Pensively I sit...

Some days, I wake up and think,

it's all a dream.

Not like my life has been a nightmare, but in that way that you woke up the day after your high school graduation and thought about where life was taking you. Some days, for me it's difficult to grasp the reality. I wake up and wonder, what the hell am I thinking? Who's baby is this? Then she wakes up, rolls over, stretches like a cat, looks up at me, smiles, then sits up to plant a slobbery kiss on my face and I know it hasn't been a dream. It's all very, very real and there's no stopping it or going back. I only kiss her back (though, without the same amount of saliva) and say, "Good morning, my Maddie, good morning." I love her, but since she has entered my life; the hands of time are no longer on my side. Whoever said that children keep you young is terribly misinformed. I feel at least twice my age most days, and that I'll never be able to keep up. Then I think that I have about 20 more years of hand holding and picking her up when she falls on her backside, and wonder how any mother can ever be a good one. It probably doesn't help that I feel abandoned in the reality of single parenthood. Sure I have a wonderful, terrific, out of this world support system of friends and family, but still no one to offer empathy. And some seem to still expect the same amount of time and energy that I possessed before my baby who stretches like a cat came into the world. But that statement is not limited to "friends" not does it include all "friends;" that statement specifically includes my mother for expecting things to be done her way all the time even when I believe that the whimpering babe in the other room needs her mother's attention, not always grandpa's. But, alas, c'est la vive (pour maintenant). It all still seems very surreal, except maybe when I'm changing an unpleasantly scented diaper, that always hits me as reality. It's not surreal in a bad way, like I want to run or anything,

just surreal.