I Finally Love My Baby!

I hope this doesn't come across as disturbing or make me seem like an uncaring mother, but I think that, after almost five months, I'm finally starting to really fall in love with my baby Peace.

It's not like I didn't LOVE her right away. Of course I did. But, and for whatever reason, there was always some sort of subtle disconnect there. Where this disconnect came from, I have no idea, because I certainly did everything in my power to prevent it: natural birth, continuous contact, the babymoon of all babymoons, co-sleeping, breastfeeding... you get the idea. But yet, there it was, some sort of small disconnect that I couldn't explain.

Maybe it was because I was infinitely distracted by the other goings-ons in my life. Seriously, I could hardly even hold two neurons together to form a thought without feeling overwhelmed (or however it is that one forms thoughts). Having a baby again was just so... hard.

Or maybe it was because I felt like I could never figure her out.

Or maybe it was because I went slightly crazy around month three and couldn't remember how to smile for awhile.

I don't know. Maybe it's none of these things.

Peace has always cried more than my other kids did. Ocean and Ezra actually set the bar pretty high in terms of NOT crying... they only cried for a total of, maybe, 2 minutes a day. All it took was a boob in their mouth to make them feel better, and all was right with the world once again. With Peace, she cried, and I would go right for the boob, but that would not work. I was a one-trick pony who needed to figure out a new trick. So I swaddled. I bounced. I did whatever else. She ended up crying for, maybe, 10-15 minutes total throughout the day. (That's not counting car rides though, because that's another story altogether.) So, she took a lot more effort, and she required me not to be lazy (which was yet another thing that I wasn't used to).

I had to get used to the fact that, hey, this baby needs to sleep during the day and I need to be the one making sure that she gets naps instead of traipsing about to wherever it is that I need to go. I had to get used to the fact that she didn't like to be in the car, especially at night, and that I would have to forgo any nighttime excursions for while. I had to get used to a lot of things again... a lot of the normal, taking-care-of-a-baby type things that my brain had forgotten about in the 3-1/2 plus years since I had Ezra.

And I did.

So, now it's kind of hard for me to even remember those feelings because, for the past week or two, I have felt so utterly and completely IN LOVE with her... it's wonderful. When she nurses, she holds her head perfectly still and scans my face with her eyes, back and forth, back and forth, like she's looking for something in me that she's never seen before. When I take her to bed with me, I snuggle her in the crook of my arm and hold her like a teddy bear, with my chin on top of her head. And, oh, the way I am able to lift her, and hold her, and carry her... it is an effortless flow now, and it is like she is an extension of myself. I love it.

Time is standing still now, whereas, before, it was just passing me by. I feel slightly guilty for the fact that the past five months went by in such a blur. I wish I could remember them more. I wish I had taken more pictures. I wish I had been less neurotic. I wish I had savored the moments more. I miss them already.