Being Reminded

A couple nights ago I was feeling really tired and frustrated mostly with dealing with teething and the restless nights and with how frustrated I am with my weight loss. I cancelled my weight watchers and for some reason this just got things stirring. I wanted to find some sort of support because I feel like the only mom I know who hasn't had any luck at all with losing the baby weight. I need someone to tell me to quit whining and get my ass in the gym. I suppose my doctor did a fair job of trying at least.

Anyway, in my moment of angst I remembered how I had joined a weight watchers group on the baby center community. I've never posted in it and I don't really read any posts in it either. Honestly, I kind of feel like I don't fit in with weight watchers people. So I went looking for another group.

I found a weight loss group for moms who had their babies last June. I figured I would get some sympathy there but my angsty post about how I'm so frustrated with my lack of weight loss didn't get any responses.

When I was pregnant I spent a pretty fair amount of time posting and responding to questions in my various groups. It was a great place to network with moms that were of a similar mindset when it came to birthing and pregnancy. After I had Charlotte and posted my birth story on my natural birth group, I sort of lost my zeal for it and haven't really read or posted anything in months. In my pathetic attempt to get someone to feel sorry for me I started to read some stuff from some of my old group pages.

There was one post in particular that I think sparked something. A lady in the crunchy mom's group invited us all to make a list of the things we do that are crunchy. It was essentially a way for us to be positive about the things we do rather than the things we don't do. Now, this crunchy mom group can be intense and even when I was active on babycenter, I didn't read posts from it all that often. There's only so much guilt I can muster for not churning my own butter, or going for days without shampooing my hair (I often wonder how that really works)...you get the idea. So when I started reading peoples lists I really expected to feel inadequate.

Surprisingly I didn't feel that way. Instead, as I read through list after list, I started to feel really proud of myself. I live with people that really don't get why I care about these kinds of things most of the time, and in spite of that, I still manage to do quite a bit for myself and my baby. I was reminded of all the reasons I wanted a natural birth, of why I encapsulated my placenta, and drink mothers milk tea, of all the reasons I use homeopathic and herbal medicines before I go hunting for the mucinex or the tylenol, of why I breastfeed and cloth diaper, and co-sleep and baby wear. I added my own list and the more I thought of, the better I felt about all of the decisions I've made as a mother.

Since then it seems like being a mom has taken on a new light. I don't feel like I've lost some sort of sleep war when I keep Charlotte in bed with me. I don't mind dropping what I'm doing to play with her or feed her. Its amazing to me how much happier I feel when I'm not resisting my role as my baby's mother so much. I guess I just needed to be reminded that being my baby's mom is something to be proud of.