Grateful

So, I meant to post this one on Tuesday so I'm only a couple of days late. Dude. Cut me some slack, I have a cold. And we've been very busy around here what with the sneezing and the coughing and all while trying NOT to sneeze and cough on the baby who is slurping up all my antibodies...it's very difficult work, requiring intense concentration and catlike coordination.

Who am I kidding? I've been napping with the Boy. But that other stuff too about trying not to contaminate him with (what I'm sure are) nuclear GERMS.

Anyway, I've been thinking about this week. If I had opted to return to my former workplace, Tuesday would have been my first day back at work. And it would have been the Boy's first day in childcare of some kind.

And as I sat around Tuesday trying NOT to sneeze and cough on the Boy with my nuclear germs, I thought about this fact and I sank under this wave of relief and gratitude. Gratitude that I can stay home with him, that I don't have to make that first horrible good-bye so soon, that I don't have to leave him in the care of strangers who maybe wouldn't try to shield him from THEIR nuclear germs. And as I thought about how grateful I am to be home with him, to have him all to myself for this short time, I thought about the other things that I'm grateful for and I thought that maybe I should write it all down as a little digital time capsule of this moment when the Boy was young and I was a very very beginner mom.

Things I'm Grateful for:

• to be able to stay home with the boy. Both for the freedom to choose to do what is best for my family, and for the financial ability to do so.
• to have such a wonderful husband who is funny and smart and respectful of me. He works very hard for us and I tease him mercilessly about being a caveman or a 1950s husband, but it's not true. He would love me and support me whatever my choice.
  
• that we believe the same things and that we don't fight.
• for our little home. It's small and plain and not fancy in the least but it's ours and it's home and I'm always so grateful and relieved when we walk through the door.
• for other people's genius. I studied literature for years and I spend a good part of every day reading. Reading for myself and reading to the Boy. I studied literature because I do not have the necessary genius to write it and I'm always grateful for the genius of others, for their courage and tenacity in writing beautiful words for me to read.
• fruits and vegetables in their seasons. I love fresh fruits and veg.
• family. They were there with me at the beginning and they will be there with me at the end. We pick and fight and tease and sometimes we hurt one another, but I know that at the end of the day, they will be the ones still standing, waiting on me.
• friends. Who are the family of our choice.
• the peace that comes from loving and from being loved.
  
• the small, quiet face that goes with the tiny sleeping body who is napping in his crib right now.

That's not everything, but I don't have time to write everything...there are cheeks that need to be smooched even in their sleep. And also I have to read this book for book club...I've sort of gotten sidetracked with family and the boy and being sick and I'd really like to at least read half of the book so that I can sort of talk somewhat intelligently about it.