Officially six months has passed... and an ode...

I just want to preface this by stating again how much I love this little nugget. Even at the worst times when we just aren't at our best, although those days have pretty much slowed to a trickle, now. He knows the drill, and likes it, and the only fussing that usually happens is when Mama fails to realize he has indeed pooped or he is bored by this stage of the day earlier than expected. Its a love haze at this point, basically. Once you get the daily grind mastered. That being said, people commonly say, "you will forget what life was like without him!" Well, here to say that day has not come yet, and I consider that to be a good thing.

At 6am, when (I know, 'lucky us' as many parents tell me) he wakes up and starts making his little wake up noises, I remember what it was like to sleep until 7:30.  I remember when the rudest intrusion upon my eight hours of beauty sleep was Scott quietly getting dressed or the cats raising some unholy heckuva racket. I remember what Friday nights were like, deciding to go out to dinner last minute or rent a movie. The odd party here and there at a friend's house. How easy it was to leave town, and whenever we wanted to. Staying in bed when I was sick, and Scott being able to go to work.

But, I remember being bored a lot of the time, both working and not working. I am a serial monogamist at heart, I have been single, but for six or eight months in a couple of handfuls. Scott and I met early, at 22, which felt like 'finally!' to me at the time. I like building relationships. I love meeting that new friend that just gets you right at the beginning. The two hour lunches peppered with "I know!"s. I love that stage of partnership when the bloom has decidedly left the rose, but you are through the "okay, I love you but am kind of sick of you" phase. You've had your arguments, you've had your obsessive together all the time stints. Now you are onto that warm breeze of missing them only just enough when they have left for the weekend. You have allowed yourself to take them for granted just that amount that allows you to feel safe and secure, but you appreciate their presence when they are gone for even just one night, and want them back. I wanted a baby, another person, and most importantly, another type of relationship. One that would help me explore human bonds further, to stretch myself emotionally. I am here to say, it has delivered. I can poignantly hold in my mind both realities: one without children, in a clean home with no bright reds, yellows, and blues. One that is constantly doing crazy things like taking your blender into the bathroom and balancing many things precariously throughout the day. I prefer the challenge of parenthood, although it is work, without it I feel I would only be jogging in place.

Confession: Now that we are at the six month mark, I get about as much done now as I did before the baby. When life got active before, less housekeeping was done. Same goes for now. I hate housekeeping so it always falls to a dismal last. More accurately, it is done in an urgent haste when I just can't live with it anymore or someone is coming over. Then I mostly clean just what they will see.

Beyond that, the promised ode. This one, to the vessel that carried my cheeky little chunk. Six months after the huge accomplishment that is Ben was birthed into this world, I thought I would be concerned about the state my body was in. Was I going to gain too much weight, be too concerned about my jigglies to feel like a wife, and not only a mommy? I feel very much like my old self, with some residual pregnancy health issues. But as to fitting into jeans and such, its not that everything is back to what it was, its just that its very close-close enough. My jeans fit better one day than the next, but my concern with it is so much less now. In fact, I am so impressed with my body's ability to go through the wreckage that was Ben's birth, and put itself back together again (more or less). I am so impressed by that, that I just don't care as much about the rest. I am not in amazing shape, exercising daily, or any of that. I thought I would be! In an urgent worry about my body being "let go". I exercise about the same amount as I did before, always vowing to do more, but remaining fairly active. What's more- when I pass a mirror, I don't mind a little roundness here and there. I  look like me, nearing thirty. I am just proud of my body, and hope to take as good care of it as it deserves. Hopefully I can resist the constant stream of outside voices (I know you hear them, too!) that say I shouldn't think my body looks fine the way it is. I should be doing more! Well, I'm not, and I'm happy. Get over it.