Interruptions

I tried to buy t-shirts online this morning.  I was thinking about a video I once saw where Mark Zuckerberg explained why he wears the same grey shirt every day, because having to make decisions, even small ones about what to put on our bodies in the morning, is exhausting.  The two shirts I bought in the gap while I was pregnant are always the first thing I wear when I’ve done laundry, so I thought I’d take after Zuck and get ten of them, but in different colours, because I need some variety, some way of knowing what day it is.  

I was deep in the check-out process when I remembered that a fraud alert on my credit card meant I wouldn’t be able to finish buying the shirts.  I logged into my account to decipher what I had bought recently, and called the bank.  By this time my daughter is awake and my patience is running thin. It’s a Sunday so my husband is home and we usually spend this time on an outing somewhere. I can’t get the password manager to work and I’m cranky as hell. I never manage to buy the shirts.

Everyone knows the sleep deprivation is killer when you have a baby, but I think the interruptions are even harder to cope with, especially as baby is getting older.  Margot is 5 months old and will usually get at least one 4-5 hour stretch of sleep at night, but she still doesn’t nap longer than 45 minutes at a time. If you’re organised you can get a lot done in 45 minutes, but you might need those few minutes to get some sleep yourself, or take a shower.  You think you can get dinner mostly prepped, then realise you don’t have the main ingredient, so going to the store is going to be the focus of your afternoon, after which you’re too exhausted to make dinner and the ingredients wilt and are thrown away.

All of the things I need to do to keep myself sane; sleep, exercise, make meaningful progress towards a goal, keep a tidy home, are so much more difficult with a baby.  They would be impossible without a partner, and an extended family to step in. Margot is awake now, I let her fall asleep on me while nursing so I can squeeze a few more minutes out of nap time,  She’s watching my fingers tapping on the keyboard and grabbing my thumb with her fat hot hand. Some interruptions are so cute you don’t mind them at all.