It’s 5:30 AM and I’m cleaning up toys.

I heard Izzy chirping through the monitor at 4:30 for a bit.  She was happy, at least.  (Or, to give her due credit, I should say as usual.)

But while she did eventually fall back asleep, I did not.

Well… I might as well get up and be productive…

Izzy has a large playpen, which has become a large a toy bin.  There are so many toys in this thing she can reach over the top and grab some of the floaters.  So I decide to extract every single friggin toy, and sort them into piles —  puzzle pieces, stuffed animals, books, musical instruments, stuff she’s too old for, random socks, plastic food containers, etc. —  And I can’t help but find myself thinking: this is it?? This is what my life has become??

Sorting a billion toys at 5:30, knowing she will tornado the room within 30 minutes of waking up?

This is IT???? Sigh.

I had so much promise: before the likes of Doc Mo came along I was the smart one in the family.  Near-straight As.  Pretty good at arts and sports.  And REALLY good at math.  Like only-girl-on-the-math-team good.

But here I am, with nothing to show for my life but a husband and a baby with too many toys.  Ok, to be fair, I do have an amazing husband.  And a pretty amazing baby…

I shimmy around sorting and putting away toys, and doing a few other chores as quietly humanly as possible until about 7:30.  And Izzy is still sleeping…

I feel a tug at my heart; a longing to hear her sweet chirp.

Every single morning, I just can’t wait to see her again. I can’t wait to see her sweet face and smile, and see how happy she is to see me.

I can’t wait to see what she’ll do… What she’ll explore and learn today.

I can’t wait to hear her laughs, her silly gibberish, and real words now too!  She has even begun stringing a couple words together.  Like “Help… Please.”(…Or rather, “Hep… Peas,” while tipping her head to the side and shrugging her shoulders up.

Melts my cold Jersey heart.

And suddenly I’m laughing as I think about it…I mean, who wouldn’t want to spend their days with their hearts continually bursting with pure love and joy all day, every day? It’s better than any drugs, I’ll tell you that.

Granted, some people have babies and toddlers who are quite difficult; also granted, some people are totally not into having kids, and I respect that.

But as it turns out, it’s the job I never knew I wanted (this much.)

And it’s cracking me up that while I sometimes feel like a relatively worthless speck of matter in this universe, I am simultaneously someone else’s entire universe.  (Well, majority of it, anyway…did I mention my amazing husband?)

And it’s not just someone.  It’s my very own sweet angel, Izzy.

So for me, this is IT.

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My name is Suzanne Jacobetz, aka The Cursing Gourmet, and I am Bridget’s older (not necessarily wiser) cousin. I’m Generation X all the way and do not enjoy it when I hear 80s/90s rock on classic rock stations. I live in the mountains in Colorado with Mike, my husband of 10 years, 15+ miles from a grocery store. It’s a very quiet, peaceful life, or at least it used to be:  a year ago we had our first kiddo, a sweetie pie named Isabelle ❤️