My First Day Alone with Taiye

Well as many of you know by now, my husband and I have a beautiful baby girl! She is soooo cute if I must say so myself. Being a Mom is a new experience for me. My husband brought me all the books to help me get ready i.e. "What to expect when you're expecting", "The Pregnancy Journal" and "What to expect the first year". Of course I consulted all my Mom friends (April, Tonka, Jana, Lauren) to make sure I was fully prepared, but as they have told me over again, you're never fully prepared for Motherhood! So of course, I call in for reinforcement.My great Aunt Fedelma! Aunt Fedelma is our family matriarch. She is my paternal grandmother's sister who lives in Ohio. She's 84 years old but don't think her age dictates her livelihood. She has a full schedule. Aunt Fedelma goes to line dancing classes, aerobics, monthly bridge club meetings, vacations including cruises to Alaska and Panama. Wale and I were lucky to get her here to Jersey for the first week Taiye was home and let me tell you having her here was absolutely FABULOUS! Aunt Fedelma helped me to get acclimated to being a mother. She showed me how to effectively manage my time (something which I am very good at with IBM and Pooka but takes on a different spectrum with the role of mother). For example, Aunt Fedelma showed me how to take advantage of the little time I have i.e. when Taiye sleeps, I should sleep in order to get my rest and maintain my energy. She also taught me how after a feeding, burp her and put her down. Don't let her sleep to long in your arms or else when you try to put her down she will start crying. Take advantage of short pockets of time to get things done i.e. take a shower during her morning naps. This one I struggled with because I like taking long hot showers but as Aunt Fedelma says, "you are going to have to cut down on your shower time so you can get other things done." Having Aunt Fedelma here during the first week was wonderful, but now she's gone back to her life in Cleveland and it's just me and Taiye...the anxiety has already begun! Taiye woke up screaming bloody murder the day before Aunt Fedelma left as if she knew Aunt Fedelma was leaving. What am I going to do without Aunt Fedelma? How will I manage? I never realized how important it is having someone you trust to help you with a newborn. I'm not sure how Taiye and I are going to manage, but we will find a way! So begins, my first day alone with Taiye.