Goodbye, Space Suit?

(Why am I naming days?)
4/29/15, Day 14,238 (Mercena Day 258): Goodbye, Space Suit?

It’s not really a space suit, of course, but Mercena’s sleep suit–the padded full-body suit that helps young babies control their limbs and sleep more deeply–bears just enough resemblance to an astronaut outfit that you might think she was headed to the moon instead of her crib. Last night may mark the end of her space suit-wearing days, and so another tiny milestone piles on top of this quickly growing heap of life.

We tried putting her to bed without it, and after about 20 minutes or so of intermittent fussing, she slept well. It’s too soon to declare victory, because she was especially exhausted from the baby picnic cuteness pictured above, but we’ll see how her naps and bed time go today sans suit.

A thing to share and remember about our bedtime ritual: as Mercena breast feeds, Heather and I trade verses of “Hush little baby, don’t say a word.” The verses become increasingly absurd as we challenge each other with stranger rhymes, soothing her and delighting ourselves. It’s my favorite part of bedtime, and maybe the whole day.

As for non-baby matters, it was a 12-hour productive day,  but I haven’t clawed my way out of stressville yet. TCG progress was made on our upcoming board meeting, the National Conference–including exciting meetings about an eco-theatre session and steps to make our plenaries more accessible–Audience (R)Evolution blog posts and the Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Institute. At night, I moved a few Flux things forward, including some hopeful upcoming remounts of Breathe Free, our immigrant rights project. I’m still struggling with whether these daily small steps are enough given the magnitude of violence, but I tell myself it’s better to take small actions where I actually have influence than fume loudly about the places where I don’t. Sometimes I believe that’s true…

I also began the process of rewriting Salvage to integrate changes made in tech to send to folks who have requested it (theatre, publishers and friends, oh my!). Heather and I also figured out our play-going for the next month, which takes some serious advanced planning to make happen with a baby!

While I still don’t feel back on track, and have yet to downshift from the frenzy of the past few months, journaling here has really helped, and imagining you reading these words keeps me accountable. So, thanks for reading, and I hope your days have a little less stress but just as much love.