12.5 weeks

My person is different. My PERSON is different

I am deeply, deeply, disturbingly in love with a tiny human that came out of me

He is fussy and intense and really likes when I sing to him and taking naps draped all over me and going on walks and being on tables

He is amazing

He is strong and in a state of perpetual motion

He is expressive and weird and grins a lot and sounds like a jaguar when he's overtired or overhungry

He is a mini S and I love them both so much for being rooted in each other

I have been awake since 4:45 and I think this is just how it's going to be 

Wearing patterned shirts only, or no shirt at all, if I want to not change outfits later 

I am squashy and sore and my lungs are deep deep

I am biking again, and pushing not to push too much

It's hard not to give 100% with a bike 

I know I have to cool it at first and work up to flying

It's hard to give 100% at work 

I have been away from work for a lifetime but also it was only a few days, to me

All I want is a sleeping baby in my arms and not a stack of bound periodicals

But I still really love my job because of what it feels like and how it fits and who it surrounds me with

I'm very glad to be here

I hate that I'm not at home

There's a picture of my baby on the wall above my desk and looking at it makes me tear up

I have cried more in the past 100 days (88 days of mothering, a few extra thrown in before the mothering started for good measure) than the decades that came before

This is all drudgery 

This is all something I miss when I'm not drudging 

S and I are trying to find a rhythm and it's not there yet

He's either on or off, and I'm both

Everything is either rushed or too serious

I talk too much and repeat myself over and over

I worry 

I overflow with pride and delight

I go to bed too early and fall asleep too late

I get restful sleep, I think, in only two ways: when I'm asleep with the baby on my chest and when I'm alone in bed when S is up with the baby

They are the only circumstances when I can relax enough for deep sleep

The baby's WITH me, or he's WITH him and I can stop my alarm system 

I have grown a keen alarm system 

Marriage is hard, after a baby, when it was easy before-- or should I say being a wife is hard, after a baby, when it was easy before 

We have run out of toothpaste and I haven't cooked in weeks and S had to wear un-laundered scrubs today

Our kitchen smells like old coffee and formula

I am a bad cow, thus the formula 

Maybe if I have a second baby I will be a better cow?

Maybe if I have a second baby I will cry less?

Maybe if I have a second baby I will love him/her with a calmness, instead of terrified desperation?

It took, oh, eight weeks this time

THIS IS A TIME WARP

All of these things I'm doing, I don't really have another option

This is hard to accept

This is hard

This is somehow unnaturally natural



This is my kid, this is my kid, this is my kid.