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.
By Rebecca Michelle 