Maybe It’s Just Me

Sometimes I forget he is in the room.

I get caught up, thinking of this, thinking of that, and then my eyes hop atop the letters parading along in my head and then I notice him there, smiling happily right at me. Or just giving himself a wrist hickey. Or beaming at the fridge, ceiling, chair. And I admit I had totally gapped he was there.

Pre-Boeuf I was terrible for getting lost in the computer. Emailing, Facebook, especially Facebook, looking at someone’s friend’s brother’s snapshots of their prize halibut or a vacation to Fort Lauderdale. I don’t watch tv, so the computer is where I zone. Punching random words into Google just to see what happens. For hours.

I assumed when le bebe arrived I would always really be focused on him – hyper aware of his presence, I am the mother, after all. Oui? But non.

Facebook can still suck me in. I made a deal with myself to indulge when Boeuf is sleeping or busy doing something else. I have mostly stuck to that, especially after the day I did not notice that he had shat himself because I was too busy looking at pictures of him on the computer. He was right there beside me, breathing, living, drooling, grunting. And my eyes were glazed over, poring over some shot of him from, what, yesterday?

I could overthink this. I could worry that I am taking him for granted. Or that I really need to buck up on this motherhood thing. Or maybe because I grew him he just feels so much like me that I don’t always notice – like how I don’t always notice my own knee, elbow, left big toe. Or maybe I am so self-involved that not even my own baby can get through to me. Ouch. Or maybe this is just something that happens sometimes and so maybe I’ll write about to see if anyone else out there will fess up. Unless it’s just me.