You may not believe me if I told you this but prior to the birth of my nieces and my own tax deduction (thanks Man-D for the nickname idea), I was not really a baby person. I didn't have anything against them per se but I would take a shopping trip at Target over holding a baby any day. It was also the fear of becoming a MOM for the reason that my relationship with my own mother, while much improved, hasn't been great. That's probably/definitely why I wanted a boy so much, fear of raising a daughter. I also waste a fair amount of time hatereading mommy blogs and some of those women sound like the worst kind of selfish desperate for attention jerks. They also become boring, simply because motherhood is boring a lot. And so, I was afraid of what motherhood would do to me and how it would change me and would I even like it.
Matt recently said that since we've been married I've gotten a lot girly-er. When asked to clarify, he said I used to be very one of the guys in my attire and my interests and style had changed a lot. I do laugh way too much at The League with all its jokes about pooping and balls and I love me some action films but there's been an increase in interest in cooking, decorating, and babies. I definitely felt the freedom to indulge my cooking side once married and I'm not sure why. The non-conformist side of me felt sheepish about it like "what a traitor, you got married and all of a sudden now you cook. you've changed man!". I was always into home design its just become more important as the cooking paved the way for hosting which meant I couldn't just have people over to eat a nice meal, it had to be a nice meal in a nicely decorated home. And the style well, I got older and was tired of looking like a teen, I wanted to look like a grown up. Most of the time. And those interests are still very big in my life and haven't changed nor do I suspect will they change just because I had a baby. Of course I can't do much about it right now because I'm not working so I'm not free to go clothes shopping or home stuff shopping, 'cause you know, not free. Not to say my personality is wrapped up in those things they are just a part of who I am in addition to the new who I am too. And of course, this new who I am will face a change when I go back to work (dreading dreading dreading) and become a working mom (or whatever the PC word is when you make a living outside your home and leave a baby at home to go do it). This is my new role, I am somebody's mom.
Obviously Alice is the most important thing right now and consumes my mind and time more than anything else so of course that's what I talk about with people. And I totally get why moms like to talk about their kids. I could talk about Alice 'til the cows come home to anyone that will listen. I could also talk about Mad Men, Downton Abbey, and Breaking Bad to an unhealthy level but the baby is a real person and Don Draper is not.
Thankfully childless people don't have to suffer because I have some mom friends that are my salvation and we can talk about our child's sleeping and poop habits without annoying the general population. And maybe I shouldn't worry about annoying the general population but I was a childless person too long and I still get annoyed with moms being boring and talking about their kids all the time and posting photos of them everywhere. Except that now I'm completely guilty of it all though I hope its the novelty of the thing and while it would be insane to expect me to pretend she doesn't exist on the socialnets, I hope to keep it toned down. I was hoping to keep it toned down for the blog too but I've never made claims as to it being a certain type of blog. It's a blog about me and my life at home and guess what, she is my life at home.
And so while realizing that at the root of things I haven't changed much, my life has and I've discovered that not only do I really like Alice, I really like being a mom to her. Making it individualized to be about her and not motherhood in general and taking it one day at a time has helped me not go crazy or feel overwhelmed. I like that kid I birthed and I like taking care of her. I enjoy feeding her, holding her, changing her, having to deal with her needs when out in public, pushing her in a stroller, watching her learn things, staring at her while she sleeps, I like all of it! Sometimes I even like being awoken at 4am to feed her because then I get to hold her. Ha, just kidding, I don't like being awoken at 4am. And at this phase, I'm not gonna say its "easy" but its not that hard. It's all consuming, routine, and nonstop but the daily tasks are fairly simple to handle when I'm home since she's not mobile and a fairly pleasant individual. We did recently spend a day at Disneyland and had to figure out where to change her and feed her which took a lot more planning than past Disneyland trips but it wasn't bad at all.
I guess I'm surprised by this feeling but mostly relieved. I knew I would love my child no matter what but I am so happy that I actually really like her and really like being her mom.
That face does make it easy to love her though right? Gah it's not even fair she's that cute.
Have a likable weekend everyone. Our rosy is heading to Lompoc to meet her namesake mañana!
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