Becoming a Mother

Since I had my first child 3 years ago, I’ve gone through so many stages it’s hard to remember the old me. My brother reminds me frequently about when his oldest would spit up and I would freak out. Just after I had my oldest, we were the binkie washing, overly cautious, new parents. I remember calling my MIL almost daily asking silly questions about poop or sleeping or crying.

I remember just after I had my son all the craziness I went through. I was healing from the delivery, I nursed so I had challenges associated with that, I had just quit working so when my baby slept all day I was extremely bored, I had postpartum depression which made the boredom even worse, I was sleep deprived and on top of everything I had a body that looked worse than it ever had.

When we had our second and took the new foster baby, the whole ball game changed. We went from a 2 on 1 defense to a man-to-man defense to a zone in about 3 months time. I’d hardly call it a zone now though. More of a you hold one; I’ll hold the other while trying to herd the toddler using my body to block him.

We now use a very systematic approach to everything. We line them up to change diapers and clothes. When we’re leaving, we line up car seats, jackets, bottles, formula and diapers.
I never thought I’d be the kind of mother my mom was. Of course, I love my mom but I’m exactly like her. Her life philosophy is if it is not absolutely necessary then don’t worry about it. For example, I don’t use fancy baby laundry detergent, baby powder or baby bottled water for formula because it seems silly to do something unnecessary unless the child has a need for any of those things.

We’ve evolved quite a bit over the last 3 years. I look at my friends without children and see how they change when they have children and remember myself at that particular stage. I usually end up laughing when I think about myself.

Bio:
Kendra blogs at http://dramatizedreality.blogspot.com/. She has a 3-year-old son and a 3-month-old daughter of her own children and currently has a 6-week-old foster son. When she’s not keeping busy with her children, she likes to play the piano, scrapbook, read and sewing.



This is part of the January Blog Exchange. Wanna see more? Check out the other participants. You can find Erin over at Kendra's blog.