"Sleep When The Baby Sleeps"

I've always thought this was one piece of advice that was utterly useless.

When TJ was awake, he was either screaming, or feeding, or getting a diaper change. When Alex is awake, he's fairly content... As long as he's within touching distance of me, or he's busy eating (he spends most of his waking time attached to my boobs), or again, he's being changed.

So who does the laundry for me? When do I get to eat? What about some personal time... Like going to the bathroom? Maybe a shower? What about my writing (the only thing keeping me sane)?

So, I try to plan my activities around when Alex is asleep. "Plan" is used very loosely here. Obviously, I can't wait every time I need to pee.

Today saw very little "me" time. It was our first day alone. GW went back to work this morning. He called to check on us, but I had turned the ringer off, because Alex & I were napping together.

I discovered that one of my cats (most likely Paris) had gotten into my office (off limits to the kittehs) and knocked my laptop off it's perch... So I had to fix that up before I could do anything with it. I'm now missing my "Tab" key. Thanks, you bitch. Then I used a couple more minutes of Alex's content-awake time to IM GW, so he wouldn't think I was just ignoring him. It didn't take long before Alex realized I wasn't within an arms reach of touching, so that was a short conversation.

Alex had a fussy time, but I still don't know what was wrong with him. Was he unhappy with my output? He'd already drained me. Tired? Wet? Dirty? Nothing seemed to help. Not even the paci (he now knows the difference, and will accept no substitutes when he wants noms) was working. I wrapped him up and rocked him while he screamed at me. And then I got on the "WTF was I thinking?" track in my brain. Why did we want a baby? It was just crazy. What were we thinking? Why did I think this had been a good idea? And we wanted another one? We had to be out of our minds. I sat there and cried, because I didn't know what else to do, I'd tried everything. I even tried fashioning a makeshift sling to put him in. He hated it, and it wasn't the most comfortable, either.

Maybe he just needed to cry or had a tummy ache or something, because he eventually stopped on his own. And wanted to be fed.

But by the time GW got home, I was in a mood- I was tired of being little more than a milk machine, and I had to pee very bad. GW took a nap. Grrrr.... I still had to pee, so I left Alex crying on the bed to do so, even though I hate to leave him crying. Damn GW's nap, I really had to go. And he said it was ok when I apologized. Then he promptly went back to sleep. And I went back to being milked. *sigh*

Is this kid ever going to stop eating constantly every waking minute? I know he will... But when?