ruminating.

My thoughts are so disorganized right now, that a linear post of substance may be out of reach tonight.

....It's funny, I used to have a livejournal (still do, though I never write there anymore) that I wrote all my deep innermost thoughts (ie: memes! and day-to-day chatter with friends), but LJ has gotten too incestuous for me to feel comfortable writing. Now I have this space, set up to join the ranks of the mommy bloggers and adoption bloggers, and another blog-esque space I set up to chronicle my food/weight related journey. Neither feel like a place to post "I'm feeling 'effing lonely" though, you know?

But, well, I am. Feeling lonely, that is. So I guess I'll try to get it out here.

It's late, and I'm enjoying my usual baby-and-wife-are-all-tucked-in-and-snoring post bedtime bliss. No one wants me to fold laundry. Or to 'help' me fold laundry. No one is snotting all over yet another of my clean shirts. My body is my own again, to remain unclimbed on, and unbitten/pinched/prodded/pulled for at least another 8 hours. It's heaven.

But tonight I'm out of sorts... restless I guess. Craving connection. Uh, lonely.

Last week I went and finally found myself a good therapist. I've been meaning to for a while now, mostly to help me navigate my unhealthy relationship to food. After locking myself in my office most of Friday morning, I finally reached someone who took my ins., had both a personal and professional understanding of food issues, and wasn't a hippy-esque middle class white woman who in her late 40's renamed herself some equivalent of "LiLo", began appropriating Native cultures and became a therapist. My standards are set pretty high people.

I met with her Monday morning and I am in deep like. :) However, I'm left with an unsettled feeling, which is probably common when you unearth all of your back-burnered issues and expose them to public inspection and discussion. Bah. The session went great though, and I kept my shit together until I started talking about the struggle in raising a child to have a good relationship with food when you just don't. That's when I lost it. Box of tissues: 1. Erin: 0.

The mommy bloggosphere has been abuzz lately with discussions of the physicality of a mother's love. I've learned a lot from these posts and wish I was half as able to eloquently discuss the breadth and depth of my love for James. And it is a physical, sensual love. There are nights when I'm holding him as he's sleeping where I can't stop tucking a curl behind his ear or become unable to resist pressing my cheek to his. His laugh delights me in a way I can't find words for. And when I stop to consider the immensely scary responsibility I have to help him navigate his way to becoming a healthy and happy adult, well. Shit. There are just so many ways to fail. And the idea of my baby ever being in pain, especially in pain because of me somehow, is unthinkable. Tortuous.

Which brings me to this: At 19 months, James still isn't talking. Well, he's vocalizing (constantly) but not in many recognizable words/nouns. Like every mother with a child who's delayed in some developmental area, every other child you know or hear about who's the same age or younger is always lightyears ahead of where your child is. Other 19 month olds are carrying on full conversations with their parents while James is mooing, and only on command.

He's been evaluated, and the nice speech therapist assured us that This. Is. Not. Our. Fault. and that James cognitive development is Just. Fine. and that he's just delayed in the area of expressive speech, but damn. Damn. I keep thinking: Is our home not a "Language Rich Environment"? Did we rely too heavily on baby sign (He won't speak the words he knows signs for... and he knows a bunch of signs.) ? Could we have done something different?

And while my rational self knows that this is just who James is, and that he'll be talking at the level of his peers eventually (we're on the waiting list for speech therapy too), I still feel like an official bad mother. And I'd give anything to hear what I'm sure he's wanting to tell me. To finally know what some of the signs he's created on his own are supposed to mean. I want to talk with my boy. :(

It'd sure cure the 'lonlies' I have tonight.