Sleep When...

Everyone can finish that sentence.

But if I really slept when the baby slept, I would be wearing the same pajamas since July 1st, I would never eat, and have never taken a shower. Or blogged, picked up the phone, gone to doctors' appointments, or let people in the door to bring in homemade meals.

This is the first week when I haven't had someone with me everyday. I mean, someone with us. The truth is, we both need a sitter. I needed someone to watch Oliver so I could take a nap when the night was particularly long. I needed someone to push a glass of water in front of me and make sure I ate lunch before 4pm. Someone to remind me to take my meds, someone to haul the breast pump and IV pole up and down the stairs.

I am better now, much better. I have no more IV meds, and I can manage stairs more than once a day, albeit slowly. But my restrictions remain, and I have been instructed to take care of myself and my son, and that's it. Believe me, that's enough. The little bugger isn't demanding too much yet- feed him, keep his butt clean, console him through his farting and pooping episodes, and talk or sing to him in his most impressionable hours of the day when he is wide awake and staring at me. But to time all of this with keeping myself fed and my own parts clean requires that I spend some of his asleep time awake.

I also have a very hard time staying at home where I can be doing the laundry and cleaning up the kitchen. It drives me nuts to look at cat hair on the rug and not be medically cleared to vacuum the stupid thing. To most people, it must seem like a dream to be able to stay at home and not clean. But I have three more weeks of restrictions, and while I don't have too much energy to do it anyway, sometimes I just wish I could take care of things. Even Martha Stewart was allowed to clean when she was on house arrest.

Yesterday was Day 1 on our own, and I failed. I eventually ate lunch, and did get a brief shower in. But then I also did the dishes. And baked cupcakes. With homemade frosting. Then did the dishes again. And then asked Michael to bring me a Percocet, located up the stairs I was too sore to climb, before we left to meet friends for a barbeque.

Today was better. When Ollie was out cold at 10 am after 3 hours of hard-strained pooping and farting, I was out too. And we slept for 3 hours, before I woke up and ate a cupcake.