a journey

being a mom is a whole different journey than anyone could ever tell you.

I am a mother to a baby girl that is in the 1% for weight. No one seems to be too concerned, and while I'm too busy to be too concerned, I am always trying to get her to finish her plate. Every meal lasts for an hour.

She has also started this thing where she only wants me to feed her with my hands. Like, she will shake her head vigorously, "no" if I try feeding her with her spoon. If you know me, I kinda cringe when I have to get my hands dirty. I don't like kneading, I don't like chopping for too long, I don't like peeling oranges, and I certainly don't like eating/feeding anything sticky with my hands. So I cut her meal into bite-sized pieces and feed them to her one by one. I'm not sure if I should be reinforcing this behavior, but I'm pretty desparate. Also, I have to pretty much shove the whole bite into her mouth or she'll grab it with her hand, or spit it out.

Why not let her feed herself, you ask? She's pretty good at picking up finger foods. However, getting the bite in her mouth is a different story: she enjoys licking/tasting/chewing while the bite is still in between her thumb and forefinger, and then makes these ridiculous faces. This process just leads us to a two hour, instead of just a one hour meal, and a lot a lot of scraps in her high chair.

If I eat my meal with her (as in she gets a bite, I get a bite), she lets me know that I'm not feeding her fast enough. If I let her be the center of my attention, she takes her sweet time chewing and swallowing, and all I can think about is, I could have scarfed down 5 bites by now.......................

 Maybe it would be easier if there was a definite sign that she was full and done done. Most times I just have to wait a few minutes, clean up around me, and she'll be ready for a "second helping." We always finish her heaping plate, so I guess it's worth it.


If you knew how obsessive I am with time efficiency, and also the clean hands thing, you would understand how each meal tries and tries my patience. Yes, I realize that I could just "not care as much," but honestly, I think there's a block in my personality that prevents me to do so.

During mealtimes, I think to myself, If you want to have six kids, you're going to have to learn to be okay with your hands dirty. You're going to have to be okay with things not always going your way. You're going to have to understand children are children, and they are sitll figuring out how to eat and how they feel. Sometimes, it's just really hard to give up your lifestyle and readjust to someone else's. It was hard with marriage, and now it's hard as a mom. Sometimes, I think I'm losing myself. Myself, meaning the hardcore, go go go go go, woman that pushes and fights to be successful. I think I'm about to cry.

And then I'm feeding Amelia another bite, saying "mmmmmmm, delicious!" and she says, "mmmmmmmm!!" back and giggles at me. And somehow I realize that I will always be hardcore, go go go, and successful. Maybe we won't be as time efficient around here, but there's no race to see who finishes breakfast the fastest. I know that she feels loved and that she loves back, because everytime I walk in the room, her face lights up. Nothing really beats that. Nothing feels quite as successful as your sweet babe loving you with her whole heart.

And that is the best kind of journey.

I guess I really can't ask for anything more than a happy, healthy, growing, beautiful babe.
Really, I'm just winging it over here.

xoxo