One Week

I am so in love with my little Freddie.  But also, I am so hormonal.  Here is what I have cried about in the past week:

 

• My baby is going to grow up and he’ll never look like this again and he’s already getting bigger and he’s my LAST BABY.

 

 

• There are all sorts of baby girl clothes on a shelf in the nursery that I will NEVER USE.
• I break down crying every night when I pray to God that these children, all my children, will have long, healthy, fruitful lives.  It’s one thing to trust in God, it’s apparently another to worry about your heart breaking into a million pieces because life is so fragile.  Having children means being vulnerable, I guess.
• A load of baby laundry was ruined by a red beach towel – among the losses were some of the very cute onesies that (I know, I know) will only fit Freddie for another week or two.  I cried because Charles and Jamie had lots of yellow and green clothing as newborns (we didn’t know their sex ahead of time), which looked terrible against their dark skin, and now Freddie has pink clothes.

 

One of the onesies that was lost to the laundry disaster.

 

• I don’t have clothing that fits me, so I’m living in maternity yoga pants and nursing tank tops that show off my postpartum belly.  Thank God I don’t have to go anywhere alone in the foreseeable future – I would run the risk of being asked “when are you due?” if I didn’t have the baby with me.  Despite the fact that I exercised throughout my pregnancy and ate very well, I am huge.  I am afraid I will never lose this weight and that makes me cry.  I’m considering covering all the mirrors in the house with blankets.
• The house hasn’t been vacuumed in over a week.  There are dishes in the sink, laundry in the dryer, dog poop in the yard, and when I’m not pinned to the couch by my eight-pound bundle (who smells so good, I just want to keep taking looong sniffs of his head, but when I do he squirms and threatens to wake up), I frantically try to complete chores and it feels like nothing is okay.  My lady parts hurt, my back hurts, my belly hurts, and someone else should be doing all of this for me but there is NO ONE ELSE.
• My friends are so amazing, what did I do to deserve them?  I haven’t had to cook a meal in a week and I have meals coming to me this week from more friends and I have meals from friends in the freezer.  Of course this makes me cry; am I this good of a friend to them? 
• I’m so tired.  So very tired.  Crying because I’m tired seems absurd, and it is, but it’s sometimes the only thing left to do.

 

   Smile and move on, right?

 

So I’m going to try not to cry today because I know it’s not real – it’s the hormones crying.  Instead, I’m going to read and take a nap and snuggle my guy because next week, I go back to work (with Freddie).  And I will try so hard NOT to cry about that.