I've been tagged!

I've been tagged by Umm Omar at Just Another Day...The Juggling act of an American Muslim. For this post I am elaborating about 5 things that I like or don't like about motherhood. Wow, that's something so hard to condense into this form. Becoming a mother is something that you can't really prepare for because each baby comes into this world as an individual with such differering needs and reactions to your care. That said, here are the things I like:

1. Realizing just how much I am capable of loving someone else.
If you think you love your husband, just wait until you see your first baby. Layla reminds me so much of Dave, but so much of myself at the same time, yet she is still completely different from either one of us. Its hard to explain it, but I love her in such a completely different way that I have ever loved anyone else.

2. Growing in my relationship with my own mom.
Since I've been staying with my parents while my husband is deployed, I've really gotten to see generational parenting in action. Now that I am a mother myself, I feel like I really can conceptualize how much my own parents have cared and made sacrifices for us. I also get to see how much joy it brings my mom to be around Layla every day. It also gives me a level of closeness to strive for with my own kids.

3. I'm never bored
Really honestly, I have never been bored for a single day since Layla was born. She was very demanding and high-need from her birth, but also developed her social skills very quickly. The early months were frustrating at times with the nearly constant nursing and lack of sleep at night, but I have really enjoyed every day I have been able to spend with her. Now that she's turning into a feisty toddler, I have thousands of chances to play funny games and laugh at her antics every day. This also means that all the running keeps me in pretty good shape.

Here are two things I would have to say I dislike.

4. How fast kids grow up
I would hear parents complain that kids grew up too fast when I was one myself, but now I'm starting to realize how true that is. It still seems like yesterday that I first found out I was pregnant, and now I have a climbing, running, 17mo old on my hands. Its a little depressing to think that Layla will want to do more things on her own and not need me so much, but its also such a blessing to watch her mind develop and learn new things every day. I just want to make the most of my kids potential during those crucial early years.

5. Lack of consistent sleep
Yes, I am still struggling with this one. First of all, I am an extremely light sleeper, so I am a part of the problem. When Layla was born she was mostly nocturnal for the first few weeks. On top of that, she only slept about 30-45 min at a time during the first few mos and also screamed a lot if something didn't feel quite right. Right now she still wakes up a couple times during the night and is going through a phase where she likes to nurse all morning long, therefore ruining my last couple hours of sleep. Oh well, I shouldn't complain since I have the fortune of staying home with her instead of going to work a 9-5 on very little sleep.

Well that was fun. Next I will tag Bri from Little Green Pastures and Tammy/Amina from Tammy's Somali Home.