Monday, June 24, 2013

my summer has cute feet

well, we survived the summer solstice. and how did we celebrate? friday night we were...let's see...at home, yawning at 9 p.m. because it was the longest day of the year, obviously.

actually, midsummer nearly passed us by completely. i only knew about it when i saw a post on facebook about it while nursing Wilder at midnight. so, that's how embarrassingly out of it we are.

i know it's summer because i keep seeing photos on the internet of people swimming. oh, and i bought some shorts for the first time in years in anticipation of the beach next month. but, as this baby and i are sticking out the heat inside (and because he sleeps like all day long!), summer might as well be a myth right now. it's kind of sad, since there's so many things i love about summer: tan lines, watermelon, ice cream, popsicles, the beach, flipflops...i'm sort of living vicariously through instagram (ok that's actually sad).

but these are the days, my friends. these are the days. the days of overwhelmingly uneventful quotidien in a season of enrapturing baby smiles and tiny, scrunching, delicious baby toes. every moment i'm reminded of the fleeting preciousness of these days. and i'm continually pulling my inner eyelids up so i can take. it. all. in.

now that i've more or less figured out this whole baby must sleep all the time schedule, the weekdays have been reduced to feeding, waking, sleeping schedules and worrying about what to eat for dinner and whether or not i should get around to finally unpacking the rest of the boxes in the guest room (or close the door and pretend that room doesn't exist). everyday has become so mundanely routine. i even have a cleaning schedule.

it's like my whole life has been building up to this: vacuuming and sweeping and making goo goo faces at a baby.

and on the weekends, we test out paint chips on the walls and periodically check to see that the neighbors' all-weekend-long party is still going on (i just realized what they must have been celebrating).

my days feel so gosh darn full and like i couldn't possibly fit anything else in (certainly not cooking dinner). and at the same time, it seems like all i do is dance around my living room with a baby like a drunken ballerina and maaaaaybe clean something.

most of the time i am pinching myself to see if it's for real. i mean seriously. who lives this way? i know it sounds so dull, but it's sort of fantastic. in a don't-blink-or-you'll-miss-it and yet-ive-become-obsessed with-cleaning-up-this-house kind of way. so there you have my dilemmas. to vacuum or not to vacuum.

it's sometimes agonizing how little is getting done around here in the making this house a home
department, but at the same time i'd be happy to let it all go. because there's a baby here who has just the most delicious open-mouthed, toothless, scrunch-nosed grins you could possibly see. if i could just keep him awake all day and spend all our minutes together mirroring every last smile, i would still not have spent enough time doing it. giant balls of lars' fur under the sofa and unpainted walls be darned.

and then there's how fast time is going by. it's summer already? last week was a blur. a blip. a fingersnap of first baby babbles and feet discoveries and tummy time fails. i actually felt pretty proud of myself for stripping the wallpaper off in our kitchen (all thanks to my awesome friend Shelley!) and making dinner one night.

of course, sometimes things don't look so rosy. usually around lunchtime on sunday when the baby is screaming in his car seat, there is nothing in the fridge, and fast food is the name of the game. then i regret that i can't do it all and that even though it seem like we're doing nothing, there's no time for anything else. and then i go buy donuts. because donuts get you through when life is going too excruciatingly fast/slow for your being to comprehend.

i was really trying to make this post make sense. i blame it on the solstice.

now for the important stuff:




4 comments:

  1. This is EXCEPTIONAL. A fantastic read and an incredibly accurate articulation of how I, at least, felt -- and feel. I'm still pinching myself. And I'm still wondering whether to vacuum or not to vacuum. ;) The don't-blink-or-you'll-miss-it is painful and constant, but I still enjoy when they are all three down for a nap, haha. All the "nothing" is everything, isn't it? Well, I'm off to go fold that laundry. =D

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  2. Becca, I really enjoying following your blog. You really do describe it all so well. It is so...new, perplexing, confusing, wonderful, overwhelming, etc. - the first baby, and the next, etc. This "new land of mommyhood." You are not alone. Whenever I read your posts, it brings my right back to my firstborn 5 years ago. And right now I've got #3 who is almost 9 months old. And I too and frustrated and awed at how quickly he's growing. Stop it, child, I say!! (He's cruising along the couch right now.) Anyway, just wanted to say. Keep enjoying it all. Every little stage changes very quickly. Glad to hear you're enjoying it so much! Donuts -hurrah! (Eat some Krispy Kreme for me if you're so inclined. Closest one to me 1.5 hours away.) (Ditto, Shifrah! Your life sounds like mine!)

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  3. Ok I know this post is about Wiley Bear and the new house and the life of a stay-at-home-new-mama, but thank you thank you THANK YOU for using "quotidian"!! Would you believe my professors at UGA told me during my master's defense that I had mistakenly used a French word in English?? I was so embarressed for them...

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  4. beautiful. possibly one of my favorite posts of yours ever. (i know you THINK i say that on every post, but, im sure im not quite that bad :p)

    love these lines---love them like want to frame them.

    "the days of overwhelmingly uneventful quotidien in a season of enrapturing baby smiles..."

    "and at the same time, it seems like all i do is dance around my living room with a baby like a drunken ballerina"

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