I’m learning from this mamahood thing with every passing day, and so far my two years of experience have taught me this: the easiest way for me to move through mamahood is by relishing in the simple moments. These notions are my bridge past the hard moments… or even, days.
I have vivid memories of conversations with my mom from her mamahood days. She always speaks so cheerfully about the years she spent at home with my brother and I when we were little. Even though I know she had hard days, the stories she’s shared with me have definitely been more positive and “go with the flow”. And now that I’m a mama I appreciate her wisdom and experience sooooo much.
Natalie has begun teething. (HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE? She was just born.) She has one little tooth on the bottom that’s cut through and so that means a few things: lots of drool, sometimes she has trouble nursing, and it’s a BIG hit or miss how she’ll sleep at night. I typically don’t do well with little or poor sleep (remember this post?), but knowing my daytime hours have very little routine if need be makes the hard nights much (much) easier.
The other day I wore Natalie when I made dinner. Sometimes we snuggle and I nap with her after she’s done nursing. Yesterday I wore clean pajamas. In a few days I’ll likely wear dirty pajamas ;) Sometimes Nat doesn’t want to nap well. Sometimes I don’t put on any makeup. Almost every day we spend the morning hours outside so I can do my workout. These are just a few examples of how we go with the flow.
I’m letting time be of little focus and the real beauty of my entire day being the actual focus.
Simple moments make the days go by fast, and the months even faster. I don’t want to blink and realize Natalie is now too big for me to wear her. I don’t want to sit in that icky moment of regret because at the time I felt too tired or too hot or too [blank] to do [blank] with my babies.
No, I say, the time is now. We are surrounded by simple moments… always. All we have to do is slow down so they can settle in close, so they can fill our hearts with more love than we ever knew could fit. Just like she taught me.
Happy Birthday to you, mom!