making things / working with my hands

reviewing past journal entries, i noticed that i said that the hardest thing is the fragmenting of my attention.  but then i went on to talk about how i don't have much time to do the things (aside from parenting) that i feel define me as a person.  it's not even that i want to do things totally unrelated to parenting.  it's that i want my unique skills and passions to be able to be brought to bear on the task of parenting.  it means so much to me to be creative, to make things with my hands, to come up with ideas and make them turn into a real something in this world.  i want to design her climbing structure for the living room, build it, and then watch her play with it.  just the tiny craft of turning an old sling into a sensory swing in the living room, getting to use knots from the knot guide (buntline hitch and sheet bend - i finally got to use the sheet bend!!!), and then hanging it up and then seeing her play with and enjoy the swing so much, it's felt so good.  it's really cool when i can say, hey, because of the person that i am and what i'm capable of doing, my child gets to have this experience.

every child is going to have different experiences based on their parents.  parents who read a lot, who make things, often have kids who grow up and do those things, too.  i love this.  i don't think i fear that there won't come more opportunities later for her to know me as a person who can make or fix just about anything, and for her to learn this disposition to the world, that we are much more about creating than consuming.  i know it will come.  and maybe at times i get impatient.  but it's been almost 2 years where it's just so hard to find time to do any project that's more than just a little bit involved unless we have help.  so now with the pandemic, when we've decided based on our perceived risk factors that it's not the time to have her with a babysitter, this means i just have less opportunities than ever.

in some ways i like this journaling thing because i can set a timer for 15 minutes and you can produce a lot of words on the screen in this time, so it feels like you got a lot done, haha...  i mean, this baby's brain is growing so fast, her development is just absolutely explosive in speed at this early age, i know i'm getting a LOT done, a lot MORE done, by parenting her, than anything else.  i know this.  but it still takes its toll when the things that are unique to you as a person are unable to be experienced.  i bet there are all kinds of people whose careers, like musicians who go on tour, who are feeling this way during the pandemic.  i think about J whose nail salon opened up recently and now has been closed all this time.  was she renting that space?  will she lose it?  will she have to start over?  how will this affect her financially?  i'm far from the only person struggling right now.  and while that doesn't change what i am personally experiencing, it can be easy to let my brain drift and think well, it's not as bad as what all these other people are going through, so i shouldn't complain.

i guess i'm not complaining, i'm just thinking about what is hard for me right now, because understanding that, and being self-reflective, and trying to be more self-aware, will make me a better parent and partner.  right?  so it's not self-indulgent to think about and grieve the things that are hard for me just because other people are going through things that are not only harder for them but would also be harder for me than what i'm experiencing right now.

i guess part of the question is, do i NEED to find a way to prioritize doing more making, or do i just find a way to be patient and accept that this will take time?  i sometimes feel like maybe we need to prioritize only doing konmari right now, and then once the house is properly organized, THEN everything we want to do will be be possible / easier.  so hard to know what to do.  it's hard enough making time for journaling!  (sometimes, remembering to do it)...  i'm kind of at the point where i want to ask myself, if i prioritize organizing the house, because this is a totally boring task that i would literally rather do ANYTHING OTHER THAN, will the accomplishment, and what it facilitates about living here, be worth it, will it be rewarding enough to compensate for what's hard about it?  will it be nice to kind of rip the bandaid off and get it over with?  that's what i'm hoping, i think.  guess i need to chat with A about this.

day 2 of journaling for 15 min daily

 not sure what i should talk about.  it can definitely feel, the next morning after a day that was relatively easy, like there's not much to say about parenting.  maybe i don't need to talk about parenting.  maybe i can just babble on about other stuff.

how about the food problem?  i guess it's probably not just me who finds it tiresome and hard to regularly prepare/cook healthy food because there's just so little time when you're the full-time caretaker of a baby.  i think i always feel too much guilt around when i fail at eating in an ideal way.  it's funny how the bar has crept upwards, where once upon a time i felt like i was eating so well if i got in a few veggies per week, and now i'm feeling like i'm getting it wrong if i don't eat a large quantity of veggies every day.  even just last night, i ate a giant pile of brussels sprouts, probably a pound of them, and because i ate it with rice, it doesn't seem to register for me as being healthy.

i do wish i could just have a live-in household helper.  they could cook and clean and then when i need to do some organizing tasks, they could play with E.  sigh, wouldn't that be lovely?

regardless of how much vegetation i'm eating, i definitely need to be dropping some pounds.  i have this numb/tingling spot on my hip and it's making it hard to sleep since i can only sleep comfortably on my left side, just like during pregnancy.  i need to be walking regularly.  i need these fires to be done with so the air is clean enough for me to walk.

i keep thinking, a few times each day, for a fleeting moment, that i need to work on E's 2nd birthday presents.  it feels so lame to me to consider purchasing something i could make for her.  imagine the difference between growing up with toys your mom made for you, versus, just some random toys your parents bought?  i just feel so good about having built her that gazebo.  it was like a love letter to that baby!  i want to keep doing this.  part of me feels like if she could decide based on her criteria right now, she'd probably say, okay, guys, no, don't spend time making things for me, just spend time with me.  i know that it's just ME who wants this, me who needs some time away from the otherwise full-time task of parenting.

on that note, the full-time thing, i really want to know when i can expect that baby to stop nursing so many times in the night!  i feel like her need for co-regulation is so high, and she winds down so slowly, that nursing her back to sleep just makes sense as something that's needed, and it may be the way it is parenting this kind of child.  i think i'm mostly at peace with it these days.  i think part of me is expecting that when she finishes this current batch of teething, it'll be a lot less frequent wake-ups.  can't be sure what to expect, so i just wait.

sometimes i think what i SHOULD be journaling is all the wonderful things that baby does!  just yesterday she picked up the letter Y and held it by the stem and said "V!" and i said, oh, yeah, when you cover this up, it does look like a V, but (and then i mumbled to myself about how i needed to find the actual V, don't recall exactly what i said) and she had toddled away, and i thought, oh well, she's too young, she's not interested in learning all this stuff.  but then she said, from across the room, "i got it!" in that way she does, and i look up and she's retrieved the ACTUAL letter V from way across the room.  which means she not only knew what letter it was, but remembered where it had been deposited.  which is amazing.  my baby, not even 2 years old, is recognizing letters.  entire words, at times.  she can ask for books by title, even complicated titles like "i promise" and "dream animals" and she asks for Dr. Seuss' Sleep Book by saying "moose juice goose juice".  so lovable.

today's journaling wasn't much of tapping into my feelings, but i'm glad i wrote that stuff down about her, in case i don't find time to put it in her baby book any time soon.  so i don't forget.  i feel tired today.  definitely wishing i'd slept in.

going on a journaling jag b/c therapist said i should

so i'm giving this a try, this online therapy thing, which is a once-weekly half hour online video chat.  it's not very long.  they're not paying her very well from what she said.  so i kind of think it's fair to expect that if she's not getting much pay, she's going to not be able to give as much to the process.  i'm going to accept that.  but i'm also going to acknowledge that she's asked me to journal for 15 min/day and to share a few of those per week, and this means she's actually going to be doing some stuff outside our video chat sessions that adds to the value.  but it doesn't benefit me if i don't do the work.

actually i guess you could say that about any and all kinds of therapy or processes of self-improvement.  you've got to do work.  it's sometimes work that takes time, like this.  that's the hardest kind of work to do right now.  i am squeezing this in during her bath.  she's singing now, but shortly ago called out for me to get her out.  i told her to wait.  we'll see.  i may not even get the full fifteen minutes.

the hardest thing about parenting a very small child is, for me, the fragmenting of my attention.  i think that A doesn't totally understand how easy it is for me to have my attention wander off already, without the addition of a child to the equation.  and how hard that is for me.  and how much it gets exacerbated by having a baby.  it also feels so hard to commit to anything.  i feel like our society expects us to be able and willing to still commit to things even when we have just had a child and it is our obligation to that child to be there for them.  it's so messed up.  i even judge myself against this, even though i don't agree with it, because you can't help but be affected by social norms and expectations.  it's hard not to feel that you're not doing enough, or not doing it well, if you can genuinely find no spare time.

the thing that irks me is that people want to give advice to people who describe our challenges as we do, in terms of what we're not giving ourselves permission to do.  that's just the thing though.  i honestly can't do as much or be as available, as what she genuinely needs.  i already give myself permission to walk away when she needs me, to leave her crying her head off while i complete something, or choose activities from time to time that favor our (the adults') fun over her getting to bed perfectly on time.  i just can't do it perfectly.  no one can.  so i'm already giving myself permission to not be perfect.  because there's no choice.  but then from that point, do we do our best?  i think so.  that's what we do.  we don't say, "oh, i am going to give myself permission to not do my best", no.  it just doesn't work that way.  i would never believe for a moment someone who loves their child isn't going to feel compelled to do their best.  sometimes even my best isn't as good as what i wish for her.  and in the context of all of that, i don't need advice about how i can do a little less for/with her.  i am already aware of Winnicott's concept of the "good enough" parent.  i'm also aware of the harms of parents who weren't quite.  or my own parent.  who tried her hardest.  and still harmed me to where i am having a very hard life in many ways.  sure, she enriched me in SO many ways, too.  but i really think that i deserved not to be harmed in the way that i was, and i believe E deserves the same, and while that is unrelated to WHETHER i am capable of giving it to her, the fact is, i know that with the trauma i bring forward, it's going to be a challenge for me to be a good enough parent.  my starting point is a lot farther from where some people's starting points are, because i have such a strong adrenaline response to so many things, and just such a strong response in general.  i feel all of parenthood so incredibly intensely.  it's all intense, the highs and the lows.

i don't need advice about how i can do less or try less hard or take more time for myself.  it's something i was able to do more before the pandemic, and it's something i can do far less of now.  that's just the way it is.

but even though i think i'm fairly well in acceptance of this fact, that doesn't mean it isn't hard.  it doesn't mean i don't want to grieve, to some extent, that which i wish i had more of in my life, like creating things with my hands.  i just don't understand the world very well when i'm not creating things.  at least writing in a journal 15 min per day (on the days i can manage) is something along these lines, instead of nothing.

sometimes i fear, i fear so much, forgetting this entire early babyhood.  my memory is a disaster with the sleep fragmentation.  i have trouble understanding the world when i can't remember anything and i'm not making anything.  i'm just spending all time in survival mode, just trying to avoid being flooded by adrenaline too often, and trying to manage it when i AM flooded, because the ache in my stomach and chest and throat and shoulders, it's just so much, and i just don't want to go through parenthood this way.  and i want to remember all the things i so love about her.  she's so amazing.  like, i had no idea a child could be so precocious.  i thought my parents were exaggerating about me.  but if she's like i was, then i guess they weren't.  it's so cool, the things she understands, and does, and says.