10 days old

Nine months ago today I gave birth to Natey. He completely changed my life in a matter of seconds. I can’t completely explain what it’s like to be a mother but this I will say, it opens your eyes to a world you knew existed but never truly understood. Imagine living your life with an eye patch on your right eye and one day it is lifted. Its removal would give you clarity that you could’ve lived without but are now much happier to have. If you can grasp the idea, you can now imagine what parenthood does to you.

In the past 9 months I have learned many things and given that Natey is turning 9, I will share with you 9 lessons learned.

1. Marriage should come before anything, including your children. It’s simple, if your relationship is not doing well, the children will sense that. 

2. Coconut water will not help in the production of breast milk but it will help the quality of the milk produced.

3. Join some kind of mommy group with your baby, it will help you get out of the house the first couple months of motherhood and answer questions when facing baby issues (the instructors seem to have answers to everything!).

4. Your attitude will affect the baby’s attitude so keep it positive.

5. Check the back of your baby’s head every so often (should they have lots of hair) since a knot may form and you’ll have a very difficult time taking it out if you let too many days go by (screaming baby ).

6. Do not cut your baby’s hair yourself. Period.

7. Do expose your baby to different environments early on if you want them to be comfortable around others.

8. Do not put your baby on a rigid schedule. You’ll be hurting yourself and the baby, not to mention you’ll have little to no flexibility.

9. Have your baby sleep in different places ( crib, your bed, playpen, etc.). It will make your life easier when you’re away from home. The baby will be able to adjust to a new bed fairly quickly and if you can travel with the playpen, even better!

I hope my nine findings come useful to you at some point, be it babysitting or chatting with a parent. They may or may not work for every baby but they definitely worked for our family.

Happy birthday Nathan and thank you for teaching mommy valuable lessons! 🙂  

One day old

Yesterday Natey and I met my girlfriend for lunch and after a very delicious lunch we headed back home in traffic for 40 minutes of mommy singing (nonstop!) You are my Sunshine (it soothes Nathan in any situation), I rushed inside to put my baby to bed as soon as we arrived. While nursing him my eyes watered as I relaxed and caressed him, kissed him, and gently ran my fingers up and down his arms. Never had I imagined how much I was going to be able to love a little person that makes me work harder than I ever have around the clock, smiles when I’m upset (he is getting his bottom teeth and thinks it’s funny to bite my nipple), and purposely throws toys so he can watch me pick them up.

Nursing is such a touchy subject with a lot of moms, they either love it or hate it. I’ve only met a handful of moms that don’t feel one way or another. First of all, it’s quite difficult when you think about it. If you’re exclusively nursing, you can’t go far without your baby (you gotta feed him) or your pump (you gotta keep your freezer nice and full). You can’t wear any of your nice clothes because you will surely leak and stain it (I’ve done it a dozen times!) and or worse, you’ll get weird stares when your boobs go off like faucets and all you can do is put your finger on your nipple, apply pressure and hope it stops (I’ve also been a victim of this). Yes, there are products you can use like reusable organic bamboo pads, or  throw away pads, but one day you’ll be so tired you forget to put them on and BAMM! it happens. It’s all pretty funny now, and kinda sad it still happens to me, but I love it.

Not surprising, I’ve become way more relaxed as Natey and I spend more and more time together. I no longer panic at his first cough, I don’t stay up looking at the monitor to make sure he is still breathing at night, and I don’t run at the first sound of his cry. He knows I’ll come when he really needs me and I’m more than happy to supply milk, hugs and kisses as I know one day he will probably be too ‘old’ to kiss his momma. I love nursing. It’s the time I allot to Natey and no one else. Our one on one time. And although he thinks he is getting mommy time, I’m actually the lucky one that gets to nourish my baby all day and all night 🙂

Good night.

Follow me at confessionsofawmc! Xo

These are a few of the words that come to mind when I think of my mother but two of them stand out more than most, STRONG and FAITH. My mother is the only woman I know that can make me angry with her brutal honesty one second and lift my spirits the next by adding two words. She has an incredible way of making you believe in something that you very well may think will never take place, and then to your surprise it happens. Her response, of course, is to look at you as if you were crazy ever to doubt.

I have so many wonderful memories of my childhood with my mother and I have always considered myself one of her best friends. Our relationship has not been perfect but who has a best friend they never fight with! She has been there for every major happening and for every disaster I have gotten myself into, and in most cases she even predicted some of them but allowed me the space to make my own discoveries.

I have always known my mother was a strong woman but recently, her strength has left me speechless.

My mother was detected with breast cancer in 2002, right around the time I was packing my bags, heading to Berkeley. I was devastated. I couldn’t breath. My whole world was turned upside down. But my mother made it through with God as her primary physician. Since then she changed her diet and limits herself to organic healthy eating 99% of the time. She made a change that most people couldn’t do and she made it over night.

Today we experienced a moment of strength. She needed me as much as I needed her and although all I wanted to do was take her by her hand and say ‘ mom, we don’t have to do this’, I looked at her in reassurance that we would be done soon and we were both going to be fine. I felt hollow inside and if I could’ve ran out, I would have ran and ran and ran until I collapsed in exhaustion but when she looked at me, she saw nothing but a strong facial expression that said lets move forward.

Today my mother gave me a gift. A gift of faith. I don’t know how spiritual you are but the bible has a reference to a mustard seed. It says if only our faith was the size of a mustard seed, we could move mountains! I don’t know if you have ever seen a mustard seed, but it’s incredibly small. When my mom talks to me about things that seem nearly impossible, I believe otherwise because her faith does not waver. My mother has favor and I can’t wait to see what the exciting new plans are for her life.

I love you Mami!