Visit me at oneofthosemothers.com
Content will be up January 1st.
Monday, December 31, 2012
Saturday, February 18, 2012
You may call me "Mrs. Mommy"
Half an hour ago I thought that I had finally found time to sit down and write a blog post about motherhood. I logged in, and then the baby woke up. As I typed the first sentence of this post, he woke up again, but Sam went to him and maybe he will fall back asleep for his daddy.
I have visited my blog several times since I last posted, over a year ago. I use it as a quick way to find other blogs, and every time I do, I have a moment of embarrassment when I see the titles of my last two posts. Contentment and Superbowl parties. Within a couple of weeks after I wrote about being content with my life as it was, I got pregnant and changed degree programs from the Ph.D to the masters. The day before the Superbowl, as I was getting ingredients together for margaritas, I got a positive pregnancy test. (Since I wasn't ready to tell the world about the pregnancy, I spent the evening of that party walking around with a margarita glass full of orange juice and crushed ice, so that no one would wonder why I wasn't partaking in the merriment).
There are a thousand things I could say about pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood, which all seem new and exciting to me as I experience them for the first time, but of course most of them have already been said:
"Having a baby is like having your heart walking around outside your body."
"You consider taking a shower a luxury."
"You find that you never knew you were capable of that kind of love."
"Seeing your baby on the ultrasound for the first time is magical."
I read lots of books about pregnancy while I was pregnant. I read about different kinds of childbirth and parenting styles, I took the hospital tour, I spent way too much time reading online parenting and pregnancy forums, I talked to people, and I reminisced about the time when my little brother was born.
And I got a lot of advice, from friends, family, and strangers. Pretty much the bigger my belly got, the more advice I got. I didn't mind. It all made me feel very, very prepared.
I wasn't.
I wasn't prepared for how stressful the five days of pregnancy that came after my due date would be, even though I had told myself to expect to be overdue. (Karma for all of those library books?)
I wasn't prepared for how intimidating doctors and nurses can be, and how vulnerable I would feel in the delivery room.
I wasn't prepared for the night feedings that come every couple of hours to take up a couple of hours. (It was only like this in the beginning.)
I wasn't prepared for the potential for guilt feelings. No matter what parenting decision you make, it turns out, there will be articles written to say that it is wrong. Mothers, like brides, are constantly told to think of themselves, but for mothers, there is always the nagging thought that you ought to be singing/reading to your baby, so that his brain will develop, or something like that.
I wasn't prepared for the complete loss of control. Every second of my every day is now dominated by the most adorable little tyrant.
I wasn't prepared to be separated like an egg. All my patience goes to Paul, all my impatience (I have a lot of it by the end of the day) goes to whomever I meet. (Poor Sam.)
And oh, the nicknames. I knew I would give them to SugarPlumPuddingPop, aka P-Dubya, aka Snuggle Muffin, aka SugarFace, but I did not expect to start giving them to myself. Paul obviously can't talk yet, but sometimes he makes a sort of "ahhmoomoo" sound, which I have taken as addressed to myself, so now sometimes instead of calling myself "mama," I call myself "moomoo." Not sure if this is an allusion to the fact that I am essentially his personal cow for the next few months, or if he means it to be spelled muumuu, and is questioning my fashion sense. I am also "the Milk Lady."
I wasn't prepared, at all, for how much I love this baby. For me it was not a rush of emotion the first moment that I heard his cry and saw his slimy little body in the doctor's hands. I was too exhausted, and all I could think was that I didn't see how he could've have fit - surely my belly wasn't that big - and I remember being a little bit relieved when someone said something about him being a boy, because I had been vaguely worried for the past 20 weeks that maybe the ultrasound technician had got it wrong. But the bond that I have with this baby is overwhelming. Even when he finally, finally, falls alseep, sometimes I miss him, and look at pictures of him on my phone. I have worse separation anxiety than he does. And the protective nature of this special kind of love is so intense that, at the risk (which I usually avoid) of sounding like Sarah Palin, it can only be described as fierce. But that, too, is different from what I was expecting. I thought that being a "mama grizzly" meant that you would have a rush of adrenaline and feel powerful. I think the reality is that you have a sudden realization of how powerless you are, and this leads to an adrenaline rush, but the emotion is one of panic, not invincibility. Even more than the sleep deprivation and difficulty in finding time to shower and anxiety and guilt, the thing that sucks the most about motherhood is having to deal with the fact that you can't protect your sweet helpless baby from the things that are really bad in life, and that along with everything you have to give, you give your sinful nature, and the sinful nature of everyone else.
Thank God for grace, because there aren't enough books, articles, or friendly pieces of advice in the world to prepare a self-centered student for the experience of being a mother.
I have visited my blog several times since I last posted, over a year ago. I use it as a quick way to find other blogs, and every time I do, I have a moment of embarrassment when I see the titles of my last two posts. Contentment and Superbowl parties. Within a couple of weeks after I wrote about being content with my life as it was, I got pregnant and changed degree programs from the Ph.D to the masters. The day before the Superbowl, as I was getting ingredients together for margaritas, I got a positive pregnancy test. (Since I wasn't ready to tell the world about the pregnancy, I spent the evening of that party walking around with a margarita glass full of orange juice and crushed ice, so that no one would wonder why I wasn't partaking in the merriment).
There are a thousand things I could say about pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood, which all seem new and exciting to me as I experience them for the first time, but of course most of them have already been said:
"Having a baby is like having your heart walking around outside your body."
"You consider taking a shower a luxury."
"You find that you never knew you were capable of that kind of love."
"Seeing your baby on the ultrasound for the first time is magical."
I read lots of books about pregnancy while I was pregnant. I read about different kinds of childbirth and parenting styles, I took the hospital tour, I spent way too much time reading online parenting and pregnancy forums, I talked to people, and I reminisced about the time when my little brother was born.
And I got a lot of advice, from friends, family, and strangers. Pretty much the bigger my belly got, the more advice I got. I didn't mind. It all made me feel very, very prepared.
I wasn't.
I wasn't prepared for how stressful the five days of pregnancy that came after my due date would be, even though I had told myself to expect to be overdue. (Karma for all of those library books?)
I wasn't prepared for how intimidating doctors and nurses can be, and how vulnerable I would feel in the delivery room.
I wasn't prepared for the night feedings that come every couple of hours to take up a couple of hours. (It was only like this in the beginning.)
I wasn't prepared for the potential for guilt feelings. No matter what parenting decision you make, it turns out, there will be articles written to say that it is wrong. Mothers, like brides, are constantly told to think of themselves, but for mothers, there is always the nagging thought that you ought to be singing/reading to your baby, so that his brain will develop, or something like that.
I wasn't prepared for the complete loss of control. Every second of my every day is now dominated by the most adorable little tyrant.
I wasn't prepared to be separated like an egg. All my patience goes to Paul, all my impatience (I have a lot of it by the end of the day) goes to whomever I meet. (Poor Sam.)
And oh, the nicknames. I knew I would give them to SugarPlumPuddingPop, aka P-Dubya, aka Snuggle Muffin, aka SugarFace, but I did not expect to start giving them to myself. Paul obviously can't talk yet, but sometimes he makes a sort of "ahhmoomoo" sound, which I have taken as addressed to myself, so now sometimes instead of calling myself "mama," I call myself "moomoo." Not sure if this is an allusion to the fact that I am essentially his personal cow for the next few months, or if he means it to be spelled muumuu, and is questioning my fashion sense. I am also "the Milk Lady."
I wasn't prepared, at all, for how much I love this baby. For me it was not a rush of emotion the first moment that I heard his cry and saw his slimy little body in the doctor's hands. I was too exhausted, and all I could think was that I didn't see how he could've have fit - surely my belly wasn't that big - and I remember being a little bit relieved when someone said something about him being a boy, because I had been vaguely worried for the past 20 weeks that maybe the ultrasound technician had got it wrong. But the bond that I have with this baby is overwhelming. Even when he finally, finally, falls alseep, sometimes I miss him, and look at pictures of him on my phone. I have worse separation anxiety than he does. And the protective nature of this special kind of love is so intense that, at the risk (which I usually avoid) of sounding like Sarah Palin, it can only be described as fierce. But that, too, is different from what I was expecting. I thought that being a "mama grizzly" meant that you would have a rush of adrenaline and feel powerful. I think the reality is that you have a sudden realization of how powerless you are, and this leads to an adrenaline rush, but the emotion is one of panic, not invincibility. Even more than the sleep deprivation and difficulty in finding time to shower and anxiety and guilt, the thing that sucks the most about motherhood is having to deal with the fact that you can't protect your sweet helpless baby from the things that are really bad in life, and that along with everything you have to give, you give your sinful nature, and the sinful nature of everyone else.
Thank God for grace, because there aren't enough books, articles, or friendly pieces of advice in the world to prepare a self-centered student for the experience of being a mother.
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