Saturday, April 07, 2007

Secrets About Motherhood....

I'm convinced that if mothers spoke the truth about motherhood, the world's population wouldn't be nearly as high as it is now.

Don't get me wrong - I love my daughter. But I just feel like I ran into a wall. Like a bomb was dropped in the middle of my life.

Why didn't anyone tell me? Why didn't anyone let me know that I'd be exhausted every night, and my arms would ache from lugging my 16 lb bundle of joy around every day? Who knew that The Kid [as I've taken to calling her] would be so much work?

Who knew I'd spend almost every waking minute thinking about her? Is she hungry? Is she wet? Does she need a bath tonight? Did I wash her hair yesterday? Where's her headband? I gotta wash her clothes...Why is she spitting up so much? Man, her poo stinks....

Etc, etc, etc.

I never knew how much I could care about one person. The hubby jokes that The Kid has trained me, because when she cries, I move without thinking, like a robot. I hear her whimper at night and it wakes me up, even though we sleep with the TV on and she's in her room. How does that work?

She said her first word. I don't care if everyone tells me she's just babbling, it's not really "words" quite yet, I don't care. She said MAMA. I heard it and the people around us heard it. She said MAMA.

She can roll over now, thanks in part to the large head she inherited from her mama. All she has to do is lean over a little, and that head provides the momentum.

She can grab things. Hold a rattle in front of her and she reaches for it and sticks it in her mouth. She sticks everything in her mouth. I swear I spend half the day taking things from her.

She laughs. She coos. She smiles. She kicks when she's happy. She squeaks when she's happy.

There are a lot of things I didn't know about motherhood, but I'm glad I'm learning.

4 comments:

Sommer D. Stephens Luther said...

I now understand that there are "secrets about motherhood" and my son is only 4 weeks old. Sometimes I wonder why no one told me about all of these "secrets," but, them I look at my son and think that I would never want to discourage someone from becoming mother. There is nothing in the world that compares to the magic of your child.

But, there is another secret of motherhood - Once you are a mother you become part of a very special club of women who have experienced the same things and can understand each other without even knowing each other.

Joanna said...

I can remember Ella having an enormous head. She has since grown into it. But those were some funny pictures. The waking up in the middle of the night, even with the TV on and in the other room....I so feel you on that one. Hubby sleeps through it all the time. It is truely amazing how motherhood changes women.

Paris David said...

Man oh man, ain't it grand?

And that's the same thing I thought: Why didn't anyone tell me motherhood was going to be like this.

So all-consuming, so exhausting, so wonderful, so amazing, so unexplainable?

Even watching my sis have three kids, I still didn't understand till I had mine.

I think we just don't want to scare each other away...

Anonymous said...

right there with you girl, and mine is 20 lbs!