Writing and mothering

Three months ago I had a baby. In the ensuing weeks of sleep deprivation, insane (no hyperbole here) amounts of joy, and basically the largest adjustment I’ve ever made in my life, I’ve let my blog slip. Actually, that isn’t true. My blog has been slipping since I became pregnant.

The thing is, I’ve been struggling with whether, how, and what to post since it became clear that my daughter was going to become part of my life. Pretty much the second I realized I was pregnant, I became preoccupied with such things as which week my baby would develop fingernails, the prices of strollers, and who offered the best prenatal yoga classes. My blog, as originally intended, was supposed to discuss poetry. Now I was worried that it wouldn’t be cool to write about mothering, or writing and mothering. That I should keep my life and my profession separate. However, since my daughter’s birth, it’s become increasingly clear to me that mothering is just as much as a profession as writing.

There are many similarities: wandering through the grocery store in a complete haze; multi-tasking (I’m writing this post standing up, wearing my daughter strapped to my chest, doing mini squat bounces to keep her happy [which I suppose count as exercise], and having a conversation with my husband about chicken or salmon for dinner); waking up in the middle of the night with irrational fears (is my poem/daughter still breathing?); and generally just pissing some people off. It seems fitting, then, that the Occupational Hazards blog continue.

So the blog is changing. (Perhaps this post is the equivalent of updating the WHMIS binder.) There will be many more typos (it’s hard enough to find a half hour when I can write, let alone proofread) and a lot of spit up (both literal and figurative). But there will be more blogging – and that’s the part that makes me happy.