It’s 9:36 p.m. as I begin writing this, and I still haven’t bathed today. I thought I might actually take a long soak, then wash my hair before bed tonight, but already it’s closing in on my bedtime (if I want to be decently energized tomorrow). Instead I spent the evening (from 7:00 until now) organizing photos.

The thing is, this mothering is intensive. It’s becoming more so as Claire grows more alert and interactive for longer periods. No sooner than I rise in the morning than it seems time to put her to bed, but my body aches from all the hours in between.

Today there was a meal at 5:30 and play until 6:45 a.m., then a nap until 8:30 a.m. (I hold her for all naps), then a meal and play until 11:30 a.m., then a nap until 1:00, then a walk to the park and swinging on the swing, then an attempted nap at 2:30 p.m. (plus more eating in there), then up at 3:00, playing and a crying jag (Claire’s) until we got out of the house for a walk in a different park from 5:00 to 6:00 p.m., then picking up unhealthy food to go, eating dinner, then bathing Claire and putting her to bed by 7:15 p.m. She self-amuses briefly, but she really wants to be interacted with, so by “play” I mean either interacting with her and her toys & books, or involving her in watching me do a household task. Also, Husband does a lot of interacting on weekends with her.

The amount of time I have to spend on the computer is incrementally decreasing each week, so there is no point having it on the coffee table in the living room. Also, because the cat destroyed nearly all my laptop cords, and because Claire’s little hands will soon be over everything, my laptop will now live in the office. A logical place, eh? I feel a distance developing between me and the Internet. There just isn’t much time anymore, not if I want to spend my few precious hours doing other things for myself as well.

There was a point before Claire was born that I wondered if I would be able to sever the addiction I had to my computer and the web. Would I rise to the occasion? The answer is clear. I am constitutionally incapable of choosing the computer over my daughter. I’ll still use the computer, but it will have to be squeezed in among the many other pursuits — reading a book, knitting (which I haven’t done in ages), exercising, etc. Wow, imagine that. I’m actually living! In the real world. In the here and now. More often, at least.

I’ll still read my favorite blogs, and I’ll still post. And a lot of my play group communications are via email, so I’m not going Luddite on you. Just don’t worry if you don’t see much activity ’round here. I can also always be reached by email.