Where New Motherhood & Old Motivations Meet

A sleeping baby always equals a blog post, amirite?

Before I had Landon, I read so many tomes about the glory and beauty of motherhood. I knew, ideologically, that nursing, rocking, and changing a velvet-headed infant was an exercising in doing hard, great, and world-changing things.

Ideologically. 

But having a sweet, velvety, and ever-so-clingy newborn and has done a number on my psyche. Whenever I bemoan my one-armed (at best) fate to someone, I inevitably am told to just leave the dishes in the sink, since ostensibly, that is the sort of thing I'm worried about not doing.  It's not the dishes I'm worried about, though. I  moved my heavily pregnant self and scrubbed my house from top to bottom the day I went to the hospital, and I'm still reaping the benefits of that scrubbing. (Or pretending to, anyways.) No, it's the assignments that come every week, assignments I've paid thousands of dollars for the privilege of completing, that so weigh me down. Dishes I can ignore; homework I cannot. 

I've always been a worker. Need money for college? Ah, get a job. Need more hours at work? Convince boss to give more. Find one self pregnant, in school, and working two different jobs? Get straight As just to prove a negative professor wrong. 

So nursing my sweet baby (whom, I do completely adore) instead of typing out papers and discussions has been incredibly hard on me. I dream about going back to work, as I cringe about dealing with the Landon care issue. I'm discovering who I am in this new realm called motherhood, trying to find the woman who so loves to work amid the nurse maid to the sweetest baby ever. 

However, to candidly discuss these things seems to be an anathema. To admit, I really adore my child, but I really can't wait until I can do more is strange. I do think some women envy me, the sitting, the rocking, the nursing, the cuddling. And I do try to appreciate his baby sweetness and preciousness. But today, today I did something else. I wrote out a power point presentation and prepared discussion questions on new historicism. And I loved it. So much. I did it as Stephen rocked Landon and then with Landon on my own lap. And for those happy moments, I saw a glimpse of what I want for my future. I'll be Landon's mommy. I'll be Stephen's wife. I'll be a professional in some field that I enjoy. Those minutes of academia and erudition were blissful ones, made better by a sweet baby to kiss in the end. 

Am I wrong to want more from this season of life than constant nursing and diapering sessions? I don't think so. A few moments engaged in analytic thought, a rousing conversation, a load of dishes done--these things all remind me that I'm more than a human heifer. 

I love my child. I love him utterly and completely. I don't mind the midnight nursing sessions, when his sweet face stares up at me. I don't resent the diaper changes, when I can see how round his belly grows from the milk I put in it. I don't regret snuggling round, soft cheeks. In fact, I'm daily in awe that he is mine.  But today when I discovered that he didn't hate the Ergo baby carrier, I felt a surge of pure joy. Joy that I might be able to do something. I felt hope for a slightly more productive future. 

I'm recording these feelings, so that I can remember them. So that, in a few years, when a new mother mentions how her arms are tied down, I don't get bogged down with envy because of the baby in her arms. Instead, I want to be able to encourage her, and tell her that productivity is possible. That reading a stimulating book or engaging in a discussion, planning on going back to work, or even doing the dishes are good things. That it doesn't make her a bad mother. It doesn't make her an ungrateful mother. I know she doesn't love her child any less because she wants to be more than a baby-mobile. 

I'm excited to strap on my baby and go about life. To intersperse motherhood with papers and physical labor, to keep giving more of myself to a precious, tiny human. Because today, as I carefully balanced my sleeping son and my laptop, as I wrote about new historicism, I enjoyed it far more than the days when there was no baby and homework to be done. 

If you've followed these rambles, thank you. If you remember these days and had similar moments, do share. I love knowing that I'm not alone in my struggle to balance the beauty of motherhood with my desire to retain vestiges of my old life. It's heartening to imagine that I can't be the only woman who relishes moments of non-baby related work, even if that baby holds her heart in his tiny fist. 

Nursing selfie. Aren't babies heads the most adorable things!