Poor Mr. Darcy is going to grow up so confused. Guess what Patrick and I have just discovered? We know all the same lullabies - but set to completely different tunes! Uh-oh. At the moment, we're just happily singing to Mr Darcy each in our own familiar way, alternating American and British versions. But I can already hear Mr Darcy at 2-1/2 or 3 years old demanding: "Sing it right!" We'll just have to wait and see which version he decides is really "right" for each lullaby...

In other news, he's three weeks old today, and he has been a total angel all day. Sadly, this correlates with the first day I have experimentally skipped my morning latte...and he has been so, so much calmer, sleepier and less fussy today than he was all through the last few days, when I started drinking lattes again and he stopped napping at all during the day. Sigh. I am trying to focus on the positive here - yay! I know how to keep my baby happier and calmer! - but, well, drat. I just wish there was a different solution! At least he's keeping me healthy...and he's been so much fun today, so sweet and happy and interested in the world around him that it's definitely much less of a sacrifice than I would have imagined, pre-baby, to put the coffee off a while longer.

And I've actually gotten to the point where I really want to write again, which actually feels like a Very Good Sign, since in the first couple weeks after the birth, I was afraid I would never feel that way again. No worries there! I've started doing a little bit of writing every day, just freewriting, because I don't have any short story ideas at the moment and I don't want to get buried in any big novel project before my editorial letter for Kat by Moonlight arrives. It really is only a little bit of writing - in the last few jittery, caffeine-fueled days, Mr Darcy didn't nap long enough for me to write more than 10 minutes at a time, and he needed me for feeding/comfort ALL the time, so I couldn't just pass him to Patrick - but even that little bit of writing has felt great.

It's funny, I've occasionally gotten compliments in the past for being disciplined about my writing, but the fact is, it's not something that deserves any praise - I do it out of sheer necessity. It took real discipline, back in my conservatory days, to practice the horn every day for 3 hours (and by the end, I was falling down on that all the time to sneak more writing into my schedule); writing, though, is something I do for sheer self- (and family-)preservation. If I don't write regularly, I feel like I have a terrible, burning itch under my skin that I have to get out - and I can only do it by writing. If I don't find the time/means to write in that situation, not only do I feel horribly uncomfortable, but I act it out by being horribly crabby and stressed, which is no good for anybody around me. Mr Darcy doesn't need a strung-out, grumpy mom, and Patrick and Maya certainly don't want me to be that way either.

But now it's time to wake Mr Darcy up (a real turnaround!) so he can eat. Time to shift from writer-mode to mommy-mode...which is actually the best possible combination of jobs. I feel very lucky right now. :)