Respite

Our chaotic week in Boston was, thankfully, followed by a long weekend in New Hampshire, where we recovered from our trying days in Boston but still, unfortunately, did not really sleep. We drove up late Friday afternoon, relieved to be out of the hotel and in our beautiful house, able to spread out, put Lucia to bed, and just unwind. I’ve said it before, but there is something about being in NH that is just restorative and good for the soul—the silence, the wind in the trees, every history-heavy floorboard solid under our feet.

Despite warnings of Hurricane Earl, the weather was beautiful, sunny and cool—we wore jeans and sweaters for walks in the woods.

Saturday night, after Lucia was in bed, Andrew cooked lobsters for us, which we ate at a newspaper-covered kitchen table with fresh corn and gin and tonics. We felt human again.



Lucia’s sleep issues continued. Friday night, without neighbors to disturb, we let her cry a bit instead of rushing to nurse, and after seven minutes, she put herself back to sleep. She was restless Saturday night, waking up with a cry and then immediately falling asleep again; and we were tired the next day. Very tired. She is getting another tooth, so perhaps this was what was waking her, though she seemed undisturbed by it during the day; and her stomach seemed upset due to my ill-advised decision to try putting two ounces of formula in her cereal Saturday morning. I no longer pump enough to mix her cereal with breastmilk, and I thought this might be a good way to get in a little more nourishment than the water I’ve been using—big mistake.

But on went our weekend, as we both enjoyed ourselves and struggled to get through one moment to the next. One day, I dream, we will sleep through the night. In the meantime, we enjoyed our baby through a fog of exhaustion—her thrilled smiles as we danced with her to a Jonah Jones record; her determined crawling across the lawn on the lovely fall days; her pride in pulling herself up to stand on everything she came across, including hundred-year-old milking stools. In my most tired moments, I reminded myself that there will come a day when I have to drag a school-age Lucia out of bed in the mornings. From my vantage point, however, those seem like battles in a dreamland of well-restedness.