Sunday I celebrated my first Mother’s Day. Last year on
Mother’s Day I was getting up to teach a spin class for a friend and I remember
Chad saying to
me, “If you were a mom you would get special treats today, but you’re not!” It
was his teasing way of trying to get me to soften to the idea of having kids.
If anyone would have told me last year that the next Mother’s Day I would have
had a baby I would have called you crazy. What a difference a year can make.
I have always celebrated my mom and grandmother’s and aunts
on Mother’s Day, but I never fully understood the meaning until I became a mom
myself. Being pregnant is a process and giving birth itself is hard work and
painful we should all appreciate the woman who went through this to bring us
earthside. We all have a mother or we wouldn’t be here and no matter what ones
relationship is with their mother later in life, to know that someone gave you
life is the greatest most unselfish gift of all.
Chad
made sure he did everything possible to give me a wonderful first Mother’s Day.
There was breakfast in bed, we lunched, walked around the Highland’s
and just spent the day together as a family which is what I wanted most. I
received sweet texts and facebook messages from my friends wishing me a Happy
Mother’s Day and this meant the world to me. For someone else to recognize your
hard work and dedication in being a mother is refreshing. I spend most of my
days like I’m sure most moms do beating myself up thinking I could be doing
better. When I put Charlotte to bed
at night part of me is sad knowing that is a day I can never get back. I curse
myself for having negative thoughts when we have a bad day and nothing I do
seems to make her happy. The loss of sleep will do crazy things to your mental
health.
Being a mom is hard there is no doubt about that. However, I
know this was my intended path for all that the universe has unfolded to me. My
relationship with MY mom and sister is better for having Charlotte.
I now know my own birth story from my moms point of view, something I never
even cared to ask about before. My sister and I have someone in common now that
is bigger than us and our egos. The other day she sent me a gift for Charlotte
and included dry shampoo in there. Dry shampoo because she knows how hard it’s
been for me just to get a daily hair washing in. That is love. My relationship
with other women who are moms is better. I can now relate on a level that I
never could before. The other day after bootcamp I was sitting in the park with
Charlotte and two women stopped by
to ask how old she was. One of the women was pregnant and two weeks from her
due date. We ended up talking about midwives and primrose treatments and
natural births. She was an athlete like me and in the end thanked me for
sharing my positive birth experience. “All you hear is the negative,” she said.
“And it doesn’t help. I’m just glad to know there are positive stories like
yours out there.”
It’s true and I’m just as guilty as anyone – there is a lot
of negative out there. Motherhood is not all sunshine and rainbows and
unicorns. There are days when Charlotte
has puked in my bra while nursing and blown out her diaper in the car seat.
There are days when Charlotte is crying so hard her face turns red at the store
and I’m sweating I’m so flustered and I just want to drop my items and run out
screaming…especially when I hear a teenage boy mutter as he walks by, “Shut
that fucking baby up.” There are days when all I want to do is sleep in and I
hear her crying at 5am and I just wish
I could turn it off.
Then Charlotte
will smile.
Because in-between the horrible are moments of wonderful.
Like when Charlotte looks at me
with those big blue eyes while she is nursing like I’m the best thing in the
world. The days when Charlotte is
content to sleep on my chest and snuggle. The times when I walk around the
house with her and she has her tiny fist tucked under her chin and just stares
at everything. The afternoons when she comes with me to lunch with a friend,
bootcamp and then my hair appointment and never makes more than a whimper in
protest.
I look at Charlotte
and know she is the best part of me. She is the pure parts, the wonderful, the
innocent, the love I have inside, the selfless. Charlotte
is my greatest achievement in life and my legacy. She will be the piece of me
that lives on and carries my story after I die. She is the hardest and best
part of my day every day.
I know I am only 6 weeks in to being a mom, which is not a
lot of time to have passed but I am already so humbled and in awe of all the
moms out there. I do not even feel qualified to have joined the ranks of all
the wonderful women around me and before me. Every day I am learning and trying
to do better and hoping it is enough. I have finally come to realize that being
a mom is just about unselfish love and in life love is the only thing that
matters because at the end of the day it’s all we have.
I was out with Charlotte
the other day in a yoga store and was bestowed some great advice by the woman
working in the store. She told me the best advice which had been told to her
which was not to wish your children’s life away; to enjoy every day no matter
how hard. This advice has changed how I approach my days. When I look at Charlotte
now, no matter how rough the day has been I do not wish for it to end.
I am making a conscious effort now not to wish her life
away.
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