You know how hungry babies will try to nurse on anything when they're really hungry? Teasing Matteas is one of Aaron's favorite games.

I think Matteas looks suspicious of Jack, as if he someone knew that just a few days after this picture was taken, Jack would drop him on his head.

I think I need a wide-angle lens to take pictures that don't make his nose look bigger than it is. Granted it's pretty large, but it really doesn't translate well into a two-dimensional image.

So, this sleep-deprivation thing is getting really old. Matteas isn't quite four weeks old and since he's been born I've had the stomach flu and two colds, the second of which began this morning. I really, really love my babies, but sometimes motherhood sucks. Sucks big time. I understand why so many moms freak out after having a baby; it's identity-crisis inducing. After Jack was born I experienced something I'd only read about before, that weird moment when you catch a glimpse of some poor disheveled woman and think to yourself "Wow, she has really let herself go..." and then you realize that the poor disheveled woman you are pitying is your reflection. Dammit. Do I really look like that? That's not my body; that CAN'T be my body. PLEASE GOD LET THAT BE SOMEONE ELSE'S BODY! The outside is different, the inside is different, your brain chemistry is different, your hormones are different, the functions of your body are different(moo...), your sleeping patterns(patterns? what patterns) are different, your lifestyle is different, your identity forever changed because no matter how many kids you had before, now you have another one. It occurred to me the other day as I thought about my life before and after children that becoming a mother is in many ways like committing suicide, but not in a morbid way. More like reincarnation I guess, and I find this challenging. Some of my thoughts, feelings, ambitions and attitudes don't belong to Motherhood, but on the other hand change is hard. Really hard. It's disorienting. And the more I do it the more I find myself wondering: who am I becoming? I knew myself before, but this creature who is presently emerging and still very immature is a stranger to me, and I'm not quite comfortable with strangers. The result, for now, is that I have this nagging homesick feeling only there's no particular home I'm missing, no place I can go that will bring relief. It's not a physical place I miss, it's feeling comfortable and content within myself and with my place in the world. Grounded. Stable. Normal. Luckily, I and many others before me have been through this before and I know I will come out on the other side better and stronger, and that someday I will even sleep again. Not for a long time, but someday.