A few moments of reflection

In light of HC's 6 montherversary,  I've been thinking about how I pictured myself as a mom.  As a person, I'm very laid back and go with the flow.  I love to budget money and make lists.  I recycle.  I like to spend time with my family.

I found two major things that I thought would go differently.

The first is breastfeeding.  I loathed it.  I was absolutely sure, as a pregnant woman, as a first time mom, that breastfeeding was going to be this amazing experience.  I was so certain that I was going to breastfeed exclusively until HC was a 6 months old, and wean her some time around the one year mark.   That was my vision.  My reality was that I'm pretty sure HC hated breastfeeding as much as I did.  We ended up supplementing with formula before we left the hospital.  After that though, she was exclusively breastfed for about...6 weeks....and 90% of that was pumped milk.  She wouldn't latch.  When she latched, she would nurse and nurse and nurse until she fell asleep, and then the *MINUTE*  *SECOND* *NANOSECOND that I tried to move her, she would scream and cry until I put her back on.  We would do that all day long. I tried slipping a pacifier in.  I tried letting her cry until she fell asleep.  Nothing.  Nada.  Not budging.  Until she was 8 weeks old.  I was ready to quit.  I was throwing in the towel, and then something came to me.  I'm not sure what it was, I just know, something was telling me.  Just try this last week.  This is your last week staying home with your baby girl.  Do the best that you can. Just try.  So HC was breast fed, from the boob not a bottle, for one week.  It was glorious.  I wasn't hooked to the pump all the time.  FANTASTIC.  Then I had to go back to work. I would get up, nurse her before I left, get her ready to go, and then drop her off.  I pumped on the way too work (40 minutes), one time at work, and on the way home from work.  I nursed her at home.  Slowly, over time, HC started fighting more and more nursing sessions until we weren't nursing.  Tables slowly turned so she started out getting one bottle of formula a day, then two, and then when she was 5 months old, I realized I was pumping 3-4 times a day, and she was getting 1 bottle of breastmilk.  Seriously???  That's when I gave it up.  To be honest, I'm not sure she's noticed.

The second thing I was just convinced I was going to do was cloth diaper.  It's good for the environment.  It's good for HC.  Who needs all those chemicals in diapers anyways?  I can just wash them.  I was very diligent with my cloth diapering on maternity leave.  If we were at home, that's what we used.  It was fine.  No worries.  After I went back to work, she was wearing disposables during the day, and I honestly had more on my plate then I could juggle.  Plus, being away from my dear, sweet daughter for 10 hours a day? I couldn't handle it all.  I mean, I was barely functioning to get laundry washed as it was, much less, adding cloth diaper laundry to the mix.  So I quit.  She's been using disposable diapers since I went back to work.  That means, I have all this fluff, laid neatly in a drawer, still on a dryer rack in the laundry room, and HC's bottom is just getting pasted with chemicals.  That's ok.

I've recently felt this strong motivation to become a better wife and mother.  I've been reading about how the Bible wants you to be a 'submissive/respectful' wife.  I know that's to an extent, but that is not me *at all.*  I'm going to try.    I know the breastfeeding ship has sailed, but I think I'm going to try cloth diapers again.  We'll see what happens.