Realizations

I realized sometime in the past day or so that really, my whole life right now is about feeding Gwen as much as possibly can during the day so that God willing she will let us sleep decently at night. Honestly, from the moment I wake up in the morning (which is sometime between 4:30 and 8 am, depending on Her Highness's mood) until I lay down in my bed at night (sometime between 9 and 11) my every thought is about feeding her, filling her tank, how long till I can/have to feed her again, how long has she been napping, should I wake her up and feed her, did she eat enough before falling asleep?

All so that when I do lay down, I can do so with a reasonable expectation of staying laid down for at least a couple of hours.

Adding to the current frustration is that Gwen has two modes right now: eating and sleeping. If she's not doing one of these two things, she's crying and/or screaming because she just stopped doing one and wants to do the other. She doesn't spend any reasonable amount of time awake and looking around or interacting with us - even her eyes, which are pre-programmed to focus at the exact distance of my loving face as I feed her, are closed when she nurses. So it's easy to start feeling less like a parent and more like a machine.

I'm not saying I have PPD, and in fact I'm not even terribly bothered by the fact that my life is currently reduced to this. But it is an interesting realization, nonetheless. Standard Disclaimer applies, I know it won't be like this forever, I know she won't be this tiny and demanding for very long, and I know the time will come (soon?) that there will be more rewards than just a two-hour stretch of uninterrupted time: smiles, giggles, coos, recognition for God's sake that I am something more than The One Who Smells of Milk.