I was so excited for our long Presidents Day weekend. I assembled a mile long to do list that encompassed everything I needed to catch up on, along with a bunch of things to put us slightly ahead of the game (taxes, pantry cleaning, craft area organization…). The weekend started with a productive bang. Rob and I went to bed super early on Friday, and I popped right out of bed at 6:00 on Saturday. No alarm necessary. I made a cup of coffee, got the bills done, organized piles of papers, cleaned up the kitchen – all before the baby woke up. Then, later that day we took our trip to Napa, and that was the end of my getting stuff done momentum. We still did some grocery shopping, I made Brendan some food (that he actually liked!) and I cleaned a thing here and there – but I let “relax and play with the baby” rise to the top of my to do list, and didn’t look back.
Today is Brendan’s 8 month birthday, and one of the things I did this weekend was look through all the pictures from the last 4 months, trying to narrow it down to just 100 favorites. It’s always a challenge because even though I miss the stages he outgrows, I always most treasure the one he is in now. That, and the addition of my new camera made it difficult to spread my picks evenly across 4 months. Luckily there were three major holidays, first foods, sitting up, and teeth to help guide me. Some of my very favorite times were not represented. Times when he and I sit on the couch together and laugh about nothing, the way he lies in bed between me and Rob and plays with our faces as we try and catch another 10 minutes of sleep. The way he blinks his eyes and chuckles when I blow on his face, how he is starting to reach out for me to pick him up – and the way he snuggles in and hugs my neck. But instead of beating myself up for missing those moments, I decided to give myself a gold star. In the same way that I let go of the to do list this weekend, maybe I’m soaking more in my life. Instead of running for the camera, maybe I’m staying put and letting the moment sink in deeper. I have always known that 20 years from now (heck, even one month from now) the thing I will be most proud of won’t be extra time at work – I’m also learning that it won’t be a perfectly clean and organized house that I remember. I’m getting more comfortable with doing just enough chores so that I can relax – without doing so many of them that I lose all my moments. It’s hard. If I think too much about it I feel stressed out and behind. But it’s the space in life I value most – and even though I have always felt selfish in making ‘space’ a top priority, I know that the chores will never be ‘done’. There will always be more to do – so I’m glad that once in a while I lose myself in the moment and it doesn’t even occur to me to grab my camera.
On our amazing Friday-go-to-bed-early night, I was reading my Oprah magazine and there was an article on writing your 6 word life story. I didn’t mean to write one, but as I turned the light out to go to sleep, my mind was trying to sum up the essence of my life in six words. At some point I rolled over and wrote this down: “Love saved me, Motherhood healed me”. Maybe the recognition of what defines me helped me to leave the less important things behind this weekend.
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The next time I compile my 100 favorite photos, my little man will be a year old. I can’t even imagine the moments these next four months will hold, but I’m pretty sure I can count on the fact that Brendan will just keep getting better and better.
