Chronicles of a Single Mom

Little M has a lot of toys. People have given her toys and my mom has found quite a few at garage sales. Some of these toys are just crazy. They respond to the baby so that when she kicks them they’ll make noise or flash lights. This is great for giving her incentive to move around and get her motor skills growing. But they may also drive me crazy one day.

For one thing, many of the “baby activated” toys are actually sound and motion activated. I have 3 cats in the house. I brought over a toy that had previously been at my mom’s the other night and put it in the nursery where I was sleeping with the baby. Bad idea. Cats are nocturnal. They curl up in bed with me around 10 or 11 but wake up in the middle of the night to prowl around. This sets off motion activated toys. So I was awakened from my peaceful slumber to the sounds of “Old MacDonald.” I closed my eyes hoping this will stop, but it wasn’t a nightmare, it was real life. When I got out of bed I stumbled over to the offending toy and tried to turn it off. Of course the toys can’t have switches that say “on” or “off,” they have symbols and each maker has a different symbol for “parent activated,” “baby activated” and off. So of course instead of turning the toy off I turned it to parent activated mode, which just means it DOESN’T STOP!!!!

I’ve had other incidents with these “smart” toys. Little M has a “baby activated” swing. It’s actually pretty cool how it detects that she’s fallen asleep and slows down the rocking till the swing has stopped. What’s not so cool is when she screams loud enough to set it off from the diaper table across the room and suddenly it starts swinging and playing “How Much is That Doggie in the Window.” (ok, looking back, thst is kinda cool, but not while it’s happening!)

And finally there’s a toy at my mom’s that looks like some sort of rattle but it’s playing music and won’t stop. I can’t find an off switch. I can’t even find out how to take out the batteries. Right now it’s downstairs in the basement closet waiting for the batteries to go dead so we don’t have to hear that song any more. The batteries have to run out sometime…..don’t they?

Father’s Day is really depressing me this year. I’m still in love with the ex and it’s just a reminder of what we don’t have. All these Father’s Day commercials and Internet articles about how wonderful fatherhood is with the cute pictures of Daddies and their offspring remind me of how I pictured life and what I’ll never have.

I always made holidays special for the ex. He never had a birthday without a cake, and sometimes I’d decorate the living room too. There were always cards….either electronic or paper. Every Father’s Day I’d send him e-cards from our 3 cats. Now that we finally have a baby, we’re not together.

Usually for Father’s Day, the mom buys something for the kids to give the dad. But if I do that will it smack of desperation? (And maybe I am desperate…that’s a whole ‘nother issue) Will it let the ex and the whore know that I’d give anything to have him back? I can just picture the two of them laughing at me later. But then who am I kidding, I know they know I still love him. But then again, just because I feel something doesn’t mean I have to show it.

Part of me feels like I shouldn’t get him anything. Especially after the way I’m hurting. But part of me just wants to get him somethng to remind him that he IS a father. He hasn’t seen Little M in 2 weeks, and though part of me is happy to just let that relationship dwindle and keep her all to myself, the other part of me doesn’t want to deprive my daughter of a relationship with her father. Apparently so much so that I’m willing to put in more than I need to to make that relationship work….kind of like when we were married and I gave and gave and gave and he left anyway.

And I wonder about future Father’s Days. Will Little M feel sad that her dad isn’t in her life as much as he could be? Or will he straighten up and be there like a real daddy should? Will all Father’s Days hurt like this? Should I be trying so hard to forge a relationship between father and daughter? Will his not being there bother her or will it only bother me? I just don’t know. What’s the best thing to do for my daughter?

I guess Father’s Day is just another holiday that I thought would always be special but is now a painful reminder of how my life has changed. I just hope and pray Father’s Day won’t be a sad occasion for my little girl.

I realize vaccines are better than diseases, but they’re so hard! When Little M got her vaccines (DTap, Polio, and 2 that fight organisms that cause meningitis) the other day, she felt miserable, and since misery loves company she decided to make me miserable too.

With the initial shots she cried and the nurse seemed to take forever to get the bandaids on so I could grab up my baby and hold her. When I was finally able to hold her, I was actually able to comfort her pretty quickly. I went to put her in her carseat so we could go and she grabbed my shoulders with her little arms and just clung to me, so we took a few more minutes before going.

Well, we got home and she slept for a bit, but from about 2:30 on, she was so unhappy. She wanted Mommy and ONLY Mommy. Oh, and she wanted Mommy to MOVE. No sitting down and rocking her. No sitting down at all. She’d fall asleep while I was walking her, then wake up crying. If I tried to put her down, or even hand her to my mom or dad, she grabbed my arms and held me tight. When I did hand her off so I could eat or use the bathroom, she just looked at me and cried. It wasn’t even the angry cry, it was the hurt cry and that made it worse!

She didn’t let me stop walking her till she decided she wanted to eat and wasn’t taking her milk from the bottle. (I’d previously been walking around feeding her with a bottle of pumped milk.) A few times I’d be talking to her and she’d smile up at me but the smile quickly turned to a frown for no reason other than she felt bad. I felt so horrible for her, although I felt special too. She was trying so hard to smile at me cause she loved me so much, but in the end she just couldn’t do it.

About 10:30 pm I was feeding her and she started cooing at me and sticking her tongue out, which is part of her favorite game (she sticks her tongue out at me and I do the same then she sticks hers back out and this continues until she starts grinning and cooing at me). I thought she was finally feeling better, but a few minutes later she wanted to be held again. She finally let me sit in bed with her instead of crying unless I was walking which was SUCH a relief. By this time my back hurt, my hips hurt and my feet hurt and I have no idea how I kept going other than my little girl needed me. Never underestimate what a mother’s love can give you the power to do.

She cried every time I put her in her bed so I finally breastfed her till she was sleeping and put her in my bed then curled my body around hers and went to sleep. Every time my hand moved so it wasn’t touching her, she’d whimper in her sleep. One time I put my hand back on her chest and she grabbed my arm and wrapped her arms and legs around it. It was so cute and endearing. She just wanted me close to her. It felt so good to mean so much to someone. Since the ex left I haven’t always felt valuable, but dammit, this little girl needs me and loves me.

I woke up the next morning and I was exhausted. Little M was in bed right next to me, as close as she could get. She actually looked content and peaceful. A wave of love washed over my face. we had survived our first trying time. When the chips were down, she looked to me and only me. I was the one who made her feel better (not that my parents didn’t try to help…she just wanted me). I was the one who fell asleep holding her and ultimately took care of her. She and I weathered the storm and as long as we’re together we can do anything.

Yesterday was the first day I worked away from home. I’m going to be working 1-3 days a week at the office, which fortunately is less than 5 miles away from my mom’s house. Since The Ex is part owner of the company, I’m also making it so I usually don’t have to come in the same days as him, today was just different because he sets up all the computers so he had to be there at the same time as me to set things up. It was hard on me leaving Little M for so long (and it really wasn’t that long considering I came home mid-day) but of course she did fine.

The Ex came over in the morning before work and got to see some good smiles. He fed her a bottle while I took a shower. He has his own poop incident now….she had diarrhea and it leaked out on him, but he was able to get cleaned up before work. I think he enjoyed seeing her anyway. He remarked on how big she’s getting and what a cutie she is. It was actually pretty hard on me having him take care of her while I got ready, cause all I could think of was how things should’ve been between us. I hate myself for missing him, but I do. When it came time for me to go to work, it was really hard. I knew she’d be with my mom and she’d be fine, but I just didn’t want to leave her.

I came home during lunch and fed her. Of course she fell asleep nursing.

When I came home, my mom was feeding Little M a bottle. Her eyes locked on me and she kept following me with her eyes. I was so glad to see my little girl and hold her again. She snuggled up with her head on my chest and her arms around me….it just grabs my heart when she does that. But anyway I survived my first day away from my baby and despite the fact that I had been dreading it all week, it wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be.