Days with a baby are exhausting. Thrilling, mesmerising and exciting too, but exhausting. Somehow though, James can come back from a busy shift at the hospital filled with stories and buzzing from the excitement that comes with finally doing a job you have waited six years for and I find myself wondering what exactly I have achieved with my day.
I know the answer to this question is a hundred things. I have comforted, sung and danced, I have fed and changed and cradled, soothed and washed. The thing is, all of these things are somehow secret. Faelen and I are hidden behind the locked front door acting out our days. No one watches us as he discovers his hands and I go loopy with excitement, no one watches us as I finally learn to read his signs of tiredness and no one watches us as we marathon feed to soothe him from a temperature. But it doesn't make those moments less valuable.
Okay, so what if eating breakfast and brushing my teeth feels like an indicator of a productive day? If writing a blog post once a week feels insanely creative and if taking a picture of something other than my babe is one heck of an achievement?
Me and him? We are very busy spending our days learning to be the best of double acts.
This is just beautiful. Your words struck a real chord with me earlier in the week when I was struggling through a few of my own secret(ly exhausted) days and wondering if managing to get up out of bed and have a shower could be considered an achievement!
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing these little glimpses into (real) life with a new born...
It is pretty hard to re-calibrate what constitutes an achievement isn't it. I'm learning that the key, for me at least, is in becoming disgustingly self-congratulatory! Today I not only got up, dressed AND brushed my teeth, I also took Faelen for a walk around Arnos Vale. It pretty much took my entire day to achieve (and the piles of laundry and washing up are now staring at me accusingly) but I am going to continue to tell everyone how much I achieved today!
ReplyDeleteI hope your exhausted days aren't too many at the moment (and well done from Bristol on getting out of bed) xx
i think that's an achievement of a life time. to be a mother, and still function to other things.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree more!
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