ugly mom tears

Ugly tears.  I think we all can relate to that term.  You know when you're crying, and it's an ugly cry-there's mascara running down your face, your face is a big hot mess, and when you look in the mirror all you can do is shriek at the disaster looking back at you.

I've cried many ugly tears.  No shame.  Whether it be over big things or little things, ugly tears are no stranger in our household.

Well, there's a new term that I'm adopting due to this new phase of life I am not in.  Ugly mom tears.  These are ugly tears, but the reason for your crying is due to the fact that you're now a mom.

Daniel went back to work last week, and it was the first time that I experienced ugly mom tears.  All of a sudden Nathan became a pro at fighting sleep.  He started crying and screaming, arching his back, and this would last at least thirty minutes at a time.  Of course this had to happen right when Daniel went back to work.  On Saturday night I finally had him to sleep for the night, set him down in his bed, and no more than five minutes later his cries told me otherwise.  So I picked him up and started rocking him.  This didn't work, so I rocked and shushed him.  This still didn't work so I was left with a screaming baby now who was inconsolable.  It seemed like no matter how much rocking, shushing, swinging, swaying I did he wouldn't calm down.  Bring on the ugly mom tears.  He was crying, I was crying.  These cries turned into sobs, learning me a big ol' hot mess alone in our bedroom.  Eventually he calmed down and fell asleep, just in time for Daniel to come home from work.  Mascara was all over my face, my eyes were puffy, and he walked in the door and said, "So how was your day?"  This only provoked more ugly mom tears.

Now let's jump to the next day.  Fortunately there were no ugly mom tears, but if I wasn't in public there more definitely would have been.  And I share this story to show that things are perfect around our household or with me, and to also show that you truly can look back on a situation and laugh even though you told yourself you never would.

I met up with a dear friend of mine at Target.  She needed to get some things for an upcoming trip, and I just wanted a good Target browse session for nothing in particular.  This Target is massive, two stories tall.  Nathan was in his stroller, and he had slept on the way there but woke up as soon as we arrived.  He was content until we got upstairs in the middle of the store, when he started to wail.  I tried soothing him with his pacifier, which he refused to take.  His crying was getting louder and louder so I picked him up out of the stroller only to find out that we needed an immediate diaper change, it was bad.  His crying didn't stop as we made our way over to the elevator and to the restroom.  This felt like the longest walk of my life, as I held a baby over one shoulder and pushed a stroller with the other…mind you the baby was still screaming.

On the changing table I soon found out that we just had THE biggest blowout of all time.  I'll save you the gross details, just now that it was a disaster.  After using every last wipe I had and carefully rolling his outfit into itself as to keep the rest of his body clean, I got him changed and all cleaned up.  He still screamed!  So I decided to quickly check out and head to the car to feed him.  Of course the lines are backed up and I was not that girl with the crying baby.  I was doing everything I possibly could to calm him down and he just wouldn't stop.  By this point my face was red, I was sweating profusely and I just wanted to sit down in the middle of Target and "whip it out" so that he would stop.  My cashier quickly noticed that I needed to get out of there and was even patting Nathan's back while I paid.  Oh dear.  The good part of the story is that we eventually made our way to the car where I was able to nurse Nathan, solving our screaming fiasco.

I know that this will only be one of many fiascos for me in public with a screaming child, so I better get used to it.  The good side is that I can now look back on it and laugh a bit…a tiny bit.  I'm still afraid to go to that Target in case someone recognizes me as the lady with a screaming baby who couldn't calm him down.

Ugly mom tears are going to happen, and they will probably happen more now as I learn to adapt to Daniel being gone at work.  Babies change so much day to day, and I'm learning that giving myself grace takes on a whole new meaning as a new mom.  So if you have had an ugly mom tear moment, I hope that you can laugh it off now and love yourself even more for surviving it!

ditching the scale

As women, we all face the that nasty topic.  You know what I'm talking about.  Body image.

We weigh ourselves, compare ourselves, tell ourselves that we aren't good enough with the way that we are, and sometimes go to extremes to meet these "goals" that are completely acceptable to us.

This is something I've always dealt with.  I don't think I ever really felt comfortable in my skin.  In middle school I was bigger, more developed, and already began telling myself the lie that my body wasn't good enough.  This lie built and built as I went into high school and throughout college.  It probably wasn't until I was married that I finally felt comfortable with who I was and the shape that I was.  Fortunately I loved food way too much to go to extremes to change my body.  Plus, I learned how to exercise and finally (not over night) accepted that being fit didn't mean skinny but healthy.

I always had a fear of the weight gain during pregnancy.  My mom would admonish me whenever I would tell her my nightmares of blowing up like an elephant.  And I wasn't even pregnant yet.  So when I got pregnant I realized I needed to do something so that I kept a healthy mindset throughout it.  I didn't want to be stressed with a number that I needed to lose after having the baby and I also didn't want to beat myself up when my body was doing the most beautiful thing-making life.

With that I decided to not know how much I weighed during my pregnancy.  It is doable!  I would turn around and face away from the numbers on the scale and politely let my nurse know I didn't want to know my weight.  When they printed up my paperwork, I soon figured out that my weight was printed on it!  So then I started asking my nurse to use sharpie over it so I couldn't see it.  I know that I must've sounded silly and crazy, but my nurses quickly caught on and began to remember, and most importantly- I wasn't kicking myself or hating on my body.  I watched as my body stretched and grew in places it had never before.  There were days that I wasn't happy with my body, but I would quickly remind myself that it was doing something amazing and deserved to be praised not hated.

After Nathan arrived I was going for a walk around the neighborhood and was thinking about this weight issue that we as woman go through.  I've come a very long way mentally to accept my body, even my pregnant body, and I suddenly decided that I still loved my body.  This postpartum body of mine shows the marks that provided life for another and created a beautifully healthy baby.  And that should be praised!

For me, I'd rather base how I feel about my weight on how my clothes feel and how I feel.  The scale has this gloomy association, creating a sense of fear.  So why not free ourselves from this fear and not weigh ourselves?  This doesn't mean "let our bodies go" and live an unhealthy lifestyle.  This means find what healthy looks like for you, find pieces of your body you love and focus on them, and listen to how your body feels in your clothes instead of living for a number.

Now, just to show you how human I am I have to share with you how I didn't live this out this week.  At my follow up appointment this week I thought I'd actually look at the scale.  You know, just to see where I was at since having the baby.  I wasn't actually pretty happy with the number, but I didn't know what to compare it to since I hadn't been weighing myself throughout my pregnancy and even leading up to it.  So when I got home, I jumped onto the computer and looked up my past visit reports and found my weight pre-baby and for my first appointment.  Yes I did.  And instantly my mind was flooded with disappointment and anxiety because now I knew how much weight I needed to lose to be back to my "pre-baby" body.  How terrible this was!  This is exactly what I didn't want to happen, and here I was undoing everything I had done.

We are all human and we will have moments when the number takes over our minds and brings us down.  And there are moments when we live for more than the number and accept and love our bodies for what they create and do.  So, if you are struggling with your body image by any means I urge you to ditch the scale and remember that the number does not define you!

one month

We are a little late, but Nathan turned one month old on Saturday!  I'm still having a hard time typing that sentence.  How did this past month fly by so fast?!?  It is very true that they grow so fast right before your eyes.  

In one month we have learned how to love and nurture this precious baby that we prayed for.  It still amazes me that he is really here.  You pray and wait for so long, wondering what they will look like, who they will take after, how they will act, and when they are finally here it still takes a while to sink in.  My absolute favorite part of our day is in the mornings when Nathan wakes up and I'm chaining his diaper telling him "good morning".  He is so smiley and happy, and we just talk and goo at one another.  

Nathan is a champ at eating and has had no problem at all gaining weight!  Right at three weeks he weighed 9 lbs 5 oz, so I can only imagine how much he weighs now. 

Nathan loves:

baths

a tight swaddle

his soothie

big bounces

sleeping at night in his rock n' play

going for long walks in his stroller 

his swing

his changing table

Oh, and he is really good at fighting sleep tooth and nail.  Especially around 9pm when we are exhausted wishing he would fall asleep and stay asleep.  

It was a sad day when his newborn clothes no longer fit him.  That same day we had to adjust the straps in his car seat, and also move him to size 1 diapers.  Sniff! 

I'd love to say that he is fallen into a nice sleep schedule but every day is different.  There are days when he eats every three hours and falls asleep pretty well after feeding or after a little bit of play time on his mat.  There are other days when he wants to eat every 2 hours and just throws us all for a loop.  At night he is beginning to go about 4-6 hours between his first and second feeding, and then eats every three hours after that.  I must say that he is an angel at nights and falls right back to sleep after eating. 

He is so good when we get out of the house and usually sleeps beautifully when we wear him in the Ergo.   

And because I can't get enough of him, here is a photo dump of our little guy...