Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Baby Coma...and the birth of Mama Barknknit

I've talked a little about what I now call my baby coma before but when Carmen was born, I swear it took all my brain power to just take care of her and heal that I feel now that I was in a daze most of those first couple weeks.  We were nursing around the clock, changing diapers I felt every hour but I'm sure it wasn't, rarely getting more than 15-30 mins of sleep at a stretch an hour or two were amazing times and also getting to know this little girl who had joined our life...as well as letting others get to know her.  This took up a lot of time and mental energy.  I look back on this time, which was most of my maternity leave and was like why wasn't I doing this or this...but in the end I just know I was learning to be a mom and that was the most important thing I could have been doing with my time. 

Now, almost 7 months later, I've been regaining my identity and it has also forever changed as well.  Sadly, I have lost friends in my journey to motherhood and I've come to grips with that.  I realized that I am who I am and I happen to like myself.  I know not everyone will like me and life is too short to worry about those who just don't get me.  There are plenty of people out there for them to be friends with as well as plenty of others for me to be friends with as well.   I've said sorry for anything I did that was unintentionally mean and slowly working on righting my "wrongs" but I not going to say sorry for being me and for putting myself and my family first and why should I.  They are not saying sorry for being intentionally or unintentionally mean to me.  If they can be who they want to be and be rude, mean, sneaky, and just plan unfriendly, then why should I have to say sorry for being myself.  Anyway...I'm getting WAY off topic here. I didn't plan this post to go into this but anyway...it's there and I'm not deleting it.  This is my space...if you don't like it as I say about my podcast...there are other blogs you can read.

So...as I've been getting back to: Knitting: which I've managed to do a lot of lately; Podcasting, which I've gotten 3 episodes up in the month of June! Dog training/walking: which I never really stopped doing but have started trying to run with Abby and generally doing the things that I enjoy.  I haven't given my wheel Pilar much love lately but hoping that the Tour de Fleece fixes that.  You can also join me and other podcasters and podcast listeners in the Team Sasquatch group on Raverly for Tour de Fleece!  My goal this year is to spin a min of 5 mins a day during the Tour.  Wish me luck!  I just hope I can finish some of the project on the needles before the start of it.
Back to the topic at hand, as I begin to plan out this blog and my podcast and figure out what I want to do, I realize that Barknknit doesn't really cover everything anymore.  I used to be all dogs and knitting.  Then I started spinning but that still fits and now I'm a mom.  A mom who just wants to be the best mom I can be.  I also want to be more of a natural momma than I thought I would be.  I am into breastfeeding, babywearing, and I'm not against co-sleeping and now I'm diving into the cloth diapering world.  As I learn more, I want to share more and so where does that fit in.  I'm really not sure who all reads the blog, I know tons of people listen to the podcast and I've gotten good feedback about adding the Carmen's Corner, but I think I need to add more.  I haven't decided exactly what that will look like but you will find out when I figure it out.  In the meanwhile, my name went from just plain ole Barknknit to Mama Barknknit as being a mom is a huge part of who I am now.  I was always a mom to my furbabies but that role has grown and I'm very excited about what life still has in store for me.

Hope you enjoy my thoughts as I really do plan to use this blog space for more than just pictures and incorporate more of my thoughts and ramblings that exist in my head, which is a bit crazy and I'm ok with that!  I love who I am.  I hope that you love who you are!  How can you expect others to like you when you don't like yourself?

Happy Day!

6 comments:

  1. Way to stand up for yourself Gnat! You never should apologize for putting your children first.

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  2. Speaking as both an mom and grandma, our children, be they 2 footed or fur-babies, will always be first in our lives. I enjoy reading and hearing about child rearing now. As everything changes, it seems that everything stays the same. Some of the ideas that are cropping up now are things that past generation of mom did with a slight tweak. Keep being yourself, Gnat, and Carmen with be a shining star.

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  3. Evolving is a part of life, with or without a baby coma! You're beautiful, smart, talented woman and you're definitely on the right track.

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  4. Bravo! Unfortunately those are lessons that, in my experience, we have to learn over and over through out life. Being true to yourself is never easy.

    Thanks for the reminder. :)

    PS. I've never met anyone who hasn't gone through a baby coma of some sort.

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  5. I <3 Mama BarknKnit. ;)

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  6. As someone who's just coming off of her own "baby coma" (I called mine the Postpartum Haze but it's the same concept) I'm right there with you. Don't apologize for the blog changing or not posting or any of that. It's your space! Use it how you want to.

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