I may still be very new to motherhood, but I’m learning everyday. Here are some of those things I’ve learned over the last 7+ weeks:
1. To appreciate the little things. For instance, having a shower before noon is a luxury. Scrap that. Having a shower at all is a luxury.
2. Your child can cry and scream and be sick all over you, but all they have to do is smile and you completely forget anything like that ever happened.
3. You actually do forget labour pain, no matter how bad!
4. Your days race by in a sea of feedings, laundry and cooing, and the end of the day feels about 5 mins after the start of the day.
5. You don’t know how much love your heart is capable of until the arrival of your first child.
6. It’s a very strange experience to look at a baby and see yourself reflected back.
7. For the first time in forever you start wishing for it to get darker earlier at night and light later in the mornings.
8. There is no feeling quite like the one in that moment when your baby wants a cuddle from you rather than anyone else.
9. Bathtime is fun. For all involved.
10. It is hard to watch your baby, especially when they are so very new, become more and more independent and enjoy their own space more. It is easy to tell yourself they need you more often than they do, because the truth is, we need them just as much! But I guess that’s the heartbreaking but beautiful truth of parenting: that it is a long, slow process of letting go.
Being a full-time mother is difficult, but I can’t think of any job I’d rather have, or that would be half as rewarding as this one.
Thank you, my beautiful little girl, for making it so easy, so joyful, and so much fun.
