No Creative Writing Today
I was really hoping to dig into some creative writing today, but this is the first time that I’ve had a chance to turn on my computer all day long. Yeah. I know. Almost 24 hours without touching a computer. Strange for me.
It’s pretty exhausting being around a newborn. I managed to get quite a bit a sleep last night (6 1/2 semi-contiguous hours) as compared to Kiara (about 3 broken hours) before crawling out of bed for Kiernan’s first doctor appointment. That appointment went well, and everything checked out fine.
Then it was back home, and I ordered Kiara to bed for some sleep while I stayed up and played with Kiernan (as much as you can play with someone that is less than 48 hours old.) He mostly slept while I mostly watched TV. Thank God for TiVo-like devices. This allowed me to catch up on some TV shows, and pause them to tend to Kiernan.
You figure that he’ll cry a little, you’ll check diapers, swaddling, clothing, and pacifiers a little, and that’s about it. That’s really all there is to it (for the parent without the breasts that is), except for the holding, talking, bouncing, and general interaction. You figure that he weighs a little under eight pounds (yes, 8 lbs, 2 oz at birth, but most babies lose 10% of their weight in a day or two, and then start putting it back on) and handling something that weighs about the same as a large bag of flour wouldn’t really tire you out.
Think again.
Somehow spending 6 non-stop hours with a newborn can be really exhausting, but the lack of sleep can’t help either. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not complaining about having a newborn around. (I’m belly-aching a little, and looking for sympathy, though.) I loved every moment of those 6 hours that I had with my son. It was a great 6 hours.
Why only 6 hours? Well, that’s just the 6 uninterrupted hours that I had with him. Then came time for some neighbors to come by, a trip to the store for some stuff for Kiara, and easy-to-fix meals for those moments when warming a casserole donated by a friend in the oven just won’t work. Oh. And diapers. 80 of them. That might last a week. Yep. A week. Oi.
Once I was back from the store, we managed to scarf down some food, play with Kiernan some more, and get him to settle down for a while. Then I headed down to my office (where I’m at right now) to check email real quick, and post this blog.
I’m beat. I normally don’t get to bed until 11:30 to Midnight. It’s 10:30 now, and I’m going to crash as soon as I click “Save” and make sure that the post went through.
Maybe tomorrow I’ll be able to do some writing. We’ll see how it goes. Yep. Maybe. Ha!
PS: I’ve been a member of the local writer’s group for a year now (and three months of showing up to meeting before I joined as a full member.) Yay. A year. Problem is that I’ve only had two submissions during those 12 months. Boo. Hiss. Even worse? It was the same short story (though the second submission was drastically different, and drastically improved thanks to my group’s feedback.) I’ve made a promise to myself that I will have close to 50 pages of submission (50 pages is the limit per member per month) for the next four months running, or I will severely flog myself with something painful… like writing romance.
