Fan Friday with Goofball Mommy

Hooray, it's Fan Friday and today I get to introduce you to Lisa from Goofball Mommy. She cracks me up. As a stay at home mom and a blogger, it's always fun to hear the "horror" stories from other moms and the lessons they have learned from their munchkins.

 

 

I am Lisa, a stay at home mom from southern California. I have an over active child who suffers from a migraine disorder. My blog started when I wanted to create a place moms could go and feel like they are not the only ones who are struggling. My life is never perfect, but it is perfectly mine.

 

 

New mothers go into parenting expecting some surprises but believe for the most part they will be prepared for what life with a child will be like. Like me, most moms eventually realize there are going to be moments in their child’s life that will blow everything they were prepared for out of the water. These are the 10 moments I was not prepared for as a mother.

1. How bad my heart would break when he got his shots.

As a mother, we are meant to keep our children from being hurt. So for me to take him to the doctor knowing that he was going to get stuck with a needle 1-4 times was horrible. While I was pregnant I never really thought much about him having to be vaccinated. In fact I never really let it cross my mind. Then the first doctor’s appointment that he needed his vaccines arrived and I remember arriving feeling like ok this won’t be so bad. We went through the check up and then it became time for his shots. I help him and he looked up at me, snuggled in and smiled. Then it happened. The nurse walked up and stuck him right in the thigh. The look of fear, and pain ran across my innocent babies face and I broke down. He started to calm down only to be stuck again in the other leg and let the cry. For those of you who have been through this experience you know what I am talking about. Not the: I want mommy cry, the how could you let this happen scream as loud as possible my world is not happy ugly cry. Oh you thought I was only talking about monkey man crying no that would be me crying as well that my baby is hurting. Yeah. If you can make it through all your child’s vaccines without ever feeling sorry or spilling a tear I am truly impressed.

2. The first time my child was sick.

I am not talking about a runny nose or a cough. I am talking about being hospitalized because he was so sick that he was lethargic and not drinking his milk any more sick. Monkey Man was 5 months old Thanksgiving week of 2010 and had to be hospitalized. If I though having vaccines were bad, I was in for something else. I had to hold monkey man down while the nurses proceeded to put a catheter in him and get a urine sample, try to find a vein 5x for his IV, Take blood samples, and put in a new catheter after he pulled his out. I was down the hall listening to him scream as 5 nurses and the doctor held him down and did a spinal tap. I sat by his hospital crib for 5 days while he continued to lose weight and slowly get better. It was the toughest week of my life.

3. My child being seriously hurt by a family pet.

We were at my parents’ house in May 2011. Monkey man pulled up on the couch in front of my parent’s 12 year old dog startling him while he slept. The dog attacked, latching on to monkey man’s face and preceding to shake him until I got to the couch to unlatch his jaw from monkey man’s face. We were lucky that the dog missed his eye entirely but monkey man still has 3 scars to this day on his face. He was placed on heavy antibiotics to prevent infection. I have since never trusted any dog close to monkey man including our now 7 year old pug and 8 month old yorkie.

4. My son’s first steps.

Monkey man began walking at his 1st birthday party. To be honest I was supper excited. About a month later monkey man began running! This was not a good thing! Now he was on the move and he was fast! I thought life would get easier when he started walking but I quickly learned that danger just came faster. He was able to get into more. He was able to disappear in seconds instead of minutes. He was on the move and he sure wasn’t going to slow down or stop anytime soon.

 

5. Sharing my bed almost nightly.

Now I expected to have monkey man in our bed every once in a while but once in a while became a lot of the time and a lot of the time became nightly. Once monkey man was used to being in our bed it was almost impossible to get him out. To be honest, I don’t blame him for wanting to be with us. Who wants to sleep alone? The world is such a scary place for little ones and then you go tuck them in to their own bed by themselves while you go share a bed with your spouse? Well for us it is not just sharing the bed. It has become monkey man gets 2/3rds of the bed and we get to share a 3rd. Who knew such a tiny person could take up so much room?

If you want to read more, just make sure you go on over to Goofball Mommy and see what she has learned. New moms, this is a great read, veteran moms, finish it and laugh as you agree with everything she says, I know I did.

 

Bonus 11: I never realized how quickly time would go.

Everyone always tells you that they grow fast. But as a new mother you do not realize that they don’t mean freeway speed fast. They mean the speed of light fast. I feel like the years have flown past. I have so many regrets that I did not stop to play enough, focus on him enough, or take the time to enjoy when he wanted to be held, be cuddled, or played with. I did not stop what I was doing enough to spend time with him. I have lost those precious moments and they will never return because they grow fast. So I challenge you, the next time your little one asks you to do something with them, drop everything you are doing and put everything you have into what they want. Give it your all and see how they light up.

What were you not prepared for?