Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Domestic Bliss

It's the eve of our 8 year anniversary.
Tha baby wakes me at 6am. I lie in bed with her, feed, goo & gah a bit, nudge her Dad to let him know it's his turn.
'I'm really tired. Didn't you have a better nights sleep?' he mumbles.
If you mean did I have 7 hours of broken sleep as opposed to the previous nights 5 hours, then yes, I suppose I did.
'Please,' I say 'I need more sleep'.
'Just give me 20 minutes more. I stayed up late watching the tennis'.
In that moment I am more furious with him than I think I've ever been. I want to smash him with my fists and kick him in his arse and push him out of bed, scream obscenities at him, scratch him, hurt him. Selfish fuck.
I don't do any of that. I get out of bed with our baby girl and proceed to spend the next 30 minutes channelling all that rage into love for her, tickles & funny faces & silly noises & kisses.
It doesn't make me feel any less angry with him, but it's nice not to feel angry with her.
I take her back into the bedroom, lay her on the bed and leave the room. Eventually they get up and I lay down to try and get some extra rest, fortunately remembering to close the bedroom door. This does muffle her cries slightly, but they are still fairly distinct to a mothers ears. I ignore them and he lasts for about 15 minutes before he comes into the room.
'Can you help me' he cries
'YOU DIDN'T HELP ME' I yell like a petulant 6 year old. Grabbing her away from him.
'I'M SICK OF THIS SHIT' he roars, throwing the somewhat useless dummy onto the bed and charging out of the room, being sure to slam as many doors as he can along the way.
I'll just clarify here, we are generally not fighters, or yellers. We tend to prefer sulking, stewing over things and not speaking rather than the raised voice of anger.
Thats that really. He pisses off to work and I'm left wondering whether I should feel bad about the events of the morning or if dammit I should have said more. Can't it be about me? Why can't I be sick of this shit and stay up late and watch tennis and throw dummies? Why should I feel bad? I don't have any answers, just a bubble of trouble in my tummy that says you guys need to sort this mess out, but I don't know how.
Just had to write it while it was fresh.

1 comment:

  1. clare...I didn't know you had a blog. i must be a little slow. And shit what an amazing writer you are... your post about breastfeeding/know it all 'friends' is hilarious. I can see myself in your shoes if i ever have a baby. I have a friend who is very similar. Was there calm after the storm after this post? xox

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