Confessions of a tired mommy - Part I

Hello, my name is mommy.

I am a fat, tired and sleep deprived mom to a little monster named little P, who is now 15 months old.

I am a new mom. All this mommyhood stuff is new to me. I have taken care of babies before, and by taking care, I don't mean cuddled them and kissed them for 5 minutes, and as soon as they cried, promptly handed them over to their mommies.

No. I mean, I have seriously taken care of about 7-odd babies in a babysitter kind of way. I cleaned them, bathed them, fed them milk from their bottles, rocked them to sleep, held them while their mommies took 2 minutes off.

But, doing all this with my own baby is new to me, and I am one shit scared mommy. I worry too much. I might be the happiest mommy on the block, yet, I worry.

As a mom, rather, as a new mom, there are a few things I have done, I keep doing, or I might do in the future, that I am not proud of. Nothing serious, but little things that do matter, if only, at times.

So, today, I will confess to all these "crimes":

1) I haven't brushed my hair today. Or yesterday. Even the day before.

To be honest, I can't recall the last time I gave my tresses a good brush. I THINK I gave them a nice dose of shampoo on the weekend, but that's a faint recollection.

Don't get me wrong. I am not trying to be the next Lord Shiva with knotty hair and curly fingernails. Neither am I trying to look like a hippie who smokes weed and pretends to look like Bob Marley!

The thing is, my toddler is going through a very, very pesky phase. He howls and shrieks if I am out of eye sight. In his world. brushing my hair is a sign that I am heading out and leaving him behind.

So, in order to bring some peace to his crazy toddler world, I am not brushing my hair. There you go!

2) I sometimes want JUST TWO MINUTES to myself. But, as moms, that's not happening for the next 20 years, I suppose.

I want to pee in peace, without the door being banged, followed with screams of "mamma!".

Ditto, poop. The commode has sent out a search warrant for me, the person who used to spend hours sitting on it, reading the newspaper.

3) Some times, when little P wakes up way too many times at night, and the only way to get him back to sleep is to feed him, I feel like crying.

He is still not sleeping through, and on good days (nights?!), wakes up roughly 4 times. But, heaven help us when he's sick, or teething, which isn't too often, thank God!

This one time, I counted 12 times. I just wanted to dig a hole and bury myself in it. Then, I remembered, that in all probability, I will hear shouts of "mamma!", followed by some banging, and that, I might have to feed him to calm him down.

So, I thought to myself, "Aah! Now, I possibly can't feed him in a hole, so might as well be here, and feed him lying down, my eyes still closed, in the comfort of the air conditioner!"

4) Speaking of feeding...

For the past few days, I am scared shitless every time I have to feed him, because he's going through a biting phase, and damn! He bites me every time! GAAAH!

Some times, I scream and shout in pain, which scares him, and he cries. Other times, I try and ignore it, and just walk away. But, I still get cries! HUH! Little cheeky bugger!

5) I hate stepping out of the house. I HATE IT! I've got some fellow new moms in the neighborhood, and most of them have managed to knock of the pounds, while, I am ONLY 15 KGS DOWN!

I hate dressing up, mostly because I am yet to fit into my old clothes. I can fit into my jeans though! But nothing else! Of course, the hair brushing, or rather, the lack of it, doesn't help.

6) I look at fellow mommies' pictures and feel extremely jealous. I just do, I can't help it.

7) I can't remember the last time I paid attention to the husband, poor guy, bless him! I don't know where he is when he's doing multi city tours. I forget to make his morning coffee, I get delayed in serving him lunch. Shyte!

And don't even get me started on the sex!

8) I am scared of making conversation with adults. Even more, when those adults don't have kids themselves. My mind is thinking "Monster trucks and tractors", because little P is going through a "I love tractor" phase.

Worst, instead of coherent words, nursery rhymes come to my head. NOT GOOD!

9) I worry too much that I may never get back to a job. Or, even if I do, I will worry that little P isn't being taken care of.

10) I confess that having a baby has made some serious dents in my self confidence. Don't ask me why. It just has. It's the most beautiful thing that has happened to me, yet, I am not the woman I used to be.

11) I don't bother about how I look these days. I shower twice a day, but that's about it. I have been living in my PJs for 15 months now. I miss them when I wear "decent" clothes!

12) Remember the breast pump that saved my sanity and helped us breast feed? Well, it has been lying in its pack on the bedside table, for the last 13 months, because I am so scared that something will go wrong, and our feeding will suddenly stop!

So, I just clean the packaging, and let it remain there, lest it jinx me!

13) I am supposed to be on a "diet", not in a starving way, but a gentle way to eat less, and stay away from crap. I confess that I dream of cheese. It haunts me! I have to lose another 10 kgs, and that fatty b**ch won't let me!

There you go!

I feel better already. Now, let me quickly get to sleep and slip into deep slumber, which will take 2 hours, because all the day's nursery rhymes will come back to haunt me! Last night, my mind kept playing "head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes" on a loop!!!

Where's my weed?!

Old McDonald had a farm! And on his farm, he had a COW!!!

I am sitting here trying to recall the initial days, but all that comes to mind is the feeding, or sometimes, the lack of it, in my case.

The only other thing(s) that come to mind are the constant peeing, little P's, NOT MINE! The poos, again, HIS.

I also recall being peed IN THE FACE, INTO THE MOUTH!

NOTE TO SELF: KEEP TRAP SHUT WHEN CHANGING THE DUDE'S NAPPY!

And. the sleeplessness. Oh man! I think I had gone into zombie territory!

Those who know me well would know that I am an emotional person when it comes to sleep. Lack of decent sleep makes me go bonkers. I could literally pull my own hair off and cry, I get that cranky, even at this age.

And the breastfeeding was taking its toll on my emotions. The biting was just getting too much. At one point, half my nipple came off, just like that. It was as if it decided, hey, let me see what happens when I hang off this cliff!!!

I was constantly doing a yo-yo between "I am stopping right this moment!", and "Let me feed him ONE LAST TIME!"

Come to think of it, I was sleepless because little P would just not sleep. The combination of lack of sleep and the feeding issues were taking a toll on him.

We were clueless. Breastfed babies typically thrive on mother's milk, but ours was like a one-in-a-million exception.

We had to radically up the formula, yet again, and this time, we started using bottles, because spoon feeding a screaming baby is an art that no one can master. More than 70 per cent of the milk goes waste!

This was a catch 22 situation, yet again. In less than 3 days' time, little P had developed what is known as nipple confusion. In simple terms, he had started preferring the fast pace at which milk was flowing from the bottle nipples, compared to breastfeeding, which required him to put in a lot of hard work!

Oh yeah! Babies are smart! They will, any given day, prefer something that requires them to do less hard work.

I was stumped. I just didn't know what to do. He simply refused to feed, all over again. I finally managed to spend some good monies this time, and bought an electric pump, which is typically far far better than a manual one.

I went online and found out some women who do what is known as "exclusively pumping". That is, they pump breast milk on a schedule that more or less resembles their baby's feeding pattern, and the baby is only fed expressed breast milk. 

This is the hardest thing to do. Imagine the horrors of cleaning and sterilising bottles, add to that the cleaning and sterilising the breast pump. Now, instead of directly feeding the baby, which gets easier as the baby grows, you put a pump to those breasts and sit for a scheduled time.

Here's the beauty: In the initial days, you HAVE TO DO THIS AS OFTEN AS YOUR BABY WOULD FEED! YES, that's right. One has to do this at least 8-10 times a day! And you have to pump once between 1-5am, because that's when you produce the most milk, based on your hormones.

Without going into further details... I did this for ONE WHOLE MONTH. Every day, without a fail, I would start at 7 am, and pump on a 2 hour schedule till 11 in the night. The pumping itself would take 40 minutes, so by the time I would be done, it would be time for the next session!

I would even put an alarm for 3.30 am every night, and when the whole world and my own baby would be fast asleep, I would be up and out on a date with the damn pump going grrr grrr grrr whee whee whee on me!

The funny part was, keeping that expressed milk in the refrigerator was a constant worry! I had to always tell FIL, hey, you better not use that to make your morning cuppa!!!

My pumping had become a joke, and so had I, but not in a bad way. Every one was glad things were going okay. Little P was finally thriving. The formula was slowly being cut out and he was becoming more and more "dependent" on me.

Because I was constantly pumping, most times, I felt like a farm cow who was being milked at all odd hours of the day, and the reason I was being taken care of, was because of the milk I was providing.

My mother dear's sense of humour suddenly knew no bounds. As soon as little P would start crying, she would say, "Hold on! The cow is being milked just for you!"

Some times, she would feed the expressed milk to him, and say, "Here you go! Fresh from the farm, just for you!" I could kiss her RIGHT NOW, I TELLYA!

At times, when I was in the mood myself, I would MOO MOO!! whilst pumping!

Oh yeah! Whoever said bringing up a baby isn't fun, should try his (her??!) hands at pumping!