Over the last eleven weeks, I have found mothering to not come as naturally as some say it does. I love my son, I think he is wonderful, but I have had some difficulty always putting his needs first, especially at first when I felt lousy from the very difficult labor and was really sleep deprived. Em talks about how she realized as a child that parenting meant always giving the child the biggest slice of cake and never having it yourself and I think that is a good description.
However, as time has progressed and he had become more of a baby and less of a lump (yes I called my child a lump and I am sticking to it) I am finding myself a great deal more at ease with this always putting X first, even when I'm so tired all I want to do is take a nap.
And then there are moments that remind me why I got into this motherhood business. X has had a cold for a few days and this has led to sleeping more at night (yay!), less or not at all during the day (boo!) and being cranky and overwhelmed a great deal. So late this afternoon he was fussing and whining and generally being sad and I had tried feeding and diaper-changing and walking up and down the hall and I could not figure out what to do next and I looked down at my child and really looked at him and thought, "He's just so tired, he doesn't know how to sleep." So I held him very close to my chest and just told him again and again in a soft voice that I knew that he was so tired and overwhelmed and didn't know what to do, but not to worry because Mama knew and she would fix it. And he stopped sobbing and his head fell back against my arm and he fell asleep on my chest, all warm and soft and loose and this is how you are a parent and give them the biggest slice of cake. You just slow down and look at them and realize that sometimes Mama really does know how to fix it.
Of course, there are those moments like the one a few hours later in the day when he screams at you without end and nothing you do works and the cuddle trick doesn't work and when you try to nurse him back to calmness, he screams at your breast and tries to bite you (even though he doesn't have teeth yet) and only Uncle can calm him down and you want to go in the other room and scream but you have to be the grown up... and then Mommy takes over and you pass the child back and forth until nursing is acceptable and he finally falls asleep and you thank God that there is a Mama, a Mommy and an Uncle in this house and this is your Commune Child.
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A wonderful description of the beginning. I found it so, so hard. Sometimes I didn't love him at all. Sometimes I screamed and cried. But my first moment of "OK - I can do this" was similar to yours, when he was sick with a snuffly cold for the first time and I just held him and realized that if it would make him feel better, I would happily forgo sleep and just sit in that chair all night holding him upright so he could be more comfortable. And that's when I first felt like a mom. He was, for the record, nearly six months old at the time!
I think Naomi Wolfe probably wrote a book on what a crock the instant motherhood thing is. Eight years in, I still have a hard time with it some days. Some things I have learned: Sometimes doing the best thing for him IS putting yourself first. That's why you put the mask on you before the kids in the even of an airplane crash-- If you're not taken care of, you're in no shape to take care of anyone else. Mothering may come naturally, but it comes slowly. Remember that you have an awesome support system!!
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