Growing

"... without children we wouldn't grow because we would continue to make ourselves the center of the world... the mess of life, the chaos, the challenges and the growth that comes from having children is what life is about..." - Annie Fiery Barrows in Expectations: 30 Women Talk About Becoming a Mother

Sometimes it feels like my heart has grown so big, it's going to burst through my chest. Olive grins at me. She waves night night to her chicken mobile. She loves the feeling of the swings, the wind in her face, that jump in her tummy as she glides back and forth. We make her into an Olive sandwich, squishing her between us in a giant hug and kiss fest. She wants to sleep with her legs on my stomach, curled into my body. She is so eager to explore the world and herself, her voice, her abilities. Nothing is static. Following books on sleep, on raising kids, like they're bibles is foolishness. It is exactly the same as the blind devotion to religious rhetoric that fuels wars. Life is messy, and babies are messier. My buttons are pushed, my walls are crashed into and crashed down. Constantly. I'll have two days of peace and five of struggle. I've been thinking a lot about when Olive was a newborn. About how disappointed I was, how shocked, how resistant I was to how much she needed me. I kept getting angry and hopeless, saying that I couldn't do it, that we had made a mistake. Now I wish that I could stay home forever. That Doug could stay home with us all of the time. We are all so much happier when nobody is going to work. This is divine. And divinely difficult.

Words that inspire me:
"When you're tired and your baby is crying at night, ask yourself, what is your baby trying to tell you? If they could speak, what would they say? Mama, I'm scared, I'm tired, I need you to come and lie with me in the dark until I go to sleep again." (Paraphrased from a mummy I respect very much). For the past few nights Olive has been waking up crying within the first hour of sleep and I walk in and she just looks so scared, her little hands shaking. If I followed some of the common lore I would say, too bad baby, you can't be hungry, your bum is dry, nothing is wrong, go to sleep. But I know that she is saying to me "Mama, I need you. I need your comfort. Something has scared me, and I need to know that you are here for me." And yesterday I realized that what I am doing for Olive is a gift. I am giving her the gift of safety, of unconditional love, of trust. And in return I am experiencing the most crazy, intense, full love I have ever experienced. I sometimes feel like my DNA is rearranging itself - I am so changed, to the very core of my being, by the gift of being Olive's mama. Becoming parents is giving Doug and I the opportunity and the impetus to become better human beings and better partners to each other. It's not easy, but it is good. And maybe I can't do it all of the time, but what I can give her, I will. Because it all comes down to this, we're building the foundation. We're growing the tree.

Olive was 2 days old in this photo.