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Spotty Days
Now that Baby Bug has a full blown case of baby acne, I’m wondering if the same hormones that are messing with her body are the ones that are playing ping pong with mine. She woke up this morning with spots everywhere. On her cheeks, on her neck and even on the back of her head. I woke up crying. I hope it will pass.
It’s funny. I know I’m doing a good job being a mom. Baby Bug is getting chubbier every day. But the nursing just seems so unnatural sometimes. I guess I always thought I’d be like Brooke Shields in Blue Lagoon and the baby would find her way to my nipple all by herself. I didn’t realize how agonizing it would be to not be able to make your baby happy over and over and over again. Sometimes I feel like such a failure. I know I’m not. But it’s hard to not feel like one.
I figure it’s just hormones. Not full blown postpartum blues. Just a case of the neglatives. You know, when everything in your house seems dirty and if the cat throws up one more time in your favorite pair of shoes, you swear you are going to throw the cat out the window.
When Toby and I couldn’t agree on what design we should go with for our month-late birth announcements, I completely fell apart. I started questioning my whole identity. If I’m not a good designer any more, then who am I? Should I take my whole website down because I feel like my work is flat and I can’t figure out how to get my gallery pages back up? The doubts rained down on me like hail.
I know I’m a mom now and that is the best job I can ever have…but is that enough? Will I disappear into diaper-and-spit-up-land and be forgotten? And why am I so driven by praise? Isn’t doing what’s right for Baby Bug enough? Why do I feel like I need a cheering section just to get through the day?
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Boob Daddy
As we were having a splenda sweet family moment the other day… the three of us lounging on our bed in the afternoon sunshine… me sitting up against the headboard giving my boobs a much needed rest and Toby cooing at the baby… Toby said to me, “I really think she’s looking at me. She’s starting to focus and show interest.”
It really did seem that Baby Bug was staring intently at Toby’s very distinguished looking tortoiseshell glasses. They say that babies love to look at contrast and Toby’s glasses have a lot of contrast. But then, it also looked like she was staring at his nose.
“I think she just wants to suck on your nose,” I said. So Toby leaned in closer to see. Sure enough Baby Bug opened up her mouth as if to take giant suck off Toby’s nose.
“She just thinks of me as a giant boob!!!”
“Yeah,” I answered. “Now you know how I feel.”
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Update: Things are going much much better and Baby Bug is getting more and more adorable every day in spite of my constant complaining about how much nursing sucks coconuts.
