uncle steve

i am learning many things about being a mom.. and one of them is how to apply concealer to lines on my face.. deep etched lines from lack of sleep..  If only people wanted to look tired: "Oh Hannah, you look soooo delightfully tired, how DO you do it?"  "Oh Hannah, your hair has just the right amount of  chic -dishevelled- greasiness.. kiss kiss, smooch smooch, what a trendsetter you are"
its amazing how much you age when you only sleep 4 hours total! i feel that i am living the college life all over again: just minus the late night movies, and girlish giggles, and peanut butter toast. . . OH, right and the part where you skip class and sleep in to make up for it! shhhhhhhhhh.....

 last night was one of those nights where no matter how much uncle Steve admonishes me to "cherish these moments while you can"... uncle steve is not dragging himself out of bed to sit: half exhausted in a chair nursing a crying baby at 3 am , then soothing an upset baby at 5 am .. .  and then again to the dreaded chair at 6:30am to start the day~!

 I feel as though the chair and I have not become very good friends as of late..  Its comfortable plush can no longer make up for my staggering mid-morning advances. Everything changes in the wee hours of the morning, suddenly it is tilted at JUST the right angle that I cannot fall asleep, and wiggles just enough to make me feel like i will be hurled backwards unawares and spill, baby and bunting -onto the floor- in one big lumpy pile... i feel as though its all the chairs fault, .. doesn't it know i would much rather be friends with the bed?

and then, as if the dreaded chair is not enough, in sneaks the cat, full of feline curiosity, who begins pawing nursery blocks onto the floor one by one, which sounds like nuclear explosions when one is trying to calm a crying baby to sleep.. . 
 

... i feel like i am suddenly enrolled in 'neighborhood watch' as i gaze sleepily out the window. I now know the neighbors across the street let their dogs out at 5 am, that the snowplow comes as early as 3 am on the morning of a big storm, and that a train echoes in the distance every night..
i see the shiny slivers of dawn, and realize that  i can no longer roll out of bed and head to class at the last possible moment.. i cannot press snooze on a crying baby. .. .

and just when i think i am too tired, that I cannot possibly make it through another day, my little boy finds his feet for the first time, and he is so utterly fascinated, so entirely consumed by the magic of his having his own toes, that i am caught up again in the overwhelming honor of motherhood.  

 

You see, he is already changing, he is already moving from baby rolls and cuddles, to striking out on his own and becoming his own little man, and i still get to be a part of his journey- 

I still get to see his eyes light up in curiosity and wonder at the wide world he is a part of...


 so i promise myself i will go to bed early at 9 pm tonight  (i wont. )

and that tonight he will miraculously sleep through the night (he wont)

and if all else fails, when its 3 am and i sauntered half dead to the infamous chair, I will try to let Uncle Steve's words melt into my heart "Cherish these moments while you can; cause someday they grow up.."