It Was TOO Much

First off, I feel like I should amend my breastfeeding post. I listed about a page of instructions on the thoughtful ways we would be introducing food to Vivianne’s diet. As it turns out, about 50% of those things actually happened… The best laid plans.

The good news is that she is still alive after a week of solids. So we are not completely messing it up. Awesome.

It was TOO much

My first week of travel ended up being rough.

I won’t bore you with the details on my trip – but I’ll say we have a long way to go to make this feel normal (or maybe it will never feel normal?). What surprised me most is that I “rushed” getting home quickly and that was a mistake.

I woke very early on Thursday and landed in Minneapolis at 7:45am. I got home before Dave brought Vivianne to daycare and gave her a squeeze (Although that made him late for a meeting. Whoops.) . I then went into crazy work mode until her 6 month appointment at 3:30 pm the same day. I ended up talking with the boss’s boss’s boss from the clinic room, with Vivianne on the boob, trying to keep her from crying within minutes of her six month shots (failed at this, by the way). We were supposed to talk earlier in the day, but his schedule had changed (happens often – I still need to talk with him). Did he hear the baby on the boob? Damn right he did. But he was smart enough not to say anything about it.

I didn’t have her 6 month paperwork filled out. One of the checklist items the doctor wanted done by her 6 month was childproofing (ha!). And she ended up having an ear infection that Dave and I had not noticed.

I was doing everything. But I felt I was doing it all poorly.

Friday was no better. Thing after thing after thing after thing. Running around, my mind officially checked out. And when I finally got home around 9pm on Friday night, my good friends had sent me flowers for my first Mother’s Day. I. Freaking. Lost. It. It was just TOO much.

My mantras on this first Mother’s Day come from:

• Sara Longacre, founder of Blooma and wise mother. She says, “You can do anything. You can’t do everything.”

Truth. Hopefully next Mother’s Day I will have mastered a bit more of this goat rodeo we call motherhood.

• Kat, friend and blogger extraordinaire. She wrote 14 weeks old this morning.

This. A hundred times. I am a six month old mother. I’m not meant to have it all figured out. Thank G-d, because I totes have no idea what I’m doing some days.

Happy Mother’s Day, all! My appreciation for what you do on a daily basis has increased tenfold. You are amazing. You are enough.