Surviving the Insanity of Infant Life

Many new moms call me to cry about the stress they feel - I get it. I have break downs too. Here is a little inside of my feelings coming right out of my son's first year...

I actually wrote this in January - It just took me forever to get this blog up with all the damn parties of my family and holidays. Get this: Kanai (my son) had his 1st Birthday party (of 225 people) November 7th, then was Thanksgiving, Christmas, my daughter (Elia) had a mermaid themed 3rd birthday party, then was New Years, and finally my hubby's 36th Birthday this past Sunday night. 

I made it back to my prebaby body which is a huge thrill (a whole 60lbs less back to size 1) but also a task to keep up with in sorting through clothes and shopping for new ones (that still allow breastfeeding, child play move-ability, and improve my “mom" confused self esteem) while dragging around two crying, fighting, laughing, wriggling out of the stroller and arms - toddlers. I also feel the post partum-hormone drops and that means some days I’m fixated on the down...

It’s such an insecure time transitioning out of being only concerned about keeping the helpless infant fed, clean, clothed, without anything to choke on, without anything to disturb it from its necessary sleep, concerned of eating the right things to supply the right breast milk while stressed of the need to be fair in emotional attention between him and my older baby, also in diapers, also needing food prepped and constant help with using household basic items, the adjustments in learning and growth – the ever constantly needing more than 2-hour-at-a-time sleep all while being consumed in the mess and demands of your diapered ones to the point of not knowing what day or time it is or when you last brushed your teeth… 

So now that Kanai can wobble-walk and doesn’t need constant carrying, and is no longer completely helpless to suffocation if a blanket accidentally covers his face, nor is as needing of full day breastfeeding, and is not needing a change in poopy diaper every hour – all of which mean I can get a whole five minuets of something done every so often (a huge win of time compared to before)… the current thoughts are constantly: what next?

I want to be around adults again, and yet I don’t want to regret missing time with my kids…I want to make money and feel some power again instead feeling at the need of my husband (who has done a wonderful job of providing in the hellish Hawaii costs of living but of course has gotten used to material provisions being his sole role enabling him to be feeling less responsible to relieve me of my 24hr child duty as seems a common trend among couple I've spoken to) and yet my absence from full time immersion of any commercial workforce since mid-first -pregnancy four years ago, means I will have to start at a lower end position without feeling secure in my abilities to meet par – basically relearning how to work as a company among adults who have no idea of how hard my past year of birth recovery, and family growth has been, nor aware of how consumed I already am still forced to maintain my full time obligation of mom to the continuous shopping of newer bigger needs of growing children, tantrum and learning pains that come with, the guilt I feel if I have no energy left from the work day to be able to laugh and play with my children for the remaining hours after traffic, preparing dinner, bathes, clean up and laundry… and the biggest one: the disconnect in my relationship with daddy due to having replaced him as priority in the last year (understandably, as all moms must) and pregnancy prior, as nature forced me to…that although there is no outward resentment from him, there are definitely signs of the gap and unfamiliarity of each other as lovers or even as friends as our identities have been lost to the love-hate role of parents. That we haven’t been to even have a basic casual conversation without being interrupted by a cry, feeding, mess to clean up immediately, or diaper change – let alone snuggle or share in foreplay…that sex has been minimal and straight to the point without any waste of precious seconds without the children needing us. And then of course there is the big noticeable debt of extra costs each added baby has brought…which is the whole reason the thoughts of working again seem to come in my mind even though I don’t feel ready for such…

Elia around 8 months

Hence, the reason for blogging... sanity and the need to connect to other moms...of course there is the good stuff too. Next to come.