God, I get so desperate for a little Elliot-time after a long day of work. It's been brutal at the hospital recently, leaving for work at 6am and getting home after 7:30. And to walk in the door and see Elliot pretty much ready for bed is heartbreaking. I run over and hug him and read books to him, and I want to play with him and tickle him and grab him by his little legs and wrestle with him all at once, all in the fifteen minutes I have before he goes to sleep.
What's so mind-blowing about this hunger to spend time with him is the change from when I spend all day with him. When Hannah went to Oregon for the weekend it was tough to spend the whole day with him --- not just keeping him from killing himself, that part has become second nature. It's the emotional demands he takes on you. He constantly wants you to give of yourself, to play with him, to jump with him, to explore with him, to be curious with him. He knows when you are faking it, and he will not tolerate it. You can't phone it in, if you're playing legos with him you have to REALLY get excited about the legos or he'll just move on to something else.
And the fact that you can't fake it makes caring for him exhausting. An 8-hour day alone with him in incredibly draining.
But I'd much rather have 8 hours than the 15 minutes I got yesterday. And that I will probably get today...
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