how I got here

I thought it might make sense to write a little about how I got here, and by here, I mean how I got to be 41 and the mother of a very small child. I'll give you the short version: met my husband late in life, had some trouble getting (or mostly, staying) pregnant, and then got lucky with W. Today, he's almost nine months, which is shockingly old. He's a real little person.

But what was I doing all that time? I sometimes wish I had gotten my shit together to have a baby earlier, especially now that I know how much I love having a kid. Ah, wishful thinking. I suppose I wasn't ready for all of this until now, and for what it's worth, I'm not sure I'm really ready for it now. Today, for example, I would love to curl up with a good book. It's a cloudy quiet day and it's perfect for that big sprawling novel I got from the library on Tuesday. Instead, I'm sitting here watching the video baby monitor for signs that W is waking up early from his hard-fought-for (by me) nap. He's cranky today. Barometric pressure? The lingering cold that he can't seem to shake? Maybe he'd rather be alone and read. Whatever the reason, today is a rough one for us. And it's one of the few days that I'm home with him all day--I work four days a week (equalling full time, so I actually work a bit from home at nights and on weekends). I'll save the work-or-stay-at-home issue for another post, but for now, I'll say that this one day home is bittersweet. Sweet because I'm with my boy. Bitter because I don't really get a day "off" and it doesn't always go as well or as smoothly IRL as it does in my daydreams when I'm at my office desk.

So today, I'm grateful that I have W and that it's not completely perfect. If it was, I might *really* regret those years in my late 20s and 30s reading and going to movies. In reality, life is complicated and motherhood is especially complicated.