Infantile Pendular Motion

During particularly difficult periods of the day (and night), I am reading to Amy aloud from The Second Nine Months by Vicki Glembocki. The first chapter mirrored our own experience so well that it compelled me to read it aloud instead of to ourselves, which I know wouldn't have happened for Amy until after those nine months are up. The screaming, the screaming, the never ending screaming. Both of us have had moments of pure joy tempered the next by feelings of total inadequacy and frustration and the author does a decent job of capturing and describing that swinging pendulum on both sides of the arc.

One thing the author said that struck me, and this must be a hundred times worse for the women than the men, is that to admit that you're sick of your kid, to admit that sometimes you just can't stand their existence, is (in my words) a cardinal sin of early parenthood. A new mother (or father) is just not supposed to say those things. Do you doubt me? You shouldn't.

To lighten the tone of this post just a little, I would like to thank all of our mother friends who have left advice here and elsewhere. It's important to have people by your side to give you support when you need it and we appreciate all of you and what you have to say. So far, though, nothing seems to work well for Nick's feeding time. It's impossible to keep him awake. But we're no longer worrying too much about it. He gained two pounds in the last two weeks and we don't expect that to diminish. Between that empirical confirmation of the doctor's scale that he is getting the food he needs and knowing that you, my dear readers, have our backs, we have enough support to get the job done and Amy thanks you vicariously through me.