Eight Months

Someone once told me that time in motherhood -- the days are long and the years are short -- there cannot be a statement more accurate than this to describe how I feel about the time that's gone by.

The little baby that was kicking inside my tummy last year, giving us the worst scares of our lives that we might lose him, is now rolling and crawling around, pulling my fingers to stand up all by himself, and laughing at the silly noises that we make.  Looking back at the photos and videos over the past eight months, it's hard to believe how excited I was just at him simply opening his eyes in the first week, giving us a smile in month 3, being able to hold something in his hand in month 4, sitting up in month 6, and the list goes on.   All these milestones of the life that blossoms right in front of my eyes.  

This little boy, is a key part of the life changing decisions that Mic and I just made in the last month.

Officially, tomorrow's the last day of mic's corporate life.  I also quit my job last week, even though I will still be an employee for a bit longer, I no longer need to go to the office, so that date I wrote in my blog last year about my last day at work, turned out to be true.

We are embarking on a journey together as a family, unemployed.  

It's exciting and scary at the same time.  The time spent together will be special, the challenges of finding direction and meaning will be very real as well.  Once we don't have the corporate lives to fill our day, how we choose to spend our time, will require more thought and discipline. 

In a way, I have been going through this adjustment, over the past eight months of being a stay-at-home-mom-with-a-job-to-return-to, now I am simply dropping the "with-a-job-to-return-to" part.  I can't say it was all jolly -- while I can't imagine not seeing Jack-Jack for more than 3 hours, it has also been hard to fill the time with him during the day sometimes.  The PPD was a factor, but I think perhaps every mother struggle with the same issue of finding the right balance of self and giving, worry and carefree.  It's a learning process that will take a life time to perfect, and even then it won't be perfect.  But I am glad we are facing up to the challenge together, spending time together, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health.