For thousands of years (c’mon, don’t quote me, I’m not an historian) parents have been raising children. For thousands of years this has happened. It’s been without books, blogs, the “interweb” and diapers.com and, frankly, I think the world, mostly, has seemed to do just fine.  Babies have grown up, for the most part, into happy, healthy and well-adjusted adults. The tiny humans have, mostly, grown into larger humans that have thrived enough to, shocking, procreate and create more tiny humans!

Why then, as a new parent do I fall into the trap that I feel many new parents fall prey to: feeling the need to read, research and stress out over every single step of our new parenthood.  What happened to instinct?  What happened to just raising your baby?

Things that there is, in my opinion, simply too much information out there on include: diaper rash, nursing to sleep, colds, toys, teething, immunizations, starting babies on food, sleep training, and so on and so on and so on. I know that there is a lot of GOOD information on all these topics but there is just as much bad information and honestly, my brain is starting to hurt from trying to sort through the piles of malarkey to find those gems of advice.  Admittedly, I find myself going to a few sources for information on the regular (Semi Crunchy Mama, Badass Breastfeeders of San Diego, San Diego Breastfeeding Center, KellyMom, just to name a few…) and I try, somewhat unsuccessfully I might add, to avoid all the other “crap”.

But, what if it’s not crap? I wonder to myself (literally, because the only other person in my house right now with the baby-daddy/husband off on deployment is my 5 1/2 month old…). What if someone has a new idea that would work better? I find myself scrolling through “just to see”.  And don’t even get me started on Google searching.  Talk about a Can o’ Worms!

Here’s the thing.  I want to rely on instinct.  I think my instincts are, generally, pretty good.  Solid, I’d say, for a mom who is new to this whole mom thing.  I’ve taken a gander around at other moms long enough to know what I want to do and what I’d like to try** and avoid.  When I find myself unsure, I reach out to other mamas whom I know, from my interactions with them, have similar desires for raising their kiddos and similar beliefs.  Will we all always agree?  Probably not.  For example, I had our daughter immunized (separate post on immunizations to follow).  Not everyone does that. Everyone DOES have their opinions about this and I respect that my opinion differs from some of these same mothers whom I adore and respect.  It does not bother me one iota that they have chosen, because of their instincts, to not immunize their child.  And I suspect, because they still interact with me, that it does not bother them that I have chosen to immunize our daughter.

That all being said, if as an older, well-educated, relatively self-assured woman, I am overwhelmed with the amount of information that is thrown at new parents, I can only begin to imagine how other parents – younger and/or older than me – are feeling.  I think being a parent is hard enough without having to sort through all this information and to “know” what is right and what is wrong – or to be made to feel guilty when you don’t know.  My advice to new parents:  trust your instincts.  Every baby is different, and you will learn to know what your kiddo is telling you in their cries, their smiles, their looks and you will learn to know what they need – until they can tell you and then, well…you still have to trust your instincts, I think. 🙂

**Notice here that I don’t say “what I don’t want to do” — and I’m purposeful about this. I have learned to “never say never” because you never do know what this life called “being a mom” is going to throw at you, and when, and how you are going to handle it…so, just take notes.  

Today there was a crazy man who came into the bank at the same time as me. I think about how I would tell my daughter “it’s not nice to call people crazy”, but this man, I am almost positive, truly was.  As I was walking into the bank, he was outside speaking to a motorcycle.  I wasn’t sure, at first, what was happening.  I watched for the few moments it took me to walk from my car into the bank and I realized he was, in fact, speaking to the bike. As I entered the bank doors, I clicked my car key fob again until I heard the beep that indicates the doors are locked.  Then he came into the bank behind me.  

He and I filled out our deposit slips at the same time. He was not writing anything that made sense on his form. He was writing in spaces along the edge of the form, in all the white spaces, not on the lines.  I didn’t want to be paying attention to him and what he was doing, but I also couldn’t help but pay attention.

Then we were at the counter at the same time and he was sharing that he needed money, from a settlement from when he left the military and that he hasn’t touched a bank in years and has no ID so he should have great credit and it’s hard to get money because he was in witness protection and so on and so on and so on.  I was nervous being in that space with him, I’ll admit. I also felt, and have continued to feel, so horrible for him. I can’t shake the feelings of sadness and concern for this man, who clearly was delusional, likely homeless, and from the looks of it, not very much older than me. He was so sincere about wanting to “just get a little something to get him started” and it was heartbreaking for me to think how, in some way, independent of anything he has done, the world has failed him.

And I can’t shake it.  I can’t put my feelings aside tonight for this guy, that I have never really met, I will never really know.  I still feel a tug, a pull, an urgency in some way that tells me that I should have done something – anything.  Took out an extra $___ and given it to him.  Gone down the street and bought him some food and brought it back to him.  I’m not even sure he would have accepted either.  I don’t know that he wouldn’t have either.  All I know is that I find myself reeling in the fact that this man is, for all intents and purposes, invisible in this world — his delusion of being in witness protection, having no identity, nobody that can vouch for him (as the bank teller asked), nobody that knows him and can help him — that’s NOT a delusion for this man.  And today, I was one more person who continued to place him in an invisible space.  Today, I was one more person who didn’t see him.  Today, while I maybe didn’t make his life any harder, I certainly didn’t step in, or step up, and make it any better either.  And I feel like I could have.  Maybe?  Perhaps?

I don’t have any solutions to the overwhelming issues of homelessness and mental illness and substance addiction, and maybe none of those things have anything to do with this man.  Maybe all of them do.  I can think of solutions though, to helping another human being in need who is reaching out, in the only fragmented way that he knows how.  I can think of several things that I could have done and I did not do any of them.

And I have to live with that.  And I am ashamed.

We survived the first week of full-time back-to-work and daycare. Everyone with kids told me that the first day you drop your child off at daycare you will lose it. You will cry, they said. They said, you will want to run back in and hug and kiss them and you will call a hundred times that day, and that’s if you don’t leave work early to go back in and pick them up. But when you pick them up, they told me, it will be so amazing to see their face light up when they see you.

Our first day was less dramatic than all of that. I did tear up. I did cry (a little) once I got back into the car and was on my way to work. I did not go back into the room once I left her, but I did peek in the window again, wishing I could go back in…knowing if I did I would a) be late for work and b) probably would cry. So I peeked in at Charlotte who was already looking about at all the new sights around her, smiling like she always does, and playing with her hands (her new thing, I’m such a proud mama!). I got in my car, cried a bit, and then I went to work.

My day was too busy to step away and call a hundred times. In fact, I didn’t even get a chance to call once. This fact made me feel a little like a bad mother. What sort of mom doesn’t call to check on her baby the first day at daycare?!? Me. I was that sort of mom. Insert first feelings of maternal guilt here.

Pumping was insanely problematic for me this first day. I didn’t feel like I was pumping enough, but also felt like I was pumping ALL. THE. TIME. I started to realize why so many women give up on breastfeeding when they return to work. I am committed to breastfeeding and providing breastmilk for my daughter for as long as I can and so will continue to pump at work, but this first day and the rest of the week made me realize it is not an easy undertaking, even in an environment that is very understanding.

When I went in to pick Charlotte up from daycare that first day I was so excited. Once I left work – I left work. This is atypical of me as a Type A personality administrator. But, I had a new role, a new job waiting for me once I got home. I left all the “at work” work there – at work.  I was excited to see my daughter. To see her face get all super cute and smiley when she saw me. I was excited to return to my other work, my work as Charlotte’s mama and I was looking forward to that warm, gushy feeling everyone promised me I would have when I saw her after our first day apart.  I arrived and actually felt like I had “butterflies” in my stomach. I was almost giddy. I walked down the hallway to her room, ready to see her big toothless grin and adorable double chin.

Sleeping.

My daughter was sleeping when I picked her up her very first day of daycare. I know I should have been happy – she was clearly content, safe, well-taken care of. But I wanted that “HI MAMA!!” smile that everyone talks about. I picked up my sleeping baby, put her back in her car seat (still asleep) drove home (still asleep) and brought her inside (still asleep). She finally woke up an hour after we were home, tucked safe and sound in her own bed; she simply started chatting a little bit as if to say “no biggie, mama”. Then she proceeded to get up four times that night. So much for sleep schedules.

Now the first week is over. We have two days together this weekend where we are on our own schedule. No premade bottles, no scheduled naps – just mama and baby time. She did well this week and was not clingy or needy or overly tired or overly awake. She seemed to adjust well to this new schedule of ours. I feel like I adjusted well also. Other days I got my toothless grin, so that was nice too. But tonight, at the end of this long first week, I realized just how much this week has impacted me – and her. When we got home tonight I fed her and she refused to let me put her down. But I was So. So. So. Tired. For the first time in our lives together, Charlotte fell asleep ON ME. She has always hated this before because, frankly, she absolutely hates being on her tummy.  But this was different.  It was almost as if she was trying to burrow back inside my womb…she wanted to be close to me, she needed to be near me and would take nothing short of being connected to me in the only way her little four-month-old self could.  So, I propped myself up on our bed, smack in the middle so that should I fall asleep and she roll off me, she’d be safe (yep, this was a thought I had) and we napped. We both napped. After a bit, I woke up but she was soundly asleep so I tried to put her down next to me so that I could get up and do something. She wasn’t having it.  Her little whine was heartbreaking. She tugged at my arm and tried to nuzzle closer to me. I caved. I picked her back up and held her close to me again. We rested there together, and I took these quiet moments to soak up her delicious baby scent and kiss the top of her soft, fuzzy head over and over, as she let her fingers gently pat my arms as she fell back asleep. Mama and baby were back together: week one over and done.

After what I can only say has been a successful week, the baby is in bed, bottles are washed and my work materials are tucked away until Monday.  I will now enjoy a glass of wine and listen to her breath through the baby monitor…probably going in more often than normal to kiss her little face.

Being a mom is messy and imperfect and stressful – alongside being rewarding and hilarious. But, I gotta be real and say that there is a LOT of undue pressure put on mamas (and daddys) these days that I have to imagine was not present when I was growing up. I am 38, so it’s been awhile since I was “growing up” (wait, am I actually grown up, when did that happen??) but I don’t remember that my parents had pressures of making me into the next sport/music/academic protégé or that they were carting me from activity to activity to activity on a daily, check that, hourly basis.

Don’t get me wrong. My parents had me in sports and other extracurriculars, and pretty much made sure that my childhood was lacking in nothing of the important stuff. But, they also didn’t fill every waking moment of every single day for me.

Instead, they allowed us our own time to play, on our own terms, in our own way. And you know what? We’re OK. We all grew up, my siblings and I, and we are all OK. We made ice forts in the snow banks and little “seats” on top to wait for the school bus. We played softball and kickball in the empty field next door. We played “kick the can” or whatever other game was popular until the sunset and we were called back inside. We rode bikes. We ate freeze pops. We simply “played”. And we are all OK.

As I head back to work next week, I’ve had this growing sense of awareness about what I do with my daughter on “our time”. We are in swim lessons together, but besides that, I don’t want a bunch of other things to add to our list of “must dos” – I want our time together in the evenings and on the weekends to be spontaneous. I want to go to the zoo and let her explore. I want to go to the beach and let her explore. I want to stay in our own yard (one we share with three other amazing little girls!!) and let her explore. I don’t want to fill her days and nights with a million and one things she “has” to do…and on the other hand, I want her to experience so many things! What I know for sure is that I don’t think any parent should be guilted into signing their kiddo up for this, that and the other thing…kids do, in fact, need time to just be kids.

I am imagining I will need to find a delicate balance around all of this in the coming years. Until she can drive, and set her own darn schedule that is!

I am not a blogger.  Up until three months ago, I wasn’t even a mama.  And I certainly wasn’t a hippy.  I’ll admit, I may have been a little bit of a prepster.  The birth of my daughter Charlotte changed my whole life.  She changed everything.  I started using words like “babywearing” and google searching “amber necklaces” and “tummy time” (the bane of my existence, by the by, and Charlotte’s too), organic baby food recipes and baby sign language. Yes, having my daughter changed my entire world.  And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

In the week before I returned to work, I realized that these last three months have been the best of my life.  Rewarding in a way that I never, ever realized I would find rewarding. Frankly, as much as I love my job, I almost got resentful that I had to return to work.  I knew I was going to miss the burgeoning new sounds my daughter was making, the babywearing meet-ups in local parks with other moms, my morning and evening walks with my daughter where we looked at seagulls and palm trees and puppies and the crazy, wild parrots in our neighborhood.  I was going to miss being on our own schedule and swim lessons in the middle of the day and lounging around in our pajamas (hers with feet, mine with Lululemon logos) I realized I was going to miss the middle-of-the-day breastfeeding session where she would snuggle up against my neck when she was full before she lulled herself (and sometimes me) off to sleep with gurgles and coos.  I realized that, for the first time in my life, I wished I could be a stay-at-home mom — not because it’s easier, not because I didn’t like the work I did (it’s NOT and I DO!) but because I want to soak up every stinkin’ minute of every single day of my daughter’s life!

I realized one thing in this week before I returned to work:  I was born to be Charlotte’s mama.

I needed to figure out a way to keep my thoughts from spinning, and keep my questions in one place, and share my experience with others (who might or might not care to know what’s twirling in my new-mama head) and my husband, Charlotte’s daddy, who deployed with the US Navy two weeks after she was born.  Hence the birth of this blog, stemming from how I described myself to my husband in an email.

But I’m not a blogger.  I am, however, a prepster-hippy mama who needed a space to share my thoughts, capture them for posterity and sanity.  I have no idea what I will end up posting here.  I want to share ideas and blogs from elsewhere and thoughts — of my own and of others.  I don’t know what will come of this blog, but hopefully it will be an interesting way to reflect on my combined roles in life: professional, wife, runner, wine-lover (oh, yeah, I LOVE wine), daughter, sister, and now – Charlotte’s mama.

Read on and enjoy.

Peace and Cheers!