Welcome to the June 2015 Carnival of Natural Parenting: Talking to Yourself
This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting hosted by Code Name: Mama and Hobo Mama. This month our participants have written letters to themselves. Please read to the end to find a list of links to the other carnival participants.
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Dear Mama,
Remember this. Remember this for it is at this exact moment that your heart expanded, became borderless in order to contain the love you have for your sweet baby daughter. Just short minutes ago your body was carried on a wave of primal energy as your womb contracted and a guttural moaning like nothing you ever made before emerged somehow from within you and you felt her move further and further towards the world. You are birthing mama.
Remember this. Remember the shock sensation as she slid from your body upon a wave of effort as you let out one final mother-bear roar and your eyes opened on a world that was forever changed because she was now in it. Just short minutes ago she was unknown to you, a little being hinted at in midnight kicks and wriggles. Child of your imagining, daughter of dreamy visions, of between-the-world auguries. You are visioning mama.
Remember this. Remember the first flutterings of deep blue eyes and the spark of recognition within them as they meet your gaze for the very first time, or perhaps for the millionth as surely you must now see that you have known this little soul since time immemorial? See how as you reach out to stroke her tiny little hand she curls her fist around your finger and in that moment you know you will do anything for her. In that moment you know you will reach for the moon, battle any dragon and shift mountains. You are warrior mama.
Remember this. Remember her rosebud mouth seeking your breast, her lips finding their destination and those first tentative suckles as she calls upon your body to nourish hers for the first time. Remember your breasts responding to the call to sustain her little form from yours, the milk-flow reaching her little mouth, and she sighs her pleasure and settles in for the first of many feeds. You are nurturing mama.
Remember this. Remember her sweet baby scent. Oh, the scent of her. No herb, no bloom, no expensive perfume has ever compared to her sweet baby smell as you seek to know her in your soul. In this moment you did not know it was possible to love so intensely. Years from now, when the milk has long since ceased flowing you will be able to close your eyes and relive the scent of her. You are loving mama.
Remember this. Remember all of this and more. This is a new world. Each day she will grow a little. Each day you will journey a little further away from this moment so take it all in. Every bloody, blissful, joyous detail of these first moments with your new baby daughter. Do not forget mama. Wherever this journey as her mother should take you always remember this.
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Visit Code Name: Mama and Hobo Mama to find out how you can participate in the next Carnival of Natural Parenting!
Please take time to read the submissions by the other carnival participants:
- Dear Me. — Meegs at A New Day writes to her decade-younger self offering a good reminder of how far she’s come, and she addresses some fears she wishes future her could assuage.
- Reflecting on Motherhood with Parental Intelligence: A Letter to Myself — Laurie Hollman, Ph.D. at Parental Intelligence writes about raising her two loving, empathic sons with Parental Intelligence and finding they have become industrious, accomplished young men with warm social relationships.
- A Letter to Myself — The Barefoot Mama writes to herself in the moments around the birth of her daughter.
- A Letter to Myself — Holly at Leaves of Lavender offers a missive to herself in the past… three years in the past, to be precise, when her little one was only four months old.
- Dear me: Nothing will go the way you’ve planned — Lauren at Hobo Mama gets real with her just-starting-parenting self and tells it to her straight.
- A Letter to the Mama Whom I Will Become — Erin from And Now, for Something Completely Different writes a letter to the Mama whom she will one day be, filled with musings on the past, present, and future.
- Dear Me of 7 Years Ago — Lactating Girl at The Adventures of Lactating Girl writes to her pre-baby self telling her about the whirlwind she’s about to enter called parenting.
- Talking to My 18 Year Old Self — HannahandHorn talks to herself as she is just entering college.
- Dear highly sensitive soul — Marija Smits tells a younger version of herself that motherhood will bring unexpected benefits – one of them being the realization that she is a highly sensitive person.
- Talking to myself: Dear Pre Stoneageparent — Stoneageparent enlightens her pre-pregnant self about the amazing transformations life has in store for her after having two children
- Dear Me: I love you. — Dionna at Code Name: Mama wrote herself a few little reminders to help her be at peace with who she is in the moment. That may give her the greatest chance of being at peace in the future, too.
- My best advice to the new mama I was 8 years ago — Tat at Mum in Search shares the one thing she wishes she’d figured out earlier in a letter to her 8-years-ago self (that’s when her first baby was 6 moths old).
- A Letter to Myself — Bibi at The Conscious Doer sends a letter back in time eight years to her darkest moment post partum.
- To me, with love — Jessica at Crunchy-Chewy Mama makes peace with her past and projects what a future her will need to hear.
- To Myself on the Last Day — Rachael at The Variegated Life tells her panicked last-day-before-motherhood self not to worry.
Adventures of a Barefoot Mama 