Five months later

This morning I buttoned my favorite pair of pants. Do they fit? Not really. Are they appropriate to wear in public? Hardly. But hey. I can button my favorite pair of pants!

(How sad is it that my favorite pair of pants are $12 Old Navy khakis of indeterminate age with mysterious grease stains around my shins?)

Thanks for sharing on my last post. (Ew. I hate that word, "sharing". Makes me think of church-related events in which you are supposed to confide your thoughts to your "neighbor" in a span of two minutes which is about one fifty-second the amount of time I need to compose any thoughts I may want to share in the first place.) But seriously, I appreciate it and it helped and now I must tell you all that I am sort of over it. I know! It was the fastest getting-over-something in the entire history of my personal space-time continuum!  I'm going to continue to breastfeed him for now (because, as I said before, 1) convenient and 2) free!) but I am not pumping anymore. Begone, instrument of the devil! And we'll just let happen what happens. Are you bowled over by my laid backness and go with the flowness? ME TOO! Isn't it great?

So it's five months into this experiment and I can button my pants, relax about the food thing and I am fairly confident in my ability to take both myself and the baby to Target. We've come a long way, Internet. I dare say things are becoming normal.

Well, sort of. It's quite possible that things used to be normal and will never be normal again. Normal used to be going to the office every day at 8:30 and coming home around 5 and stuffing our faces with whatever wasn't growing mold in the fridge and watching some TV and venting a little bit about work and then going to bed to start the whole thing over. Now it's naptimes and feedings and whatever else we feel like fitting in around those two most holy events. Some days it's Target, some days it's walking around the lake. We visit Grandma, we go to the bookstore, we play on the floor, we read books, we chew on our fingers while our mother hangs out with the Internet- all sorts of good stuff.

I am thankful a million times over that my baby was born in the spring, when the sun rises at four and sets at nine. Now our baby goes to bed in the dark and wakes up in the dark and, this being Seattle, there's a fine film of gray covering up the sun from October through March. I don't know how I would have dealt with a newborn in October. And I keep waiting for anxiety to creep back, now that it's fall. It has, a little, but I know it's only because I'm getting used to early sunsets and long dark evenings. It doesn't even occur to me to take something to help me sleep- which is pretty much all I thought about last fall. But I'm vigilant. This is that time of year. I get anxious every single fall.

But this fall is so different. I have a constant companion, for one thing, and not enough time to get too wrapped up in my head. I have freedom with my days. I can go anywhere I want. I'm not stuck inside. There's variety and taking advantage of sun breaks and visiting family and being outside. This fall might be the best one I've had in a long time.

I don't really know what this post is about, sorry. I'm trying to slap something up on the site before the baby wakes up and we drive down to my mom's house for the day. What if a new person visits and the first thing they read about is boobs! How embarrassing!

And now the baby is starting to complain. He doesn't cry, it's more of a persistent low-volume whine, where his eyes are probably still closed and he's gnawing on the blanket. I have to feed him and pack the fourteen different bags we take to Grandma's house and then we're off.

Comments

[carrie]

It took me 2 years the second time to get there. So I know what a wonderful feeling it is to finally be able to button those dang things. Who cares if they're old, tattered and ragged -- it's all about the buttoning! HOORAY!

[Christina]

Hooray for the fave pants fitting again! I never pumped, though I was slow and didn't catch on to the pump-n-style and those hand pumps are pure evil. Anyway, on the weekends when I wanted to use a bottle I just used formula. And yeah, it kind of messed with my supply, but not too badly.
And I think your New Normal sounds very nice!

[Manda]

Hey! Thanks for linking my blog to yours! I feel special since you're kind of a blogging rockstar to me. :)

oh, and p.s., I can't put on my favorite pants and I. Have. No. Babies. So feel good girl, obscene or not!!

And one more...I have two blogs so sometimes the links might be different...don't panic. Hee hee.

[E.]

I had babies in October (well, one was actually late September) and yes, having them in the spring is soooooooo much better. Yay Maggie! for having your first baby in the spring. I should have done it that way. And congrats on the pants thing! I never got there so quickly!

[Angela]

I think you are doing such a great job, and have really adjusted to this ginormous change in your life beautifully. And yay for fitting back into the favorite pants--that has to feel pretty incredible!