Philosophical Monday: New Motherhood or How I Learned to Do Just About Everything with One Hand
Jul06

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Philosophical Monday: New Motherhood or How I Learned to Do Just About Everything with One Hand

betty1Not to sound too much like an airport bearhug, but man did I miss you guys! I’m just happy to be back, and so many thanks to our beyond awesome slpc for being the best guest editor ever (even if she did give full GTRL points where I would not have).

First, let’s tackle the elephant in the room: Back in October when I announced that I was pregnant, I promised you that this wouldn’t become a mommy blog, but obvs two things have changed since then:

1) Some of my most popular posts are the “becoming-a-mommy” posts, and we likey the higher numbers here at FaN, so it behooves us to keep that theme in the rotation.

And

2) Well, I am a mommy now, and that’s kind of hard not to talk about, considering that this is my personal column and my new status is a huge part of my personal life.

So here’s my compromise. Mondays will be dedicated to “new mom” topics, and then I’ll just be generally nerdy for the rest of the week. Hopefully that’s cool with everyone.

That all said, here are a few observations that I’ve made during my first two weeks of new motherhood after the jump:

1. Don’t ignore advice from  your doctor and your nurses. The results if you do can get really gross, not to mention painful. I found this out the hard way. I won’t go into it, b/c you know, TMI — but seriously take my advice on taking advice.

2. If you’re breastfeeding, hire a lactation consultant, no matter what the cost. Your new (really really) fun bags will thank you for it. Another breastfeeding tip: download audiobooks on your iPhone. It’ll give you something to listen to in the weeks that it takes for your newborn to become an even somewhat efficient eater. And one more: Get a boppy for every room that you spend a bunch of time in. That way you don’t have to keep on asking your partner to bring you the boppy from another room. Right now, I’m sad that I only have two, when three would make life much more convenient right now.

3. It helps to have a sense of humor when it comes to new motherhood. Especially at 2:30 in the morning. I’m beginning to suspect that so-called “sanctimommies” could more properly be called “humorless mothers.” And I feel bad for them b/c of this.

4. Unlike adults, the faces that babies make when they poop are ridiculously cute.

5. Keep your iPhone with you at all times as questions will arise, and when they do, you’ll want to be able to google the answers … with one hand.