On being a mom

I knew having a baby would be hard. Everyone knows that. Everyone tells you that.The thing I didn't know  -- and that no parent can possibly convey -- is how impossibly, heart-breakingly, mind-numbingly hard it is.

Today I sat at my desk nearly in tears while my husband texted me about the epic meltdown my son was having. He went five hours without napping, and all efforts to end the streak were coming to naught.

My husband is a wonderful, loving, capable father. I am blessed that he is able to be home with our son and that we don't have to use daycare. But he's daddy. And sometimes, babies need mommy.

For one thing, mommy's got The Boobs. And I am quite liberal with mine, offering them at every whimper as a first line of defense against tears. It wasn't until my mother-in-law visited in Clark's first weeks that it really hit me that there are non-boob ways to soothe a baby. So we're still working that.

I went home for dinner an hour and a half early tonight to try to ease the situation. Clark was quite satisfied to see the arrival of The Boobs, quieted down enough to eat, have a bath, and put his jammies on before resuming The Meltdown. Four songs into Queen's Greatest Hits later, he was out for the night.


All the while, I ate my dinner cold with one hand (after TJ kindly cut up my food into bite-sized pieces). TJ sat on the couch with a glazed look on his face. Being a working mom is hard. I can't imagine how hard it is to be a stay-at-home dad. Without the benefit of The Boobs.

 In two months, my son has managed to hit every insecurity in both of his parents' lives. Our hurts and wounds are like raw nerves, and he plays with them. It's not his fault, of course, he's just an innocent, helpless baby.

And with him in our lives, so are we.

For example: The major area in our marriage that TJ and I are working on right now is Helping. I am a Helper, or rather, a Fixer. If you present me with a problem, regardless of whether you have asked for help, I will try to fix it. My husband is Independent. He doesn't like it when I help. But I help anyway. Which has created this amazing spiral and left him incapable of asking for help and me incapable of withholding it.

And now we have an infant, and TJ has to stay home with him during his fussiest time of day, without The Boobs. And sometimes, he needs to ask me for help, because only Mommy can do certain things.

And I am at work, and I need to be strong in the knowledge that TJ can do this, and that he and Clark will discover their routine and comfort zone and schedule, and in a week or two everything will be OK. I have to sit on my all my helpful suggestions and trust that they will figure this out together.

Both of us are going bonkers.

I pointed this out to TJ tonight as he recovered from the Meltdown and Clark and I bounced around the living room to "Another One Bites the Dust," "Isn't this kind of cruel of God to do?" I said.

"Actually, I'd say it's pretty par for the course," TJ replied.

And of course, he's right. God, in His wisdom, brought us the perfect mechanism for working out this issue in our marriage: Clark. Through him, we're learning to communicate better with each other, to be more clear about expressing our needs and extending more patience as the other works through the issues.

Or, put another way, God saw something in our lives that needed removed, so He created a situation that forced it painfully into the open. Now we must address it -- and fix it -- or we won't make it as a couple, or as a family. The only way to do that is through God's strength. 

Because just like Clark, we are helpless little babies -- clueless and lost in this world. But God is a loving parent, who generous with His comfort and his guidance and never makes us flounder needlessly.

So for all my other new-mom friends or to-be mom friends, here is my 2-month-veteran warning: When you hold that little baby in your arms and he goos up at you (and all over you), know that he will bring you to a place of neediness that you have never known. If you let God meet you there, parenthood will become life-changing in a way that you could have never predicted.

Good luck.