Ramblings about Paid Childcare and My Tiny Tyrant

This is the last thing I should be doing.  It's fifteen minutes into a nap that could end anywhere, including five minutes from now, but probably another fifteen to twenty.  Not a lot of time.  I have already scarfed down lunch and put a few groceries away.  What I should be doing is either cleaning the house in preparation for a "meeting" with a couple colleagues on Friday or, you know, writing and reading.  Instead, I'm in bed next to Tiny Boy (aka The Tiny Tyrant) typing this, both because I'm exhausted and because I'm hoping my presence will keep him sleeping longer.  I'd gladly stay here all afternoon if it means I can get a decent nap out of him.

Today is the first weekday I haven't had paid childcare in a while; our good babysitter, who needs a better nickname, is taking the rest of this week and next to study for finals and go on a trip with her family.  And let me tell you I miss her already.  Even if Tiny Boy does his 40 minute nap routine, when she's around the endless rocking/feeding cycles are split between two people.  I'll nurse him, and if he doesn't go down, she takes over in the rocking chair.  Or takes him for a walk if the weather's appropriate.  Or whatever.  And, magically, if he sleeps and I go to campus, the dishes and laundry are done when I come home.  She ironed for me yesterday.  And while the house is still a disaster, that mostly has to do with LG's clutter and my lack of time to do a deep clean (the kitchen floor is just gross).  That is, she makes the household run as smoothly as it can right now.  Tiny Boy adores her.  LG adores her.  I adore her.  She's all chatter about finals and the craziness of the university, and it's wonderful, really, hearing that student perspective again, because I'm not a professor to her and not really old enough to be her mother, either, and she feels almost like a younger cousin or something.  Did I tell you, on her first day, she left saying I learned a lot today.  Yeah, I picked the right kid to watch my kid.

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So Tiny Boy is killing me this week.  Granted, we're both getting over being sick.  But he won't let me put him down.  He doesn't want to play in any of the baby containment devices around the house.  He doesn't mind sitting up on his own, but that requires constant supervision (within arm's reach) as he tips over easily still, and my entire house has wood floors.  Today I just had to let him wail for 10 minutes while I took a shower and made a half-assed attempt to shave my legs (it's supposed to get up to 80 degrees, so the shorts are coming out).  Then it took about twenty of nursing and rocking to get him to calm down.  And then he took a ten minute nap.  And I rocked him.  And he slept for another twenty minutes.  And within five minutes of putting him down he was awake.  Days like this I literally spend more time getting him to fall asleep than he does sleeping.  My left arm aches all the time.  My left hip is out of whack again.  And when people talk about motherhood being exhausting, I don't know if that's what they mean.  Physically brutalizing work.  I ended up in physical therapy when LG was around 18 months because of this stuff, and poor posture likely caused by c-section plus babyholding.  The result was neck pain, a tingling hand, and chronic daily migraine.  I really don't want to go down that road again.

Don't get me wrong:  I love Tiny Boy.  I would not trade him for anything, even if it means I don't sleep well for the next five years or more.  But this shit is hard work.