Month 5

Waving hello - a trick she learned this same day. Still doesn't happen all the time, but precious when we catch it.

Hello, month five. What a wonderful month it was. The many facets of motherhood continue to reveal themselves as our baby girl grows. I vacillate daily between an aching feeling of "please, please stop growing up so fast" and the triumphant pride of "look at what you can do now!" The struggle between heart and head - what I know is best for her is often in direct conflict with what I desperately want to do (I speak, of course, of sleep training our strong-willed little angel). The feeling my heart may seriously burst at any moment when she stares at me with such pure love and smiles. The nagging guilt over a self-perceived bad mama moment. The feeling that I'm always behind, never getting as much done as I'd like each day. Worrying that I may really be in over my head if we were to have another baby, if I don't even always feel like I am managing this one as adeptly as I'd hoped. It's so many things I've never experienced, but it's all becoming a lot more second nature now.

By second nature, I mean that I'm starting to forget what life was like without a baby. It is so much easier when you don't remember, by the way. Taking her places, figuring out how to care for her, factoring her into everything we do is all very normal and routine. She is now seamlessly woven into our lives, like she was always here. What did we ever do without her? (sleep? party till the wee hours? do stuff whenever we felt like it without consequences? it's all a little hazy.)

This month has been about regaining control of the buckets. You know those buckets - the keeping the house clean bucket, the keeping baby on a good schedule bucket, the don't kill the garden bucket, the make time for husband/friends/grocery store/self buckets. Those buckets. It takes time to figure out how to strike the right balance, or even get to them at all on many days. On any given day the order in which you top off those buckets changes. There's a lot of bucket guilt.

Exhibit A: the garden. I confess, it was me. I killed it. We're working to revive it now from a "giving up the ghost" state. A lot of stuff falls by the wayside during big life transitions. The loving on baby bucket overflows, of course. It's hard not to make that the number one bucket. Somehow I see a lot more of my new friends than old - I guess because the new ones are mamas and their little ones, confused bucket rearrangers like myself. Neglected friends from long ago, I miss you and if it makes you feel any better, the shower/take care of self buckets are also often embarrassingly empty much of the time. I'm a champion texter. Texting is the one thing you can do while feeding a baby. Hit me up, peeps.

I do love on this baby. So many kisses and hugs. We talk all day long. She looks to me for reassurance as she explores her world, so I make everything, especially a potentially scary or new situation, seem like an exciting and fun adventure. There's a lot of ridiculous babytalk that goes on in this house. "Hooray! Let's get dressed! Yayyyy carrots! Oh those puppies are barking loud! What do the puppies say? Ruff ruff!" That sort of thing. I sell it. She eats it up. My brain has, perhaps indelibly, turned to mush. Much like the homemade baby food I'm whipping up these days. We just got Eliza's amazing new high chair in, and now I wheel her all over the house, letting her watch me as I do chores, rather than leaving her in the swing or under the play gym for five minutes here or there. It's a whole new world for our little lady.

More and more, she takes the thumb over a randomly chosen set of two fingers.

Her little personality is blossoming. Her pediatrician called her "strong-willed" because she is a bit stubborn on the sleep training. She definitely likes to have her own way. She is also an aggressive eater of dresses, as you can see. But other than nap time, she is typically a very calm, adaptable, outgoing and happy little baby girl. Quite the flirt these days too.

We've reached a new phase - screeching owl. She's finding her voice, which was cute at first, though now it's a bit headache-inducing. She also continues to be very chatty and seems to have quite a lot to say. I pretend I understand every word.

These hands. The sweetest thing that came about between months 4 and 5 is her exploration of everything, especially us. Mama's hair, Daddy's beard. She looks so intently at our faces, studying us carefully with her eyes and touching our faces with her tiny hands, as if seeing us for the first time. It's such a sweet and tender little gesture. She runs her hands over the pages of the stories we read, and pats the pups eagerly. She reaches, grabs, holds with intent and determination. And then pulls e.very.thing into her mouth.

I feel like I did not take to motherhood as gracefully as I'd stupidly, naively assumed I would, or as some of my counterparts seem to have. I'm still struggling to find my equilibrium a bit on a few fronts, but so much progress from the start of month 4. I never, ever envisioned early motherhood would be the dark road it often was; everything suddenly began to feel a bit insurmountable as my body started working against me out of the blue. But this month, I conquered a lot, and became the mother I'd hoped, or maybe known, I could be. And suddenly laundry gets done, dinner gets made, the house is sometimes decently clean. I kid. It's rarely that clean. But the buckets...we're getting there.

Eliza is wearing a peach dress that was mine as a baby for her 5-month shoot because we share this birthday month together - for her, month 5. For me, month 360. This week, I turn the page into a new chapter of my life - my 30th year. I'd venture to say this new chapter began a few months early, and so far I couldn't ask for much more.