In the begining of my venture into motherhood I immediately felt like a bit of a failure. I spent the first six weeks awake - literally. In six weeks I may have gotten about 40 hours of sleep total, and the majority of that sleep happened on nights where my wonderful mother spent the night to help out. I constantly felt like I was not totally there for the baby because it was all I could do to force my body to go through the motions...
pick up baby, change diaper, make bottle, feed baby, burp baby, rock baby back to sleep, put baby down.... lay down, lay awake and brace yourself for the next cry, finally doze off... wake up twenty minutes later to the inevible cry... start from the top...
There was no such thing as time as I knew it anymore. I was now on baby time and 100% committed to his every need every waking moment. Somewhere in my dreary haze I tried to make an actual connection with my child. Something more than meeting his basic needs... I wanted to play with him, tickle him... try and get a smile, sing, dance... every second of which was half asleep. And because I was on baby time I didn't realize it was 6pm until my husband walked through the door to a house that looked like a baby tornado had zipped through the place. Bottles on the floor, pacies strewn about the house, diapers on the kitchen counter, dishes from the night before in the sink, piles of dirty laundry waiting to be washed, piles of cleaned clothes waiting to be put away, a bedroom littered with baby clothes & other baby related items... a wife who hasn't so much as brushed her teeth or changed out of the nightgown I had been wearing since yesterday... forget a shower. And a baby who had only had his basic needs met for the majority of the day because his mommy was stretched so thin anything beyond that might just break her.
This mommy thing was not how I had envisioned it. I pictured mornings on our deck, sipping coffee while my baby napped silently beside me. I would then spend mornings playing and laughing with my baby, afternoons shopping for groceries, late afternoons keeping the house perfectly neat and evenings eating homemade dinners with my husband. I'd work out everyday, I'd have more time (since I wasn't working) to spend with friends, I'd walk the dogs with the baby in tow... right. ha.
Words of encouragement flowed from vetran mommys. It would get better, he'd start sleeping longer at night, he'd get on his own schedule, I'd be able to have some sort of a day or moment to have one thought that didn't revolve around the baby... and while I knew it had to be true, that time seemed so far from the moment I was in I couldn't picture it. I couldn't picture it at all.
And then days ticked by and I started getting used to the lack of sleep. I resolved to take a shower in the morning, even if the baby cried through it the whole time. He'd be ok for 5 minutes... I started letting family watch him so I could go and work out... I learned where to put him so that I could cook, or clean. We learned together how to make it through the day with both of our needs met. I felt better and found times to play with him on the floor without feeling like I should be doing something else. What else should I be doing other than spending quality time with this beautiful baby boy?
I started cleaning power hour at 4pm, what point was there to clean in the morning? The baby tornado would just come right behind me and mess it all up again. But from 4-5 I put the baby in his bouncy seat, in front of elmo, with a clean diaper and a full belly - and cleaned all I could clean in that hour. It just made me feel better to have accomplished some daily chores and not feel as much of a horrible housewife.
After cleaning hour was over, I moved the baby in his seat to the kitchen counter. He'd watch me cook, I'd play music and sing to him while I prepared that nights dinner. I learned that I loved to cook - and I am really good at it. And that there might not be anything more fun than doing something you love while your precious little baby watches and smiles along with you. I can say that its now my favorite time of the day. One of those daily routine memories that I know for certain I will always remember and look back upon fondly. Just me and the baby, and the dogs at my feet. It was a struggle to get here, but I wouldn't have it any other way.
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