Monday, November 03, 2014

Mamma needs to chat...

It has been so long since my last post that it hardly bears catching you up.  There have been changes around here.  Big ones.  And to a large extent they have changed me.  Changed who I am, what I value, and my overall focus in life.  I'm not so sure I had a focus to begin with and I'm even less sure that I have one now, but I do know that it's different.  One would suspect that in general as a knitting blog, changes in my overall self should be of any concern to you.  I wish that were so, but the fact remains that I am a hopeless rambler who falls prey to the whims of my own mind and often self-indulgently find myself writing about my life or my thoughts or myriad other things before, or at least in conjunction with my knitting, of which I lately do quite little.  To move things along fairly rapidly, I will sum up from my last post over a year ago in somewhat chronological order, but with no rank whatsoever on importance.  I believe that in that time I got a new car, my grandmother moved from my parents' home, where she has always lived, to a retirement residence where they are better equipped to help her with her Alzheimer's, I got pregnant, in the first trimester my baby died, I badly dinted my new car when distractedly thinking of that baby, I went to the Bahamas to escape that whole experience and wound up at the clutches of an evil hammock who saw fit to nearly break my rib, I got rubella from my MMR vaccine, I got pregnant again, I went to the Bahamas again and was safe from the hammocks, there was a baby shower, I got a cough that wouldn't end, I started maternity leave a few weeks early due to increased discomfort caused by my cough and extreme swelling, four days into my maternity leave my labour was induced and two days later I had a beautiful, healthy baby boy.

Baby boy is now just over 7 weeks and I really couldn't tell you what has happened in that time.  It's all a blur.  The first 3 weeks was just a twilight zone of joy over my new little man, and pain from my c section (which hurts a damn site more than anyone ever lets on, let me tell you).  Next was settling into my routine and my new role as mamma, and now I'm coming to you as someone who thinks a 4 hour sleep in the middle of the night is something akin to a holiday, and that a poopie diaper is somewhat a thing of beauty.  I was not sure about being at home or about what I might be like as a mother, having hitherto worked hard academically and professionally to prove my worth.  What I know now is that being home with this tiny human is about the most sure I have ever felt.  It is remarkable to me that I made him, and what's more remarkable to me is that someone made every single one of us and didn't make a nuisance of themselves telling us every single day of our lives how incredibly miraculous and special that makes every single mother and baby.  Now maybe it's the hormones talking or perhaps my pregnancy loss makes me sensitive to this sort of thing or maybe this is just what it's supposed to feel like, I don't know, but I look down at that little creature and watch him sleep, or nurse, or smile, or even cry and I'm so immensely grateful for his tiny existence and I'm so incredibly proud to be a part of it.  I'm in a state of hyper awareness that he has no idea that I feel like this, and that he will possibly never understand, and so I am a continuous fountain of praise.  If, God-forbid, I die tomorrow, I want this little man to know that I think he is the whole world.  I'm also suddenly aware of some measure of what my parents must have felt raising my brothers and I.  I'm eternally grateful for their love, support and knowledge. 

There is just one thing I'm still trying to get used to and that is the loneliness.  Is this par for the course.  I'm very productive at home and even get out of the house reasonably often but basically by the end of little man's long nap I feel like I've been in solitary confinement.  I'm working on this.  Being more active in online message boards, calling and pestering everyone I know who isn't working (not really a lot of people to be honest) and now, evidently resurrecting the blog.  I figure if I can talk, someone is bound to reply sometimes and that will be so nice.  Perhaps I should get on the facebooks, or something, but I have successfully avoided it for so long, I'm concerned that joining will show a break in will power, or at the very least, result in a complete time suck for which there is no cure. 

Anyways, I guess that is enough of a ramble for one day.  I don't know when I'll be back or if this will become a regular thing again but until next time, happy crafting and I hope to hear from you soon.