Memory Zen

I woke up cranky this morning! I was disgusted that after spending a good portion of the wee hours trying to teach herself to walk, Elliot woke up radiant and ready to play at 6 AM. Joe was at the center of my crankiness (although he accepted his half of the midnight duties with equal... um... zest and pride for our little over achiever), because it was his turn for the early shift and he was in some sort of coma.

I was mad at the nanny for not clocking in early...

I was really just tired... but, ooh, I was mad.

While Elliot cruised around her high chair, stopping periodically by the foot rest to grab the cheerios I stashed there, I slammed around the kitchen making coffee and contemplating the likelihood that I'll sleep more than 6 hours at a crack within this decade.

Just like Little Critter, I was so mad.

Without anyone to be mad at, I was subconsciously preparing to be crabby all day. I snapped at Maya when she wanted to select a different television show for her morning entertainment. I snapped at Joe when he assured me he'd get up early with her tomorrow. I think I even had a sarcastic comment for Elliot when she got tired of chasing the cheerios around her high chair and squawked to be free!

As I stormed about, I realized that Elliot, the little angel, only wakes up this early a couple times a week. Maya's routine was a 5:30 wake up call. All of those mornings, or most of them, I woke up with Maya regardless or how many times she had been up the night before. Yet as crabby as I was this morning, I only vaguely remember being upset now and then that I would never sleep again.

My memory of the sleep deprivation during Maya's babyhood, and of my own crabbiness about it, has almost completely faded. I very clearly remember watching the Morning Show, sipping coffee, and chasing Maya as she crawled gleefully to the stairs or the fireplace or the outlets as needed. I don't remember, but must have had, days of crabbiness at Joe, at the world in general... at Maya? over the unfairness of it all.

This morning, I decided that since most of us don't remember much about the mediocre crabby days, I wasn't going to have one. If I'm going to forget it anyway, I might as well get over it now.

(This doesn't ring true for all of the other little things about my daily life that I'll forget, like the joyful but horrifying tenor of Elliot's baby voice as she babbles at 3:30 in the morning - but it does hold real possibilities for so many other stupid things I stress over daily but won't remember by next week. I need to relax!)

My theory worked, or maybe it was the pot of coffee. Anyway, today will not be forgotten as a middling crabby day. It will be remembered (by two of us anyway) as the day Unk rode on the Teacup Ride and visited the zoo.


It will be remembered as a great day!