Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Life lately seems like a broken record. This one spins on a 12 revolutions per day. It goes: Child cries, mom rushes to pick up child, dad looks on as child quiets down. Now, if you alter this tune to where dad listens as baby cries to see if she'll settle her self down, it turns into something that sounds like a Rob Zombie tune. It changes in the latter part to: Child cries, dad looks on, mom comes rushing in, looks at dad as if he's an idiot, mom "rescues" child from dad, and leaves in tears. We're vascillating among the different versions of this twisted tune daily as the chorus of sleep deprivation plays in the background.

Other than this it's just pretty warm here.
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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Maybe you should give
LW the benefit of the doubt. If you're just listening to CP cry rather than trying to figure out why she's crying and addressing it then perhaps her look at you isn't saying "Idiot" but "WTF?". If all it takes to quiet CP is a little directed attention, one has to wonder why you'd prefer to let her cry. Are you operating under the assumption that she's learning bad habits if she expects to have her needs addressed after she makes them known? Perhaps you're of the bootstrap republican persuasion and believe she should stop whining already and just make herself feel better because any extra assistance would be welfare and "spoiling" her for life's real problems. Of course I'm being sarcastic.

This nursery period of CP's life is the time during which she learns how the world works and her place in it. Whether she moves through life as a grown woman with grace and confidence or with fear and insecurity could very well depend on whether or not she understands that these early needs will be addressed quickly and with full attention.

It's not easy to parent. I think most people who have done so would agree. There will always be things that could have been done better, and no one is a born expert; the expertise is learned everyday, with every frustration, through experiment and constant attention. A reason why parenting is so exhausting. I'm guessing you're not sleeping much either, which could be another reason you sound so frustrated. Perhaps you're not the only one who is frustrated.

It's evident from your earlier posts that you're a caring and devoted father. But it's new to you and to the LW. Working together is the only way that parenting is going to get any easier than it is right now. If you're struggling to come together over picking up a crying baby, your struggles are only going to multiply and magnify throughout the next 18 years. So there's the scary scenario. Here's the warm fuzzy puppy one: You and the LW make a pact to agree on how childcare is implemented. Sometimes you have the better approach. Sometimes she does. Whatever the approach, you implement it uniformly so that CP always knows what to expect, and more importantly, so that you and the LW do not find yourselves falling into traps of resentment and blame. These things can kill a marriage if left to fester. Already I bet that you resent and she resents and this is a point of contention that could grow into "She's a (insert excuse for breaking up)" and "He's a (insert excuse for breaking up)". Lots of people don't care enough to take these small steps now. But later on the distance to span is too great and no amount of communication or pact making will fix what's broken.

3:51 PM

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