I am a good mom

I realize I’ve been kind of hard on myself lately. The only thing I want to do is be a good mom to my little girl, and even though I beat myself up about what I could do better, I think it’s wise to interrupt these thoughts and focus on all the things I’ve done in the last few days that makes me a good mom.

-I greet my baby girl every morning with the biggest smile I can, wanting her to be surrounded in happiness.

-I spend hours poring over the internet and baby books trying to figure out the best way to ___ (whatever it happens to be that day – for some reason I think I do this more at work than at home – if I were at home all day I seriously doubt I would spend this much time on the internet researching stuff – I would just do it!)

-During the 10 minute drive between work and daycare at the end of the day, I focus on taking deep breaths and letting go of all the stress of work, and remember to be present for baby girl. It takes a conscious effort to transition to the mommy part of my life, and let go of the professional woman part of my life, and I try to mentally transform before I pick her up from daycare.

-During the two hours of wake-time I have with Alex every night, I try to focus only on her. I feed her, change her, play with her, bathe her, rock her, tell stories to her, put her to bed. Close to the end of the two hours, her daddy comes home, and the three of us always have some nice moments of family time. Hubs and I have been focusing on her, and our little moments of time with her, which makes me so happy. My favorite moment is after the whole bedtime routine is done, I put her in her crib as I’m finishing her last song, and she looks up at me with this huge smile. I then bend over and kiss her good night, and our last memory of each other every night is staring into each other’s eyes, smiling.

-My MIL is coming to town today for a week, and I have been thinking of ways for them to spend quality time together. My MIL thinks the sun rises and sets on Alex, and I don’t want to do anything to spoil this!

-I spent a few minutes with the daycare lady this morning, talking about feeding Alex. They asked me to increase her food as she seems too hungry before eating, and is pissed when the bottle is done. So with the hope of getting to 3 hour internals (I was hoping to push it to 4, but they’ve been feeding her after 2.5!), we’ve increased the amount of formula to 7 ounces from 6. She still has 6 bottles per day – seriously, I think 42 ounces per day is too much! But we’re also trying to get her to eat solid foods, which she hasn’t been too interested in. So hopefully when she eats more solids, her formula intake will decrease. But if you use the 2.5 x weight = ounces per day formula, at 16 pounds, she should be eating 40 ounces. But it still seems like way too much… Anyway, the good mom part is I’m trying – real hard – to figure out the right thing to do with little Alex and make her happy but not overfed.

-Last night after weeks of patient trying, I got Alex to eat about an ounce of solid food – homemade pears mixed with oatmeal cereal. (I’ve been making all her solid food except cereal, and it’s so easy and economical!) The trick last night was to distract her with a toy in one hand, and then shovel food in her mouth in the other. I know this isn’t a good long-term strategy, but I hope this helps her learn again what this solid food thing is all about. We had about 3 days of good eating before she got sick, and then it all was thrown out the window. When she got well again, we had to start over. But I’m hopeful that with time and patience she’ll figure it out!

-Every night during bath time, I sing songs to her, and she alternates between playing with her toys, and staring at me with those big brown eyes, with a little smile on her face. Seriously, it’s that face that gets me every time!!!

The overall theme of all of this is that I try. I think this is true for a lot of us moms. Sure, we could beat ourselves up over stopping breastfeeding too early, or doing something at the wrong time, and unfortunately we do beat ourselves up. But what we need to remember is that if we’re trying real hard, and we love our kiddos with all our heart, the rest will fall into place. I know I will screw up at times in this journey called motherhood, but I hope at the end of the day I will remember that I tried my very best to raise my little girl in the best way I can. This little 16-pound bundle of goodness has completely changed my life, and I love her more than I ever thought possible. And that makes me a good mom.