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I looked back over the blogs from the past month, and I felt a little dishonest.  It has been a beautiful, eventful month…but it has not all been beautiful.  There are really hard parts too–about having a baby and juggling that baby with two other little ones.  During week three, my Dad and Konie took Pace and Mary Aplin to DISNEY WORLD.  Let me clarify that, my Dad went to a vet meeting in Orlando and Konie braved the parks day after day with Pace and Mary Aplin, all by herself.  Who wins woman of the year??  I am pretty sure I would not have been brave enough to do that on my own.  Konie is a super woman…and she LOVES Disney 🙂

I can’t complain tooooo much with all the help I have close by, but still there have been hard parts.  The hardest parts, to me, come in the first couple weeks–you know, when your hormones are trying to re-adjust from the GI-NORMOUS swing they’ve just taken and your body is limping along behind, trying to figure out if it is or is NOT pregnant.  If you’ve had a baby the term “peri care” is sure to make your skin crawl and your stomach turn just a wee bit.  If you haven’t had a baby, then you probably don’t know what “peri care” is, and I’m happy for you to remain sheltered as long as possible.  No reason to deal with anything before due time.

Then there’s nursing, and it’s not all the beautiful bonding experience the La Leche League wants you to believe it is.  There’s also the constantly damp, often painful at first, milk cowesque side of the thing.  I’m all for nursing and I do happen to think it’s a bonding experience, but I’ll be glad to have my boobs back…in oh, another eleven months or so 🙂

These are moments that all new moms share, but then there are some poignant and memorable times that each of us like to re-tell over cups of coffee or in the parking lot after preschool drop-off.  Moments that make us laugh because we’ve experienced similar disasters and can commiserate.  So, in an effort to be sure you know it’s not just googley eyes of love and clean baby powder smells over here, I thought I’d share a few of my moments from the past month:

I jumped into the tub for the MUCH needed shower, that I’d been trying to get around to for two or three days, when I thought Jay Paul had a good hour of sleep ahead of him.  I was wrong, and he started screaming somewhere around the conditioner point of my shower.  I decided to forget the leg shave (Who can shave and not slice the underside of their knee to bits with a baby screaming a few feet away?), and quickly wrapped things up.  As I toweled off, greatly thankful to at least be clean, the screaming told my mammary glands it was time to feed.  Milk started spraying from one side and dripping from the other–so much for being clean longer than 2.3 seconds.  It was at this moment that I realized that I was out of nursing pads, and I left the new pack in the car.  I grab Jay Paul, attach him to the “spraying side,” make a mental note to change his clothes but let his body/pjs start absorbing the “dripping” side and hurry, in this state, OUTSIDE to get my nursing pads.  As my naked, post-pregnant body struggled in the cold January weather to balance a nursing baby, a bag from the pharmacy, while also trying to tug open the screen door and get back inside I thought, “this is the kind of thing I don’t talk about on the blog.” 🙂

Jay Paul eats all. the. time.  Which means I’ve learned to nurse while doing all sorts of things–even going to the bathroom.

More than once, I have discovered spit-up sitting in the hollow of my neck formed by my collar bone.  Ok?!  How long had it been there?  How am I so used to that smell that  I wouldn’t notice?  This is why my husband tells me he has grown used to my new scent–baby lotion and slightly sour milk.  Romantic.

One morning when those hormone swings were at their worst, I greeted my husband and sister-in-law at the door holding a bowl of Life Cereal with strawberries and bawling into it.  While Jeremiah tried to figure out what in the world was wrong with me (and I had very little explanation of what was rong, but I was fairly sure that it was HIS fault, whatever it was) poor awkward Alex said she needed to go the the bathroom.  She stayed in their a long time before coming out…and the toilet never even flushed.  I’ve often wondered since what she was thinking, trapped in our bathroom, praying her sister-in-law could get it together so that she could come out again.

Mary Aplin, watching me nursing for the first time, stared in wonder.  Climbed on the couch to get a better look, then said, “Mommy, baby boy is EATING your BOOBY.  That’s gross!”  Thank you Mary Aplin, for putting words to exactly how I’m feeling, right now.  Gross.

Feeling panicked at night that the whole house is about to go to sleep and I’m going to be alone, awake, and utterly exhausted.

I am pretty stable now, if yall are starting to get worried.  I’m so thankful that I’ve never experienced true post partum depression.  I know it’s very real and very scary.  I call what I’ve had after all three babies my “deer in headlights” period.  I think normal people call it the baby blues.  It’s a big adjustment to add a new life to your family–a life that is totally dependent.  And while there are so many parts that are wonderful and beautiful, there are also parts that are hard and fugly and not pictured on the blog.

I’d love it if any of you feel inclined to share one of your moments in the comments.  I know I can’t be the only one!