Exploration

So Beth had a great idea. She gives a theme and we can all write about it in whatever way it strikes us. This time around the theme is exploration. As I thought about that word what came to my mind was parenting.

I looked up the word explore. This is the definition Merriam-Webster gives

Explore :to investigate, study, or analyze :look into :to become familiar with by testing or experimenting

This pretty much explains my approach to parenting.

Having Miss A rocked my life. Now, I know that could be heard coming out of the mouth of any new mother. But I seemed to be utterly lost. I remember flipping through the book 'What to Expect - The First Year'. I thought, wow. None of this really applies to us. I mean the milestones sure, but as for any suggestions on what to do when your baby cries and cries and cries, for example - the best it had to offer was "If you need a break, take one." I thought my baby wasn't 'normal' and I didn't know what to do.

Then one night, I was up late again trying to calm my crying baby. I was exhausted, at my wits end. I typed into Google "baby won't stop crying" just to see what would come up. And guess what I found? A blog. The author was a mom of a girl roughly the same age as Miss A. I loved her writing because it was raw and brutally honest. She didn't candy coat motherhood, she admitted it was hard. Damn hard. Turns out she had a baby who wouldn't stop crying either. And she laid it all out there. The good, the bad and the ugly. (That particular blog no longer exists but you can find her writing here and here.)

I guess you could say that night changed my life, as dramatic as that sounds. Because if I hadn't been looking for answers, exploring, I would have never stumbled upon that blog and blogging in general. And in that case I likely wouldn't have started my own blog. Blogging has become a huge part of my life. A huge part of who I am today.

If you go back and read my earliest posts you can tell I'm searching. Trying to find the reasons why I was having such a hard time adjusting to being a mother. The whole reason I decided to start my own blog in the first place was because I was hoping to find other moms who might be having similar experiences. And I was hoping to find some answers.

Did I find the answers? Sometimes. More importantly I found some amazing mothers who I had lots in common with. People I could bounce things off of or just vent to. I found out I was not alone. But parenting is an adventure and I find most of the time as a parent I just go by instinct. You can't always find the answers in a book or on the internet. But I keep exploring. Looking for better ways or sometimes just a shoulder to cry on.