Life as We Know It.

Being a parent is no longer a novelty. I no longer feel like a kid playing house when I casually bring up my six-month-old at home. This is my life as I know it, and the shock has worn off. Drool on all my clothes, my hair, bite marks on my finger from one tiny tooth, stories of being pooped and peed on and waking up at four a.m.--part of me always owned these new things sort of ironically, like, deep down they even seemed like stories, not reality.

I love my new life. I'm saying this with sincerity, not the contemptuous, passive-aggressive proclamations of some new moms out there--myself formerly included, at times--who follow this thinking with a whole host of complaints. I found a great balance. For me, going back to work was a big part of it. I'm enjoying my new job so much and even more I'm unapologetically enjoying the time away from parenting for three days a week (the other two I work from home). It is this separation of self that has made me feel like Sarah again. For others, quitting a demanding job and staying at home is the key to that parenting zen.

For me it was finding the ability to redefine what my life's going to look like.

Today I got my haircut with a new person (I had a coupon; I couldn't resist), and I gave her the rundown on my life over the past few years after she asked. Graduated college. Worked for major broadcast station. Got pregnant. Got engaged. Had baby. Got married. Had several serious health scares. Continued battling severe chronic illness (those last two I left out). Found new, perfect-for-now job. Moved twice. Got hair cut.

"You look too young to have done all that!" she said.

Whatever. It's better than being told I look 13.

I probably am too young to have done all that already, but things are slowing down. I got most of my major, life-changing moves out of the way before 25. So now I'm going to take a breath.

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A Little Addy-tude

I'm laying on the couch, with Adelyn straddling my stomach. I hardly have to support her at all anymore, just a quick hand behind her back when she leans too far in one direction or the other. And this ability, being able to sit up all by herself, will be the defining triumph of Adelyn's babyhood.

The turning point came when she started sitting up with our help. Suddenly she was less fussy, more content, the smiles became frequent and the crying became few and far between. When she has her fits now they always, always revolve around not sitting. Naps, certain feedings, mom forcing a toy in her face because she has yet to truly discover them--none of these things inspire the spirit of the baby--the person--she truly is. But when she's sitting it's like she's herself, the person she will become, happy, curious, active, sassy. I'm eager for the day when she can sit by herself and I can sit across from her, engaging her, not holding her up but holding her attention.

Earlier today we stopped by my friend Candice's house. Adelyn needed a nap as soon as we got there, so I put her in Kennedy's crib and went through our usual nap-time routine--lights off, white noise, a few seconds of cuddling and then I put her in the crib, my hand on her stomach until her eyelids get heavy. It didn't work, probably because we weren't at home and because the nap was an hour too late. She finally fell asleep after fifteen minutes of agonizing cries--the girl can cry like nobody's business, as a newborn and as a burgeoning six-month-old. And it got to me, like most parenting things do. I'm hard on myself when it comes to being a mother. It still feels new to me; I still feel like an amateur. Not at taking care of my own baby, but at mothering in general, if that makes any sense. A few minutes after Adelyn woke up Kennedy took a nap with ease, without a peep, and of course it sent a what-am-I-doing-wrong shiver up my spine.

So many things have gotten easier and so much has not or has stayed the same. Stalled in its same frustrating place.

It takes a moment like the one we had later at home, with Adelyn sitting, smiling on my stomach, watching her dogs wrestle each other and choosing that this image is funny, to her, another addition to her cultivating self. She listens to her mom say "mama" over and over again in the hope she will say it back and decides that she finds this, too hilarious. She's balancing herself with her hand on my chest, her other hand in her mouth, drool dripping down and soaking the front of her shirt and mine. She's making her baby dinosaur sounds and surprising herself with the loudness of her own voice. I'm falling even more in love with her, and I didn't know there was any room for any more love for this little being that has already taken over every ounce of my self.

These are the sort of moments that make being a mother beyond worth it. I created a person who is already making decisions about what she likes, what she doesn't, what's funny and what's not worth a giggle.

My daughter is a crier. When she cries, she lets it all out. She's not always easygoing. Often she is quickly sent into a tizzy and is hard to bring back down. She doesn't like to finish her bottles all in one sitting. She doesn't like to open her mouth to eat solids. She doesn't like to eat on a schedule. She doesn't sleep through the night, and she was born to a mom who doesn't have the guts or the stamina to do any sort of actual sleep training.

She smiles bigger than any baby I've ever seen. She's the most beautiful creature--adult or bite-sized--I've ever laid my eyes on. She's got an attitude. (Or as her Janu said, just a little "Addy-tude." It's the best part of her.

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Back Home (And oh-so happy to be so.)

One of the reigning rules of new motherhood is this: do not wake the baby up. Ask anyone. Once that baby is napping or in a deep sleep at night there is not a cable guy, UPS delivery man, or pest control specialist that will be forgiven.

And that's a testament to how much you can miss a baby after just two incredibly fast days away. I got home last night from the airport around 9:30 and tip-toed upstairs to open Adelyn's door. The door always creaks. I know it's a surefire way to stir her out of a REM cycle, but I did it anyway. And I stretched over her crib and kissed her eyelid, which immediately fluttered open. She cooed and reached for me, and I held my hand out and let her grip my pinky. And slowly, quietly, I eased out of the room. Of course she fussed for another ten minutes before falling back asleep. I just couldn't help myself, though. And the poor girl has just now taken her first real nap of the day, because I can't stop kissing her little eyelids and nose and cheeks after I put her into the crib.

The good news is it that it feels so incredible, warm, and comforting to be back in your home under your family's roof even after just a short time away. The bad news is I leave again tomorrow evening for a three day training to kick off my new job.

My mother-in-law said it best when I called her an hour ago to thank her for all of her help with Adelyn. As much as I dread it now, on Friday I'll be back home and life will resume it's normal, never-ceasing cycle of diapers, interrupted sleep, rushed dinners and force-feeding a baby bananas. (It will also resume it's never-ceasing cycle of watching and admiring the happiest, funniest baby learning more and more about the world around her. That, right there, is the hard part about going away.) And then, like she said, I'll be back to thinking how nice it would be to have three days to myself in a hotel with provided meals.

But for now all I can think is that leaving your family--and I know I sound crazy here because it's such a miniscule amount of time--is not an easy thing to do. It's not an easy thing to do in the morning on your way to work, dropping him or her off at day-care or with a babysitter. It's not an easy thing to do when you're just going on a date with your husband or with friends, just for a few hours. That's not to say it's not necessary and enjoyable, but it's not easy. As a mother it's never, ever done without careful thought. It's never done without just an ounce of sadness, even if the feeling of absence if fleeting. Being a mother is possibly my favorite thing I have ever done. And it's also the heaviest. Living is never done now without another life weighing every option.

This all really hit me this weekend in New York, visiting with my incredibly successful sister. She is older than me, and has always been the brains of the family. She works as a lawyer at one of the best firms in New York City, rising to the top while many of her colleagues are desperately trying to find a way to stay in the game. She works her butt off and even the thought of working her hours makes me tired. She has a gold name-plate on her office door, with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the entire New York skyline. She isn't even thirty and she has success that most people will never reach, no matter how hard they try. I couldn't be prouder of her.

I am a recent college graduate, who worked for a short time as a paid professional in her chosen field before getting pregnant and rethinking her entire life plan. I excelled in college, was editor in chief of my college newspaper, got national accolades for my reporting and even interned and was published in a Pulitzer-prize winning newspaper. I never thought I'd have a gold nameplate on an office door overlooking New York City, but I did always think I'd be a success. I'm not the most confident girl in most areas of my life. Except maybe for that one.

And now it's all about Adelyn. And for now that is all the success I can handle, that amazingly healthy, joyful, little girl. She is already a success. The rest will be figured out around what's best for her.

The job I'm starting next week is only the tiniest stepping stone toward where I hope to be later in life. But it is a job that allows me to work from home with Adelyn two days a week. It allows a rare flexibility as a new mother, and for that I know how lucky I am.

Living is never done now without another life weighing every option.

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The Home You Make and Keep.

Like most couples Jason and I have fantasized a lot about moving. Especially to New Orleans. God we loved that place. In all of the places I've been in my life--which isn't the longest list but enough to compare and contrast--no place has ever felt so immediately like home. At least once a week we talk about what would happen if we moved there. What we would do and where we would live and the kind of place Adelyn would grow up knowing like the back of her hand. But I haven't spent a lot of time in New Orleans. New York is a little different. I've lived there long enough cumulatively to really know the place, at least to know the difference between living and visiting. And as awesome as I think it would be to have a baby raised in such a diverse and exciting and inspiring place, I know it's just not feasible. (And an even bigger part of me knows now, after years of battling a long-harbored desire to be immersed in a city, that it's not me anymore. If it ever was at all.)

On Saturday Jason and I got to talking about how weird it is to have lived in the same place your whole life. Jason has lived in Tennessee since he was born. I might as well have, it's all I know and remember from my adolescence. We weren't complaining about our place of origin at all--by weird we just meant the choiceless-ness in it. Where you grow up. The place you call home. You're born somewhere or brought somewhere and then, suddenly, that's where you live. And then that's where your loved ones are. And then it's not just your family but your new life, too, the loved ones you've added and created along the way. And that's just all you know, and leaving becomes a complicated, sticky, often-painful idea, no matter if you want a change or not. And then you stop questioning it--especially when there's a new life and a new home to be created--and it's just where you are, period. And you're seeing the whole thing from someone else's eyes, a baby who's seeing everything--the fields and the trees and the people and the houses--for the first time, and you know that this is what she'll always think of as home, too. You gave it to her. She didn't choose it.

There are things I don't love about Tennessee. But there are infinitely more reasons why I've stopped making a list of all the things I don't love.

What I do love is that my parents, Jason's parents, grandparents, and sister all live minutes away. (And when we want to escape, my sister and two of my best friends are in New York, my other best friend is in LA, soon to be Australia). And that you wave at people you don't know when you catch their attention, and they wave back, and they mean it. (I've tried this, in habit, in other parts of the world. Doesn't always go over so well.) I love that Jason and I sit outside on our deck every night and there are too many stars in the sky to count.

And I love that on weekends, we drive to nearby towns and go to things like the Fiddlers Jamboree, like we did Saturday, and listen to kids half our age flat pick guitar with skill that sends goosebumps down my arms. And we can eat fried pickles and lemonade and buy hand-made Native American dreamcatchers for Adelyn's room. I love that Adelyn hears music so much that at five months old she could sit for hours, in the heat, and listen, happily, feet and arms moving to the music, without making a single unhappy peep.

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Growing Up.

Something is different here, in our house, our lives. I can't pinpoint exactly what it is. Maybe it's just that I've been sick the past few days, and often when you're sick and then suddenly not things look different, better, brighter. I said a couple of weeks ago that Adelyn has become much easier to handle. That's still true. But now she's not just easier. She's more adaptable. She's taken all three naps today in her crib. She's eaten a full bottle every three to four hours. She's been spitting up like there's no tomorrow but she's been completely content doing it.

I don't know if Adelyn's changing or if I am, if I've finally found some sort of stride as a mother, some way to define what my parenting is and isn't. I think I'm finally starting to let go and just be.

Yesterday I took Adelyn to her future babysitter's house. I majorly lucked out here--my best friend's sister, a woman I completely trust, love, and am in awe of--is going to watch Adelyn part-time when my job officially starts the week after next. I went to a meeting yesterday and took Adelyn over there for two hours, so we could "test the waters" and also make sure she wasn't completely crazy for agreeing to watch a baby in addition to her three other children.

Addy did great. When I walked in the door she was asleep on her babysitter's chest; the woman's own nine-month-old was happily scurrying across the floor. Her two-year-old and four-year-old were playing outside.

Before we left I asked her her tricks for getting the nine-month-old to nap--something I've been struggling with lately.

"I put her in her crib, kiss her, turn off the light and leave the room."

"Just like that?" I asked her. That's all it takes?

"When you have three kids, nap time is nap time."

Simple enough.

As far as mothers go, this is one that I would pay money to take advice from. She's just a natural. Not that she doesn't get irritated when her four year old son refuses to pick up after himself--because I don't idolize the sort of mothers who pretend to be immune to exasperation--but she just seems so comfortable in her role as nurturer and protector.

And it really got me thinking when I got home, about how much things must change when you've been there, done that. On your second child, third child, fourth child, are you still stressing about proper bedtime rituals and schedules or are you just doing what you know works, no frills, no incessant googling and reading up on the most mundane of topics?

So at Addy's next nap I gave it a shot. I took out the Nap Nanny. Casually kissed Addy's little cheek. Put her in her crib. Turned off the light and walked away.

The crying started within minutes, of course. I went back in, put my hand on her stomach, told her everything in her little world was just fine, and walked out.

After three rounds of this I gave in and brought back the Nap Nanny. Adelyn fell asleep in it almost instantaneously.

And since then she hasn't touched her swing. To me, this is a victory. Not that I've completely solved the Baby Sphinx, but still. And even more, I can't remember why I was so dead-set on getting rid of the Nap Nanny. I do these sort of things to myself all the time--as a mother and before--creating these complications that are all in my head. We bought the Nap Nanny because Addy likes the Nap Nanny. End of story.

Addy has gone from easier to borderline-easy, smiling all the time, napping when she needs to, crying when there's a definitive reason, entertaining herself long enough for me to do human, non-baby related tasks. A lot of it is her own growth, but a lot if it, I'm realizing, is mine, too.

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Honeymoon.

There are countless times when you're a new parent that you look back on your former life and realize that it is gone. Gone gone. Even the little things--showering when you're sweaty, going to the bathroom when you have to, staying up until two just because you're not done living for the day, getting all dressed up just for the hell of it--now require planning, plotting.

Jason and I got a rare privilege for new parents this week. I don't know if a lot of people who followed our path get to do the whole "honeymoon" thing. If you decide to forego the shotgun wedding then your post-nuptial life is instantly consumed with parenting. But thanks to the generosity of our families and our determination we went on an actual vacation. Jason and I have been together for a long time and we've never really done that. We've been to Memphis countless times, to Atlanta for a night, and to New Orleans for three days. None of those trips, though, felt like a vacation from our lives. It was just more of the same, in a different location.

This, though, was a completely other world. We had the freedom to sleep in, to lay on the beach all day, to wander around aimlessly, to drink beer on our rooftop deck overlooking the ocean to our hearts' content, to drive to another town without an obvious destination, to shower for as long as it took to get every piece of sand out of our toes. To be our old selves.

It took four hours into our drive to Florida for us to flip through the photos of Addy on my phone. My god we missed that girl. My eyes shot open at seven a.m. every morning, sometimes earlier, my entire being aching to call our parents to check on her. I'd sit on the beach, staring out at the waves, beer in hand, and try to persuade myself not to call again.

We chose Seaside, Florida because it looked like a peaceful, quiet town right on the ocean where we'd be able to enjoy ourselves, by ourselves. We didn't want a touristy-experience or an agenda, we just wanted to be.

And of course, without knowing it, we chose the baby-capital of the Gulf. My formerly un-maternal self had to stop short of freaking out the other vacationers by staring at their babies just a little too long. There were so many of them. Sitting on top of their dads' shoulders giggling at the waves crashing against their feet. Grabbing sand with their little fingers and flinging it at their mothers. Crying in their parents' arms because they didn't want to put on sunscreen. All we kept thinking was how excited we were to do this with our daughter.

No matter how hard we fought it our conversations always turned to her. Her squeels, her smiles, her new habit of chattering to herself before we come get her out of the crib. Our family.

That's not to say that we didn't have an amazing time, because it was truly one of the best trips of my life. Spending five straight days with someone you've seen every day for seven years is still a new experience. After all this time and swerving from our plans and Jason still makes me laugh to the point of tears at least every hour. Something about him still surprises me every day.

My mom kept telling me how important it is to have a honeymoon, and although I was excited about our trip I didn't really get it. We've been together so long that the romance-induced butterflies come more from cuddling up on the couch watching Lost than strolling along the beach holding hands. But she was right. I got to watch him from afar, when he was way-too deep into the ocean on his body-board, and tell the people next to me who were watching him that it was just his way, this husband of mine, to push the adrenaline limits a little too far. My husband. I got to introduce myself to people with my new name.

By Wednesday we missed Adelyn so much it consumed us. We had to force ourselves to stop dwelling, to stop calling our parents because she was just fine and was having a great time, too.

And on Thursday, we'd set our alarm for seven-thirty so we could leave Florida by nine. We wanted to be back to her before her bedtime. We'd stayed up late the night before, drinking and talking, looking over the beach for the last time, and Jason grumbled about how early we'd been waking up this whole vacation. My husband likes to sleep.

When the alarm went off that morning Jason wasn't beside me in the bed. I groggily found my way downstairs and he was dressed, showered. Our bags were packed and put in the car. The trash had been taken out.

"Let's go get her!" He said. And we did.

It turns out it wasn't so much the actual vacation that I needed as a mother, it was the vacation from our new life, just for a moment, to remind myself what I have. Being at the beach and staying up late and drinking and being free is all well and good--and it's necessary, I think, to do such things every now and then--but I have never been as excited to return to waking up at all hours of the night. Adelyn spit-up all over my new Seaside T-shirt this morning and I just don't care.

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Changes.

I got a job. It's the one I've been talking about, the perfect one (for right now) that will allow me to work from home most of the time. We're looking into part-time daycare. Just so I have maybe two or three days a week I know I can work uninterrupted. I start in July, after a three-day training in Atlanta. I'll be taking Adelyn (and my mom) with me.

Even though my life has changed in all of the biggest ways possible over the last year--pregnant, married, crazy full-time job then jobless, becoming a parent, having a new name, a new apartment, a new lifestyle--my life feels mostly the same as it always has. People keep asking me if I feel different, now that I'm married, and for some people I know marriage is a huge step. But for us it wasn't so much a step as a gradual thing that just happened. We were married, essentially, when we moved in together two years ago. Our bank accounts became one. When we found out about Adelyn there might as well have been a preacher standing over us while we we sat on the couch staring at the positive pregnancy test, making us say our "I do's." The wedding was just a celebration of all of these things (and it was also the best weekend of my life), and something we would have done a year ago had it not been for the planet orbiting my ever-growing belly.

One of my biggest problems over the past seven years has been a nagging desire to do more. See more, be more, experience more. Even when I know it's not feasible, and even when I know, deep down, I'm happiest where I am, a part of me always wonders what else is out there. I'm not talking about Jason. I'm talking about my self-worth and my career, my day-to-day life and the stories I will one day tell my grandchildren.

Because if you get rid of all of the expectations you have for your life, it really forces you to appreciate what you do have. And those expectations, for me, are plentiful. I spent a lot of time being sick growing up, and I think that forced me to constantly wish and hope for something else, to lie in bed and plot out my next adventure, to take a look around me and ask, "What else?"

Jason and I are both guilty of this. We spend a lot of time--especially after we've been drinking--sitting around dreaming up what's next. We know all about our dream house (in the country, with a writing desk overlooking a garden in a big, warm library with all of my favorites, and an expansive room above the garage with guitars lining the walls where Jason can turn up his amps as loud as his ear drums can stand it), our dream vacations, our dream life for Adelyn.

But this, this live I'm living now, is what a life is all about. I'm surrounded by love, and creation, compassion and inspiration. What more, aside from the physical, superfluous things, could one ask for? Our apartment is small but each wall is filled with pictures I love, each crevice, already, reminds me of a happy memory.

This is nothing original. Most people--especially us youngins', the ones who might have found their lives taking a sudden, drastic turn from what was expected--worry about what they'll think sixty years from now. I can't imagine what I'll think. Then again I couldn't imagine, ten years ago, being a mother.

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The Dishes Can Wait.

At my bridal shower each guest was asked to write a piece of marriage advice on a card.

Jason's Aunt Sandra's was my favorite, and it's posted up on my fridge as a reminder.

"The dishes can wait for tomorrow."

When I was younger I prioritized cleaning at about the same level I did my chemistry class in school. Meaning I could care less. My mom and I fought about cleaning my room probably more than anything else, because she's a mom and I was a teenager and it was the law, but something shifted when I moved out on my own at 18.

I became a neat freak.

And that weird, un-Sarah like trait has remained, has become more ingrained in my self with each passing day, especially since I became a mother.

I think a lot of it is that cleaning offers a bit of control. When I moved to New York and into a dorm with a roommate I didn't know, the least I could do was keep my room insanely tidy. When I couldn't figure out what to do for a living, at least the bed was made. When I was pregnant and terrified and unsure about the direction my life was taking, at least Adelyn's future room was spotless. And when I came home from the hospital, suddenly responsible for something more vulnerable and helpless than I could have prepared for, at least the counters were shining and the laundry was done.

Yesterday wasn't the best. Adelyn's constipation issues showed up again, and she spent a lot of the day squirming and screaming. She wouldn't nap for more than five minutes and wouldn't eat more than an ounce at a time. Jason even came home from work a little early because I was at a loss, standing at her changing table, watching her strain and cry.

It was a tough day for her more so than it was for me, I'm sure. Around seven--about an hour before her usual bed time--she wouldn't keep her eyes open long enough to finish half her bottle, so we put her to bed early. And she immediately shut her eyes and started snoring.

The difficulty of the day meant that I hadn't been able to take back control and clean up. After we put her to bed, I looked around at the bottles, glasses, unfolded blankets, spilt formula powder and drenched burp rags that had taken over our apartment throughout the day, and my first impulse was to fix it.

We got a wedding gift in the mail yesterday from one of my dad's close friends--a set of beautiful, way-too-nice wine glasses. So to break them in Jason had brought home a bottle of wine.

Before I cleaned up, I decided, I'd sit outside with Jason and have a glass. It had been a long day. I'm not much of a wine-lover, I'm more of a beer girl. But those glasses deserved to be used.

We went outside to our back porch overlooking the still-flooded river and shut the door behind us. And then we talked, first about Adelyn, as were are accustomed to doing. Then we moved on to his job. Then my goals for my job. My writing, his music. Our families, our family, our wedding, my friends, his friends. Our first date, our first break up. Christianity, Judaism, religion in general. The flooding, the Gulf Shore Oil Spill, the Times Square bomber, terrorism, racism, nationalism. Everything. Before I knew it the sun had gone down and we were sitting in darkness. The bottle of wine was gone. We were missing Lost. Those drenched burp rags were still on the couch.

I went to bed feeling infinitely better about so much in my life, from going back to school to my intended career to our incredible, confusing baby girl. I didn't clean up until just a minute ago, when I got Adelyn down for her first nap. And the world didn't implode.

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Planning It All Out.

I knew when I got pregnant that this would become a battle, this trying to figure out what I want to do for a living. It was a battle when I wasn't pregnant, when I had just graduated college and started to realize that the "career" I had when I was in school--editor in chief of the college newspaper, internship at a Pulitzer-Prize winning publication, award for best journalism graduate--meant little toward my actual, need-to-earn-money life.

The job I got after graduating was one that most journalism students would envy. Because, well, it was a job in journalism, which is rare these days. A few months after that pregnancy test I knew that it wasn't gonna work out post-baby. The overnight hours, the commute, the teeny, tiny salary in exchange for ridiculously expensive childcare. That and Jason and I made the decision that we wanted to be Adelyn's primary caretakers, especially in the beginning.

And I know--oh, I know--how incredibly lucky we are that we even have that option. Jason and I are not wealthy by any means but we have the ability to live off of his salary during Adelyn's first few months, maybe not luxuriously but comfortably, and that's all anyone in their 20's who suddenly finds themselves a part of a family can ask for.

My mom runs a homeless shelter in Nashville, and last week she hired one of the women who had been through its program to clean our apartment. Her shelter only takes in families--not just anyone off the street can wander in--and once they're there, they have to follow certain guidelines, like working, and counseling. This woman had "graduated" from the program and now owns her own cleaning business.

After she got done we sat and talked for a while, and it was one of those moments when the fact of how lucky I am comes and hits me over the head repeatedly and I feel stupid for ever complaining about not having my dream job or having Crohn's disease or only getting six hours of sleep a night. This woman has raised three boys--now 16, 19, and 21--by herself. Sure, she wound up in a homeless shelter at some point, but the woman held her head up and moved on, started her own business, and found a way, any way, to take care of her children.

Still, though, no matter how lucky I know I am, I can't get this nagging question of what the hell I'm gonna do out of my head. Hardly a minute goes by, when I'm feeding Adelyn, when I'm playing with her, when I'm getting a rare shower, that I don't think about it. And that sort of defeats the purpose of staying home for the first few months of her life, if my mind is always somewhere else.

Before I was even considering being a mother (I think it was maybe 1,000 on my life to-do list), I had all sorts of plans. I was going to work at a newspaper, obviously. But the thing is--none of them are hiring. And trust me, I applied at every single one--applied over and over again--within 100 miles, even beyond. I was going to win a Pulitzer (again, that pesky not-hiring thing). I was going to get my master's, then a PhD, just like my parents.

Part of me feels like I should just throw in the towel and go get a crappy, dead-end job just so I can stop stressing about it. Holding on to all sorts of big dreams puts a lot of pressure on a girl, especially one who just had a baby.

About a month ago I started writing grants for local non-profits, and it's been a great way to keep my work-juices flowing. I really don't like being at a standstill when it comes to my career. I gave myself four months to focus solely on parenting, but it only took three weeks for me to feel like I was sinking.

I'm up for a perfect job right now, actually, writing grants and doing public relations work for a non-profit I love. It's full-time, but it would allow me to work mostly from home--we could probably divvy up my time away between family members. And best of all--after a year of service it provides a stipend for me to go get my master's. After that, I could get a job as a professor. While I'm doing that, I could start work on my PhD. My dad has been an English professor since before I was born, and it's given him the flexibility to focus on a writing career on the side while still providing for our family. Like father like daughter, I guess. And after decades of accomplished teaching, he now only "teaches" two days a week--the rest are spent writing or watching TV. (My dad is a television scholar. Watching TV is part of his--and my entire family's--livelihood.)

See, I'm a planner. I cannot allow myself to live in the moment, to my own detriment. And the thing I've realized most from this whole experience is that things don't go according to plan.

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24.

So today I turn 24.

I feel old. I know saying that pisses people off who are older--especially Jason, who tops it with a "YOU feel old? I'm almost 30!" every time I bring it up. But, whatever, I can't help it. I was 17 a week ago, excited about my new boyfriend and moving to New York for college. I was 21, like, yesterday, going to Kroger with Jason at midnight to buy my first legal six-pack of beer. And out of nowhere I'm 24, graduated from college, about to be married, with a three-month old baby attached to my hip.

I've been saying all week that I don't want to make a big deal out of my birthday. I really don't. After 21 they're are all sort of downhill, less celebratory each time. And, oh, I lived up that 21st birthday. This one, though, is more about reflecting on how much monumental stuff has happened and how much everything has changed.

But still, a part of you always hopes that your birthday is the best day ever, even if you say you don't want to make a big deal out of it.

Jason woke me up at seven this morning--he'd already gotten up and went to get me breakfast. So I woke up to french toast and twenty uninterrupted minutes with him. Then Adelyn woke up, Jason went to work, and I fed her. An hour later one of my best friends Melissa came over and brought me coffee and a blueberry scone. I might not want to make a huge celebration out of the day but I'll certainly eat two multiple-hundred calorie breakfasts. Then she and I took Adelyn for a long walk, braving the Middle Tennessee heat-wave.

And now I just successfully put Adelyn down for a nap in her crib--a rare occurrence these days. It's been thirty minutes of quiet. I got myself ready, read the news and now have a chance to write.

Jason is taking off work early and we're going to Nashville to shop and go to dinner. Adelyn's great grandma is graciously babysitting.

I might feel old, but with age comes the ability to find peace in the little things. I don't need multiple wild nights out to feel like I did my birthday justice this year. I got Adelyn to take a nap in her crib without any crying--that's enough for 24.

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Small Victories.

It's easy to doubt yourself in the beginning but it also doesn't take a lot to feel content. Today has been a great day. Adelyn slept from eleven to five a.m., woke up for a quick bottle and then slept again from six to nine. We ate, got ready, and went to MTSU to see my old friends at Sidelines--the college newspaper where I was editor in chief--and then walked across campus to visit my dad, a professor there. Then we went to my parents' house for lunch. We came back home, she took a quick nap, and then we went to her other grandparents' house so I could work out in their home-gym.

By pre-Adelyn standards, today was nothing. I would've thought it was boring. I would've thought I got absolutely nothing accomplished. But with Adelyn, lugging around a car seat and scheduling feedings and managing to keep her from screaming in public, I feel victorious. Empowered.

Just finding some sense of normalcy, no matter how mundane it may be, feels so, so good.

I don't know if it's because I'm young or because I was totally not expecting to be a parent any time soon, but all I want as far as my own life right now is to feel like myself again. I know I'll always be different now, that's not up for debate. Just doing things, though, that I used to do everyday--like putting on makeup or visiting friends or reading the news--with a baby feels like more of an accomplishment than any A on a paper, any job opportunity or experience I had when I wasn't a mother.

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The Schlep.

Three days ago I finally got the hell out of my house. I think a lot of you were right--that six weeks thing was a little excessive, and now that I look back on it I don't even know if my doctor meant six weeks before we go into public, before we go into crowds, or before we go insane. I think the excessiveness might have had a little to do with post-H1N1 hysteria or something.

Even though I've had a few outings here and there since her birth--to her doctor's appointments and mine, for example, it took four weeks for me to work up the courage to start really incorporating my baby into my daily life and to take her with me alone, without help schleping the mass of stuff that comes along with a baby. Without backup on standby if she throws a fit. Making a four-week-old fit into a 23-year-old's life is easier said than done.

So. The schlep. I've found since having Adelyn that a lot of Yiddish words are suddenly becoming staples in my vocabulary. And since most of the people around me didn't grow up watching Seinfeld instead of Barney or with a stereotypical Jewish grandma around, I have to explain myself quite often.

Merriam-Webster's defines "schlep" as the process moving especially slowly, tediously, or awkwardly. Or--and these are my words, not Merriam's--living with a newborn.

It took me two hours to leave the house on that first outing. And our destination? Walgreen's. To pick-up a prescription for Vitamin D because my doctor just informed me I'm incredibly deficient since giving birth. My Jewish grandma would have been so proud.

Leaving the house alone with a newborn, it turns out, takes a great deal of patience and finesse, both of which I've been lacking the past four weeks.

By the time we got in the car, Adelyn was crying (after being fed, burped, changed, rocked, sang to, held, kissed and pleaded with). I was crying. But dear God we were going to go to Walgreen's to pick up my prescription by ourselves, without the help of her dad or any grandparents, if our lives depended on it.

Ten minutes into the car ride, Adelyn stopped crying. (I eventually did, too.) It's been freakishly cold in Tennessee this month, so I'd bundled her up more than her poor little body probably appreciated and put her into my Baby K'tan and walked into Walgreen's.

That first moment--stepping into public with my baby, alone--is one I'll never forget. I'm one of those people that is always acutely aware of everyone and everything around me. And I was just waiting for reaction. It felt a lot like walking into public wearing a wig. A pink one. With a bunch of brightly colored feathers adorning the top. I was just waiting for everyone to look as weirded out by me, with a baby, as I felt. I also have a tendency to over-think everything. And that reaction never came, as I'm sure you've guessed.

I felt so good by the time we got back into the car that we decided to make an impromptu visit to Adelyn's grandparents house. And since that first trip, we've been out every day.

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Happy.

Every night Jason lets me get a few hours to myself. The way he put it, he gets to go to work every day, and despite how hard he works it's a chance to live for a while without worrying about a baby crying or heating bottles or diaper rash. And so when he gets home, these things aren't a burden to him--I can see it in his face when he walks through the door after work.

And so at night, around 9 or 10, he takes over. I go upstairs. I think I'm supposed to sleep during this baby-respite, but I don't.

Last night I realized what I've been doing the past month (really, the past 10 months, throughout the whole pregnancy) whenever I get a minute to myself. I've been trying so hard to remember what it was that made me truly happy. Not to say that my life doesn't bring me joy. It does. I think I've just lost the ability to let myself forget all about the not-so-fun details of life (like my health or money or expectations or spit-up) and feel truly immersed in happy. I might pretend; in the back of my head, though, a list of the icky life-details is still ticking by.

Ever since I saw that positive sign on the pregnancy test all those months ago, I've been catapulted into this complete ether-world, one that I never really let myself gradually sink into. It was all "oh shit, oh shit, oh shit I'm pregnant," and then, suddenly, my life was filled with preparation for this new life and then, suddenly, the reality of this new life.

And that's why Jason gives me a few hours every night, so that I can try to let myself catch up. But it took me until last night to really do it. After I'd taken a long hot bath and gotten in bed with The Daily Show playing--my usual nighttime routine--and forced myself to try to remember the last time happy took over.

Whenever I think of that tricky, fickle word--"happy"--I'm taken back to a day in March about six years ago. I'd just had lunch with my best friend Meagan, and Jason and I were in the beginning of our relationship, right around the time I'd started realizing I was smack dab in the middle of an actual love. It was just starting to get warm outside, and I was driving around in my hand-me-down red Chevrolet Cavalier, the windows down to let the Spring in. I remember in that moment feeling just happy. So, so happy.

Last night I made a mental list of other moments since then that brought that same, pure feeling. Dancing with Morgan on our first night out after we moved to New York for college. Eating oysters with Jason during our trip to New Orleans. The night he proposed. Getting recognized for projects I'd worked hard on--at Sidelines, in school. Flying to Paris with my mom, and drinking my first legal alcoholic beverage at the airport in Switzerland when I was 19. Going into labor and seeing Adelyn for the first time.

But then I realized that most of the memories that came to mind weren't quite as exciting as proposals and travels and meeting your first child. I get that same kind of happy after I finish a really good book. After I get home from a busy day. After I've spent the day shopping with my mom. And then, finally, I understood that I'm still getting that happy. It just looks different, and I'm waiting for it to look the same. Like last night when Adelyn fell asleep on my chest, or at four that same morning when she smiled after I woke her up.

It's just a different kind of happy now, I guess. I've just spent so long waiting for the same aha! this-is-what-happy-feels-like-moment that I got six years ago that I ignored this new feeling, let it register as mundane.

So, last night, I picked up a book. (The first time I've read something non-baby related since Adelyn was born.)

I woke up feeling a little more like myself.

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Three weeks.

It's been a rough week, and it's had nothing to do with being a new parent. Just like I was warned, I've spent the past five days in what I can only assume is a fairly major flare-up of Crohn's. I've barely been able to eat (which makes breastfeeding sort of tricky) and barely able to perform the simplest of tasks (like getting off the couch, for example) without feeling instantly ill. Needless to say it's made taking care of a newborn even more of a challenge.

I've never been a religious girl or one to turn to spiritual ideals for guidance. But I can't help being reminded of the oft-heard around the Bible Belt saying that God doesn't give you more than you can handle at one time.

Because I think I can now definitively say that I've been gifted with a good baby. She's straightforward and calm. Increasingly predictable and always adorable. Her worst habit so far is a tendency to stay awake for a couple of hours at a time during the night. And I can't fault her for it, since the time is spent, usually, in her quiet-alert state. No matter how tired I might be, it's that quiet-alert time I cherish the most, when I can see her eyes reading my face, figuring me out, memorizing the smells and sights around her.

Let's hope it keeps up. At least until my health is in order. Then God can deal me another hand, and I'll have the energy to put up a fight.

I got some hopefully good news today at a meeting with my gastroenterologist. Jason's mom watched Adelyn so I could go. (It's funny how a doctor's appointment, after being stuck at home for three weeks, can seem exhilarating.) Turns out the IV-antibiotics I was given during labor since I tested positive for GBS can cause a postpartum infection in some women, and this is made exponentially worse for women with Crohn's or Colitis. I have to wait two days to know for sure if I have it, but every single symptom described how I've been feeling to a T. So I've been given a medicine to combat it and scheduled a colonoscopy and stricture dilation for this coming Monday.

Just figuring out the logistics for Monday have already been a headache (the solution: Jason will be home Sunday while I do the prep for the procedure--if you've ever had a colonoscopy you understand why I need help taking care of a baby that day--and my mom has taken off work on Monday to watch her while Jason and I go to the doctor.

Sometimes having Crohn's makes life feel so needlessly complicated. Add a baby into the mix and it's easy to fall prey to a mindset of worry, worry, worry. So even though it's been a tough week, I think I'm starting to find my place within the chaos. I'm finding a rhythm to taking care of her. A new philosophy to meeting her needs. Feeling so sick has forced me to kind of chill out, to take each cry one step at a time, meet each need without anticipating the next one. When she's hungry, she'll be fed. When she's gassy, she'll be held. When she's fussy, she'll be shushed and rocked. And if I guess the cause of her cries incorrectly, I'll take a moment to myself to calm my mind. It sounds like common sense, but I'm just starting to figure it out.

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Eat. Sleep. Poop.

I wish someone would have told me how little there actually is to this beginning phase. Not that it isn't ridiculously complicated, but there are really only three things I've had to work on mastering so far.

The eating phase, the sleeping phase, and the pooping phase.

My time now consists of trying to solve Adelyn's riddle of those three things, and it ebbs and flows with each passing day. Sometimes she wants to sleep for three hours after she eats. And then the next day, I go to put her down after a feeding, ready to have my three hours in the morning to get stuff done. But the second you think you're sensing some sort of pattern, she decides she now doesn't want to nap after that feeding. She wants to feed some more. And some more. And then she might poop. Then sleep for a while, but this time only thirty minutes, and then she wants to eat again. And then poop. Except this time that wasn't a poop, it just sounded like one. And now that you've changed her diaper--which she hates--there's no hope for sleep without at least twenty minutes of shushing and rocking. And the next day it's a brand new riddle. I spend every second trying to anticipate what's coming next.

I'm making it sound like Adelyn is a fussy baby--to be honest, I have it extremely lucky. For now. Knock on wood. I wish I hadn't written that sentence because now it will no longer be true, I know it. But I'm gonna take my chances and tell you all that I lucked out majorly so far.

Adelyn cries when she's hungry; she cries even harder when she's still hungry and you try to stop feeding her after an hour of nursing. She screams bloody murder when you change her diaper, but she doesn't even make a peep when she's sitting in a soiled one. In fact, if her bathroom habits weren't so audible I'd never have any idea when or if to change her diaper. Sometimes she gets sort of fussy when she needs to burp or fart. But most of the time--most of the time--she's content to stare at you and the world around her and look like the most adorable thing alive.

Being a mom is complicated. Because it's so simple--anticipating the very limited needs of this teeny, tiny person. And still it's a trickier equation than any math problem I've ever come across. Eat plus sleep plus poop equals one confused mother.

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Flirting with PPD.

So, newborns are hard. Let me be the first one to break the bad news.

Adelyn has spent the last two days in some sort of growth spurt. That or she's made an early decision to train as a champion eater. I've spent the last two days with something attached to my chest nearly 90 percent of the time. It feels like a celebration when I'm not hooked up to the pump or attached to a baby.

It's been sort of frustrating and trying, but I'm proud to say that Adelyn did gain 9 ounces since her last doctor's appointment, putting her at 7 pounds, .2 ounces. Still not up to her birth weight. Almost, though. So we'll continue with the extra supplement until she reaches her birth weight then I'll hope my body can keep up with her sometimes unbelievably insatiable stomach.

I can finally understand why postpartum depression is such an oft-talked about topic with pregnant women. After I had Adelyn, it seemed like every single nurse and doctor and pamphlet that crossed my path had some sort of warning about PPD. And for all of my health problems I have never, ever had actual problems with depression or anxiety. Thankfully. Because I think if it was something I'd even flirted with in the past, it'd be rearing its ugly head with full-force right about now.

The sound of this thing you love more than you could ever love anything crying--frantically crying--when you, the mother, can't stop it, combined with a lack of sleep, and the tenth month of not feeling like yourself, and overwhelming, uncontrollable hormones and a body that's still hanging somewhere in the purgatory of not-pregnant but still flabby and normal yet recovering with doctor-prescribed pain killers all add up to a general sense of delirium and way-too analytical introspection. I've had countless moments these past two weeks where I sit and doubt myself and my abilities, my body and my emotions, but no matter how potentially hopeless it might seem for a fleeting second I'm always lucky enough to be interrupted. For all the women who are not so lucky, who don't have an innate off-switch that keeps your mind from totally submerging into darkness, I truly feel for you. Simply teetering into depression is bad enough.

And now Adelyn has fallen back asleep, and so I must follow suit.

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Only the beginning.

She's been here, what, a month? A decade? Forever? It's hard to believe it's only been a week and two days. I can't remember a life without her. Already. Without her coos and gas disguised as smiles and demands.

And it's only the beginning. In just a week I feel like I've been confronted with a deluge of parenting battles, but I know better than to think this is the hard part, or even the tiniest, tiniest glimmer of the battles to come.

At her first doctor's appointment Monday she got a clean bill of health. I put her report on the fridge--the first in what I'm sure will be many excuses to brag about my perfect little girl. The doctor wrote "100% healthy!" and circled it three times. I could cry I'm so proud (or so hormonal).

The only problem is that Adelyn has lost more weight than "normal." She was born 7 pounds, 5.2 ounces. We left the hospital at 7 pounds, 0.2 ounces. And a week later she was only 6 pounds, 8 ounces. The doctor wanted me to supplement with formula. I said no. She asked me to come back this afternoon to have her weighed again--if things hadn't improved, it would become more of an issue.

So yesterday, I fed her constantly. Every time she opened her mouth, even showed the smallest hint of hunger, I offered her milk. Usually she took it, but not for long. I called one of Jason's cousins, a lactation consultant, who told me to sit back on the couch with my shirt off and Adelyn dressed down to a diaper, and to lie skin-to-skin all day long. My sister was in town visiting, but I still gave it a try.

Two hours later, I had to pee. I am, after all, human. I handed her off to my sister for just a second. A little while after that, I was hungry. And after dropping too many crumbs on Adelyn's poor little naked back I realized that this 24/7 skin-to-skin thing just wasn't for me.

It's only the beginning of the guilt. She's genuinely not getting enough to eat. And I am trying with all my might to give it to her. I feed her every single time she cries, and if she doesn't, every two hours religiously. I set alarms in the middle of the night. I let her eat until she falls asleep. Even more, I actually love breastfeeding. I wasn't sure if I would. The first time, though, the nurse brought her into my hospital room to practice, I fell in love with her all over again. I don't want to stop breastfeeding.

And still, she's losing weight. She never seems to want to eat for more than 10 minutes.

And on top of all that, I can't eat. I'm not hungry. I went from a ravenously hungry pregnant woman to forcing myself to eat a small meal. I don't know if it's Crohn's or lack of sleep or anxiety, but I honestly am having trouble sustaining myself. I heard about the after-birth contractions, and mine are either still going strong or I'm on the verge of a flare-up. They double me over in pain. I keep asking other mothers--and my doctor--if they remember this pain. They all say yes, but not for this long. Mine are getting worse.

So, tonight, we'll supplement with formula. Even writing that sentence makes me want to cry. She's lying in her swing right now, finally--finally!--asleep.

And I'm sure other mothers can understand when I say that looking at her face and feeling like I'm somehow letting her down is almost too much for a one-week postpartum woman to digest.

Look at her.

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Life A.B. (After Baby)

I knew it was going to be hard.

We brought her home Wednesday morning, after just two short days in the hospital. The entire way home, she slept peacefully. I sat with her in the backseat, letting her hold on to my finger, staring in bewilderment at this person we created. And I couldn't help wonder how, or why, they let us go home with a baby. The hospital made us take a 15 minute class on childcare, and I learned how to clean her umbilical cord stump and to not lift anything heavier than the baby for a few weeks. That's where the lesson ended.

The first day home was filled with visitors. Adelyn has no shortage of fans and family members and friends who genuinely love her. So even though the first day back from the hospital I barely held my baby, I was also able to take a much needed break, a moment to catch my breath and let reality sink in.

Then the visitors all went home, the sun went down, and reality really sank in.

The only plan I had for our sleeping arrangement was that Adelyn would sleep in the pack-n-play in our bedroom until we felt comfortable putting her in her room. No plan B. No thought given to the fact that she might not want to sleep in the pack-n-play, or at all when we want her to. Have I mentioned I have no experience with babies?

In the hospital, we got back to our post-partum room around midnight, a few hours after she was born. Adelyn was still in the nursery. They told me they'd bring her by around 4 a.m. to try breastfeeding for the first time, and that the pediatrician would be in at 7.

Jason and I stayed up talking, replaying every moment of the whirlwind day, until 3. The hour between that and breastfeeding practice was not spent sleeping, but simply trying to settle my racing mind.

The second night in the hospital, even under the influence of painkillers, I slept only 3 hours. I wanted to feed Adelyn exclusively, so they brought her into the room every two hours to practice. Ten minutes before she was due to come in I'd wake up with a start, excited to see her again.

So by the time we got home after enduring the most exhausting ordeal of my life, I was running on five hours of sleep throughout the past three days (the night before I went into labor I didn't sleep thanks to contractions every 20 minutes). Jason had fared a little better, but not by much.

The first night at home I slept in--literally--five minute intervals. I couldn't help myself from checking on her every second. And she woke up every 20 minutes. As it turns out, Adelyn refuses to stay asleep laying flat on her back. We spent the first three nights home taking turns coming downstairs to sleep so she could snooze in her bouncer, which she loves. It took three days of sleep deprivation before we had the genius idea to bring the bouncer upstairs to the bedroom (because common sense hadn't yet prevailed). Now we've had two nights of relatively decent rest. She'll pass out for a good two and half hours before she's ready to eat again (I've been feeding her every two hours during the day, two to three at night). And I'm slowly, slowly learning to trust that she's okay and doesn't need my constant poking and proding and breath-monitoring.

I guess, for right now, it's just a matter of survival. We'll figure out the more permanent stuff later.

And just for the record--I love advice. Any words of wisdom on how you dealt with the first few tumultuous weeks are definitely appreciated.

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Pregnancy behavior no-no's and things that feel just plain wrong.

On my way home from work yesterday, I felt--for the first time in weeks--the familiar urge to roll down my windows, light up a cigarette, blast some good-for-nothing hip-hop, and act like, you know, a 23 year old. The cigarette part I obviously ignored, but I did roll down the window, ignoring pregnancy impulses that told me it was too hot and too distracting while driving and too many fumes could get inside and it's a fetus killer and yadda yadda yadda.

I turned on the trusty rap station, something that I've felt strange doing since finding out about this baby, for fear that it's miniscule ears might pick up on the drugs, hoes and sex references that my just-got-off-work, need-to-clear-my-head self sometimes loves.

And I danced, the way girls who enjoy dancing do, even suppressed by the confines of the car. I danced the way that--if not for the seatbelt and close quarters-- might be mistaken for sexual, with hip-shakin, shoulder-rollin', and all that good stuff.

But then, all of the sudden, I felt my body rejecting the movement. I felt silly. I felt like an imposter. I felt borderline gross for what my body was doing.

I don't look pregnant yet, but I feel pregnant. It's hard not to be acutely aware of the baby growing inside of you when it's making you vomit all day and forcing you to pick fights with your boyfriend because he asked you to put a trash bag back in the can.

And pregnant women (mothers) can't dance like that. At least that's what something innately shouted at me. Something made me stop. I didn't want to, but I had to.

I know it's bullshit; mothers can do whatever the hell they please. Look at Britney Spears and her post-partum rump-shakin, look at Heidi Klum and her catwalk 2 months after baby, look at Christiane Amanpour traveling to the trenches of war with a 10 year old son waiting at home.

But I haven't yet come to grips with the label.

"Mother."

And right now, some things just feel plain wrong while wearing it.

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