Full feels for a half-birthday

Checking in on six months of mom life

This week, we celebrate a very important half-birthday at our house.

Will is officially six months old!

I’m going to try very hard to keep this post from becoming one parenting cliche after another, but let me just get this one out: I can’t tell if time is moving really fast or going really, realllllyyy slooooooooow. Some days, it feels like the former. Other days, it feels like the latter. And while we’ve marked each one of Will’s monthly milestones with a photo and a little celebration, this one feels a little extra significant.

I could go on and on about the many ways in which Will has grown and changed over the last few weeks and months—but you can find plenty of people sharing those details. And while we have (at least for the time being) chosen to share Will with the internet to a limited degree, he hasn’t consented to have every last one of his infant challenges and triumphs posted to my platforms. For those reasons, I’ll be focusing my reflections today on my experience and my learning curve instead of his. Maybe he’ll get a Substack of his own one day and he can bring you up to speed. I’m sure it will be riveting.

(Plus, it’s easier to minimize the cliches this way.)

Before I go any further, here are some snippets from other significant moments in my parenting journey so far:

A week of (mostly) pleasant surprises

Mom life, month two: project managing the awkward stage

The strangest thing I realize as I reflect on where we are at this six-month mark is how naturally Will’s existence in our life has started to feel like a total given. Please forgive me another cliche (I promise this will be the last one), but it sort of feels like he’s been here all along. As much as everything has turned completely upside down since he arrived, the upside down-ness is just… what we do. Most things require a few extra steps or hoops to jump through or minor meltdowns to be managed, but those efforts don’t phase me anymore. It’s as if we—Matt and I—were meant to be the people who juggled this particular set of extra challenges for our particular child and arrangements and we’re doing just that. I’ve had a few moments of missing quiet weekends and long stretches of time to read or watch TV, but I can honestly say that I don’t miss life before Will introduced a series of infinitely delightful little speed bumps. Watching him grow is worth all the turbulence, and working through the ups and downs has started to come naturally—even if i do sometimes wonder how natural the typical “maternal instinct” comes to me.

I adore him and—at least for now—Will doesn’t seem too concerned with just how much of what I’m doing comes from a place of raw maternal energy versus overwhelming love. Does it even matter? I don’t think so.

---

---

Currently Reading: Oye by Melissa Mogollon

I chose this as the August selection in the SWR book club—and I’m so glad I did. It took me a bit to get into the flow of the narrative because of its unique format, but once I did, I was totally hooked. The book is written as a series of one-sided phone calls between two sisters (as in you only read/hear what one sister is saying) as they navigate big upheavals in their family. The voice is extremely distinct and so funny! I sense heartbreak coming at the end, but I’m riding all the emotions on the way.

---

---

A few weeks ago, I took Will to a baby-friendly yoga class, where the instructor shared a meditation about how we (the self-identifying mothers in the room) were all our babies need.

Like… all our babies need.

I bristled at this in the moment and brought it up with my therapist later. Obviously, I’m still thinking about it—and as I consider what it means to reach six months of parenthood (six months! it once seemed so far away and impossible!), I think I’m still bristling. Being Will’s parent has by far been one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done, and while I do think I’ve become a lot of what he needs, most of it has been learned. Earned. Not only by me, but him! Through tears and frustration on his end at times, Will has allowed me the space to figure out how to be his mom. While I selfishly want to be the person he’s most obsessed with in the world, it gives me a lot of joy to see others find their perfect place in his little universe. In the future, I know he’ll need them in different ways than he needs me.

So while—six months in—I still don’t love the idea of being everything my baby needs (largely because I think society places an unfair burden on female caregivers, etc., etc., the patriarchy, etc.), I’m grateful to have earned a spot in his orbit that feels pretty damn important. I don’t take the relationship we’re building for granted, and I tell him frequently that I will always work to be worthy of the kind of bond I hope we have over the years.

Here are a few other observations I’ve had about parenting in recent months: