3:00 a.m., bleary-eyed, here I am breastfeeding for the fourth time tonight. It’s been over a month since I slept more than 2 hours in a row. I am one exhausted mama.

You pull off, cuddle up against me, and snuggle in. Letting out a sleepy sigh, you reach your tiny hand out and lay it on my chest.

Tears fill my eyes. Maybe it’s just sleep deprivation or oxytocin from breastfeeding, but there is so much love in this moment that I can’t help but cry a little bit.

Next week I am going back to work. I worry about it all the time. The thought of it disrupts the little amount of sleep I get. It hangs over me like a cloud.

I will probably miss the first time you crawl…it’s bound to be soon.

I may not hear your first word…but I hope it will still be “Mama.”

Your first steps might not be towards me…but I can’t wait to chase you around.

There are a lot of firsts I will probably miss…working mamas run that risk.

I might not be there every day. Someone else will kiss your boo-boos, clean your face, change your diapers while I am at work. Someone else will feed you, lay you down for naps, and snuggle with you when you wake up from them.

She will send me pictures of you. When I am struggling at work, exhausted, having a bad day, I will open my phone and there you will be, beaming at the camera for someone else.

She will record videos of you laughing and playing and trying to talk, and I will watch them on my breaks, crying and laughing at the same time, an emotional wreck.

I wish I could be there for every moment. I wish you never had to look around for me to see me not there. I wish I didn’t have to kiss you good-bye in your sleep and slip off to work while it was still dark. I wish balancing a career and motherhood wasn’t so hard.

I can’t be there every moment, but I can promise you this…I will beam at you every time I walk through that door. I will scoop you up and cover you with kisses, listening to you laugh and laugh. I will always be happy to see you.

I promise that I will be the one to read you a bedtime story and tuck you in at night. I will be the one to soothe you when you wake up from a nightmare. I will be the one to teach you how to tie your shoes, take you to your first day of school, and embarrass you in from of your friends.

I promise to make up for the work week on weekends with extra cuddles and playtime, to put aside work every evening to focus on you. As you get older, when you are a handful in the summers, I will try to remember this moment and the heartache I felt over leaving you.

So for now, this exhausted mama will try to embrace these night wakes and soak up the snuggles while she can. These moments are fleeting, and I know that someday I will yearn to hold you in my arms like this, even for a moment.

 

Posted on: July 31, 2018, by : admin