1 June 2022

Notes on the Month Ahead 06.22

Time is cruel, it passes so quickly. I can recall small moments of this time last year so clearly they hardly feel as if any time has passed. Rocking our brand new baby in the dark, shifting back and forth between the far side of the bed and the window as we listened to Stevie Wonder trying desperately to get her to sleep. Waiting for JD to get home. I remember thinking in that very moment how one day I would think back on that moment and miss it. I have been acutely, painfully aware that each moment should be cherished as they are happening. It is a thought that has helped me on hard days and destroyed me on wonderful days. Yesterday was JD’s first day back in the office from paternity leave and I am shattered. I love spending time with him. I love having him home with us. I love being together the four of us as a family. Finn is always included in the family tally. He is a person after all, in his mind. I am so mournful of our three months having gone by. I feel like there was so much we wanted to do with that time that never materialized. The days are long but the weeks, months, years are so short.

I always think about this instance in Tortola years ago where I really realized this for the first time. I was standing in the bedroom and it struck me that this vacation was going to be over and in the past quicker than I’d like it to be. Before I knew it we’d be heading home, have been back for months, be talking about that time when… far away from that moment. I don’t love this about myself, but it’s something that has truly helped me to savor every single moment, and makes me so sad at the same time. So now I see myself sitting on the floor with all of the books out on that very first weekend as JD ran to urgent care to confirm that he had in fact strained his back holding Eleanor in a funny way, thinking “oh boy, he’s supposed to be home to help me but now I’ll be helping him.” Thankfully, luckily, he recovered quickly and we got into a new routine, a much better routine than the one I had us in. And now we are in a new stage and I’d like to keep up as much of our routine as I can. But oh how I miss having us all together all day long and how sad I feel that he has to go to the office. I know he feels it too. Yesterday she was playing with her little wooden lion and one of the flowers from her gardening cart. She has always called the lion “Dada”, I joke it’s because JD had a beard over the winter so it reminds her of him. She was pressing the flower to the lion and saying “Dada” over and over. They have been planting together, she has been mostly been trying to un-plant the tomatoes. It made me want to start sobbing then and there. I’m just a tiny bit emotional right now.

I am so very thankful that JD has a job that allowed him to take 12 weeks of paternity leave, at any time within the first year. I know how rare that is in this country and how absolutely wonderful it is that we were able to have that time as a family. I know that we will get into a new routine. And how lucky I am to be working from home and get to spend every moment with our sweet girl and pup. And it is about to be summer. We have so many fun warm weather things to look forward to. It’s going to be okay.

On the blog last month I think I did a pretty good job of posting regularly. The outfits are still lacking but I am working on it. I’m in a spot right now where I am not thrilled with the way a lot of things are fitting and that makes it hard to want to take pictures. Continuing on with the TMI theme of this month’s notes I lost all of the baby weight immediately when baby was born. It was to the point where I stepped on the scale at my two weeks postpartum appointment and asked my doctor if I should be concerned because the number was lower than where I started. She said this happens. I carried small and didn’t gain a lot of weight which was a separate issue. She sucked all of the fat out of my face at one point where I thought I resembled a Tim Burton character. Anywho, I digress. Over the last year I have put on 10-15 pounds that will not come off no matter what I eat or how often I work out. I am pretty sure that it is because I’m still breastfeeding and my body is holding on to that weight because it thinks I need it. So I must? But I’m a little annoyed from time to time to say the least. I was so kind to myself and my body while pregnant and through the early months postpartum, but now I’d like for the shorts I wore last summer to fit and look the same as they did then. I have noticed a 5 pound drop as we’ve dropped a feed so here’s hoping weaning does the trick when the time comes. A different conversation for a different time.

I am still working through my photos from our trip out to Montauk and have been slowly sharing them over on IG. Be sure to follow me there if you have not already! I tend to share a lot of my shopping finds in stories and have a highlight saved for that as well. And I would love to get into the habit of sharing weekly photo round ups here as I keep saying.

This month my plan it to take everything in stride as we figure out our day to day and share those stories along the way.

Happy June, I hope your week is off to a lovely start!

xx

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