blossoming.

i think i'm growing along with maggie.

somehow, in the last month, i have changed. or perhaps all of the pieces that had been growing in my soul all came together. or perhaps, as i really believe, my body finally reset and i am feeling more myself than i had been in the six months before.

but i'm just...happier. and finding great joy in my daughter rather than worrying so much about everything. naps are what they are.  teething sucks. solid foods are fundamentally and irrepressibly confusing.

she, however, is a joy.  i'm sitting here on the couch, watching her crawl furiously between two stacks of toys, pulling things out of the storage ottoman that i opened for her that is full of random old toys that she doesn't normally see.  she's pulling up on the ottoman, examining things, taking them out, eating them (of course), and then crawling back to toy home base, where the larger stuff that doesn't fit anywhere else hangs out.

she is just adorable. i think my heart just exploded a little bit.

but every day, i find these moments. every day, i find ways to get more things done. she's been going through some serious separation anxiety issues, mostly related, i think, to some big fat front teeth that are pushing through. as my friend saf put it, sometimes you just need your mom.

unfortunately, sometimes that is around 2 am, and she is not inclined to let me go so that she can go back in her crib.  it's been a bit of a struggle, but we're wandering our way through it, groping together in the dark to figure out what to do.

and i think i'm realizing that's mainly what motherhood is.

as i stumbled back to bed at around 330 last night, i told musicboy (who was awake too) that separation anxiety was kicking my butt.  but i didn't say it angrily or resentfully. just stating a fact.

but when i wake up in the morning, still tired and wishing for another hour or even another half an hour, and i hear my chattery baby talking to herself and pulling up and plopping down and enjoying her first moments of awakeness by herself in her dark room, i know we're doing something right.

when she just has so much fun cruising from chair to exersaucer, when she pulls out books and loves to chew on them, when she finds a metal mixing bowl the best toy of all, when she crawls over just to say hi and tell me she's hungry (or i realize that's probably the problem). when she thwacks the doorstop over and over to hear it make that sound, when she giggles at us singing the beginning of "crazy train," when she never seems to get enough of doing the same things over and over. when my voice calms her down as i sing the silly snowman song, when she decides to go to sleep as we're rocking and she nuzzles into the crook of my arm and is out just like that. when she chews on the crib, on the tv stand, on the side of her highchair.

when she does anything and everything.

maybe it's the season. maybe it's figuring out who we are as parents. maybe it's just that maggie is tremendously wonderful.

but our life is good.