post with no name

I've been wanting to write for quite some time, but just have not had the time, energy, or wherewithal (is that even a word) to do so. There has been so much on my mind that I don't even know where to begin. So I might ramble a bit, but I need to get it all out of my head...

Babe
Turned a year old, and its been bittersweet. She is walking now, she starting walking on May 18, at 11:43PM to be exact. And its so weird to watch her now, she can stand and play at her toy box or her little chair and I don't have to stand beside her. She can take out the toys she likes, throw the ones she doesn't. I know why people get 'baby fever' around this time, because you see your little one growing and changing and becoming more independent and it makes you long for those days of just holding them, nursing, naps, rocking. Now she wants to get down on the floor, crawl, dance, and just wiggle about. She got her first pair of shoes tonight.

Moving
I was given the opportunity to begin school this fall. Everything happened really quickly and we've spent the past month trying to adjust to this new change. It does mean moving away from here and starting out in a new environment with no family, no friends, no known resources. But we are thinking that we are going to in fact do this. Its a way for me to finish my education and hopefully get a full time tenure-track job once I'm done. This will be the first time DH and I move away from home, home-home that is. It'll also be really difficult because we have babe now and my family has gotten so attached to her. My mom doesn't even want to talk about us leaving, its that hard. We are worried about how we'll manage without having family around us, because we are so fortunate now to have a good network, but I think we also feel like we've just got to try.
I'm thinking about how sometimes the things that seem so hard and difficult bring the greatest reward and knowledge.

Studenting/Mothering/Othering
I've seen myself solely as a mom for the past year. I mean I've been only in mom-mode, so its kinda hard for me to think of myself as being something else. Its important for me to establish an identity outside of being a mother, because sometimes I find that I miss old things I used to do, and I wonder if that's why I feel so 'different and at times lonely. I used to journal on a regular basis and read. I'd go through books like crazy. Honestly, I just didn't have the time for that this past year with Babe and all, but slowly I'm trying to welcome some of those old things back into my life again. Realizing that I'm not the same person who could read 3 books in a week, but just because I can't doesn't mean that I have to give that love up all together, it just means I can read 1 at a time, or that I might not journal as frequently, but I can still do those things, its just me doing them in a different way.
Thinking about going back to school and getting back into teaching and writing and researching has made me worry a bit, because I feel like I'm different now, I'll be a different kind of student, but I'm still trying to convince myself that doesn't mean I'll be a bad student. I think there are some things I've learned from being a mom that most definitely can benefit me as a student. Maybe I needed to learn some of those lessons before I went to school.

So, there is a hecka of a lot going on right now and I'm gonna try to keep up with my posting, but with a walking Babe now....I'm spending more time running.