Parenting

Cherish

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The time goes so fast, they said. Take pictures, take videos, so you’ll remember, they said.

I’ll remember, I thought, but I find comfort in instructions, and I followed them.

It appears that I’ve forgotten.

I asked my partner last week when our baby stopped making the inchoate newborn noises that kept me awake at night. Months had past since we’d heard them, but I’d forgotten since when. I hadn’t known we were coming to the end of that time.

I recently flicked back through the earliest videos I’d recorded, marvelling at the slowness of the movements that have become deliberate and finer, the nasal squeaks that have blossomed into a wordless voice full of expression.

In just under five months, the skinny, scrunched bundle we brought home from the hospital has transformed into a baby – one who babbles and laughs and tries unsuccessfully to roll over; one with likes and dislikes, her very own temperament, and characteristics that signal a nascent personality.

And I’ve forgotten, just as everyone assured me I would.

I’ve forgotten just how tiny and new she was, and I am stunned at the videos and photos that remind me. I’ve forgotten just how tired I was, though the feeding times scratched into a notebook every two hours provide the proof. I’ve forgotten the feeling of just getting up and ready for the day, but I imagine it to be quite freeing, indeed.

This is a fleeting time and it needs to be cherished. Nearly five months already gone, and in them I have done little besides loved.

I wrote once that love is a verb, and I understand that yet differently now. I spend my days and nights awash in it.

It is this feeling that has me writing while growing increasingly uncomfortable on the couch while the baby sleeps in my lap. I could be doing so many other things with this time . . . but I’m not. Cherish.

And I cherish the drunken glow that washes over me when I breathe in her baby smell, or when she lays her head on my shoulder when tired, or in the moments of clear, wordless communication.

Tears prick my eyes when I think of the deepest truth I have ever held and will not attempt try to explain: My daughter and I are one being.

I cherish this feeling, too.

I want to remember. They say I’ll forget, and they’ve been right, but I hope to remember, and when not with the brain, then with the body (which is a manifestation of the brain, but that’s a blog post for a different time).

It’ll be all too soon before she doesn’t want to be held anymore, all too soon before she slams the door shut.

And when she’s raging, I hope to find the feeling of tears pricking my eyes, tickling the back of my throat, because my daughter is sleeping in my lap and the world is simple. Because we are one, despite how I know she’ll pull away, despite how I know my role is to giver her wings and watch her soar.

I’ll catch her when she’s ready to land, this daughter who gave me the gift of being her mama. And I cherish that, too.

Jena, Germany – February 2024
Parenting

Time Off

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For Mother’s Day, my partner gave me a candle and a bottle of bubble bath, not something I use or ever would have bought. Late that afternoon, he occupied our then two-month-old daughter and I lit the candle, filled the bath, and soaked with my eyes closed. I emerged twenty minutes later with energy, a smile, and a newfound sense of calm.

I had been gifted time off, cleverly forced into relaxation, and found it very pleasing indeed.

This afternoon, nursing our now four-and-a-half-month-old daughter, I hit a wall I didn’t know I was facing. Her eyes started to close and mine followed suit. But Baby Girl very quickly had other ideas, and the moment was gone before it started. I hadn’t even known I was tired.

As we often do once my partner gets home from work, we started getting ready to go out for a walk, but the energy that usually comes from going out continued to elude me. I am not a person to sit around and relax (hence the need to be forced into it) and all I wanted to do was rest. Strange. I suggested to my partner that they go without me, and I surprised myself by letting them.

And then I myself drew a bubble bath.

I didn’t want to get off the couch, but I also didn’t want to face the chores I could be doing, some of which were visible from the couch. I didn’t want to do just one thing and then another quick thing, and wait they’re back already?

I got into the bath and closed my eyes, opening them half an hour later to a still apartment. I took my time toweling off and getting ready to face the world again, for once without a guilty conscience. For half an hour I had done nothing, forced myself into taking some time to relax, recharge, and rejuvenate.

It worked.

I tend to be a person whose relaxation comes from a long walk in the woods, whose time off means time in the kitchen following a recipe to avoid having to think. There was a time where I would have done some yoga to shake the fatigue and then continued with the day.

But today, I just needed to do nothing and the way to ensure that was to get into a bath. My glasses remained in their case. My phone was in a different room. My baby was in good hands. My partner had given me the gift of forced relaxation for a reason. Sometimes, the only thing to do is say yes and drift away.

Ötztal, Austria – July 2025

Parenting

What This Blog Isn’t

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Sweet Baby is napping in the carrier rather than in her crib, but she slept through the night, so that seems like a reasonable trade. She’s only had two outfits on today, though there will be at least one more for her photo of the month. Her laundry basket is full but needs to wait until tomorrow because her parents need clean clothes, too. I ate lunch standing and rocking (but hey, I ate lunch!) in order to lull Baby to sleep in the carrier. I’m writing this blog post standing and rocking (but look, I’m writing a blog post!) in order to keep Baby asleep in the carrier.

I actually don’t want to write a blog about babies and parenting. Unlike education, which I was delighted to spend my days around and my evenings writing about, I don’t have any tips and tricks, any wisdom, any knowledge worth sharing. At exactly four months into this journey, I can sum it up as, “Phew, what a ride!” while knowing that we have hardly begun.

In the past, this blog has concerned itself with some politics, but only when I couldn’t help myself, which happened regularly enough. I wrote about relatable things like relationships and heartbreak, but such openness is best reserved for past relationships. Education was a favourite topic, particularly at times when I felt myself at odds with the system I was working in, but my work life feels lightyears away from my private life. I began this blog as a way of documenting my travels and sharing photographs, but I haven’t been very far from home lately. My world has become very small indeed.

Perhaps I am suffering from classic writer’s block. I want to write, but have no ideas. I think about writing, but push it aside in favour of something else. I intend to write, but the time to do so slips away because of other things that need doing. I would write, but there’s nothing to say.

One could argue that there is, in fact, a great deal to say. There’s certainly no end to conversation when I’m with other mamas and babies, but little of what we talk about would have been of interest to me before having my own baby, so it’s hard for me to imagine that it’s of interest to anyone else. That being said, I’ve had plenty of colleagues for whom education is a job and work stays at work, and I used this blog to spend more time thinking about education and to turn those thoughts into a book.

So maybe there’s an audience somewhere for a blog that is not about, or shouldn’t be about, or is merely reluctantly/sometimes/at the moment about life with a baby. After all, this blog has been a chronicle of selected parts of my life for about thirteen years, and this is a rather significant development. Maybe there are things that are important to say, like “The baby blues are very real” or “There was a period of a few weeks where I realized I wasn’t looking forward to anything” or “I felt rage like I’ve never felt before.” And then there are things like, “We kept looking at each other and crying because the depth of emotion was overwhelming” or “No matter how often she wakes up at night, my breath catches every time I see her” or “They said you can’t possibly understand that love and they were right.”

I don’t want to write a blog about parenting because I don’t have anything to say.

But maybe I could write a blog about being a parent because that is now something that I am.

Machico, Madeira – October 2025

On loving, learning, and living