Bathtub

when jack falls asleep, i feel freedom. not at all to say that i don't love playing with him and toting him around on my back...i adore him like i have never loved anything before. ahhh, but when he sleeps. i know he is happy and warm and cozy so i don't worry about him at all. today, i just laid in the bathtub. no water. just laid there. there is a very different feeling when you have a child. a certain freedom you give up willingly but nonetheless noticed. even when he is asleep, some part of my mind is there with him, some bit of my concentration. and at the same time that i muse on the "old" days when i could just run a million errands or work outside until dark or nestle into josh for hours and hours not minding the world around me, i wouldn't change it. and sure, people SAY that all the time. " i wouldn't change it for the world". but i mean it. and maybe they mean it too and i always thought it was trite and rote. there is a part of the loss of freedom which is ok. like a deep deep love as opposed to a flighty one. the responsibility of jack is a glorious one, a weighty one. what used to be easy now takes time and effort. but not in a "i have to haul poop" way...more like, i know that one of the dearest gifts i can give jack is to love his dad well, so where i used to be able to just turn my head and there is josh, now i must seek him out, carve time just for us...in a sense, "work" to be with him. again, it is surely not work to be with this man who carries my heart, but it is work to prioritize. a job which 2 free birds do not have to learn until they are 3 and must learn it.