The Importance of Choice

A friend of ours shared a podcast/blog called “The longest shortest time” with us.  It’s about early parenting.  I’ve listened to the first few podcasts and read the first few blog entries.  I laughed, I cried, and I felt so much better.  The past three months have been amazing and full of wonder, but they’ve also been hard - really hard.  Some how, in our society, it seems that if you talk about the hard aspects of parenting, then you’re not a good mother.  It’s all supposed to be peaches and cream, but it’s not.  Just knowing that I’m not the only one that struggles with adjustment to motherhood and knowing that I’m not alone makes it so much better.  And knowing that this is really just a short time, even if it feels like forever, makes me feel a little better.

As the bottle battles continue (and yes, she STILL won’t take a bottle, and yes, we’ve tried just about everything), I’m realizing how trapped I’ve been feeling because I am the only consistent way she can get food.  Coinciding with those feelings of being trapped are also feelings of guilt because I don’t need to go back to work so I don’t really need her to take a bottle.  But in actuality, I really do need her to take a bottle.  Currently, my only time away from Safia is when Rube is trying to give her a bottle.  I go to the gym and run errands, and although it is technically a break, my thoughts are constantly on what's happening at home.  Guilt seeps in again as I wonder if I'm being selfish by putting Rube and Safia through this ordeal so I can get what I want.  After the feeling of guilt subside, reality sets in and even though I don’t need to go back to work right away, I really do need her to take a bottle because I need to not feel trapped.  If I have the choice as to whether I go out and do something or stay home with Safia, I’m so much happier to stay home with her when I’ve chosen to do so rather then when I feel forced to do it.  I know it’s all about perspective and I am incredibly lucky to be having these emotional/mental battles, but it doesn’t make it any easier.  But it does make it easier to know that this is “normal” (whatever that word means anymore) and there are others that are going through the same struggles, and the mantras of it’ll get better are actually based in some sort of reality.  At least that’s what people say.

On another note, Rube’s friend Tim arrived Sunday evening from Milwaukee.  Sunday evening Rube played a gig in Atlanta so Tim could see his musical evolution from their college band, D.W. Rhylee.  Yesterday was spent playing with Safia and hanging out in the kitchen.  It was nice to have friends visiting to help with the transition back to Athens.  We all went out to get a drink at a bar downtown (Safia is becoming quite comfortable in the bar scene) and then Rube and Tim hit the town, while Safia and I went home and slept.  Rube was going to help me put Safia to bed, but I figured since Tim was here for such that it was silly for him to come back with me because I could just as easily put Safia to bed by myself (at least that’s the case most of the time!).  It was a choice, and an easy one to make, which reinforces my new reality that it’s all about perspective.

A blast from the past, Safia at 9 days old,
it's amazing how much she's grown

It's amazing how time flies in our strange
time warp called parenthood