when happiness is

I'm back!  We have a wonderful baby boy and have moved into our house.  I wouldn't advise doing these at the same time.  We got the keys to the house on February 26, I went into labor on February 28, and had the baby on March 1.  Then my mother-in-law surprised us with a visit starting two days after our release from the hospital.  I love my mother-in-law, but that's an inappropriate and unwelcome surprise. 

Anyway, over the past months I've learned... 

-prior to kissing your baby's impossibly cute feet, check to make sure said baby hasn't somehow managed to get his or her poo on those adorable feet.
-breastfeeding CAN be easy!
-Dr. P's quiet reassurance far outweighed the constant babble from one of my nurses.  Sometimes less is more.
-I was blessed to have an easy and enjoyable pregnancy, relatively easy delivery, and a quick recovery.  I'm afraid it's made me less than sympathetic to other new moms.  Sorry.
-As with women's clothing, there is no such thing as standard sizing in baby clothes.
-The pain of hearing your baby cry after circumcision far outweighs the pain of childbirth. 
-Though I wouldn't have predicted it, I miss grocery shopping and cooking and cleaning the way it used to be.

I've been gone a long time.  The first few weeks were just really busy and overwhelming.  Getting to know C, moving, adjusting.  Lately, though, I've just been immersed in drinking in the whole thing.  I'm at once impossibly happy and worried and scared.  It's the strangest thing.  I find myself obsessed with absorbing every minute - blissful, overwhelming, tiring, or anything else.  It doesn't matter - I want to etch each and every sight, sound, smell, and feeling into my brain.  It's all moving so fast, and it breaks my heart to think that one day I won't remember the smell of his sweet head, or the feeling of his nuzzling into my neck.  It's so strange how everything seems to be amplified now, with him.  The yellow of the sunflowers is more vivid, the smell of the jasmine, sweeter.  And, unfortunately, the worries about the future are more intense.  How will I teach him how to be safe in this world without making him afraid of it?  How can I impress on him the importance of relishing each moment of life?  How can I occupy each and every moment fully, so that I never regret taking it for granted? 

This is Father's Day.  B's first Father's Day with C.  It feels more like it's for me, though.  A day to pamper and honor B makes me feel good.  I look at them together (with H, the kitty, of course), and I burst with love.  I've come to realize that while my disappointments in life are real and sometimes consequential, they can't stack up to all that I have and all I have had.  Now I'm going to go gaze a little longer at what I have, in awe.