Firsts…

When we had our first-born Maya Louise 11 years ago we genuinely knew nothing about parenting. We had an idea based on our joined beliefs and morals, but when faced with the daily privilege of raising a child we had to learn for ourselves trial and error as they say. We’re still learning 11 years later.

As a new mom I fell susceptible to the suggestions, opinions, and advice from others. Friends, family and parenting books congested my mind and my maternal instincts. It’s somewhat common when this happens as a new parent because you truly just don’t know many, many….many things. So you tend to absorb it all at first from every direction until it’s just too much to digest.

I remember my closest friend since high school calling one morning after a couple of weeks home with Maya. She asked,

” How’s it going”?

I’m not sure if it was hormones, or the comfort I felt in her voice ( probably both), but I could only sob and reply,

“It’s really, really hard. I knew it was going to be hard, but not this hard”.

One afternoon during the first few weeks of settling in with our newborn baby girl the newborn fog had begun to lift. My husband and I asked one another,

”Okay, now what”?

We knew she had to be fed, which as a nursing baby she ate All. The. Time. We knew she had to be changed, and bathed, and held. But there was uncertainty about the in between stuff other than those basic fundamentals.  Fortunately, I was able to ask my mom back then (since passed), because I’ve learned your mom will give you the absolute best advice among anything, or anyone. It’s something genetic- a maternal connection so raw and organic that it will be the only advice you take without uncertainty as a new mom in this newborn phase.  My Mom?  She suggested a book.  I remember thinking…not another book!

It was a sleep training book mom had heard about on a morning talk show.  She picked up a copy for me and although we weren’t necessarily looking for answers on sleep training (yet), the author had created a schedule in the book for new parents to follow for their new babies. And there it was! We had found some answers to our what now??

Basically the schedule suggested a routine to follow throughout the day. You know- upon waking let them learn that it’s daytime by making the room bright, higher energy, change & dress them… Breakfast. Play. Nap. Eat. Play. Nap.  Repeat till bed time while then creating the time after dinner a quieter, dimly lit time preparing for bed.

This schedule was immediately hung on our fridge and it truly helped us. I didn’t take much of the sleep training techniques from the book around this new stage, but learning that a baby under a year needs to sleep every two hours was a huge lesson for us. It gave us knowledge, and insight to just what Maya Louise needed as she started her little life with us. Knowledge. Something we have nothing of when we start out on our parenting journey, but our parents, do.  It’s fascinating how we spend our life cycle repeating things. When we are babies and small we look to our parents for everything. For survival. Then teen hood we start to branch off to find our own identity away from our family and parents, even though they are the ones who helped us to start our identity with their love and influences. We grow, and sprawl ourselves out slowly becoming more independent.  For some of us, we become parents, running right back to where we started…looking to our parents for knowledge we have no experiences in, but they certainly do.  Thanks, Mom….. Every two hours nap them. Who knew???  We didn’t!

As time passed I started to get a hang on having a baby at least for short increments until a new phase started me learning all over again, and again….and…again…still. Because that’s truly all parenting is.  Learning.  Eternally.

I still found myself however, unable to block out the suggestions of how I should be mothering, or parenting from other influences. Other moms. I constantly compared myself to other moms my age. What they did. How they did it. Were they home? Did they work? Which was one of my biggest battles within my confidence because I was home. I compared myself to what they had, what baby products they used. What toys. What they fed their babies, and when and how. The cars they drove, the size of their wedding rings, their homes.  It was exhausting. Just revisiting it in my mind drains me.  Yet- this is such a part of it for many new moms.  Looking back I now believe the age of the mom plays a pretty big role in this game of competition we may feel with other women, and within ourselves.  I’ve learned it’s about trust. A trust from within that’s so difficult to embrace with a first-born because we feel so inexperienced, and yet other mom’s even if they’re messes inside like us just seem to be put together goddesses.

We build them up to be. We create them into infallible beings because we’re sleep deprived (even tho new moms often deny this due to their own infallible superpowers of “I’m not tired” denial), and we’re inexperienced in ways we didn’t expect to be, and so we compare.. We look to Mom’s in our circle, or new acquaintances we meet at play groups or the library, or park, for the answers, for assurance, for a bit of restored control over our thoughts because at least if we’re comparing ourselves its by our choice… we’re in control (we feel we’ve lost), and not by this iddy biddy human we’ve longed for and created and yet has deshelveled our lives…just a bit.

And hormones. No one talks of them deeply enough, but in mere passé.  They distort every fiber of thought and we temporarily lose ourselves to the steam engine plowing through our bodies of too much testosterone, not enough serotonin, inefficient dopamine uptake, complete imbalance before, during, and after ( long after) child-bearing. Long after. No one talks enough about the serious role hormones play inside a woman. We make jokes amongst ourselves but, I pray for women to learn more about hormonal contributions to our well-being.  It affects us more than we know. They have the ability to clog our rational thought, our energy levels, our nutrition and weight…our instincts as learning mothers, our moods, and our physical changes. But the only thing people will point out is your mood. ” You’re just hormonal’ they’ll say, and they are right, but theres such depth to that saying and should’t be dismissed.  It can take a women two full years before her body starts to stabilize again with hormones. Take the time and self-care to know the havoc your hormones create,  because they certainly know you.

Our instincts. Those maternal instincts that speak to us like braille for the blind. I can recall how heightened my sense of hearing was during my pregnancy. . I’d say to my husband

“Shh! Hear that??”

Silence.

He heard nothing. But sure enough a motorcycle miles away would make its way into sound in his ears and he’d say

“Wow, you heard that from miles away?”

I could hear and smell things moments before anyone else around me. It was my first “Ah ha” moment of maternal abilities. My body preparing for motherhood. Incredibly surreal.  Maternal instincts know by one glance that your baby is about to poop, or pee, or doesn’t feel good. Or, he wants Auntie visit number ten to back off a little now.  There’s the instincts that tell the pediatrician “NO” for the third visit in two days-  it’s not in my mind because I’m tired, that cough isn’t just viral, Doc!

It’s knowing when they’re about to roll off of you, or the bed when seconds prior you were snoring so deep like a grizzly bear.  It’s looking straight into their eyes …with the strongest emotion welling up inside you that you’d give anything and everything to them for as long as you are able. Connection. Instincts. .. If you don’t feel it at first…hold on. You will… Remember the hormones. Talk about it.

We had Evan Sawyer just two years ago on march 12th. Yes, the same marriage and no totally unexpected. Those are the first two questions I am asked these days because of the nine years between our kids, but we’ll save that for another post as this is novel length worthy as is.

I was familiar in my nine years of parenting Maya as the only child that the second baby, third baby etc… you tend to become a different parent entirely then the parent you were, with the first. But it’s hard to imagine being as such until you are there. Having baby number two nine years after our first is like having a baby for the first time again.

I laughed at commercials portraying the second kid syndrome – like when a mom in that one commercial has a little baby in tote and a toddler at her feet, and so on her way out she throws a single diaper, and handful of loose Cheerios into her purse. But with the first everything was packed up neatly and healthy and took an hour to get out the door.

With Evan I get that funny commercial and I’m definitely a different mommy so far with him. Although the pieces of my type A personality linger around too much and won’t fully let me be that mom in the commercial, the funny message we all relate to is so genuine.

Only after experiencing and loving a child with all of your might, good and bad, from ages zero to right around five will you be able to become that mom the second time around. Because you lived it. You survived it. 0-5 is the pits. It’s like you’ve come out of some sort of revolutionary war together right before the brink of kindergarten.

There’s a boatload, a yacht sized portion of days filled with tremendous joy, pride, laughter, and love, but I can say for me? Parenting zero to five is one of my greatest challenges.

In addition to all the stuff that makes your heart burst with love, there will be days it aches too. The days filled with constant tantrums from your baby…and yourself. Days when you can’t seem to get out of pajamas, or do much of anything. Days you get to work, and you have no idea how you got there, and you miss your kid so much you hide in the bathroom and cry. The nights you truly have no idea what to do with the sick baby, or how to soothe, or get them to stay in their crib ( another blog post, stay tuned). The nights you would give anything to call your mom at 3 am, but instead you google even though they all say DON’T GOOGLE!

Days where you feel like you regret wanting a baby. Yes, it will happen. The days where you give and give and give without even a second thought because it’s just become automatic to take care of another before yourself. And yet those days when that baby is the only reason you get out of bed….. For me, anyway.

Parenting today with a 2-year-old and a tween is just as challenging, but because of those hard years I gained with our Maya, I’m able to know there’s lighter days ahead… Even through the darkest when I feel like I just can’t.

This time around I’ve left all that comparing I did with Maya, behind. Because I’ve aged too. With age I’ve found more peace. I watch our 20 something year old neighbor, mom of two want and get the new, nicer SUV.  I smile when she shows me her massive new wedding band when it arrives from fed ex from “Jared”.  I gasp when she tells me she found 140$ sunglasses for only 70$, all proud, because I just could never want to. I listen when she obsesses about her weight, and the trendy activities and programs all the kids are doing….that she just has to get her kids into.

My heart hurts for her, and as I wave to her from my 2005 ( Mayas birth year), jeep Cherokee, my single diamond, simple white gold wedding band gleams across her fancy sunglasses, as we head to the park to play and meet friends for free. I know she’ll have to learn and grow in the ways I have, for a more free and simple way of motherhood. She’ll have to learn….and she will. WE all do.

It’s hard enough. It’s so incredibly hard to be a parent. You’re not only learning how to selflessly care for another, you have to learn how to simultaneously care for yourself too. Surrounded in a world of materialism and constant social media sharing…and shaming. It was hard enough before Facebook, or Instagram, or twitter just interacting with other parents at pre school pick ups. Being a new parent now? The mother in-laws And Aunts, and constant feedback from others seems delightful up against the you should do and have and be this… of the social media lifestyles.

SO…listen up! This time around, with nine years of trial and tribulations of training under my belt the only comparing I do is which store has the best price on diapers.  I’ve made it a mission to seek out against main stream social media…. That I should use this product, or I should try this sleep training method, or this diet…and so on and so on and so on. The almost brainwashing techniques of our social media outlets, and advertising, and link affiliates can really suck you into the mentality that you are without. That you must have this and that and more of this in order to succeed as a person or a parent. This strikes and irks such a chord within me.

Naturally, I rebel against what the masses are doing. I was severely bullied at 12 years old and thankfully it aided me to always seek out more than what everyone else is doing. I had a brief derailment when Maya was born thanks to out of control hormones tricking me to think I wasn’t enough…or had all I needed. But I’m stronger and better at 40, with a two-year old boy and a tween girl.  My mission is to not only to empower myself with the basics, and art of simplicity, but to reach and empower the masses to believe and utilize that good old saying of less is more…. in a world of TMI.

I’ll try my best to illustrate all I’ve learned here at Simply tipShe so we can hack on through life together. Some posts will be lighter than others, some much more deep in perspective, and maybe some posts will be long, while some short. But I’ll always have the interest to empower, to simplify, and to lend support from everything I draw from. I’ll always share practicality over consumption! And I’ll always keep sharing little tips along the way.

Thanks so much for reading this beast! I’m excited to get started!!  Stay tuned, like, follow, and all that other jazz that will help me, help myself ( writing) and therefore  y’all too! 🙂

Lisa