I am grateful for…
1) Having a new website! It’s still being ironed out, but welcome! And thanks to Laura Husson who helped upgrade my DIY.
2) Using capital letters! I may go back to lowercase here, but let’s see how this goes.
3) OH. BLOGGING AGAIN. (See, so many caps it’s like being in a hat shop!) My last site iteration didn’t really let me blog. So, here I go, excuseless! And with a baby who’s still figuring out how to not wake up and eat a couple of times a night.
4) A BABY! Yeah, I got one of those at the end of last year. Not a metaphorical, “Yeah, that’s my baby” in reference to a project or an article or my husband. A real, live, crying, smiling, pooping, eating, oh-my-god-please-don’t-let-me-screw-him-up-too-bad BABY. Baby H. is awesome. Perfect. Divine. Incredibly challenging. Amazing. See? Aren’t new moms fascinating?
5) Being in love with said baby. I was telling friends yesterday (I know! telling! friends! I LEFT the house! And had lunch! with people!) that it’s a lot like dating someone and being totally obsessed. I had read about this: “you’ll fall in love” and “new moms are obsessed with their babies; it’s biological” but I was like, nah, I’ll be the freak who’s like, “I like my baby, he’s nice and all.” But of course I am not dying from uniqueness, and I am so in love with this crazy critter. When I’m not alligator wrestling his hands out of my hair and trying to keep him from launching out of my arms and on to his head, I am looking at photos of him and smiling. I am thinking, OMG, he is so beautiful and amazing and I love him so much. My husband and I often do this together, once the boy is off to sleep, we will just sit there and look at the day’s haul—photos and videos of the boy. Me: “What a boo.” Him: “The boo-est bear.” Me: “The boo-est of the boo-bears.” We are a hoot! Want to invite us over for dinner some time? I’m not entirely sure said baby likes me back, though there is a lot of smiling, sometimes. My friend at lunch said that after a couple of years you start feeling like maybe they like you back a little too much. Is it wrong that I can’t wait for that? To have evidence that this bundle of beastie thinks of me as anything other than milk-provider and head-launching party-pooper?
6) Chia pudding.
7) Van Leeuwen’s vegan ice cream. The boo bear (I will try and talk about things other than the boo-est, but no promises I will succeed), is allergic to me eating dairy, so my treats are now vegan. If only they had this kind of treat-age when I was a real vegan in college and subsisting on Domino’s without the cheese and lentil soup with spinach. Sooo freaking good.
8) Our cozy home. Though we are sleep-deprived out of our minds and just a couple hours ago I was crying from exhaustion and we are so broke-for-us (I’m working part-time and the babysitter basically costs most of what I make), it is good. It is really, really good. Am I allowed to say that?
9) Marie Forleo’s B-School Community
When we signed up to take Marie’s B-school for our (now-defunct) business and didm’t really get past the second track, I had NO idea how valuable this community would be. Every day on Facebook I am surrounded by cheerleaders. Mostly women helping other women be successful in every part of their lives. THOUSANDS of women. It is just. It’s. Feminism in action? Sisterhood come alive? The essence of yoga in social media? Something really good. I feel less alone in my ambitions and so much support that stuff is actually figure-out-able. Woot!
10) Bananas! We thought the boy was allergic but he’s not, so today I had an almond milk/cold-brewed coffee/frozen banana smoothie and it was DOPE.
xoxo
