“Sound machine, baby monitors, carrier, Solly wrap”

“Sound machine, baby monitors, carrier, Solly wrap”

I’m rocking the baby to sleep for his first nap of the day. 

I’m staring into his beautiful eyes. They’re looking back at me so intently. Like I’m everything in the world to him. 

And all my brain can think is:

“Sound machine, baby monitors, carrier, Solly wrap”

I’m mentally adding to my packing list for our upcoming trip to California. 

I need to repeat these things over and over in my head so that once the baby is down, I can add these four items to the list that I’ve left – unfinished – on the kitchen table. 

“Sound machine, baby monitors, carrier, Solly wrap”

He smiles at me. 

I smile back. 

But all I can think is, “Hurry, hurry. Go to sleep so I can go relieve my brain and put this down on paper.” 

I am overcome with guilt and shame. 

How can I be thinking of what’s out there when I’ve got this perfect boy staring up at me? 

And, yet, 

“Sound machine, baby monitors, carrier, Solly wrap”

Some days, I feel exhausted from the weight of it all. 

And, more often than not, it’s the weight of the mental and emotional load over the physical being that I’m rocking back and forth. 

The list on repeat. 

The notifications that go off in my mind about yet another thing that needs to get done before we leave. 

The thoughts that flood me as I’m pulling out the 3-6 month footies to pack. “Did you reach out to X and say thank you for sending these?” 

“Sound machine, baby monitors, carrier, Solly wrap”

I place the sleeping baby down on the bed. 

I race out the door to put pen to paper. 

Sound machine. 

Baby monitors.

Carrier.

Solly wrap. 

I put the pen down. I feel a temporary calm come over my body. And I can somehow breathe again.