I can see a lot of life in you.

Elliot turned four months old yesterday. Happy four month, buddy!!!

I have no idea where the time has gone. In a lot of ways it feels like he was just born, but he has also changed so much in these past four months that it’s apparent time is passing slowly enough for him to learn and grow and become more and more awesome by the day.

Babies are little balls of mush when they first come home, and regardless of what others say, your love for them definitely grows as they do. I always remember hearing that when your baby is born, you get this tremendous “love at first sight” feeling and have an instant connection. Well, the best advice I ever got when I was pregnant is that this notion of love at first sight is a pretty exaggerated version of the truth. My mother told me that, and I am so glad that she did because I can’t even imagine how guilty I would have felt if no one had told me this. 

At the risk of sounding like a horrible, cold mother, I’ll try to explain. Obviously, I did love Elliot from the moment he was born, because he was my son, but I felt more of an obligation to love him than an instant rush of sweet and loving emotion. I didn’t know him yet, and I was afraid of him. I was afraid to touch him, feed him, change him, and I just didn’t trust myself to do a good job of being his mom. The overwhelming sense of responsibility for another life hit me square in the face the instant he was born. I went from being someone struggling to take care of myself, to being responsible for taking care of someone who couldn’t do a thing for himself. I went from being someone who did whatever I wanted to barely being able to sneak away from the little guy to take a five minute shower in the hospital.

The amount of pain I was in after Elliot was born was tremendous (for various reasons you don’t want to hear about) and I was kept pretty drugged up on pain medication as well as antibiotics for an infection I had developed before my hospital stay. I was hardly eating because I had no appetite whatsoever, I felt very faint, and my blood pressure was through the roof. My hormones were going insane and I would cry at almost anything. The hospital was awful and even if Elliot slept at night, nurses were in and out of the room making tons of noise all night anyway. The place felt like hell, my body felt like hell, and I felt like I didn’t know and couldn’t take proper care of my own baby. So, unfortunately, if I had to describe my feelings on the day Elliot was born in a couple of words, I’d say I felt “fucking terrified”.

This feeling didn’t go away for a couple of weeks and then one day, maybe three weeks or so after Elliot was born, everyone who had been helping out was gone and I decided to give Elliot a bath. He loved it. He was so calm and so sweet. Suddenly, the love that I felt for him overpowered the fear I had felt and I adored him to pieces. I calmed down around him, and he quit crying so much. We were comfortable with one another and we spent our days snuggling. So, I did eventually feel this overwhelming love for my son, but it didn’t come straight away like everyone said it would. I often feel really guilty about my initial feelings and response to Elliot being born, but I know that it was just fear that kept me so upset for so long. I wish I could have been less riddled with anxiety and that I could have slowed down and taken the time to enjoy Elliot for the first few weeks of his life, but I can’t change what happened and if anyone tried to tell me that my initial feelings meant that I don’t love Elliot like a mother should love their child, I’d have some choice words. 

That is my story that I never want to tell, but I’ve realized it is something I can’t feel guilty for. Babies grow and change so quickly that you go from wondering if you will ever be able to take a shower or eat a decent meal again, to knowing exactly how to balance getting things done around your babies little “schedule” and everything only gets easier from there.

At four months, Elliot is such an amazing treat of a boy. He had his four month checkup with his pediatrician today, and as always they commented on how “advanced” and “strong” he is for his age, even though he is a tiny inchworm (16th percentile for height, 26th for weight, and 40th for head circumference! These stats always upset me!!) He is ready to start eating rice cereal and we are about to go pick some up at the store and try it out tonight. At this moment, I am going to go kiss and kiss and kiss and kiss him until he can’t stand it anymore :)

Finally, a breakthrough!
Elliot slept for 8 1/2 consecutive hours last night. I am so proud of him for that, and he appears to be doing alright so far tonight as well. 

It’s definitely nice to have back my couple hours of alone time when he is sleeping and I stay up for a bit doing whatever. That sounds crappy to say, but it is very important to make time for yourself, even if it is just an hour or so before bed. So, what did I do with my “free” time? I watched Cyrus. It was a really great movie. Elliot is definitely a momma’s boy right now as a baby, but he is not allowed to grow up to act like that little freak in the movie. 

Elliot was tons of fun today. He was very sweet and happy and though he is usually stingy with his laughs, he was giggling it up today. I love that I can truly tell what he enjoys and does not enjoy doing now that he is developing his little kick ass personality. I was thinking about some of his “likes” and “dislikes” today and some of them are pretty funny. As far as I can tell, the following is true:

Likes:
-Glow worm and any toy that makes the crunchy noise.
-Pulling hair (he actually smiles when he does it).
-Getting his lotion rubbed on. This happens twice a day and he spends the entire time squealing in delight.
-Rap music and any female singer with a great voice. He tries to “sing” with Adele. He bounces and shakes to rap. 
-Having shirts/blankets lightly dragged across his face always gets a smile.
-Baths. Absolutely without question, Elliot LOVES his baths and has since he was a tiny wrinkly newborn.
-Walks.
-Lucy (my mother’s dog). She hates him, but that isn’t going to stop him.
-Anyone and everyone. He smiles and cuddles with anyone. I guess he didn’t get my shy gene. 

Dislikes:
-Burping. He screams and cries every time. It’s so embarrassing in public!
-His car seat. Don’t even get me started.
-Sleeping. He would rather stay up playing forever.
-The blow dryer. He screams and cries if he is anywhere near it. 

That is all for now. Goodnight! 

Elliot was a banana for Halloween. He looked adorable even though he didn’t seem to totally love his costume. His little “girlfriend” who is also our neighbor and a total cougar (9 months), came over to show off her ladybug costume. She waved at El and I think he has the mad hots for her. 

I did not dress up this year and it made me feel 35. I didn’t feel like wasting money on creating a costume and have been too tired lately to even think about starting any sort of project. 

Elliot has reached some new “milestone” of sorts, where he has realized that he doesn’t have to go to sleep just because the lights are off. Once an awesome sleeper, (he went anywhere from 7-10 hours a night sleeping straight through by 2 months), Elliot now seems to be up every couple of hours, or sooner. His routine has never been changed and I don’t speak to him or turn on any lights when entering his room, but I think he just wants to play. He’s never hungry. Numerous times a night over his monitor I will just hear this sweet cooing and when I go in, he’s usually waving his arms and smiling. I love sleeping so this is certainly a bummer, but I can’t and don’t really want to complain too much about such a cute little boy just trying to have fun. We’ll see what happens and I guess in the meantime I will just be incredibly exhausted.   

Elliot and I have also been at war with eczema this month. The poor little guy is just covered in it completely some days and other days his skin is clear and perfect. I’m slowly trying to weed things out or away from him to see what could be the cause of his skin issues, or at least to see what I can add or eliminate to make it better. I think at this point we’ve tried about $100 dollars worth of different lotions and creams.  I guess that a lot of babies have problems with eczema, but I never seem to see any out and about and I always wonder if people are staring and wondering if I even attempt to fix his face. Probably not. People are never as judgmental as we think. 

This past half hour was spent dancing with a sticky, lotioned up baby who laughs and smiles when I make him shake his booty to Savage’s “swing!” These simple pleasures and sweet moments trump the small daily annoyances for sure. Hopefully this sleep-deprived and itchy baby can squeeze some sleep in along with playing alone in the dark tonight. 

 

I guess so. 

Yes, this will mostly be a blog about parenthood, but that is only because being a parent pretty much defines who I am now, and it takes precedence over everything I do.  Because of my age, I do not have any friends with children, and therefore no one to talk to about every little silly thing my son, Elliot, does that I of course find to be amazing. I feel as though I am hitting my “annoying mom” phase and must be bothering my Facebook buddies, so I am going to start gushing about my little dude here instead.

I am not fancy and I hardly understand tumblr. I don’t understand all of this “reblogging” or “tagging” nonsense, because I am an eighty-year-old woman trapped in a twenty-one-year-old bod. I will simply be keeping this blog as a journal for my own entertainment and the fanciest I will get will probably be posting some pictures of Elliot from time to time. 

In this blog I will be talking honestly and openly about my feelings toward motherhood and the responsibilities that go along with it. I will talk a little bit about the hardships, but also about the insanely rewarding and amazing moments that come with being a mommy.

Meet Elliot, and his huge hat.