I remember the moment being confined to a hospital bed and my disseration chair visiting me in the hospital. She laughed that while a majority of future new mamas would have been surrounded by the creature comforts of home, I was surrounded by several different laptops #becausaeyouneverknow, a tablet, and piles of research because I still like to old school highlight and write in the margins. After just shooting the breeze about life and my current predictament, she asked the serious question of whether or not I wanted to take the semester off. I answered with a resounded "NO!" Time off meant that I couldn't take the pressure, that I could't manage time properly, and that I was unable to keep up with my peers. There was no way that I was going to take time off. Since that point I think I have regretted that decision at least 100 times and, but I stuck with it and here I am still struggling, but still haven't taken any time off. #mamasanidiot.
Who needs Dr. Seuss when E.V. gets read to journal articles on my topic, she may not be able to provide valuable advice, but heck, she helps me get the job done. If her first words are "underrepresented minorities" or "computer technology", I quit.
I know one should never compare themselves to others and often what we see on Instagram and Snapchat are not the every day to day reality, but is it just me or do these mama blogs seem to have it altogther. Ever follow Katey McFarlane from Chronicles of Frivolity?! She is officially my mama crush. I am convinced that her day moves at a much slower pace then mine does and that she must have a horde of minions hidden somewhere. If you are not following her, you should be! Having two weeks off for the holiday break meant time to work on my dissertation, work on this blog the way I have intended to since I started it, deep clean the house, wrap presents and so forth. I even put everything in my planner so I could check off my completions. You know what I have gotten done in four days?! I think I washed my hair once, visited Target a dozen times over, and have lived in Old Navy leggings. Where does the day go?! Pre-warning, this blog post goes from one topic to another, so buckle in and find yourself going "sparkly object" a lot.
And just because...here we are practicing our crawling position. Because she was in the NICU, she see's a home physical therapist once a week. I am not even sure what you would call this that she is using but we bought it at Target (big surprise I know, in the baby section) and it has worked wonders helping her get into correct positions without her experiencing any discomfort.
The hubs and I are extremley lucky, both of our mamas couldn't jump on the grenade fast enough when it came time to bring E.V. home and provide her with Grammy Daycare duty! I was just hired back at the College that I worked for before I was pregnant, so taking time off was not even an option. I never thought I would be one of those parents who went through separation anxiety, I figured how hard can it be being away when she is with the two most loving people I know. Boy was I wrong! I still struggle with it and have to find ways to not get annoyed when something is not being done the way I would do it, especially since they are the one's doing us a favor. For all the mamas trying to to way to balance life...we should all raise a glass of wine and celebrate being able to take a shower.
By the time I get home from work, it is time for another bottle, practicing eating off a spoon, her meds, a small nap, tummy-time, story reading, another bottle and bed. It seems like a lot, but the time moves at hyper-speed. I don't know who is more excited when Hubs comes home her or me!?
We have recently staggered in a lot of trying new foods. When she was in the hospital, because she had a feeding tube that annoyed her, she was constantly trying to push it out with her tongue, a habit that has been slow in resolving. Seriously though whats with pushing all the food out of her mouth with her tongue...help a mama out!? She does love trying new foods and only has seemed to reject carrots, which I can't blame her, cause boooooring amirite?!
Speaking of, when I was pregnant the Hubs went on and on about how HE was going to make her all organic foods, no packaged food for her blah blah blah...so I purchased all the do it yourself squeezy pouches and baby mashers and so forth and lets just guess what is not being made and how this mama is keeping the Sprout and Beech Nut Organic baby food people in business. But boy do having all of the packaging items make me look like mama of the year in the pantry...cue furrowed emojii face. Shout out to the mamas who find the time to put aside and are able to do it, you all are my heroes...seriously! In other news, who else picks out baby food based on what sounds good to you? There is an organic brand (the name slips my mama brain) that has very adult sounding combinations and as E.V. has gotten into her 2 foods (we have to go what would be her actual age had she be born when she was supposed to rather then the age she is now) I buy one or two of these foods just to see what she likes since one can only mix banana with so much. I will say I have gotten more than one raised eyebrow over the pasta, white bean, and olive oil combination (with garlic and onion), but she likes it (or so it seems by her not vomitting) so who am I to mess with her ecclectic palate?
Ready for the sparkly object moment...
I recently had lunch with my best friend who's brother just welcomed a baby boy into the world and we were talking about the brand new mama adjustment period. The one where everyone you have ever known gives you advice on what you should and shouldn't do with your child. I feel ashamed in admitting that I was also a smidge like this myself and I didn't even have frakkin kids at the time( I apologize to all my amazing warrior mamas now). We talked about the pacifier dilemma, waking a child to feed them and where they should be sleeping and how. I told him the best advice that I wish someone had given me: that know one knows your child, but you and that you can listen to the advice without taking it, but also not being obstinate about it. You don't want to not listen for the sake of thinking you know better and not wanting to be told what to do. As for waking your child to feed them every three hourse so they never develop a good REM, I won't judge, but I will raise my eyebrow slighlty.
Some advice is worthy to listen to and well some....should fall on deaf ears. When we brought E.V. home, she was a tummy sleeper, everyone including the NICU nurses told us not to let her sleep on her tummy, you wanna see how she sleeps...
She REALLY loves her Porg!
Before other mama's get on their holier than thou opinion train, please note that she was born with severe reflux so sleeping on her tummy helped her digest the food better and now its the only way she can sleep. I won't even bother showing others as I am sure a lynch mob would show up here :)
We were recently at Disney and what can I say, we have a cute kid , so lots of people approach us and talk to us, but I remember a grandmother who asked how old E.V. was and when I told her she went on this huge storytelling adventure about how much younger and bigger her grandson was. Needless to say the person she was with looked mortified and I explained she was a preemie, but she just kept going (the lesson here is that some people will only ask about your kid so that they can one up you with their own). The important takeaway is that the advice is going to be aplenty and even when you don't ask for it, it will come your way, I wouldn't say ignore it, but keep it in a vault in the back of your mind where you might want to utilize some of it and the other stuff can just be used in a blog or a tweet later on in life ;).
Basically how I parent...
