While Aubrey splashed around in the bath, I realized that for the first time in a long time, I actually felt good about myself. I didn’t feel like a failure. I felt like a normal mom and was actually enjoying the days, not just getting through them.
As I watched Aubrey’s chubby hands slap the water, I made a decision. I had to fight for my friends. I was not going to let them slip away from me. Whatever it took, I was willing to do it. Maybe, just maybe, I could prove that, even though I’m not exactly who they thought I was, I was still a really good person and fun to be around.
David put Aubrey to bed so I had a few minutes to write my wrap-up for the Mama Village Challenge.
Hi everyone. This week was incredible. I’m proud to say that I made a group of great friends! I’m loving getting to know each of them personally and feel like they’re really starting to get to know me.
Xo, Ashley
Friday, February 22, 1:30 P.M.
Aubrey just went down for her nap. I had the most incredible morning with the La Lait moms.
I arrived at the meeting at 9:45 a.m., fifteen minutes before it officially began, and helped Lola set up. Aubrey was snug as a bug in a rug in a baby carrier Nina lent me the day before.
“You’re really quiet today,” Lola said.
“Oh, I’m just thinking,” I responded, setting up the coffee and cookies.
“Thinking about what?” Lola had stopped working to breastfeed Donovan on the carpet. She patted the area on the carpet next to her. I took a seat.
“I’m just really happy. I never thought I’d have friends like this again after having Aubrey,” I said, stroking the top of Aubrey’s head as she lay contentedly against me.
Lola smiled warmly. “You’ve got a tribe now. No mom should be alone in raising children.” I looked at Donovan, who was nursing quietly. His face was hidden in the folds of Lola’s multicolored wrap, but his fist was wrapped around one of her long strands of crimson hair.
As we sat there together, in the silence of the community center, I felt something I hadn’t felt for a long time. Peace. I realized that it wasn’t a lack of crafts, my terrible cooking skills, my crushing sleep deprivation, or even David being gone so much that had made motherhood so hard for me. It was not having this. Real friendship.
Aubrey began fussing.
Lola peered over at her. “Someone wants a snack,” she said, eyeing me from the side.
“Oh, yeah,” I said, fumbling. I pulled out my phone. “My husband just called me. I’ll be right back.”
As I ran out of the room to feed Aubrey in my car, I knew I’d have to find a way to make this work.
Sunday, February 24, 3 P.M.
When I was a mom of only one, I designed my home after the Montague residence in Romeo and Juliet. Since then, my design taste has changed, but my commitment to making my home a place of beauty, organization and relaxation has not wavered. You’ll never see piles of laundry in my family room or toys strewn about, not because I have live-in help, but because I believe your home should be a place you are proud to call yours.
—Emily Walker, Motherhood Better
Only eighteen hours until the next bootcamp video chat. And I could barely contain my excitement, as it was going to tackle something I have tried, and failed, to get under control: my home.
Before Aubrey was born, David and I lived in a tiny one-bedroom condo that could be cleaned from top to bottom in under an hour, probably because we didn’t own that much stuff. We had a set of dishes for four people. There were no baby spoons, baby forks, bottles, baby plates, baby bowls, or sippy cups with lids and weird plastic tubey parts I didn’t understand practically bursting out of the kitchen cupboards.
Everything was minimalist, which I loved. There was no item that didn’t have a place. Magazines went on the rack beside the couch. Shoes were all lined up in the entryway closet. My bags hung neatly in the bedroom wardrobe.
Now? Aubrey’s five pairs of shoes are strewn in a messy pile in front of the door. My diaper bag is lying on its side like a drunken college student in the entryway with a trail of individual infant socks, an empty package of travel wipes and two canisters of sweet-potato-flavored puffs falling out of it. We traded our gorgeous small circular throw rug and slate coffee table for a huge, interlocking, brightly colored foam mat—the kind I said I would NEVER have in my home. All it took was imagining Aubrey hitting her head on a hard edge or the hard floor for all of our beautiful things to go on Craigslist.
When we got married, I said everything in our home would be charcoal and cream. That was our official color scheme. I rubbed a bare foot along the hard plastic of the foam mat. Green, blue, yellow, and red. Primary colors. That’s my color scheme now.
Plopping myself on the floor beside Aubrey, I had to admit that our flooring was pretty comfortable. It was like living inside of a children’s play center, except with less stomach flu. Aubrey noticed me beside her and took the opportunity to attack my head. In three seconds my hair was damp with drool.
I pried her baby orangutan arms off my head and rolled her onto her tummy. She giggled gleefully as I blew raspberries into her back.
Within a few seconds, Aubrey’s laughter dissolved into fussy yelps as she tried to flip onto her back.
“You need tummy time, Aubrey! How are you going to learn to crawl?” I crooned while placing her back on her front.
She screamed at me and waved her arms pathetically, like a beached baby sea lion, before pushing herself onto her back again.
“How can a baby have such a strong will?” I asked her, hoping the self-satisfied glint in her eye was just a figment of my imagination and not a glimpse into her future stubbornness.
Joy posts videos of crawling Ella almost every day now. I’m sure her friends must love the five-minute-long montages of my niece set to classical music.
“Has Aubrey started crawling yet?” she asked me the last time we spoke.
“Not yet, but she sits up and is rocking. She will any day now.” I tried to sound confident.
“Don’t worry. Some kids are just late bloomers. Maybe if you cleaned up your living room a little you’d have more space for her to move around,” was my sister’s response.
Double whammy. Note to self: Mail Joy an envelope full of glitter.
She’s not all wrong, though. Currently, there are four full baskets of clean(ish) laundry, an exersaucer, a bouncy chair, four throw pillows and a ton of other miscellaneous goods on my living room floor.
I checked my phone’s clock.
Only 17.5 more hours until I learn how to finally be someone who is proud of her home.
Monday, February 25, 10:30 A.M.
My interior designer and I worked together to give each room in my home a personality of its own. You spend 85 percent of your life within the walls of your house; you should love every square inch of it.
—Emily Walker, Motherhood Better