The Hard Thing About Parenting…
I’ll get to that……
But, so far, parenting has been a complete JOY!!! And honestly, not nearly as difficult or surprising or tiring as expected (and warned). I know, I know…she’s only been home 6 weeks! What do I really know about it, right?! Well, this is what I DO know…
Carmen sleeps from 8:30 p.m. to about 7:30 a.m. consistently. There might be a couple bumps in that schedule as she has a restless night here and there, but all in all she averages a straight 11-hour/night sleep schedule. BH and I tend to be slow risers so somewhat dreaded the thought of bouncing out of bed immediately upon waking!!! Much to our surprise, Carmen is very much like us in her slow start. She will often lay in bed playing quietly either with herself or with toys, for nearly 1/2 hour – 45 minutes. Sure, she babbles quietly, and will sometimes pat us to see if we too are awake, but all-in-all she allows us our extra 15 – 30 minutes of “snoozing”.
Carmen is a rather independent baby. When in a good mood more often than not she is quite happy crawling to another part of the house and finding things with which to entertain herself. If she’s not in the mood to be alone, she will find things to do in whatever room we are in. People have asked how we manage to cook dinner or, even, how we prepared for the birthday party. It’s simple…give Carmen a bowl and a spoon, or a container of ice, and she is occupied plenty long enough for us to do what we need to in the kitchen.
Carmen also has a good sense of right and wrong. She already knows which cabinets she is allowed to open for “her toys” and she knows not to go near the dog’s food and water. From day one I have tended to use the word “stop” with a hand motion when she was getting into something she shouldn’t. She has now adopted Mommy’s method, and when approaching something she knows she shouldn’t touch, she turns around, looks at us, puts her hand in the air, and says “-op”, as if to say “Yeah, yeah…I KNOW! You don’t need to say anything!”
Carmen also seems to transition fairly well from busy out-and-about days to quiet days on the homefront. Admittedly, we don’t go out too much, but over the past couple weeks we went a stretch of running here and there almost daily. Regardless, she stuck to her nap schedule and was always ready for bed at the usual time. We even threw her off a little while Grandpa was here with 9:30 p.m. or 10:00 p.m. bedtimes. Even then, she still slept her 11 hours, not waking until closer to 8:30 or 9:00 the next morning.
Carmen loves to eat and will try ANYTHING you put in front of her. So far the most unusual things we have given her have been salmon, avacado, hummus, mashed cauliflower, and rhubarb, all of which she seemed to at least tolerate. She LOVES vegetables, leaning heavily toward tomatoes, cucumbers, and carrots. The things she’s not extremely keen on right now are bread products of just about any sort, chunky mashed potatoes, and (oddly enough) couscous (even though she can’t seem to get ENOUGH noodles:) )!
Carmen is pretty adventurous and tough. She will crawl just about anywhere new or different and should she fall and bump her head more often than not she just pops right back up and carries on with what she was doing. If she DOES bump hard enough to elicit a cry, it usually just takes a quick hug and rub and then setting her back on her way. She responds very well to distraction so if we catch a tumble immediately when it happens we can usually prevent the onset of a cry by just pointing something out or standing her up and brushing her off.
So, with all that I’m sure you are curious why I titled my post “The Hard Thing About Parenting…”. Well, all that stuff I wrote about above…had those things not gone exactly as written, had they been a little harder than they seem to be at this point…I would have been prepared. I probably still would have shared how “easy” parenting is compared to my expectations. That’s because those were the things I thought about before Carmen came home. How will she sleep? How will she eat? What will she like? Will she cry a lot? Will I be able to soothe her when she does? Etc., etc., etc. What I wasn’t prepared for was the idea of grieving the loss of my Mom all over again.
I sat the other night, rocking Carmen and holding her through an unusually difficult bedtime, when I began thinking about all the things I wished I could share with Mommy. I began thinking about how much she would have loved Carmen and how excited she would have been at the idea of Carmen joining our family. I thought of how much fun she would have had buying clothes and toys for Carmen. And about how she very well might have joined us on our trip to bring Carmen home. If not, she would have been at our house within a week of us arriving home and would probably still be here! She would have sent little packages and cards and notes in the mail for her first Grandbaby. She would have been such an amazing Grandma. And I miss that so much. I miss seeing her in that role. And it makes BH and I stop and question why we didn’t make this decision years ago!!! Would it have helped? Or would it just be harder having to experience the pain of losing her while also raising our daughter? I will never be able to answer that question, I know. But right now, while things are so new and exciting, I can say that it’s hard! REALLY hard! Every single day, when Carmen does something silly or funny, I feel a tug at my heart as I long to pick up the phone and call her to tell her about it. Or when I just need to call and ask her for advice when something just seems too hard for me to do myself.
I think it’s so hard right now because just when I thought I finally reached a point of not looking back, and accepting that Mommy is no longer here, I brought my baby home. And in so doing I dredged up all those thoughts of what it would be like for Mommy to still be with us. It’s so hard…excruciatingly hard…words can hardly do justice to the ache in my heart.
Despite all that pain, I must say, Carmen will NEVER lack in the Grandma department. There are so many people who have stepped up to play that role in her life. And for that BH and I are truly thankful. However, despite the joy all these lovely people bring, it’s also become a reality to me that they will NEVER be able to take the place of the Grandma who is no longer with us. Unfortunately it will never be the same. And once again, that brings me such sadness.
I know with time it might become easier. It’s just that I was so unprepared for this part of parenting! I had no idea that the hardest thing would be feeling and grieving the loss of Mommy all over again……. UGH!!! If I were writing this on paper, the words would be smudged from my tears…………………..
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