The beginning.

This is the first post of my blog. My baby daughter and I just moved into our new house four days ago, and I promised myself that this would be something I would do, with our fresh start.
My ex-partner and I split up five months ago, when Alice was 7 months old. It was 'for the best', but still difficult. Not so much emotionally, the way it is when you are childless and break up with a girl/boyfriend, but more so in the day-to-day. I had wanted so badly for things to be a certain way in my child's first year, both for her, and for me: I had dreamed of this time for my whole life. It was, in fact, all I had ever wanted; and now instead of the bliss that you hear about experiencing during your baby's first year, I was completely taken over with just trying to maintain our life, on a day-to-day basis. I was going to say 'surviving', but it wasn't that we were poor, financially...I was just poor in energy, I guess you could say. Like I said before, there was so much that I wanted for this time in my life, and there was also, of course, so much I wanted for our life in general...now more than the bliss, the lullabyes, the soft light streaming through curtains onto my sweet sleeping child's face...I was thinking about things like what kind of home we could afford, and how in the world I could still stay home with her for the first few years of her life, which I was committed to with all my heart. I was thinking of these things, of money and homes and yes, even education...and I was also thinking things like: how can I shower? how many days until someone comes over and I can talk, laugh, and hand my baby over while I take out the garbage? And the part that breaks my heart, more than all of this, is that no matter how much love you have for your little one, it is so heart-crushingly difficult to be the parent you want to be when there is no one there to support you. It is so hard to have the energy to be the dream mom, when instead of spending hours gazing into your baby's eyes, you are spending every spare second you have trying to strategize how to get through the day. I had dreams of parenthood, and things are turning out quite differently...this blog is about reconciling that, I suppose, amongst other things. As I mentioned earlier, I committed to keeping this blog, and I am not quite sure what it has in store for me, but I guess, like my life - like all of our lives - it will take shape as it goes along.
Welcome. :)