From Day One - Life Lessons

My first baby turned eight yesterday!
Most of the lessons I have learned about parenting so far I actually learned the first moments of parenthood.

I was in the hospital for three days, and I kept waiting for someone in the hospital to come in to teach me about how to be a mom. No one came and as the moment to go home from the hospital approached I started to panic! They even gave us a video to watch before we left and I thought it would have helpful training tips, but it was just some random informational thing maybe about carseats or something. 

I had random (no history) preeclampsia with my first pregnancy. It left me so weak I couldn't really walk for the first week after I left.

Ben changed the first diapers and took care of Cody in addition to cleaning up the alpacas and house we were house sitting, finishing his finals, and preparing to go to an interview in Washington two days later (where we ended up going!). This was all supposed to happen before Cody was born but my water broke early (at the law firm where I worked in their new office! ha!). 

The medicine they were giving me intravenously made my vision blurred but I remember as my vision started to return two days later I watched Ben sit down in a chair by the hospital bed. I have never seen such a look of sheer exhaustion in my life. It snapped me back into {slow} action. I sat up, told him to go lay down and rest, and started taking care of Cody.

Lesson #1

Once you have kids, if you are resting, someone else is exhausted.

Lesson #2

Take care of yourself so you can take care of others.
(Those two don't really work together. Ah, the irony of motherhood.)

Lesson #3
and most importantly-

"It's not about me."

This little phrase has helped me in big decisions
like whether or not to work
(that works for my situation and I feel blessed to be able to stay home. personally.)
and small decisions
like whether or not I lay in a hospital bed or get up and start being a mom.