This morning after kissing my Valentine off to work, I was thinking about how much my life has changed since meeting him. Not only that, but how much I’VE changed.
Five years ago this April, I was a city girl living in Chicago, working at a large PR agency, mainly concerned with what new outfit I was going to wear out with my girlfriends that Saturday night. I didn’t know that at a birthday party one night I would meet a man who would so wonderfully alter the course of my life.
Fast forward to now and I’m a mountain girl living in a town of 8,000, working in marketing for a ski resort and my fashion concerns revolve around what flannel shirt to wear.
What a difference!
Being in love with Luke has brought me places I never imagined, opened me up to parts of myself I didn’t know existed and given my life more meaning and joy than I thought possible. He’s allowed me to grow and evolve while supporting my every move.
And while our love guided me from single city-girl to a wife in-the-mountains, the most incredible thing happened … we created a person. A living manifestation of our love.
And she’s the most beautiful, sweet, special person I could have ever imagined.
If you described my life now to me before meeting Luke, I would have thought you were crazy. Just goes to show what love can do.
Earlier today I wrote a blog post about how this is the last week of my maternity leave. It mainly focused on how anxious I am about returning to work and the worries and sadness I feel about leaving Lila.
Shortly after posting it I decided to delete it. It just felt too “woe is me” and depressing, when in actuality I am incredibly blessed and should be grateful. I have a healthy, beautiful baby girl, I have a job I love and I had three full months to spend with my little love. Not much there I should be upset about.
That’s what I love about blogging. Just when I get mired down by my negative feelings, writing forces me to take a step back and put things into perspective. I like to think of my blog as my public gratitude journal.
So while I will admit leaving my girl to go back to work is going to be tough at first, I am choosing to focus on the many wonderful moments I’ve been lucky enough to experience the past three months.
Ten Best Parts of Maternity Leave:
1. Time to Bond. Three months is a great amount of time to be able to spent with Lila. All the time we’ve spent together nursing, playing, rocking, talking and exploring the world has helped me feel bonded to her completely. I can tell she feels securely attached to this world and to her mommy and daddy.
2. Quiet Moments. Just a few minutes ago, Lila feel asleep nursing in my arms. She laid against my stomach like a little hot coal, breathing deeply for 15 minutes before waking up wanting to go to her crib to nap. Those sweet, silent moments are some of the best.
3. Setting a Routine. Just in the past few weeks, I feel like we’ve really fallen into a good routine. Lila has been sleeping 8 hours or more for about two weeks straight. She naps well, nurses great and is comfortable playing on her own. I feel like she’s to the point where she’ll acclimate and do well in daycare.
4. Learning how to parent. I think one of the most important parts of maternity leave is learning how to be a mother. There are so many little things you have to learn how to do, like clipping little nails, that can only come with practice, practice, practice. Maternity leave has allowed me the time to feel like I am a good mom.
5. Smiles. The first smile and every smile thereafter are definitely the highlight of my time home with Lila.
6. Connecting with other Moms. During the past three months I have been able to meet and get to know several other moms in my community. Working doesn’t always allow me to spend time forging new friendships, so it’s been great having this time to connect with some other new moms.
7. Going Back to Sleep. So I know maternity leave is all about NOT getting enough sleep, but I absolutely love the feeling when you wake up early, tired, yet you know that you can go back to sleep later. Usually, Lila will go down quickly after her first morning feeding and I get another two hours of sleep.
8. Time to relax. While a lot of work, newborns also like to sleep a lot, which means mom has time alone to relax. For me this time was spent watching Parenthood from season one to now and also reading several books.
9. Gaining perspective. Ultimately, many new moms have a dilemma to face … go back to work or be a stay at home mom. For me, the three months at home gave me great perspective on this decision. While I have mad amounts of respect for SAHM’s, I realized that for me, working brings me a lot of fulfillment, self-confidence and balance.
10. Daily outings. While on leave, I’ve tried to do one outing a day. Today it was getting coffee and walking for two hours with another mom here in town. I’ll miss being able to do something fun in the middle of the day with Lila once I’m working.
I am so very grateful for the past three months home with Lila. I know those first days back to work may come with some tears, but I feel lucky to have the best of both worlds – time to love my baby and a career that makes me feel good about myself.
Other working moms – I’m curious, how did you deal with the transition back to work?
So far motherhood has been a teeter totter between feeling like I’ve got it together to feeling completely inept.
Last week was a good example. We drove four hours to San Francisco to see my parents who were in from Ohio staying with my sister. Lila did great in the car and was a happy, calm baby the whole first day. That night though, I think all the change of routine caught up with her and she was up fussing every 2 hours, which is very rare for her.
The next day I was totally exhausted, but excited for the evening. We were going out to a brazilian steakhouse for my dad’s birthday and it was the first night out without baby. My sister had arranged a great baby sitter from my niece’s daycare and I had pumped and brought along a bottle to leave with her.
About a half hour before the babysitter was to arrive, I took the bottle out of the refrigerator to bring it to room temperature. And it was completely rancid. Apparently there are a lot of rules about storing breast milk that I had no clue about, so when I transported it in the car four hours and then re-cooled it, it turned the milk sour.
I felt like such a loser as a mother. How did I not know this about breastmilk? What was my baby supposed to eat while I was out??
Totally defeated, I told everyone I would just stay home from dinner. But my sister jumped in and put together a game plan that involved a last minute feeding and supplementing with some of her frozen milk. Part of me felt guilty that I had to give her someone else’s milk, but frankly, I needed a night out.
I think Lila can tell when I’m feeling down about my abilities as a mother, because as soon as I feel pretty low, she will have a great few days. Sure enough, when we got back from dinner, the report from the babysitter was that Lila slept like an angel the whole time. And for the next four nights she slept eight hours or more!
It’s so true when people say motherhood is the greatest and hardest thing you’ll ever do. I have never second-guessed myself as much as I have during these first few months of Lila’s life. I’m constantly worrying that I’m doing it all wrong.
Deep down I know I’m doing the best I can and that I’d have to work pretty hard to mess her up too much at this age. I think the stress just comes from the crazy amount of love I feel for her. I love her so much that I want the absolute best for her. I want to give her MY best.
I’ll be the first to admit that the first 8 weeks of baby girl’s life haven’t always been a ton of fun. Mix near-constant diaper changing, burping, feeding with sleep deprivation, and it’s easy to feel a little run down at times. However, the first treat of parenthood happened just last week … Lila’s first real smile.
She had been giving us some unknowing smirks in her sleep or after passing gas, but nothing concious until last Thursday.
Luke was in Mexico for work all week, so it was just me and Lila. Thursday night I was cooking dinner in the kitchen while Lila sat in her bouncy chair watching me. I was playing the Jackson Five’s ABC and dancing around. Lila’s little eyes followed my moves. I bent down, took her hands and helped her groove to the music when she locked eyes with me and gave me the biggest gummy smile.
This was the real deal. A smile just for me from my little girl. My heart melted immediately and my eyes filled with tears.
Best moment in motherhood so far for sure.
Since then she seems to have “found her smile” so to speak and has been flashing those gums around the clock – after a nap, after eating, while getting her diaper changed.
Our former scowler seems to be one happy little girl.
I’ve had lots of special people smile at me before, but no one has ever made me feel this way. I’m not sure if it’s because I now have some proof that I’m making her happy. Or that I get a glimpse at her little personality. Maybe it’s just that I feel such a special connection when she looks in my eyes and smiles.
Whatever it is, I hope I get to see this beautiful girl smile at me for the rest of my life.
