Mommy Mondays: Treading Water

I can't believe it's been two weeks since I blogged last. I wouldn't say time is going quickly these days, but it's like it keeps slipping past me, rolling along while I barely manage to stay afloat.

I know this is what early motherhood is like. The days are filled with nursing the baby, making sub-par meals for Jack, running load after load of laundry, trying to keep the house from turning into a complete dump, and heading out for the occasional errand. The nights are even worse. I feel like I've just fallen asleep when it's time to get up and feed Will again. I know that I'll look back on this period and it will feel like a blip on my life's radar, but right now it's just plain hard.

Part of it is knowing that John is leaving for Russia on Friday, and I'm trying to get as many random things done as possible before then, because I know I'll have even less time once he's gone. And part of it is that I have no time for the things that help keep me sane, like writing and working out. Waiting four years in between kids didn't help - I'd gotten so used to having my freedom again. Being tied to the baby by breastfeeding is challenging for me. Sometimes I just want to go out without having to worry if the timing is going to work or if the baby is freaking out while I'm away. Most of the time I want that, if I'm being honest.

But even though I'm impatient for the future in many ways, for the days when I can go to the gym or out for dinner with friends and know that everyone back home is just fine without me, I also have this sense that I need to slow down, to worry less about getting it all done and just focus on the baby, who has already grown and changed so much. So that's my goal for the next seven weeks, while John is away: to stop fighting so much against the current and just go with the flow, if only for a little while.

Otherwise I'm afraid I'll look back on this time and wonder where it all went.