Lilou hates to be wrong. Even if she’s naughty intentionally, she flushes, averts her eyes, crosses her arms and huffs her way out of the room. Seriously – she’s like an angry little cartoon character. And all she wants is a hug, because she’s mortified and can’t see her way out. And we coax her into an apology, or a conversation, and then scoop her up and remind her how much we love her. To bits.

Some days I don’t know why anyone tolerates me. I’m grouchy and sensitive, and I mess stuff up. It usually starts with me messing something up, because then I want to go move to a foreign country, change my name and disappear from everyone’s minds. I HATE failure. And I know that I could play it safe and lower my failure rate dramatically. But Dave and I made a simple pact when we got married: live bravely. Do the stuff that scares you. Keep growing and embrace change, no matter how uncomfortable it gets. Cheesy as hell, hard to follow, and it’s led to some of the best and worst decisions of my life.

I suppose that’s the struggle. It would totally be easier to try just a little bit less, optimize my strengths and tuck the weak points in a dark closet, never to be unearthed. I would never let Lilou do that though, and she’s watching. And then I can’t get better. And I always want to get better. But failure sucks.

When I drop balls, it’s rarely one little glitch. Or maybe I adjust to those and fix them before they get to me. But when it’s a real doozy, I know it will be a miserable few days as I skewer myself for screwing up. And it will get better, because eventually I will do something not dumb and feel somewhat mollified. But right that second, I want to wake up my babies and curl up with them in a rocking chair. I want silent snuggles and their heavy weight to remind me that they’re the most important thing, and they are perfect. (Not really, but close!) And that would be a ridiculous mistake, because then I’d have tired, confused babies instead of peacefully dreaming ones. But they are the best part of every day, the joy and comfort when I’m wounded and wound up. And my exuberant hugs the next morning will make them laugh, and the better will start fast. But those few hours of torturous what-ifs? Sigh.

Starting leave so unexpectedly has me on edge. My work team is AMAZING and planned my leave for me and spread the load across half the staff so no crazy guilt. BUT. What am I forgetting? I didn’t write a transition plan, didn’t read people in a few weeks out because we didn’t have a few weeks! I told Dave the transition was giving us the bends.

So for whatever reason, I’m trying to adjust out of our spring sprint at the office and into the exhausted, beautiful alternate timeline that one lives with a newborn. So my current experiments revolve around giving into the consistent 1:30 am baby demand that is not on our schedule, and seeing if I can make it through a last meeting or two on mute. And as much as I missed my whole fam waiting for me up north, a few days to find the misses and adjust was good for me. And Sylvie. This is as much one-on-one Mom time as she’s going to get for a while! Sadly, this meant Tess and Remy celebrated their birthdays without me this year. Which won’t happen again until they tell me it’s not cool for me to be present for the big day – college maybe.