Chronicles of Motherhood – Supermom

“[Motherhood is] the biggest gamble in the world. It is the glorious life force. It’s huge and scary—it’s an act of infinite optimism.”

~ Gilda Radner

Some days I feel like supermom…

… who not only takes a shower on a weekday morning but also washes her hair…
… who makes breakfast for her entire family…
… who turns all traffic lights green with her mind just to get her toddler to school on time…
… who crushes her workout – even if the 30 minute workout takes 45 minutes because her baby needs to be comforted… or changed… or moved from the bouncer to the swing to the play mat and back to the bouncer again…
… who cleans the kitchen and tidies up the house…
… who makes herself a healthy lunch and even makes it look fancy for a quick photo share…
… who gets in a focused full hour of work…
… who manages her time right between all these and breastfeeding sessions to get to her toddler’s school on time for pick-up…
… who is able to have both children happy and smiling at the same time…
… who bakes chocolate zucchini muffins, and bread and prepares a healthy dinner that surprisingly everybody loves…
… who gets everyone together so the whole family, including the four legged kids, go for a quick evening walk…
… who sails through the evening without a loud word, crying, or drama…
… who falls asleep holding her toddler’s hand only to wake up to spend a few quiet intimate moments with her husband…
… who wakes up to the first noise her baby makes to feed her even though she just fell asleep…
… who wakes up the next morning and does it again.

Other days, I feel not so super, not so optimistic. Other days I just feel like a total mess…

… who just puts some perfume on to hide the fact that there was no time to shower and that her hair smells like spit-up…
… who simply pours cereal and the milk for the entire family, because that’s all she has time and energy for and breakfast important…
… who quietly cries in the car 10 minutes late for morning drop-off because she lost her patience with her toddler who made a scene because her hair clip wasn’t in right and took it out again and again and again, a hundred times it felt like…
… who is crushed by the weight of the mess in the house and eats an entire Hershey bar while accepting that the house will stay messy…
… who despite all this still gets her workout in because that’s her only me time although the last 1o minutes are spent more with baby than with weights…
… who eats her toddler’s leftover breakfast for lunch…
… who quickly makes her coffee to go and no matter how hard she tries, she’s late for pickup…
… who stands hunched over at the doorway not understanding why her toddler is already making a scene – and she’s unconsolable. No hug, no love, no reasoning, no anger, no nothing helps…
… who is happy that after an hour the crying stopped but now the baby needs attention…
… who not only didn’t prepare dinner but she also didn’t make it to the store so her husband stops on his way home to get fresh bread…
… who looks at her husband with her eyes begging for help as her toddler won’t brush her teeth, won’t put her long sleeve PJ’s on because she promises not to kick the blanket off…
…who quietly cries again as her toddler is finally falling asleep…
… who then quickly falls asleep next to her only to be woken up by her husband but she no longer has the energy to spend time with him and stumbles to bed…
… who realizes as her head hits the pillow that she didn’t even look at the dogs today…
… who wakes up to the first noise her baby makes to feed her even though she just fell asleep…
… who wakes up the next morning and does it again.

And yet every day, I am filled with love and gratitude for my family and realize that every single cliche I heard about motherhood is true. ❤

Chronicles of Motherhood – Now With Two (Mom Only for Now)

The other day my husband told me it would be nice to be husband and wife for a moment and just cuddle up. Not necessarily to be intimate – though I’m sure he had that on his mind too ( 😛 ) but to just be us. And I was quick to ask him two very strategic questions: when and how?

And the reality hit both of us. With two children now, one almost 4 years old, the other only two months old, we have been both upgraded and downgraded to mom and dad only. The truth is, both mornings and evenings are brutal. After having dinner, it’s bath time for our older, clean up time for me, hold the baby time for my husband (for the purpose of this post I’ll just refer to him as “dad” from here on). Once Sophie is done with her bath and I’ve finished cleaning the kitchen, it’s time for brushing our teeth and changing into our PJ’s. In bed we all talk about our day – highs and lows. Some nights Sophie goes really deep with her thoughts and feelings, others it’s all just fun and games and being silly. Which is okay. What matters is that we’re establishing a habit, a tradition, so to say, where we can openly talk about our successes and challenges, what made us happy or sad that day, our joys and pains… All of it. After that I stay with Sophie until she falls asleep (many times I fall asleep with her), then I feed Annabel for 30-40 minutes. Some nights I get lucky and she falls asleep and I can just swaddle her and put her in her bassinet. Other nights she’s not falling asleep, so I swaddle her, put her on my arm and I make the shushing noise until she falls asleep. I’ve learned not to put her in the bassinet when I think she’s sleeping deep enough, because she isn’t. So she sleeps on my arm until my arm is numb and sore enough that I wake up for the pain, and move my arm from under her. In the morning when she wakes up, I nurse her. Usually dad is taking a shower already. When I finish nursing her, I hand her to dad (you may be wondering why he’s holding her all the time, well, because otherwise she screams, yeah, she’s one of those “hold me all the time” babies 🙂 ). I then start preparing breakfast for the family, lunch for Sophie, and just generally get Sophie ready for preschool – bathroom break, dress her, make her hair, put her lunch box together, then her and dad are out the door. And then soon enough, the evening routine starts back up again. 

It’s important to not lose ourselves in one role, to not let one role define us. In the long run, that is. Short term, especially with a new baby, it’s completely normal. But when life again is normalized, baby is bigger, can be left with someone other than mom and dad, even if for an hour, it’s so important to be husband and wife again. To go on dates, to enjoy each other’s company outside of parenthood. I know it sounds like a cliche, but it’s also true. If we don’t keep the fire burning and alive by working on it every single day, the flames will burn out. And it doesn’t have to be something big every time. A kiss here, a sweet note there, just a look, a glance, a small romantic gesture, that we’re still here. Not just as mom and dad, but as husband and wife, man and woman, with passion and love. 

Chronicles of Motherhood – Now With Two (Struggles)

“Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose, or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation.” 

~Graham Green

I’ve always said that Sophie, our first daughter, now almost 4 is very attached to me. An that is a true statement. But not a complete statement. To make it entirely true I should have always added that I am just as attached to her. And though that’s something I’ve known, I never truly knew what it really meant. How much it really meant, until Annabel was born.

Annabel is amazing and at only three weeks old her character already shows – very different from Sophie’s at this age. And I love her. She truly is a bundle of joy, nurses well, sleeps relatively well – though after our night feeding she will not fall asleep on her own, so I just put her next to me in the bed and we sleep like that. I think pregnancy prepares the mother for bedsharing – sleeping on my left side for close to six months has allowed me to feel safe with Annabel close to me. I can sleep in the same position without moving at all.

But all this doesn’t come at no cost whatsoever. Sophie has, for the most part, accepted that our world has turned upside down. Everything has changed. My husband helps out a lot, I truly don’t know what I would do without him. He prepares Sophie in the morning, preps her lunch, dresses her, puts her to bed at night – though I stick to keeping our bedtime routine of all three of us talking about our day, the best part and the worst part.

But Sophie misses her mom. She crashes sometimes, like last night when she cried and cried and cried that she wanted me to put her to bed. Or to just rock her. Hug her. All while Annabel was inconsolable – it was time to feed her. And there’s only one of me. Annabel needs me. Annabel is dependent on me – for nourishment, for comfort, for life. And just as much, though in different. yet still important ways, Sophie needs me as well. And I’m struggling. I’m struggling to find balance, to be there for both of them, in a way that neither of them feel less loved, less cared for. And I feel like Sophie feels that way sometimes. She’s awesome and caring and understanding, like when I told her I knew this was a difficult period, her response was “it’s okay, it’s not difficult for me” – her tears tell a different story. 

And so do mine. Just as much as she cries at times, I do too. Sometimes just in my heart, sometimes real tears are falling. I want to be there. “She’s not hungry mom, she just wants to be held. Daddy will hold her.”. Oh honey but she is. I love you so much and I wish I could lay down with you but I need to go feed your baby sister. I know all older siblings go through this change. I was six years old when my brother was born, my brother, whom I love so much. I don’t remember feeling unloved. But I did. At least that’s what my grandmother told me.

I know things will resolve themselves. But for now, the struggle is real. So is the love and joy the two bring us. Because 99% of the time, the only feeling in the air is love. ❤

Chronicles of Motherhood – Now with Two (Week 1)

Definition of Mother: The greatest unconditional and infinite love we will ever experience in our existence

I was scared… worried… how am I gonna do this? How will I feel the same type and amount of love for Annabel I do for Sophie. How will we manage too now? How will Sophie react? Will she be jealous? Will she act out?

Sophie, our first daughter, born August 2012 is amazing. She’s pure love. Sure, she’s going through her “terrible two” right now (great timing huh), but by nature she is incredibly caring, loving, and comforting. She’s the little girl that will go up to anybody that’s crying to comfort them. She’s the little girl that will be first in her class to be there for the new child (female child, to be specific 😛 ) so that they’re not scared.

And she did live up to her character.

The moment her sister starts crying, she’s there. When I nurse, she’s there to help. When Annabel needs to be burped, she’s there. I couldn’t ask for a better helper. 

The only difficult part has been that both my husband and Sophie came down with something (not the same thing). My husband had fever, which she never gets, and Sophie probably had the common cold, but either way, we’ve been quarantined to the bedroom. Every time Sophie was allowed to go close to Annabel, she had to wear a mask.

She fought it a little bit, and it was hard for her to keep it on and not touch her nose and things like that, but she did it. Every night we talk about our day, highs and lows. Some days she’s being “silly billy”, like she says (a term she picked up at preschool), but some days she goes deep. Like the other day when she said the best part of her day was that her sister is finally here, and the worst part was that she has to wear a mask. Poor baby, but it’s for the best. If a newborn under the age of one month old gets fever (anything above 100.4), she’s automatically admitted for 48 hours. Luckily, everyone seems to be doing better and Annabel is fine as well.

And I just want to hold her.

And hold her and hold her because I know how fast time flies by. Of course, Sophie is only 3.5 as well, and I get to hold her plenty, but time is the most precious thing one could have (insert long pause here, something for another post another day).

I love being a mom of two 

I Feel Like I’m Prepping for the Biggest Challenge of My Life

I feel like I’m prepping for the biggest challenge of my life…

…is exactly what I told my husband this morning as I asked him to help with brushing Sophie’s teeth. Which sounds like a normal request except that Sophie was having none of it.

You see, before you become a parent, you have ideas of how parenting is going to be and should be. One the biggest things I was against pre-Sophie times was bed sharing. I remember reading in forums how parents were sharing their beds with their toddlers, telling my husband how that was not okay, because the bedroom is ours. The bed is ours. It’s there for us to sleep in but more importantly, be intimate in. To love each other. No child should be there.

But then life happened. Sophie was always a good sleeper, but when she wasn’t, and we would be tired, we let her sleep with us. 

This is a pretty early picture, and it’s just one of those mornings, but soon enough, she was sleeping between us. 

We have transitioned her into her own bed now, but she does wake up in the middle of the night and comes to sleep between us. She’s three-and-a-half.

You might ask… well, if you’re into attachment parenting, you might ask what’s wrong with it. If you’re not, you might ask what’s wrong with us. 😛 Either way…. my answer is there is absolutely nothing wrong with this. She needs us, and we are there for her.

But that’s where the problem comes in. She needs us, we are there for her, but she only wants me. When I’m around, 90% of the time my husband can’t do anything with/for her. She won’t allow him brush her teeth, like this morning. Or change her. Or just be there with her. My husband is doing everything. He is a tremendous help, really truly. But Sophie doesn’t accept it. I know, it’s normal for her to be attached to her mom.

But as the birth of our second daughter is approaching, I wonder how it’s all going to be. How I will give the attention to Sophie she so desires, needs and should get, while taking care of the new baby, myself, my husband, the household… I know things fall into place. Eventually they do, and I know this struggle is not unique to me and our family. I guess I just don’t feel ready. Do we ever for the unknown though?