Free Maternity Leave (9781466871533) by Julie Halpern

hard
    Mama’s gonna buy you a block of lard
    If that block of lard’s too fat
    Papa’s gonna buy you a climbing cat
    If that climbing cat falls down
    You’ll still be the sweetest little baby in town.
    Sam still didn’t fall asleep after that magnum opus, so then I whipped out the saddest song of all time: “Puff, the Magic Dragon.” I remember watching the cartoon as a kid and bawling my eyes out at the end. As an adult, I was no different the second I hit the line “A dragon lives forever, but not so little boys.” Jesus Christ. Does Jackie Paper die? Or did they mean he just doesn’t live forever as a little boy because he grows up into a neglectful dickhead who forgets his awesome dragon friend? Poor Puff, sadly slipping into his cave.
    And I’m crying again.
    FACEBOOK STATUS
    I have a hickey on my areola. Which is a lot less cool than a hickey on my neck because a) a baby gave it to me; b) this hurts like a mother sucker; and c) wait, were hickeys ever cool?
    27 Days Old
    I hate the middle of the night. Hate hate hate it. I am considering moving to the Arctic for part of the year just so it can be daylight all of the time. Sam is up every two to three hours, and it feels like there is no closure to each day, just an endless cycle of stops and starts and so much waiting. Each time I feed him, I lie awake waiting for the next time. I am so fucking tired. When I ask for advice, be it on the phone or Facebook or the grocery store, people love to offer this nugget:
    â€œJust have Zach feed him.”
    How? Do you want me to spend what little time I have in between feedings pumping milk from my body? That would defeat the purpose. And people (most prominently my mother) are still pushing the formula angle. I don’t want to be all preachy and angry because that’s not my style (to people’s faces, anyway), but I don’t want to give Sam formula. My body was made to nourish him, and damn if I’ll let some company pump him full of chemicals to make my life easier. Having a baby shouldn’t be easy. Or should it because it’s supposed to be natural? But breastfeeding is hella hard and painful, and it feels like the only thing I’m doing right by this baby since his birth. Shit, I have to do something right. I really want to be good at breastfeeding. Like, the same way I wanted to get a perfect score on my SATs. So I will fight through the pain, the sleeplessness, the ravaged nipples. Somebody out there better give me a good grade soon, or I may have to take my mom up on the Costco supply of formula.
    28 Days Old
    Tonight we had eggs for dinner, which admittedly made me really gassy. Then Sam had a horrible night of writhing and screaming from what appeared to be gas. (Although, frankly, who can tell with babies? Maybe he was wrestling with a demon inside of him who enjoys mauling my breasts and keeping me from getting more than an hour of sleep at a time.) Zach described one particularly bad episode as looking like Sam was giving birth. Served him right. Zach wouldn’t subscribe to my demon-possession theory, but it couldn’t hurt to call an exorcist. Are they listed in the phone book?
    29 Days Old
    I am not doing so well. Whenever Sam wakes up from a nap, I feel a wave of anxiety well up in my stomach. I don’t want to take him out of his crib. I don’t want to hear his crying or feel the way he immediately wants to attack my boobs the second I pick him up. I don’t want to change his diaper and snap up his baby-sized snaps not made for grown-up-sized fingers. And I most definitely do not want to see that hopeful look in his eyes when he stares at my face, his mama’s face, and I don’t have the slightest desire to smile at him.
    This is not how being a mom should feel.
    My mom came over between knitting and canasta so I could cry in the shower for an hour.
    Night
    Zach noticed I was not myself and suggested we see a movie. We