Mom For A Day: What I Learned

When one of my best friends had her sweet baby boy in February, our other bestie and I fell in love. He’s the first baby of our group of close friends, so that was to be expected, but he’s also one of the easiest babies I’ve ever been around. The little guy knows a good schedule and sticks to it! So when it was time for her to start thinking about going back to work for a few weeks before the end of the school year, and she asked if I wanted to take him for a day since I work from home on Fridays, I said yes right away.

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I was admittedly nervous as the day got closer, but I was also really excited: Since T and I are (hopefully) going to start a family of our own soon, what better way to learn what #momlife is like! I did have help during the 9 hour day, since my mom was around, and 2 of little J’s aunties were free for the afternoon, too, so they came over to hang out. But here’s what I learned from my #momlife day with little J:

You can actually get stuff done. My only experience with infants had been with my nephew, who didn’t love being held by anyone other than his mom and dad, so I was picturing a screaming infant and me, and I pictured myself in the future with babies being able to do practically nothing. But little J is 3 months old and loves his schedule, and he ended up taking a 3 hour nap for me! That gave me 3 hours to do what I would normally be doing on a Friday (just in the confines of the house) – some work on my laptop, a little bit of laundry folding, making myself a snack, watching my newest trashy TV favorite. I know not all parents are that lucky to have a full 3 hours when the baby is sleeping, but it was a nice reminder that parents aren’t always expected to go about their normal day with only one hand.

I may need to rethink the neutral living room. When we redid our living room decor last summer, we went from leather couches and a hunter green rug to a beige sofa and beige/cream rug. We learned quickly that the light-colored rug may have been a mistake when we hosted for New Year’s Eve and our friends’ toddler accidentally bumped a full glass of red wine over. I purposely didn’t pay a lot for this rug, though, knowing that its light color may turn out to be less than perfect for our life, since we have a dog and a lot of daily traffic goes through the living room. (Also- if you are buying furniture and have the option to get any sort of protection program, do it. That’s another thing we did since we were getting such a light-colored couch, and it meant that when I saw the red wine fly onto the 6 month old furniture, I just shrugged… We could fix it!)

The doorbell is the devil. Okay, not really. But someone showed up randomly to ask if we wanted to do some work on our driveway (um hi have you seen all the work we’ve been doing? I can’t think about the driveway right now) and I wanted to yell at him. Baby J has dogs at home, though, so he wasn’t at all phased by Sprout’s barking in reaction to the bell, but if that had made him stir too early into his nap, I would have been so annoyed. So moms, I promise never to ring your doorbells! Light knocks only 😉

A schedule is important. We have had friends quickly up and leave because they realized it was 5pm and they had a set bedtime routine for their toddler, and now I get it much more than I thought I did. Sticking to a routine is important for everyone’s sanity and helps your babysitter know what to expect. Admittedly, when my friend said that little J would sleep 45 minutes to 2 hours and we were going on 2 hours 50 minutes, I texted her to make sure I wasn’t supposed to wake him up (just to make sure it wouldn’t throw him off for the rest of the day). Overall, having a schedule made it so easy to know what to expect.

Time flies. I’ve heard that having an infant makes time fly, and I get it: You could spend all day just staring at them (especially when they’re happy) and the hours just fly by. I’m sure with a crying baby, things are a little different, but this guy was happy and made the 9 hours fly by.

Parents are basically superheroes. Probably the most important thing a parent will do in their lifetime is nurture their child and bring them up into the world. On this particular day, because I’m an auntie and not yet a mom, I was able to get up, get dressed (even if it was in athleisure wear), do my hair, walk Sprout, and make coffee before little J arrived. If I had kids of my own, I would have to do all of that while caring for another human being. And that, my friends, brings me to this final point, which is that all parents are basically superheroes because they are not able to just lounge around all day anymore (hello, Saturday) – because someone needs you. And that someone is far more important than whatever you were doing before!

Like I said, T and I are hoping to have our own little ones running around sometime soon – but until then, I am happy to be auntie to the precious kids my friends are having!

What have you learned from being an auntie or having kids of your own?