Phew!

Okay! So I made it through the few What! The! Hell! Is! Going! On?!!! first weeks of New Motherhood. I am feeling like my head is more or less out of the blur and I now feel expertly qualified to declare the following:

Those first 2-3 (4… 5…) weeks after the little bean enters the scene… holy crap.

There is a lot going on every single plane of your existence. Physical. Emotional. Spiritual. It’s kind of like being Alice shot down the rabbit hole, except you’re also sore, sweaty and sitting beside a tiny human who screams for at least a portion of each day. It can be kind of disorienting, lemme tell ya.

I’m not writing this to be scary. I’m writing this because I want to say to the women who are there right now and are wondering if they are the only ones walking around in a confused daze: Don’t worry, Sister, you’re not alone. Sometimes it sucks and that’s okay, feeling that way doesn’t make you a bad mom. 99% of moms out there find/found the first 3 months of New Motherhood a swirling, hazy blur. When people say things like “Enjoy every second of this special time,” it can make you think, “Oh my GOD. Do other people enjoy every second of this? I AM A MONSTER.” But don’t worry, they say that because the brain is exceptionally kind and conveniently helps you forget things like very sore breasts, hormone rollercoasters and lonely nights that refuse to end.

I feel the need to qualify all this: I adore my little girl. When I fall asleep I picture her sweet cherub face and in the morning hours I look at her squishy cheeks and wee button of a nose and look forward to her waking up… but I am almost 8 weeks in. I have left the house several times, remember to eat most of the time and have held all kinds of adult conversations. Naomi recognizes me and smiles, I have had time to learn her rhythm (still learning!) and nursing is getting better and better every day. Loving your little one and feeling shell-shocked are not mutually exclusive states of being. Turns out they can coexist quite happily and their natural habitat is New Mommyhood.

I’m sure not everyone finds the first weeks of their babe’s life like waking up on a different planet, but everyone I’ve spoken with does. If you know someone who is a mom to a 2 week old you could share a message something like this:

Dear Supermom,

You may not need this reassurance but just in case you do:

The chaos that is your life right now won’t last forever, I promise! A couple weeks from now you will look back on everything that is going on right now and think, Holy SHIT I learned a lot of stuff all at once. Look at me keeping it together!

Don’t forget you are a rockstar and you are doing a GREAT JOB. Your life has completely changed and you are doing a million things for the first time ever: You are recovering from labour and birth (a tremendous physical, emotional and spiritual feat), you are learning the sometimes gymnastic and telepathic elements of breastfeeding AND you are spending more time than you ever have at home alone (with your beautiful babe, sure… but she isn’t much of a conversationalist right yet). That is a lot of change for any person to process all at once, let alone a person whose hormonal composition has done a complete 180. 

Everyone feels like this. Things DO smooth out. You WILL leave the house again (very soon). I promise.

You are the best mom your little peanut could ever have.

Keep on truckin’.

Or direct them to me, I would be happy to lend a sympathetic ear and offer some enthusiastic cheerleading.

A friend of mine posted the poem below on my Facebook page at the PERFECT time. I thought about it as I was dragging my disoriented self out of bed for a 4am feed and it helped immensely.

Being a mom is awesome. It can also be tough. Accept help from the people who love you. All the love and support I have received has been HUGE (THANK YOU!).

You can DO it, ladies!

On Children ~ Kahlil Gibran

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,

which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,

and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;

For even as He loves the arrow that flies,

so He loves also the bow that is stable.

*

Age: 10 days old

Tummy time with dad.

The first time we gave tummy time a go we lasted about 4 seconds before someone (Naomi) was irate. Since then things have improved. She’s going to be doing somersaults soon.

Age: 23 days

I have celebrated Mother’s Day as a dog mom in the past, but this was my first human babe Mother’s Day.

Naomi sat at our feet in her car seat at the restaurant while John and I drank our orange juice and ate our brunch- she even stayed asleep for most of the meal so we were both able to eat at the very same time rather than taking turns bouncing, cooing and eating. Booyah.

I wore the fanciest top I’ve worn in almost 2 months. I had a very special mom moment in that fancy top: Naomi woke up and was starting to squirm so I picked her up, held her close, enjoyed her silky hair against my cheek… and then she spit up all over my shoulder. She did it again about an hour later on the other shoulder (of course).  You’d think I would have learned the first time around.

I LOVE the Motherhood Posse- women everywhere we went smiled at me and wished me a Happy First Mother’s Day. Mommy War drama aside (that’s a link to a response to the Time’s “Are You Mom Enough” article), moms are SUCH a wonderful, supportive bunch. So many warm wishes, so many warm smiles… it’s beautiful, I love it.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Age: One day shy of 6 weeks

More Mother’s Day

Mother’s Day 2011

Mother’s Day 2010

Naomi is a pretty big fan of her room. Sometimes if she is freaking out I’ll set her on her change table and she’ll calm right down.

There is a shelf across from her change table, which I have decorated with books, family photos and stuffed animals. I like to tell myself that my particular brand of Baby Decor should be patented as the next Big Thing in baby-whisperer design.

In reality I think she is looking at the blank wall beside the shelf.

Either way, she’s content and cute so it’s all good.

 Age: 1 month, 2 days

Naomi’s first car ride was when she was 17 days old. We had a home birth (I’ll write up my birth story and share that with you soon) so the first time we had to bundle her up in her car seat was for a midwife appointment (up until then our midwives came to our home for our appointments).

She liked it. She had been crying and she stopped once we got going.

Yeah, car rides!

Will you please look at how big her hat is on her head? Oh my god, too funny. She rocks it.

Age: 17 days

5 days old.

They say you’re supposed to “sleep while they’re sleeping.”

5 days old. Chillin'.

That sounds reasonable enough. Except when you’re living it and that whole idea really isn’t all that reasonable at all.

6 days old. I am strategically hiding my morning mug.

Cuz when are you supposed to eat?

7 days old.

And change your clothes? And change your sheets, which have spit up all over them?

9 days old. Daddy's hand.

And go to the bathroom, and stuff?

11 days old.

And what about when one second it’s 4 o’clock in the morning and you blink and suddenly it’s 11 o’clock at night?

12 days old.

Sometimes it’s just not possible to get a nap in.

Especially when you need time to snap as many photos as possible…

John is beyond proud of his little girl. When Naomi was about 2 days old he came into the kitchen where Naomi, Mom and I were chatting:

I’m going to need our baby for a little bit.

From there he proceeded to wrap her up in several fuzzy blankets, march out the front door like a Man on a Mission and knock on each of our neighbours doors so he could show off our latest addition.

I am told the conversations went something like this:

Look! This is my baby.

I am pretty sure he had the same conversation with random strangers he met on the street.

Love it.

Age: 11 days

Naomi’s first dog walk in her second week of life.

She was walking the dogs in the womb, so we figured she may as well get started outside the womb right away.

Age: 11 days

I have an absolute crush on the North. It must be because my dad worked up around the Arctic Circle before I was born… his stories left an impression. Now I want to go up to the Territories to check it out myself.

Actually, when my dad came to see us when Naomi was born he looked at the book and said the photographs took him back to when he went up North for the first time over 30 years ago. He said they captured the light perfectly… the photography is that good. Usually when you’ve been somewhere and look at photographs they don’t quite capture it… but these do.

To the Arctic arrived when I was still pregnant so I was completely preoccupied with the baby/cub/pup stories and photographs. There is this one photograph which shows a baby caribou being chased by a mean ol’ horrid black bear. I won’t wreck it for you… actually, yes I will… the baby caribou DOES NOT DIE PEOPLE. I repeat: THE WEE INNOCENT CARIBOU IS OKAY. It’s all gonna be okay.

I just spared you a whole lot of worry, didn’t I? You’re welcome.

The movie is now in IMAX and if I can get the guts to go check it out with a newborn baby I am DEFINITELY going to check it out.

Thank you to Braided River for sending this book along!

Now, go forth and get yourself a copy of To the Arctic!  

Time to get it together, Canucks.

You’re boring my kid.

Age: 9 days