ten things that are better post-baby

After becoming a mom, it is pretty evident that the grass was pretty green on the pre-baby side of life.

Baby comes and we realize that freedom has fled, sleep is a dream, and realizing that crying babies aren’t always easily satisfied can give life a bit of a downer vibe.

But alas, the cloudy skies of motherhood also bring some rainbows. Pollyanna could have found hundreds, but she wasn’t here to help me, so I thought of ten things that lifted my heart in the dark days of new motherhood.

Here goes:

10. Pajamas, yoga pants, and leggings can be worn almost every day. Sure your wardrobe choices are partly inspired by the simple desire not to get spit up or strained peas on your favorite jeans. But the truth is, being comfortable is divine, and there are some seriously cute yoga pants at Target, so live it up, girl. Someday you will have to go out in public again and this “sloppy chic” look will have to go, but for now you finally get to wear cozy things all day long.

9. A whole season of __________ can be watched in a week’s worth of naps. I must confess, I kind of wish I had a baby so that I could rewatch seasons 1 and 2 of Downton Abbey before season three airs next month. Newborns are oblivious to the television, so I could put that baby in a crib or bounce her in a sling and find out all over again if  Mary and Matthew will ever figure it out. But I have big kids now, so I am left the hours after 9pm for that kind of stuff, which means I feel like a sleep deprived new mom after staying up until 2am to watch it all. Po-tay-to, Po-tah-to, I guess.

8. Coffee is a refuge. New babies make for tired mamas, and some nights as I dragged myself down the hall for the fifth time, the thought that a vanilla latte awaited me in the morning was like a tonic for my soul. It’s the little things that get you through some days.

7. Two hours alone in Target feel like a week at Disneyland. After spending the first few weeks at home, focused on a baby, that first trip out of the house without the baby is so surreal. Suddenly, you remember that you are a human, with thoughts of your own. Mostly, there is this thought, “There is a life beyond a baby, and what in the world have all these people been doing while I have been getting that baby to flip his days and nights to a normal human schedule???… Oh my goodness, those new scarves are so cute!!!”

6. Time for books. I used to read while I nursed the baby. I read many good books in fifteen minute intervals. It was heavenly, and made me feel I wasn’t actually losing brain cells as I lived out my small life of motherhood. Of course, I was also so tired that I rarely remembered what I read, so maybe I did lose brain cells after all….

5. Becoming an expert mama. No one knows a baby like the baby’s mama. The first time we left our son with a babysitter I wrote six pages of instructions. I described every signal he made for every possible need. I gave her every possible option on how to respond to those signals. I laid out a schedule, told her what to do, when to do it, and what to do if it didn’t work. I had studied that baby and I knew him perfectly. I was finally an expert on something in life. (Of course, she ignored everything I suggested and I came home to an over-stimulated mess of a baby, but that’s just the way it goes.)

4. Adult conversation becomes a precious commodity. New dads are deserving of great empathy. The minute they come through the front door, their wives bombard them with conversation. We can’t help it, we have been thinking about stuff all day and we need to get it out. If a friend calls on the phone during the day, we can’t wait to tell them half of what we were planning to tell our husband because talking now is better than talking later. Keeping a journal helps hone these words that build up all day, but really, we just want to talk and talk and talk….

3. Friends become your allies. What time did you last feed? How long did your baby sleep last night? Have you read the chapter in the baby book about how to calm/ feed/ play with/ soothe your baby? What did the doctor say about colic? On and on these conversations go between new moms. My closest friendships were forged in the shared experience of having no idea what we were doing with as new moms. We learned together, complained to one another, and encouraged each other every day. It was awesome.

2. Sleep becomes a delicacy. On the days I was really tired, I would walk by my room and glance at my bed with longing. The fan was spinning cool air over the bed, the covers were all fluffy, the pillows looked soft and called to my weary head. When I finally did get to sink into the bed it was delight like no other. And when my mind would drift beyond wakefulness I knew true joy and peace. Sleeping was heaven, and I was so, so happy.

1. Your regard for your body sky rockets. Sure, pregnancy does some less than pretty things to your body. But birthing babies is like becoming a super hero. Once you realize that your body can grow life like that you realize it’s more than a physical thing: your body is a miracle making machine! And, miracle machines can’t be held to these silly standards of vanity set by the media. If your body can make babies, who cares if it doesn’t look like a super model today? It’s in another league now, and so are you. Like a super hero who has learned her true power, you will change the world by loving another person more than you love yourself. And you live like you never knew you could in that pre-baby season, because everything has changed, and it is all. so. good.