Dreamland

I recently was the lucky girl allowed access to the hallowed ground of a newborn house. If you are a parent yourself, you know what I'm talking about. It's the magical feeling of those first couple of weeks in which the tiny being you've waited 9 months to meet is living and breathing in your very own home and creates an aura of regal quietude that would seem a crime to dissipate.

Hey loved ones! Don't take it personally if you aren't invited to the birth or the baby nest within the first week. It is a very important time of bodily healing, falling in love with your husband all over again in his new role as nurse and Daddy, realizing that you have no idea how to be a parent and subsequently that the baby doesn't know what a parent is supposed to be like either.

The moment that your heart bursts with love for you new baby takes a few days. At first you just stare at it for hours on end. You figure out how to feed it. You sniff it's velvety head and touch it's impossibly tiny fingers. You wonder if you can keep it alive. You wonder how it got here and will it like you? Then, all of a sudden it washes over you like molten burning electric chocolate and you realize you would kill and die for this small, stinky, squalling red beast. You love it so much you can barely breathe and you kind of want to throw up. It's the best thing ever.