Time warp

What?
What just happened, here?

Suddenly I'm approaching my last full week of maternity leave (sob, panic, panic some more) and I'm standing here looking at the past 3.5 months, shaking my head.

How did this happen?

I had all of these lofty goals for my leave, and I am absolutely laughing my ass off at how totally clueless I was (and still am, but it's getting better) about parenting. Here are the things I thought I could accomplish while my baby napped (ha!) and hung out happily by my side (ha ha!) all day long:
- redesign my website.
- blog.
- sew cute little baby clothes.
- take an online Photoshop class.
- catch up on TV via hulu.
- read books.
- watch movies.
- document every second of his life in photographs.
- update my Etsy shop with tons of new items.
- make some new art.
- go on lots of outings.
- visit lots of friends.

Here is what I actually did:
- held baby on couch for many hours at a time.
- cat-napped.
- spent 10 hellish weeks learning how to breastfeed.
- listened to baby scream in his car seat.
- read "The Hunger Games." (Book #1 only.)
- ate a lot of trail mix.
- went on walks around the neighborhood, pointing out various trees, birds, animals, and vehicles.
- went to our weekly parent/baby group (thank jeezuz for this).
- played the piano.
- sewed some super simple bibs in 10-minute spurts.
- did lots of laundry.
- documented some of his life in photographs.
- went to yoga as much as possible.
- got at least 20 new wrinkles, and let's not even talk about the gray hair.
- snuggled.
- rocked.
- cried.
- marveled.
- grew.

Some people thrive by doing. They tick all the "things" off their lists and all of those little checkmarks pile up to create a sense of accomplishment. I'm one of those people. But I'm learning to let go of that a little bit. The biggest difference between my first list of ambitions and my second list of reality is that the first list contains some really big, broad things. Redesign MY ENTIRE WEBSITE. Take a photoshop class. Go on lots of outings. In reality, I had to learn to do things in tiny chunks. It was an accomplishment if we got out the door for a 15-minute walk. That was the definition of "a good day." It was an incredible day if I wore pants that were not black and stretchy and put on mascara.

So when I look at my second list, I actually feel pretty awesome about it. Hell, we survived! Isn't that enough? I think it is.

And beyond survival, I learned that the heart can grow, but it can take some time. When I was pregnant, I would hear things like, "I immediately fell in love with my baby the moment I saw her face." Or "The birth of my baby was the best day of my life."

I expected that I would feel the same way. But I didn't. It took many weeks, months, even, for my heart to grow. My son's birth was absolutely not the best day of my life - it was hard. It was traumatic. I still replay that day in my head, and doesn't seem real. It took me awhile to accept that all of that was perfectly OK. Love doesn't happen all at once. It grows, like a snowball rolling down a hill, collecting gravel and little bits of debris along the way. And suddenly you are standing there, trying to figure out how you'll ever wrap your arms around the span of this immense thing, this love, and you know you'll never really be able to, but dammitall, you're going to try.

Try your very best.