Not Enough Drugs

There are not enough drugs in the world to alleviate the horror of being home alone with four children, one of whom is completely enraptured with his father.

The baby started screaming as soon as I tried to give him his bottle and put him to bed. He cried so hard he puked all over me and all over himself. Finally, after holding him for way too long (considering how fragrant we both were by then) I just put him down and listened to him scream, "No Mama, No. Daddy bye bye. Daddy bye bye." Lovely. This is what I get for having spend the first six months of his life attached to a breastpump instead of holding him. I was so hysterically obsessed with the idea of breastfeeding, that I just could not accept that this child with his malformed chin would not learn to nurse. Maybe malformed is too harsh a word. His chin never shifted forward, so it's very recessed. (What with the weak chin, the single eyebrow, and the infant moustache, he's a real looker, let me tell you.) For two weeks I basically starved him, and then I tortured him and myself by pumping ten times a day, and trying to force him to the breast. All my interactions with him were awful, and he became fixated on his father.

Now, with Michael away, I end up desperately trying to convince him that I'm not a total stranger. The one who does love me best decided that since her little brother was getting so much attention, she would join the fracas. So I've two crying, one complaining that I don't read to him like his father does, and the only one not giving me grief is the ten-year-old, and I don't even want to think about what craziness she's getting up to behind her closed door.