Bad Ass Mom

We hit a couple of big milestones this weekend. The little sweet pea slept in her crib for the first time and slept through the night. And, quite possibly more impressive, I left the house for the first time ALONE!

It's funny how these experiences are completely different from one child to the next. Baby #1 stayed in our room for about 3 months. When we finally decided it was time to let her move to the room next door, I cried and cried and was up all night watching the baby monitor and coming up with excuses to check on her (see blog post Bye Bye Bassinet). With baby #2, I was ready. She had given up on sleep for the past few weeks and I was desperate for a solution. When hubby said the pack n' play we had her in was not comfortable enough and wobbled when she squirmed and suggested we should try the crib, I was all in. He was right! To my surprise, she sucked her thumb and fell asleep on her own in the crib! And slept for 10 hrs! Hallelujah!

I didn't even cry. But you know who did? Her big sister!

"I don't want her to sleep in her crib! She's not ready!" She wailed.

Awe, how sweet. Such a little mama.

"I don't want her in her crib because she's going to wake me up next door!"

Oh, there it is. The truth is never far behind with a 4 year old.

Well, we did it anyway and she slept, well... like a baby!

The other big milestone was me leaving the house solo.  We are having a really hard time getting her to take a bottle, so I was on a mission to find the perfect one to help her with that transition. So far we tried 4 different kinds of bottles with different nipple flows, but I had just read about a new one that claims to help with just this situation, so I needed to go to Target ASAP.  Since I had just fed the little peanut, I figured now is a good time to leave her with Daddy for about half an hour.

I got in my car and it felt so weird not having her with me.  She's been attached to me for the past 12 weeks. And literally attached to me for 9 months prior to that! I didn' know if I wanted to cry or turn the radio up real loud and sing at the top of my lungs.  But I wasn't really sad. I felt liberated. So I went with option number 2. I put the radio on scan, searching for some hard core rap station. Not because rap is my jam (clearly it's not because I just used the words 'rap' and 'jam' in the same sentence), but because I wanted to say some curse words out loud. Just because I can.

That reminded me of the time my sister and I took a drive around her neighborhood looking for garage sales. We didn't need anything in particular, we just wanted to get out of the house and leave the kids with the dads for a while. We just drove around aimlessly, wondering what we should do with our limited time of freedom. So we decided to take turns cursing. It was hilarious. Neither one of us has a potty mouth, even before kids. We are both teachers, so we are trained to keep our language PG. Picture two kindergartners saying bad words to each other and giggling because if their teacher only knew what they were saying they'd be in big trouble, but they're not worried because the teacher is way on the other side of the playground and can't possibly hear them. Yeah, that was us. Two bad ass moms cussin' at each other. And giggling. So lame. But also kind of therapeutic. You should try it sometime.

I sort of feel guilty for not crying on these occasions. I don't know why I'm not that emotional this time around. The feelings are still there, they just don't come out. I truly do miss the little bean when she takes a long nap! But I also love that the time when I don't have to be tethered to her 24/7 is right around the corner. Maybe I've toughened up. I've been through it before and I know I can survive. Yeah, that's right. I'm a total bad ass now. There's no crying in motherhood!

Someone remind me that I said that when I go back to work in 4 weeks and it hits me that this is it. My baby is growing up and doesn't need me like she did as a newborn. And because we've decided we are probably done having kids, I will never experience this again.

Son of a bitch. NOW I'm crying.