Claire Bidwell Smith

Here I am, coming up for air from the world of infantdom.

All is well in the Boose household. We’ve had a barrage of friends and well-wishers in the last week since we’ve been home, as well as spending the weekend enjoying the last days of Greg’s parents being in town. Now it’s Tuesday and Vera is in school, Greg on the computer, Juliette sleeping, laundry tumbling and everything feels pleasantly peaceful and normal.

Everything also feels so much different than last time around. It’s not that I wasn’t anticipating it feeling differently, but I’m just grateful that it is. I’m afraid to actually look at the archives, but I’m pretty sure that nine days into Vera’s life found me feeling quite overwhelmed by motherhood, very sleep-deprived and often tearful. All a pretty big departure from how I’m feeling now. In fact, the only time I’ve cried since Juliette was born was the morning after we brought her home and Vera said, before evening opening her eyes that morning, “Where’s my sister? I want her.”

On the contrary, I remember so many mornings spent lying in bed with Veronica in those first early days, weeping with love and emotions, feeling utterly overcome by the new knowledge of what it means to be a parent. I was only days into the experience, but already I understood how deeply my parents had loved and cared for me — something that over the last three years has broken me down and built me back up again.

I read an essay this morning that made me think about parenting and what it will be like to look back on it all, what I’ll regret doing or not doing. It made me conscious of how I tend to want to skip ahead so often, of how hard it is to be present to what’s happening right in front of me. All the times I want to be sneaking away to write, or to just spend time alone — are most likely the things I’ll regret some day. I see the summer stretching before me, a period of time with nothing planned but to be with my little family, and already I want to fill up the time with projects and plans.

But it’s here where I pause and try to remind myself how fleeting all of this really is.

Deep breaths.