down and up

i see you
Originally uploaded by Kristy and Eva.

about 15 minutes after that last bleary-eyed post (which contains thinly-veiled hints at the coming desperation, clear to me only in hindsight), i tried to get eva to sleep, and she was clearly having none of it. it was 11:00, i was reaching my limit, so i got up to walk down the hall for one minute. she gave out one cry of protest, then quieted (foreshadow for mamas in the know). she made a second peep, so i headed back to the room (again, i was away for no more than a minute) and as i was walking back, i heard her fall from the bed onto the floor, followed by the freaked out crying. (the mattress and box spring are on the floor, and we have rails along both sides of the bed and a chair blocking most of the foot of the bed, but she apparently crawled after me straight toward the two foot wide open space at the end of the bed.)

she seemed mostly shaken and largely unharmed, but as i sat on the floor rocking her back and forth in my lap, i think i honestly was crying more for my guilt than for her pain. i felt like the worst mom ever, because the only reason she fell was that i left her because i was not handling it and needed to walk away. i stood at the end of the hallway thinking (for the first time ever, or at least in a mighty long time), "okay, i can't let her cry it out, but i can't do *this* every night either so what are my other options?" and this is what gives me that aching mama guilt: at the very moment i was thinking about how to get away from her, she was crawling trying to get to me, and fell. i'm still not entirely sure what the message is in all this (other than to move the mattress off the boxspring). be better about asking for help? that what she needs most is a mom who takes care of herself and isn't crazy? i don't know, but i'm really hoping it's not "see what happens when you have a fleeting negative thought about your child? she nearly dies. so there, serves you right, you bad mama."

i've been having a challenging couple of weeks, but maybe that was the worst of it, because today things were looking up. i saw people, ran some errands, spent an entire hour all by myself, and now eva is actually sleeping. you may be wondering what an uber-hipster cool mom-about-town like myself does with her free hour. well, i can't spill all the exclusive details (hint: it involves washing the car because eva cries when i attempt that with her in it), but i can tell you that i listened to the first two tracks on my new CD with the volume on 14 rather than in the baby-approved volume range of between 6 and 10. that's right, 14, people! i know, it's too crazy. try to contain yourselves.