Welcome, friends! Wait, nobody's there. Good. I'm not ready yet.
I'm here because my brain hurts. I have a baby who won't nap more than 30 minutes, it's never going to stop raining, we don't have cable, and, um, I have a baby who won't nap longer than 30 minutes. I'm tired, and I'm feeling complain-y, and I need to find a way to slow down my head. I am not a writer. I hate writing. But I have a head full of things that I want to remember and at times during the average day I find myself reflecting on such incredibly minute details that I can't sort through them all. So.
Did you guys know you're only supposed to use one space between the end of one sentence and the beginning of the next? It's not easy, just changing an old habit like that (note that I didn't do it above. I just remembered. Again.) Let's say I started a blog just to practice my spacing. It sounds a lot less silly than, "I want to vent my innermost thoughts and feelings," no?
Why do so many moms blog? Why do we feel like we have such profound thoughts that we might gather our own flock of dedicated readers?
Motherhood is, at times, incredibly lonely. It is also paradoxical. I had to look that up to make sure it was the right word. See? Not a writer. Maybe I'll get better.
Anyway. Parenthood is a land of opposites. Never before have I found joy in such small things, yet been so incredibly bored. A friend of mine has said, "There have never been so many hours in a day, yet so few days in a year." Time passes in the blink of an eye, but at times I find myself literally counting the minutes until bedtime. There's a great website out there for new mamas struggling with this concept. It's called The Longest Shortest Time. Go check it out!
This first year of my daughter's life has taught me one hundred million things about myself. About patience, acceptance, routine, mindfulness, and misconceptions. I'm here because I want to remember these things. I want to reflect on those small moments in life--those things I might have otherwise overlooked or filed away in my head somewhere--I want them all written down. Maybe I'll learn from them. Chances are, I'll just be embarrassed to read this later. I'm embarrassed to read it now. Talking about this stuff has never come naturally to me, and I know I'm not alone in that. I think that's why you find so many mama blogs out there. Our friends don't care about this stuff. They don't care that I spent an entire precious nap picking the lint out of the baby's diaper velcro tabs instead of cleaning my much-neglected kitchen floor because taking care of the small things helps me feel more in control. That's a weird new-mama thought. And I've got to put it down somewhere, you know?
And another place to fill with baby pictures can't hurt. Lookee!
If I can come back and read this tomorrow without my face turing beet red in shame, maybe I'll tell someone about it. In the meantime, I'll just keep going. And breathing. And getting through the days, yogurt mess and all.
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