And We're Back

Blogging with an infant turned out to be a lot harder than I expected it to be. I did alright when Gavin was really small. But then he got older and more interesting and started taking more of my time and attention. Plus I went back to work. I had to prioritize my time and blogging was the thing that suffered. The thing that's been hardest to integrate back in to my life.

But I think I'm getting there. Part of the problem is that I was, on some level, resisting this place turning into a mommy blog. The only thing I wanted to write about was Gavin, but I didn't want my entire blog to be about him. While I was searching for something else to write about, the backlog of things I felt like I should be writing about kept getting longer and longer. Learning to be a single mother when Kevin went on his first business trip, our vacation in Hawaii, various milestones liking rolling over, mastering the use of his hands, and starting solid foods. It got so overwhelming that every time I went to write something, I got stressed out. And that's not what this is supposed to be. My blog is a release valve, a place to vent my stress. It shouldn't be a source of it.

So I gave myself permission to stop. And I didn't write for a while. I felt the need at one point, and I caught up on my book blog instead. Life happened, and I focused on figuring out my new normal. What does motherhood look like in the day-to-day and how do I integrate all my pre-baby interests into my life now that so much of it centers on my kid.

When I needed it, my blog was still waiting, as I knew it would be.

So here we are. A lot has happened since I last updated. I'm beginning to feel like a whole person again, not just a mother. Though being a mother has become undeniably central to my identity, it isn't the whole of me. It's taken me longer to get here than I thought it would, longer than I suspect it takes many mothers. Or maybe not. Maybe everyone has to take half a year (or more) to ease back in to life after a disruption of this magnitude.

The point is that I think I'm back. I think I've figured out how to carve out the time for this blog, and I finally feel a need for it again. So expect the updates. I'm sorry if they all end up being about my son. I still like reading and cooking and riding my bike, but it all seems to revolve around him now. And I guess my writing will too. That's not a bad thing, but it is a bigger mental adjustment than I was prepared for.