Jude is a month old today. In 15 minutes, actually. This does not seem possible because it doesn't feel like I have had a month's worth of sleep. Maybe a few weeks worth, but not a month. Unfortunately, I have never handled lack of sleep very well. I behave like I did as a pre-teen who stayed up too late at a sleepover. My parents can attest to the seething storm of crankiness I always was the next day. The years have only made me worse. Despite the grogginess of the new era, we are delighted by our little man. Sometimes I still get weepy when I look at him. He's so beautiful.
After a month of convalescing, I'm starting to feel my body fall back into equilibrium. For weeks after Jude's birth it felt like I was inhabiting a stranger's body. My suddenly heavy and pendulous breasts, tender and shockingly practical. My Grinch-like belly, saggy after being taut and teeming with life. My lower region an alien landscape of a body pulling back together again. And my emotions, ah, my emotions. More stable. The violence of birth on the body was a sudden sea-change that left me sputtering in the wake. Luckily, the smaller, more delicate body that emerged, his unnerving vulnerability, continues to pull a veil over the former pain.
6 comments:
I say, as it seems I say every time you post, this is astonishingly beautiful. I read it thrice, my jaw dropped at its loveliness.
He is beautiful. And he has a beautiful mother.
Wow he is so cute.... great post... emily.
so wonderful! and the weeping at his beauty won't ever go away(its amazing).
Almost everyone of your blogs brings me to the verge of tears -they are so beautifully written!
Thanks for letting me meet and hold your baby! he is beautiful.
"shockingly practical" ...well put.
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