Some perspective please

If you're not a fan of honesty, I don't think you'll like this post.

There's only 2 honest truths in my life right now.

1)  The only time during the day when I'm alone with AJ where I'm absolutely confident in my child care skills (and therefore confident enough to to things like type for a blog) is when he's in the Beco carrier.

2) Which means, there's 23 hours a day where I'm freaking out cause I don't have it together.

No, I'm not being modest.  I really don't have it together. This mothering thing is hard.  A lot harder than I expected.  The learning curve is not so much of a curve as it is an exponential function...that never levels off.  But hard is normal, and that's one of the only things that's keeping me sane, knowing that "hard is normal."

So why am I being honest?  Why not just nod along and answer politely, "yeah, I'm fine.  Yeah, we're good.  Or yeah, he's adorable and it's all worth it?"  Because if you're reading this, I'm suspecting that you're also either a new mom who doesn't have it together but feel like there's something wrong with you admitting it.  Or maybe you've heard other people say things like "oh it gets better" and you've been wondering for 6 weeks straight when it's gonna get better.  Or maybe, you're wondering why none of your friends, moms, aunties told you the truth about how horrible breastfeeding/diapering/swaddling/crying/etc would be.

Maybe you're like me, and you've been terrified of your crying infant and have never had the gall to admit to other people that that's the ugly truth.  That you're terrified of your 2 month old child.  It's actually kind of funny, if I think about it.  How funny you ask?  I've actually typed in the sentence "is it normal to be scared of your crying baby" into a google search before.

Maybe you're like me, and you've become SO frustrated with the difficulties of breastfeeding that you have secretly thought about just stopping cold turkey tomorrow.  Maybe you fantasized about a day when you won't have to nurse anymore because despite 9 weeks of "working on it" IT STILL HURTS and every book ever written on the subject says it should feel nothing less than like puppies licking your frickin' nips.  And then countless advice sessions with lactation consultants, OBs new moms groups, and my mother, nobody can clearly explain to me what is being done wrong exactly.

Maybe you're like me, and before junior popped out of you, you strived for perfection, and never disappointed - whether it be work or life, you're always pretty damn good at what you do.  And there's ALWAYS a solution that you can find to a problem. So imagine your disappointment when the super power you possess as a mom,  (mik making) the one thing that is supposed to fix every boo-boo and heal all that is wrong with your baby... is the one thing that actually causes your infant to cry his head off like someone is hurting him.  Yeah.  It. Doesn't. Feel. Good.

So why did nobody tell me how hard it was going to be?  Was I not listening?  I'm pretty sure I was!

Because they forgot.

If I think about it, 9 weeks ago, I gave birth to this little creature.  And it hurt.  But nine weeks later today, I'm having sort of a hard time remembering how much it hurt.  And for certain, I've already forgotten how uncomfortable pregnancy made me.

Why do we forget?  It's a protective mechanism really, that the human mind quickly forgets what it does not want to and remember on what it found pleasurable to ensure that we continue to make babies.
But that's the thing.  We tend to remember the good things when it's in hind sight.  What can we do to address our current anxiety?

One thing that I noticed is that anticipation is a huge motivator, whether positive or negative.  One reason that I postulate I fear baby AJ is because I tend to anticipate chaos.  As in, as soon as I put him down for a nap, I reset my "LOST" clock and start thinking about how much time until his next fussy period.  I put him in the car seat fearing when he's going to start crying  I put him in a clean diaper fearing his next blowout.  If I keep doing this, I'm never going to be able to live in anything but fear!

So I challenge you, and myself to start anticipating the positives.  Thinking about the next time he smiles.  Imagining the day when he starts sitting.  And when these milestones do come, don't waste your time being anxious over when he's going to be fussy next. SAVOR the moments!