This Year, I have a Baby

Come January first of every year, I have a list of a hundred dozen things I want to do that year. Some years I even blog about those things.

Last year, I had a goal game.
Two years before that, I was going to do 2012 Things in 2012.

This year, I have a baby.

That doesn’t mean I don’t have plenty of things I want to get done this year, plenty of things I’m not itching to get started on (or finish up). But it does mean that I’m not making any beginning-of-the-year resolutions.

Every year past, I knew that my grand schemes would peter out somewhere between February and April – and I was okay with that. Grand schemes are fun while they last and I have no problem abandoning them once they’re dead. Generally, I still glean a few good things, establish a few good habits, and get a few things done to make them worth their while.

But this year, I know that any grand schemes would never even hit the ground.

Two unplanned months of being a stay-at-home wife and mother of a newborn has taught me that.

I used to talk about all the things I would do once I was a stay-at-home and didn’t have to devote 40 hours of every week to an outside job. Now I’ve learned that I replaced a 40 hour a week job (teaching mothers how to feed their children) with a job that’s at least as time consuming (feeding my own child). Between pumping and breastfeeding and cleaning pumping supplies and dealing with spit-up, I’ve spent at least 40 hours a week over the past 8 weeks just feeding Tirzah Mae.

So I’m adjusting my expectations down.

Maybe come February to April (when my usual grand schemes are sinking into oblivion), I’ll be ready to scheme grand schemes again – or maybe I’ll discover that life post-newborn is still too taxing for grand schemes.

That’s okay.

I’m a different woman today than I was last year and the year before and the year before.

This year, I have a baby.

She’s changed my life. And that’s okay.