gouramanda

My Motherhood Muses: A Mother’s Day Q + A

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Today is my very first Mother’s Day. I’m sitting in bed petting our dog Lincoln, watching my husband crawl under a sheet he just nailed to the door frame to create a ventilation system for our portable A/C unit in our bedroom because our A/C compressor blew out. It’s May in Texas, have you. Now we’re laughing and whispering over our five month old daughter who is asleep in our room because her nursery is 90 degrees. Though, as I sit here with sweat dripping down my neck, click-clacking away on the computer, my heart has never felt more whole. 
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Six Newborn Essentials

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As I sit my weary self down to type this out, Townes (who is now four months old) has finally decided to surrender to sleep after a grueling hour-long episode of wailing, kicking and rejecting what her tired little body so desperately needed. Yes, the newborn days are behind us, but this is where we are today: hastily attempting to connect my feelings and thoughts to adequate words in between the fits and starts of nap time. … 

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My Motherhood Metamorphosis

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Applying eye makeup whilst crying streams of hormonal (but real, very real) tears is no small feat. The day the doctors and nurses discharged us from the hospital with our first real human baby I cried approximately 17 times. I only wish this were hyperbole. After a scant 3 hours of broken sleep, interjected by foreign baby cries, prods, pricks and blood pressure checks, I hobbled my listless legs to the hospital bathroom. Reaching for mascara in a futile attempt to resemble my old self, to open up my eyes that were nearly swollen shut from the influx of excessive IV fluid and the strain of pushing a baby out of my body, I caught a glimpse of an unfamiliar woman in the mirror. My heart fluttered into the depths of my gut. Wherever that was. I was like a caterpillar inside it’s chrysalis, an amorphous mess, completely rearranged and broken.… 

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A letter to my furstborn

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Dear Linker Pup,

You blazed the trail to motherhood in my heart. You infuse even the most trying moments with genuine joy and laughter. Due to your zealous spirit, adventurous ways and black.hair.everywhere…I wouldn’t dare describe life with you as convenient or “easy.” But you have taught me that it’s always better to choose love over convenience…. 

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New Mom + Nursing Essentials

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I have heard many describe new motherhood as the “most” of everything. For me, in my 9 short weeks of experience, being a mother has been the most beautiful, most exhausting, most testing, most hilarious, most humbling, most emotional, most transformative, most haphazard, most sacrificial, most meaningful, most intriguing journey into a new layer of my life, my marriage, and the new life God has blessed us with, our daughter Townes.

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