The last couple of days and nights were hard. I know "hard" is the same word second graders use to describe math when you have to start carrying the 1, the same word to describe the ground of a campsite. Hard. And while as an adjective it's about as lame as they come, the last couple of days in our house have felt like a second grade math class that suddenly got a little more puzzling; they've felt like waking up on the cold crumbly ground.

Baby Girl is usually one cool customer like her father. Even in the hospital, she'd be chilling in her bassinet among a whole nursery of wailers (not to be mistaken for Bob Marley's band) and be perfectly self-content. But the last couple of days, she's had spats of inconsolable discomfort. I know that's expected of a baby, and I really have so little complain about since my parenting co-captain is John Be Quick/Nimble and is always at the ready to lend a hand or a shoulder or a stubbly cheek. Thing is, my body has just felt wrecked. The sleeplessness and the bending over and the boobfeeding has just all caught up with me at once and I now am firmly convinced that any parent that attempts to do this solo is a superhero saint Muhammed Ali caliber greatest kind of a person. They should be exempt from library fines and should totally get to go to the front of the line at the DMV and should get free milkshakes for life. Because they've really got it hard.

***

I started my graduate internship today. It took me two hours to get ready and I still forgot things, like, oh, the powercord to my laptop, "Hi, I'm the new intern. I came to work for an eight hour day with one and a half hours of juice on my laptop. Also? I'm really capable and detail-oriented. " It was my first day away from my little dumpling, and thankfully, she got to stay with her daddy, praise Jesus, or I would have been a basketcase.

Rumor has it they had a pretty solid day of crying and eating and walking and bonding. Oh, and papoosing. So much papoosing.

I thought about them all day and felt like I walked around feeling like I had left a major appendage at home. As I made my way home on the train, I couldn't contain my dreamy grin, just thinking of the good fortune of having this wonderful family to come home to, to have this job of being someone's mama. Maybe it's not my favorite at times, but I can say with no reservation that it's the most fulfilling thing I've ever done. And no paycheck can possibly leverage this reward: