Home from the surreal terror of NICU and into the surreal mix of bliss and boredom that is life with a newborn. We’re exhausted and recovering as best we can. Baby is doing so well, getting stronger and feeding well. Little bear is bewildered by the new addition but very much enjoying exploring the new yard. The house still has many boxes stuffed into corners yet to be unpacked, the carport is a mess of dismantled shelves and tools and craft supplies. The front lawn has largely died while we were preoccupied with the baby, and is covered in pieces of jungle gym and swings yet to be reassembled, and things too heavy for me to move alone like a table with a circular saw.

I didn’t love this house at first. This was not our first choice, we were trying to renovate the damaged house Nightingale bought years ago. When that fell through we had a tiny window in which we could buy a place before baby came along. We applied for a house every week and there were others, prettier ones with creative layouts and ivy growing up the walls that I was in love with. This one was merely available, in the right area and with 4 bedrooms. When we were successful in buying it I was ecstatic and then I cried in disappointment.

I have waited a long time to own a home and I thought we would have time to explore many options and fall in love and it would be romantic. It was instead absolutely exhausting and under tremendous pressure. Sometimes one of us would run into the open inspection while the other lapped the block in the car trying to keep Bear sleeping through his nap, then tag out and swap. Some were insanely expensive, much more so than we’d expect. Some were frighteningly dilapidated. Many lacked basic things we need like a fence. It was an intense time with Nightingale extremely pregnant and unwell.

But we’re here now, in this funny white box of a house, set into a hill, and I’m falling in love with it. It’s peaceful. There’s birds and trees. I drag the sprinklers from tree to tree and patch of lawn to patch, starting to nurse it back to green. There’s a clothes line by the back door and I find peace in the simple domestic tasks after days of wearing the same soiled clothes in hospital. Bear moves dirt from one spot to another. I open a few more boxes every day, start to make patches of functioning space in the chaos.

It feels different to own it. I’m settling into the carport as a workshop space, and I’m not afraid of splashing paint or creating sawdust. There’s so much hard work that came before this and is yet to come but right now I’m in a tiny quiet eddy of time without a school run and work stripped back to the basics, not ready yet to face the world. Just cocooned here, getting to know the baby, the house, letting everyone get used to all  the big changes. Eyeing up the empty spot in the freezer where I keep the spare meals, planning the fortnight shop, changing nappies, tidying away crafts, folding washing.

Soon enough I’ll be the working parent again and my job will be to leave and focus elsewhere. Right now I resent that so much it’s hard to breathe, so I’m focused here. I’m cleaning Bear’s bottles and figuring out where to store the spices and learning where the new chemist keeps the latex free bandaids. I’m incredibly tried and I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else, doing anything else.