Important

It's amazing to me how much I accomplish on certain days, and other days Derek comes home and I've barely managed to shower and do the breakfast dishes. Mostly my lack of productivity before was purely because I ran out of hours in the day, but lately I've been purposefully ignoring household chores to focus on more important tasks, namely my little girl who isn't so little anymore. 

When she was born, it felt like I never had any time to sit and do nothing. She was so small when she was born that she ate every hour/ hour and a half. She was born with a short tongue so my determined efforts to breastfeed were totally in vain, and I ended up pumping for several weeks before breaking down and buying formula. Those weeks were hell. I never slept. Ever. She would wake up almost every hour, I would give her a bottle, put her back to sleep, and then I would go back and sit in the rocking chair in the living room and pump. By the time I crawled into bed, I was lucky if I got 30 minutes of sleep. Aka zombie Ally. 

I don't tell you this to make you feel badly if your newborn slept 4 hours straight, and I don't want you to pity me either. Mostly, I want everyone to recognize that babies are LOTS of work, sure there are the beautiful moments, but those are moments, and they are fleeting. I've been realizing lately that Emma is more and more of a joy as she gets older. Not just because my workload changes since there aren't any diaper blowouts at 1 am or huge loads of baby laundry, but mostly because she is an enjoyable small human to be around. We play Legos and playmobil, and I get to watch her imagination blossom. We do "schoolwork", and I watch her begin to comprehend numbers and letters. And as I watch her play with her babies and the cat, I can see a beautiful, gentle spirit emerging. 

So lately I have been ignoring chores to a certain extent to soak in the beauty of this little girl who is so quickly blossoming into a young woman. I've been ignoring the vacuuming for an extra day so I can sit and watch the sunshine bring out the highlights in her hair as she sits and plays by the windows. I've been putting off laundry a little so I can sit and color with her, read an extra story or just snuggle. And I've been mopping less frequently just so I can play and imagine with her. I know I can't play forever, but I don't want to rush by these simple times of just being together.