Canticle

And so it is time - to dust off this old blog and start on a new set of adventures.

The thing about being in love and in a committed relationship ( at least in the initial stages) is that it opens you up to a lot of weighty emotions - love, concern, anxiety, joy, doubt, etc. These emotions , though wonderful to go through make for a heavy post. Also, relationships are big time-sucks. I know that sounds awful but you know I mean it in a matter-of-fact way, not a complaining/whining way. When I was young and single and foolish  (ok, not so young), I seemed to have the time to do a bunch of random things and more time to talk about all of them. Now, I do some random things, some routine things and some things of more consequence but I'm too busy doing them and am already sharing them with someone along the way so they very rarely make it to the blog. I know, I know - not a big loss for the blogging world. 

Anyways, that brings us to this post. Well, L tumbled into our world two weeks ago and here we are again - at the start of a grand new journey except this time, there's the three of us. I can't believe it's been 2 full weeks already since the little bean came into our lives and pervaded every single aspect of it. Nights and days are a haze of feeding, changing and napping - that includes all 3 of us - and I can't keep the week days and weekends straight any more. Not that I miss any of my work stuff yet. I expect L will be off to college before I felt anything like that but we'll dwell on that another time.  Bottom line : we are busy and my mind is absorbed in varying emotions - sometimes all at once.

1. Mindboggled-ness : I understand how biology and reproduction works. I took those classes in high school and you would think that walking around a full 9 months with L inside would have helped me internalize the whole fact of a baby.  But when we get in bed at night and I look to the side to see L in her Rock 'n Play sleeping peacefully ( or unpeacefully - more on that later),  my mind just boggles. I am amazed that this whole new person/being just popped into existence, seemingly out of nowhere, and is now just here. Like she totally belongs here. She has her whole own set of limbs and organs and moods and preferences and she's just hanging out here. Two weeks ago, all I had were super puffy feet and a full belly that kept me from accessing said feet easily. One word. Amazing.

2. Sheer terror : After nursing her, changing her (probably multiple times because she seems to have a different opinion on the scheduling of the diaper change versus activities-that-require-a-diaper-change), clumsily attempting to burp her with fingers crossed that she doesn't projectile the food all over me and the glider, and rocking her to a drunken & drowsy state, gingerly putting her down in her sleeper and taking a step away, there is a Moment. A moment when she make a grunty noise, or flutters her eyelids open or kicks her hands or legs. This is the moment that will make or break the nap. If she settles down, there is blessed relief. Otherwise, it's rinse and repeat.  This is when I experience abject terror. It makes me religious and I petition to everyone - from Swaddle Gods to Spock - to help me out here. How someone under 8 pounds can reduce me to this quivering coward, is marvel-worthy.

3. Perplexity : L is currently in a phase where she produces the strangest of noises as she sleeps at night. They range from grunts to groans to straining sounds to throat-clearing sounds and some sounds that I just cannot classify. All this leads to a very vexing bed time with constant googling to understand this phenomenon. The trouble is finding the right keyword - you should see the number of hits "baby noises" generates on Google. Apparently, "Sleeping like a baby" is some sort of cruel inside joke on new moms. 

4. A higher plane of joy : Whether it is watching her sleep with that face of total innocence, or watching her go through a gamut of goofy expressions as she nears sleep, or seeing her drunken and proud smile after feeding or a serious burp or spitting up, even - it brings out a different level of laughter or  joy - something you rarely experience in adult life.

This post took a while to compose. It was done over a span of two weeks in hurried, stolen moments - moments which could have been spent napping. It was totally worth it but I don't know how often I'll be able to do this.  So here's to the three of us, C and L - and our new life :  I couldn't have asked for better partners in crime and I hope I never lose sight of that. 

Let all kinds of fun begin!

ore time to talk about all of them.