Motherhood: Easier Than I Thought

Or rather...to speak more humbly, "Motherhood: Better Than What They Tell You."

{Who's "They"? I'll get to that later.}

This is not meant to be a braggy post. Rather, a post of encouragement to mothers and expecting mothers out there. And a note to self. {also note: i just have one baby at the moment. i will probably laugh at myself and this post when i have another one. "how naive you were, young me. how silly and ignorant of REAL parenting you are!" but for now, the opinions stand.}

I just put Beatrice down for the night. We just got back from a 6 day vacation 2 nights ago, and while her sleeping was perfect-o on our trip (and on the plane! she slept the whole flight out there! 5 hours!), her schedule has been pretty rocked since our return. She (we) woke up at 3:50 am 2 days in a row, and had short, broken naps both days, so after our walk this afternoon, some quick playtime and an early bottle, I put her down an hour early. (Bradley is with the 11 year old scouts this evening, so I'm on my own). She was a bit restless but I threw on a little white noise (the rainstorm one. love it) and she was out in like 20 seconds. I proceeded to take a long, hot, beautiful shower. Which got me thinking: before I had my baby, I wondered when I would ever shower. I know it's silly, but my only experience with kids was babysitting and nannying. And when I was with other people's kids, it never occurred to me that I could shower at night after they went to sleep!!! During my shower I also thought how, before I had my baby, I was careful to not say things like "Well, when I have kids, I/they will never/always {insert obnoxious impossibility here}", mostly because I like to avoid looking like a moron at all costs. But I do vaguely remember saying something about wanting to not use white noise....which, to be fair, I hardly ever use. But it's a great last resort....! ANYWAY! I digress. Back to the shower thing. It was a legitimate concern of mine that I would never shower again unless Bradley was home. I had so many concerns before Bea was born, so many worries {great and small} that  ultimately led me to believe I would be terrible at motherhood, or that at the very best it would just be a giant struggle.

I recently read a blog post somewhere called something along the lines of "Just You Wait..." that basically said that way too many people terrify pregnant moms with the threatening sentiments of "Just you wait! You'll never sleep again! You'll never go out again! You'll never be skinny again! You'll never poop without an audience again! You'll never DO ANYTHING AGAIN!!!!!!" And you know what? Those people are just a bunch of liars.
I am the type of person who builds things up in my head to be a way bigger deal than they really are. Comments from the liars most certainly did not help me. Here are several concerns I had before Bea was born that just turned out to be either me giving in to other people's negativity, or me just psyching myself out. {We already addressed my shower-phobia. Moving on:}

1. That Bradley and I would never have alone time again, and that everything we did or talked about for the rest of our lives would only be our children.
This is just completely ridiculous. I would cry my pregnant self to sleep some nights, worrying about this. Turns out that Bradley and I are the same people we were before Beatrice was born! Shocker! We still talk about our hopes and dreams before we go to bed at night (even though we share a room with the nugget. soon to change! wahoo!). We still laugh about stupid SNL sketches that apparently no one else thinks are funny. We still argue about how to load the dishwasher (he is just so much more efficient, dang it!). But now, we just have one more thing in common: our undeniable and unsurpassable love and obsession with our behbeh girl. We talk about her too. We laugh about when she farts at inappropriate times, learns to do new things, throws up in our mouths, and all of those pleasantries. We also get out quite a bit, which, to be fair, is easy for us because we live close to my parents, but that's also about to change, so we'll cross that bridge when we get there. I am not paranoid about leaving her and she has an early bedtime so if I can find a babysitting we like, this shouldn't be too much of an issue.

2. That I would never sleep again.
My sleep is very dear to me. I hardly slept at all while I was pregnant. It got to a point where I would sometimes get only 20 minutes per night. On top of all of this, I kept getting comments like, "Well sleep up now, because you'll never sleep again once that baby comes!" Ahem. No. Bea is a great sleeper, yes, but even so, I slept WAY better after she was born than I ever did pregnant. Even if it was interrupted once or twice, at least there was sleep to interrupt! Plus I have a husband (and you probably do too!) that loves me and realizes how very dear my sleep is. He always takes the first feeding in the morning so I can sleep in (and by that I mean past 5:30). I don't know why I imagined I would be doing all the nightly baby things myself, but I have a ton of help from my husband, and I sleep so much better now than I ever did pregnant. So don't let that worry you either. You will sleep again!

3. That I would be fat forever.
You know, they say "9 months on, 9 months off" about baby weight. I was frustrated at first because nursing wasn't helping me lose weight like everyone said it would. I just stayed the same weight the whole time I nursed. Since I had to stop nursing at 2 months because of medical issues, I got on the ball and started working out and counting calories. Bea is 4 months old and I only have like 7 pounds left to lose. And I've only been working at it for 2 months! And 2 of those weeks I was on vacation! So really, the weight does come off. And if you work at it, it comes off rather quickly. I was back in my pre-pregnancy jeans about a month ago. Granted, I need to buy some tops that are a little more, how you say, flattering, for my new motherly shape, but I'd say it's a fair trade.

4. That I'd never leave my house again.
Ok I'll admit this was still a concern of mine even after Bea was born. But that's because it was winter and I had never done the newborn thing before! Duh! Of course I never left the house!  (No one leaves the house in a New England winter anyway...). So that was rough. But, as soon as it got a bit warmer, I started taking that baby with me everywhere! With the first, it can be difficult, trying to figure out grocery carts and carseats, and "can I really take my stroller in there" moments, but after a few weeks, I became a natural. You'll figure it out. No one will be mad that your baby is with you. (unless you are at a movie and your baby is crying. then you will be run out of town. i have not taken bea to the movies.) People love babies. Well, at least people with souls. You will be fine.

5. That I would simply just not know what to do with her!
This was also a dumb worry. Just do stuff! I wrote a post recently about how Bea and I spend our days together, which you can read here. And the great thing about this is, you will never get bored, because these baby things grow so fast, that their interests and abilities are always changing, so you will literally never run out of things to do!

That's all I can think of for now. I'm not trying to say motherhood is a cakewalk. It's not. It has its fair share of toughness. There are some mornings where I am so tired that I don't even think I'll be able to smile at Bea, let alone keep her alive for the day, but then she just gives me that gummy, Dopey smile and those googly eyes she always gives me when she wakes up in the morning, and all of a sudden, I miraculously have all the energy I need to just snuggle all the snuggle out of that baby, and the day turns out just fine.

i mean, really?!

look at those eyes. come on.

PS: for the record, pooping with an audience ain't so bad if you just plop your audience in a bumbo seat and watch it giggle itself silly. get used to it. you can't have it all!