Making the Bed

As a new mom, I had a plan. Because all first time moms have a plan. The baby will come, the mom will rest and life will move on.

I’ll pause here so all mothers can chuckle, because you know ya’ll had a plan too.

I would continue my 40-hour work week from home with no official scheduled maternity leave. I’d continue gardening, cooking, volunteering and reading when, where and how I wanted. My Farmer would return (literally the day Ethan arrived) to the fields to plant, cultivate and harvest. A baby? This would be nothing for two Type-A, perfectionist, organized, driven people.

I’ve never cried so many tears in the weeks after my farm boy arrived. I couldn’t figure out how this little bundle who required nothing more than meals, diapers, and sleep could dominate so much time. He was an amazing baby. Slept fairly well, napped well, took to nursing like a champ. We had everything going for us, except me.

I couldn’t shake the funk. We fell into a pattern of staying in bed until 9 a.m., moving down to the living room where he’d nurse, we’d fall asleep, and wake up an hour or so later to do it again. Work was piling up on the desk, volunteer commitments plugging the answering machine, laundry on the floor, cupboards going bare.

My Farmer, God bless him, didn’t know what to do with me either. So, he’d come home late from planting, ask how my day was, nibble on a meal his mother or my mother had left and go to bed.

Looking back, and being much more knowledgeable, I suppose I was experiencing some sort of post-partum depression. It’s weird to see that in print, because I don’t know that I’ve ever admitted that to anyone but me in the depths of a dark night waiting for baby to sleep.

Then one morning, I thought, this is so ridiculous. “You are stronger than a few bad days.”

I began uttering that phrase each morning. My farm boy and I no longer lazed away a few hours in bed. We got up, we ate and he played or napped while I did something. And to begin, that something was making the bed.

Some days, that was all that got done. I’d make the bed and then collapse on the chair, my farm boy in my lap and we’d stay there. But the bed was made. It was a minor triumph, but after what felt like forever of nothing, that little accomplishment was reason to celebrate.

So this morning as I plopped down to a desk drowning in papers, books, and calendar appointments, and I glanced out to another colorless day, my ambition tanked. I moved a pile of papers from the desk to the floor, decided to do dishes, but didn’t make through the whole load. Started a fire. Grabbed my weights to exercise but easily convinced myself that today can be my weekly reprieve.

Finally, I thought, I need to make the bed. So, that’s what I’ll be doing now . . . have you made your bed today?

Read more 30 Days of Farm Girl Memories

And find other 30 Day bloggers starting with the one who got us into this – Holly Spangler from My Generation.

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