FVCK YEAH NABLOPOMO! WOO!

Hi. So. Day two of Nablopomo, introductory expositional post out of the way. Now the real writing begins.*

As I mentioned in my last post, I’m going to try blogging every day this month. This is because I do like to write. I like to smash words together and type them out with my fingers. I like the feel of my fingers flying over a keyboard. I like that one time in a million when my monkey-typing manages to make someone laugh. And since I spend a large portion of my days feeling fraught and thwarted and wrung-out, I thought it would be nice to do something for myself that wasn’t running away to Toronto.

*Ha ha, I said “real writing” up there. Sorry to have misled you.

Anyway, so my theme this month is Why I Can’t Write. I thought about posting thirty pictures of Molly in a row, but that seemed kind of unfair and a little like cheating.

So here’s just one, because jesus is she cute.

Baby fish face!!

Parenting her is a full-time job. It’s like forty full-time jobs, especially after parenting a compliant baby like Owen and a snuggly one like Mac.

She is so completely herself, so smart and beautiful and chubby and cute and determined. But she is like no baby I have ever known. To come at it from the side, these are the books on my bookshelf right now: The Fussy Baby, The Strong-Willed Child, and Easy Home Repair. Girl is TOUGH. Do you know the Honey Badger? Molly is The Baby Badger. She does not give a shit.

She doesn’t brook any shit, either. She only naps for about an hour, maybe an hour and a half total each day. The rest of the time she is screaming and running and thrashing and tearing things apart and shrieking and smearing her boogie nose on things and flinging food on the floor and crying and tugging on my pantsleg and pushing her brother in the face and so on. She will not do cosleeping, she will not do snuggles. She will only stay in your arms if you stand up and let her use you like a mule to get to difficult-to-reach places. These characteristics make it somewhat (OK, unbelievably) difficult to enjoy any of the hobbies I once worked into my life of caring for babies. Even pulling out my phone to tap nonsense into Twitter means locking myself into the bathroom with her screaming on the other side of the door. My hands are full and my attention is split in a hundred directions from the time I get up until the time I go to work.

But I also know (when I am rested enough to take the longview) that this girl is going to kick the whole world’s ass when she grows older, because she is amazing, and it’s not her fault she came along when her mother was ill-prepared to parent such a spitfire. It has been said: “You are not managing an inconvenience, you are raising a human being.” I am an incredibly selfish and shortsighted person who values peace, quiet and copious free time, so when I read that I was chastened.

So what if I can’t indulge my hobbies? I’m raising three awesome little humans. My malformed knitting and incoherent monkey-babble can wait until they are teenagers and I have nothing better to do. As the old ladies at the grocery store remind me, that day will come sooner than I expect. And then I’ll be hobbling around Giant Eagle, looking for other babies to poke, and I might as well enjoy my own baby while she’s here and pokable.

So bring on the shrieking and the power struggles, because they are also accompanied by the wobbly steps and the fish faces and the big, smiling, slobbery kisses. Bring on all of it, and let this sweet and spunky little girl teach me to let go and just enjoy my crazy life, already.