Being a Mom So Far: The Things I Didn't Know (or think about at all)

Whew, it's been a LONG time! Blogging is hard with a baby. It's not that hard of a thing to do in general, but to write something I willing to put out for the world to see takes more concentration than I have available when I am watching Cline. Right now I am working on time I am paying for (babysitter) so I need to be quick and get to the dissertatin'. But it's been a long time so this will probably be longer than I intend.

Being  a mom has been great. You know how I hate cliches but it's true when they say you don't know until you experience it yourself. My little human gives me so much happiness it's unreal, especially because she requires so much from me. Towards the end of my pregnancy I had a total break down in the Quail Springs Mall parking lot (why there? I have no idea). It hit me that she was coming soon and she was going to be so much responsibility and I was truly terrified that I was going to resent her and I was going to be a terrible mother. I just sobbed. Poor Matt. We had just had lunch and I was perfectly fine and then it all just hit me. I called him and he assured me I was going to be a good mom and everything was fine but I didn't believe him. Well, it turns out that I haven't resented her for one moment. Sure, I have been sleep deprived and not happy about it. Of course I have had anxiety of not knowing why she was upset. And yeah... I'm making up a lot of this motherhood business as I go. By the way--if you're a mother pre-google, God Bless You. But there's just something about her. I am never mad at her. She is just a little baby who needs her momma and I guess nature tries to make sure you don't blame them for that.

All in all, we're having a great time. Cline is 4 months old and she is wonderful. The biggest question we get is "Is she sleeping through the night?" The answer is yes. And she has been since about 7 weeks.  We had her in a cradle in our room and if dawned on me that we were waking each other up. Every time she moved a bit I would wake up and make sure she didn't need anything. Then I would toss and turn trying to go back to sleep and then I would wake her up. So we put her in her crib one night and turned the monitor on. Then a miracle happened. She slept something like 7 hours. And I became a new human. I know that there's a lot of opinions out there about keeping your kid in your room versus letting them sleep in their own. I know this because I read a lot and I talk to people about what they're doing. Putting Cline in her crib was the best for us. Sometimes as a parent you just have to do what you think is best and roll with it. Which brings me to the whole theme of this blog post. 

Kid stuff simply wasn't on my radar before I had Cline. I probably said all kind of insensitive stuff prior to March 12, 2015 because I really had no clue (outside of general common sense about babies). I think back to my best friend Danielle who had a baby nearly 6 years ago and how little help I probably was to her. Sure, I loved to cuddle her baby and watched her from time to time, but I had no idea what my friend was actually going through. I should send her some really belated flowers or something. Better yet I should make her a freezer meal and really make her scratch her head. If you don't get that joke, you probably don't have kids. AND THAT'S OKAY. 

I used to think it was annoying when people would post on their Facebook status, "My kid slept until 7 am!" "My baby slept 5 and a half hours! Woo!". Seriously, who cares how much you slept last night? I put that right up there with "I exercised today!". But now having experienced it, when your kid sleeps and you actually get to have a couple of REM cycles, you wanna shout it from the roof tops. 

Breastfeeding is hard. I LITERALLY HAD NO IDEA UNTIL MARCH 12, 2015. I thought it was like a spigot. You just turned it on and off when it was time to eat. No big deal. Why doesn't everyone do it? Aren't they just being selfish? I even took a breastfeeding class prior to having Cline and still thought all these things. Welp, I hate to admit it, but I was ridiculously wrong. I sent a message to one of my friends who has been a lot of help to me with all this baby stuff and asked her how long she breastfed and she said, "Four of the longest months of my life." Now that Cline is 4 months old, I completely get what she means. It's time consuming. It's hard to have faith that you're producing enough (and POTENTIALLY STARVING YOUR CHILD). You're needed all the time. I spend my whole day looking at a clock, ready for the next feeding. I don't want to detour anyone from breastfeeding. I am so glad that I have been able to do it and I genuinely believe in the benefits, but it is hard. And not everyone can. And even if they can, maybe they aren't ready to deal with the anxiety because having a kid is enough stress. And that's okay. 

BUT if you have an opinion about breastfeeding and you're not a mother--STOP HAVING THOSE OPINIONS. You look like an ass. This young girl fresh out of high school posted this whole thing about covering up when you're breastfeeding (man I hope she is reading this) and it was really annoying. I personally cover up but if you don't want to, that's fine and literally no one should judge you for it. There's nothing sexual about breastfeeding. If you saw an animal feeding their baby would you be like oh goodness, cover that up! Go behind a tree or something!. No. Because it's natural and babies gotta eat. I have never seen anyone feed their baby and everything was just completely out there for the whole world to see in some defiant "I can show off my boobs if I want" kind of way. It's not a thing. Quit discouraging breastfeeding. Mind your own business and move on. Sorry. Soap box.

And if we're talking about something even more controversial... let's talk about vaccines. I have had several people say in a sort of condescending tone "You're vaccinating your kid aren't you?" which implies that my values on health care are the same as yours. I actually have a lot of mistrust in the medical industry. Not really the people I know that work in it, but the overarching authority which governs how people are treated. Yes.... we do vaccinate but I took pause in deciding if we would or not. And that's my right as her parent. I saw someone post a pin (on Pinterest) of House saying something along the lines of, "If you don't vaccinate you should start investing in baby coffins" which I think is HIGHLY in inappropriate. I personally think it's more of an act of parenting to say, okay, let's look  at the facts here and make an informed decision instead of saying "Oh sure Doc, whatever you say." My point is, that if I weren't vaccinating, I would know exactly why, could point to research and would have my little ducks in a row ready to eat the lunch of anyone that challenged me on it. 

::Break to feed Cline::

And I am back. What was I talking about? Oh yeah, vaccines. What I am getting at is that if someone doesn't vaccinate, don't default that they're stupid or don't care about their child's well-being. They may have some misinformation or they may genuinely believe that the risks outweigh the rewards. It's okay to disagree, but this movement to say whatever you want through social media isn't appropriate and really not a good way to win people to your side. Especially if you, yourself have done zero research on the topic. 

One time, a girl posted on Facebook with this long to do about delaying solid foods. I remember thinking, "My goodness, this poor girl is really carrying around this really unimportant topic for her to be posting such a dramatic post." Well, this comes back to things I didn't think about at all. I didn't know anything about the timeline for eating solids. And there's a lot of literature out there that says go for it at 4 months, and plenty that says to wait. My doctor told me that if she had ability and interest to go for it. My child has both with gusto. We started cereal about a week ago and just started sweet potatoes (that I made myself--and LOVE doing). It's been fun, she is sleeping even better (not sure if that's related), and I am glad that she is getting a few more calories because she's a pretty small kiddo. But even now I am thinking, is someone judging me for this? Do they think I am setting my child up for childhood obesity? Am I bad mom? All I can really say is, if you want to delay solids for your kid, I support your decision and I hope you can support mine. And if not, just take the old fashioned route and talk about me behind my back (haha--- I really hope you have more interesting things to talk about than whether or not I give my kid solids). 

All too often you see the moms posting about dropping their kid off at day care and crying as they drove away. I really didn't get this one. Isn't it great to be back to your old life? A little bit of "you" time even if it's working? I mean, you got a degree so you could work and be fulfilled in that work, not be a mom, right?  Just another thing I didn't understand. The simple truth is that no one can take care of your kid like you can. And 6 weeks is simply not enough time with your kid. It took me 12 weeks to start feeling like I was really starting to get the hang of this (although I still have SO many questions). I hired a baby sitter for the summer. She comes a couple of times a week so I can work on my dissertation and my job (I either teach, serve as TA, or grade for online classes). She's a little on the young side and I worry I'll be judged for that. Ideally, I would want someone with a degree in childhood something or other, who used to work as an EMT before she was a midwife, and happens to know six languages, all of which she intends to teach my child. Who can afford that?? I LOVE my babysitter. She is great. One day I caught myself mimicking the way she puts Cline to sleep for a nap. I trust her with my kid. Isn't that all that matters? But if you're having to take your kid to day care and it makes you sad when you leave, it's okay. And you can post about it on Facebook. And I'll quit being immature about things I haven't experienced yet. 

And what about social media?? People get a bad reputation if they post about their kids too much. I get that, but that isn't what holds me back from posting often. I am really nervous about the impact of social media on our kid's lives. First, and foremost, how do I know that all 835 "friends" I have are all completely kind and well meaning? I mean, there seems like there could be some opportunity for a few creeps sprinkled in there. I don't want to expose my kid to that. But I post sometimes because I want my family and friends that don't see her often to get to see pictures now and then. I know my mom and Lisa are so proud of her they can't stand it and they love to show off their grand daughter and I totally get that. I also worry about sharing too much of her life. None of us had our life just out there for the world and there's something to be said for family events to stay within the family. I also, and this is VERY important to me, do not want Cline to get any of her feelings of self-worth from social media. It would really make me feel terrible if she asked me how many "likes" she got on a picture of her I posted. I really don't have the answers for all of this, but I am trying to do my best to figure out how to live in today while protecting my child and her interests. What if one day she says to me, "Mom, I really wish you wouldn't have put that stuff about me on the internet"? 

Every day I am learning so much about all the things I didn't know, took for granted, or was not particularly sensitive about. I realize I just put out a bunch of opinions about the opinions of others and motherhood. I hope it came across that I see that there's multiple sides to every issue when it comes to parenting (except criticizing breastfeeding--stop that). Maybe we need to chill with being so aggressive with our opinions and do a better job of encouraging each other. My good friend Lucy said to me once, being a mom is the hardest and best thing she has ever done. I think about that all the time. I couldn't relate at the time, but she's completely right. 

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