“The next one is going to be really difficult!”
”In several months he is going to be all over the place and hard to handle!”
“I hear boy babies are easier than girls... sleep longer and better.”
Misery loves company. Why does this cliche saying apply way to easily to motherhood? Most mom conversations center around the struggle-is-real mentality. Mothering requires sacrifice, a dying to yourself everyday in everyway; however, sharing woes over joys creates a victim rather than victor culture. For some reason, sharing the victories rather then battles is much harder. Easier to commiserate then celebrate!
The honest truth at the end of the dreaded fourth trimester (the first three months of a baby’s life caterogized by frequent crying, lack of sleep and constant clinging) I feel like I am thriving and slaying this new mom thing. At three months, my scheduled son sleeps an average of six hours a night, barely cries, rolls over from back to stomach, lifts his head at 90 degrees, and loves to babble. I sleep about 7 hours, clean, cook and work out by walking with my son daily. Heck even on our first big out of state trip, our son minimually cried in his car seat (except when he got to hot), adjusted well to chilling in his stroller all day as we shopped around, and breastfeed in public underneath a nursing scarf no problem!
Yet with all these triumphs, my conversations with relatives and other mothers tends towards tragedy- with a need to foreshadow difficulty... such as my son will probably be more difficult later or our next child will be a little hellion since my pregancy, birth, and fourth trimester was relatively “easy.”
With our baby boy becoming more mobile (he wants to crawl so badly he cries out in inch-worm frustration), schedules changing as we go back to school (my God’s divine grace at the same place!), there are plenty of difficult adjustments ahead.
However today, I sit back in the Georgia heat and celebrate the sunshine season unashamedly!
The unintended side effect of this post sounds like bragging, especially because comparsion and fear of judgement plague mothers’ minds. However, I am publishing my sense of success to state misery should not dominant our mentality or social interactions about motherhood! So in written here are my successes thus far, unhidden and fully savored like a chocolate commercial. I tend toward the more like gobble-down-a-bar-in-the-closet treat eater. But today I savor, a crucial part of any diet.
It‘s okay not to be okay: moreover, it’s okay to be okay! Let’s celebrate over baby steps and laugh at baby wobbles (unless hospitalization is required- then we cry). You are doing okay whether the circumstances are okay or not okay!
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