DIAPERS!!!

We've been using cloth diapers and although they are saving us money, they are requiring a lot of loads of laundry. The lazy side of me wonders how long I will continue to use them when disposables are so easy. But while I am still at home on maternity leave doing my daily load of diapers and hanging them to dry in the sun has me feeling seriously pastoral. Who would have thought the daily load of diapers would be so much fun? 

New Mom Neurosis

    During my trek through pregnancy and the first month of being a mom (yes, little man is four weeks old!) I have received volumes of advice and anecdotes from my many friends and family members. I have listened patiently to everyone's input and tried to give each opinion some consideration or at least an attempt to understand where they come from. Being new at this, I am cautious to form any strong opinions knowing that they could immediately go wrong. In the many months of preparation and pregnancy I can officially say that my favorite piece of advice and the one that has rang true for me is from my good friend Liz. Liz and her husband Brad were friends of ours before they had kids, then when their first daughter Scarlet came along they became those friends who have the kid you want to have. Scarlet was (and still is) such a doll, so cute and fun and good. Easan and I marveled at how awesome she was and at one point I asked Liz how she did it. Liz said "It's not that complicated, you get what you put in, you put in calm, you get calm. You put in crazy, you get crazy." I have remembered that advice ever since and in the last four weeks of being a new mom I have made it my mantra. 
    There is something about being a new mom that makes you a little bit crazy. I am sure the hormones have something to do with it. I am a pretty calm and rational person, but I have been feeling some of the crazy creeping up on me so I decided to write this blog post about the neurosis that have accompanied my first month as a mom. Maybe venting my anxiety will make it a little less frightening inside my own head. 
   I am furiously in love with my baby. Oliver has become my everything, and I cannot imagine a more amazing little being. But with this insane love comes an insane fear, that some how he is going to be taken away from me. I feel as if I am too lucky to have him, and that he cannot last long. He is just too good to be true. My rational mind tells me this is crazy and that I have no reason to fear this. But the stronger crazy new mom side of my brain is doing a constant running tally of all the things I have read or been told to watch out for. Offender number one is the giant looming specter of SIDS. Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. This terrifying anagram can actually encompass any unexplained death of an infant under the age of one. Sometimes they get smothered in their sleep by getting caught in their bedding or sometimes their heart stops for no reason while sleeping. It is always without warning. Although SIDS happens enough to be a recognized threat, it is still very rare. So rare that I shouldn't even allow it to scare me. But it does. Every single day. I find myself thinking about how horrible it would be to find his lifeless body in his crib one morning, or how to call my parents to tell them that Oliver is no longer with us. Sounds crazy right? I know it does, yet still I do it, all the time. I won't go into all the crazy scenarios that run through my brain, because there are a lot of them, and they are all completely unlikely and completely pointless for me to worry about. 

The most precious...

   So what do I do? Is this "normal" for me to feel this way? Some people would say that I am jinxing myself to talk about it, but I don't agree. I feel like the more that I examine it, the less power it has over me. The less possibility it has statistically to occur. I don't know what statistics have to do with this, but I feel like vocalizing my irrational fears will lower the probability of any of them happening. As if they are some kind of monster that lives and grows inside my head and by speaking about them they deflate and look stupid. I write this in the hope that it is enough. That I can use my mantra from my friend Liz to keep the crazy down to a manageable level. Deflate the giant specter of the unknown to a shriveled and basically impossible statistic that has absolutely no ability to touch my sweet little man. Remove all trace of irrational loony tune fears so that all I put into my child is calm and mellow good vibrations. Stop feeling guilty for feeling so much love, because being filled with love for your child is not a punishable offense. That is my hope. I guess now all I can do is wait and see if it works.