Three Months Is an Irate Genius

Three months today. I'm so stressed about money and how money is affecting my relationship that it's hard for me to get clear-headed enough to write, and if I can't write about the babies at three months, does that mean I'm sucking it up at mothering them at three months? I don't think so, I think I can be still and just focused on them most of the time that I am with them, but when they are napping and I am left alone with my own head, the anxieties spin so fast, feels like my brain is in a blender.

But here, there's this: Alex's lower jaw quivers in excitement every morning when we wake up and I start talking to him, the smile that lights up his face, as if he can't believe how awesome it is that I came back into his life after the long night.


And Anya buries her head against my neck when she is tired and snuffles there till she falls asleep, where she makes tiny contented sighs of satisfaction and happiness.


Not that everything is rosy. Alex shrieks so shrilly that it physically hurts to listen to him, and he's been known to do it simply because I tried to put him down after four hours straight of holding him. Anya melts down every single night about an hour after Luke gets home, squawking inconsolably for an hour or more. I have an elaborate calming ritual that involves the water blasting in the pitch dark bathroom and a precise jiggling motion.

I've been in contact with some old friends recently, people who knew me when I did not want children, when I rarely stayed in one place for more than a year, when we all were so absolutely sure of the complete depravity of the modern world that to even consider leading a "normal" life was an unethical act. It's been a long time, and I hate the gulf that emerges when friends express shock that I settled down, moved to the suburbs and had kids. But a "normal" life is not a life without meaning, and I'm never quite sure how to explain that I've discovered a peacefulness, a stillness within myself that I never dreamed possible back when I was a wild child.