My Precious Gift

Christmas came early for me this year.  On August 22, I became the proud owner of a brand new, baby girl.  She was and is everything I ever dreamed of in a child.  She is the best of my husband and I, a perfect example of true love and forgiveness, a pure spirit.  She  is also everything I didn't know about having a baby.  She doesn't sleep, which means I don't sleep, she sometimes cries for no reason, she ruins at least one outfit a day with her explosive poops, and being a mom is flat out exhausting.

But I love every second of this.  

I love it more than I can ever explain.  Feeling her grow within me, aiding her entrance into this world, feeding her with my body, sacrificing all of my wants and needs for hers: these are the things that now define me.

I've said it once and I'll probably say it a million more times:

Being a mother is more rewarding and more difficult that I ever could have imagined.

And I love it.

Merry Christmas.

Guide to the After Hours

It's 6:30ish and the responsible mother in you says, "Right then, to the bathtub!"  You fill up a whale tub with warm water and place a turtle-shaped washcloth over a watermelon-shaped tummy.  You are trying to sustain optimum baby temperature, you see, and thereby avoid baby disapproval.

You use soap one day and none the next, to prevent dryness and other unfortunate skin maladies, as prescribed by the good Dr. Google.  Then, you wrap your little piranha in a towel and whisk her to the changing table, polish her with baby lotion, wrap up the little bum, and dress her in footie pajamas.  

This informs the baby that it's bedtime, does it not?  DOES IT NOT?  (Or so someone said.)

Then it's rock, rock, rock in the rocking chair and read, read, read the book.  Why, this week a talking donkey told some Balaam dude to bless God's people, not curse them.  I mean, really, does this not invoke the bedtime environment and sleep dust and sheep jumping over fences?  Tomorrow it's blaring trumpets and crashing walls and Jericho, so it seems you're on the right track.

Milk comes next and you've got your fingers crossed for that miraculous milk coma.  You let the feasting continue for a good thirty minutes before breaking the latch and checking out the sleep situation with the light from your iPhone.  Eyes are closed and things are looking golden, until the eyes are suddenly wide open and things are looking rather dark and dreary.

Off to the couch you go, to watch Mad Men while your baby coos at a bumble bee doll for 5 hours, blissfully unaware that it is 2:00 am.  You're not off-duty, though, because you have to settle a few cries every now and again with the following methods:

diaper change 

the boob

vigorous bouncing on the knee

rocking

walking

finger pacifier

swing

bouncy chair

500 other things that do nothing to induce sleep

And in the rare event that baby falls asleep and you place her ever-so-gently into her crib...

she wakes up as soon as you get under the covers and close your bloodshot eyes.  

After an hour or so of failed back-to-sleep attempts, you head back to the living room and repeat.  Or, if you're feeling especially sleep deprived, you may try to cosleep, which inevitably begins with, "I love cuddling with my sweet baby!" but inevitably ends with you sleeping on the last inch of the bed while the baby licks your armpit.

Suddenly it's 11:30 am, you're exhausted, covered in milk, half naked, you don't know what day it is, but you somehow know exactly how many minutes you slept and ponder how awesome 4 hours of sleep feels when it's not spread out over 12 hours.  

My Insomniac

I said I wouldn't complain about the sleepless nights...

but I lied.

I am a big fat liar.  

Ask my Facebook updates every morning at 3:00 am how I feel about the world.  

Or, better yet, don't, unless you want to see how selfish and ungrateful I can be.

The thing is, it's really hard to be a nice person when you're exhausted.

And I really want to be a nice person, since I spend every moment with a precious, innocent being that is perfect in every way.  I don't want my frustration to rub off on her or for her to somehow feel like I don't like her.  I want her to always know how much I love her, how I would wake up 47 times a night for the rest of my life if that's what it took to keep her.

(No promises that I wouldn't complain about sleep deprivation, though.)

It's tough to be tired, to spend more time each day trying to put a baby to sleep than all of your other activities combined.  But this isn't some job where I sit at a desk and pull staples for hours on end.  (True story.)  This is motherhood, a job that is eternal, yet fleeting.  I am the keeper of Clara's memories.  I am the one that changes all the diapers, quiets all the cries, and gives away my everything.

I love her so much that sometimes I pick her up just to squeeze her, to try to remember how she smells.  I often find myself wishing that I could bottle up my memories and later relive them, like Dumbledore.  I tell her over and over how much I love her, even though I know that she doesn't understand those words yet, somehow hoping that she can absorb my meaning and carry it with her as she grows.

On those exhausting nights (like tonight) when she stops eating and I hope that she is asleep, she looks back at me with bright eyes and gives me a smile that's bigger than the world.  She has the greatest capacity for love and forgiveness... I want to be like her.

I read a quote today that said something like, "Enjoy getting to know your children while they're young, because you will spend the rest of eternity with them as adults."  This thought makes me want to try so much harder, to cherish every mundane moment.  And the only thing that makes this thought bearable is the hope that I will have a perfect memory in the eternities, so perfect that I will be able to recall every detail of my sweet Clara.

I will try to remember all of this tonight at 3:00 am.

Swing Torture

This post is mostly gibberish and crazy-talk.

After one too many phone calls to my mother, complaining about El Wrath De Clara, which is experienced if you stop holding her when she wants to be held (read: all day), my mom insisted that I get the baby swing out of storage.

Just like the pacifier, I was hesitant to introduce another mechanical mommy to my little girl.  For some ridiculous reason, these modern day conveniences make me feel bad about myself.  (I know, I am crazy.)  

For instance, in true mom form, I have simultaneously wished that Clara would take a pacifier (to give me a break) and silently rejoiced when she rejects it for the cold piece of plastic that it is (knowing that she likes my "binky" better).  Same with the bouncy chair.

So what about the swing?

I have been avoiding it, as it would either become another item of clutter or she would really (really) like it (too much).

It turns out that the swing is a keeper.  She likes it so much, in fact, that she allowed me to shower and bake cookies today.  I'll admit: it was awesome.  But I still found myself staring at her as she swung back and forth, feeling a little bit lonely/useless/jealous/lazy/expendable/ungrateful.

I guess it's similar to the way I felt shortly after she was born: sad that I could no longer meet all of her needs and that I had to share her.  What makes this worse, I guess, is that I am willingly giving up these moments to do something of lesser consequence, like brush my teeth.

Being a mom is hard, I guess.

And I'm sorry if this post made no sense.  I just love her so much that it makes me irrational.

The Elusive Milky Smile

On Thursday night, after 8 hours of fussing, I finally figured out that I had an overtired baby.

Call me a novice mom (true), but I had never before heard of such a dastardly event.

It's like when you don't eat for so long that you totally lose your appetite.  Babies do the same thing with sleep, except it culminates in a major meltdown, with the parent somehow responsible for all of the misery.

Now I'm on the lookout for sleepy clues, ready to put a baby to sleep at a moment's notice, boob at the ready.  Unfortunately, I'm not too fancy at this yet, so the only sign I recognize is a yawn... which is already pretty far into the game.

Yikes.

But, I'm learning and loving it, unless the meltdown turns into a duet, in which case...

At least we're in it together.