Emotional Roller Coaster

Two weeks ago, a switch was flicked somewhere in my brain. I've been having emotional highs and lows ever since, and I don't know what's up. I'm fine and happy and playing with Westley one minute, and miserable and bitter the next. I feel shaky, like I'm not sure where I'm going or what I'm doing, but I plug along anyway. It sucks ass.

Westley took a real nap (in his crib and everything) for the first time in a week and a half today. We've been dealing with the Great Nap Boycott of 2008, and up until today, Westley was taking his protest very seriously, even refusing to nap in the car a few times. For several minutes after I put him in his bed this morning, I was sure he'd wake up and start to cry, so I just sat in the kitchen and listened and waited. When it started to become clear that he was actually going to stay asleep, I decided to get something done...but what? A million things to do, left over from previous napless mornings, and no rank order in which to do them. Eventually, I settled on answering e-mail, and felt like I'd made the wrong choice. There's still laundry in my kitchen, and it's almost tomorrow.

You're supposed to be more together by now, my harsh superego tells me. You're supposed to be getting out and doing things with the baby. Your clothes are supposed to fit you better. You're supposed to know how to help him when he's fussy, and soothe him when he cries, and no, feeding him doesn't count. Why don't you love this?

No mother loves it all the time, I tell myself. I swing Westley around and kiss his drooly cheeks and he smiles at me, and for a minute, I'm okay. I turn a corner for an hour or two and feel all right about myself. And then something changes, I crest another hill, and everything looks awful.

I feel so scattered. I can't put a coherent thought together except to compare my emotional roller coaster to what I see around me: smiling mothers with babies who look Westley's age, chic and slender women with their Baby Bjorns and their cheerful conversations to friends on shiny-new cell phones. None of them look how I feel. Are they faking the cheer? Are they just powering through it?

Survival mode is not how I like to operate. I want agency. I want hope for the future, not "Thank God, we made it through another day!" Since I'm not really sure what set this ride in motion in the first place, I'm hoping it will end as suddenly as it began. It's possible that I'll be back on track tomorrow morning.

But right now, I feel like my only choices are to hang on tight or get thrown off.

.....................................