dear bee // 34.

Dear Bee,

OK, it’s officially going fast now, this baby thing. We’re inching closer to the one year mark, and I find myself saying things grown-ups say, like Time flies! and Don’t blink! and Enjoy every moment becauseyou’llnevergetitbackeveragainforeveramen! And oh, grown-ups are so smart, Bee.

I’ll admit, I’m feeling a bit guilty. I blink every day, and there are moments that I so very much do not enjoy. Your entire first three months of existence, I held my eyes tightly shut as if I could wish them away. I blinked and blinked and blinked, willing you to stop crying and me to stop crying and both of us to transition seamlessly into what I hoped would be a most wonderfully beautiful motherhood journey.

And it is, Bee. Because it’s a real one.

I’m typing this from my office and your dad is in the kitchen cooking eggs with you, and, in the span of perhaps five minutes, he has instructed you to (1) Stop sucking on the dishwasher, (2) Don’t bite the dog, and (3) Get the rolling pin out of the fireplace. Such is our life now, stringing together sentences we’d never imagined we would, trying to blink and not blink at the same time.

There are mixing bowls on my desk and shredded paper under the dining room table and a half-eaten carrot in my shoe (?), all evidence that you’re leaving your mark all over this home. Our home.

Sometimes I think about what life was like, pre-Bee. It seemed so perfectly controlled and relaxing and footloose, and I get a tiny ping of anxiety and envy, wishing I’d traveled the world or changed a life or something. But then I remember my tendency to turn molehills into mountains, and how I didn’t have the capacity to change a life back then, because I was too focused on myself and my marriage and my work and my renovation and my everything. There’s a lot of mys in that sentence, and I don’t love it.

And then you came. And now the mys are ours and the days are long and the moments are sweet. And there are still molehills, yes. But there are no mountains. There never really were. I just forgot to look at them from the right angle – the perspective of an eleven-month old baby, race-crawling through the soil to the other side.

XO,
Mama

  • You have an amazing way of writing exactly what I’m thinking! I only wish that I could put it into words like YOU do! Thank you so much for the inspiring stories and thoughts on your dear daughter, I like to imagine them as my own… only we’re about 3 months behind you.

  • I love this. love love love. I hadn’t thought of it putting it that way, but what you’re writing feels like my EXACT experience. Becoming a mom takes some getting used to, but once it clicks you can’t remember how you lived your life without your little one. Thanks for the inspiration.

  • Aww! So adorable – as always. I love that she’s getting help walking from an adorable helper. Just so cute all around!

  • I love this…..the way you put it. I love being a mother more than I ever thought I would. My daughter has made me pause and see the world differently- it’s almost magical. And I love that she has made me less selfish (even when it feels forced), isn’t that what we all strive for?
    I think our two little ones are close in age, because your house sounds a lot like mine!

  • Beautiful,and so true, blink and it’s gone, glad baby Bee is around to weave her story in yours.

  • My Adeline and I are at month 7 now. Your letters to Bee usually pull my heart strings pretty hard, because it often seems as if you’ve stolen my emotions and put them into words. Which I know is impossible because you and I have never met. This letter, though? It pulls really hard. More specifically the “trying to blink and not blink at the same time”. What a strange and beautiful beast, motherhood is.

  • Oh yes. This rings so so true. I find myself wishing for a just moment to myself after a long afternoon fighting naps, only to want my baby in my arms the minute i get away?

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