Becoming a parent has been eye opening to say the least. Beyond the initial love bubble of meeting your child, you find yourself living life in a new kind of chaos and complication. 

Adding to that are the many things that other moms and dads warn you about prior to the big day.

Prepare for no sleep, lack of time to shower or do anything remotely normal, falling behind on housework, discovering random things that you are afraid might kill your baby, the most rancid and incredibly terrifying dirty diapers, vomit, snot and the list goes on and on. If things didn't gross me out before they certainly could now.
But in saying that, none of it does. Nothing my daughter does is disgusting to me. There is no mess she makes that I can't bring myself to clean, her cries never bother me either. And that all comes down to the fact that not a single one of those moms and dads told me of the great level of purest love that comes as soon as you lay your eyes on your baby's tiny, cherub like face.

It comes in colossal waves, washing over me, seeping into every fibre within, creating an almost ethereal and warm coat of fulfilment from the outside in. It's truly miraculous what this little being has done to me.

Life before seems an extremely minor blip in the story of my life, even though I am ignoring the fact I had made some major moves during it. Now I find that its so easy to merely and very flippantly knock away all of the memories of my past choices, even the ones I felt the most troubled by, and I must admit it is almost miraculous that I can. I guess that's what having a child does to you. Wipes away all of the black marks, no matter how dark they were, leaving a squeaky clean slate to rewrite your story, or in my case, re-route it.

Now my days consist of waking many times during the night, feedings, nappy changes, singing childish tunes and trying to organise myself for a dinner routine before Alex arrives home. This all sounds exhausting, though I can't help but find it really fulfilling for me. I have no time to think about anything aside from tending to my daughter and keeping the household in order so that it doesn't become a bomb site.

Organised chaos has never made so much sense to me.

There's a hand towel slung over my shoulder as I spin around in place and grab the full basket of dirty laundry behind me. I've got a short opportunity of time to get a load of washing on and to have a cup of coffee before Taryn wakes and I'm not going to miss it.

The constant go, go, go, to get things done is fantastic. Never a minute to spare to allow for anything less worthy to pass me by.

Ditz toddles along beside me as I move swiftly from room to room, grabbing anything that's out of place as I zip by it. My maternity leave has kindly been extended, not exactly by choice, but necessity by Peter. Luckily he understood my need to spend a little more precious
mommy-daughter time with my newborn baby girl and offered another two weeks of leave, though it does eat into my normal leave hours, not that I cared too much.

Thinking of tearing myself away from her soon to return to work is a dreaded thought on my mind, but I know I need to eventually get back into it. Work can't wait forever.

I'd thought long and hard about my next move.
I know getting back to work is important, but being a mom is too. I figured it'd be wise to work part time, that way I'd still get a couple days during the week with Taryn. Carol had very quickly thrown her name in the mix to offer babysitting time, but I wouldn't have picked anyone else to do the job anyway. Carol has been a good mother to me, my daughter would only benefit with her in her life more frequently too.

Ditz whines lowly as I stop to pick up a baby sock that had slipped beneath the sofa, "What's the matter sweetie?" I coo back at her.

She whines again and I frown, wondering what could possibly be upsetting her, I look around me to survey.

Nothing seems out of place, I pull my phone out and check the baby camera.

Taryn lies on her back, eyes wide open, wriggling in place, not making a peep.

I glance down at Ditz, "You are such a smart girl, aren't you!" Reaching down I give her a good scratch on the head before wandering to Taryns room.

The remainder of the day breezes by, music flows through the house, keeping me singing along and my mind pleasingly busy. The life of a mother feeling great beneath my skin, a thought I never imagined I'd have.

A few hours later, Taryn is snugly tucked within Alex's arms as he rocks her to sleep in her room. I watch them on the baby camera, smiling happily to myself.

Life is good.

Alex finally settles our girl into her crib and sneaks back to our room looking quite relaxed.

"It looks like you've about put yourself to sleep too." I snicker.

He regards me with a smile, saying, "I'd be lying if I said I wasn't close."

I smile too, understanding well what he means. Patting his side of the bed with my hand I coax him over, "Come on then, let's settle in."

We lay, snuggled into each others sides and I let out a long deep breath.

"You okay?" Alex asks.

"Yeah, I'm absolutely perfect."

Alex doesn't respond, but I know he heard me as he squeezes me in a little tighter to his side.

For a few blissful moments the only noise between us is our breathing. The old silence we knew returning to us. The lives we had once lived now well within our reach.

Breaking the lengthy quiet, I mumble out gently, "You know, it's really hard not to feel like she is the important step we needed to take to reroute the path I had put us on."

Again, Alex doesn't speak.

I continue, "I know that I'd lead us somewhere really dark. I know I dragged you down a hole that was full of danger, risking everything we had and more. I need you to know that I am really sorry for all the trauma I selfishly caused you. I wasn't in my right mind."

I hear Alex grunt under his breath.

Not that I could blame his response, that was a great understatement of my past decisions.

"I don't want to dwell too heavily on all of the wrong choices that I made, I know that I'll never be able to change what I did or what I made you go through. I can only try and make it up to you every day for the rest of my life. I love you and I am so grateful to you for giving me all the chances in the world and more."

I wait quietly, expecting a reply, yet nothing comes, Alex says nothing and I realise soon enough that he's fallen asleep and I can't help but to smile about it.

Despite hoping he'd heard my deep apology, I have a feeling that he knows how awful I still feel about everything I had put him through. 

Though I know I'll remember forever what I've done.
The time I spent making deadly choices.                                                                                                         Creating my own laws and punishments.                                                                                                            The judge, jury and executioner of sorts.

That's all in the past now.

For the remainder of my life, I solemnly swear to be a good mother, a great partner and last but not least, a law abiding citizen.

::::::::::::::

It has been much too long between chapters.

I am well behind on chapter updates as per usual. I forced myself to open up this partly written chapter and write something, fuckin anything! And here's what I produced from that force.

It's not a major chapter, it's a look at what life is like now for Alex and Danica with their new baby and ultimately new life.

New challenges, new feelings, new mind musings. New, new, new.

It's curious trying to find where Danica's head is at when she's not her usual self. Weird to hear her new voice. It's almost bland in comparison. Though she's certainly not feeling there's anything that is bland in her life currently.

There's a long road ahead, many more milestones to welcome to their lives as the days go on.

Anywho, I hope you liked this little tidbit of their placid lives, a look on the brighter side of life, as you may call it.

Until next time, thanks for reading.

Shantelle :)