Friday, November 28, 2008

When Will Baby Do Something?

I really am blessed. I have an awesome husband who works extremely hard, and yet through all of his pursuits and responsibilities he strives to make me and the kids the priority in his life. Since we met he was the one that always wanted kids, and it took a while for me to warm up to the idea. Of course, now, I can say having children is the most fulfilling purpose in my life.

And, even though I am not a “baby” person by nature, I was totally gaga over my kids. As a stay-at-home mama I was in their face 24/7 (most often with a video or digital camera), babbling with, playing with, cooing with or holding them. That constant involvement, I would say, is part of the reason I had to implement my creative cleaning strategies I wrote about all those posts ago…

Not to say that Josh wasn’t into the kids when they were babies (see pic above where he tried to teach Jacob to play guitar at 5 months old!), he was just as overwhelmed with love as I was. But, after Jacob was about three months old, and some of the novelty had worn off, and Josh was tired of holding the video camera to film Jacob sleeping, he eventually muttered the same words most fathers blurt out without thinking; “he’s great and all, but, when is he gonna do something?”

Do something? Dooooo something? What did he mean? In my sleep-deprived world, Jacob was doing a lot of things! Here are some the things that Jacob was “doing”:

-Waking every two hours

-Eating every two hours

-Pooping every two hours

-Crying if one of these things wasn’t attended to, every two hours

-Hitting himself in the head with his rattle

-Smiling, whether he meant to or not

-Kicking his legs faster than a wind-up water toy (I have hours of film on this, believe me)

-Cooing and gurgling, which put together is “coorgling”

That was a lot to me! Of course, Josh wasn’t needed for the nursing part, which made his tending to the other every-two-hour events unnecessary as well...AND I should mention that during this time he was working full-time AND going to school. Needless to say he missed out on a bit of this "doing" stuff and mostly got to hold Jacob while he was sleeping or spitting up after being fed. So, I can understand his question, I suppose...

But no, at the time I got irritated. What did Josh want a three-month-old to do? Talk politics? Crawl over to the remote and pitch it to him? Change the oil in the car? Fix the trim in the kitchen??(that's "post-baby blues" talkin' right there!) I realize this is an issue because men really need to be stimulated with lots of action, like monster trucks, things that explode, boxing, and any activity that involves mud. Fortunately, the milestones of rolling over, sitting up, crawling, and then WALKING AT NINE MONTHS OLD satisfied Josh, for a while.

But once Jacob finally stopped wailing every time we were in the car, and we got some peace and quite in the terribly confined space, Josh just had to utter another utterance that really bit him in the butt (and the bite was so big that it came over and bit ME in the butt!). He said, “so, when is he gonna start talking? He really needs to talk more.”

More. Moooooooooooooooooooore…now, I have to admit, Jacob was sort of a slow-starter in the talking department and we were kinda hoping he would talk more. But now, at age 7, we are often looking for a “mute” button somewhere on his back. Now getting in the car is not just cumbersome, but is often seen as a form of torture, especially for any friends that make the (one-time) mistake of carpooling with us. In fact, I think we almost lost a friend on a twenty-minute drive recently because Jacob forgot to ever take a breath. By lost I don’t mean that our friend jumped out of the car and sustained massive injuries that sent him to the ER, but in that for a while he seriously considered if he and he wife should continue any sort of friendship with our family.

And now, every once in a while, Josh talks about wanting another baby. When I hear THAT utterance, I immediately walk upstairs into my kids’ room and grab Audrey’s baby doll. I then stomp over to him and drop it in his lap and say, “this is as good as it's gonna get honey. I am tired of lactating and you have no time to hold a video camera for hours on end right now."


StudiusMaximus said...

Yeah, I still would have more. We have a tripod for the camera now!

w said...

every so often my hubby expresses the want for another child. i tell him to take it up with his girlfriend.

This Crazy Thing Called Motherhood said...

I am the same way with my daughter. I often wonder where I can 'unplug' her to get a brief respite from the constant barrage of questions, singing, "hey Mom, forget about safe driving, turn around and look at me", etc.

Yet I was stupid enough to be eager for my son to start talking. And just in the last few months, he has been a talking machine. *sigh*

I am about ready to chop my ears off and donate them to someone else. However, I doubt anyone would take them since they'd probably still be able to hear a faint echo of all my daughters 37,000 questions/comments...and I'd wind up getting sued for inflicting mental cruelty on them or something. ;)

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