The Fleshy Ball of Want and Need

I had my baby on March 15th, right in time for a bitchin' spring break. And, when I say "bitchin'", I mean sleepless, pain med-hazed, euphoric wonderment extravaganza.

My little Ella Merle, though a good baby--calm, easily-pacified, good-eater, regular pooper, etc.--is still an amazement of time deletion. That is, with a newborn, time at once stands still and speeds ahead. The last two weeks have been the longest and the shortest of my life. Every moment is a conflict between 1) opportunity to sleep 2) opportunity to stare at or accommodate my new baby. Notice there is no do school work option listed.

I naively thought that I would bounce right back after a week. I thought spring break would be enough recovery time. Nope. That was foolish.

I have been in pain for the past two weeks as my nether region recovers and as my hormones resituate themselves. The only thing that can overcome the pain stimuli is the desires/necessities of my infant.

Luckily, I have a dreamy husband who is very good with babies and is very willing to help/accommodate with anything. He has been running a marathon between me and baby Ella on one end of the house and our nine year-old on the other. She is adapting well, happy to have a little sister, but also dealing with her own anxieties. She's been the main attraction for nine years and it is certainly a change to share the lime light. But, I am proud of her resilience and excitement. She is also a big help.

I am feeling better every day and enjoying every moment of the quick/slow time with my baby.
Hopefully, I can keep up with my school work.

Note to self-- Have next baby in June.

For those of you who are continuing on to Advanced Comp. from Blogs: An Independent Media, this is old hat by now. We're all old friends who know each other's business.

For those of you who are joining the fray, welcome to my blog.

I urge you to rifle through my past posts to get to know me. If there is no time for rifling, please look at my very first post at least. Here, you will learn about the precariousness of this semester for me.

So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, good night.

This is the last post I will make for the Blogging course.

Though I will continue with this blog for the remainder of the semester since Doc Hoc's Advanced Comp class also requires the maintenance of a blog, I won't be surprised if I continue on after this as well.

As a young girl through my teenage years, I was a devout diarist. It made me feel important and wise to collect my thoughts in a small, pretty journal. But, in my early twenties, I stopped keeping a diary. Life got too busy, my attention too divided. Ironically, it was at this very time that I truly started experiencing noteworthy milestones emotionally and event-wise. I lament that I do not have any epistolary time capsule of this segment of my life. I am now almost thrity and I find myself resurging into the sphere of the diarist, thanks to this blog assignment.

There are certainly things that I want to record that I would prefer not share with the blogosphere, but there are also things that are only thrilling when you know someone out there might read it. To share life in this open and pratically anonymous venue is enriching. I look forward to maintaining this blog in the future, if not weekly, then quarterly. But, I will definately be taking things a little 'old school' and bring back my journaling.

Semester Stamina--On.

Middle of the semester blues are a regularity for me.

I have been in college for nine years now and every semester, I lose my interest at this half way point. Happily, my interest always rebounds and I reassert myself with the kind of academic rigor that most find commendable, if not a little freaky and nerdy.

This semester, of course, is different as I wrangle with the added stress of "Am I going to have a baby today?". It is hard to get too involved in anything when one is in this state of mind. Brushing one's teeth seems too lengthy of a distraction, much less focusing on a research project.

I know that when baby Ella arrives, my tiredness will soar to new levels. But, somehow, I feel that my life will return to some type of normalcy when she gets here. That is, the waiting, the not-knowing, the anticipation, is way more time-consuming and distracting than caring for an infant.

I like to know what to expect everyday, and the last month has been hell in this regard.

Perhaps, though, we'll all have a good, hearty laugh at this sentiment in a few weeks when I am literally getting no sleep, trying to type away on papers with a wee babe wedged between my breast and the keyboard.
The grass is always greener, right?