\u201cYou smell like you used to smell,\u201d my husband sighed gratefully into my freshly-washed hair when I greeted him at the door after work. As I felt his whole body relax into an embrace of forgotten familiarity, I realized I hadn\u2019t been neglecting just myself.<\/i><\/p>\n
On that day, our daughter was a scant two months old and in a perfect concert of a sleepless night prior and a dark, cloudy day, she was simply too exhausted to insist on her only sleeping spot – my chest. Backing silently from the lamb swing, I ignored dirty dishes, an overflowing laundry hamper, the kitchen trash and, most painfully, resisted a tantalizing rumple of pillows and blankets, ripe for a nap.<\/p>\n
With only one mission, I sidestepped a dust bunny the size of a tumbleweed into the shower. My heart beat anxiously in my ears as doubt and steam engulfed this first solo endeavor as a new mom: \u201cWhat if the monitor isn\u2019t working? What if she\u2019s crying and I can\u2019t hear her? Move more quickly! This isn\u2019t worth it!\u201d<\/p>\n
I hastily dragged a brush through wet tangles and when, miraculously, still she slept, I picked up the blow dryer for the first time in two months.<\/p>\n
I unearthed scented body lotion from the depths of my still unpacked hospital bag and slathered it on for the first time since becoming a mother, lamenting how not so long ago, I deemed anything so frivolous a priority. I flossed my teeth, since I found that in the bag too, which was embarrassing.<\/p>\n
Still asleep?!<\/p>\n
Racing quietly to my neglected makeup bag, I completed a process in three minutes to which I formerly devoted 15. Just as I rolled on my favorite perfume, I heard the rumble of my husband\u2019s car in the driveway.<\/p>\n
Admittedly, it had become a sound of relief rather than excited reconnection at the end of a long day.<\/p>\n
In a moment of panic, I threw down the mascara wand and surveyed the mess that can only be made by a new family. With a bag of trash in one hand, I greet my husband apologetically.<\/p>\n
As a tumble of defeat spilled from my glossy lips \u2013 \u201cDinner isn\u2019t ready. I haven\u2019t even started. The trash \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
I trailed off in bewilderment, because my husband beamed as he pulled me to him tightly, trash and all. I\u2019ll never forget that feeling.<\/p>\n
In a haze of sleeplessness and responsibility, where night mixes with day, the couch becomes a bed, and priorities are eternally shifted, I don\u2019t think he even noticed I had been missing until I came back.<\/p>\n
A good man and an incredible father, he deeply appreciates my life\u2019s work and that it rarely naps cooperatively in a swing. But when it does, I make sure he knows I am still me. For us.<\/i><\/p>\n
\n
Courtney lives with her two children and dutiful husband in Fayetteville, NC. She writes for a local lifestyle publication and always showers for MOPS meetings.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cYou smell like you used to smell,\u201d my husband sighed gratefully into my freshly-washed hair when I greeted him at the door after work. As I felt his whole body relax into an embrace of forgotten familiarity, I realized I hadn\u2019t been neglecting just myself. On that day, our daughter was a scant two months […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":12153,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_seopress_news_disabled":"","_seopress_video_disabled":"","_seopress_video":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas_manual":[],"_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable_all":"","_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas":[],"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[117],"tags":[30,33,55,164,147],"class_list":["post-586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wellness","tag-beauty","tag-identity","tag-mom","tag-self","tag-spouse"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}