On motherhood and life lately

We're going on two months since birth and although Emilia's still tiny, I cannot believe how swiftly she changes. Every week brings more refined motor skills, more focused visual study, more engaged social interaction, and more chubbiness! I am soaking in every ounce because the one bit of advice I receive most is that this time goes by too quickly. "Relish every moment, good and bad."

And I'd be lying if I tried to pretend it is all good. The sleep deprivation is serious. The amount of time it takes to do once-simple tasks like run errands or straighten the house is astounding. The anxiety I feel when I lay her in the crib to nap, wondering "how long do I have?... can I perhaps shower?... should I eat something instead?" is legitimate. But the love. Holy crap the love... it is unlike anything I've ever experienced. It has at once made me more fragile and more strong. It has made me feel waves of retrospective guilt over how I've treated my own parents (especially my mother) as a teen and adult. It has made me feel more in love with my husband, even as our own dynamic adjusts to find sensible, equitable divisions of domestic labor now that we have this new person under our care.

Our new normal is more harried and less insular than it once was able to be. We let things linger on the DVR for longer. We go to bed earlier. We go out less. It's not at all bad. It's just very very different. We had nearly 10 years of just us two. So it has been interesting and sometimes challenging to carve the new normal from where we began. But I can honestly say that I wouldn't change a thing. I don't want to fast forward. I don't want to go back. Now is really truly wonderful.

We traveled for the first time over MLK Day weekend and I'll be writing about how that worked/went soon enough! The above photos are from the hotel and the National Gallery of Art in DC.