2003-11-12 - 11:05 p.m. - Cycle day:

I don't want to get sucked into the stereotype. I don't want my family to be a cliche. Yet here I am, after working all day and simultaneously taking care of the baby, listening to her cry because her father doesn't seem to understand that, barely an hour after waking up from a three-hour nap, she isn't ready to go to sleep. This seems like common sense to me, but he just doesn't seem to get it. Or doesn't want to. He still tries, in a dozen ways a day, to make the baby fit into his life, rather than vice versa. So here I am, exhausted and frazzled, after having done everything in my power to keep the baby content and keep the household in something resembling order, now spending the last hours of my day listening to a frustrated baby wail when all it would take to quiet her down is a walk around the living room and a calming voice. Instead, he's lying down in bed and whistling at her. I want to scream and cry and bury my head under the couch cushions. But instead I'll probably walk into the kitchen to get the ice cream I've been waiting three hours to eat, but then get distracted by the dishes that need to get put away or the laundry that needs to be folded. And the baby will still be crying.

Why is this so hard for him? Why does he refuse to adapt? Why can't he figure out what either one of us needs? Our marriage has always been a partnership, and I never felt unequally burdened by family responsibility. But now I feel like, most of the time, I'm raising this baby alone.

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