The Fear

Mama Kitty is not a suitable babysitter...

I have spent a large portion of my life trying to validate my own feelings. I read dozens of psychology and medical journals and articles every week as though it were mandatory to research before feeling the way you feel about things in public. It's almost like training for a fight that might happen... it's just a verbal fight I prepare for.
This has become very apparent to me since becoming Bernice's mother.

I researched everything about having a baby and then everything about parenting so that I could do the best job possible and know that in my heart I am doing what is best for her and our family. So far that is working out great and she is a happy and healthy little peanut. I have loads of articles and journal pages under my belt to back up the choices we have made and how those fit into our family, but there is nothing I could read that would make me leave my baby before I am ready.

And that's just the way I feel.

Call it attachment parenting, Postpartum Depression, or plain old selfishness but I don't care: I am not ready to leave my baby. And that is that.

Reasons (that I collectively call "The Fear")I have scrounged for in order to validate myself feeling this way include: someone feeding her something other than milk (and/or her having an allergic reaction to that food/formula), her having to take a bottle when we are exclusively breastfeeding, something happening to her while we are away and not being told about it, a robbery happening somewhere she is staying, blah blah BLAH.
In any case, I have my reasons (which are mostly worst-case scenarios worked out in my head when I think about leaving her). I chalk this up to simply not being ready to leave her for any amount of time just yet. She is only going to be a baby for so long, if I want to "hog" her I will. I worked hard, puked hard, and pushed hard to grow and birth her and I'll do what I feel ready to do when I am ready to do it. No one has a "right" to her. She is a privilege to have as a child and anyone who is entrusted to take care of her for the first time when we are ready to have a night out alone will understand that.
And besides, I'd love for Shawn to be the one she is left with if I must leave her so that he can have some one-on-one time with her. He is her father and that is important to establish.

But for now I am not ready to leave Bernice with anyone (except Shawn) for any amount of time.
It's just how I feel.

The Kittens are 4!!!

I can't believe it's been a year since I posted Mama Kitty's birth story (http://daisytosunflower.blogspot.com/2012/09/our-kitty-babies-are-3.html). We're celebrating the kittens' birthday on Friday with a can of tuna and some extra hugs. Happy birthday Ava and. Lucy!

Love and Comfort II

What seems like a long time ago, I wrote about the fuzzy feeling you get when you fall in love and what happens to it after a while: it turns into comfort based on trust for your partner.
That trust has sustained Shawn and I through many years (6 years next month) and through my very puke-y pregnancy with Bernice. Now that she is here, I find myself uncomfortable in a vague sort of way. Like I felt long ago when my body first started to change in 6th grade.

I'm too hard on myself once again. Even though I am doing my best to get some kind of familiar shape back I know my body will never be the same. Even though I fit in a lot of my pants again I have the loose mommy-tummy skin from being stretched to the stretch-mark point for almost a year. I don't know what I expected before I had Bernice and I don't know what I expect of myself now but whatever it is, I'm not meeting my own subconscious expectations.

It makes being anything but cuddly with Shawn kind of difficult. No matter how much he reassures me that he thinks I am beautiful, I just don't feel that way about myself. In my mind he deserves a woman that looks much better than I do with no clothes on. He doesn't know I feel this way precisely... although he will after he reads it today. I know he can probably guess that something is wrong from the lack of eye contact and vehemence, and that something is Me.

I'm uncomfortable with myself right now, whether I "look good" or whether everyone including my pre-pregnancy sized pants are lying to me (which is doubtful). That is what I must focus on changing. Not my waistline, not the way I dress, not my hair. ME. I want to be comfortable with myself again so that I can be a good body-image role model to Bernice and a good, happy wife to my husband.

At least it's good to know after thinking about this that the only thing that has changed the feeling of comfort in our relationship is Me. And I have the power to fix it. Now to find the strength...

For All the Mommies and the Daddies

Tonight I understand the ferocity of parental, and in my case, motherly love. I understand that any feelings that our parenting skills are being questioned are invoked within us by the differences between us. Any feelings that other parents' choices are made as a slight to us stems from differences in the infinite number of choices we all have to make everyday as parents. And all these feelings originate from the core feeling of anyone questioning that love. It can make the blood rise immediately.

But when we tuck our children in bed at night whether it is with you in your family bed, in a bassinet in your room, in his or her own crib in a separate room (with or without a bumper) don't we all hold onto them just a little longer before going to sleep ourselves? Don't we all try to consciously make a memory that we will never forget? Memories about how small our babies are, and how fast they are growing. Little details of the lines of their face. Such tiny fingers and toes. Each little hair on their heads.
If we all know that deep of love for our children I believe our differences can be celebrated instead of being used to criticize other parents. Lo! We all have found decisions we feel good about among the hundreds of choices which we all have to make. What could be better in the uncertain world of parenting than to feel good about how we're raising our own children?
Maybe we could understand each other and become curious rather than judgmental when we see those who have chosen differently than we have. Instead of taking it as a slight to you, feel good about your different decision you have made which works for your family and know that the parent in front of you feels that way about their own decision. Give a nod to them respectfully as a sort of "parental namaste:" The good parent within me sees the good parent within you.

In short: the Mommy Wars currently raging across the internet and in our communities make me cry. Breastfeeding, formula feeding. Disposables, cloth diapers. Vaccinations, no-Vaccinations. Intact boys, circumcised boys. Medicalized birth, un-medicated birth. All of it. It just needs to stop.
It just doesn't matter at the end of the day, and it's not part of that memory you make. What matters is the love we all know for our children. I hope we can all let that be enough to at least begin to let us relate to other parents, if not to love and understand them.

This is a tough job, folks. And if we're all doing our best, we're doing just great.

Bernice is 3 Months Old!

Yesterday Bernice turned 3 months. I don't know how the time flew by so quickly. I am so happy to see how she is growing and thriving.

I love her chubby little cheeks, roly poly thighs and the little "rubber band" wrists and ankles she has. I love that she loves elephants, AC/DC, being outside, and primary colors.
I love how she smiles when she stretches and wakes up or when Shawn talks to her. She even giggled for the first time out loud on Tuesday as I was swishing her bath water around to make sure it was a good temperature. I cried and laughed, too.
I am so excited for her to continue growing, learning and falling in love with life.