A lifelong struggle with addiction

When I was a teenager, I never understood why my parents wanted us all to do things together all the time. Even today, R. and I are sometimes surprised at our parents' willingness to hang with us. But I'm starting to get it.

In the last eight months, I've had MZ on me virtually every day. Granted there were times early on when I'd do almost anything to be OFF each other for a few hours, but by and large there has been a lot of positive holding every single day since she was born. So that now I crave it when I'm away from her, and if I don't hold her in the morning before I go pump, I feel downright needy when I see her again, and have to interrupt whatever she's doing to hold her a bit. In the evenings, when she's fallen asleep in my arms, I drink in her smell and remind myself to cherish this, she won't always want to be this close. But by all rights I still have years ahead of me when I will be with her nearly every day, when our family will be our major source of companionship.

And if it takes 21 days to form a habit, and eight months to form this addiction, I can only imagine how much I'll crave her company by the time she's ready to move out on her own.