Momma Bear

Calm Momma over at the Calm Before the Stork is in the very first weeks of motherhood. The place that many of us have been and countless others after us will be. Reading the guest post today from Mixed Nuts, reminded me how unlike other new moms I was.

I did not do an excessive amount of research for items for our baby. In my typical non-conformist way I declared, rather early on in my pregnancy, that “All the baby needs is me and a clean pair of pants.” But I did have to have the Pottery Barn sheet set for the crib. King Daddy is Jewish and in the Jewish religion babies are not celebrated until they are born. So we didn’t get a lot of stuff. We did have a baby shower and got all the usual items, packages of diapers, unisex clothes, lotions and potions, books, diaper champ, bouncy seat, car seat and the like. That was at the beginning of February.

We had another shower at our apartment a few weeks later. More diapers, lotions and potions, baskets, toys and clothes. Then on Friday February 28th I nested. I went to Target and bought stuff for the house. I went to the grocery store and purchased a bunch of food for the freezer. I didn’t know it at the time that I was nesting only in hindsight did I realize it. When I got home I set up diaper changing stations in each of the three rooms in our apartment; one in our bed room, one in the nursery and one in the living room.

Our baby girl made her debut 9 days early and I had nowhere for her to sleep. We arrived home from the hospital on a Thursday. She was a peanut at just 6lbs 10oz. I emptied the basket we had used for recycling newspapers and lined it with what has become known as Regular Blankie. Our first night home she slept in her basket on top of the coffee table and I on the couch. The next day it was just the two of us. We got to know each other. She slept and I slept harder. One of our friends loaned us an old fashioned cradle. She graduated from the basket to the cradle.

Then she had reflux. She slept in her car seat until she squirmed out of it at 5 mos old. By then we had purchased her crib.

In the end they really don’t need all that stuff. What they do need is love. Through the crying and the sleep deprivation the love grows exponentially until you think you couldn’t possibly love any more. And then you take her for her shots and you realize that you can love deeper, harder and more fiercely than even a mother bear.