Wow! Where has the time gone? I planned to be writing all the time once the baby was born. But, oh, how did life hit me in the face. Becoming a mother has been everything I dreamed and nothing I imagined at the same time. It has been a beautiful, wonderful, humbling, and difficult experience.
My husband and I welcomed our first child, a baby girl, into this world on December 4th. I managed to do the labor and delivery with no pain medication, which was cool, but left me feeling like I got hit by a semi truck. Just recently I have started feeling like life is getting into some sort of a routine.
Before I had my daughter, I had visions of my baby sleeping sweetly next to me for most of the day, while I had time to work on blog posts, read, or nap right along with her. Instead, she spent most of the day eating, filling diapers, and crying. She wasn’t the type of baby to take long naps or sleep well at all. She always seemed hungry, like every hour or so. For a while, a long stretch of sleep for her was about 90 minutes. Needless to say, everyone in our household was exhausted and stressed.
Somewhere around the 3-4 month mark, she started taking more consistent naps throughout the day and sleeping anywhere from 11-12 hours at night. It has been one of the best gifts she could ever give me. Getting a good night’s sleep took me from barely surviving, to managing to make dinner a couple nights a week. Now, with a few more months of motherhood under my belt, I manage to keep the house fairly clean and prepare dinner almost every night. What I’m saying is, things are looking up!
We also stayed with my mother-in-law for a few months while we were trying to finish the renovation on our kitchen. She was absolutely wonderful to take us in during this time in our life, but we are so happy to be back in our home. I am sure she is happy to have a quiet house, sans baby and 6 month old puppy.
Now that we are back home I have been trying to get re-started on some of my own hobbies and interests. I didn’t have much of a garden this year, as we were living with my mother-in-law for the spring and most of the summer. I only planted a couple tomatoes, a couple green peppers, and one jalapeno plant. I did order some garlic today, which I can’t wait to get and put in the ground. This will be my first time planting garlic, fingers crossed it turns out. I ordered a little later than I would have liked, so hopefully the first frost holds off for a few more weeks.
I am hoping that I can get more consistent with writing, reading, and crafty things as well. We’ll see how it all goes. There are only so many hours in the day, and I value my sleep so much more after going without for a few months.