Am I Doing This Right?

I've been meaning to blog about this for a while. It's something I've been anticipating. But I expected it to manifest differently.

I am now a complete worrier. I expected the worries to be more about the overall safety of the baby. You know, the kind of unfounded fears such as accidentally dropping a pot of boiling water on his legs while making hard boiled eggs or fearing he'll be nabbed at the gas station while I'm pumping gas. But, turns out, I'm more worried about how what I am doing is affecting him.

For example, these are daily, if not hourly, thoughts I have:

"Am I holding him enough?
"If I lay him down, is it going to affect our bond?"
"Is he on his back too much?"
"Is he going to end up with autism because I didn't stimulate him enough?"
"Are we playing often enough?"
"Does he know I'm his mom?"
"Is he going to end up liking the nanny better than me?"
"He finally stopped crying - does that mean he can't breathe and he's suffocating in his crib?"

And, of course, the inevitable: "Am I a good mom?"

These are just a few examples, but I go through this every day. It's kind of like this. Imagine yourself dying of thirst for hours upon hours, then the hours turn in to days, and you haven't had a drink in over 48 hours. You're on the verge of death when suddenly, you're given a yummy fruit punch juice box. You're so excited to finally get the juice box because you've been dying to have a drink for so long, so you drink it all at once and then it's gone before you know it and you failed to enjoy each drop because you were too thirsty to pay attention. In a nutshell, that's my biggest "mom" fear.

It all seems silly when I write it down of course. And I am pretty sure I'm a good mom. But now I get it. I get why mom's are worriers. Because you don't want to be the one to blame for a degenerate in society. You want the best for your babies. You don't want them to feel pain or be sad or experience tragedy. I get it.

Charlie is rolling over now. Front to back, back to front. He also LOVES sucking his fingers. So much, that he occasionally gags himself. Like today, we went on our walk, and he was trying so hard to stay awake but he ultimately gave in to sleep. He forgot to take his fingers out of his mouth, though, and as his head slumped forward, the fingers went down the throat. Poor baby.