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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1tj2zJ2Wvg&w=420&h=315]
Woe is me.
Eh, not really.
Bo is just a little over three weeks old now and I’ve learned quite a bit since his birthday:
- When people say, ‘sleep when the baby sleeps’, that’s damn good advice.
- I’ve questioned if being a mother was really in the cards for me. I’ve done it a few times, honestly.
- Trusting my husband with our son is a challenge. I have to keep reminding myself that yes, Bo is his baby, too.
- Ignoring our mothers’ advice was probably the best decision I’ve made since giving birth. It’s not so much they give advice but they give bad advice. Advice I’m wondering if they picked up from experience or old wives’ tales because I honestly can’t tell the difference. They weren’t concerned about us having a cat until we had a baby. Now they’re all concenned about what the cat does around the baby. Normally, I wouldn’t care if it wasn’t for the fact my MIL owns a cat and she expects to babysit Bo at her home. My mother has two small dogs that are constantly around her other grandchildren but she’s worried about my cat. Yeah, marinate on that for a moment. I’m also particularly disturbed that my MIL has had a conversation with M regarding my breasts (um, gross and what?). I’m really, really tempted to purchase this:
No, I don’t care what you did 30 years in Ukraine nor do I care what you did 30 years ago in the U.S. And knowing my luck, I’ll be the same way when Bo has children. Good grief.
The first week of motherhood sucked. Let’s just be real. I’m not going to say it was lovely and great and blah blah blah bullshit. One, I’m in pain from the C-section. My feet (and I’m wishing I took a picture of them at the time) were swollen like two hamhocks from the IV fluids. I have to wear an abdominal binder 24/7 to keep things tight (though now I can take breaks from it). One night I got only ONE hour of sleep. Yes, you read that right. ONE SOLID HOUR. That night…pretty much sucked. I think I questioned my sanity repeatedly that particular evening.
Two, I have to be a 24-hour buffet for a newborn. I’m exclusively breastfeeding and bottlefeeding. Whenever my boobs aren’t available, Bo eats from the bottle. But for the most part, my boobs are available and Bo gets fed every 2-3 hours. And if I’m real lucky like I was just fairly recently, Bo goes on a cluster-feeding spree, where I’m nursing him for hours.
Three, I have to somehow still play the role of wife and remember how things were before I got pregnant. This is particularly tricky. I told M that I want us to make a solid effort to make time for each other like we did before we had Bo. We decided whenever Bo is up late and fussy, we’ll pop in a movie. If we have to suffer, might as well watch something to pass the time.
Is that in the manual in this game we call Life?
Still, motherhood is a wonderful thing. When Bo smiles at me, I think, ‘Hey, this isn’t too bad.’ Even when he recently gave me a sampling of all three bodily fluids on the same day (yay for Mommy!), I still think he’s awesome.
I’ll end this blog post with a rare photo of Bo with his eyes open. He was quite curious about the phone and what I was doing with it.
