Welcome to Olive Juice- basically where I’ll be sharing my adventures about being a new mom. Or the truth. I promise not to sugar coat anything- which will be hard because I like sugar a lot. Especially refined sugar. I named it Olive juice cuz Dane and me used to say “Olive juice” instead of I love you, because if you mouth the words it looks like you’re saying “I love you.” Also, because my daughter’s name is Olive:)  Anyways, don’t go getting your panties in a knot because of the title. Let’s face it, you probably sucked at being a mom at some point in your life. Olive is only 7 weeks old and I already sucked as a mom a bunch of times, so for over the next 18 years…. imagine how many more times I’m gonna suck? A lot. So ready for story time and how I suck at being a mom? OK.

1). I dropped nail clippers on Olive’s forehead. No joke, she was barely a week old. I was trying to cut  her fingernails because she kept scratching her face, and cutting a newborn’s fingernails alone is one of the most stressful things I’ve done. (I know, I’ve had a pretty stress free life. Sue me). Anyways, here I am, saggy boobed, greasy hair and no makeup Claudia, just finished breast feeding, so Olive is in milk drunk heaven, all dozy. Perfect time to give her a manicure. So I cut one finger nail with beads of sweat on my already greasy face, and maybe it’s the lack of sleep, or maybe it’s the nail clippers that were slippery, or maybe it’s the fact that I’m the biggest klutz around. But I dropped metal nail clippers on a week old baby’s forehead. And from like from neck level when she was boob level. So that’s high up for a baby:( She screamed and went into that cry where no noise comes out and she can’t breath, you know, the fun kind that makes you feel really good about yourself. “What happened? Is everything OK?” “Uhhh… ya. She’s just trying to get a turd out or something. Must be a big one!” Fail whale mom exhibit 1. Sorry Olive, mommy’s sorry she dropped something on your head. And also that I lied and said you were probably constipated or something. We both know that wasn’t true based on your poop explosion prior.

2). I was starving her. Have you heard of cluster feeding? Ya, me either. Basically it’s this really awesome thing that babies do when going through a growth spurt. They basically wanna be attached to your boob 24/7. They don’t let you go pee, have a shower, eat… you’re basically their milk slave. Lucky for me, Olive decided cluster feeding wasn’t just for growth spurts. She came out and was like “Ha! Wouldn’t it be like, so totally funny if I was cluster feeding baby ALL the time? Let’s do that and see how long it takes for this lady to go crazy.” Not very long, ps. Anyways, it was a Monday night. She was feeding, feeding, feeding, and I finally said enough. I put the boobs away, she was starting to get sleepy anyways. WRONG. She was just getting started. But lucky me, I was empty. Like there was nothing coming out. Nada, Niente, capish? Nuh-thing. I tried self expressing. I tried pumping. I tried massaging. I chugged water. I ate lactation cookies. Milk gods were not smiling on me this night. Oh, and by the way, I live in the sticks. Forty-five minutes from Stony Plain, the nearest city. So at like 11:30, after 30 mins of her screaming, and I’m not lying, SCREAMING, Dane was like “let’s go, we’re going to buy formula.” AH, formula. The dreaded word. So we put our screaming, starving child in her car seat, and we drive to Stony Plain and found a 24 hour supermarket. I run in and buy formula, and we drive back. It’s 1:30 in the morning and neither of us are really saying much. We’re exhausted. We get home and she chugs 5 oz without coming up for air. And then I ball my eyes out. Like literally. Haha, just kidding, I still have my eyes! But in all seriousness, that was hard for me. I felt like a failure, like I couldn’t provide my baby with what she needed. And the fact that she was so hungry made me sad. She’s a chunk butt. (“Oh wow, she’s a solid newborn!” Yes, my child is getting fat. but thanks for using the word solid instead of fat:) She slept for four hours that night, which was the longest she had up to that point. Fail whale mom exhibit 2. Sorry Olive, for starving you. Maybe you shouldn’t be such a fat lard like Tina. Just kidding, I love you. We can be fat lards like Tina together.

3). I almost had to have her leg amputated. Slight exaggeration? Maybe. But it still felt like that. I’m sure all of you have seen those baby slings. They’re all over instagram. Anyways, I found this one company and their instagram is quite pretty. All these hot moms with perfect looking children in their slings. There was one particular picture of a blogger mom who I also follow. She’s on the beach at sunset, with her adorbs two year old on her back, and cutie patootie six month old in a sling. She has the most perfect, whitest teeth, and she’s legit wearing cat eye chanel sunglasses (I made the chanel part up- I don’t know what brand they are, they look fancy though). Very glamorous. So I’m looking at this picture, and thinking ” I want to be a glamorous mom. I want to have cat eye shaped chanel sunglasses, and have the whitest most perfect teeth.” But because I have a fat shaped face, I can’t wear cat eye sunglasses. And because I can’t afford veneers, I don’t have the whitest most perfect teeth. But I can have a sling! So that’s close enough. Dane’s aunt buys me one as a gift and I’m pumped. It’s so pretty, and I feel like a glamorous, fat shaped face mom with far from perfect teeth. So I finally decide to use it last week. It’s kinda tricky, but I shove her in there. I look in the mirror. Definitely won’t be featured on their instagram anytime soon, but whatever. She’s in there for about an hour and half, and when I take her out…. Oh man. She starts screaming bloody murder. A painful cry, I know she’s in pain and I can’t figure out why. Then I see her leg. It’s literally almost double in size and her tiny foot is so swollen and purple. I had been cutting off her circulation for an hour and a half. Yup, that’s me! Mom of the year. I start to panic because she won’t stop screaming and I can’t believe how swollen her leg and foot are. So I text Dane and tell him to come and he does. He stays a lot more calm than I do, but I can tell he’s kinda weirded out too. Eventually, the swelling goes down and she calms down. Her leg did not have to be amputated. I am not the hot blogger mom. I’m a mom, ya. I have a blog, ya. I’m hot, ya. But not the hot you wanna be. I’m hot tempered, and I’m always hot now because I sweat more, lol. So I suppose I am a hot blogger mom!

To the moms out there, to the new moms, to the almost moms… we got this. Sometime we BARELY “got” this, but at the end of the day- Olive didn’t get a bruise from nail clippers falling on her head, and she didn’t starve, and she didn’t have her leg amputated. So it’s a successful day when you can avoid those things. I will never be the  mom that has it together. Nor will I pretend to be. I will never be the mom on the beach at sunset with chanel sunglasses and perfect teeth. I’m slowly realizing that I’m almost OK with that.

I’m Claudia, I have purple stretch marks on my jiggly stomach (I’m working on it!) I still have no clue what I’m doing, and I LITERALLY fell down a flight of stairs on Thursday morning, top stair alllllll the way to the floor. I’m Claudia, I couldn’t sit on the toilet normally all last week from ONE workout that I did with Dane, and bless his little heart, but if he ever does triple the amount of lunges than me next time we workout together, I WILL hit him. I’m Claudia, I put my cell phone in the fridge last week and couldn’t find it, and I ate way too  much ice cream yesterday. I’m Claudia, I crave McDOnalds and drink way too much coke. I’m Claudia, and I’m Olive Rose’s mom, and she loves me with all her stomach, mostly because I’m the only one whose got the goods;) You survive. You do what you need to do to survive and get those two hours of sleep. I’m reminded almost daily by my ever so patient, darling, handsome husband (Dane, just a heads up- I might be going to Calgary next week to go to the mall, hence the adjectives), that I’m doing fine. And I think what he mostly means is “Claud, Olive is still alive- that’s awesome!” But I still have my moments where I’ve thrown her soother across the bed, I’ve yelled “Shut up” to her, and I’ve held her while she cried… all the while I cried too. That’s being a mom. I love Olive, but here’s a dirty little secret- I also loved being Claudia, without Olive.

So cheers to finding out what it means to being Claudia with the cutest little chunk butt named Olive Rose as my side kick. I look forward to the day where your eyes search for me, your mama in a crowd of people darling girl. I look forward to the day where you run into my arms and know that I would do anything to protect you, and have you know that. I look forward to the day sweet girl, that you are able to understand that my life has been turned upside down because of you, but you’ve made it all worth it. All the tears and sleepless nights, all the panic attacks, and all the confusion you’ve brought with you… I know they’ll be something I look back on and I will whisper in your ear, “you were worth it little Olive, you were worth it all.”