I’ve stayed home a total of 5 months. Twice as long as I’ve
stayed with Ariela. Somehow the time just passed me by in the blink of an eye
and ready or not I had to go back to work.
I’ve already talked about the first and easy month. Each
consecutive month brought its challenges and moments of pure happiness.
Miss Alina was never a cry baby if you went by her rules.
She did have a few crying episodes where I was just clueless what to do with
her. I offered the boob, changed the diaper, rocked her, held her on my tummy,
gave gas drops, and nothing worked.
But I can count those episode on one hand. She’s been a
relatively easy child. The only thing she wanted was….drum roll……ME. I’ve heard
of the witching hour and how parents are ready to pull their hair out during
those times. Now that I think about it we sort of went through witching hour
but in a more down to earth way. Miss Alina wanted to be held and especially
during the hours of 6pm-8pm, right when miss Ariela would come home from
daycare. I found it a bit difficult to heat up dinner, do homework, play, and
bath the older one when the little one is glued to me. Alina would start to cry
5 minutes after I would put her down in her crib. My parents would pick up
Ariela from daycare and spent a little time at our house to help. Not sure how
other moms do the whole drop off/pick up with newborns. We didn’t care about
the drop off and Ariela would roll into daycare around 10-10:30 daily but the
kid had to be picked up by 6pm and it would usually be right around Alina’s
feeding time.
Anyways, moving on… Most of the days I had time to cook
dinner, feed myself, pump, and on special days I would even have time for a
shower. I’ll be honest, I did spoil Alina by holding her a little more than
needed during the day but it was my time to explore her tiny face features,
hold her little fingers, and just stare at the miracle we created. I also
watched a lot of TV when Alina would sleep. I would pour myself some Mother’s
Milk tea, get oatmeal cookies, and turn the little demon on. I watched a lot of
talk shows and Sex and the City episodes, and some really bad reality TV that I
never watch. I felt guilty at times and felt like I was wasting time but it was also my down time to chill out and unwind.
When it warmed up a little, miss Alina and I would get out
of the house for a few hours. We would go to Trader Joes and/or walk around the
lake with a friend of mine. It was good for both of us. I am really glad I had
a friend who wasn’t working at that time to join me for longs walks and keep me
company.
November, December, and January just flew by. I was in such denial
that I had to go back to work eventually. I kind of liked staying at home with
my little babe and the thought of leaving her gave me the creeps. But I kind of
had to be an adult and had to start thinking rationally at one point. This time
my mom was employed and it was not an option to have her babysit miss Alina.
One of the options was to have my brother’s nanny watch her and we pretty much
never even thought of another babysitter. After all, she raised his older
daughter and now was looking after his little boy. If they liked her than we
will most likely like her too. Plus, Ariela stayed with here for a few days
last year when her daycare was closed. She was somewhat familiar……but what did
I know….all of those things were not enough for this emotional and attached
mama.
More to come…
