I used to be smart and 'put together'. So why did I just spend 45 min cleaning up poop?

[emmabemmasmom]

It is Saturday. DH is working overtime.

I am still in my pajamas and so is DD.

I used to have a great job where I was looked up to. I had my hair done and pretty skirts on...and heels (cause they didn't kill my now swollen feet then).

As I was on my knees in the bathroom cleaning up after DD in what appeared to be a very fun time playing with her poo, I began to think of what once was.

I love being a mom...I really do and I would not trade it for the world.

However, don't you sometimes just think back and wonder how you went from one extreme to another in such a short space of time?

Does anyone feel the same sometimes? And, what are some little things you do to make yourself feel like 'yourself' again...even if just for a few moments

LOL emma! God, I know just how you feel- people used to respect my opinion/ have to listen to me. Now I spend my life toddling after a toddler trying to persuade him to sit in his buggy/ go to sleep/ wake up/ eat/ run etc etc. Most people don't even notice I exist, so busy are they smiling adoringly at my boy or trying to get past him as quickly as possible. On the one hand I love love love it, on the other I wonder if I'll ever recover from this experience- when DS has grown, will I ever be able to return to the life I once led? I fear not!

I go the gym alone- that helps. Or I doll myself up and go walking round town (DS asleep in buggy). Or if the opportunity arises I'll phone a customer service department to complain- they have to take me seriously and can't see that I might still be unwashed and scraggy at lunchtime!!!

But most of the time I just laugh at how it all turned out!!!!

Wheyhey!!!

For a minute there I thought I was all alone Then I thought...no I can't be the only one!!!

I wish I could go and do things on my own. I don't drive (although I can, I don't have my UK license and cannot use my US one anymore) so by the time DH gets home it is hard to find anything to do that he can take me to and pick me up from before DD needs dinner, bath, bed ect...

So I really don't get any time out alone.

I don't think I will ever return to the life I used to have either, but in reality I wouldn't want to. I would just like to be noticed as a person and as a woman lol and not just a slobby mom!

Hell it is an achievement if I get my legs shaved once a week lol

Glad I am not alone!!

Thanks!

Put any woman behind a buggy and she looks like a drudge - it's true!

I do feel your pain . I used to get this feeling during 4am feeds with my first child. I'd think 'God, I used to be just coming in from some glamourous night out at this time...now I am sat here like a cow, enormous norks hanging out of my milk-stained granny nightie ...'

I don't feel so bad after just having my 2nd. The odd night out with girlfriends, the odd night with DH and a few nice clothes/pampering treats now and then make me feel a bit better. I have to say, SAHM-dom, as great as it is, can wreck you a bit, looks and confidence wise. I'm going back to study in the new year, and will ease back into work of some sort after that. I need it to keep my sanity!

I am currently 32 weeks pregnant with DD #2.

I did feel this way before I got pregnant again though...

I was thinking if the confidence is already this bad now how will it be once #2 comes along?

Will be the last baby for awhile...a long while, so I am hoping that I can pick myself back up somehow after this one.

Just keep picturing myself next summer all sexy goddess mom tanning on a beach while the well behaved babies play in the sand (yeah, cause that is going to happen!)

I know what you mean. For me it was when dd was a few weeks old and DH said. "Instead of replacing our washing machine with a washer-drier why don't you take the laundry to the laundrette each day seeing as you are around the place?"

I started crying and said "...because I have a first class degree!" (???)

So how did I make sure I didn't feel a nothingness? Firstly I am very proud of my achievements as a Mum. Even though somedays I feel blaaah generally I think I am doing an ok job and thinking of that makes me feel really good about me. I started going to a French evening class which was fun and then I took a part time job which gives me another dimension to my life and covers the cost of a cleaner . I also make sure DH and I have date nights. Where we meet in the city centre and blow the cobwebs away with a great night out together now and then. Taking time for friends is important too.

Hope this is of help!?!

lol!@teafortwo. Sorry. I just love that image of you screaming 'I have a first class degree!'.

It does get better! And we need to big each other up a bit more!!

I remember feeling the most blah (apart from the times you mention) when pushing the buggy in the rain, wearing a god-awful anorak with a hood because I couldn't carry an umbrella. There's just something so bloody depressing about having to go out in the rain and not have the means to keep dry and look nice at the same time.

When i Finally lost the buggy (mine are 5 and 8), I felt peculiarly naked and exposed. People look at you again. I can't explain it but it felt weird.

A really wonderful thing was in the middle of PND with Ds2. I went down to visit my best friend (from schooldays) on the train. On my own. For a weekend. I felt like myself for the first time in about 3 years.

DSs now at school. I do voluntary work and feel like a separate person again.

You're right screamingabdab, considering there are so many mums in the World we should raise our profile.

I also agree about seeing good friends- I always feel more like myself when I am with other like minded mums. Or with old friends who knew me before I became a mum.

I feel your pain. I have only just got my mojo back after having dd - she is 9 months old. I used to love heels. Now I just look longingly at them and wonder when I will ever have an occasion to wear them again. Same with party dresses.

I wouldn't say that I have less confidence though. I am more put together on the domestic front as I have to be. Before dd I didn't give a damn about sauscepans, cake tine and tea caddys. Now I am obsessed with such banality. House is always a bit messy and I spend a lot of time tidying up whereas before dd I was too busy having fun to bother. Wouldn't change it for the world and hope to regain some balance when dd is older. I am happier now in general although not nearly so glamourous!

I don't think this is just about having babies or being a SAHM.

I got married last year and became Mum to a 7 year old. I wouldn't change him or my DH for anything and I know I'm a lot happier, calmer, etc than I was before but.....

.. I regularly don't feel like 'me'. I still have the same job, I still volunteer for the same people, have the same friends but I'm also now a Mum and a wife. I spend half my life thinking about random little things (like Easter Egg Hunts for my DS) which probably don't matter at all but I can't stop those 'mummy thoughts' of what I could do better. As a result I feel like I'm doing everything at approx 75% constantly.

The other week I pointed this out to my husband and he asked 'what will make you feel like you again'. The bad news is I have no idea and suspect I'm still me but the vital things like popping out to have a swim in the evening or being able to work late without dinner and thus bedtime being late. I even still go out with friends probably no less than I did before (although no all night dancing!) so I think it is just priorities change and thus your personality or habits. I even didn't know what birthday presents I want where as a year ago I could happily of produced a good list!

I'm hoping that I get all this sorted before we start TTC and think the answer may just be acceptance of the change and as some of you have said, good humour!!

I am so with you on this!!! I used to have a great job, people working for me, international travel etc etc and now here I am about to pop with DC no.3. I went back to work 6 months after DD1, which was definitely right for me at the time as I found those first 6 months at home some of the hardest in my life! I think my lowest point was when I first went on maternity leave for DD2 (i.e. about 6 weeks before she was born), I felt like a whale, couldn't cope with DD1 (who was about to turn 2) and honestly couldn't believe the depths of meaninglessness to which my life seemed to have sunk, I just used to sit there thinking WHY am i doing this - stop the train I want to get off etc. I actually think I might have been properly depressed looking back. When DD2 was born it was like a switch being flicked over and a weight lifted off me! I found coping with a new baby so much easier second time around and as such was much more on top of things. I grabbed my life back in no time, pulled myself together, made time for friends, even lost all the baby weight v quickly which improved my confidence no end.

I ended up going back to work just 2 days a week (and as such found myself entering that no career progression or promotion cul de sac - but not caring), before resigning last Christmas. I am much more positive about everything now. I think the transition to being at home with little ones is VERY hard (at least I found it to be so). It's just so different. I do get frustrated by the mundane repetativeness of it all sometimes, and I can be a bit shouty with the girls at times, but I know in the great scheme of things I wouldn't trade it or be back at work right now. I just hope that in a few years time when this new one is at school I can find another professional niche for myself somewhere as I do enjoy putting my degree and all those years of extensive professional training to more use than bottom wiping........