I look back on the week and think “eh, nothing interesting really happened.” But in reality, Ember and I are settling into our New Normal. Most days, we are up at 2 or 3 briefly to eat, pump, and change a diaper while hanging out with the cats. 

Then we’re back to bed until 5 or 6, up for another round and then sometimes back to bed. On a good day, I can go back to sleep when she does each time. Lately, though, I’m wide awake by the time her morning feeding happens and our day starts early.

We’ve become far more brave with errands (mostly me) and by taking a hand pump along with us on our adventures out of the house that means our outings can last all day sometimes. We visit with Mimi and Bapu:

We go for walks. We go see our Godmother Kathryn:

And run errands by the office, go to the grocery store, etc etc etc.

Or we get up and do things around the house. This morning we worked on a painting project: 

With Kevin moving in during July, we also work on going through stuff at the house, planting in the yard, and generally cleaning up around here. 

I worried that I would go stir crazy on maternity leave, and while I am starting to dig through closets and bag up things for Goodwill, these are all projects I’ve WANTED to do for a while. The trouble for me is balance. After two days of being gone for 6+ hours, when we got home today I desperately wanted to stay here and do nothing together. The balance of Getting Things Done and Spending Quality Time With Baby is harder to strike than I expected. 

And for me, a notorious errand running and plan making and social calling girl, the idea of enjoying staying home and doing “nothing” is still strange and feels indulgent. But I can already see how quickly time goes by – May is already over! I’ve already been out from work for a month and a half. I can’t believe it. And she changes every day. She’s alert so much more during the day, looking around, talking baby grumbles, and experiencing the world. 

So I’ll continue to work on balance – my friend Laura told me that she recommended spending as much to doing “nothing” with the baby as possible – that she never regretted one minute she spent on the couch with her babies. The laundry and recycling can wait. Here’s to balance.