My One Year Old Hurts My Feelings

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So I have a one year old and she hurts my feelings. It feels good to say it out loud. I never in my wildest dreams thought that one day MY child might hurt my feelings. Especially my little angel that has only graced this earth with her presence for a year and a week. I mean don't get me wrong I know for a fact that I have hurt my moms feelings before. In fact, I'm sure I hurt my moms feelings when I was only a year old, but it doesn't make it any easier.

There are so many things that people don't tell you when you are A. thinking of starting a family or
B. pregnant. There needs to be a pamphlet given to each prospective/newly pregnant mommy-to-be outlining the crap beautiful things that you and your body will be going through for the next 9 months and then the 18 years after that. I know I am not the first person that has said that very line before, but yet I am sitting here wondering why I wasn't told that everything isn't always flowers and roses when it comes to pregnancy and child rearing.

It all started about two weeks before Emerson made her debut. I was looking at my very round belly in the mirror when I noticed a dark purple line starting to make its way up from the side of my belly button towards my ribs. Jared assured me it was just a vein showing through my very see through pale skin and that as soon as she was here I wouldn't even be able to see it any more. Being a first time mom who had never been pregnant before, I believed him. Here I am a year later and I am still waiting for that one (and several others) vein to disappear.

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So moving on to the hospital, literally only an hour of becoming a mommy, I was handed a squeeze bottle to use when I went to the restroom for the first time. I was thinking it was just an easy way to "clean up" after a long labor and delivery. No instructions came from the nurse other than "go to the restroom and use this as you pee." Everything was fine and dandy that first time. A little bit later, I was moved over to my post partum room and headed straight for the rest room without my squeeze bottle. HUGE MISTAKE!! I think all hell broke loose in the 5 minutes between me innocently going into the restroom and the nurse running in there with a warm shower head and solarcaine medicated spray. It would have been nice if the nurse had just said "here is this squeeze bottle. It will be your best friend for the next week. Don't enter the restroom without it." But...she didn't!

Lets not even get started on what your body looks like post baby. I think the post "10 Unrecognizable Post Baby Parts on Scary Mommy says it all:

My Dry-Shriveled Carrots. AKA, my breasts. After three years of breastfeeding, I got so talented that I could swing one behind my head and pass it around the minivan for anyone that needed a snack. I just asked that it be passed back before anyone got out of the car. (I do have some standards.) Now that my breastfeeding days are over, my breasts have been replaced by dried out, shriveled up baby carrots.

I think that if someone had sent me in the direction of Scary Mommy a year ago, I would probably be a lot better off! She says how it is and isn't afraid! :)

Once you get through the lovely 9 months of pregnancy, you go from being YOU one day to being a MOM the next. That doesn't sound that difficult but it's actually a hard thing to wrap your sleep deprived brain around.

I was listening to Kelly Rasberry on the radio the other morning, and she started to get emotional because she just doesn't know what to do with her seven year old's bad behavior. As I was listening I started to become a little emotional too. I connected with her. She isn't alone.  I realized that becoming a mommy has made me so insecure. I am constantly worrying about whether or not Emerson is ok, if I am doing a good job at this mommy thing, and even if she loves me.

Being a mom is a tough job. It's hard when your baby reaches for the babysitter when you go to pick her up instead of reaching for you. It's hard not to worry about that bump on your baby's head that definitely, no way, could NOT have been there yesterday. It's hard not to be embarrassed when you take your child to the doctor for said bump and he tells you "that's just her head." It's hard when google tells you that your child probably has cancer or some other equally horrifying problem. It's hard when your one year old slaps you across the face and you get YOUR feelings hurt. There is no easy way to put it. Being a mom is HARD. It's not for the birds. BUT! It's worth every second of it! It is hands down the best feeling in the world.

I think the number one thing you can do for a Mommy-to-be or a Mommy whether that Mommy is your friend, wife, sister co-worker, or even your own mommy is to tell her that she is doing a Good Job. Sometimes she just needs to hear it.

The second thing you can do for her is to tell her all the crap no one told her before she decided to become a mommy! :)