Has it seriously been over three months since I've logged into this thing? Pitiful. Truly. I will get better! I have to get better because I am learning that there is so much more than just pictures of my daughter I want to document. I want to document more than her firsts as a baby, but my firsts as a mom, and the firsts Michael and I experience as we go through this crazy journey together. It really is an exhausting yet completely fascinating time in my life.
Delilah is now 6 months old. Like...half a year. Like...in another 6 months she wiill have existed on this planet for an entire year. It blows my mind every day. She has gone from being a motionless ball of flesh to a crazed firecracker who is always moving. Like...always. I have the back muscles of a brick house to prove it; and I mean that in the best of ways, and by best of ways I mean I need a complete top to bottom back replacement.
The last 6 months have been so much fun but upon reflection, I will NEVER forget the very first month. It was simultaneously one of the most traumatic/rewarding months of my life. The first week alone, I felt like I should have gotten some sort of gold medal of parenting, (is that not a thing in the Olympics?) just for the fact that I was able to survive it.
The very first week Michael had the flu. The man who never gets sick got so flippin' ill, he could barely lift his head or keep his eyes open. His fever was through the roof, he had shivers, coughs, sniffles, and we had to keep him far from the baby. This made my job a little bit harder the first week home. I had just given birth and didn't have any experience with babies. Michael had to literally teach me how to change a diaper because I had no idea. I held my own the first few days, but then I got to a point, listening to Delilah cry the WHOLE night, that I didn't know what to do anymore. Michael walked into the bedroom (after trying to sleep away his sickness in the living room) seeing me draped over Delilah's crib, crying more than she was. I was so exhausted and out of any solutions to make her happy; I felt like I had hit rock bottom and it was only day 4. This is a scene Michael and I have played out a couple more times, luckily not in a while though!
Then fast forward to day 5, and Delilah has jaundice. What the hell. We rush to the emergnecy room, Michael is still trying to keep his distance from her. Every time he wants to be near her he has to put a duck like mask on, gloves, and sanitize the crap out of his arms. We experience her first IV, which was horrifying. And I had my first overnight stay with her in the ER. Awesome. She was hooked up to a machine, lights beaming down on her, with a mask on, so needless to say she was NOT a happy camper and we didn't really sleep much that night!
Fast forward to the following two weeks. Michael is better and able to be the super dad he is. However, I still have to wake up every 2 to 3 hours to feed my child. At this point, Michael and I were sleeping in the living room because our bedroom seemed too cold for the baby, and it actually seemed easier. With all the late night wakings, and the not much napping during the day, I had hit a state of delirium that I had never experienced before. There was one night I woke up and the baby was laying in my arms, sleeping on my chest. My shirt was up, so apparently I had fed her. I had abosolutely NO recollection of even getting up to get her, let alone feed her, and nap with her. It scared the living shit out of me. What if I had dropped her? Suffocated her? I told Michael about my fears and he immediately called into work to take the day off. He stayed home and took care of the baby while I slept, pretty much the whole day. What a good man he is.
So that's just a schmidgen of the first month. Following that was projectile poop, learning to cloth diaper, struggles with breastfeeding (that's a whole other entry to look forward to), starting back at work, teething, the first fever, the first ear infection, squeals turning to laughter, solid food, gummy smiles, and just so much more. These 6 months have shown sides of me that I never knew existed.
I think the best part that I have gained from being a parent so far, is this new ultra I DON'T GIVE A CRAP attitude. For those of you who know me well, part of me has always carried that a little bit. But now, I am like I DON'T GIVE A CRAP to the umpteenth power. I don't give a crap if people think my daughter looks like a boy. I don't give a crap if people think I'm making my life harder by cloth diapering, breastfeeding, finding used clothes instead of wasting money on new ones, etc. I don't give a crap if people don't like my parenting style. I don't give a crap if people thinks it's weird that I sometimes actually drop my baby off at her grandmother's so I can spend alone time with my husband or even my own friends. I don't give a crap what people say about us, what we look like, what we do, sound like, smell like, blah blah blah. And I know that this is probably coming off a bit aggressive, but I TRULY mean it in the most zen like way. When you have a kid, you REALLY begin to realize that people don't matter. Only you, your child, and your partner. And yes my husband is just as important as my child, because when Delilah is grown with her own family, I am stuck with that sexy, delicious, sometimes obnoxiously smelly man that is just as much a part of her life as I am. He is the one I am going to die with, so I better like him...a lot.
The beautiful thing about having a family, a REAL family that is all your own, is that they become the only people you need to worry about. And they make you realize that you shouldn't have been worrying about anyone else all this time. I wasted way too many years caring about what other people say about me. Now, I just want to focus on how I think about myself, strive to be the best person I can be, so that I can be the best mom I can be for Delilah. Because I think in striving to be a great mom, you are striving to be a great overall human being, and that's a beautiful thing.
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