#MotherhoodMonday - Motherhood Misconceptions

Before I became a mother, I thought that the biggest change that motherhood would bring to me as a person, would be the title of "mom". I knew that motherhood would change my lifestyle, my schedule, my body, and my sleep, but I believed that the same "Lindsey" would still be there underneath all the diapers and bottles and stretchy pants. I couldn't have been more wrong. Yes, there are still vestiges of pre-mom Lindsey: my sense of humor, love of chocolate, half-hearted crafting, empathetic crying, and love of losing myself in a good book; but there has been a deep and irrevocable change that has taken place. 

I look at life through a different lens now. I no longer think of just myself and my spouse when making decisions. I also think WAY more long term than I ever have in my previous 35 years. I've always been a bit of a Pollyanna, and while a desire to see the best in people still exists in me, it has been tempered with a more analytical and scrutinous side. 

Becoming a mother also intensified my radar. You know what I mean, that gut-check instinct that makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck if something doesn't feel quite right. Motherhood hasn't made me fearful, but it has taught me to trust my instincts and not feel silly if I need to walk away from someplace or someone. 

Motherhood expanded my emotions in ways I didn't know possible. If you've found yourself dealing with a toddler lately you know that you can go from immense pride to frustration to a soul crushing love in a matter of an hour and that is just a Monday. 

I wondered how these changes could be so huge, so encompassing, so drastic. For years it has been chalked up to being a mother's love, but now science has some incredible and exciting things to explain these changes. Hang with me, I'm about to go science nerd on you:

• Your baby is imbedded (literally) in you.  We spend 10 months with our babies in utero; feeding them and literally forming them into existence. That alone would make for a powerful connection and bond, but now scientists have found an even more fascinating link. Cells from your child can travel from the placenta into other parts of your body, taking up residence in your organs. So a little piece of your child(ren) still lives inside you. Scientific American explains it so much better than I do, so check out this article.
• After childbirth, your brain grows. In a 2010 study, researchers looked at brain-scan images of 19 women before an after they gave birth and found that the size of mothers' brains increased shortly after childbirth. I'm guessing we need the increase of gray matter to deal with the intense sleep-deprivation and still function. 
• Becoming a parent looks a lot like falling in love. Moms experience a surge of oxytocin when looking at/feeding/nurturing their babies and this triggers similar responses in the amygdala as those falling in love. It helps explain that crazy wave of love you feel when you hold your newborn (and can't stop sniffing their head). 

So to say that my pre-conceived notion of retaining myself unchanged after motherhood was a misconception would be an understatement. This little man has altered me in all the best ways possible and I wouldn't go back if I could!

Photo Courtesy of Laura Beck Photography

Want to join the fun for next week's #MotherhoodMonday? Email themomwhoblogs@gmail.com for more info!

Follow along with these other awesome moms who joined today's link-up:

Lisa
Alexis
Amber Marie
Farrah
Christy
Racheal
Rebekah
Amber Joy

#MotherhoodMonday - Motherhood Mantras

Happy Monday, friends! I'm joining up with The Mother Blog this week for her #MotherhoodMonday series. If you haven't started following her, link up with her on Instagram @themotherblog! This week's writing theme is Motherhood Mantras. 

man·tra

ˈmantrə/

noun

1. (originally in Hinduism and Buddhism) a word or sound repeated to aid concentration in meditation.

I don't know about you, but sitting quietly repeating a word or sound to calm myself and concentrate doesn't really happen in my home.  I could use a little more zen in my life. So while peaceful, meditative mantras may not be a staple in my home, there are some words I live by and statements I repeat to myself when I feel tired and overwhelmed by it all:

• Don't compare your behind-the-scenes with everyone's highlight reel: I admit it, I struggle with comparison. It's damn near impossible not to. So when I feel that sinking feeling in my gut that my house/hair/clothes/car/vacation/family aren't measuring up to what I see in my news feed, I give myself a social media time out and count my blessings.

• Be Kind, Always: Recently I've had a handful of friends open up to me about personal struggles that I would have had ZERO clue about had they not told me. We don't all wear our hurts and battles on our sleeves, so kindness should always be our default. You never know who is struggling with infertility, marriage troubles, grieving a family member, battling depression, fighting illness, or a plethora of other issues. This also helps me approach my child with kindness. He may be having a tantrum, or acting out, but I try to calm myself and remind myself to approach with kindness. I get down on his level and find out what the problem is. Is he tired, teething, or frustrated that he can't physically do something? I want my son to learn to be kind and who is a better role model than his parent?

• Say Yes: When I was pregnant with my son, a co-worker and mother of 3 grown boys gave me a wonderful nugget of advice. She said, "There will be plenty of times you have to tell your child no. So whenever possible, say yes." This really stuck with me. I remind myself to say yes to my toddler as often as I can in a day. Now, I don't give in to every request for more cookies, but if the thing he's asking isn't going to hurt him, or spoil his dinner, I pretty much say yes. Yes, I'll play blocks with you. Yes, we can color. Yes, mommy will run in circles and chase you. Yes, we can pull all the pillows off the bed and make a fort. Just say yes.

I'm less than 2 years into his parenting gig, but I can tell you that the biggest takeaway so far is that we're all doing our best as we go. When I think back to my parents when they were my age, I remember thinking they were so wise and always knew what to do. Now I know that they were probably just winging it. I'm sure they went to bed at night and looked at each other and were grateful to have made it through another day. So mommas, I give you each a virtual high-five this Monday. We made it through to another week. Let's get out there and wing it. :) 

Want to join the fun for next week's #MotherhoodMonday? Email themomwhoblogs@gmail.com for more info!

While you're reading, check out these other amazing bloggers participating in today's link-up:

The Mother Blog

New and Natural Mom

My MYSPI Baby

Simply The Wild Side
From Engineer to SAHM
Mommie Isn't Made of Money

When parenthood makes marriage hard

When you are pregnant you get loads of advice from friends who have children. They tell you about sleepless nights, colic, and the lack of showering. Want to know what people don't tell you about having a baby? It can make marriage hard. 

In the 8.5 years I've been married, my husband and I have pretty much always been on the same page. For all the big life stuff we've seen eye to eye. We don't argue often and I think have had 3 "fights" in the course of our marriage.  

One of the lessons we took away from our pre-marital counseling was the importance of communication. It took some time, but we got really good at this. Don't hold onto anger, don't keep accounts of how you've been wronged. Bring it up, get it out, talk it through, love one another and move forward. Roger that. Somehow in the haze of having a newborn, our strategy got muddled. Suddenly it's not just the two of you. Suddenly there is this little person who needs every ounce of your attention and care. 

When our son arrived, we both threw ourselves into active, hands-on, compassionate parenting. Our focus shifted dramatically onto his care and nurturing. Care for baby, eat, sleep, repeat. There just didn't seem to be enough hours in the day for anything more. When there was time there seemed to be so much that needed to be done...

• Sleeping (sweet Jesus, yes!)
• Household chores
• Work 
• Paying Bills
• Showering
• Feeding yourself
• and oh yeah, maybe some sexy time?

When your baby doesn't nap longer than an hour at any given time, that's a lot to try to accomplish. We certainly weren't using that valuable time to communicate and over time, it started to show.

A few weeks ago, I realized things just didn't feel right with us. There was a tension. We were still going through all the motions, but something was off. I could sense unhappiness in my husband and I knew that I wasn't happy either. So after putting our son down for a nap, my husband looked at me and asked, "Everything okay?" and I teared up and honestly replied that it wasn't.

I'm not going to get into the nitty gritty, but what unfolded in the next 60 minutes was just what we needed. We sat at the table, holding hands with the baby monitor buzzing quietly between us. I laid out where I needed support, how I was feeling unhappy and unfulfilled and he told me how he felt pressure and stress and what he needed from me. I did some ugly crying, because it's what I do and we talked about changes we wanted to make. Instantly I felt that tension subside. 

In the days since we have made it a priority to really talk. Not the surface stuff, "did you take out the recycling?" "don't forget to drop off that check" but really talking to each other and checking in on how things are going. Even if it's just 5 minutes in the evening after Arlo goes to bed. We put down our phones and check-in. It's crazy how much that seemingly simple task has helped.

Marriage is hard, y'all. It takes work and effort and honestly I don't always feel like I have anything left to give my marriage at the end of the day. 12.5 months in and we're still figuring out how to be us + a baby. We probably will be for a while and that's okay. After all, nothing worth having comes easy, right? 

I'd love to hear from you. How do you nurture your relationship?

Why your mom was wrong and you probably are too

When I FINALLY got pregnant, I enthusiastically began reading everything about pregnancy and life with a newborn that I could get my hands on. Books, blogs, pamphlets from my doctor, you name it. I remember feeling giddy with all the knowledge available at my fingertips and overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information all at once. 

I researched and scoured safety websites to pick out the top-rated infant carseat system for our little man. I went to a fire station and asked for tips on installation. I watched YouTube videos for properly buckling in your little one and once he was here, followed each step to make sure he was safe and sound. Yet, some of my fondest memories are of bouncing around the rear cargo area in my family's Suburban during cross country road trips. No safety seats, no seat belts, just a pallet of blankets, our favorite stuffed toy and the world's longest game of I-Spy. 

Once our little one was here, fresh and new and wobbly in this world I wanted to do everything I could to nurture and protect him. I knew that you should always place an infant on their back to sleep to reduce their risk of SIDS, but after yet another sleepless night with a colicky, reflux-ridden newborn, I pulled that baby into my bed and slept with him against my chest. It was a fitful night. Mainly for me as I stressed about how he wasn't on his back in his co-sleeper. Arlo, on the other hand, slept for the longest stretch since birth that night. When I told my mother this she said "We always put our babies to sleep on their bellies. It was just the way we were told to do things." 

Fast forward 4 months. We began to introduce Arlo to solids (not sure why we call them that since they are essentially pureed within an inch of being liquids). I told my mom how he wasn't quite ready since he still thrusts his tongue out and isn't sure how to swallow food from a spoon just yet. She responded, "Oh, just put that rice cereal directly in his bottle. He'll love it, and he'll sleep through the night." At my next appointment, I asked about the rice cereal in his bottle and she advised against it saying it can lead to overfeeding and obesity. 

It's always something, right?

All of this got me to thinking about how we parent. We listen to other parents, talk to our pediatricians, and search the internet in a vain attempt to piece together some semblance of a user's manual for these tiny little people. Spoiler alert...there isn't one. We're all just doing the best we can with the information at hand, just like our parents did. Our parents weren't wrong, or oblivious to our safety, they were just doing what worked and what was understood to be the best at the time. For crying out loud, in the 1930's in America, women put their babies in outdoor cages hanging from windows! 

It makes me wonder what the future of infant care will be 30 years from now. I can just picture me standing over Arlo's shoulder as he tries to get his baby down to sleep whispering how we always swaddled our babies and him rolling his eyes and telling me how the most recent AAP study firmly recommends against it. 

Let's be gracious to our mother's and hope our kiddos will do the same to us! 

Badassery and other musings

We've all done it. Deflected a compliment with a self-depricating quip, downplayed a talent or gift as "oh, it's nothing", guffawed when someone tells us we look pretty and reply "yeah, if only I could lose the last of this baby weight." I caught myself doing this recently and realized it has become a pattern, and I'd like it to stop.

I'm not sure when it became the norm for so many women and mothers to brush off our badassery (yes, I said badassery). Maybe it's just reverting to some old-school expectation for us to be demure, soft-spoken, ladies who eat cucumber tea sandwiches and always sit with our ankles crossed. I don't know about you, but I have opinions, love a good steak and find myself crawling around on all fours with my baby more often than sitting in any sort of dainty position!

The other day I was at the park with my 8 month old son and snapped this pic of the two of us. Get a load of how he looks at me:

He looks at me like I can do ANYTHING. When he cries and I pick him up, he is instantly happier. When I walk in a room he lights up like I am a supermodel, Pulitzer Prize winner, and Olympian all rolled into one. I don't want to do anything to diminish his faith in me. I know I will stumble, be cross, and lose my patience and some of that beautiful veneer he sees will smudge away and show that mommy is human, but why aid that process by diminishing myself and my worth in his eyes? 

I want my son to grow up with a healthy sense of confidence and what better way for me to do that than exhibit it myself. I'm not suggesting egotism or becoming overtly prideful, just simply seeing our value and being okay with recognition. I also want him to grow up and value and respect women. I want him to have an example of a strong, capable, talented, loving mother so that when he's older he will see and value those characteristics in a future partner.

It's a lofty goal, but I will strive to speak in positive tones about myself, accept compliments and praise with grace and gratefulness, and try to be the woman in my son's eyes.