Sissies

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Motherhood, it’s not for cissies.

As the days and weeks pass since Baxter was born it’s hard not to think back to when I first became a Mum. When tiny Brodie was the centre of my universe. I could not remember what my life was like before he was born and I couldn’t imagine what my life would look like the next day, week, month , year.

I just knew it was really, really hard. I felt completely overwhelmed and underprepared. I felt fragile and unbalanced. I felt that I was doing a terrible job most of the time. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be doing, how to mother the ‘right’ way, how not to make a terrible mess of raising our son.

That’s not to say I wasn’t hopelessly, endlessly, over the top in love with my baby. The fierce love I felt for him was often the only thing I was sure of. Living in the maelstrom of emotion that is new parenthood was unfathomably exhausting, the highest highs and some of the most difficult days.

But this time it doesn’t feel like that at all. Because I know. I know that all things will pass, the good and the bad. That even on the days when it really feels like I might be losing my mind, when the chaos threatens to undo my sanity I still spend every minute that Baxter is awake looking into his beautiful blue eyes and trying to tell him how much I love him, to make him understand. By kissing his soft, soft cheeks a million times a day. By watching him breathe and sleep and sleep and breathe. Changing endless nappies and feeding endless feeds. Because that is what he needs me to do. Nothing more.

It’s deliciously freeing. To feel confident that I’m getting it right, because when your baby is tiny getting it right is shockingly simple, even though it might not always feel that way. To enjoy bathing the baby, to cuddle him for as long as I want to, to spend twenty minues trying to get a half smile to flash fleetingly on his tiny face. To embrace the cuddles and kisses and stories and songs his siblings want to share with him even at the most inconvenient times.

This time will be so brief and will only seem more so in retrospect. What once seemed like an insurmountable task is now so sweet and simple. Not easy, certainly not always easy in a busy family of 5 but as I said, Motherhood is not for sissies.


PS, I have my camera back!!

7 thoughts on “Sissies”

  1. Yay for your camera being back! And I think you’re absolutely right; The actual babycare bit of motherhood is the easy part second and third time roundand it feels great to have confidence in what you are doing with the baby, it’s just figuring out the rest of the dynamic that is the learning curve!!

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  2. I love this post Caroline. I’ve yet to go through round two, but I’ve always suspected that what you describe is true. A few of my friends have just had their first babies. Their insecurity and fear feels familiar and remote to me at the same time, which gives me hope that, if and when we have another baby, I might just feel more confident. I might just have made peace with the fact that it’s always hard, but not impossible.

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  3. Gorgeous post Caroline 🙂 Motherhood is definitely not for sissies! I’ve vowed that I will spend less time worrying about the house, and more time just appreciating him when Peppercorn arrives 🙂 I don’t feel like I did enough of that with Busby… I was constantly waiting for the next milestone etc xxx

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  4. ‘This time will be so brief, and even more so in retrospect.’Reading that one sentence gave me a lump in my throat.Not down to lack of sleep with a 4 week old baby, but because it’s the knowledge that this will be the last newborn I’ll create.That one sentence also puts everything into perspective….moaning about the sleep deprivation and cluster feeds, when really I should be finding ways to bottle that newborn baby smell so I could bring it out every so many years and reminisce of a time when they were this little. Thank you for your brilliant writing.

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