Not Cut Out For This

Every night Little One decides he's going to forget how to breathe and eat at the same time. He fidgets and fusses and cries and swallows air and inhales milk, and I don't know what to do about it. It's no comfort at all to know that he won't have this problem when he starts solids; that's about 9 months from now. I can't deal with this for 9 more months. I'm way sleep deprived as it is and I'm not patient with him when I'm like this. Mc is good at taking over when I get too frustrated with Little One, but he needs his sleep, too. Any time I get to myself I have to spend sleeping-- but even then I don't get enough of it-- and as a result there is a long list of things I want to do but can't find time to get to them. I also miss spending one-on-one time with Mc; that never happens anymore and every time he sees me I'm taking care of a kid and half the time I'm so frustrated that I'm not fun to be around.

I'm not cut out to be a mother. Sure, I can pop them out easily enough but I don't feel I'm mother material. And I feel guilty for not "cherishing" this time in their lives when they are so tiny. I feel an unrealistic expectation to find joy in all of this when in fact I am quite unhappy.

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I was going to look up a quote from a church talk on www.lds.org that describes something about how motherhood is a wonderful thing and a joyous responsibility and then bash it by saying how people seem to idolize motherhood and ignore the reality that it sucks sometimes, but then in browsing I found this talk by Elder Ballard from the April 2008 General Conference: www.lds.org/general-conference/2008/04/daughters-of-god?lang=eng

It's actually what I needed to hear right now. Elder Ballard acknowledges that motherhood is wonderful but also challenging and frustrating sometimes. His words are encouraging. This in particular stood out to me: "[I need to] recognize that the joy of motherhood comes in moments. There will be hard times and frustrating times. But amid the challenges, there are shining moments of joy and satisfaction." The rest of the article is good as well, but this has comforted me tonight.

For a while back in college I decided I didn't want to be a part of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I had issues with some aspects of it and I wanted to find out for myself what I actually believed vs. what I was taught all my life to believe. After searching my options and figuring out for myself what I believed and what I wanted to incorporate into my life, I decided that this church is the right one for me, and I'm glad I made that decision. This talk by Elder Ballard has given me comfort and I am grateful for the acknowledgement that he has for mothers and motherhood, both the very real challenges we face and for the advice he gives to us and to fathers as well. I feel that his talk was inspired and that he knew women needed to hear these words, and that the men could benefit from hearing them as well.

Now to see if I can get any sleep tonight...

"What an incredible smell you've discovered."

Every day our apartment smells like vomit. Little One throws up at least once a day, with multiple spit-ups throughout the day as well. Either we hold him too crunched, or we bounce him too much, or we don't get enough burps out of him after a meal before laying him down to sleep, or we lay him down flat on his back, or we lay him on his side, or we let him fall asleep for too long in the baby swing... any given day it's a different reason and I'm getting really tired of seeing my precious milk outside of his stomach and all over the place.

I feel like I'm supposed to know beforehand what will make him throw up and then prevent it. Every time it happens I feel stupid, like I should have known that would happen. I'm glad and grateful that people have given us so many little boy clothes because I had no idea we would go through so many outfits in one day, and I don't know at what age this throwing up will cease. Baby Girl never had this problem; she's thrown up 7, maybe 8 times in her whole life so far. I'm still going to clean him up and wash clothes and other things that he throws up on, but when will this end?!

Tennis!

Although I am pleased with my body's ability to produce milk for Little One, every day I look in the mirror and I'll be honest: I'm disgusted with what I see. I seriously have about 80 lbs. to lose before I'm at a healthy weight for my body frame. I hate working out-- like, I have to be in a "I detest my body right now!" kind of mood to actually hit the treadmill-- so I want to find a way to get a workout while having fun at the same time so it's a workout in disguise.

Tennis is like golf: it's a very boring sport to watch; the only way you can enjoy it is to play it. Since there are tennis courts at the park where we take Baby Girl to play I bought Mc and myself each a tennis racket and yesterday we hit some balls back and forth.

Mc has potential, but there's no hope for me at all; I'm really bad. I hadn't played tennis since my P.E. class during my Senior year of high school and I was bad then as well. But I had fun yesterday and I did get a workout and those were my goals.

Baby Girl got a workout we well. She ran all over the courts chased tennis balls and we managed to miss her every time we hit the balls. After a while she wanted to be held by us and so we took turns holding her in one arm and swinging at the tennis balls with the other arm. That added to our workout and Baby Girl loved it; she laughed the whole time. It also helped us work on accuracy so the person holding Baby Girl wouldn't have to go far to get the ball. Little One slept the whole time in the stroller which enabled us to play at all.

I had a pretty good time and I think Mc did as well. His leg is a bit sore today and I have overall muscle stiffness but we'll keep it up and not only get good workouts but hopefully we'll improve our tennis skills as well. :D

Clothes are Inconvenient

When you're a nursing mother, it's just a bother to put on clothes... at least the tops. I told Mc that something I'm looking forward to about moving out of this place is that in our own house I can walk around in my underwear if I want to. He looked at me kinda funny but he knows I don't always like to walk around fully clothed, so he understands. Being fully clothed just feels so formal sometimes, especially when I've got a kid attached to me who needs to breastfeed every 2-3 hours. Our current apartment is on the ground floor and the windows face a big parking lot; so if it's a nice day like it was today and the blinds and windows are open, people walking by can look in and possibly see me in my all-together. I put on a shirt just so people walking by can't see me "indecently" dressed, but I'm really looking forward to the time when I won't have to worry about that.

Today, Little One is 1 month old. He's grown so much; he outgrew the NB-sized clothing weeks ago and he's fitting into his 0-3 month clothing nicely. He also didn't lose any of his hair; he still has a full head of dark brown hair (that's from my side of the family, for sure). He's such a sweet baby and we love him so much. He's about 90% over his cold so he's sleeping better and eating better as well which makes me happy. Baby Girl is also pretty much over her cold (she shared it with Little One last week) so she's feeling better as well.

Here's a picture of Little One I took today:


He smiles a lot but I haven't been able to get a picture of it. When I do I'll post it.