merry, merry, merry

navigating the Sunday Times

• Cursory glance at big headlines to see if there is something I'd like to read about in more depth
• Modern Love column
• the rest of the Sunday Styles section
• Book Review
• Week in Review
• the rest of the first section/National news
• NYT Magazine (read over the course of the week)

How do you read it?

two months in

I know. It's insane. Take a minute if you need to recover before reading further.

Well, more like 2 months and a week. We are still working on having things happen on time around here. In the two weeks that it has taken me to write this post Owen has been growing & developing in leaps and bounds. He's smiling at us like we invented the world, mimicing our gestures and 'talking' back at us with awesome ebullient gurgles and coos. He is, in short, amazing at everything besides sleeping.

(turn your volume up for full baby gurgle effect)

In that first bleary month there were so many wonderful friends who reached out to say "It will get better!" (thank you all times a million).

And they were right, sort of. It is better, but I don't know if it is easier. I think that "it will get better" is a code that experienced parents use to actually mean "you'll get used to it!" Used to tired, used to crying (mine, as well as his!), used to doing nothing but baby. And you will settle into it. It took a while for me to let go-- let go of expectations-- of dinner making, of diaper washing, or work doing, of anything and to just be present. And that letting go was the turning point for me, I think. That and the day when Owen decided that Adam could put him down to sleep too, it didn't have to always be me. The freedom!!!! I am drunk with it.

Verging on gratuitous amounts of baby cuteness in this post.

Anyway, Owen's not the only one developing mad skillz.

Since my hands are always full with the babe I have learned to do the following with my feet:

-open/close doors

-pick up phone from the ground

-open/close vegetable drawer in the fridge

-turn on bedside lamp

-change the channel on the tv