They Tried to Make Me Go to Rehab...

I said no, no, no..


I've been thinking more thoughts about my baby crush and wanted to share.  In all seriousness, I'm loving having a one -year-old around.  I have to be honest that having an infant was at times painfully difficult for me, moreso that I ever imagined it would be.  I think this is partially due to the fact that we brought Liam home into a bit of an upheaval (having just moved and having no family close and having Brian in school the day after we came home from the hospital, etc.).  The first two weeks were a cloud of sleep deprivation and serious baby blues (which thankfully did not descend further into postpartum depression as we feared) and I spent a significant amount of time very worried over my "bond" with my infant. Much is made of  "bonding" in a lot of parenting circles and some doctors/authors/so-called experts put a lot of pressure and guilt on mothers to have a perfect birth and home and bonding experience, and I knew better than to get too sucked into that kind of thinking, but nevertheless I knew the feelings that I was struggling with and knew how at times Liam seemed to respond to those feelings. I had anger and resentment and literal chest-crushing anxiety for a while; in those first two weeks I often had trouble going to sleep when I got the chance because my anxiety became so severe that I would drift off to sleep and stop breathing and then wake up to breathe again. I wish I was kidding.  Luckily that passed after the first two weeks at home. Do I need to mention that I don't do well with sleep deprivation?   The worry over bonding with Liam did not pass, however, until I tucked him into our bed and slept with him close to me all during the night and sensed an immediate change in our relationship.

Now Liam is no longer a tiny infant, but a walking, talking, tantruming motorboat. Maybe it comes from getting used to this mothering thing, or maybe it comes from his ever-emerging personality, or maybe a combination of so many different things. Probably I'm the last mom on the planet to figure this out.  The older Liam gets, the more I fall in love with him. He's becoming affectionate - he kisses and hugs and I think even says something resembling I love you (when prompted, of course). He's got a ridiculous sense of humor.  He understands so much, and perhaps it helps that I understand so much more of him now than ever before. The wild tantrums in which he bangs his head on the floor don't rattle me at all like the tiny, undecipherable baby cries did.  Don't get me wrong, I'd love to be able to eat at a restaurant in peace like I could when he slept in his baby sling for the whole meal, but getting to know this little person makes up for all of the toddler antics.  Getting to watch his emerging independence, his eagerness for learning, his longing to be helpful, his little mischievous grins - getting to do all of this is giving me a serious baby crush.

Well, that and he sleeps (mostly) all night in his own bed again. A good night's sleep always helps!