2004-04-23 - 11:07 p.m. - Cycle day:

I knew it with my head, but now I know it with my arms and legs and lower back: mobility is hard. M. can move in three dimensions now, and it's exhausting trying to keep up. Especially since she still doesn't understand concepts like gravity and balance. She'll go shooting towards the end of the bed and I half expect her to crawl off into thin air and hover there for a moment, like Wile E. Coyote, until she realizes there's nothing under her (don't worry, so far I've stopped her before she's gotten that far). She has also developed the charming habit of screaming her face off and wiggling for dear life whenever we try to change her diaper. We actually utilized the straps on the changing table for the first time tonight. Otherwise she flips over within three seconds and starts climbing up the dresser. It's maddening. (Although on the bright side, I'm sort of hoping she accidentally knocks over one of the million girly figurines we received as gifts and have stashed atop the dresser for want of display space.) I took apart the co-sleeper this afternoon and transformed it into its playard shape, but M. doesn't seem thrilled about hanging out in there. At least it's a safe, bonk-free zone I can set her in while I pee or something. Other than her stroller, there's nowhere else I can put her that won't result in calamity. Once she gets to standing, she tries to balance herself using her gums (or maybe she's just trying to chew on new stuff) and ends up, literally, falling on her face. Cue relentless, inconsolable screaming.

Of course, I don't think my coping skills are at their highest right now, either. I realized today that I hadn't left the house in four days (thanks to lingering stormy weather) and hadn't seen an adult other than The Husband in that long as well. Yesterday I was wearing jeans in my pre-pregnancy size and I was able to pull them off without unbuttoning them. Sounds like bragging, I guess, but the thinness really isn't flattering when accompanied by full body bruising. I've always been somewhat anemic, but lately I've been covered in black and blue marks that I have no memory of earning. I just feel run down. M. hasn't slept more than a couple hours straight in I don't know how long. She's nursing every few hours during the day, rather than the 4-5 hours I was enjoying for a brief pre-growth-spurt period. She's in another teething stage, too (although still no teeth). And now that she's crawling and standing and climbing and gravitating toward every single unsafe thing she can find, I feel like my entire day is spent picking her up and moving her somewhere else, over and over and over again. I feel more fragile than I have in a long time. I've come close to just bursting into tears several times in the last couple days. The veneer of stability gets so thin sometimes.

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