Today was the first day I really did not want to be a mother. And it wasn't about Madigan and it wasn't about motherhood per se. I just didn't want to care for anything that suckled, cried, or whizzed and then failed to clean up after itself. I have done so now for 79 days straight, with some excellent help, and while I'm not looking for an award, sometimes I do just want a hall pass. Today, instead of being a mother, I wanted to:

- Rake some leaves. Pick up branches. Do some general yard workage. - Finish a project I promised my editor I would get to in December. Of last year. - Watch a cooking show on On Demand (we're trying not to let Mad watch TV before she's 2 so there's no televizzling while she's awake). - Go for a walk where I suddenly break into a jog and not because I'm running across the street with a stroller and trying not to get hit. - Eat a well-made salad without dropping lettuce on the lapbaby. - Go get my nails done without thinking of the irreparable damages of the nail salon chemicals to Baby Girl's respiratory system. - Sleep in past 8a.m. and feel rested. What is that like? I can't remember.

But as soon as I heard her barnyard animal cry, and I went and peered down at that little face, those almond-shaped eyes gave me pangs 10,000 times worse than all of the Adopt-a-Pug posts on Petfinder and I was certain that it was Madigan and not the earth that was the gravitational force, reversing my rotation away from self and back into her orbit. God help me if I don't think she is the North Star, or at least she is the brightest apex of the constellation she formed out of the dimmer points in her daddy's and my life.