a slow fall.

It’s been a slow fall.

And by slow I mean that the months have gone as quickly as our stash of disposable diapers, but we’re living day by day, hour by hour, not really thinking too far ahead. It’s a way of being that makes for really long days, but there’s also a beautiful present-ness wrapped into it. It’s advent now, almost winter and almost Christmas, and I’m learning each day that the best kind of waiting happens when I’m living minute to minute.

Noah was born at the beginning of September. His arrival marked a new season for us, literally and figuratively. The first two weeks as a new family were exhausted, bleary-eyed bliss. I actually made a to-do list the day after we came home from the hospital, on my Make Today Lovely letterpress pad with a pink ultra-fine point Sharpie, like I did every week before he was born. I never really had a maternity leave, so I was trying to make up for stolen time (these adorable little time thieves, cue the Target commercial).

Of course, that list got thrown out.

Two, almost three, months in, and we spend our days mostly in bed, mostly singing along to Vance Joy (Georgia is so my jam right now). The work button is still on pause, and I am still in yoga pants.

We’ve celebrated Thanksgiving and now here we are in December. I hope December is just as slow, because we’ll never again have this December. Firsts for everything, and lasts too. I quote Emily Dickinson so often because she is dead on: That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet.

This fall I’m living in motherhood time — the paradox of long days in short months in what I can only imagine to be the quickest years. It’s a magical kind of monotony where every day is the same — nursing, diaper changes, naps and playtime on repeat — but it isn’t. It’s why I have a camera roll full of pictures capturing Noah’s growth, click by click, frame by frame. I swear he looks bigger in each consecutive photo.

I choose to believe that there is, definitively, a season for everything. This season happens to be a lot quieter, a little bit more lonely on some days, and so, so special. These are the days. The baby-wearing, diaper-changing, squishy cheek-kissing days of fall.

Slow, and sweet.