Holy Hell My Brain is Melting

I wrote this yesterday, Sunday, but couldn’t post till now. Today is much cooler.

I fully admit I am a wuss when it comes to humidity. I was born and raised in (what is now called) Metro Vancouver, in the temperate pacific north/south west (depending on your orientation) and I am not used to being sticky. Like, if I touched my arm right now, my hand would STICK to it. I am not currently sweating, but my sweat has dried on the back of my neck and I feel like I bathed in a tub full of melted jellybeans. That shit ain’t right. You people who live in humid climates and do not kill the people you live with, you are my new heroes. Five blades, man. Represent!

Today marks the completion of Fresco’s 17th week as an air-breathing human. And it is August 17th! Yesterday I realized this fantastic coincidence and thought I would use today’s naptime to write a ponderous screed re: 17 weeks of two children o-mi-sufferin’-soul but then today’s naptime fell by the wayside and here it is almost my bedtime and no screed has presented itself, ponderous or otherwise.

Four months old on Wednesday, he will be, and an absolute delight. He does have a very loud screech which he hauls out when he is happy, bored, lonely or overtired. It is so, um, interesting to have such a relatively quiet first child and such a very loud second one. Trombone would always just sit back and look at stuff, even at this age. Fresco is more like, “Hey! Where’s more STUFF? Where’d you guys GO? HEY!” It’s clear that he is accustomed to noise, chatter and action, in a way Trombone never could have been, having spent his formative months with, well, me and Saint Aardvark. And my mom. And the CBC radio one.

Now that the strict keep-it-alive phase of Fresco’s babyhood is over, I find myself at something of a loss with Trombone. I have more time to spend with him, but we’ve disconnected in the past few months. It is the age of loveyou/hateyou and kisses turning into bites and that would be the case whether or not he had a baby sibling. I am coming back to him from newborn-town with the same love as I had before but he is looking at me with these slightly sceptical, slightly older eyes, these eyes that say you are wonderful and the only mother I ever had but you left me for that shrieking banshee and I might just want to kick your ass. I get it, I do.

I guess I hoped they would be more interested in each other; more interested in each other than they are in me and that this would offset any early competition for my attention. As it is, each of them drinks me in when he’s alone with me, drinks me in so that I feel all drunk down, dehydrated, flat. And when we’re all three together, sometimes the competition for my attention is so loud. So bloodthirsty. So … unwarranted, to my old brain, so desperately important to their young ones.

I want them to be independent, when they’re this young? I had children why? So I could ignore them?

No. I want to be left alone sometimes, this much is true.

But more than that, I am eager for them to be building a relationship with each other, the way I have built a relationship with each of them. Like when you have a great new friend and you introduce her to your old friends and you want your old friends to see how much you love this new friend and you want them to love her too, for the same reasons, and also so you don’t feel as guilty about not hanging out with them as much, but all your old friends do is bitch that they never see you anymore and what’s so great about her anyway she’s got bad taste in movies.

I know. I can’t force anything. I’m not forcing anything.

I also know it is too early for them to be able to entertain or interest each other (much) without causing bodily harm. Trombone is busy learning everything about everything; Fresco is busy figuring out how to get chewable items into his mouth; they will build their relationship as they are ready and able and in fact, they are doing it now, in small steps, when Trombone brings Fresco a toy, when he apologizes to him for “being cranky” with him, when Fresco lights up to hear his brother’s voice, doesn’t protest when he gets a mouthful of hair, doesn’t even protest when he gets a head butt. They are doing their level best, as am I, as is Saint Aardvark. 17 weeks down, a lifetime to go.

It is a jumble; my thoughts, this summer, our world. Everything is covered in sand and sweat and drool and ice cream and tears. Of course, I can’t imagine it any other way.