in the last three weeks I’ve been noticing all the changes in my body and mind as I negotiate the transition from pregnant to not-pregnant, and in mulling them all over I’ve been trying to find the right way to describe the shift. I have found it difficult to put my finger on it exactly though. the best way I can explain it is as if a warm fuzzy blanket has been removed. while I was pregnant I felt insulated from the world. I was not expected to participate in everything, lift heavy boxes or walk great distances, and I felt protected from my own barbs of anxiety and self-doubt as well as feeling infinitely patient and forgiving with others. now that the blanket has been removed I am noticing old habits creeping back – within the first day I was slouching at the kitchen table again, shoulders hunched and back bent now that I no longer had an enormous belly forcing me to sit up straight. anxiety, impatience and self-doubt all made an appearance again. and after the first week or so I no longer felt like it was ok for me to be a non-participant. the blanket has been removed, and so my warm fuzzy protection is gone but that also means I’m sharper and more active again. I’ve started thinking about writing, characters from stories and novels I started have reappeared in my mind, and I’m thinking about writing here more as well. It’s irionic that when I had the time I didn’t really have the inclination to write, and now that I have the inclination I haven’t got the time!
we are in full-on moving chaos mode now, alternating days between frantically packing up boxes and trying to visit all our friends one more time before we disappear out of this time and space and reappear on the other side of the world. we decided to pack the non-breakable stuff ourselves to save a bit of money in the moving budget as I felt physically and emotionally able instead of having professional packers do the whole lot in a single day. we were in limerick yesterday visiting friends who just had a baby girl two weeks before we had beatrice. It was amazing to see how the two girls were so similar and yet so completely different, two totally unique individuals already. while talking about my labour experience and getting breastfeeding established I noticed the recurring theme was that it wasn’t as difficult as I’d expected. maybe I’m just lucky, or maybe I had expected the worst possible situation, or maybe a bit of both, but I am very thankful that I didn’t have a horrifically long and painful labour, didn’t suffer cracked and bleeding nipples, didn’t (or haven’t yet) succumbed to crushing post-partum depression. we had a plan b in case any of those things had happened (like the professional packers) but everything has been going smoothly and we haven’t had to use plan b yet. tom asked me today as I was putting my sewing stuff into boxes, “you think we can do this?” “Moving?” I asked. “We’re doing it.” One day, one hour, one moment at a time we are tackling a seemingly impossible task and doing it.
because I haven’t yet put a link to our photo albums on the sidebar I will repost the link HERE. there are lots of new photos including a visit from tom’s grandad, a visit we took to andy’s in west cork, and yesterday’s visit to limerick.

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