Mommy Blues... sorry, this will be long.
I am having another bad day today. I am not sure what brings on these mood swings, for I really have nothing to be sad about. Yet, here I am on the verge of tears. Is it anxiety? Performance angst when I think about my pending role as a mother and stay-at-home-wife?
I miss my husband like crazy - it's (another!) Friday night that he's spending at the office - uncompensated for. Yeah, it's almost 9pm. Our small apartment is a mess (- and believe me when I say that "mess" is a complete understatement), and I can't get myself to get up and clean. That, in turn, brings back my anxiety about my immediate future. I mean - I am not even able to provide Geo and I with a clean and nice place to live in - how can I possibly be ready to be a mom?!?!? And then there's cooking. I am completely helpless in the kitchen. I manage to cook pre-made food, heat up frozen pizza, and make instant-soups out of tomato powder. Yet I want to cook for my baby and not buy the processed baby food in jars - and I have no idea how to do it! And then... then there's this precious thing called "routine" and "rituals". I am dreaming of this set routine that will make my child's life nice and simple and predictable for a calmer existence, with set play time and sleep time and learning time and take-a-walk-time and whatnot, and nice going-to-bed-rituals with reading and singing and who-knows-what - yet I cannot even put my very OWN life into any kind of routine! I am chaotic, I am without a plan, and most of all I prefer lounging on the couch in front of the TV over most other things life has to offer. What kind of mom will I be?????
I am scared out of mind - especially since I know that I am aware of all these things, yet still unable to change anything about my attitude so far.
I want to be a good wife that has her baby under control, always in a fresh diaper, never hungry, well-routined and well-behaved, in a spotless and awesomely decorated apartment, who has managed to take care of baby swimming classes, a visit to the grandparents, a stroll through the park and all the day's shopping just before cooking her husband a good and well-deserved dinner when he comes home from work, that the whole family partakes in, before putting the baby to bed and then spending some nice husband-and-wife time together at night. In some fresh and nice wife-clothes, of course, with no baby puke or other mommy-stains on them.
But I am not even a good and organized person as I am. I hate the dirty dishes around me, and the carpet of cat hair on our carpet, and the dry clothes on the rack and the folded clothes on the dining table that nobody has yet bothered to put away, I HATE all that, yet I cannot get myself to get up and do anything about it. The bed is still ruffled from when we got up this morning, and all this makes me feel like complete failure before I have even started to BE this mom and stay-at-home-wife.
For the longest time, I have looked at pregnancy as my ticket out of my job. As a reminder: I love being a graphic designer, I just hate the place I currently work in. I imagined that the two years of maternity leave ahead of me will be heaven on earth, and that there couldn't be a more fulfilling and satisfying task than to care for your own baby full-time. When I got pregnant for the second time and passed the first trimester without any problems, I started to count the days I still would have to work - marking one off every day. I started at 100 days... I am down to 34 as of today. 34 work days before I take the leftover 4 weeks of my yearly vacation, right before my maternity leave kicks in for the next 2 years.
And you know what's happening now? The most unexpected thing! Instead of getting more and more excited about soon leaving this job behind, I get more and more afraid of that last day. I get scared of not making my usual paycheck anymore and providing for our little family (maternity leave money amounts to less than a third of my paycheck). I get scared of losing the ONE routine I have in my life: going to work every day. I get scared of spending my days leisurely at home, losing track of my responsibilities with the couch and the TV right there to lure me into my usual laziness. I get scared of disappointing my husband, when it turns out what a lousy wife and mother I will be.
I just don't feel cut out to be what it takes to be a good mother!!!
Yet here I sit, and feel my little angel kick its little feet against my from the inside, and wiggling around a bit, being here, being so present, being so REAL. Being the most precious thing ever to be in my life, being a little person that I love with all my heart, without even knowing her or him. Knowing nothing of my fears and worries, simply relying on me being there for it, relying on me to create a good home, a safe environment, give it all the knowledge it will need and ask for, making good memories - providing the great childhood that I remember my parents provided for me. It's just there... it's alive, it's growing, it's kicking its Mommy... and it has no clue how powerful it is, how mighty, how fear-inducing. How it reduced me to a shivering heap on the floor.
If I manage to be only half the mother that my mother was (and still is) to me, I will feel like I have done more than I ever thought I was capable of in life.
I miss my husband like crazy - it's (another!) Friday night that he's spending at the office - uncompensated for. Yeah, it's almost 9pm. Our small apartment is a mess (- and believe me when I say that "mess" is a complete understatement), and I can't get myself to get up and clean. That, in turn, brings back my anxiety about my immediate future. I mean - I am not even able to provide Geo and I with a clean and nice place to live in - how can I possibly be ready to be a mom?!?!? And then there's cooking. I am completely helpless in the kitchen. I manage to cook pre-made food, heat up frozen pizza, and make instant-soups out of tomato powder. Yet I want to cook for my baby and not buy the processed baby food in jars - and I have no idea how to do it! And then... then there's this precious thing called "routine" and "rituals". I am dreaming of this set routine that will make my child's life nice and simple and predictable for a calmer existence, with set play time and sleep time and learning time and take-a-walk-time and whatnot, and nice going-to-bed-rituals with reading and singing and who-knows-what - yet I cannot even put my very OWN life into any kind of routine! I am chaotic, I am without a plan, and most of all I prefer lounging on the couch in front of the TV over most other things life has to offer. What kind of mom will I be?????
I am scared out of mind - especially since I know that I am aware of all these things, yet still unable to change anything about my attitude so far.
I want to be a good wife that has her baby under control, always in a fresh diaper, never hungry, well-routined and well-behaved, in a spotless and awesomely decorated apartment, who has managed to take care of baby swimming classes, a visit to the grandparents, a stroll through the park and all the day's shopping just before cooking her husband a good and well-deserved dinner when he comes home from work, that the whole family partakes in, before putting the baby to bed and then spending some nice husband-and-wife time together at night. In some fresh and nice wife-clothes, of course, with no baby puke or other mommy-stains on them.
But I am not even a good and organized person as I am. I hate the dirty dishes around me, and the carpet of cat hair on our carpet, and the dry clothes on the rack and the folded clothes on the dining table that nobody has yet bothered to put away, I HATE all that, yet I cannot get myself to get up and do anything about it. The bed is still ruffled from when we got up this morning, and all this makes me feel like complete failure before I have even started to BE this mom and stay-at-home-wife.
For the longest time, I have looked at pregnancy as my ticket out of my job. As a reminder: I love being a graphic designer, I just hate the place I currently work in. I imagined that the two years of maternity leave ahead of me will be heaven on earth, and that there couldn't be a more fulfilling and satisfying task than to care for your own baby full-time. When I got pregnant for the second time and passed the first trimester without any problems, I started to count the days I still would have to work - marking one off every day. I started at 100 days... I am down to 34 as of today. 34 work days before I take the leftover 4 weeks of my yearly vacation, right before my maternity leave kicks in for the next 2 years.
And you know what's happening now? The most unexpected thing! Instead of getting more and more excited about soon leaving this job behind, I get more and more afraid of that last day. I get scared of not making my usual paycheck anymore and providing for our little family (maternity leave money amounts to less than a third of my paycheck). I get scared of losing the ONE routine I have in my life: going to work every day. I get scared of spending my days leisurely at home, losing track of my responsibilities with the couch and the TV right there to lure me into my usual laziness. I get scared of disappointing my husband, when it turns out what a lousy wife and mother I will be.
I just don't feel cut out to be what it takes to be a good mother!!!
Yet here I sit, and feel my little angel kick its little feet against my from the inside, and wiggling around a bit, being here, being so present, being so REAL. Being the most precious thing ever to be in my life, being a little person that I love with all my heart, without even knowing her or him. Knowing nothing of my fears and worries, simply relying on me being there for it, relying on me to create a good home, a safe environment, give it all the knowledge it will need and ask for, making good memories - providing the great childhood that I remember my parents provided for me. It's just there... it's alive, it's growing, it's kicking its Mommy... and it has no clue how powerful it is, how mighty, how fear-inducing. How it reduced me to a shivering heap on the floor.
If I manage to be only half the mother that my mother was (and still is) to me, I will feel like I have done more than I ever thought I was capable of in life.
posted by spreadyourwings at 8:51 PM
2 Comments:
Hang in there! You are a capable mom and wife. There is nothing wrong with feeling overwhelmed. You are pregnant for heaven's sake ;)!
Take things in baby steps. You can do anything for 10 min. So set a timer for 10 min and clean something. When the times goes off decide if you want to do more. You would be surprised how much you can get done in 10 min. :) Decide on one ritual you want to start this week. Make it an easy one. You just need to get things going. Slowly add on one thing at a time over the course of a few weeks. In a month it will seem easy. You are a normal person and these are normal feelings.
You are going to be a great mom! If you were going to be you wouldn't be worried like this ;). Keep your spirits up. You are a capable, normal, able woman and mom.
You do learn, darl. You do. The learning comes out of necessity. My sister was the same. Everything was a constant mess and then Fred was born and suddenly things are very, very tidy. I bet your mother will tell you this too if you ask her (and if she tells the truth). :) I'm very glad to see that, apart from the moodswings, you're doing well!
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