Seven Things I’ve Learned in my First Year as a Mother

In just a couple weeks, my baby will turn a year old. I’ve learned an awful lot over the past year, and changed more than I ever expected too. Looking back over all that has happened, there are seven things I would say to my pregnant self about becoming a mother.

1. Yes, your back will stop hurting!

And not just your back, but your shoulders, neck, and arms too! You just went from not holding a baby 24/7 in your arms to…well…holding a baby 24/7 in your arms!

For eight months, you won’t be able to put Audrey down, and you won’t be able to sit down either, not even to nurse. At first your upper body will feel like it is on fire. You will wonder how you will manage when your baby grows and gets heavier.

Well, I have news. Audrey has tripled her weight but she feels much lighter. In fact, I honestly can’t remember the last time my back hurt. I now carry her for hours on end – in one arm no less!

So if you are a new mom and your back is killing you, take heart. The more you hold your baby, the faster your muscles will toughen up, and the quicker the pain will go away. (As if we need one more excuse to cuddle that little adorable bundle.)

2. Your mother-in-law has great advice.

Really! She’s been around a time or two…or in my case, three. I know…I know. Most people don’t want to take advice from their in-laws. It’s a pride thing. But seriously, didn’t they do a fantastic job raising your man? So great that you fell in love and decided that he was the one person on the face of the earth that you wanted to spend the rest of your life with. Taking that into consideration, your mother-in-law really should be the first person you go to for advice.

Many problems can be solved or avoided altogether by listening to your mother-in-law. Trust me, she can make life with a baby seem easy.

3. You will change.

You won’t drive recklessly anymore.

You will care whether or not your heat gets shut off.

You will start wanting different things in life…like a house with a yard.

You will become boring – going out will be stressful if the baby is tired..or cranky…or teething..or if the house you are going to has random things laying around everywhere that are dangerous for babies.

You will get annoyed if your friend puts their cup of soda on the floor, because this will guarantee that you will spend the entire rest of the night attempting to keep your baby away from it.

Your life will become your baby’s eating and sleeping schedule.

You will discover a very scary ferocious side of yourself that will appear any time someone does something that remotely affects your baby in a way that you don’t like.

All joking aside (yes of course I care about my heat and all my other utilities, and no my heat has never been shut off), The biological/psychological changes that happen to a new mother are among the most mysterious. I don’t know how or why, all I know is your center of gravity will shift. You will endure sleepless night after sleepless night. You will make sacrifice after sacrifice in order to achieve the best possible everything for your little one. You will put up with things you never before would have, even for someone you loved. The only reason you will find time for yourself to eat some days is because you will remember you are breastfeeding. And when all this tempts you to think you have become the most unselfish person on the planet, you will suddenly remember that you don’t have a choice but to act this way. There is nothing in the world that could make you even consider doing otherwise. Nothing.

4. There are two things you will want more than anything else in the world.

1. Sleep
2. Time alone with your husband

Just keep in mind that you may get so tired that you will have a breakdown in the middle of the night. You will quickly learn to relax and not take things so seriously. Just let it go. Remember that you are exhausted beyond human capability, and nothing is as it seems. In the morning you will tap your chin and puzzle over why you were so upset.

Also, keep in mind that you may go an entire year without having a “real” date with your man. You will desperately miss the spontaneity that you once shared, the late-night spur-of-the-moment trips and adventures, and the dinner-and-a-movie fancy I-feel-like-a-lady several-hour-long date nights. You will learn to find happiness in the simple things; yes, you will learn to squeeze every last drop of happiness out of the simplest of simple things. You will learn that “us” is still us. You will learn that “us” goes much deeper than you knew. You will remember that this is just a phase of life that will be over far too quickly.

5. Your baby will grow way too fast!

When I was pregnant, I thought my baby would be the smartest, healthiest, strongest, happiest..est…est..est…you get the idea. And then, tada! A week after she was born, she held her head up all by herself!!!

I told everyone I knew! But instead of the response I expected “Oh my! Your baby is so strong! She must be super-baby!” This is the response I got, “My baby came out holding her head up. Yes, she held her head up the day she was born! So there!”

That was the last time I compared my baby to anyone else’s.

If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard someone say “They grow up way too fast” I’d be rich. If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard someone say “I know everyone says they grow up way too fast, but I’m going to say it again: they really do grow up way too fast,” I’d be rich. But let me just say:

They. Grow. Way. Too. Fast.

Try as you might, you will not be able to take a breath. Your baby will grow at her own pace and it will be perfect. But it won’t matter if she walks or talks or crawls or dances or sings or gets her teeth three months early or seven months late. It will all be way way way too fast.

Slow down and hold on to every moment because soon enough you are going to have to let go.

6. A baby doesn’t have to be expensive.

I can count on two hands the essentials:

Necessary Items:
1. Swaddling blankets (so you both can sleep)
2. Your Baby Bali Breeze Wrap (so you can hold her close and feel her breath on your skin)
3. Cloth diapers (to keep your baby clean for free)
4. Onsies (because that’s all you’ll have the presence of sleep-deprived mind to dress your little one in and they are oh-so-convenient)
5. Homeopathics (to keep your baby drug and antibiotic- free and healthy for very very cheap)
6. Thermometer, nasal aspirator, and syringe (for teething or stuffy nose)
7. Car seat and snowsuit (to keep her warm and safe)
8. Headbands and bows and dresses and cute shoes and all those other fun girly things (so you can thoroughly enjoy every second of having a little girl)
9. A camera (so you can take lots of pictures to share with family far away)

On the other hand, here are a few things that are nice to have (and some are very convenient) but if you don’t have them: who cares.

Unnecessary Items
1. Walkers, exersaucers, swings, and other baby “containers”
2. Cribs, basinettes (baby can sleep with mommy)
3. Toys (babies think anything within their reach is a toy after all!)
4. Soap, shampoo, other bath items (new babies don’t need baths. In fact, it is now recommended to not bathe young infants)
5. Most clothes (babies ruin their clothes anyway)
6. Highchairs (baby can sit on mom or dad’s lap)
7. Stroller (it’s much more fun to just carry your little one)
8. Pretty much anything else you can think of

Important Note: Some of the things on the “Unnecessary Items” list were given to us by friends and family as gifts. These gifts have been put to good use and have blessed our lives and made things much more convenient. Also there is no way we could have afforded to buy some of these items and we do not take them for granted! This list is only meant to take pressure off of new moms.

7. You are strong enough to do this.

There will be times when you will feel incredibly lonely. You will begin to miss your mom like crazy. You will feel in the depths of your bones that your mom and sisters are far far…far away. You will suddenly become a caregiver 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with no breaks. You won’t get out much; you won’t get much adult interaction. There will be times when you feel like you are going crazy. You will be overly emotional and feel like you’re on your own.

Just remember that there are people who love you and believe in you. You’re not alone; you are connected to every other mother who has lived and breathed. You are part of something beautiful and transcendent.

There will be times when you will be fed up with people. They may expect you to be out and about soon after giving birth. They may be too absorbed with the baby to remember that you are overwhelmed.  They may want to visit the baby and forget that your house is trashed and you need sleep; they may not think about what you need. They may give lots of advice. They may doubt your decisions. They may call you young and dumb. They may act like they know everything and you know nothing. The list is endless – Every new mom has her stories to tell of annoying things that people do.

Just remember that people are only human. We are all trying to do what we feel is right. We are all in this together. Love people for who they are; try to understand where they are coming from. Keep in mind that some people have no idea what you are experiencing, or maybe they have forgotten. We all have good intentions, let yourself feel the love and warmth of those good intentions.

There will be times when you will be scared. Maybe your baby will be hurt, or sick or have an allergic reaction. You will have to experience everything for the first time, and you will doubt that you have the answers. You do. Trust your instincts. Trust the God who has always been there for you; he’s never let you down, not once. Trust. And then do what you know is right, no matter what others say.

You are mom. You are strong enough to do this.

Today was a good day.

The flowers Ryan bought for me are still sitting on the table. Bright pink and yellow. That bright yellow, it gets me every time. Every time I see the flowers it makes me happy. I can smell them when I walk by and that makes me happy too.

Audrey started feeding herself almost overnight. Four days ago, I gave her a little piece of cheese to try and she loved it. I put her in the swing (we don’t have a highchair) and put a bunch of little pieces of cheese on the tray. She ate it all. Every morning since, I’ve been putting little pieces of cheese, eggs, or fruit on the swing tray along with her bottle of kefir. She knows where the food is at. She will play with Beau and when she is hungry she will go eat. It makes me so happy…Audrey has always been difficult to feed. Now I don’t have to wonder anymore if she is getting enough.

This afternoon after she woke up from her nap, I was preoccupied with something. Suddenly I heard her give a loud yell. I turned around to see her over by the swing, shaking the tray and trying to get my attention! Where was her food? She was hungry! I didn’t have anything prepared! The fridge is full of purees that I just made at the beginning of the week: apple/pear-sauce, and fermented sweet potatoes. I didn’t have any finger-foods on hand to give her! So I gave her the fermented sweet potato puree to see what she would do with it. She ate it alright, and she made a huge mess! We all took a trip to the bathroom. Beau played on the floor while I gave Audrey a bath!

There are no windows in our bathroom, so when we came back out I noticed that it had gotten quite dark – a raincloud was passing over. The sky cleared before long and the sun returned, but the air was cool and fresh. After Beau left I took Audrey to the park. There was a slight chill to the air so I dressed her in her bear suit! I cannot overstate how ADORABLE she looked, so tiny, crawling on the green grass in her bear suit. She was very excited too I might add, talking to herself as she crawled, and her big blue eyes looked stunning out in the sunlight. Green grass, white bear suit, blue eyes, fresh air, so relaxing.

I pushed Audrey in the baby swing. She smiled the entire time and went “ehhhhhh” which is her way of saying “yay” or singing or otherwise saying she is happy! She even put her head back!

While walking to and from the park, I thought about something that often comes to mind – how much I have to be thankful for. I am a blessed woman. I know this very well. Sometimes I feel guilty because there are many people in the world who are miserable or who are undergoing abuse or some other horrors. But guilt is not the right response. Thankfulness, contentedness, patience, love, compassion, and generosity – that is the life I want to live.

But it is late and I’m tired. Which is mom code for EXHAUSTED! I’m going to go curl up beside my little one and join her in dream land. I will dream of this weekend when Ryan will be home and we can all cuddle up on the couch and watch a movie while eating good food! Now that right there is as good as it gets!

Right Now, Forever

“Turn around slowly
Time is a racer
The wink of an eye takes us from here to there

Turn around slowly
And treasure your days here
These precious moments may come to be rare”

~David Kauffman 

Those words terrify me.

I used to listen to them over and over. Years ago. It’s hard to believe, but it was a decade ago now.

Times long gone, back when the six of us where together under one roof. Michelle was my best friend in the world, she was my other half. I was lost without her, even when we were only separated for a few hours.

Back when I was that kid that no-one liked. I didn’t fit in anywhere; I had no friends and no social life, and I didn’t care. All I cared about was Laura and Landon, and in the depths of my being I was terrified of the day I would loose them. I held on as hard as I could, and I listened to those old lyrics over and over again.

They’re growing up too fast. Hold on and slow it down.

This moment is all I really have.

Now, all these years later, I know I am a blessed woman. A day doesn’t go by that I don’t acknowledge this. My Laura and Landon have grown up into everything that I dreamed for them. I have also grown up and started my own family. I know how cold and cruel the world can be, but I have a home, a little piece of heaven. I am happily married to a good man and very much in love. Ryan and I have our own little daughter, Audrey Madison.

The annoyances of life, sure they crop up. But they can’t even hold a candle to the blessings I have been given. And once again, I find myself trying to hold on.

Recently the words to that old song popped into my head. I hadn’t thought of the song for years but I had no trouble recalling the lyrics flawlessly. The familiar fear clawed at my mind.

Audrey is growing too fast. I can’t stop it. No matter how focused I try to be, no matter how much I immerse myself in these moments, I can’t slow them down.

Every week brings an avalanche of newness. She is more aware, she is laughing more, she has better balance, she understands what I am saying, she is trying to communicate. Her facial expressions and all her mannerisms are heart-stoppingly adorable. But in ten years from now, will I be able to remember? Will I be able to call to mind the sound of her laugh at 10 months of age? Or the look on her face when she gets up from a nap and sees her dad waiting to play with her? Or how her little baby kisses feel on my cheek? What about next week, when everything is a little different, will I remember that too?

All I know is that I have right now. The past is part of me. My sisters and brothers, Michelle, Annette, Allen, Laura, and Landon, a part of me forever. The cloudy Michigan skies, endless forests, and crazy Michigan weather which set the stage for my life growing up, a part of me forever. The love and pain and joy of those days will never ever fade.

And now Ryan’s strong arms and adoring eyes, a part of me forever. And now Audrey’s bright blue eyes, wobbly feet, and infectious laugh, a part of me forever. Yesterday she crawled, today she danced, tomorrow she will fly.

I am so afraid.

 

Right now I hold them in my arms.

Right now, forever.

For Ryan

I am so thankful

 

For evening hours spent in the rocking chair, the moonlight passing over her little face, knowing that right now she is little and right now I can hold her

 

For you, bringing me water and food, because somehow you know I’m hungry, when she just won’t go to sleep

 

For seven loads of laundry all over the couch and floor, air drying on the porch, over the shower and bathroom door

 

For you, getting so excited when you find your clean lounge pants

 

For sprouts on top of the fridge, vegetable soup on the stove, and fresh bread on the counter

 

For the new food concoctions that we come up with together, kitchen lights shining brightly on a hot summer night after a long day

 

For a little one sleeping beside me at night, her eyes closed tight and hands over her head like she’s laying on a beach somewhere

 

For your smile and strong arms in the morning, starting my day off just right

 

For peace, love, and happiness

 

For fake yelling matches, making fun of each other for anything and everything under the sun

 

For a beautiful home, fresh air, sunshine, and baby stuff everywhere

 

For towel fights, animated fake arguments over nothing, your hat hanging on the lamp, and your ninja stick in the corner.

 

For those discouraging times when I forget to trust God being rapidly ended by you shoving the Bible in my face and saying “Remember what it says? Read it!”

 

For how much I have learned from you, and you from me. For that feeling that we balance each other perfectly.

 

For knowing that you loved me almost from the day we met and have ever since. For how hard you fought to get me, and the trust, commitment, friendship, and love that we have now

 

For knowing at the end of the day that you will be there. That no matter what, come what may: tempers, fights, bad moods, careless words spoken, or rough times. You will be there and so will I

 

That there really are men like you in the world

Knives, Bone Broth, and Babies

Thanks to my wonderful sister-in-law Stephanie, I went grocery shopping yesterday.  It was A-W-E-S-O-M-E to get out of the house and enjoy the new crispness in the air. That, along with the fact that I bought my very first ever whole chicken, made it the most exciting grocery shopping trip all summer!

So at exactly 8:00 this morning, I grabbed a knife and began to cut the chicken apart. Everything went perfectly, I had the carcass in the oven within 20 minutes, and both babies played quietly together the entire time!

In my dreams!

In fact, the chicken was half frozen when I began to attempt to rip it apart with my knife. So I froze my fingers half off! I had to take several breaks to let them un-thaw! But in the process, I did actually end up with two drumsticks, two thighs, and two breasts. Which I now have in the fridge ready to go for dinners! And actually the babies DID play quietly together for this first phase. Maybe because they knew I was wielding a knife!

Amazingly, as soon as I finished cleaning up after the raw meat, both babies suddenly became fussy. I quickly put what was left of the chicken carcass into the oven and fed them. I then threw some seasoning into the already half roasted chicken. Here is a picture. It does look good doesn’t it?

Over the past two weeks, Audrey and Beau have perfected a pattern of alternatively crying. As soon as one falls asleep, the other becomes mysteriously hungry. And so on and so forth. Ryan is of the opinion that they do this to give me a hard time. I have a strong suspicion that he is right.

When it was Beau’s (pre-planned?) turn to fall asleep, I attempted to feed Audrey in my carrier so that I could pull the rest of the now cooked meat off of the chicken bones. However, she has huge objections to me standing in one place while holding her. Imagine how rediculous I would look walking around the house, pulling chicken off the bones with one hand while holding a bowl underneath with the other. Nope, that was not an option.

It ended up taking a freaking hour to pull the rest of the meat off the bones! And that is what makes my life So Worth It. So Full Of Meaning. I love my babies and I am so blessed to be allowed to have my life interrupted by them.

Besides, I ended up with a TON of extra meat! Enough for a stir fry, plus plenty for soup and salads for Ryan’s lunches. Not to mention the broth I will have from the bones. Oh yeah, the bones. They are now calmly simmering in a big pot on my stove, and filling the house with a delicious smell.

And Both Babies Are Asleep

Yes, the extra work was Most Definitely worth it.

(Hopefully the broth looks more appetizing after the skin and bones are removed)

My little Audrey sleeping:

New Food Adventures

For the moment, I think I am going to turn this blog into a food blog. Why? Well….because I REALLY need something to hold me accountable. And even if no-one reads or cares (haha) about the mundane details of my daily meal preparation, just keeping a record of what I am doing and how it is working will be a huge help to me.

Here is the problem for me right now:

My family is on a very tight budget. And we are determined to eat as healthily as possible. Those two things don’t always correlate so well.

Ryan and I have always tried to eat right, and really it has been a process of a couple years to break bad habits and incorporate new ones one at a time. (And also a very p-a-i-n-f-u-l-l process of Melissa-learning-how-to-cook. When we first met I couldn’t cook AT ALL!) But after our daughter was born, I suddenly realized how very far we still had to go, and how, despite all our efforts, our diet was practically nutrition-less and full of toxins.

I have totally revamped our eating habits in the past few months, and I have done so without increasing our total food budget (I am extremely proud of that!!!!) Right now we are doing better than we have ever done before. We are eating local, pastured chicken eggs, local, raw, cheese from pastured cows, butter and non-homogenized milk from pastured cows, frozen wild-caught Salmon, lots of coconut oil and coconut milk, lots of vegetables and what fruit we can afford, and I am sprouting as many of our grains as I can. The only thing I would still change is to have raw milk, and to be able to afford pastured chicken. We are still eating commercial chicken and there’s nothing I can do about that right now.

Let’s face it, some of the foods I am buying now are expensive, there’s no way around it. And since I did not increase our food budget to afford these foods, what ends up happening is this: though the quality of our food is better, the quantity is much less. Often times, we eat dinner and we find we are still hungry because there just wasn’t enough. Considering the fact that I am currently breast-feeding, this is not a good situation to be in at all. And so we end up eating a huge bowl of popcorn right before bed (amost every night if we have it), or we end up eating cheap junk food.

Another problem is just the time it takes to make three meals a day from the food items listed above. Sometimes if I don’t have time to prepare lunch ahead of time, Ryan, who leaves at 4:30 a.m. for work, goes hungry all day I’m not OK with that.

So I have come up with two plans to try and make our food stretch farther and to make lunch and dinner easier to prepare.

1. I am going to start buying whole chickens, rather than frozen chicken breasts like I usually do. My plan is to take the cuts off that I need for dinners throughout the week, and roast the rest for lunches. Then I will take the bones and make broth. Bone broth has been used for ages and is EXTREMELY good for you. Besides that, Ryan loves to have soup for lunch. Now I have never worked with a whole chicken or made bone broth before in my life, so it will be a huge challenge and learning experience. Will there be enough meat on the chicken to make all this worth it? We shall see.

2. I am going to start meal planning. Instead of just guesstimating each week what we will need and hoping it is enough, I now have a whole month of meals planned out. That is where this blog comes in. I am going to ATTEMPT to keep this updated day-to-day. That way I will have a record of what works and what doesn’t. What is worth the extra work. What do we like and not like. And am I doing any better at making the food stretch! That’s about it!

A Life Worth Living

Sometimes I feel very tired.

The housework never seems to end. I cleaned up the kitchen this morning and now it is a mess again! I vacuumed yesterday and now there is popcorn all over the floor. There are piles of laundry hidden in the bathroom and the bedroom!

My baby needs me constantly. I carry her most of the day, but whenever I put her down and get ready to do something else that needs doing, she starts to cry. And the only reason she ever cries is because she’s hungry. And she’s hungry all. the. time!

I make all of our food from scratch. Which means there is rarely anything quick to just grab and eat. Anything we eat, I have to make. And it usually involves a process of a couple days to do it right and maximize the nutrition.

Last night I was feeling overwhelmed. Last night I was complaining. I was feeling down and depressed, feeling like I never get a break.

Do I really need to do everything I am trying to do? Or can I cut myself some slack? After all, I feel alone in many of the decisions I have made. For crying out loud, who else sprouts their grains before cooking them? Who else makes their own yogurt??? The only one I know who understands some of my ideas is my mom and she is thousands of miles away.

Although I have a job, I do it at home. And I firmly believe that because my husband goes to work every day so that I can stay home, that I should do most of the housework. That’s not something that he asked me to do or ever would. It’s just something I do. I think he deserves to come home to a clean home and a hot meal. It’s my way of serving my husband and trying to make his life the best it can be.

I also firmly believe that young babies should not be left laying around, and definitely should not be left to cry-it-out. At this age my daughter is not crying because she’s selfish and she thinks she’s the boss. Her needs should be met in a timely manner in order to build trust and allow for proper bonding. Babies at her age need almost constant human contact. Yes, it would be easier to put her down much more than I do or just let her cry. Especially when people are constantly hinting that I should do just that. But it would not be best for her.

I also refuse to feed my family junk. And because we can’t shell out hundreds of dollars a month to buy good quality food products, that equates to a lot of work for me. I sprout my own grains because it maximizes nutrition and we already get far less of that than we need. I make my own yogurt because any yogurt that is actually good for you is so far outside of our budget that it’s ridiculous. Making our food from scratch is a choice I have made, and something I have wanted to do for as long as I can remember. It’s something I feel so passionately about that I would never consider another option.

All of these things bring fulfillment and joy to my life. They are all choices I, of my own free will, have made. I have no right to complain about the inconveniences these choices may bring.

Last night I thought about all of this. I had one of those moments where everything became chrystal clear. I had a revolutionary thought. (Something you would think I would have remembered from the last time it occurred to me.)

Anything that is worth doing is not going to be easy. Anything worth doing is going to be a lot of hard work. And it is going to take a lot of perseverance and determination.

A life of hard work, perseverance, determination, fulfillment, and joy. A life of service. That is a life worth living. And I would not want it any other way.