Happy Babyversary
This weekend, we flew back from Alberta to Cape Breton...X celebrated his first birthday...and Puffin and I celebrated our 12th wedding anniversary.
In both cases, "celebrated" is a little strong. Obviously, X is too young to know what a birthday is, and since he (along with both of us) was still jet lagged and cranky from the trip, we didn't want to spring a lot of new surprises on him. Now that we're home, we figure normalcy and ritual is best for the boy's psyche.
As for our anniversary...well, it's a whole new ball game now, isn't it. I suppose we could have found a babysitter and treated ourselves to a quiet romantic etc. But we just got back from a two-month vacation, and we're just about to buy a new house, so we don't exactly feel like we can treat ourselves to much of anything. And romance? I'm not sure I ever knew what that was, but it sure doesn't seem to fit into the lexicon these days.
We're simply tired. The vacation was rewarding in many ways, but in the final analysis it was just exhausting. The next round of stuff -- moving and starting the new term at school -- will be equally exhausting. If we're celebrating in any way at all, it's by trying to catch our breath. But there's just not much breath left to catch.
If I had the time for self-reflection, I would review my posts and journal entries since X's birth, and probably find some reassurance in the fact that, yes, eventually, everything did get better, as everyone hastened to reassure me. He eventually started sleeping through the nights, he developed a personality, and I started my own slow attitude adjustment, coming to terms with the fact that, if I am going to do this parenthood thing right, then I have to do it all the way and pretty much all the time. It's coming. I'm coming around. But it's slow, like the changes in a one-year-old that creep up on you and then are suddenly all that matter. Oh, what's this now? He's learned how to pry the "baby-proof" covers off electrical sockets? Looks like Year Two is going to be chock full of shocks!
In both cases, "celebrated" is a little strong. Obviously, X is too young to know what a birthday is, and since he (along with both of us) was still jet lagged and cranky from the trip, we didn't want to spring a lot of new surprises on him. Now that we're home, we figure normalcy and ritual is best for the boy's psyche.
As for our anniversary...well, it's a whole new ball game now, isn't it. I suppose we could have found a babysitter and treated ourselves to a quiet romantic etc. But we just got back from a two-month vacation, and we're just about to buy a new house, so we don't exactly feel like we can treat ourselves to much of anything. And romance? I'm not sure I ever knew what that was, but it sure doesn't seem to fit into the lexicon these days.
We're simply tired. The vacation was rewarding in many ways, but in the final analysis it was just exhausting. The next round of stuff -- moving and starting the new term at school -- will be equally exhausting. If we're celebrating in any way at all, it's by trying to catch our breath. But there's just not much breath left to catch.
If I had the time for self-reflection, I would review my posts and journal entries since X's birth, and probably find some reassurance in the fact that, yes, eventually, everything did get better, as everyone hastened to reassure me. He eventually started sleeping through the nights, he developed a personality, and I started my own slow attitude adjustment, coming to terms with the fact that, if I am going to do this parenthood thing right, then I have to do it all the way and pretty much all the time. It's coming. I'm coming around. But it's slow, like the changes in a one-year-old that creep up on you and then are suddenly all that matter. Oh, what's this now? He's learned how to pry the "baby-proof" covers off electrical sockets? Looks like Year Two is going to be chock full of shocks!