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Motherhood is a mess.

A beautiful, disastrous, wonderful catastrophe. A land of sleepless nights and spit up covered shoulders and locks of hair tangled in tiny fists of drool. An oh-so-sweet and ever-so-exhausting place - where I am very ungracefully learning to live.

I won’t ever presume to speak about anything universally regarding motherhood – because if there’s anything I’ve learned in the four months I have been at it – it’s that the ride is different for everyone. Everyone has their own highs and lows, their own badges they must earn and battles they must wage - whether it be with the gods of birthing or the gods of breastfeeding or the gods of sleeping. And I think the moment you feel like a mother, the moment you experience that big huge love that you never knew existed – it varies. I wasn’t one of those women who got all weepy at the ultrasounds (even though I totally thought I would have), and even when I was 8 and a half months pregnant, I still felt a little like sort of an imposter wearing the “momma” shirt I was gifted at my shower. I’ve heard for some women it happens the second they see that little pink plus sign. And for some, it doesn’t happen until months down the road when their baby starts to giggle at them with intention and still for others its hazy – a becoming that happens slowly over time.

Babies babies babies. For the last seven months babies have been topic of conversation in little blue house on 318 West Geyser St…because you see, in just few weeks or so, we’re going to have one of them.

Thirty-one million, five hundred and thirty-six thousand seconds.

 Or eight thousand seven hundred and sixty hours.

Or three hundred and sixty-five days.

It doesn’t matter how you measure it really. One way or another, an entire year has unraveled through the fabric of time - into a pile of memories made and lessons learned. For us, it was a pretty big year. Our first year. The year we sold our possessions and quit our jobs and set sail for the unknown. The year we spent getting lost and meeting fascinating people and sleeping in unsanitary places in uncomfortable positions. A year that was crazy and beautiful and amazing and terrifying and completely and utterly life changing.

In eight months we had traveled over 51,000 miles. Boarded thirty-seven planes. Twiddled our thumbs through twenty-five bus rides. Collected sixteen passport stamps. Slept in one hundred and eight different places. Exchanged money in dollars, baht, kip, rupees, dong, pesos, sols, bolivianos, marks and euros.  Learned to say ‘hello’ in nine different languages.  We had savored thirty cent beers. Devoured exotic curries. Adventured through remote jungles. Gazed at impossibly tall mountains. Become accustomed to doing laundry in hotel pools. Survived food poisoning in extremely inconvenient places. Mastered the art of successfully carrying a dozen eggs four miles down a dirt road in the back of a tuk tuk without the luxury of a carton.