No Mother of the Year Awards Here

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This morning I was pulling Nora's onesie over her head and one of the snaps on the bottom got folded under so that it scraped along the top of her head. The onesie was already a little tight so it was a hard scrape. She started screaming immediately, of course. She was easy to calm down but now she has an angry red mark along the top of her head, and I feel like a class-A jerk.

The whole week has been like that. I stand up and knock over my water cup, spilling water everywhere. I twist the ice-cube tray and ice cubes pop out and spill all over the kitchen floor. I trip several times a day for no good reason. I bang the car seat against the inside of the car door, leaving a mark. I just can't seem to get anything right, to get it together. Geez.

How long can I blame stuff on sleep deprivation? I've been sleep deprived for 3 months now and at some point I imagine the sleep-deprivation excuse for being a dumbass is going to wear thin. Or already has.

The worst part is that I can't afford to make mistakes when taking care of babies. What if the next mistake I make results in a dropped baby? I don't want to drop a baby on his or her head and then end up with a kid who leans to the left all the time or something.

I won a national award last week and this news has just been posted to our national organization's web site, so now I'm getting all kinds of congratulatory messages from people. It's so odd to receive these career accolades while screwing up again and again both at home and at work. Some day people are going to figure out what a giant impostor I am. I just hope I can keep fooling everybody until after tenure!

It's a strange feeling to simultaneously exist as this career person who is supposed to have her shit together, and as this new mother who keeps making rookie mistakes.

Up above, Milo's cute shoes and Nora trying to sit in the bumbo seat. They are both great at holding their heads up when they're on our lap, but when they sit in the bumbo seats, they still let their heads loll back.