Sunday Salon: the new normal

Happy Sunday! It's just another lazy morning around here: lounging in bed with a book until 10 a.m., writing a Sunday Salon post, drinking coffee, eating a peach, getting ready to run errands, and WATCHING MY BABY SLEEP.

Note to self: turn off flash so contemplative
baby doesn't become perplexed baby.

I HAVE A BABY. Which makes me about a thousand times happier than I was this time last Sunday. We are all getting used to the new normal. In many ways, life is not normal at all. I think raising a child is a much more reasonable endeavor when neither parent has to go to work and the only required outing in the coming week is Hawthorne's first pediatrician appointment. That leaves a lot of time for everything else. So we are definitely enjoying the relative ease of these first few weeks. Of course, it helps that our little man is so amazing to be with. And (thankfully) he's a really good sleeper so far. Yes, he really did sleep until 10 a.m. this morning. Sure, he was mostly awake from 2-5 a.m., but I relished waking up without an alarm (baby or otherwise), reaching for my Kindle and sneaking in a few chapters without leaving bed.

Reading
I'm managing to read some. I'm currently loving The Black Box by Michael Connelly (big surprise) and re-reading Woman: An Intimate Geography by Natalie Angier (timely!) Mysteries seem to be perfect, as most of my life exists in short bursts throughout the day (as in the entire 24-hour day.) Nonfiction is working well in small doses too. Sleep is somewhat plentiful overall, but it comes in a lot of short doses, and having a good, fast-paced book is working well for me. I stayed up an extra hour overnight reading after feeding Hawthorne and snuggling him back to sleep. Mostly, I just ignore the clock and sleep, eat and read when I can and when I feel like it. We're starting to get good enough at eating that I can imagine reading while feeding. For now, I'm really good at reading and snuggling him at the same time. I foolishly started The Wake by Paul Kingsnorth (on this year's Booker Prize longlist) the night before I went into labor. It's written in Old English, which takes time and patience to muddle through. It may be one I read very slowly in moments of intellectual energy bursts over the next few weeks.

Coming up on the blog this week...
Reviews, reviews, reviews! Some pregnant people nest by cleaning and organizing. I nested by catching up on all of the unreviewed books from this year, and I still have reviews scheduled for the next week and a half. Now if I can only stay on top of reading at the same pace, as well as writing reviews soon after I finish books, things will stay pretty consistent around here. 

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