Motherhood Realities

Let's do this bulletin point style shall we? And jumping right in...

• Reality No 1.  Newborn phase may not last as long as you'd like.  As in this dear, sweet baby girl may not nap for 2 hours between feedings.  In fact she may not nap at all during the day as she closes in on two months old.  And mama may want to pull her hair out.  Currently she's still strapped into her car seat asleep.  And I'm crossing my fingers and toes that she stays that way until I can finish my sandwich
• Reality No 2.  Its not that scary.  I thought for sure I'd be up in the middle of the night in panic mode all the time.  I thought I'd be living at my mom's house daily so I wasn't far away from another adults opinion about this spot or that grunt.  But I none of the above as occurred with the exception of the week before she was diagnosed with reflux.  She was miserable.  Screaming rage miserable and I felt so helpless.  I reduced a thousand and one things from my diet and it didn't help.  Both of my nephews and myself had reflux as babies.  So it was a no brainer what was going on with our little miss.  She gets a powder form of a probiotic daily in a bottle.  I can give her an ounce in the bottle and immediately pop her on the boob, little to no fuss. 
• Reality No 3.  Speaking of bottle and boob, I was so worried about introducing the bottle.  Would she like the bottle better than me? Would she deny the boob and I'd be exclusively pumping?  This kid is a rock star.  She takes a bottle, a binkie or the boob.  The only time she gets pissed is if she's hungry right freaking now and we offer the binkie which doesn't give what she wants.  
• Reality No 4.  I'm not ready right this second to go back to work, but I'm ready to go back to work.  I'm mentally okay with returning.  I love this little girl with all my heart but these past few weeks have shown me that I'm not the stay at home mom type.  Her snuggles are great and her coo's are adorable, but I need the adult interaction and the routine that work will provide.  Not to mention just getting out of the house.  It'll be hard none the less but I don't mind that I'm going to be returning in a few weeks.  
• Reality No 5.  That weight will fall off at first.  The pregnancy weight that is.  I went from 183 at my highest back down to 146 at my 6 week check up.  I'm 6 lbs away from where I started at the beginning of the pregnancy.  Not too shabby.  And 3 of those pounds may be residing in my boobs.  
• Reality No 6.  Even though you feel like you sit around all day, nothing gets accomplished.  I wish that I could move and nurse at the same time.  I have done it once, but it's not easy.  I'm extremely heavy chested so a majority of the time I need to hold her with one hand and hold my boob with the other.   

And with that the child starts to awaken...