A gold start for Mama

I was VERY VERY lucky to have my hubby home for the baby's first four weeks home. He is a teacher, the baby was born in July, so we had four wonderful weeks of two parents 100% of the time time.

This was wonderful because I never felt completely overwhelmed. One of us always managed to get enough sleep to help the other. I only breastfed for a little while, I really really tried, so he could help with bottles (especially the ones in the middle of the night). And we always had four hands to give him a bath. Along with many other conveniences . . .

Well, after hubby went back to work, the one thing that always scared me was giving JT a bath all by myself. I was nervous that he was going to slip and breathe in water and then I would have to do CPR or call 911 . . . a bit over dramatic, I know, but I was just worried about it. And it's worse than that really, I just had bad images of him screaming his head off or the water being too cold or too hot or that his body would be so slippery that I wouldn't be able to hold him and it just freaked me out. And because I let it fester in my head it just got worse and worse and worse . . . I'm usually calm, cool, and collected about "do it yourself" things . . . I lived alone for three years, I get the "no one's gonna help me, I gotta do it myself" thing, really I do, but this was my son's LIFE we are talking about here, see I told you too dramatic . . . anywho . . .

Since hubby and I don't live on a "schedule" tubby time kept on getting pushed off to the next day. (This makes me sound horrible) But it got so bad that JT had not had a bath in over two weeks . . . he IS just a baby and I thought how dirty could he possible be and of course I was wipping him off at every diaper change, but I realized that I needed to man up and start giving him baths during the day so this "two-week-sans-bath" thing never happened again.

Yesterday was the big day. I gave myself a little pep talk. I had the phone near by "just-in-case". And I did it. I started the water, got everything I needed within arms reach, undressed baby, and I gave him a bath . . . and we did just fine. There was no slip-age, there was no need to call 911, we even (dare I say) had FUN! Okay, well JT doesn't exactly love the water, but after a few minutes he calmed down and started to enjoy it.

I was so proud of myself. Really I was!

So, I know you SAHM's (that's Stay At Home Mom's) of 5+ are probably chuckling to yourself saying "I give my youngest a bath while folding laundry, brushing my middle child's hair, and teaching my oldest algebra" . . . I know that I have a long way to go with this whole Mama thing . . . but for me . . . I gave my son a bath. ALL. BY. MY. SELF. . . . . and that's the reason why I'm giving myself a Gold Star! So I'll have a little party for myself, maybe have a piece of chocolate, and start giving him a bath every day! :-)

:-)