this season

For whatever reason, this spring has felt hotter than summers past and our days have felt so chaotic and hard to schedule. I go through these phases where I feel so behind on everything and then those where I feel like I actually have at least an hour of free time at night before I inevitably pass out. Right now I'm in one of those "so behind" phases which is unsurprisingly coming off the tails of my husband's busy time at work. Ethan has had some issues with sleeping the past couple of weeks (which, not to jinx it entirely, seem to have ended two nights ago) and our house is really just one big state of chaos.

This blog has been quiet and it bothers me so. I feel like I have so much to say but no time to say it and, when I do find the time, I'm seriously lacking the energy to stay awake another minute. You know, something about balance which is really a foreign word to me and I'm afraid I'll never understand the meaning or, at the very least, how to achieve it.

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As Ethan steps even closer to turning four, I find myself so blown away by him. All of him. He's been my buddy since birth, my partner in all that I do. These days, though, he just feels so much like a real boy. I never mind the eight hundred times per night wake-ups or the early mornings because I know they're fleeting. Exhausting as they are, even the days that fall after the sleepless nights -- the ones that feel like a complete shitshow of tears and tantrums -- require me to scoop up my little boy and hold him until the tears stop. I know I'm on the verge of losing these moments and I cherish them all.

Sometimes I wonder if parenting after loss has changed me in this way. I like self-deprecation and exhausted mama jokes as much as the next person, but give me these moments. Give me these no nap days and sleepless nights. Give me this time to actually feel my baby boy breathing and hear his wants and whines. Give me these stretch marks and eye bags and this caffeine addiction because it means that I am parenting this whirlwind of a child who is still so surreal to me. It's hard to get behind the jokes and memes and blog posts about sending kids back or to grandma's or wishing kids were somehow different than they are (slept more, cried less). Maybe if things were different, I could laugh, too.

It's been almost a year since I've begun feeling like I'm living in a parallel universe. I'm always wondering how much of what I do has begun to be shaped by loss and this new perspective I've been carrying around for just about a year now. Regardless, I am overcome with disbelief and gratitude that I get to parent Ethan and watch him grow. Four. I cannot believe he is nearly four years old.