Baby A* at 8 months

Wow. I cannot believe it’s been 8 months.

Mostly things are chugging along. After months of worrying why he’s not turning, suddenly baby now turns. I’ve yet to see him do it but I’ll leave him for a minute and I com back and he’s on his stomach trying to wreak havoc.

He has definitely reached the wreak havoc stage. Last night, he started rummaging through things on the nightstand and knocked over the baby monitor. And he has a walker which he’s figured out how to maneuver so he can reach whatever he wants. Yesterday I caught him at the tea shelf trying to grab whatever boxes were there. And when that failed, he started pulling the wire rack. We are not ready for this. We haven’t childproofed and were not planning on it since we’re likely moving in a few months.

He loves food! He’s always willing to give something a try though he might refuse it later. Also this kid knows when he wants food and when he doesn’t. If we try and give him more formula and he doesn’t want anymore, he’ll let us put the nipple in and it’ll just… sit there. Or he’ll smirk at us as if he’s trying to say ‘nice try’. We really need to teach him sign language because he currently just grunts whenever he wants something which could be any of food, sleep, new diaper, being picked up, different toy, general boredom…

I feel like for the last few months, I only really write about the good. Perhaps part is that I feel so guilty for the bad. There were (and still are) parts of motherhood that I do not like. And many moments when I wonder if I’m cut out to be a mom. Or whether I’m good enough. Some moments of wishing I was back in my old life where I had sleep. And a lot of guilt over everything – guilt over not having undiluted joy in motherhood, especially when I’ve worked towards it for so many years. Guilt over enjoying work and realizing that I really don’t want to be a stay at home mom. Guilt over not enjoying co-sleeping. Guilt over feeling like I’m the bad cop (maybe this one I can put on my husband. Everyone who knows us knows that he’s going to be the sucker who lets the kid get away with anything). Guilt over getting angry with baby, especially when I’m exhausted and sleep deprived. Guilt over not just liking working but not wanting to take a step back and go for a lower pressure job.

Everything I’ve read and heard from friends, fellow bloggers, and basically everyone seems to say that a lot of these are normal. So I don’t talk about it much and mostly it’s fine.

And there are plenty of wonderful times. Like at some point last week, I was looking at baby and just so overcome with love and thinking about how lucky I am that he’s here and healthy and thriving. And I started tearing up (happy tears). And baby saw that and immediately started getting upset and worried because he saw his mamma crying and he was so confused. It was such a wonderful moment.

On a different note, I turned 33 this week. And it was lovely. For the first time in many years, even with my job in major flux, I was fairly content with where I was in life. I ended up going out to this new boozy dessert place which was awesome. And enjoying a night out without baby.