Reflections

Truman's sleeping peacefully on Joe so I have a few minutes to write.

I've been surprised how naturally motherhood has come to me. Caring for Truman isn't necessarily easy, but it is also not difficult. In fact, I would say that those qualifications aren't even in the same ballpark as all the other words I would use to describe my experience of being a mother so far.

It's joyful and frustrating. It's simultaneously the thing I feel most comfortable doing and the thing that makes me realize I have so much to learn. It's enigmatic.

There's simply something so amazing about caring for him day after day and being here to see him grow minute by minute, hour by hour, week by week. I've started to understand why parents brag about simple things that sound absurd to non-parents. It is a big deal to us when our children smile or hold up their heads or recognize our faces. These are the milestones of infanthood and they mark a passing from a time when Truman was here with us but existed more as a figment of our imaginations and dreams than as a real person to a time when he is clearly his own little man. And I will admit that it has taken me some time to fully internalize his existence as a person — not just as a baby we were going to have or a baby we have, but as Truman.

But when I look at him I realize this is true. Now he is a tiny reminder of how small we all being our journeys in this world but someday he'll be a kid and a man.

Every morning when we wake up I talk to him and smile at him. This week he started smiling back. I look forward to that smile every morning.