Just Without the Colostomy Bag!

So the other day I was having a conversation with my friend Julie.  She's a mom of two boys.  Her oldest is now 5.  She's been through the newborn, new mom phase (obviously), so it's nice having someone to talk to about everything.  I think what I enjoy the most about our conversations is that she doesn't judge me.  It's hard to be a new parent because we judge ourselves so harshly as well as we feel as if others are doing the same thing.  And maybe people are judging us...who knows.  All I know is that it's nice to have a handful of people to really talk to and have it feel like you're in a safe haven and not out on the proverbial limb all alone.  If I have any advice to new moms it's this:  find those friends, talk to them often, don't get everything that Babies R Us and people tell you to get, and listen to your instincts.  We'll discuss that advice later, I promise! 

In this conversation I was telling Julie how strong I feel.  I feel like nothing could stop me when it comes time to protecting my child or doing anything for him.  I feel as if I could lift a 40 story building and throw it aside as if they were a feather.  It's amazing how when this tiny little baby is placed in your arms, you're crying your eyes out, a strange feeling comes over you that you've never experienced before.  I call it the Mommy Shield.  I wanted to protect him and hold him close to me every moment of the day.  He was so tiny and his life was, at that moment, so precious to me.  It still is, but in 5 months, I've learned that it's okay to put him down for a little while.  Everything else though...it's still the same to me.  I struggled to get really connected to him again like when I was pregnant, but once we had our thing, nothing could stop my boy and me. 

So, to summarize or get back to the point, I feel tough.  I feel as if anything could happen to me and I would survive.  I know I would jump in front of a bus, run into a burning building, take a bullet for my child.  I would do this to make sure he was okay.  My words to Julie were something like this,  "I'm like Tupac man, just without the colostomy bag!  You know he was shot a whole bunch of times and survived.  Well, not those last 5 times he was shot, but the other times."  She knew what I meant. 



p.s. (I, of course had to listen to the song Dear Mama. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNcloTmvTeA)