MALKO'S MAD MOM

This is totally not what I wanted to say in the first blog entry since Malko was born, but what the hell.

I'm in a totally fucking bad mood. It's 9:26 on Thursday night, exactly almost a week since he was extracted from my stomach, and I wish I felt nicer, more warm and fuzzy and kind towards the world, but everything and everyone is just irritating me. God, what a wonderful loving person I am! I've been, like, Superbitch since Joedy got home this evening.

I know I'm entitled to a little Superbitchiness these days, what with recent surgery and the last few days and nights spent catering to a miniature person whose little gums grab onto my sensitive engorged (sorry, but I had to throw that word in for its sheer hideousness) breasts like hot pinchers, but the last thing I want to do is complain about him or anything having to do with him, so I'm going to stop right here, having vented my bad-moodiness, and move on to something else.

In the last eleven days, I've thought a lot about what the first entry since his birth would be like, and I've wanted so much for it to be special, to be important and meaningful and expressive of all the love I feel for him, to convey all the thoughts I've had since this time last week, all the details about the C-section and the stay in the hospital and the coming home and the first day here and the nights and the breastfeeding and his adorable face and how much I love him, how much I love him, how much I love him--

I've thought so much about this, and wanted so much to write the right entry, the one that wrapped it all up and was perfect, I ended up jinxing myself; I got my expectations too high, and I couldn't really write--I was afraid to. I was afraid it wouldn't say what I wanted it to. So I didn't write, and it made me feel anxious, like I'm losing touch with my blog, like I'm going to let my four (4) readers down, like--most importantly--I'm letting Malko down, because in my head I imagined him reading the (perfect) entry twenty years from now and thinking "Wow, my mommy really loved me! My mommy was totally in love with me, right from the very beginning..."

I have a headache. Joedy has a horrible cough. Lula has attitude. Laurence, who's visiting, fell on the sidewalk and has a sprained ankle. We're all kind of not at our best this evening, but Malko is doing fine. He's lying in his bassinet on the coffee table in his little yellow sleeper suit, with little blue striped socks on his perfect, petite mottled feet, and his hands are resting on either side of his head in the classic I'm-a-contented-sleeping-baby way.

I guess I won't be able to write about everything; I guess this entry won't be exactly how I hoped it would be. But maybe that's ok--things, after all, don't always work out the way we want them to, and babies in particular are good at shaking plans up. I'm starting to think that the first entry since Malko's birth should start with me, his "sweet-tempered mother," complaining about being in a fucking bad mood, because dude, it's real! It's real fucking life! Anyway, I'm not in a bad mood anymore. I just fed him, typing awkwardly with one hand so I could use the other hand to smoosh my gigantic hard boob into a size and shape that would fit in his mouth, and now he's lying on the pillow in my lap making odd little creaks and groans and whimpers, his face contorting in his sleep into sudden smiles and frowns and looks of astonished wonder. In a few hours, I'm going to wake up to the sound of lips smacking somewhere close by, and no, it won't be Joedy eating a plate of linguine but our little milk monster, squirming in excited anticipation at the thought of the Gigantic Boob that will soon magically appear and be presented to his entire face. Personally, I'd be afraid of an off-white orb hovering so close to my head, but he seems to get a kick out of it, and as the moment of contact gets closer utters a ridiculous squawk that very clearly says: "GIVE ME THAT THING!!!"

His eyebrows raise in momentary astonishment and then he settles into a gentle sucking-breathing-swallowing pattern. His tiny nostrils are pressed so close to my skin that I wonder how he's able to get any air at all, but the snuffling sound tells me he is, somehow; his eyes are shut tight in concentration or relaxation, I'm not really sure which; his arms lie limp by his sides, and his little feet stick out of the yellow sleeping suit, one blue striped sock half falling off. I look at him and can't believe he's only been with us for six days, because the love I feel for him is the kind of love you expect to have been building since the time of dinosaurs, since the world began. I kiss his soft brown hair and think how this time together makes all the difficulties--all the bad moods and headaches and coughs and problems--more than worthwhile: it makes them wonderful.