Yay for mom

My mom has been here this week and I will cry when she leaves tomorrow! She has kept me sane while Jay's at work. She taught me that I need to put Jenna down sometimes and take time for myself, or I will go crazy. It's hard to put her down because she screams so much. She's happiest being held, but I'm hoping and thinking she'll get more used to it as she gets older. She has cleaned our house and cooked, and held Jenna while I exercise/shower/get online, and it has been soooooo nice. Next week will be a rude awakening.

Here is what I have learned about motherhood in the past couple of weeks:
1. 90% of what I read is not true. Everything is contradictory, so I just have to learn by trial & error.
2. For every good day, there is a bad day to make up for it.
3. Babies have a "good" time and a "bad" time. Jenna is sweet in the morning and a terror in the evening.
4. Sleep deprivation is evil. I become extremely irritable and depressed with less than 5 hours of sleep a night.
5. Gripe water doesn't seem to make a difference with Jenna. Neither does Mylicon or Axid. I think when she decides she's going to be miserable, we just have to let her scream and squirm it out.
6. My daughter has the loudest shriek I have ever heard, and it is embarrassing in public.
7. Massive amounts of spit-up are OK if it's not hurting her when she does it. It's just frustrating when I nurse her for 45 minutes and then it all ends up distributed among several burp clothes over the next 30 minutes and then I have to give her formula because she's screaming and sucking on her fist.
8. It's OK to go 2-3 days with no dirty diapers. She will make up for it with her next dirty diaper.
9. When people say "mother knows best," they are not talking about new mothers--they are talking about mothers who know what they're doing.
10. As frustrated as I get, when she has her quiet awake time and stares at me and smiles (even if it is just gas), it does give me hope that everything will get better.