I don't mean to be annoying about this mom thing and let it consume my blog. But it's hard not to let it. The same thing happened after I got married. My blog went from being solely about me to being about marriage and my husband. It was probably really annoying and gushy. It wore off after a few months - maybe years? I don't know. But every time I sit down to write, all I can think about is Claire. Scratch that. Every time I start to do anything, all I can think about is Claire, and I think I'm beginning to learn why.
My friend on Instagram said something about her "Mother Heart" and that is a phrase that keeps resonating in my thoughts.
Could it be that we all have these untapped chambers in our hearts when we are born? These ways of loving that we don't just get all at once? So I thought about it and I decided that, yes, we absolutely do. And my newlywed self experienced it although not consciously, and my new mother heart is beginning to take root now and that is why I am consumed - absolutely consumed by this little creature that was a stranger until ten weeks ago and now is my new life.
I think though, that there is a purpose for the progression. Of course there is, as with anything else. It's so much. It's so much new feeling that you need time to process it. You can't bear it all at once, so you get it a little at a time. And all of these experiences change you gradually, expanding your heart - teaching you love for new people and things.
It starts with your own birth. The hand that you grasp in the dark, your other senses still taking shape, but that one - that grip tight from the start.
The breast you cry into when you're hurt, or afraid or sad. That soft, safe place.
Your sister's feet by your mouth when you wake up tangled on the trampoline - the first sleepover of summer.
Your first love, whose newness consumed and drowned you.
The aching loneliness after moving away from home.
The heartbreak that brings both pain and meaning.
The love that doesn't leave, the marriage of minds and spirits.
And then the moment when you really meet your child. Not meet as in physically, those first few moments after they take their first, wailing breath. But the moment where you look at them and you really see them, and you as a part of them. For me it happened weeks after Claire's arrival, and even now, I look at her sometimes and it's like I'm meeting her all over again.
So forgive me, for my gush of feelings in the past and assuredly in the future about my new baby girl. I just met her for the first time. And it's an absolute revelation.