For a few sacred moments today, the whole house was quiet, save for the busy whir of the washing machine downstairs and a lone bird announcing the chill outside, unceasing.

It’s a wonder I have the laundry going before the kids are in bed, honestly, so even the very fact that the chores are moving forward at this hour of the day is grace to me.

So seldom do I sit alone with my own thoughts lately, and while I’m more than thankful to have my hands full with great big blessings, I occasionally miss the silence. I miss thinking through the next days or weeks and making plans, connecting with others via notes or texts or long visits over coffee, writing here in this safe space and creating community with all of you.

What a strange feeling, to exist in the hazy sweetness that is the fourth trimester.

I am seven and a half weeks into this time, and I’m certain I’ll miss it when it’s gone. As much as the early days with a new baby are hard in so many ways, they’re also part of the sacred marrow this mama life has to offer, and I’d hate to wish them away for a second. This snuggled up baby season is fleeting, and our little ones are increasingly more amazing as the years go by, but they are never as tiny or connected as they are at the very start.

I am Crosby’s world and he is mine. Just as it was with Henry, and then Eloise, too, we exist both with and for each other through the nights and the days as the clock keeps time. I trust this is how God intended for us to be.

The fourth trimester is a gift if we let it be, and I am trying–oh am I trying!–to savor all there is to savor of this precious little boy who is growing sometimes faster than my mama heart can handle. The reality of life with a newborn is a strange dichotomy…the pressing and the incredible and the holy and the beautiful all swirling into one as we learn our babies and who they are and who they will become.

We’ve all been out together, the kids and I, on this chilly Monday morning–one errand, then a quick latte for mama and bagels for all as a precursor to this brief Thanksgiving week. I am so thankful for the notion of more family time in these days ahead; it’s been such a busy season in many ways, and I crave the sweet, quiet moments we’re collecting as a unit of five, just as often as we can have them.

“Two days of work and then five weekend days,” Eloise reported with a big smile first thing this morning. It turns out we all need this fourth trimester–we all need to rest in just being “with” one another in these days.

The learning curve is steep on this one, going from two to three in the midst of other big changes for our family. The shifting of seasons seems appropriate and timely, even though a part of me is already mourning a beautifully long and drawn out autumn–one so perfectly gifted to us in a year when we would have otherwise missed it as we made adjustments here at home.

The leaves have nearly fallen now, the snow is already collecting discreetly in corners after this past, wintry weekend. Our eldest two are playing in agreement for the moment while the baby sleeps, still tucked warmly into his car seat from our morning outing. And I’m about to tackle the dishwasher and make lunch plates and such before the wee one needs his mama again, as is routine, but not before I draft these memories of this quiet grace given to me today…moments of solitude at the keyboard with my own musings and the laundry winding down in the spin cycle on the floor below.

embracing the gift of margin today,
mm