You are also able to go long stretches without showering, and still smell clean.
My fingers are currently grazing the keyboard as my arms reach around my four week old, who happens to be strapped to my chest in our BabyBjorn – which has been my saving grace these days. She’s sleeping soundly, but just moments ago she was wailing (I’m speculating that I have a colicky baby on my hands) and this is the only way that I can get my work done. No shower yet today (it’s 1 pm, gross), pretty much all I’ve eaten is a quick bowl of oatmeal (and of course coffee), and I've been up for the day since 5 am (plus countless feeding during the night). But, I’m chugging forward. Yup, being a mom of a newborn makes me feel superhuman.
You pushed a human through your vagina.
The obvious one here, but really – they don’t call it labor for nothing! This experience alone is enough to make people turn away from having children, yet many of us embrace it. I remember reading recently that the human body is built to handle 42 units of pain, and during labor, a woman is pushed to 57 units. Take that in for a second – 57 units of pain. We must be superhuman to get through that.
You then produce food to feed that human.
This is pretty much the coolest thing in the world if you really think about it (next to growing that human, that is). Our bodies are able to produce milk — on demand no less — to feed our offspring. As soon as we hear that baby cry, that milk comes pouring out at just the right temperature, ready for baby to eat. Whether you choose to breastfeed or not is your own personal decision, but there’s no denying how amazing it is — what our body is able to do.
You are able to go long stretches of time without sleep.
Sleep is essential for us to survive. Yet, when you are a new mom, you are magically about to go without as much. Maybe it’s the constant racing of everything that we need to do each day going through our minds, or the fact that we pretty much have no choice. However, we somehow survive on loads of coffee (not if you are breastfeeding, though) and the constant anticipation of baby giggles. We’re pretty much rock stars.
You are also able to go long stretches without showering, and still smell clean.
We have this wonderful ability to somehow mask the baby spit up smell with our favorite perfume and use dry shampoo like it’s our job. Yes, we may feel gross on the inside, but no one around us (except maybe for our partner that is) would ever know that it’s been 48 hours since we last stripped down and gave ourselves a good scrub. We’ll get there again. Someday.
You are able to cram more in five minutes than many people do in one week.
In five minutes, I am able to do the following: give the entire bathroom a wipe down with my trusty Lysol wipes, do a quick sweeping of our apartment, gobble down some sort of lunch and wash five bottles. All of that made possible because I know that I have a newborn that will start screaming her head off any second.
Yup, us moms are pretty awesome.
