hope

Hanging above the changing table in our nursery is a poem that my mom embroidered when my brother and I were little.  It says:

Cleaning and scrubbing 

Can wait for tomorrow

For babies grow up

We've learned to our sorrow

So quiet down cobwebs

Dust go to sleep

I'm rocking my baby

And babies don't keep.

Zoë has been grabbing at it every night as I put her PJs on, so I've been reading it aloud and thinking about it on a pretty regular basis lately.  And while I love the sentiment and the reminder that loving on my kiddos is WAY more important that tidying up, that is not what has been standing out to me over the past few weeks.  Lately, my response has been thank-goodness that babies don't keep- because I do not have the energy to do this indefinitely.

Don't get me wrong, I love my babies like crazy.  Today Zoë woke up early so I got to play with her for a few minutes before I headed out to work and when I got in the car,  I cried because I would miss spending the day with her.  But.  But.  I cannot tell you how much I am looking forward to not smelling a little bit like sour milk all of the time and to making dinner without simultaneously holding a baby and to tackling a day with a full night's sleep under my belt.

So when I noticed a tiny white corner of a tooth just beginning to peek out from her gums yesterday, I was elated beyond belief.  I will miss that precious gummy little simile.  But that little emerging tooth is like the promise that we are, in fact, making progress.  That she will, indeed, grow into an easier phase and that there is hope of me maintaining some amount of sanity.  I'm sure that some day I will look back on this first year of her life and see it in the rosy light of nostalgia.  But today knowing that it is just a phase gives me the hope I need.