June 11, 2019

This One’s for the Mamas (and Da-das)

It’s 9:30 AM and I’m hiding under the covers with my coffee staring at the baby monitor.

I’m exhausted. I’m cold. I have a headache. The bags under my eyes are heavier than the gallon of ice cream I’ll eat later, and I’m crying.

I’m crying because I had a rough morning. Oh lord, was it rough. But, I’m also crying because as I look at my sweet baby boy on that monitor I’m drowning in a sea of guilt. I feel guilty for hiding, for getting a little bit frustrated, and for not savoring the moment. Even though I counted down the minutes until this AM nap, I miss him. Even though our morning was disastrous, I miss him.

Being a mom is the strangest yet most beautiful thing I’ve ever felt. I’m in a constant battle with missing my old self and loving the new life my baby boy has given me. One minute I am craving alone time, and the next minute I’m staring at a sound asleep baby waiting for him to wake up and smile at me. Often, I don’t know who I am anymore, or who I will become. Sometimes it’s scary, and frustrating not knowing if I’ll ever be “me” again. But in this moment, I am all my son has ever known. Old me or new me, he loves me.

It’s days like today when I need to read a whole lot of quotes about motherhood and look back at all of baby H’s pictures starting from the beginning. Today, good or bad is a day with my son that I will never get back.

PHOTO CREDITS: LYRYN KAY PHOTOGRAPHY

I’ll only have my baby with me for so long and I need to inhale all of the moments that I am blessed to be given with him. I need to commit his appearance, personality, and laugh to memory because they change so fast. I need to take the rough mornings with the good mornings. The mornings where he won’t let me put him down, has been through three outfits in an hour, and won’t play with anything other than dog toys with the mornings where we cuddle, read books, giggle, and can’t stop smiling at each other-and appreciate them both.

Oh, there are remarkable days, and there are remarkably hard days, and there are always, ALWAYS, tired days, but a day is a day and I am blessed to have any of them.

So mamas (and dadas), I see you and I empathize with you. On disaster days and picture perfect days-I see you and I feel you. No matter the day though-we are their whole worlds and they carry a piece of us in return-wherever they go. We will never have this day again, so make some more coffee, hide a little longer if you need to, and then go enjoy your day with your sweet babe.