All the Horrible Girliness

It is unspeakably great to have someone to whom I can hand the baby sometimes. Half of having a newborn is learning to do everything with one hand. My inlaws are the reason I can type this, now. I time my bathroom breaks around their presence.

Still, it's difficult. Most of the time, they don't bother with English, which I understand. I'm the only one here who doesn't speak Tagalog, so I feel it's my responsibility to learn, and they should feel comfortable enough to speak whatever language they choose in their own home. It's still hard. I hide in my bedroom most of the time they're here, while they pass around the baby and chatter. Mr. Aran will occasionally update me on the politics of the house and what's being said and who's feeling unwell and who's being teased.

My mother-in-law tends to panic, so my father-in-law does the lion's share of walking, cooing, and singing to the baby. It still bugs me the way he and the cousin deal with his crying. If I'm changing him, and he cries, which he does because he's a conservative kind of guy and doesn't like his peen out in the wind, people come running. What's wrong! What's wrong! I get the vague feeling that they think I've broken him, in their absence. And when they're holding him, and he's fussy, they go Okay! Okay! Okay! Okay! or BeeBeeBeeBeeBee! in this panicked way.

My mother-in-law assumes, I suppose, that I'll be going back to work in a couple of months. She mentioned it while I was pregnant and it has irked me ever since. She has this very idyllic version of motherhood that seems to have much to do with being a virgin and having a kid you don't hear about again until he's twelve, and then again when he's thirty and, you know, the Son of God. She had four kids but she never saw much of them and her version of them is pretty idyllic, too. In her family, everyone prayed the daily rosary together and went to mass on Sundays, but the only one who was into it was her. So I get the feeling that she thinks babies should be all, No Crying He Makes, and when he isn't, she thinks something is wrong.

I guess I should be talking to the baby more. I know it's stimulating for him and stuff. But I don't really know what to say. I'm pretty quiet with him, except when he's having trouble getting his latch on, and then I just encourage him the best way I know how. Last night, I told him the story of him, or some of it, how Mr. Aran and I decided to try to have a baby and how bam, I got pregnant, and where I think I conceived, and how we were fighting a lot at the time. We had to go through some sad, tough shit before we were ready for this little bug, but we went through it and then I found out I was pregnant. So I told him about that, and then about seeing him on ultrasound at six and twenty weeks. He didn't seem all that interested.

He isn't interested in anything, yet. Except maybe my nipples, when he's hungry, and that's more like a heroin addict jonesing. He freaks out when he can't get his latch.

How am I supposed to be into someone who has absolutely no interests, except my breasts? On the other hand, it's nice, for once, to be wanted for my tits. It hasn't happened before.

posted by Samus @ 6:52 PM