today melby got THREE shots.

i shed some tears. i wanted to mama bear and throw everyone to the ground and run away with her.

instead i stood as close as i could and then mashed her onto my boob immediately afterward, apologizing a thousand times to her. her little face was RED AND MAD.

this is important for me to think through mostly because it's not normally me.

i am not that mom. i am not the mom, who withers when her child cries, and i have some sort of weird guilt about it. i, of course, do not like to hear melby cry, but it's a more of cognitive discomfort with cortisol levels, physiological stress, and brain development. i think about the kind of attachment she's developing, what her concept of the world is. i don't usually have some painful emotional response.

and that's hard for me. it's weird for me. i feel like, especially as an empathetic, emotional, and intuitive person, i am expected to want cosleep, hold my baby every second of the day, never want to leave her, and die on the inside if she's ever unhappy.

i am pretty sure that expectation comes solely from me. no one has announced that i should be or feel a certain way with my child, but somehow i've internalized this idea that the only way to truly love your child is with utter intensity and desperation.

and i do. i love that girl so much. i have heart explosions when i see her. i'm so happy to hold her and kiss her big squishy cheeks and rub her belly and massage her toes and listen to her coos and read her stories and take baths with her and do anything for a smile. but i also like to put her down. and go to yoga by myself. and lie in bed alone sometimes.

i like to be with her and not with her. i like for her to have feelings and they are not my feelings.

and i feel guilty about that. i feel, somehow, like it's not enough love if i don't do it bigger.

i felt that intensity today. i felt angry at the very adorable women, who were giving her shots. i felt shaky. i felt like i would bodyslam someone to protect her. it was intense and i didn't really like it.

there's no conclusion to this. i didn't decide anything about myself or other people. i don't honestly think one way of being is better or more right than the other. it was just an observation, because, for a moment, i felt that protective, symbiotic, highly intensified connection. and it was different than how i normally feel.

i would like to spend my years as a mother not feeling guilty. i don't think it helps anyone. it certainly doesn't help me. it also does not help my daughter.

i love her to the moon, and it will always be different than how anyone else loves their own child. and that's okay.

there's no should in love.

this is my love.

it is a stable, easy love day-to-day. we are happy together. and occasionally, i want to shred someone to pieces, who is making her hurt. and, in experiencing both of those things, i'm learning as much about myself as i am about my little girl. i always figured this motherhood thing would be intense, but, shit, it is in more ways than i ever could have expected.