long days

I thought about starting a blog for a long time, but I got stuck whenever I thought about what to name it. It's hard to sum yourself or your life up in a pithy or witty phrase. So I put it off, and thought about it from time to time, but never did come up with anything fabulous for a title.

Eventually I decided that it might be a good thing for me to start writing -- anything -- again, and that I could benefit from the teensiest bit of introspection. But I still couldn't think of anything to name it. And then I remembered, when I write (wrote?) articles and I'm (was?) stuck on the lede or the first graf, it was always helpful to just start throwing random quotes up on the page and then statistics and numbers and kind of just let the story write itself. Then I would come back to the top once the whole thing was written. Once the article was 99% done, only then could I ever come up with anything resembling an adequate lede.

So I decided the same theory should apply here. I'll just start writing, and then maybe magically in a week or month a better name will appear to me. In the meantime, I'll stick with Long Days, because that's what my life is like right now. Looooong days. But at the same time, Tessa is already four months old and where did all the time go?

So. Tessa is four months, and almost obscenely huge (I mean really, have you ever heard of a baby being 97th percentile anything?) and just beautiful and adorable and already meeting milestones of older babies (I don't like to brag, but she does eat her feet on at least a five month old level.) But this baby is not what you would call a "good sleeper." (Imagine me doing Chris Farley air quotes.) Will and I have both gotten somewhat acclimated to living in the fugue state of no-sleep, but every so often I'll look in the mirror and be taken aback by my haggardness. Even on days when I've showered and put on makeup and am not covered in spitup and/or poop.

Lucy and I were looking at her baby pictures on the computer the other day, and we got to the ones of the day she was born. There's a picture of Will and I right after she was born, and we both just look so... young. Our eyes were bright, we were tan, dazed but still alert. And it was only 3 years ago, but it looks like another lifetime. And then a few photos later there's a shot of us after three or four days in the hospital, and even after 48 hours with a newborn, the picture looks like the us I know now: glazed eyes, vacant expressions, grumpiness right under the surface.

And I tell myself that Tessa will start sleeping through the night, and these days will be just hazy memories. But I don't really think I will ever look that young again.