Waiting For The Time to Be Right
Righty-O! So last week, I up and left y’all for the wilds of Pennsylvania where Sam and I spent the week being doted on by my parents, friends and relatives after Adam left on Sunday. Dude, it was awesome, and I’d do it a lot more often, if not for a) missing my husband terribly; and b) Adam missing Sam so much that every phone call was full of woe. “She looks BIGGER in the picture you just sent. BIGGER,” he would lament, although he’d just seen her four days earlier. “And I’m MISSING IT.”
Cute, but you know, not necessarily true, except that I swear it kind of was, and she picked up approximately 5,000 new skills while we were away — for FIVE DAYS — and sheesh, I don’t think I’m going to be sprung loose again anytime soon. It’s not that I want to flee the warm embrace of my husband or anything, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t TEH AWESOME having my entire family around all the time so that I could do such luxurious things like shower without an elaborate plan involving naptimes and good moods and a collection of just the right toys or — oh I can barely type it — GOING TO TARGET. BY MYSELF.
OMG.
Anyway! It was all very thrilling for me, yet very boring in terms of recaps. In fact, a recap can be summed up thusly: I love my parents. I miss my friends Matt and Nicole and can’t believe Matt and I have been friends for 24 years. Twenty four years! That’s practically our WHOLE LIVES, you know? Fifth grade, we were assigned adjacent lockers and a friendship was born in the way that a great romance is, except that there was never any romance between us — on either of our parts, not once (and we so would have admitted it had there been). And I wish, for the bazillionth time, that I lived in Pennsylvania. The good part, that is.
Onward!
– One of the more thrilling bits to my trip was meeting and hanging out with The New Girl, who was exactly how you think she’d be, which is delightful and sweet and funny and FUNNY! And exactly like she writes! I swear, it’s the truth. And I think I realized why all of my blogger meet-ups are all so POSITIVE and GLOWY, which is that I can’t imagine taking the time out of my limited personal time to meet someone that I haven’t been Internet friends with for a long time, and don’t already “know,” you know? Ergo, I feel that I am almost GUARANTEED to have a good time, each and every time, because I’ve done my research CAREFULLY, yo. For like, YEARS.
– One of the more surprising bits about motherhood — or rather, breastfeeding — is that all of my hand-wringy fears of having enough milk for my baby were so hilariously unfounded. I mean, this is TMI, I realize, but I swear, I could easily feed TRIPLETS with these bad, uhhh, boys. Or girls. But MY GOD. STILL. SIX MONTHS IN. I STILL NEED BREAST PADS. And uhhh, yes, I’ve actually considered donation, but no, I’m not a great pumper.
– Did I ever tell you guys I dumped an entire GALLON of Mrs. Meyer’s lavender laundry detergent in the back of my car? Yeeaaaah. There was an inch. AN INCH. JUST BEFORE A ROAD TRIP. And now, three weeks later, it still smells, in the words of my father, like a mix of an Italian restaurant and the meadows of Provence. And not in a good way. It effing REEKS, you guys. REEEEEEKKKKKKSSSSSS. I want to kill myself every time I get behind the wheel.
– My daughter turned six months old last Saturday. Six. Months. She wasn’t an easy baby for the first three or four, but she’s making up for it in spades, and to say that is a vast understatement. I know I say it so often that it seems contrived, but my God, I love being a mom, and I think the reason I say it so much is because I was absolutely shocked by it. I spent the vast majority of my life fearing motherhood — wondering what it would take away from me, how it would change my life for the worse — that it never occurred to me what I would get in return which is … well, everything.
It’s hard, it’s relentless, it’s exhausting, but at the end of the day, I am that irritating mother who is, for the most part, just! so! happy! ALL! THE! TIME! I mean, now that she’s actually SLEEPING, that is. But still: I love this kid. I love her. I love her. I love her. I can’t believe she’s mine. When she’s in someone else’s arms, she keeps her eyes focused directly on me until she can’t take it anymore, and arches her back, whimpers and reaches for me. And I MELT, y’all, faster than butter on hot toast.
I can’t stop kissing her, to the point where it’s almost embarrassing. I can’t believe how absurdly happy I am, and every day, I hope that every kid in the world is this loved, because oh, she is so, so loved. I’d give this kid anything.
Most of my close friends and family admitted that they were surprised by how much I love being a mom, and no one was more surprised than me. Even Adam copped to wondering if I’d be shell-shocked and miserable, and I’ll admit it wasn’t an unreasonable fear, given the fact that I wasn’t convinced I really wanted to be a mom up to and including the morning my water broke. HOO BOY, I was wrong.
Any selfish anxiety about my own future is gone, and instead, is wrapped up in a Michelin Man-thighed infant. For the first time, probably ever, I think I’m doing exactly what I’m meant to be doing. She’s sleeping right now, and while I hope against hope she stays asleep for a solid stretch, I will fully admit that I miss her, and I can’t wait to see her when she wakes up. Which will hopefully be IN THE MORNING. When it’s LIGHT OUT.
Thanks for a great six months, baby girl.
Happy Monday!
*The Brother Kite
29 comments September 13th, 2009