First *real* post (non-introduction)

Spring!

The season deserves an exclamation point every year, but far more this time around. My first child's first birthday is approaching, which in my case translates to "Wow, I'm finally beginning to feel human again". Combine this with the trudging, slushy, winter parka season giving way to t-shirt, capri, open window weather, and life really couldn't get much better. Becoming a mother (only 10 mos after becoming a wife) is a bigger transition (a glorious, painful, overwhelming, albeit hopefully sanctity-producing, transition) than I ever could have imagined, and it is only now that I'm beginning to really feel like "me" again. Not exactly the same me, but not just me going through the motions, either.

Spring, this year, also means that many good things that were put on hold for our transition are finally becoming possible again. For instance, it feels good to finally have the energy to write, even a little bit. I've had the physical energy for months (nursing in my sleep is the best form of multitasking I've mastered this year), but a curious lethargy, something that I can only describe as a narrowing nesting instinct, has held me in thrall since before the Little Wum was born. So "spring" means something like the widening of an inner door. I can't seem to get enough of being outside - working in the garden, sitting on a blanket in the yard while LW pulls up grass, walking in the sun or even the rain. Being "outside" in my mind, too - allowing my mind to wander again outside the narrow realm of duties, responsibilities, tasks that needed to be learned, mastered, performed, and into the wide world of ideas, challenges, hopes, dreams. It will be good to bring LW into that wider world this summer with me.

On which note - I'm stepping away from the computer, and taking LW for a walk outside.