dispatches from quilt city: 10/01/2009

Thursday, October 08, 2009

Day 145

Momma feels a caption contest coming on!!! Leave your best captions for this photo in the comments and we'll pick our favorite one tomorrow night around this time. :)

And the winner is...."Obama won WHAT?"

What can we say? We're a sucker for current events.

Motherhood and Lightbulb Moments

Monday was not a good day.

It began well enough. Griffin was happy and we spent most of the afternoons running errands. I got a ton of stuff accomplished and we seemed to be on the same team.

Then, all of a sudden, we weren't. He was tired and cranky but wouldn't take a nap. I was tired and cranky and couldn't take a nap. Things went from bad to worse and before I knew what was happening I was screaming at my four month old baby. My anger and frustration multiplied by the guilt I felt for yelling at him led me down a dark path. I felt despondent, detached. I understood suddently how so many of my friends felt in the first weeks of their children's lives.

The first weeks of Griffin's life were magical for me. I had an amazing support system. I trusted my instincts. My guiding principle was you cannot spoil an infant. He cried and I fed him. He slept in my arms for hours. It was paradise.

Then, he got older and my guiding principle seemed to no longer apply. Suddenly, I had an endless stream of advice from friends, family and baby books telling me to put him down in his crib, get him on a schedule, don't spoil him!!! The pressure kept increasing until I felt like Griffin and I were in a constant battle instead of beautiful dance.

But that ends now.

I'm trying to go back to reading his cues and meeting his needs, instead of forcing my expectations on him. Tuesday was a dream. Yesterday, even better. With any luck, we'll be moving together to the music soon and this Monday will be very different.