Three Word Thursday

Four. Month. Fog.

{Me, with no makeup, no upper lip and allergy eyes.}

A wise and dear friend recently told me that a woman should be allowed one month per child she's birthed to get back to "normal" after having a baby. Let's see, that means I've got one month and three weeks to pull myself together.

I'm halfway through what I like to refer to as the Four Month Fog. I've been here three times before, so I know what to expect. It manifests itself differently each time. Let me illustrate:

After Big C was born, I dyed my hair brown, which turned green, which was fine because I spent an awful lot of time in my townhouse watching way too many M.A.S.H. reruns since it was easier than taking the baby out.

With Hannie B., I convinced the Hubby that we needed to buy a little white T.V. {aesthetics people, always!} for our bedroom so Big C. could sit on the floor and watch Blues Clues while I slept in way too late each day and nursed the baby in bed.

With RedDog, I alternated between being cooped up while house sitting someone else's house with stir crazy kids and rushing over to our current house to remove wallpaper and scrutinize the remodeling process.

And now, I find that it is all I can do to manage the three grown kids school and activity schedules without collapsing in a heap at night. Pretty much nothing else gets done around here.

For me, the Four Month Fog encapsulates many things. It is me feeling like a foreigner in my own body {Whose chest is this? When did my waist get like this? Why is my skin so blotchy? Am I losing my hair?}. It is the shift from independent woman to woman upon whom someone else is solely dependant. It is me trying desperately to deal with sleep deprivation while my family tries desperately to deal with moodiness due to hormonal shifting. It is focusing my attention on a helpless baby at the expense of feeling helplessly behind on housework and homemaking. It is ditching what used to be my schedule and adjusting to the schedule of the new little person, who frankly, is running the show. It is letting go of control in just about every aspect of my life and realizing Who is really in control. It is mourning the loss of my old self and rejoicing in the creation of a new self.

The Four Month Fog has taught me that while having a baby is an amazing, beautiful, God given blessing for a woman, it is also a period of shifting for a woman. It is a PROCESS, and for me at least, it takes time to work my way back to a place where I begin to feel like life is back to "normal" again and the integration period has ended.

Blogging has been therapeutic for me in the past two months. I relish the time I take for myself as I write each day. It is helping me to reflect and gain perspective on the current shifts and changes I am experiencing after having little Ollie.

And just like the last three times, I am beginning to see that the fog will lift and I will be better for having walked through it.