the purpose driven life

today i let kitten skip her nap because we have to get up early tomorrow and her schedule is FUBAR due to the snow days. normally i allow unlimited sleeping in when we don't have plans because i think children in general are majorly sleep deprived. i'm thirty years old and i myself like a good ten hours. so tonight when i put her to bed early, she was extra tired. we read her book and then while we rocked, her eyes started to flutter. normally this would be my cue to lay her down in bed, but tonight i couldn't resist. i rocked her to sleep in the dark silent nursery and stared at her and smelled her hair like i did when she was a newborn. bliss.

before i had children i was adamant that people who chose to not have children led lives that were just as full as people who did have children. i bristled at the implication that i hadn't fully experienced love because i hadn't had children.

then i had a child. and guess what happened?

nothing. i still feel the same way. if i had chosen to not have children, my life would still be full and wonderful and full of purpose. but i chose to have a child, and it's delightful in exactly the way that i'd hoped.

i think the difference isn't that you have any less joy or any less purpose when you're childless; it's just that you have the luxury and time to have multiple purposes. friends, restaurants, hobbies, travel, work - you can spend unlimited time on these pursuits. but when you have a child, your child becomes your purpose, and you struggle to make time for those other things. you have the same level of joy in your life, it's just that your focus is much more singular, and your happiness is wrapped up into one grubby, cuddly, snotty, brilliant little package. i think that's why some people mistakenly think their children made their lives happier. but i disagree. it's not a sudden bright star illuminating your life--it's just all the smaller stars condensed. same amount of light.

when i had kitten, i hadn't talked to a lot of my high school friends in years. most of them had no idea who i'd become as an adult. they assumed that i was a person very different from the one that i am. i've been blessed to get to know these women all over again, mainly because they are also mothers, and most of my college and law school friends are not. i was shocked and surprised when some of them expressed shock and surprise at my total delight in motherhood, my dedication to breastfeeding, my complete adoration of my child. it wasn't compatible with who they thought i was, which still leaves me with questions about what sort of perceptions they developed during the ten years in between - and why, how. did i seem too feminist, too political, too anti-traditional? yet when i decided to have a child, i knew ahead of time that i had changed my purpose, that being a mother would now be it for me. i don't do anything half way, especially not something as important as this. i give it everything i have or i don't do it at all. my eggs are in one basket now and i couldn't be happier.

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some january/february pictures for you: