At this moment....

I am:

• Pretty much smitten with this sweet little girl.  I cant wait for the rest of the family to go off to work and school and let the two of us go back to bed, to snooze and coo together.  We are getting to know each other, sussing each other out.  Its the best sweetest part of new motherhood, when the boundaries between you and baby are still transient and open.  They are still you and you are still them.
• Loving the way that my voice quietens her, the feel of me comforts her, the way that her eyes seek me out.
• Trying to guage whether i am getting the first smile or not.  My head tells me its too early, my heart tells me - she's trying to smile at me!!
• Trying to still be as available for the boys as i was before.  Feeling like i am failing a bit.  I feel like they are growing up in front of me.  I remember this happening with Gabriel when Seth was born.  When the new baby arrives, the old "baby" seems to grow overnight.  Part of you is so relieved when they go to sleep without you or pick themselves up and dust themselves off without you.  Another part is devastated because you know that these changes are forever.  That they have read the writing on the wall and have changed with it.
• Am finally feeling better physically and emotionally.  I am starting to feel less pain when i get up or move around.  I am driving.  I am starting to find a box for Lily's birth, that was not my personal choice but that still is ok.  The point is that she is here and that any birth is an experience, that has its own life.  It passes.  You need to make sense of it, for what is was and not for what you wanted it to be.  So i wasnt in control of that experience.  I am in control of how i want to feel about it now.  I am in control of what happens going forward with my daughter.
• I am happy that life is creeping back into its old routine.  That we are starting to change our routines to fit her in.  I am starting to get a glimpse that in days to come, there will be a routine where she fits in perfectly and it all works again.
• I am savouring those perfect moments when all three kids are together and i know that this is my family and that everyone who is supposed to be here is here.  That there is no more waiting required.  Eight years ago, i was struggling to conceive and i remember having a good cry after yet another failed pregnancy tests.  Here i am with a full home, a full heart surrounded by my children, feeling more content then i ever have before...

Al