things they never tell you about motherhood...

Amongst all the horror stories of other people's birth (why did they feel the need to share?) one piece of wisdom/advice was valuable more than anything else and it ran through my head over and over through the hard first few weeks,
"No-one tells you how much fun it is"
 and has inspired me to share the best bits (so far) in an open letter to B
Read this when you are feeling down and evil

1. When your baby first smiles at you- yes it might be gas, but who cares it makes you feel so good, and then again and again as they master it and do it more often, and then that joy bubbles over when that smiles turns into a laugh
2. When your baby first sleeps for a long time.  For me that has only been recently and five hours is still our longest stretch but it was the most amazing relief to wake up without feeling like a zombie and I was even happy with how engorged and bursting my boob were because it was proof that yes he had finally slept for a long time
3. Listening to the heartbeat on the ultrasound- I never tired of that, I loved hearing that impossibly fast, water sonar sound
4. Dressing your baby - not the actual dressing part because sometimes that feels like gymnastics but lets be honest- dressing the dolls was the fun part, and now you have a live one
5. The songs and rhymes you make up at 1am, 3am, 5am, 7am, midday, mid afternoon to amuse your baby when you have forgotten the words to the real ones, especially when your babies nickname rhymes with poo ;)
6. The way your baby wakes up crying but stops immediately when you come over and smiles at you like you are the favourite part of their day
7. Feeding your baby- it took me 6 weeks to stop crying while I did it, and at 8 weeks I would still cringe, at 10 weeks we are ok most of the time and I don't know when it moved from ouch painful to the realisation that I am all my baby needs to be sustained and survive but it was a nice place to keep my thoughts
8. The way your baby curls up on your shoulder, into your lap, into your arm, into your hand, into your neck- its like they are moulded to fit you no matter how big they get, and the little sigh they give once they have wriggled themselves into those spots
9. When your baby starts to interact with toys, its so much fun watching him/her make faces/concentrate/being amused
10. Looking at their little hand curled around your finger- just pure content to see, yep thats me and L's hands

Thats 10 in 10 weeks- I promise more before the baby comes the next time you are feeling down x