Right now, I think nobody loves me more than my two sons. We spent the whole day playing at home today and there were lots and lots of cuddles. If I gave Aaron a cuddle, Adrian would come crawling up for one too. If I gave Adrian a kiss, Aaron would quickly come for his one as well. Its a wonderful feeling to mean so much to these innocent little babies.
As they napped, I thought of how my approach to being a mother has evolved since Aaron was a baby. I'm definitely more laid back in my approach. I don't expect as much of myself and I don't stress about the little things as much. I sit back, watch and absorb the moment a LOT MORE.
So, here are a few pointers that if I could, I would like to send back in time, to my 30 year old self - the first time mom.
* Don't make grand plans. Life needs to be as simple as possible with kids around. There is always too much stress involved if you plan something elaborate and then try to hold yourself to it while things go awry with the kids.
* If you've done nothing all day except, feed, play and nap with the kids, there is no need to feel unproductive. You have given love, time and immeasurable amounts of patience.
* Car time is useful for sitting back and relaxing, even if you're the driver. Strap the kids in and then get in your zone. No matter how they scream, there is nothing you can do for them so you might as well take a few deep breaths.
* Spend more time just watching, observing and absorbing what the kids are doing. They are living in the moment and you definitely should too.
* Just accept the whole sleep (or lack of sleep) thing. Don't try to fix it. Enough said.
In a nutshell, I think first time mothers should be reminded to enjoy their babies. All the advise on how to schedule, feed, educate, blah blah blah will just stress a first time mom and get in the way of thoroughly enjoying these early years.
I really had a very enjoyable day and feel extremely blessed to have two healthy and happy children. No wonder they call them bundles of joy.
6 comments:
"enjoy their babies"
For sure because they won't be that way for long.
We would all like to have given advice to our younger selves
This is really good stuff. I'm going to link to it from my Facebook.
You can add a "share" button that will let others share your posts on facebook and you can also share to your facebook so that your non-blogging friends can read your posts.
Pointers from a dear friend: Dont forget to get some "me" time in and some "hubby and me" time in as well. It's very important. And, yes, I'll buy you that one night hotel room just for you to go sleep. Let me know. ;-)
Mike's right. And so is NomadicExpat. The part about not making grand plans is especially good.
Mike: Yup. I don't think I can call Aaron a baby anymore.
JLP : I wonder if we would learn the same things if we could tell ourselves what was coming up.
John : I've never tried that. Will give it a go after this.
NomadicExpat : I'll be calling you on that one some day soon :)
Bilbo : You know what? We didn't make any plans this morning but we ended up having this BIG day of going to the library, then to a park for a picnic, then to the only scheduled thing (chinese class) and then to the park again. All that without going back home. Thankfully things worked well and we had fun.
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