I’m living life between feedings.

Just one of the things I didn’t realize the full impact of until The Kid was born nine days ago. Another? The overwhelming emotion that would accompany his arrival. Yes, I knew I’d love him. But this? This is unreal. It is protective, hormonal, instinctive, mysterious, primal. The love I have for The Husband is passionate and abiding and iron-clad and bathed in laughter and shared vision; it makes me feel safe. This love I have for TK is dangerous–raw and searing, humbling and at turns sweet and potent.

I didn’t expect this.

I keep reminding myself that the hormones at war within my body, aided by sleeplessness, can confuse and terrify me. And it’s true–I have to calm myself down sometimes, remember what I believe and who ultimately keeps this life safe. But the love…

That part’s real.

I knew I was in trouble one afternoon while we were still at the hospital and TH went out to grab food. I was flipping through the channels as TK lay in his bassinet, sleeping beside me. Shaun of the Dead was just beginning on a movie channel, and I felt a sense of relief: finally, something funny instead of scary or sad. TH introduced me to this film a few years ago and I thought it was hilarious. Cut to me two hours later, fighting off tears upon the film’s conclusion, shaking my head at all the broken relationships and loss of life. Because of the zombies, I mean.

A few hours later, a pair of emotional manipulators dressed as photographers came by our room. In a service provided by the hospital, they offered to take pictures of our new family. I was hesitant to humor them, but TH is nicer than I am, so they did their thing. A sales pitch came next–birth announcements! Photo packages! Then the photographs were downloaded to a computer and the professional wheeled the screen over to us to present a slide show she had created, our pictures set to cheesy music and placed side-by-side with quotes about the meaning of life and love. My eyes welled up even as I knew I was being played.

You bitch, I thought, wiping my eyes on TH’s shoulder.

There is simply nothing scarier than loving this much, than loving our new family like I do. And while I know there’s also nothing better or more true, I’m also aware that it’s possible to misdirect love, to love from the wrong angle or to love more from a broken place than a whole one. No one wins with that kind of love–and to be a parent who loves well, I have to learn the difference between lies and truth, between fear and assurance. So as we exist between feedings and spurts of sleep and dirty diapers and DVRed shows paused at weird spots, I am learning how to breathe. I am relearning how to pray. I am being taught how to love.