After a six week leave I am sending out my hello to everyone who reads my column in Chilton County. For those of you that didn’t know, I am now the proud mother of a bouncing baby boy, Cole McCartney. I have always made fun of that phrase “bouncing baby boy,” that is until I had one. The saying really is true since all he does is bounce off of whatever is under his feet at the moment.

I have been around babies all of my life. My mother even once made fun of me for being a little mother to my younger sister back when I was around 10 years old. I never added up the extra tasks that it takes to take care of a child of your own until I had to get everything done and take care of the baby.

Everyone always says that it is hard to take care a child. From my experience, they are not all wrong, but I don’t think they are all right either. It seems to be true taking care of a child is nerve racking, but that isn’t really the hard part. The hardest thing is doing all of the housework and going to your job while taking care of a child.

After a few days, things seem to tone down so you can get into a routine again, but the sleep deprivation and skipping meals to cut off some time in the busy day starts to add up. That’s when it starts to get hard taking care of a baby. I was blessed with a child that sleeps well for his age. He turned one month old yesterday and has been sleeping at least five to six hours at night since the second week of being home from the hospital. That has made things easier on me as a mother. However, I can feel the pain that some parents go through on nights when he is sick and will either not sleep at all or is up every hour or two.

Being a mother is one of the best things that I could have ever asked for even if it means me changing my sleep schedule and having to get chores done at night before I go to bed. I would have to say that I have never been happier than I am now with my husband by my side and our new son.

Thank you to everyone who has called and checked on us and I am now back at work and back in the game for anyone who needed to contact me while I was away.