blogging on blogging

I never visit MySpace, because it's the most constipated website I've ever tried to load. I find the layout annoying and cluttered, and I want to dig my eardrums out of my head when I find a user page that has music embedded on it. But, many of my art school friends have pages, and from time to time I think of someone I'm curious to track down and I look them up. I found a couple I met through my ex who I was very fond of (both the ex and the couple.) They have a 10 month old baby, so I giddily added them both as friends and eagerly awaited a reply, hoping the fact that I was friends through the ex wasn't awkward for them. In the meantime I read their pages more carefully, and I found out they've lost a child who would have been a little over a year and a half old now. This shocked me and broke my heart. I'm not sure what happened to their son, but I'm amazed by their resilience. The father has a very sweet mention of the baby on his page, and I read a little about the mother's healing process. She did reply to my blog entry there and hopefully we'll have a playdate in the near future. Hearing things like that is 1,000 times more painful now that I'm a mother. I want to hold this friend close to me and tell her I love her because I really do. She's a precious, beautiful woman.

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A LiveJournal friend updated recently and was venting about her really high-needs baby. She wrote about how sick it makes her to read glowing mothers' tales of adorable, easy babies. It made me feel something like guilt for being that Mom- my cousin's troubles make me feel that way too, as if I won the easy baby lottery at their expense.

However:

The past couple of weeks, Molly has graduated from adorable, easy-going newborn baby to clingy attention-starved infant. She must be held (but Oh , No- not in a sling!) and entertained at all times, eat every hour and a half, and sleep right on top of mommy. She has to cry from 6:30-8:00 and then crash. We've had some stretches finally this week of long sleep in the night, aided by the admittedly excessive use of the baby swing. I'm not complaining- when I'd think I was approaching really cranky strung-out mommyness, she'd give me a little break. I just wanted to let the blogosphere know I'm not that mommy anymore with the unfairly easy life. Molly is, in fact, human. (Although I have on several occasions lately wondered if she was replaced recently with a screaming goblin changeling.)