Books

So I just started my blog! Yay...for me this is a feat as I am completely technologically unsavy (is that a word?) Sometimes I just feel like sharing, and while I'm sure my son Henry loves to hear my musings on different subjects maybe an adult audience would enjoy as well.  Maybe not, we will soon see! 

As I was designing my blog background, which I am ashamed to say took way more time than it should have (do I go with simple or fancy, earth tones or jewel tones??); I saw the book template.  It just seemed to fit.  I am/was an avid reader, until I, as my husband so eloquently puts it...pooped out a kid.  Now I don't read as much as I would like, but the reading I manage to do now is much different.  No longer are the days that I can tuck into a delicious romance or mystery novel and get lost in the story.  Don't get me wrong...I would love to do that. But I find my tastes run more towards the "parenting book" variety these days.  Books on infant sleep, infant play, infant scheduling...you name it.  I cling to the information in these books.  I feel like if I can do it the way Dr. So and So says to do it, everything will be okay.  I will not irreversibly mess up my child.  If I can make Henry nap for 2.5 hours, eat for half an hour and then play for 1 hour and then start the whole process over again, he will sleep for 12 hours a night and be a genius.  Inevitably, he does not follow these rules, why would he??  One afternoon, as I was trying to follow the newest book's rules for scheduling, I was discouraged because he just wasn't following the books prescription.  My husband, Michael, didn't understand why I was so frustrated.  "He'll eat when he is hungry and he'll sleep when he is tired."  Well, yes I suppose he will, but this gives me no structure.  It gives me no hope that sometime in the near future we will find a routine, a new normal.  I want to feel normal again.

Then it hit me.  My normal is gone.  Gone are the days of carefree napping, taking off to the mall on a whim.  There is a new normal...it doesn't have a face yet though.  This normal is under construction, in development, making progress.  My new normal starts much earlier in the morning than I am comfortable with.  It involves copious amounts of poop and analysis of said poop; more laundry then I've ever done in my life (try leaving spit-up covered onesies in a hamper for more than a day...the smell will make you retch)and dodging fountains of pee.  At that way-too-early hour I scoop Henry out of his crib, cover his face in kisses and fill my nose with his sweet baby smell.  I feed him and when his tank is full I get smiles and gurgles and grins.  I watch him play with his daddy, I watch him sleep, I suck his cheeks and blow raspberries on his round tummy.  I like the way this normal is shaping up.

So when I look at my blog I see books galore. While those shelves will probably be filled with parenting books for some time to come, I'm okay with that.  I will *try* not to obsess over their contents and let Henry lead me in the right direction.  Maybe someday I'll get to wedge a romance novel somewhere in there again.