where and how I've been or... I've been missing you.

You guys.

I am fully aware of how long it's been since I've blogged. I'm the worst. I'm sorry, and I've missed this.

I hate that I've left you out of some really important stuff in my life, like the most important stuff that I'll ever do, but it's been insane and scary and hard... Let me see if I can put it all into words enough to explain it to you.

Once upon a time...
    There was a girl and her husband. They did some really grown up stuff - like adopted pets, bought a condo, bought a car, paid off debt, struggled with many many things, and got stronger than they thought they could be. And then, they had their greatest accomplishment.

I'm really pleased to introduce you to our gorgeous daughter, Matilda. For the purposes of this blog, I will likely call her "M" or Little Bird going forward, but I wanted to give you a proper introduction for her first appearance here.

Anyone reading that knows us in life, apologies for this section, but I know there are people that read here that don't know us, and there's a full story that I feel needs to be told, and explanations about why I didn't blog during the pregnancy. When I first found out that I was pregnant, I was being very cautious and didn't want to announce too quickly - or really, at all. Shockingly, I'm a fairly private person, and it took a lot to convince me that I wanted to share this baby with everyone. B was excited to tell family and friends, but I wanted to wait until we were out of the first trimester and it was "safer". I was feeling terrible - the first trimester was really really hard on me. My back felt broken, I was super nauseous, and I was EXHAUSTED. The only foods I could keep down were watermelon and ice pops (it was the height of summer by then, and summer in NYC is misery). I had never felt so awful. 

So, understandably, I wasn't terribly interested in talking about how happy I was, mostly because I wasn't.

Don't get me wrong, I was excited and happy about the baby, but I wasn't in any mood to talk about it.

In my mind, it was too hard to talk around all the things that were going on in my head and body here on the blog. I didn't want to just complain about how I hurt or felt sick, so I didn't say anything. I tried writing posts about other things, but that baby was all over my mind and heart, and stole all my words from me.

The second trimester was excellent. I was working, feeling so much better, and we shared with our friends and family. We found out she was a girl, and I couldn't have been happier. She was coming! The little girl that I had always dreamed of! And I didn't know how to share it here. There just weren't words for what I was feeling, so I didn't share.

Third trimester was good, but harder than I expected... I worked up until 38 weeks, and then I started to get a little mean - the filter between my brain and my mouth was malfunctioning! So I went on maternity leave, since the filter was pretty important in my line of work, and expected baby girl to show up in those two weeks.

She didn't.

On February 22nd, after 41 weeks and 2 days of waiting for her, and 26 hours of labor, M was born. Things in this nest will never, ever be the same.

So I hope you will join (or rejoin) me in my adventures as a stay at home mom. I promise to still be funny and not talk about poop (unless it's a really funny poop story). Right now, though, I have to go. M is crying (as usual), and I have to go through the checklist of what could possibly be wrong, only to find out that nothing is wrong and she just wanted to hear herself cry. Just like her mommy, she's dramatic and loves the sound of her own voice.

Until the next nap, here's a picture of our little family.

caryn leigh photography