I’m not the kind of mother I thought I would be

As I sit here, with Everly napping for the very first time in her Sleepy Wrap, I am reflecting on the last 9 weeks (and freaking out that it’s been 9 freaking weeks but moving on…)and I realize, I am not the kind of mother that I thought I was going to be.

Sure, I have a little crunchiness to me in theory, but theory and practice are not necessarily one of the same. I thought for sure at some point I would try baby wearing, but only because I figured throwing her in an Ergo would just be easier than the stroller sometimes. It never occurred to me how natural it would feel. How much closer we could be, how good it would be for both her and I. But this ladies? This feels great. I feel like I did when I was pregnant. She is all mine, close to me, a part of me and I’m going to keep her here forever.

And this leads me to my other realization. I never thought I would be they type of mother who needed to keep her child in her room. I figured I’d be chomping at the bit to get her in her crib and out of my room. I thought I’d be counting the moments until she only got up 1 time per night, so I could move her downstairs. I thought it would be annoying having a baby in my room all the time, and would make things complicated. I need my space, the hubs and I need our privacy, and what’s the difference if she’s just in the other room anyway, I thought?

You want to know the difference? She is IN THE OTHER ROOM! a room where I can’t hear her soft breath, her snorts and grunts, her farting herself awake (it’s too funny, even if it’s hard to sleep). Honesty, I don’t know what I was thinking. I don’t know why I thought that the little tiny, helpless wonderfully smiley little baby whom I lovingly grew in my womb for 10 months should ever leave my side. EVER. Seriously, I hope she will fit in that bassinet until she is 16 because I never want her more than 4 feet from me at anytime. Ok that might be extreme, but even the hubs said the other day “she can sleep here until she’s 4, right?” Good thing we got the convertible crib, otherwise I fear she may never use it. Who the hell am I now? Where did the old me go? I want to spend every waking, and sleeping moment with my baby. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE.

Ok, maybe not. However, I AM legitimately surprised by how far I am leaning towards Attachment Parenting. If you’d asked me a few months back, I would have babbled something along the lines of “well I think that’s great but I don’t think it’s really going to be for us”, because I honestly believed I would want my own space enough to go the other way. And I was wrong.

I am sure this happens to people all the time. It’s honestly so impossible to imagine what being a mother is going to be like until it actually happens. And even then, in the very beginning, when no one is sleeping and things are really hard and you’re just wishing the hours away until you get to a point where you have any sweet clue what is going on, you can’t imagine it. I was ready to give up, I figured I wasn’t really cut out for this motherhood thing, and while I love Everly with every fiber of my being, I really was hoping for her to be in her own room, away from me for a little while. I was hoping for a break, and wishing she wasn’t so helpless, so needy. I was wondering how people do this more than once, or why they’d go so far as to do it like 3 or 4 times (or more). I was ready to fast forward this whole baby thing and get her to a point where she was more rational, more independent, less difficult to manage. And now? I regret every one of those moments spent crying, spent stressing, spent wishing moments away, because I am worried I missed something good.

I’m so happy that we had a major turning point at 6 weeks, and that I only spent 3 weeks wishing we would get to the next phase. Because every moment is so important. And I know I missed out on some of the wonder in those first fuzzy 3 weeks, and even more in those next difficult 3 weeks. It’s good to feel this way though, I feel like I really appreciate her and everything she has brought to my life, and I feel like I am better equipped to find my place in this motherhood world. Even if it’s not the place I thought I was going to find.