Guest Blogger - Steph

Author: Steph
Current Occupation: Mom to lovely Amelia. You can find her blogging about her and her husband Dev's experiences with Amelia here. (By the way Amelia was one of the babies I had you sending your good thoughts to and she is officially cancer free and healthy as can be!)
Connection to the Trousdells: Longtime friend of Jordan's; new friend of Tracey's and big supporter of the T5 blog.

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When Tracey asked me to do a guest blog stint for the Trousdell Five I immediately thought, “oh, how exciting! An assignment, I can use my brain!” These are the thoughts of the corporate turned mommy. Or at least it was my initial thought. And then I really thought about that thought. Being a mom to a beautiful and vivacious six month old tests my brain without end – and not the same way that my career does. I am constantly giving thought to her development, her health and wellbeing all the while learning things I never thought I’d need to know – like how to breastfeed, how to function without more than four hours sleep since she was born, how to change a diaper on a baby so active it’s like trying to tie a ribbon around a greased pig. 

In my “old” life stress was not knowing what my clients needs were or how I could provide the best experience for them – something I excelled at, providing excellent service. Now stress is when Amelia is sick or teething and I can’t quite excel at mothering like I did in my career because the rules and the environment change every day. That’s what I used to think, that I would never “win” at parenting, I’d never have proof that I was doing a good job. No gold star, no A+, no performance review, no scale to rate myself and my efforts against. I always knew I liked that “stuff”, I just never really knew how much I let it define me and how I felt about myself until now. I’ve started to shed the pressure that I put on myself to do it all, have it all, be THE BEST at this job, this career, this life, this role as Amelia’s mom.  Now I’ve slowly started to embrace the beauty that is a day that is never like the one previous or the one to follow, to enjoy the mystery of what will happen and to really enjoy the not knowing, using my brain in a whole different way than ever before, enjoying the present with my precious wee family and my most challenging and fulfilling role yet. Mom.
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Oooh, loving the guest blogger, thanks for sharing your perspective on motherhood Steph!! And thanks for sharing Miss Amelia with us!

Amelia, soon to be stealing the hearts of A and N