EASY LIVING

Since my first experience of parenthood was not only of twins but also of a terrifyingly sick baby, I made a vow to myself this time around to plan nothing post-birth. I would have no expectations, no goals, no ambitions beyond the day-to-day experience of caring for one healthy baby. 

Let me tell you how amazing it has been. Apart from recovering from delivery this has been the most uncomplicatedly blissful 12 weeks of my life. Eamon eats like a champ. He sleeps like a pro, mostly waking only once at night. He almost never cries, has never been sick, and is beginning to meet developmental milestones on schedule. Right now he is laying on an exercise pad under a galaxy of stuffed toy vehicles, gurgling, kicking, cooing.

Mostly I nurse, change diapers, and gaze into his gorgeous smiling face. Sam gets up early with Roan and gets him ready for camp while the baby and I snooze.

I spend the day cleaning, washing, cooking, folding, nursing, changing, and organizing.  I go for walks with the dog and the baby and work out twice a week with a fellow new mom and a trainer.  I've taken E to see four matinees in the theater, 2 documentaries (Amy and Wolfpack) and 2 biopics (The Stanford Prison Experiment and Love & Mercy) and he has hardly stirred in any of them. Later this week I am going to visit the new Whitney Museum with a fellow new mom. 

Of my current life I have two thoughts:

This is SO EASY.

and

I'm a little BORED.

Of my two thoughts I have a multitude of thoughts:

I am SO grateful this is so easy.  I fucking deserve easy this time.

and

It is amazing how inadequate the words "having a baby" are to describe the spectrum of experience possible for this one event. We should have as many words for "birth" as the Eskimos have for "snow" (approx 50).

and

I really am not used to things being this easy.  This does not sit well with my temperament. Shouldn't I, of the Lean In generation, a graduate of Bronx High School of Science and RISD, be gunning for more, better, smarter, harder? Am I confusing contentment with restlessness? Or vice versa?

and

Are you an idiot?  Why would you want to get a job to pay for someone else to be with your baby?  What job could be more important for you to do than raising your baby? Really, you'd rather put on your best Anthropologie sale get-up and slog into Manhattan to produce image content on subjects as vital as Fall Fashion Must Haves (Surprise! A plaid skirt, a leather jacket, and 16 scarves!) or The Evolution of Donald Trump's Hair Piece??

and

Are those really my only two options? I need to do something or my brain will atrophy. Something stimulating but not stressful. Something creative that I can start and stop at will 15 times a day in between all the cleaning, washing, cooking, folding, nursing, and changing.

Thus far the best I've come up with is sewing - baby rompers and stuffed animals - which is fun but not profitable and makes me feel one evolutionarily step closer to my grandmother in her 80s (minus the scotch).

and

My beautifully joyous and peaceful baby and my wondrous if exasperating 5 year old are in their beds for the night.  We are all safe and comfortable and ensconced in our cozy but well appointed apartment, in our vibrant and familial neighborhood, in our enchanting city, about to wrap up the day with Premium Cable and my darling husband.

I'll grapple with my ambitions tomorrow.