The Joys of Motherhood, Beta edition

(because I am no longer the Alpha)

I write this because I haven’t written a post in so damn long because I have been so damn tired. I write this with an achy wrist because I have had a wrist injury for the past two months that will just not let go because you use your wrist to carry that baby all the time, don’t you. I write this with my precious nanny time because I am so damn tired I can’t really focus on my intellectual work so instead of reading the same page for three hours or mindlessly shopping online for clothes that will fit but won’t look spectacular, this is it. This post.

Motherhood. Six months in.

The wonders of.

The joys of.

#whatnobodytellsyou

1. Nursing bras suck.

They do. They are ugly. They are expensive, they are a constant reminder of how your body is being used constantly (and yes, yes, the joys, the miracle of feeding a baby or two or five as may be the case), how no matter how much you work out you can’t really diet because you are ravenous and pregnancy hunger is nothing like nursing hunger and that belly will stay, and that flab will stay and sigh. So yes. Nursing bras.

And of course you bought so many of them while pregnant and you needed to get malleable ones because your breasts went into size schizophrenia the moment that sperm danced the tango with your egg.

And oh, did I mention that some genius or two or too many thought nursing bras should be almost as high as your neck? Oh yeah. So even if you have lost your mommy weight, and even if you want to feel more like a human and less like a mom, no matter what clothes you put on you will look awkward and weird because those bras, they come up so fucking high! “What, you want to hold on to your giant, engorged breasts, nurse your baby and actually look like a woman???”

My sister in law came to visit recently and while she commented on how great I looked (bless her), she did say I should, with my new big boobs, use more plunging shirts. In other words, if I have ‘em, show ‘em. But, how to use a low cut shirt with those horrid giant bras?

Did some research and somewhere in the Amazonian galaxy there are some low cut bras, a few, not too many, and hiding behind their big siblings, the giant ones. I got a few this weekend (bless next day delivery) and I feel more like a human.

Bought this Bella Materna in small. I used to be a 34 B, sometimes a C, now I am whatever my baby eats. So far so good. Got this Leading Lady in a 34C, it looked good, felt good, but I could have also stuffed it a bit. I returned and am waiting for the new one one size smaller. This other Leading Lady Lace is very cute, could almost pass like a normal bra. This Bella Materna t-shirt one I ordered in a 34C and was also too large, so hopefully the next size down will do the trick. It feels like a bra for a woman and not a bra for a cow (I do love my cows, but don’t necessarily want to feel like one all the time, right?) Lastly I bought this Anita bra, I don’t know who told who that wires were a good idea for nursing moms, but no, they are not. So there.

Did I mention that bras last less because they get washed more? Oh yeah, spit ups, milk gushing out of you or your babe or both and who wants to smell like rancid milk all the time?

Enough about bras.

Now let’s talk about

2. Teething!

Yup. No one told me what it would be like. No one. Oh, baby might be uncomfortable. Oh do whiskey, oh, do soothing gel, do cold, do chamomile, do blablablablabla.

Listen humans out there, I don’t know about your tiny humans, but my dragon has really turned into a dragon now that the teeth want to explode out of her gums. She has developed this yell that is a hybrid between “I want to pierce your ears with my shrillness” and “I am utterly unhappy and discontented with the way you are handling things” and lastly “I am very very upset, I won’t tell you how to fix it, but you should know.”

She won’t really sleep. Not even on me. Naps, long naps, are a thing of the past, like this faraway dream that has unicorns and calorie free whole fat ice cream.

She wakes up every hour and a half to two hours at night to let us know her displeasure.

I know she is uncomfortable. I know she is a baby. I know that this too shall pass (although she woke up with a tooth protruding yesterday, so why can’t she just be uncomfortable once and then all teeth come out? (similar to how I feel about pregnancy. Be pregnant once, just once, and have as many children as you want. Why the fuck do I have to go through the whole thing again to have another tiny human?))

Have I tried an amber necklace? Oh yes we have. Does it help? No it does not. Does she look cute in it? very much so.

Have we tried the homeopathic stuff? Yup. Has it helped, not one bit.

Have we tried motrin/ advil, etc? Yup. Has it helped, oh no, not at all.

And gels. And cold. And all.

So there we are.

3. Schedule and feedings

Yes. I put the baby on a schedule. But now she is putting me on one. The night schedule includes a wake up call every two hours or less just to make sure you are still breathing and are still at her service.

The day schedule has feeding time every 4 hours. It would last, at the most, 40 minutes, 20 per side. Oh it was wonderful. I would read while I fed the baby. I would chat on my phone or send emails. I would sometimes watch a movie with headphones. Now? Now I am. I just am.

It might be the teething, it might be she is showing me who is boss. But the truth is it takes me over an hour to feed her every single time.

I was asking my husband yesterday how it is that our whole lives now revolve around her feeding. And they do. Because if she eats every 4 hours but it takes her over an hour to eat, that gives us less than three hours in between to you know, be human and whatnot. So there. Sigh.

Ok. I think I’m done. Enough with this shouting with the keyboard. I am tired.

I am a mom. I guess that is synonymous.

I love my baby. I love my life.

I also wish I could have a day off. Just one day. To sleep in, or not. To go to the gym, or not. To walk around by myself, to go to the movies while its daytime.

To just be. To be myself without also being a mom.

I guess the time for that is in the past.