(It's been a year since I posted. Maybe blogging will be my annual New Year's tradition.)
Technically, I was a mother for nearly six months in 2013. Let's be real though. Those initial months are about survival. You are struggling to keep the baby from rolling off the changing table after you have to change his clothes for the fourth time in one morning due to his reflux while keeping your eyes open because you haven't had but three hours of sleep. And, yes, you do have to be at work in forty minutes.
Thank God those are really only the first few months.
2014 was my first full year as a mother. The teaching, experiencing, showing, playing woman. Not just the "Oh, thank the Lord, I didn't drop him on his head" instinctual child bearer. It's been an experience in itself. And there's definitely a learning curve. Sort of like four years of college never truly prepare you for your own classroom (though helpful), nothing really prepares you for raising your own child except trial and error (although, everyone should have a job where they've spent nearly a decade watching how others raise their kids, and then even if you don't know what to do, you at least have a pretty definitive idea of what you shouldn't do). It seems like there's plenty of error; sometimes we'll be in the middle of a game, an activity, or a chore, when I'll decide it's not working, and completely change things up in the middle of it. "Let's try it this way," has turned into a code phrase for "Um, Mommy has screwed this up; let's do it this way and hope you didn't notice what a moron I am for even thinking that would work." Oh well. I've got a few more years of being smarter than him. Fake it 'til you make it, right?
I don't know how to say the next thing without sounding harsh. I love my child dearly, and he's a very big, bright, beautiful, sunshine-y part in my life. But my entire world doesn't revolve around him. I feel that if it did, it would be a disservice to him. It is my job as his mother to raise him to be the best man he can possibly grow up to be. That might mean I go overboard with his education sometimes (he's going to be 18 months later this week, and the kid has workbooks instead of coloring books for his crayons), but I don't want him to feel like the world owes him something. Like he's entitled to everything because I have dropped everything in my life to make my world spin around him. I go to work every day. I take him to daycare (a good one that we love). I thoroughly enjoyed my job during the 2013-2014 school year; in fact, it was the best year of my career. That is part of me. I love my husband, and having a child did make us Mommy and Papa, but we're still husband and wife. There are seven billion people on this planet, and, despite what so many out there would like to believe, there is no Planet Me, and he probably needs to learn that from an early age. Maybe that makes me a bad parent. If it does, I can probably figure it out and pull the "Let's try it this way" before it gets too out of hand (but I don't think it will).
We spend a lot of time doing learning-based play or reading here at the house. I think play time is important, and he has cars and trucks, and now that his imagination is blossoming, it's fun to watch him talk to himself and pretend. But most of his toys have some sort of learning objective. He has a lot of puzzles and music toys. He loves to sing and dance. We do a lot of reading at home; he has some books almost entirely memorized. Some people think my aversion to children's television is silly, but I just don't think it's necessary for him to watch it yet. I've lightened up and will let him watch some YouTube learning videos when he's sitting on the potty, or I'll sometimes let him watch the end of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (the "Hot Dog Song") because he likes to dance to it. But he's otherwise content to play or read, so why would I substitute those for tv? Plus that means less stupid cartoons I have to watch, which is what I should really be concerned about anyway.
The first time W told me he loved me back after I said it to him, I thought my insides would melt into a clichéd puddle.The first few months after your child is born may be about survival, but the months after--when you're raising your kid and trying not to screw up and wondering if you're helping or harming him--can be just as scary. Physically, it was undoubtedly harder the first few months of W's life. But this mothering thing I started doing in 2014 "ain't no joke." I question decisions I make regularly because I, like almost all parents, just want to raise a good little person into a wonderful big person.
When it gets hard, I've got that memory of "I wub oo" to let me know that he seems to think I'm doing an okay job so far.
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