I Am Jealous of Your Dreams.

[Intended to be a spoken word poem.]


Tired. So very tired.

You smile: sometimes wryly, sometimes goofy and lopsided, other times open mouthed in sheer delight. All wonderful ways for a cute baby to smile, and each lights up your face.

But you are asleep. Eyes may even be partly open, but it's a trick: it's a REM cycle. They are not for me. Not today, not yet. So I am jealous of your dreams, baby.

I look forward to the day those smiles are meant for me, but wish I were to get even one alert smile today. Today, when I am so exhausted from weeks of little sleep, the five weeks of your little life, and each week bringing increasing fussiness. When you do nap for 10 minutes at my breast today, these sleep smiles come out to play, and I nearly drool. I'm so jealous, so hungry for just one to be intended for me!

Maybe you're even dreaming of me and my milk; what other experiences do you have? But still, I feel ignored by you in real life, tested and fought with, and you still only a babe! I know that soon this too shall pass, as everyone is so quick to tell me, as you quickly approach an age of regular waking smiles (and then--swoon!--giggles). But hope for the future is weak in this moment of crushing exhaustion and emotional loneliness.

So I am jealous of your dreams, my daughter... I can only hope to have some of my own tonight.

--Ellen H.