oats

I keep thinking about a hazy, ephemeral time when E was an infant, and we would spend cozy afternoons in D's savior of an old Barcalounger.  (I hated that chair and couldn't believe that he insisted on moving it to our new house, but it saved me during that hard pregnancy and her early infancy.)

E would nurse, and I would relax, and then she would sleep.  I would have the TV on sometimes -- old episodes of Sesame Street or Oprah (if she wasn't talking about anything too intense).

E and I were enveloped in a cloud of hormones and tiredness.  I struggled so much at the beginning.  It was so hard for me to lose myself so completely.  I still haven't "recovered" from that flood of feelings that just washed most of me away.

I remember that I had milk supply problems early on and then learned that eating oats helped me a lot. So I began to eat a couple of oatmeal cookies in the afternoons while she nursed.  It was so quiet.  Then she would fall asleep, and I would think about how weird and wild it all was that this little babe was on my belly, and we were sitting in the ugly chair.  D wouldn't be home for another couple of hours, and when he got home, he wouldn't expect much because he knew how worn out I was.

Time just drifted.  I dozed.  I loved the oats and the sweetness.

I think I was a nicer person back then.