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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Child-led Parenting. Or What Just Kinda Happened.

Yesterday I had lunch with three other moms. Two have babies three weeks younger than Adelyn. One has a baby who's seven months old. I've talked about that particular baby before. Her name is Ella and her cheeks are infinitely kissable and she hardly ever cries. Now she's developed the ability to say her name, which she does over and over while awake. "El-lalala-la. El-lalala-la." She's adorable.

At lunch we got on the topic of Baby Wise, because these are the kind of things four young moms talk about. Baby habits, formula types, breastfeeding vs. bottlefeeding, being hungover and taking care of your baby, the concern over a baby who doesn't care about rolling over, and, I think, the topic of spray tans made a brief appearance. But mostly we just talked about living as a mother.

One of these women, Ella's mom, works full-time. More than full-time, actually. The other just went back to work, working three days a week. The other goes back to work, working from home, in just a couple of weeks. And then there's me, who is caught somewhere between a former desire to devote herself, all of herself, to being a success and trying to figure out how to be a parent.

I did not expect to be a mom right now. I hope when Adelyn someday, inevitably, reads this she understands that that doesn't mean I'm not extraordinarily grateful for how things have turned out. It just means that I was thrown for a loop. Graduating from college and trying to figure out what to do for a living is confusing enough. Doing this with a baby is a bit more so.

I think--fingers crossed--I'm a couple of weeks away from getting the job I hoped for. It doesn't pay much, but it's for an organization I care deeply about and it would allow me to work from home most of the time. Between two family members who are teachers off for the summer and a great grandma who seems to have an infinite number of baby-tricks up her sleeve--along with the generosity of my mother-in-law's friend who's offered to watch Addy whenever I need her to--I think we can avoid putting Addy in day care.

The job does require a three-day training in Atlanta. I have to figure that out. My mom might come with me and watch Addy while I do the required stuff. But other than that, I think we'll be just fine.

But it brings up, once again, this increasingly-tricky question of creating a routine that is predictable. It doesn't have to be on-the-nose scheduled, but it has to be somewhat smooth, like, knowing that within the next three hours I will have an hour I can devote solely to work. And little Adelyn, God love her, does not like predictability. Our newest schedule involves getting up around four thirty in the morning, eating and playing until she's sleepy again, and then putting her in her swing to nap while mommy snoozes on the couch. I never used to need so much sleep. When I was pregnant, even, I woke up at six on the dot. Now when I hear Addy babbling over the monitor at four, five, six I'm desperate for just one more hour between the sheets. (Sleeping.)

I don't like the idea of Baby Wise. Neither do the other moms I was with yesterday. Ella, her mom told us, has developed a schedule all by herself. And she sticks to it. None of us are fond of forcing a schedule on our babies. I think the experts call this "child-led parenting." I call it trying to find something that works. I can't hold off giving Addy a bottle if she's hungry, a nap if she's tired. My neighbors--who are generally incredibly sweet--told us they used to do everything in their power to keep their daughter awake past six p.m. They'd even sprinkle water on her face if she was drifting off. (This might have been a joke. I hope.) And that meant she started sleeping through the night from the start.

I can't do those things. I've tried--not with the water on the face part--to plan out our day, thinking she'd get another bottle in three hours, then another at noon, then a nap, then so on. It never works for me. I always give in.

Am I setting myself up for disaster later on down the line? Am I raising a child who will get what she wants, when she wants it? Or am I just a proponent of this thing called child-led parenting? I don't know. But I do know that Addy wants another bottle, and I'm going to give it to her.

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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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Off the Mommy Clock.

This weekend I had my longest stretch of Adelyn-less time. My mom and I spent Saturday, almost the entire day, working on wedding stuff and shopping. We went to lunch. I got a facial. It was a much-needed break.

Jason watched Adelyn from nine in the morning 'til about three in the afternoon.

When I came home he was in the recliner, Adelyn snoozing on his chest. There was a half-eaten bottle on the table beside him. He had a burp-rag thrown over his shoulder, another draped across his knee. The sound of whining teenagers on "16 and Pregnant" played in the background--surely not his show of choice, but whatever happened to come on after what he was watching. The remote was across the room, on the couch. (You can't really run to fetch it when you're in the middle of feeding her, burping her, playing with her, comforting her.) He was in the same clothes as when I left, plaid pajama pants, Sonic Youth T-shirt. Whenever Jason gets time to himself he picks up his guitar, and I know he was hoping he'd get some playing time in that day, but it was still in its place in the corner of the room, untouched.

I walked over to him and pulled Adelyn off his chest. She immediately started crying, as she usually does when she's torn from a position she was comfortable in, and Jason got up, wiped a spot of spit-up off the front of his shirt and took a deep breath.

"I need a shower," he said. And he gave me a kiss and went upstairs.

It was the most validating moment of the past two months yet.

Later that day Jason told me what I needed to hear--what I didn't even know I needed to hear. He told me how hard the day had been, fun and rewarding, but hard. Adelyn had one of her needy days, as she does sometimes, when she's only satisfied attached to a human body. Those moments are sweet, those moments when you can tell she's only happy lying on your chest. But those are also the moments you have to continually forsake a shower, or answering the phone, or being productive. Doing the dishes or doing your work.

About a month after she was born I started working on my own business. I've been trying to establish a freelance career, focusing on writing grants for non-profits, and I've been luckier than I expected in finding projects to start with. But even if you can land that parenting holy grail--working from home--the battle doesn't end. You still have to find time to work, even if you are in your pajamas. And that's infinitely easier said than done when you're doing it on a newborn's time.

Does it make me a bad mom, or a bad fiance, that my most validating moment so far was seeing that frazzled-look on my partner's face? There are those women--those crazy strong women--who do it on their own, who don't even get a moment to see that look mirrored back at them. I think about them all the time, especially when I get a day to myself and come back home to my baby renewed, refreshed. Eager to change a dirty diaper because I got an afternoon away from it.

Seeing that look was like having your boss pat you on the back, saying that all those long hours are appreciated. That maybe you're up for a promotion.

I think we need to see that look in someone else, us mothers. Especially us mothers who are, either permanently or for the moment, treating motherhood like a job. It is work. Even when we're wearing spit-up stained PJ pants while we're on the clock.

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