they sky today, Canon Digital Rebel XTi

I just finished an interview over at Jen Lemen’s site (will be posted soon) and I am still thinking about one of the questions. She asked about what surprised me most about becoming a parent. One thing that I didn’t mention in the interview but has been a theme these days is how utterly incompetent I feel most of the time. I didn’t know to expect that…

It started out during the baby blues time… the textbook case of ANYONE can do this mom thing better than I can. I would cry and cry and hand Ben to Matt and say, “Here! You hold him! I don’t even know how to hold him!” I fantasized about sending him back to the hospital until he was bigger and stronger and wasn’t so scary to take care of. This feeling of course was increasingly exacerbated by latch problems while nursing. (He wasn’t gaining weight) For months I felt like a complete and total failure.

I have a new case of incompetency lately. Things were going alright until recently. Yesterday I fantasized about going back to work more hours so that the babysitter can take over. She is clearly better at this than I am.

Is this a feeling that every mom has? I have never dedicated myself to something so completely that I feel so incompetent at…