothers who are not willing or able to always catch their baby's signs.

I feel like my way is a middle way. I use less diapers. But mostly I love the technique because Sophia and I (and her daddy) are communicating. She lets us know she needs to eliminate and we provide the opportunity. By providing an opportunity for her to eilminate outside her diaper, she gets her needs met and is a happier baby. And she has not one trace of diaper rash. She is still a very contented baby. Now if she would only get to sleep earlier in the night (which she has tonight, 11 pm rather than 1 am which is why I'm stealing the moment).

If this is muddled and/or incoherent--and it's at best incomplete--oh well. I hear Sophia...