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http://youtu.be/Ay9BWM8lwOA
Lately, we’ve been starting solid foods on Bo. It’s been a touch and go, as expected. Some solids, he’s gung-ho for like rice cereal, sweet potatoes, and pears. Some solid foods are so far a definite ‘hell, no’ like apples, oatmeal, any finger foods.
Today, I went grocery shopping and I picked up about 15 jars of solid foods for Bo to eat and some to try. I even picked up a few pureed meats for him. As I put away the groceries, I silently chuckled. I swore up and down pre-pregnancy, I was going to give Bo nothing but homemade baby food and I would be damned if I bought some from the store.
Heh.
As the thought crossed my mind, I thought about a lot of things I said or thought I was going to do as I entered into (rainbow) motherhood and one thought definitely stood out – the type of mother I ended up becoming.
You see, I’m very easygoing and I give Bo a lot of freedom. He crawls throughout the house and I even let him crawl outside. We go out almost every single day and I always have the top down on his stroller so he can see everyone and everything. If I go somewhere, 99% of the time, Bo is with me. I’ve been told more than a few times that Bo is a very friendly baby.
My house is currently a mess. I have a huge stack of magazines I’ve been dying to go through since forever and I honestly don’t remember the last time I cleaned the bathrooms. My house isn’t filthy but I’m hesitant to call it clean. Lived-in, my girl Kimberly referred to it as. I can take that. Lived-in. Loved-in.
I swore up and down I was going to stop breastfeeding at six months and here I am, almost nine months later and still proudly at it. I swore Bo was going to be in his crib, in his own room, the moment he turned six months; well, he’s taking over my space in bed every night.
Whatever plans I had, Bo changed all of that. And I’m okay with it.
I thought about how I would’ve been if Ethan was around. Since he was my first child, had he lived, would I have been easygoing? Would have I been miserable at work, thinking about him being cared for by someone else? Would I have had a strict schedule and regimen, being very much a Type-A mom? I don’t know.
What kills me is that I will never know. I can only guess.
It’s not something I think about often, to be honest and if I really want to be honest, this is the first time I thought about it in this context. Today was a perfect example of how I can think and plan of how I envisioned things are going to go, when in turn, they can be very different.
And maybe, just maybe, Ethan is the reason why I’m so easygoing. My friends can attest that I used to be very much a control freak before I became a mother and I had to have things go a certain way, in a certain time, and in a certain space. Now I’m very much, ‘whatever is clever.’ Life is too short to be a control freak. Life is too short to always be strict. I can’t help but to think about all of the times I’ve held myself back and played it safe when really, I should’ve just gone balls to the wall with it and see what happens.
So I’m currently bed-sharing with my son? He sleeps throughout the night. So I give my son solids from the jar? He’s being fed. So I let my son crawl around in unvacuumed floors and outside where it’s really dirty and grimy? I’m letting him explore.
I want my children’s memories to be a home full of love, laughter, and loudness. I don’t want them growing thinking they lived in a museum where they can’t even sit on furniture. I want to know that it’s okay, very much okay, to be different and proud to be different.
It’s taken me a while, I have to say, just about my entire adult life to not only come to that conclusion but most importantly, be very okay with that. And you know what? I wouldn’t want it any other way. <3
