Mama Bearable: An Introduction

Hello there! In case you don’t know me, my name is Tess. I live in Wisconsin in a town that even a GPS has a hard time pronouncing. My husband Eric and I have been married almost 6 years, we have an 8-month-old daughter Olivia, and a pesky pupper named Piper. I’ve often been described as blunt, and brash. I don’t beat around the bush, and what you see is what you get. I’m a down to earth Tomgirl who isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty or keep up with the boys. Don’t worry, we’ll get to know each other more as time passes.

I went back and forth for quite some time with myself; should I write a blog, should I not. I asked questions like what would the purpose of it be, who would it be for, is it worth the effort, would anyone care, what would I write about, can I actually put a little piece of myself out there every time I publish.  To be honest I don’t know the answers to all of those questions, and I had to come to the realization that not having the answers is okay.

But I do know the answers to some of them!

What am I going to be writing about? Primarily my journey as a first time mom, the adjustments, and challenges I went through, as well as a few of the joys. Right now a lot of the challenges win out over the joys, but I’ll get into more of that in later posts.

Who is the blog for? I could go with the stereotypical, “my blog is for everyone”, but that wouldn’t be entirely true. The first person I want this blog to be for is me, selfish I know! There are many things I didn’t get a chance to process through while in the heat of the moment and my hope is by putting those experiences into words I’ll be able to more fully process, mourn the things that need mourning, laugh, cry, well you get the point. Secondly I hope this blog reaches moms on some level, motherhood is hard, and it can be isolating and intimidating… It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done!

Why write a blog? As I’ve already stated I hope this blog helps me process events and emotions that need processing. But my second and potentially more pressing need I want to address focuses in on the idea of transparency. There were a lot of things as a first time mom (FTM) that I had no idea about, I felt like I was making it up as I was going along (I still feel that way). It felt shameful to ask questions, that somehow once I had my daughter the mothering instinct would take over and I would suddenly understand how to be a mom. That couldn’t be further from the truth, for me at least. I want to help other moms feel like it’s ok to talk about the mess-ups, the hiccups, the things we didn’t do “just right”, to remove the stigma from having it all together, from being the “perfect mom”. Let’s take back the narrative! Be honest about the struggles we face! And be healthier, grounded, and more centered people as a result!

A few things to note should you choose to journey with me through this:

1)   I am not, and have never been a particularly good writer. I failed 7^th grade grammar! So there will be typos, misplaced commas, improper tenses, all that jazz. But I wouldn’t care about it if it was a journal entry, and I’m not going to care about it here.

2)   I’m not going to be putting that many pictures in my blog. That’s not the purpose of it. Also my husband and I don’t post on social media daily pictures of our daughter, for her sake as well as our own sanity.

3)   Ask me anything! I will try to answer it honestly, and it might even write a post about it!

4)   I’m not an expert, and I won’t pretend to be! I’m just a FTM who is trying to figure things out as she goes.

5)   I am a Christian, it’s the focus of my life, and has been a huge part of my journey as a mom, and as a human. So those themes will run through the words of this blog.   

6)   There are lots of different parenting styles; I’ll be sharing about mine. I don’t judge how other people parent, as long as your kids are taken care of!

7)   I have no idea with what consistency or lack thereof I will write. It took me 8 months to finally write something, but I hope to do a post at least once a month!

So why the name “Mama Bearable”? I am the type of person that protects my people ferociously, even before I had my daughter people would refer to me as Mama Bear. I would do anything for the people that I love and care about. The process of becoming a biological mother to Olivia was a struggle, and I struggled hard… At some points it seemed unbearable. That’s all you can do sometimes, is bear the burden, whatever it is, and somehow find it bearable. I hope that the name serves to illustrate a little bit about me, my personality, as well as hint at what my journey as a mom has been like thus far. We’ll dive into more of the specifics on my journey as we walk together.

So there you have it, a little bit of an introduction. I hope you’ll come along with me on this journey, I hope we will learn together and from each other.