Athena Timarie entered our world on August 29, 2022 and life has never been the same.
We have been living in sleep-deprived bliss. V is the best big sister.
Toward the end of my maternity leave, I looked at both girls and my heart cried out that it needed more time. I remember how hard it was to go back to work after V — the late nights and coming home after she was already asleep, her crying every time I left the room, her nanny braiding her hair for the first time when that was something I dreamed of. Missing milestones. Missing her. Passing my husband like ships in the night as we worked opposite schedules to survive childcare costs.
I decided to take my own advice — to take the mission of this blog completely literally instead of it simply being aspirational. I wanted to live a slow life. I wanted to have a slow year.
I wanted park dates. Bedtime. To see first steps, hear first words. I wanted to follow the rhythm of baby days instead of forcing babies to conform to adult days. I wanted to watch the seasons. I wanted to savor what I’d worked so hard for.
It took some negotiating with work, but I took all of my accrued vacation and PTO, paired that with a sabbatical, and added on a personal leave so that I could be home with my girls for about 15 months. I’m about halfway through that time, due to return to work in October. Any longer than that and I forfeit my position, location, and pay.
It was extremely risky to take this break at the peak of my career. Not just professionally, but financially. It will take every penny of my savings to make this happen. On paper, it’s a bad decision. And while I could go on and on about the pros and cons, but just believe me when I say that my heart told me I had to, and so I listened.
I am almost eight months into living a slow year (I’m posting about it on Instagram over at our.slow.year — give it a follow!). And I think what strikes me about this is that I’ve been talking about living a slower life for ELEVEN(!!) years.
When I started talking about it, no one was really talking about it. We were in the middle of hustle culture and “being the face of your brand.” Now, all those baby millennials and GenZ folks are burned out, and wanting to slow things down. There are now books, podcasts and Tiktok accounts all about slower living.
Am I disappointed? No! I feel like saying, “Finally.” Now, we all see it. Now, we all know. We can be in the same conversation!
I won’t sugarcoat it — living a slow life is great, but many of the days are really long and really hard. While A is not colicky like V was, I wouldn’t call her an easy baby.
But that said, being home these eight months has created so much space in my life. Breathing room. Connection. And the biggest thing that has poured through this crack of time is my creativity. I’m suddenly making tons of baby food (like, nonstop) and filming it. The ideas are endless. I realized yesterday that I must come back to this blog, since I’m finally in the midst of living a small, slow life.
I’m learning Procreate. How to make reels. I’m influenced by Tiktok and going to clean my oven with the pink stuff! I bought an overhead tripod so V and I can make crafting videos together.
The days are long but I’m so, so happy.
I’ll be here more often to share it all with you — because despite the Snoo, white noise, blackout curtains and heating pads…I’ve somehow made a second baby who will only nap on me. 😂
Looking forward to seeing you more often, and slowing down together.
-Jen
small life, slow life 