Type A

I wouldn't say I'm an anxious person, but other people might say I'm an anxious person.  Unfortunately, having given birth and now being responsible for another human has not helped my anxiety decrease.  I know that all moms worry, but I think my worrying is starting to get bad.

Example things I have worried/continue to worry about (and this isn't the whole list):

1. The baby is too hot at night (SIDS risk)
2. The baby is too cold at night (having a cold baby risk)
3. The baby is not getting enough food/I am not producing enough milk/I am drying up
4. The baby is not burping enough
5. The baby's head will be flat and she will have to wear one of those baby helmets
6.  She will suffocate in the night on:
-Her swaddle/wearable blanket (which is specifically designed NOT to suffocate babies)
-The mesh bumpers we have on the bassinet (which are specifically designed to be breathable as to NOT suffocate the baby)
-Boogers in her nose
-The air

7.  She will slip while I'm bathing her
8.  I will fall going up or down the stairs with her
9.  I won't sterilize her pacifiers/the pump parts/her bottles/everything well enough and she will get a disease and die
10.  Someone will sneeze on her and she will get a disease and die
11.  The dogs will lick her and she will get a disease and die
12.   I will die/Brad will die/she will die/anyone I know will die
13.  She will scratch herself with her razor sharp little finger nails that no matter how hard I try to keep trimmed grow back in literally one minute like magic baby claws.  Damn it!
14.  She will grow up to be a Republican

My mom once told me that she has a theory that there are Type A Moms and Type B Moms, and that she was always a Type A.  I thought "Oh, I'm for sure going to be a Type B Mom.  I'm just going to be chill and calm all the time."  I don't know why I thought this because I'm a Type A person and need spreadsheets for the vast majority of things that I do, but I thought it.

Turns out, if you're a Type A person you'll probably be a Type A Mom.  

Sometimes I wish I could be more like some of the Type B moms I know.  They are so much more relaxed, and their babies are perfectly happy and healthy.  I once watched as a Type B Baby played with the Type B Mom's car keys- her actual sharp, dirty car keys- for literally 45 minutes.  It wasn't like the mom was ignoring the baby, she jingled the car keys and interacted with the baby, but her baby was playing with car keys.  I was crawling out of my skin, but both the mom and the baby were perfectly happy.  

I think there's a big lesson in that: kids are tougher than we think, and they are okay 99.9% of the time, and worrying won't help either the mom or the baby.  And I should relax.

BUT what about the 00.1% of the time that the mom should have worried and didn't?  That's when disaster strikes.

That is why I must buy the mesh bumpers and secure them to the crib as tightly as possible.  That is why I must double check the bath water temperature before I place my baby in her whale shaped baby bath tub that got very good Amazon reviews for safety.  That is why I will go into her room three times before I go to bed to make sure it's not too hot and not too cold.  Because I am a Type A Mom, and these are things I can control.

I cling to them because soon, very soon, she will be crawling, then walking, then going out on dates with that loser kid, Chad, who clearly has no ambition (because she's having to borrow my car because he can't be bothered to take the class to get a license), and he's wearing way too much body spray, and I can't tell her how much I hate him because then she'll just want to date him more so I'll have to let them go out on their date, but by God she better be home by 10:30, and that's not 10:31, Ma'am.

That is why I will remain vigilant, knowing I will never again have the ability to relax- especially if she has my car keys.