What I've Learned

Being a mother has completely changed my life in so many ways. Here's just a few of those ways.

1.Waking up at 6:30am now seems like a luxury.

2. A day full of stress can instantly be cured with 2 minutes of cuddling with my girl.

3. I'm so proud of my body and am probably less self conscious now than I was 25 pounds ago.

4. I can no longer watch scary movies where people are tortured or killed. Although they are characters and not real people, it makes me cringe thinking that stuff like that can happen to other people's children. And watching the news....forget about it.

5. I now understand the necessity of sometimes having to breastfeed in public. (I've only done this once but I now realize that you can't always time the feedings and when your child is hungry and you don't have a bottle, you do what's best for your child).

6. One last kiss is never enough.

7. I never knew watching another human being sleep could be so therapeutic.

8. Never leave home without an extra outfit (for you and baby). I should have learned my lesson after this incident but I obviously didn't and had to borrow a shirt from my mother-in-law last week after Blakely pooped all over me right before I had to be at work.

9. Making her wait until she's 35 to start dating is not unreasonable. And I guarantee that Kevin will at least have a gun visible when the first guy comes to pick her up (if not in his hands).

10. I have WAY more patience now as a teacher than I did before. When my 6th graders are acting crazy and I want to raise my voice, I remember that each one of them is someone's child. I always want Blakely's teachers to speak to her with kind words and with a patient attitude.

The Not So Glamorous Side of Motherhood

Being a mother is amazing! But as every mother knows, it isn't always glamorous. Ok, truth be told it is rarely ever glamorous, but some days just take the cake.
Yesterday was my first official day leaving Blakely with my mother-in-law. For the past 2 months, I have been taking her to work with me and although my mother-in-law has kept her here and there, yesterday I started my new job as a 6th grade teacher so she will now be with her Nana every day. In addition to starting a new job, I also had to make an emergency pediatrician appointment for Blakely because she has been so gassy lately and I can tell she is in pain.
So yesterday, as soon as my work day was over, I rushed to pick her up so we could make it to the appointment in time. My mother-in-law gave her to me and said, "Let me go get her diaper bag." My brain was obviously turned off from all the new information I learned at orientation and I told her not to worry about it because we were going home and wouldn't need it until tomorrow so I just told her to keep it. Now, that would have been fine if we were indeed going home. But we weren't. We had the pediatrician appointment. (At this point, every mother knows where this story is going.)
We get to the appointment and as we're walking in I tell Kevin," Her diaper bag is with your mother. Oh, I hope she doesn't need a diaper change."
Fast forward 2 minutes and we see that she has had an explosion and it is about to come out of her diaper. Luckily, there was a couple in the waiting room with a son about Blakely's age so I asked to borrow a diaper. As the mother was handing me a diaper and some wipes, Blakely decided to throw up all over me, something she had never done before. Seriously, she has never thrown up and rarely ever spits up.
Kevin is dying laughing at this point and goes to get me some paper towels. Of course, not only did she throw up on me but she got it all over herself as well and we have no change of clothes.
Just then the doctor calls us back and as soon as we got in the exam room, she throws up again, only this time it not only gets on my dress but goes down it as well.
All I could do was laugh at the situation and realize that I'm not going to be winning any Mother of the Year Awards any time soon.
I did learn a very important lesson though. Never leave home without the diaper bag, and perhaps put a change of clothes for myself in the trunk for those very unexpected times.