I felt the title was necessary to make light of my absence for the past few months.  We had a baby!  A beautiful, gorgeous, magnificent baby!  It’s like the Seinfeld episode where the woman is telling a story and then seems to jump past all the important parts with…”and then yada yada yada” and jumps to the present tense.  Although, what is there to say?  I gave birth, and yes, there are funny parts and personal parts and even a little scary side to it but that’s not what this is about so I think yada yada yada sums it up.

The short of it is SHE’S HERE!  And she’s taught me so much in the two short months I’ve spent getting to know her.  First of all, either she’s a REALLY good baby or I’ve approached parenting differently this time.  I think it’s somewhere in the middle…a little of both.  She’s a pretty chill kid and I’m not all bent out of shape about everything being perfect…or perhaps I don’t have a need for the drama that I did with my older girls.  A need to play out the stress that everyone loves to talk about with a new baby.  Oh, not that I don’t acknowledge the stress, it’s real and it can be intense, but it doesn’t have to take over.  It can just make you drink an extra glass of wine at the end of the day and be thankful that your survived.  I’m pretty sure I tried to play out some sit-com interpretation of new mommy hood the first two times by pulling my hair out at any little detour from my plan.  This time my “plans” are more like suggestions for the day that may or may not get accomplished.  Sometimes a list that reads…

1. finish laundry

2. write thank you cards

3. make dinner

4. work out

5. start baby photo book

becomes…

1.  Get big kids ready for school, crawl back in bed and cuddle with your new baby and then spend approximately seven hours staring at her and wonder how you got so.damn.lucky.

2. Pick up big kids from school.

Now, I gladly admit that there are days I do feel significantly more productive and accomplish great things in those seven hours, but somedays the second list just fits the bill.  I never realized until she arrived that I didn’t feel quite complete as a family.  I loved having my two girls close in age and the four of us had such fun together–it never occurred to me that there was anything missing.  Last weekend though, we took a little weekend staycation to Kansas City to stay in a hotel and just swim and spend time as a family out of the house.  As we were walking around the Plaza together I felt a “wholeness” I’d never felt before.  Kind of like a deep breath that feels so good.  My husband on one side, a snoozing baby strapped to my chest in a carrier and my older girls walking in front of us being silly.  One of those God-whisper moments that just said “FAMILY” to me in a way that felt amazing.