Madly in Love with My Baby

I was sitting here trying to come up with a catchy and quirky title but decided to just lay it all out for the world to see, I am madly in love with my baby. Plain and simple. As it should be but let’s get real. Rosalie is my fifth baby and it is NOT easy. There are some days I am texting my sweet and patient husband that life back home is driving his wife nutty. My kids have moments when they are on a mission to see where the line really is…how far can we push Mama over the brink of sanity. I have a toddler who spends her days plotting about stuff to get into, break or smear (toddlers have that gift to find anything smearable and rubbing it into fabric). The dogs not wanting to be left out feel it necessary to decide that potty break should be during tantrums (or maybe they are just trying to get out of the chaos…I think I may join their next conveniently planned breaks).

All while I sit on the couch nursing, trying to keep my had from bobbing due to lack of sleep, and occasionally peering through the looking glass of Facebook on my iPad to see the outside world. Feeling a little jealous of people wearing nice clothes (not yoga pants and t-shirts that may possibly have baby spit up on the shoulder), getting nails done or haircuts…vacations, trips to the grocery store alone. Heck, I would settle for a trip to the bathroom where no one would call out my name for something!

She is my fifth so I know it will get better, and truthfully everyday I see glimmers of ‘normal’ and that beautiful word ‘routine’. Today when I felt my eye ticking from the solid hour of howling from my toddler a good friend messaged me with words of encouragement and wisdom that my toddler will calm down and find some joy in the baby (thank you Karen! Your message came at the moment I needed it!).

Today some normalcy happened, I left Rosalie with my mother so I could head over to the new house to help with renovations…I somewhat danced out that door! Not that I was ‘free’ but my arms were free;) I was out doing something productive, doing something that didn’t involved cleaning up a little person. As we worked I daydreamed  a tiny bit about the plans for the room (it was Rosalie’s and Cecilia’s room we worked on, removing ‘interesting’ wall paper from era’s gone by) but honestly I thought about my baby and when I could I jumped at a chance to go back home to scoop her up. I felt bad she was fussy but a tiny part of me smiled because she needed me and only me.

In a couple of weeks the older three kids will be back in school, Cecilia will be going back to her beloved daycare and I will be back to the studio working, we will be frantically finishing renovations and preparing to move to our new house…but until them my world is this sweet baby.