Nap

There are days...days like today, during which I would like to give myself a leave of absence from my job as Stay-at-Home Mom.  It would be like Captain Donald Cragen saying: "Don't try and rush it, [Detective] Olivia [Benson]. Take a vacation and relax. You'll be back before you know it."  Only I would say those things to myself.  I would brush my teeth; shower; remove, color, style hair.  I would apply make-up!  I would dress nicely (perhaps in an outfit that doesn't require easy access to my frontal units?) and go to Olive Garden.  By myself.  I would order a Frozen Peach Bellini and unlimited garden-fresh salad and minestrone, which I would consume liesurely, while reading the book my little brother bought me for Christmas: the one I haven't yet opened.

Since a leave of absence was not in the cards, today, I did the next best thing.  (For the record, I did it yesterday, too.)  I took a nap.

Baby Charleigh took a nap with me, of course.  She will be five months old tomorrow, but she may be the only person on the face of the earth who really could draw blood from a turnip.  She is happy to nurse around the clock, and here's the other thing about Baby Charleigh: she reminds me a little of this parakeet named Billy that used to live in my Grandma Shafer's living room.  When Billy drove Grandma crazy, Grandma made it dark in Billy's cage, and Billy stopped singing...went off to sleep.  I have learned that Baby Charleigh is like that...that--if I hold her close and make it dark, warm, quiet, and milk-filled--she is sure to stop babbling and go off to sleep.

So I snuggled with Baby Charleigh, and--in the place to which I sailed, in my dreams--there were no broken, forced-air-heating units; pinewood-derby guides undeciferable and vague to fairly intelligent and well-educated parents (and, therefore, no pinewood-derby cars created outside of regulation); crying children of any age or size; cancer, Tarlov cysts, or Alzheimer's disease; or endless piles of laundry and stuff.

One might expect that I would awaken refreshed, happy after my respite.  To be honest, I kind of expected that, myself.  But I am not happy.  I am still sad.  I don't want anyone to try to talk me out of my sadness or ask me to interrupt it by considering the abundance of blessings in my life.  I am blessed.  I am also sad.  And I would really like to go back to sleep.