Thursday, August 16, 2012

Intro - 4 Months of Blur

Finally I am able to start on this project I have been meaning to do for a long time. Being a new mom has left my head spinning, my 'me' time all but nonexistant and the universe has conspired against me to truly show me that I do not control everything.

I started my journey into mommyhood as most planners do, with the best of intentions, armed with books, magazines, gadgets and gizmos to educate myself and satisfy my son's every need, help establish his schedule and have some predictability. However, I quickly realized that there is such a thing as too much research and too much rigidity. I started out trying to get him on the Babywise schedule. This proved to be too stressful for both of us. I was waking him up out of naps to force him into this predictable 3 hour schedule. In theory it sounded great, I would supposedly always know what to expect of him, be able to plan grocery store trips, gym runs, and dinner with my husband all according to this schedule, plus three is my favorite number so I thought that Babywise and I were going to get along great.

I soon realized that babies have their own personalities, own needs and own schedules. I realized that it was way more important for him to sleep as much as he needed rather than me trying to force the book/my schedule upon him. During the most frustrating moments when I would refer back to the book, especially the chapter about 'When your baby cries', and wish one of these 'experts' come spend a day with me and tell me what to do when I was supposed to be letting him 'cry it out' and he stubbornly would keep it up for 20+ minutes, escalating in volume and pitch every minute. It is still a work in progress, but now, after 4 and a half months, I feel like I am finally settling down and letting Lincoln take the reins.

Back to the Universe. A couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine from college texted me and asked how I have been doing, with a smirk, I thought, "Do I tell her, or reply a glib 'fine, just busy'"? I decided to let her have it, since she asked, and I will do the same now. Here it goes.  In the past year, we're talking since January, it is now August, I have planned a wedding, got married, had a baby, had surgery on my nose, had our townhome flooded by the neighbor's hot water heater, ruining our floors, had an air conditioner leak in our home, ruining the ceiling and walls, had $10,000 worth of work done, which still isn't finished, had multiple attempts to get my tooth fixed that I cracked while I was pregnant, and worst of all, my nephew that was born 6 weeks after my son was injured, spend 3 weeks in infant ICU, then a week in Hospice and passed away. 

I do not know what I would have done without my wonderful husband and beautiful son, who are the loves of my life.  I cannot wait to share our story, and document my journey as a reformed control freak.

5 comments:

  1. I have to say, in case a baby #2 is in your future, what SAVED MY LIFE for me/us with Cash, was Dunstan's Baby Language. It's a short DVD that teaches you how to interpret the baby's cries. Very simple and such a life saver. Sounds silly, but my goodness, it helped. And I didn't notice it until after I heard my baby and then watched the video.

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    1. Awesome! I didn't know that existed. I had read all this stuff about 'decoding your baby's cries' but there were no examples to go by!

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  2. Yeah, I had heard all that too. And I kept thinking, "gosh, they all sound the SAAAME!!!". No. That DVD gives the examples. It's 2 short ones and they come together. About 20-30 mins total length. you can get them on Amazon. Worth every penny, even though they are cheap! They are pretty obsolete after about 3 months, so it's really not worth it now, but keep it in mind for #2 ;)

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  3. I love this! (Just found it.) Keep posting; I want to keep reading! So I didn't know you had a nose operation...I did too! Mine was last Thanksgiving, actually. Had a deviated septum repair, turbinate reduction, and (since my nose was already flayed open anyway) some excess cartilage removal. I'll show you mine if you show me yours! (haha!)

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    1. Haha, I had a 'piogenic granuloma' removed from my nose. I don't have any pictures but my ENT Doc told me that it was a 'vascular' (read: bloody) growth in my nose the size of a quarter. It was causing all kinds of nosebleeds that I had been attributing to pregnancy, but it got out of hand and I went to the doc, and it was not any normal pregnancy thing. I would be sitting at my desk at work and it would EXPLODE blood everywhere. No fun.

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