"Gratitude is born in hearts that take time to count up past mercies." - Charles E. Jefferson

No cute photo today, sorry.  No poop today, either.

This was one of those very long days that I dread.  Up at 530 am, in a panic, because its 530 am and the Little Boy did not awaken me at 200 am or 455 am as he normally does so clearly he must be dead.  (He's not, obviously.)  Then get him fed and dressed and off to see The Lady (as we call his daytime care provider; her real name is Carol) with Daddy when Daddy goes to work at 700 am.  Then me showered and dressed and milked and off to work by 830 am.  Work until 500 pm, then a short car trip across town to my other job, where I stayed until 930 pm, then came home.  This morning he was basically asleep for the hour or so I saw him in the morning, and he was asleep when I got home. 

Given all this, plus my level of exhaustion, is it awful of me to wish that he'll wake up at 200 am, just so I can snuggle him?

When I got home the Dad was watching the tail end of Jericho on the Tivo, and I watched about a half hour of it, which was a total mistake on at least two levels.  First, good child of the Cold War that I am, I spent a great deal of my Junior High and High School years thinking in detail about what would happen if The Nukes were to come, which, given my very vivid visual imagination was detail to an amazing level, and having a repeating nightmare so vivid and realistic that I can tell you about it in painstaking detail even now, some 25 years later (but I won't).   Second, there was a baby in an incubator in several scenes, which is a big trigger for me recently.

(Side note, and slight spoiler:  Can someone explain to me why the healthy people got to stay in the nice tidy City Hall and all the sick people got sent to the Salt Mine???  That seems like poor prioritization to me.)

The Little Guy's Dad calls it the "CSI syndrome" and we discovered it right after the Little Guy was born.  Somehow the hormones related to motherhood have triggered in me some weird reactions when I see stories about babies or toddlers in pain - very strong, visceral reactions that I never had before.  We found this out when I was watching a Law & Order rerun which featured the discovery of an infant's skull, whereupon I promptly burst into tears and had to shut the TV off.  I suppose its normal - the protective reaction that nature wants me to have in order to keep my baby safe, but its damned annoying when I can't watch simple fictional crime dramas in peace.    And that's just fiction.  I made the mistake of reading a couple of news stories on-line about this homeless mother in New York whose four month old daughter drowned in a bucket of her mother's vomit at work (a story which I suspect will be dragged out in some argument against co-sleeping in the not-so-near future, I might add) and ended up spending 25 minutes in the bathroom, weeping.  So as you can imagine, the sight of this infant facing Nuclear Peril drove me from the room fairly quickly, and is haunting me even now. 

There are days, many days, when a vivid visual imagination is a pain in the ass - know what I mean?

About a week ago, we had to take the Little Guy to the cardiologist, to make certain that he doesn't have a serious heart murmur (he doesn't).  The waiting room was full of these tired, drawn looking parents and their sickly looking babies ... tiny babies, fragile looking things, many of them spindly and slightly blue and translucent looking.  Sad babies who, I'm sure, don't smile or laugh or even have the energy to look up at their mothers and fathers and coo adoribly.  And I know for a fact that all those exhausted mothers and fathers love their babies as fiercely as I love mine - more so, perhaps, because they know much better than I how fragile this is and what a risk they took just by deciding to bring this new tiny life into the world.

I'm thankful for ten fingers and ten toes.  For two perfect little shell-like ears.  For chubby baby thighs and that little button nose.  For wide toothless grins at 3am.  For burps that would do John Belushi proud.  For dimpled elbows and knees.  For a strong heart that beats.  For a rumbly little tummy.  For poopy diapers (when we get them). 

... and now I have to go, because I miss him despite the fact he's just in the other room.  I have to go stand by his crib and gaze at him again ...