Getting Some Time to Myself After Baby

Cant.stop.baby-wearing. On our way to the doctor yesterday

Tonight I am forcing myself to get out.  Any mother of a newborn knows how hard the first time away is, if even only for an hour or two. Actually, BEING away won’t be so hard, its the tearing myself apart from the cute, wriggly newborn that spends most of his days attached to me like an additional appendage.  My excuse for near constant babywearing is that I fear the twins will trample, feed, pick up, or basically unintentionally kill my littlest. However, the truth is I love it. Chances are this is my last child, and I plan on snuggling 24/7 until he is actually strong enough to wrestle himself away from me. I hope he is prepared to put up a good fight, because I won’t be letting go easily.

The downside to this constant togetherness is that I feel like he NEEDS me ALL THE TIME.  When in fact, my husband can take care of him almost just as well as I do. He doesn’t have the preferred boobie milk delivery system, but Marlowe will settle for a bottle (if he must). After being excited about his two month doctor appointment yesterday because it meant I was going to have “me time”, I determined I was in dire need of true, actual time alone. If I’m considering time out with just ONE baby as “me time” then the situation must be extremely serious.

Here’s the problem with mama “me time”: Unless you have money to hire a babysitter during the day for a few hours, it has to happen after the kids go to bed. I don’t know about other moms, but once bedtime rolls around (7:30) I’m completely knackered. All I can really be bothered to do is watch some crap reality TV or MAYBE read. And if I’m reading it has to be something like Kinsella, Giffin, or if I’m feeling slightly more awake than usual maybe Gabaldon.  Once the sun goes down my brain is too fried for the greats like Wharton, James or Kundera. I miss feeling smart… so forcing myself to go to yoga tonight at 7:30 feels like an exercise in endurance. It’s not really “down” time; I will never consider exercise down time. BUT hopefully it will keep my brain awake enough to have some thoughts to myself, rather than just turning it off like I usually do. Hmmm. Is it weird to go to yoga so you can daydream? Probably, would be my guess. Either way, I’m super pumped and excited to hopefully make this a regular thing.  Just the idea of listening to music on my headphones the entire way there and back is enough to put a huge smile on my face. Hopefully Marlowe rewards my efforts by sleeping through the night. Oh, there ya go. That’s what I’ll most likely daydream about. Sleeping all the way through the night until morning…. bliss.