Squa, squa, squa, SQUARE!

Currently Lily is often drunk with sleep deprivation but she wears it well. She continues to giggle, stagger as she stands, sit up with impressive posture, bang on the piano with her foot, lounge comfortably in the stroller, legs lazily draped over the bar and eat mashed food artfully. I on the other hand teeter between anxiety and amusement, exhaustion and loneliness, and fantasize about naps, showers and going to a movie. I ran into an acquaintance the other day, in a moment when I could hardly keep the tears at bay. It had been a difficult week and that morning I was particularly tapped - I was caught off-guard, twice, by two different songs, one at home and one in a restaurant. They played out of nowhere and left me raw and exposed. One minute I'm eating lunch, the next, subtly and self-consciously brushing tears from my face, feeling more and more isolated by the journey I've been on. The world rushes by, the tears go unnoticed. At times I cannot bear to let the emotion take me any further, the pain is almost paralyzing. Thankfully if I focus on Lily, waiting for me at home, I can pull myself out of the despair. "Yummy, yummy, yummy, I've got apples in my tummy!" Within seconds I'm back in the land of the living, singing over and over and O V E R again a line from one of her robotically cheery toys - that she activates unwittingly every few seconds to the extent that it stutters. Yummy, yummy - Yum - Yummy yu - Yummy yummy I've got... frequently we never get through the whole line, and it doesn't phase her in the least. I on the other hand am on the verge of mama-insanity and then all of a sudden "Sq, sq, SQUARE! I'm a blue, I'm a blue square!".
My day continues.
Ahhh... Motherhood.
I recently realized I neglected to rinse the conditioner out of my hair, a friend told me she discovered her shirt was on inside out after picking up her child who's shirt was on backwards, and another is struggling with memory lapses and frequently repeats parenting anecdotes. The other night I was pumping (breast milk that is) only to discover that the delayed feeling of warmth on my leg was the bottle overflowing. I cleaned it up only to find myself, minutes later sitting on the wet cloth I had used to clean the milk off the sofa. At times I find myself laughing so hard the tears start flowing. Those are good tears. Delirious, belly shaking laughter and tears that I know Alan would find amusing. We often laughed together and he loved my sometimes silent, bowled over hysterics which in turn, had him panting with glee. Lily has her own laughing pant and it too can be silent - Like mother like father like daughter. Luckily for me the dark moments are balanced with levity that is whimsical and mind numbing, heart warming and life-affirming.