Confession Time

So Liam is 8 weeks old now. That means for the past 8 weeks, I've been totally focused on him. I've been his constant caretaker: feeding him, changing him, and soothing every cry (of course, Will has helped with that as well). It's hard to imagine life without him, and I now wonder what I did with all the free time I surely had before he was born. I have free time now as well, but I have not yet figured out how to properly utilize it. I also don't have as much of it, and it could end in an instant when he wakes up. I spend too much of it on the internet for sure. I guess it's just easier and more relaxing to do that than what I really need to be doing, which is cleaning. Liam's bedroom is still not ready for him. It hasn't been much of a priority since he spends zero time in there. He still sleeps in our room. I am thinking about transitioning him to his room in a month or so though, and the first step will be to start putting him down for naps in his crib so he can get used to it. It is my goal every weekend to get it ready, and so far that still hasn't happened.

I definitely feel like since Liam was born, I have the inability to get anything done. It's not his fault, although it would be easy to blame him. He really does take up a lot of time. I think it's just that I don't make the most of the time I have when he's asleep, or by the time I get motivated to get up and do something, I hear him crying and waking up. I need someone to teach me how to get motivated! I would love to always have a clean apartment, but instead I have an apartment that's never totally clean. I would love to always be ready to go somewhere with Liam during the day, but instead I usually feel bound to the apartment because going out is too much of a hassle. Plus, he sleeps a lot (on good days). Do I really need to mess with that unless absolutely necessary? And it's 100 degrees every day!

I have a million excuses. What I need is confidence.

When Liam was first born, I did not have confidence in myself. I didn't really know what I was doing. I had never been a mommy before. I was nervous and emotional for about the first two weeks of his life. Of course, I took care of him. I loved him so much from minute one, but it was all very overwhelming to me. I lost more confidence when breastfeeding didn't work out as planned. However, those nervous feelings went away and have stayed away for a long time now. I know that I do a good job as his mama, and I do have way more confidence in that now. I love being Liam's mama! There's nothing better now, but the first 2 weeks were tough. I think now what I lack confidence in is getting back into the outside world. We have ventured out together on several occasions, usually to Target or Whole Foods. He typically does ok for most of the outing, but will have a meltdown at some point. Thankfully (I guess), it's usually in the car where I'm the only one who can hear his wailing. Unfortunately, there's not much I can do about it if I'm driving though, and words alone don't soothe him, so he usually spirals into screams like the ones he did those first two nights at home when he was starving. I never wanted to hear those again, but the past two times I've taken him somewhere, he ends up crying like that in the car. It breaks my heart. After 5-10 minutes, he typically wears himself out and falls asleep.

We haven't been back to church since he was born. I'm scared that he will be the screaming kid in the nursery. I'm not sure why I think that, though. He usually behaves himself around other people. We probably won't attempt it this Sunday, but I'm hoping to go the next Sunday.

I guess I know that he will never get used to all these things if I don't take him out places. I totally know that. So I"m going to make an effort to get out more with him. I need to find more places to go that aren't stores, because I don't need to spend money. I would also like to be around adults, other parents. That's something else I haven't done yet, but I don't really know how. I'm planning on joining a mom's group in the fall, but that's a couple months away. Life is just so different now (but in a good way), and I haven't gotten used to it yet. I think new parents usually assimilate quicker than I have, though. Any suggestions on what I can do to help this situation would be greatly appreciated.