{gratuitous baby Christmas photo}
Ahhh, motherhood. It hits you like the hurricane of 1900 hit Galveston, Texas – a full on, in-the-face blast of chaos and turmoil, knocking you off your feet and crashing you onto the floor (or couch, or bed)! As any mother-to-be, I had visions of babyhood being all rainbows and unicorns, with breasts dripping yet hair perfectly styled, losing all my baby weight within the first six weeks, and re-attaining (ok, well, attaining for the first time) glamazon (or should I say mom-azon) status in the blink of an eye. Well, here is the stark reality – this sh*t kicks your butt hard, especially during the first few weeks. While for the previous generation, good (or at least adequate) parenting meant shoving a bottle of formula in baby’s mouth and leaving him to entertain himself, our peer group expects us to make our own herbal diaper rash cream and sew our own hemp diapers, all the while keeping up with the latest vegan postpartum fashion trends and the newest superfood smoothie crazes. I’m here to admit that month one and two were not exactly as perfect as all those Type A mommy bloggers (with secret maids and nannies) present their lives to be, so let’s keep it real around here. This is where I’m at. On a good day.
1. Sometimes when the need to urinate and/or defecate becomes too intensely nagging to further ignore, I put him in his swing for a few minutes (or however long it takes!) and insert a pacifier, even though we said we weren’t going to use them. Especially on mornings when I’ve taken some of that laxative stuff the doctor gave me which looks like chocolate candy sprinkles.
2. When I stopped breastfeeding (that in itself should be #1, and is a story for another day), I put him directly on organic soy formula thinking it would bypass any occurrence of the dairy allergies, eczema and the subsequent hospitalization that his father went through as an infant, only to find out last week that the incidence of soy allergy in babies is just as high as that for cow’s milk allergy, and that he does in fact have eczema already, possibly from the soy formula.
3. In the middle of the night when I am changing his diaper, I often do not snap back all the snaps in the crotch area of his jammies, as I know darn well we will be going through the whole ‘diaper change’ thing again in another 2 hours.
4. Speaking of nighttime, if he happens to fall asleep unexpectedly in the evening and I am ready to join him, I don’t bother putting his jammies on him, for fear that it will wake him up and then we’ll have to go through the whole ‘falling asleep’ thing all over again.
5. I secretly like the fact that I can use him as an excuse to bolt in case I get stuck talking to someone during the day that I really don’t feel like talking to anymore.
6. I used his blanket, which was one of his father’s baby blankets, as a tree skirt under the Christmas tree this year. This was going to be the third year without a proper tree skirt, and I just couldn’t stand for that. Plus, it looks darn good under there. And what baby needs to use seven blankets when it is in the 90′s in December? Even inside the apartment (when the dryer is running, which with those hemp diapers, is all the time).
7. He mostly wears the same short-sleeved onesies over and over again, despite having tons of other clothing options, because I hate dealing with sticking his fat, fragile arms through long sleeves.
8. If I’m singing him a song and realise that I don’t know all of the words, I just make some of them up. And sometimes what comes out are not even real words.
9. Occasionally, when we’re having a bad hour/day/night, I lament on how I miss being pregnant and how much easier life was when the fruit of my womb was still inside my womb.
10. Despite 1-9 above, I find myself having crazy feelings about doing this all over again in a year or two. Afterall, doc says I can safely get pregnant again in as little as five months from now - a big “whoohoo” for fertility! And then I read (and re-read) this. And then the feelings pass. But I’m secretly holding on to my maternity clothes, just in case!
Disclaimer: Before any people who (1) have absolutely zero sense of humor, (2) are haters who love to hate everyone because they are foaming at the mouth and spewing with hate (and have nothing else promising to do in their life but troll people’s blogs), (3) people who have never been mothers to a newborn baby before with no outside/familial/hired assistance get all crazy pants and/or get their pants all crazy, I would like to state that no babies have been harmed in the making of this blog post (especially my baby).
{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
So what you’re really talking about here is how you’re a NORMAL mother, right??
You, too, Crissie? Oh, good – I must be doing o.k. then!
I love you and I think you are absolutely fantastic. I think you’ve learned the secret of every mother. You do the things that matter – and everything else works itself out.
xoxoxoxoxo
Thank you, Lisa! I love you, too! Wish you (and your mother!) were here!
Both my mom and I are laughing out loud. Love you!
Love you, too! And tell your mom “hello” from us!
Two out of my three had/have eczema to varying degrees of severity in early childhood. Sadie never had it yet she drank more formula than the other two. Roxy had a bout of shockingly extreme eczema, at a few months old (which went as quickly as it came thankfully) yet she was almost exclusively breast fed at the time. So there!
Also re: the issue of judgemental non-parents, screw them!! I was recently criticised badly (by a woman i got chatting to at yoga) for taking my eldest to school in the car, despite having religiously insisted upon walking every day (rain, hail, snow or shine) for the past 3.5 years. My reason for (temporarily, I hope) switching to the car is that the twins, now 23 months, cannot and will not stay in the stroller for more than about 45 seconds and the 40 min round trip walk to school is along a major 3 lane highway. So needless to say, this woman who had a go at me had never even experienced motherhood at all, never mind the craziness that is twin-toddlerhood!
You rock, Jen! Keep up the great work and super blogging!
Interesting about the Sadie/Roxy eczema situation… I’m not sure how much of its expression is related to pure and simple genetic predisposition, and how much is affected or triggered by their food intake…
Oh, man – don’t you just LOVE it when people who are not even parents (let alone of a newborn) tell you what you should or shouldn’t be doing???!!! AHHH! I’m only two months in and already getting that! It’s worse than when people who had never been pregnant tried to tell me what to do during pregnancy (with the exception of health care professionals that I am paying to see, of course, and if I were to be doing something which was objectively harmful such as lighting up a cigarette or mainlining heroin while pregnant, I would expect a reasonable amount of criticism for that…). What I also LOVE is when overweight people who drink and smoke and live on Coca-Cola and fast food/junk food think they have better judgement when it comes to feeding and caring for my baby. If only they had the self awareness to see how completely insane they are! We’ll see who trumps out in the health and happiness category in the long run!
And I have realised that mothers of twins should be bowed down to every day for their unending sacrifice and ability to keep themselves out of a mental institution or prison! I raise my glass to you, my friend!
Yep…sounds like the normal rite of passage.
Hahaha – I especially thought the #4 no jammies post, as if THAT puts you on the naughty mommy list. You’re hilarious and I love you!
Well, you get all these ‘sleepsuit’ things as gifts and imagine that you are all supposed to go to bed together, dressed up all perfect in the jammies, so when it doesn’t happen you kind of feel like you are falling short sometimes!
Love you, too!
Yep, welcome to my world
I <3 this 
Sharing on my page 
Yes, oh how things have changed for me since I last saw you! Lol!
How dare you feed him soy!! Just kidding. You sound like a normal mom to me too. Better than most I’m sure. Congrats again, he’s adorable.
Ha! Thanks, Bitt!
I laughed through the whole thing. Welcome to motherhood and all the little things most mothers fail to admit to each other, let alone to the public lol. Good for you and you’re doing great!