When you become a new mom, time loses all continuity. I wish I could blame it on something other than the adorable bundle of joy you take home from the hospital, but alas, that bundle of joy is the reason days blur together into weeks soon after delivery. Oh sure, everyone says to nap while the baby is napping, but do you know how hard that is? You’ve got this amazing miracle of a mini-me peacefully sleeping in her crib and all you want to do is sit there and look at her. Look at her tiny eyelashes, her button nose, her steady breathing… That’s how I spent many of my early days as a new mom.

My sleeping beauty a mere 6 days old.

When I wasn’t admiring my newborn daughter, I was trying to do all of the things people say you shouldn’t do right after you have a baby. These included trying to clean the house, make dinner, go grocery shopping, get my social life going again, etc. I was basically trying to recreate the life I had before a tiny human (that depended on me every two hours or so) came into my world. Those of you out there with kids know that this is a bad idea. I ended up living off of maybe 3-4 hours of sleep a day.

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Perhaps I should have read (and you should read if you haven’t had a baby yet) this article titled, “Keeping Your Sanity as a New Mom.” I am so thankful that my husband helped out around the house, helped with baby Emily, and helped me to keep most of my sanity! I did lose some of it, which will likely end up being a good blog topic for another day. 😀

I don’t think I was fully aware of the disparity in time until I reflected back on my first few days of mommyhood and realized I had absolutely no recollection of them. At all. Whole days were completely missing from my memory. If this has happened to any of you, please let me know! And if you are going to be a new mother soon, rest assured that if it does happen to you, and you forget complete days early after the birth of your baby, you’re not alone!

If that wasn’t evidence enough of the gap in the time continuum of this new mommy, a funny thing happened at my in-laws’ house one day. I noticed a very pretty wall sconce and commented on it. My mother-in-law looked at me strangely and informed me that it had been there on the wall for MONTHS! My first thought was that she was playing a joke on me. Not a nice thing to do to a new mommy. But alas, nope, no joke. It really had been up on the wall for quite a while. Luckily, she was understanding, but I still felt awful.

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Lack of sleep did horrible things to me, but it wasn’t just that. It was also that my daily routine completely changed. While my husband maintained some semblance of a normal daily life, mine was a mess at first. The best example of this (that I think many of you other moms will relate to because it’s so true) is taking a shower at odd hours. I can remember thinking how strange it was to take a shower at around 2 in the afternoon because that’s when my husband got home and could watch Emily.

Luckily, things began to even out, my memory started to return, and I began to find that my life was starting to feel manageable again. Sure, there are still some monkey wrenches thrown into the schedule, such as Emily waking up around 3 in the morning due to teething pain. Otherwise, you just make it work the best you can and keep a calendar! Yes new mommies out there, there is hope!