Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Confessions

Raising a baby is hard!!!  Last night I was able to get three 2 hour chunks of sleep.  And that was a really good night!  He usually sleeps for 2 hours at a time.  Sometimes more, sometimes less.  And it is really hard to be fully functional on tiny blocks of sleep.  And I hate that I get mad at him in the middle of the night for not going to sleep, when it's not his fault.  I hate it.  I love him and how sweet and tiny he is and I never want to be mad at him.  But I have to admit, this is hard.

Being nervous about my milk supply, unsure why he's crying, trying to establish a "schedule,"  figuring out night time, am I doing enough for him, too much for him?  It is hard.  I've realized that reading too much about babies is actually making it worse.  It was stressing me out trying to decide what was the "right" way to do things.  From now on, I am going to follow my instincts.  Easier said than done tho.

But this is not about complaining, this is about understanding.  Understanding all the other moms out there.  Now I know.  

I've started to read this book my cousin gave me called Carry On Warrior- The Power of Embracing Your Messy, Beautiful Life.  It is a wonderful book!  It is nice to hear an honest woman talking about her honest life.  And don't we all need to hear that we're all in this together.  We should not be competing to have the best life, the best children, the best body, the best husband, etc.  It's true that we only do this because we want to protect ourselves from exposing our fears and insecurities.  We don't want people to know that we are struggling.  They have it all together.  We don't want to be the one person who doesn't.  And like the woman in the book says, if we smile and dress nice, everyone will think we have it all together.  But we all have hard times.


I've discovered, along with the author of this book, that if I shed my armor and weapons, so will the person next to me.  If I let myself out and open myself up, the person next to me will realize that I don't have it all together either.  We can be real with each other.  I want to be able to be real with those around me.  I may even be a little too blunt sometimes.  But this will bring us all closer together.  And that's why I am admitting that this life is hard!

I have always wanted to stay home and have babies.  But I never knew this would be so hard.  It is hard to be stuck at home all day, it's hard to hold a screaming baby and not know why he is crying. It's hard to hold the responsibility of being the-one-who-should-know-what-her-baby-needs.  Raising children is hard.  The best help we can get is through the friendship and honesty of friends.  Thanks for everyone who has let me call them, and ask them questions.  I've had a lot recently.  Luckily I have a lot of friends who are willing to let me in on their secrets.

We are all in this together!


*Read this book friends*