Last week was a shit show.
Nothing specific went wrong, it was just one of those weeks where nothing goes quite right. I picked ridiculous fights with Rob, Sophie was more challenging than usual, Ender was a handful, I sat around the house for six hours waiting on a dishwasher repair appointment for a technician who never showed up.
I cried in the kitchen or the nursery or at my desk more than once, more than twice, maybe three or four times. And now I’m sitting on my couch with a blanket and my laptop while my sweet husband goes out to pick up dinner, and Sophie is sleeping upstairs and Ender is curled up by the fireplace, and none of the hard moments even matter anymore—I even had to really think to recall them, only a few days later.
Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned from motherhood so far, it’s that even the tough days don’t last forever, and they’re so far outnumbered and overpowered by the good ones that you’ll have trouble remembering what had you at your wit’s end that one time, and when you finally get the baby to bed you’ll watch her on the monitor and miss her, thinking about all the ways they made you smile.
When they crawl across the room and climb into your lap. Making them laugh over and over with the same fake sneeze sound. Watching them try a new food for the first time and then reach their little hand out for more. The way they sleep with their butt up in the air sometimes.
I drove to the jeweler the other day to get my wedding and engagement rings resized and thought “there’s really no part of me that hasn’t changed.” My feet grew half a size and a lot of my clothes feel like they might belong to someone else when I try to put them on, and apparently my fingers grew, too. But it’s not just my physical body that’s a little different, it’s everything.
The old me would have cut out sugar and carbs and had bone broth for breakfast and tried to get any inflammation down so I could wear my rings again. The new me thinks that yeah, some of that couldn’t hurt but do I really want to be the kind of person who goes on a diet because of jewelry?
Somehow Sophie has been here for 10 months, and I don’t know if I’ve taught her very much yet but she has taught me everything. When to push through and when to let go. To put my phone down more. To savor the good things and do your best to let the annoying ones roll off your back. To get the rings resized so you can enjoy them even if you had a salty dinner.
Happy Monday, everyone. Here’s to a week that’s better than the last one.
