Now What Do I Do?

One of my favorite parts of the video Parke took when Gracie was first born is the moment the nurse places her in my arms for the first time.  She snuggles into my neck and I lay my head on hers and for a minute there is just complete happiness...and then I look up and say, " now what do I do?"

I'd spent SO much time worrying and praying and pleading and worrying again just for her to please Lord make it here safely that I'd given absolutely no thought to what came next.  And what came next is the best thing that ever happened to me...but not without some bumps in the road.

I think back on those first weeks and wonder how we ever made it! It was survival of the fittest and sometimes I was not sure I was the fittest...lack of sleep, screaming baby, hormones.  I don't think you can ever be really prepared for what having a newborn is going to be like, but after worrying so long about having a healthy baby I was even more behind the curve when she got here (with VERY healthy lungs).

But we figured it all out, and while I loved her to pieces from the moment I saw her, I can now honestly say that there is nobody on this earth I would rather spend my time with than Gracie Harris a 12 weeks. 

And of course now it is time for me to go back to work.  I will preface this by saying that I both need and want my job, and I knew it was going to be hard to leave Gracie...but I had NO idea it was going to be this hard.  It is another "now what do I do" moments, I just wasn't prepared.

So, I am trying really hard to remember 12 weeks ago, when I could no more imagine taking Gracie out for a walk at the park or over to dinner with friends than I could imagine flying to the moon...and yet yesterday we did both and had a fabulous time.  I am trying to remember those first weeks when the screaming and the hormones were both out of control... how far we have come.

I am trying to remember that even though going back to work will be hard and I may cry myself sick over it (literally...very unpleasant)...three months from now, even three weeks from now, it will all be so different.  I know good and well this is far from the last "now what do I do" moment I have as a parent and that's not the easiest thing in the world for the girl who reads the last chapter first.

But I also know that while there are plenty of things I do not know how to do, the one thing I know how to do best is be Gracie's mama and, while everything else may change, thank goodness that is the one thing that cannot.

The Other Piece of My Heart

Piece of my heart

Sometimes I think that if I were on the outside looking in on my situation, it would appear easy...almost the best solution...to try to forget everything that happened with Rip.  Here I am with this perfect baby girl just a year later, I hold in my arms everything that I ever wanted. 

But I'm not on the outside and sometimes I am reminded just how much of my heart my firstborn took with him.  I unexpectedly come across a picture or a reminder of Rip and the blow comes fast and furious.  There is such an intense longing there.

I think it speaks to what it really means to be a mother, it doesn't matter if you never get to know him, know him for a short while or have years together, a child is yours forever.  Their loss puts a hole in your heart that even the best surgeons can't fix.

I am blessed, blessed, blessed and lucky, lucky, lucky to be living the life I am living right now.  But a piece of me is gone forever and for that reason the same piece will remain with me always.

The Study of a Breakdown (in Five Acts)

The Smartest, Cutest Baby in the World...Or

I was prepared for the unconditional love I felt when I had Gracie, it's the same I experienced when I had Rip, but what I wasn't really prepared for was the pride I feel in the small day to day things that this baby does. 

The expression "my heart swelled with pride" did not make sense until I watched Gracie smile for the first time...I literally felt like my chest would bust wide open.  There are times during the day when my girl does something clearly so advanced...like take a nap without screaming bloody murder for an hour...that I get a little teary eyed.

To be this proud of someone for not putting her foot in her own poop during a diaper change scares me a little...what I am going to do when she takes her first step or says her first word?

She is obviously the smartest, cutest baby in the whole world...or, even better, maybe she is just Mine.

Ready for My Close-Up

Who needs an entourage when you have a Mama?

And I can't imagine how Gwyneth and Angelina beat me out for best dressed...aren't pink leg warmers and hairbows all the rage these days?!?

That which we call a rose

Gracie has acquired many nicknames in a short two months...

Scrunch
Scrunch Woo-weege (annoying baby talk version of "Louise")
PB (Perfect Baby)
Bad-pot (Perfect Baby's evil counterpart)
Screamin' Mimi (Mimi is most often with us from about 7 to 10 pm...most of us are wishing she will take a permanent vacation after 12 weeks)
Wiggle
Gracie Lou (occasionally Gracie Lou Freebush for the Sandra Bullock fans)
And finally, though lacking in originality, the Baby (as in Mama looooooooves the Baby!)

So I don't know about a rose, but a baby by just about any other name is still just as sweet