all that time reconciling myself to the strangeness of having a half white baby (my brain firmly believes that, since I am full Asian, it would be weird and implausible to give birth to an even partially white baby – and I spent a lot of pregnancy reminding myself that’s not how it works). and then the baby came out full Asian
pretty wild highs & lows since childbirth. renovations still ongoing at a distance with move date uncertain; live-in postpartum care worker my parents dubcon-gifted us who’s hard to communicate with (language barrier) and is doing unsafe-seeming food practices; family stuff both sides; health issues from a complicated labor. there’s also the actual baby, but right now she’s noticeably less difficult than the interpersonal stuff. I’m sobbing multiple times daily from stress
“would I rather be bored” – ah well… er… no. (sheepishly) I like stress
I always regretted not doing the silicon valley startup grind in my twenties when I had energy, and this feels kind of similar. except all the problems are stupid and don’t make me money
nonetheless, they are problems, which I seem to adore having
scrupulously waited until I actually loved my baby to say things like “I love you, little baby”. I would say it took about a week
I really really really dreaded having to deal with the crying, but actually… tfw you pick her up and start singing and her flushed upset little face starts smoothing out and she looks up at you… hm. it’s not so bad man
iatrogenic crying (when you comfort your baby so ineptly they keep caterwauling long after the initial bad stimulus fades away)
boyfriend CJ, placidly translating for the baby as she cried during a diaper change: “help. I’m stuck in reality and I can’t get out”
also:
CJ, putting a pacifier in the baby’s mouth: what if she notices it’s a scam? and there’s no food
me: what is she going to do, vote against the incumbent? me?
before having a baby, I thought it sucked that babies took so long to turn into interesting people. “good for people who like babies but I’m not one of them. I want a child who can tell me her theories. etc.”
but now I have a baby I feel no hurry at all?? she’s great as she is
me, cuddling the newborn: I’m serving cloth mother so hard right now
(affectionately, to baby) I’m going to protect and nurture you until one day you can hurt my feelings more accurately than practically anyone else can
(only managing to spend like 70% of Adderall time on deliverables) woman who craves to maximize shareholder value waylaid by gazing into her daughter’s eyes while singing lullabies
woman whose baby is not quiet: I yearn to work as soon as soon as the baby is quiet
same woman when the baby is quiet: [walking around holding baby. singing nonsense. kissing baby hair. FAFFING]
me trying to get some commission work in on a deadline: WHO THE FUCK IS DISTURBING MY oh it’s my beautiful infant daughter whose eyes I will lovingly stare back into as I feed her a bottle
me: I think she’s bored. She cries until I pick her up and walk around, then she looks at everything. I endorse her learning about the world, but I have things to do… can I put her on the roomba?
spouse: you may not put her on the roomba.
me: what, concretely, is the harm?
spouse: she’ll run into things
me: I’ll make a little palanquin for her so she won’t get knocked off
spouse, again: you may not put her on the roomba.
the giant, trying to have a moment: oh, darling. you made her
me: eh. my body made her, and I don’t really identify with my body.
me: she came out and I was like, I didn’t make any of these engineering decisions
the giant: we approved a very high level plan, and assembly proceeded with minimal supervision
me, thinking of another contraption for the baby: we could spare her some frustration when she’s learning how to crawl by making her a little cart, as an intermediate step
spouse: …and how would this cart work
me, confused about where the confusion was: er, it would be a simple wheeled chassis under her torso that supports most of her weight, so she can focus on mastering the limb movements without all the required strength and dexterity
(back and forth)
spouse: you know that her arms need to go under her torso, right? there’s not much room for a chassis
me: oh. oh, fuck!
spouse: what
me: I was somehow envisioning… um, millipedes? their arms go out and then down. I thought the baby, too… would…
spouse: you
Breastfeeding
me before childbirth: my breasts are both good in different ways
me after childbirth: there’s a good breast and a bad breast. the bad one with high variance milk output will be steamrolled by the homogenizing power of the state until it is economically legible
the creature & I suck at our respective halves of breastfeeding. a few days ago she chomped me so hard I cried. we were both just staring at each other and crying. obviously this was unpleasant, but it was also interesting? nice, even, to have that moment with her
the worse a baby is at a basic survival thing, the more labor and care it implies her ancestors expended to make the thing work anyway
it’s called milk letdown because it’s always letting her down
breastfeeding is like one of those cartoon fights where you only see some flailing limbs and sprays of blood in a cloud. except instead of blood it’s milk
me, checking watch: it’s almost time to torture the baby again. bring her to me me so that we can inflict the brown disk of malnutrition on her
me, placing her on the breastfeeding pillow and putting a cloth under her head: Hmm, this physical configuration again. I wonder what this means. Might it be that this is one of those situations where there is such a thing as success or failure?
me earlier, in pure perplexity: I don’t understand. Don’t you want to live?