Taking Back Our Lives

When Baby was first born, it seemed as though our lives were over. Baby took everything. He took our freedom and our free time, our money and our sleep, our thoughts and our energies, and even my looks. He took it all.

Now, weeks later, we have begun to take back bits of our lives with some critical firsts.

  • We took our first long trip with Baby. My brother was visiting my aunt and uncle, and I wanted him to meet the baby while he was in the area. It takes about an hour to get there. I didn’t know how we’d manage the round trip, what with dirty diapers and frequent feedings. Once you have no choice but to do something, though, you find a way and it never seems as hard to do as you thought it would be.
  • We took our first trip to the store with Baby. I wasn’t sure how he’d react to being in a large, noisy place with lots of people, but he was well-behaved and enjoyed (I think) being out of the house. While we were there, though, it occurred to us that someone could try to take our little munchkin and that we needed to keep an eye on him at all times. That was a scary realization.
  • I cooked for the first time since Baby’s birth. Sure, I had microwaved and toasted things, but I hadn’t actually cooked. How nice to eat a meal that I prepared myself!
  • I carried Baby downstairs for the first time without the sling or car seat. Why is that such a big deal? Because I’m terrified of the stairs. We’d only been living in the house for a few days when Faithful Reader fell down them, scaring me half to death. On the bright side, it made me cautious and I was holding the rail when my heel slipped on a step just a few days later. Then there was the time I was carrying Peeps on the stairs and she started to struggle. As her claws dug into my skin, I let go of her. I had no choice. I was pregnant and I couldn’t risk the baby for the sake of the cat. I thought in that moment that I had killed her, for I saw her tumbling down the stairs and I just knew she would die. Faithful Reader says that in reality she ran down the stairs, but that’s not what I saw in my terrified state. That’s why I hate the stairs and why it takes courage to take the baby on them.

These firsts may be mere “baby steps” but together they equal great strides toward taking back our lives.

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