What The.... November?

An entire month or more has passed and I'm sitting here on a Friday night, when I should be sleeping, to reflect and review the reality of the situation I call my life as of late. Our dear little girl is now approaching her tenth week of life and I cannot, for the life of me, remember or recall what this life was without her in the summertime. It seems somehow incomplete, those memories without Evelyn. Because, now she's here, and quite certainly not going anywhere. And our hearts are even fuller than they once were. And it all feels good, and right, and finally settled.

It didn't always or instantly feel good, and right, and finally settled. Perhaps that's the real explanation for the blog-less-ness for the last few weeks. Like most women, I've had a bit of a time pulling myself back into a routine, a schedule, a feeling of normalcy, post pregnancy. It's been a lack of sleep, a lack of privacy, a lack of anything that makes a woman feel like a woman, that's contributed to the feeling. All mothers know this feeling, and if they say they don't know what you speak of when you say PPD, they are LYING. Let me summarize with a recent conversation I had with myself while staring in the mirror, during a rare moment of silence and personal reflection:

- What the hell? Since when did my boobs look like THIS? My claim to fame is now little more than a set of deflated bags. And why is my husband SO behind me on the plastic surgery idea? (the answer was consequently staring back at me in the mirror.)
- Holy mother. Could the dark circles under my eyes be ANY more black?
- I need to lose forty pounds in the next ten weeks. Definitely before the New Year. I can totally do that. I just have to walk my ass off every day.
- I'm so tired right now there's no way I'm walking ANYWHERE.
- God, I want chocolate. I wonder what's in Allison's trick or treat bag still.
- If I turn on the hair dryer, will she hear it and wake up? If I dry my hair while I hear her crying her little head off, does that make me a shallow excuse for a mother?
- Oh my God, I miss my family.
- I need a nap.

And then, I'd just look at these babies. And I think to myself.... How lucky am I?