Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Welcome to the Neighborhood

Ack! I’ve done it. I’ve started a blog. This has honestly been a long time coming, but has until now only lived in my head. My goal is for this to become a space to share my journey as a new mom, specifically on how to balance this amazing new role of “mom” while maintaining an individual identity with hobbies, a job, and friends (not all of whom are necessarily parents themselves and so have a different threshold for baby talk).

My new man Lil’ O is five months old and an absolute joy. I’d love to have had the energy to start this blog earlier and have shared all about the transition to new mom, going back to work and the journey to date. If I were a new parent or newly prego with my first, I’d want to know how somebody balanced the birth of their child since birth. I’ve clearly missed writing about that chapter. Sorry. I’ll try to reflect on some of those early months, but in all honesty I’m only now starting to feel balanced. Those early months are a fuzzy haze in my memory – a cloud of tired recollections of feed, change, carry, maybe sleep. Oh, yeah, and diapers. As I said, it’s fuzzy…I don’t do well without sleep.

Now that Lil’ O is indeed sleeping through the night (thank you dear Lord!), I’m starting to reintroduce social engagements, activities and hobbies. I’m also starting to let some things go. My home will never be 100% clean and I’ve left the house without makeup a few times now. I’ve also started a rule that if I go to yoga, I’m allowed to wear my yoga clothes all of Saturday. Trust me, it’s a good incentive to get to early morning yoga class. So, I’ve added some things, but I’m also saying goodbye to the pursuit of perfection. All in the quest for balance, aka rocking the new mom role and maintaining sanity. Tips and tricks in the journey welcome! Hope I’ve got some worth sharing here as well.



Family portrait by Myra Lucina Photography

4 comments:

  1. My house is rarely more than 50% clean and I'm a SAHM! Everytime I think I should go clean the toilets or something and Little Sir is awake, I say to myself, "he'll only be this little once!" then I go play with him instead.

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    1. Wish there was a way to "like" this. Playtime is so important; plus, go figure, it's fun. :)

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  2. Don't get me started on my house, and we don't even have kids yet! Sounds like you're doing a great job balancing all of the aspects of your busy life while keeping yourself, yourself. Cheers to that! Elizabeth's right that they're only teeny tiny once, so I think you both have your priorities in the right order.

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  3. Granted, when Little Sir is sleeping I often don't do housework then either. "SAHM-ing is exhausting," I think, "You need to take some time for yourself." Then I go read a book or play on the Internet.

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