The Stress and Joy of Being a Young Mom

So this is my first hub page and I'm really excited to get started. Let me start of by telling you a little about myself. My name is Alyssa Rutherford, and I am a 20 year old mother to a beautiful 1 year old baby girl, Jayla Jaziel. It's been a bumpy first year, but what didn't kill me only made me 10 times stronger. I hope to share my journey with you. From the pregnancy, to the delivery, to the post-partum depression and how I conquored it. It's been a roller-coaster ride of emotions, but I got through it and I hope my story can help someone get through all the stress so they can enjoy all of the greatness of being a mom.

Jayla is absolutley the center of my world. She's a handful but I wouldn't change a thing about her. I belileve she is very advanced for her age. Her vocabulary gets bigger and bigger everyday. Some of the things she says are, Hi and Bye, Mom, Daddy, Pop-Pop, baba, Dora (which is her favorite cartoon character), ball, thank you, ut-oh, and her favorite thing to say is "What's that?". I can't get over how adorable and smart she is. Everytime she hears music she gets so happy and starts dancing around (she has her very own, unique dance moves). I couldn't ask for a better baby. As cute as she is, she also has a fiesty side. Which brings me to this weekend.

So this past weekend I took Jayla to the Sunburst USA, Future Star Event, a natural beauty pagaent for ages 0-27. When I was little, my mom took me to a pageant and I won the title of Little Miss America 1994(5?), so it was only natural that I took my little girl to this Event. Jayla has such a great bubbly personality, I thought for sure she would take the crown. Boy was I wrong.

The pagaent was scheduled for 12:15, which happens to be Jayla's nap time, so I figured she would fall asleep on the way there and would be awake and happy by the time we arrived. Well, it didn't work out that way. When we got there, my boyfriend, Julio (Jayla's Father) and I walked around and checked out the competition. All the babies were beautiful of course, but they didn't seem to show as much personality as Jayla, so we were sure Jayla would win. It was almost time to get on stage, so I took Jayla out of her stroller and held her hands as she walked around. Big Mistake! She didn't get her nap so she turned into "Miss Diva". All she wanted to do was walk walk walk, so when we got on stage with all the other babies she was squirmey and loud, just wanting to get down and walk. She threw her toy off stage and screamed until I put her down and walked with her. I was so embarressed. All the other babies were quiet and calm while "Miss Diva" had a tantrum. To add flame to the fire we had to go up again, this time individually. She walked onto the stage holding my hands(she can't walk on her own just yet) while we were told to stay in the middle. For the 5 seconds we were on stage I felt like a horrible mother, not to mention I was the youngest mother there. My daughter was the only baby throwing a fit when usually she is a such a happy baby. It's all over with now, and all I can do is look back and laugh. Moral of the story, you never know what to expect with a 1 year old. Don't put your baby on stage in front of hundreds of people without a nap first. She will show her Diva side. =)

http://hubpages.com/_3bavah1cjrv64/hub/FAll-bABy-StEPS

http://hubpages.com/_3bavah1cjrv64/hub/dealing-with-baby-blues