One Day You'll Thank Me

by Cameran Eubanks Wimberly

  One side benefit to Palmer figuring out she could walk was that I finally lost the rest of my baby weight. When the nurse helped me use the bathroom just hours after giving birth to Palmer, I looked down at my stomach for the first time. It was mush. Pure mush that made me still look six months pregnant. (I also felt like my insides were going to fall out on the floor, but that’s another story.) I immediately lost about fifteen of the thirty-five pounds I’d gained, but that was all baby and water/fluid. The remaining twenty pounds kind of stayed put. I had heard that breastfeeding burns calories, but in my case I think my body hung on to a lot of the weight while I was breastfeeding because it needed it. Truthfully, though, I was so consumed with being a new mom that I really did not have time to worry about my body. I mean, it’s not like I was trying to impress anybody. Granted, I gave birth to Palmer in the middle of filming, so yeah, that was a little stressful. But I knew Jason loved me and that was all that mattered, not how well castmates and viewers thought I was rebounding. That said, the summer after I had Palmer, when she was about eight months old, I did not wear a single pair of shorts because I hated the way my legs looked. I think the two hundred Philly cheesesteaks I ate while pregnant contributed to new cellulite that even covered my knees.

  After about a year and a half, the weight finally went away on its own, uncoincidentally after Palmer started walking. That’s when I never sat down. She quickly learned that walking was boring, and she could get places quicker if she ran. Before I had a child, I remember thinking to myself, What do stay-at-home moms do all day? I want to sincerely apologize to my stay-at-home sisters, because now I know exactly what you do: you’re constantly chasing your toddler. You legit learn how to hold your pee and eat on the go while you follow them around the house. This is why women are so inherently good at multitasking! You can’t get through parenthood any other way.

  Besides chasing Palmer, I did not do anything special to lose weight. I did not diet, but I did try to walk every day, which I think helped. When I became pregnant, I was already doing weight training with a personal trainer three days a week, and I continued until I was about four months along. I think this helped my body bounce back fairly quickly… especially my stomach. Thank God the female body is amazing and very resilient! So post-pregnancy I did about ten minutes of exercises a day in my bedroom to try to replace the cellulite with muscle. I would do body-weight squats at first (nothing crazy—maybe four sets of ten). Once I got a little stronger, I would hold a fifteen-pound weight while doing them. I also did bicep curls and overhead presses with fifteen-pound arm weights to try to get strength and tone back in my arms. When I remembered, I’d hold a plank, since I knew this was good for your stomach post-pregnancy. I’ve always liked working with weights because I think you see results the quickest and my body responds well to them. My main goal was gaining my strength back. When I feel strong, I feel GOOD.

  During Palmer’s first year of life, one of my biggest hurdles was simply “What in the heck do we do all day?” I was fortunate to be in a position to be at home with her 24/7, but filling our days was a challenge, and a lot of the time a little boring. Yes, I said it. I know a lot of women don’t want to admit this, but I’m fine with telling it like it is. Let’s be real: babies aren’t great conversationalists and they are constantly the center of attention, whether you like it or not. When I was pregnant, I told myself that my child would have no screen time until she was two years old. Absolutely no television! As her mother, I will find ways to enrich and fill her little mind on a consistent basis, I thought. HAHAHAHA. Yeah, that was short-lived. I let Palmer watch her first TV show as soon as she could sit up, around six months old. Granted, it was Sesame Street, not Keeping Up with the Kardashians. She watched wide-eyed with wonder while I happily vacuumed the kitchen. It was great. I would be lying if I told you I only let Palmer watch TV occasionally. From the first time she laid eyes on Elmo and Cookie Monster, she more than likely watched TV at least once a day. And guess what? It’s fine. Not just fine, but a form of education. (Except when she was sitting with me watching Maury.) I’m convinced Palmer learned to count to twenty by twos from watching Peppa Pig. You can accuse me of rationalizing her screen time all you want, but this girl can count!

  That first year, I also made it a goal to leave the house at least once a day. Getting showered, dressed and ready really helped my mental health. It gave me a focus and made me feel a bit more human and like my old self. We went on lots of stroller walks and on visits to the aquarium, to gardens and to her grandparents’ homes. On the days that we didn’t leave the house, I had “stations” set up that I would rotate. This included a couple of different play mats with a variety of toys, a piano she could kick, a bouncy chair and an outdoor swing. Other times, we read lots of books. I also made it my mission for Palmer not to get a flat head. Sometimes this can happen if babies are left on their backs for too long, so I was determined to keep her on the move… and she owes her perfectly shaped head to her mama. It was part of the reason I was so tired that first year.

  Another element of the first year was the newborn pacifier. OH, THE PACI. When she was six months old, I told myself that we would only use the paci until her first birthday. Um… then she turned one and I said she would use it until she turned two. Well, here we are at three years old and she still has the paci. I know, I know. I get lots of comments about it when I post pictures of Palmer with a pacifier on social media, but I have to ignore them. (What part of #NoPaciCommentsPlease do people not understand? And why are they getting their britches in a wad over MY kid’s paci habit?) We don’t use it as much as we did in the past, but it is definitely still a comfort item and I just haven’t had it in my heart to take it away totally. It’s my fault, but if she still has the paci at four years old, Lord help me. At least I know I’ll take it away by the time she gets braces.

  For a long time I thought my PMS had gotten so much worse after I had Palmer, and I asked friends if they felt the same way. But now I realize it’s got nothing to do with that time of the month. It’s simply that I’m a mother and my patience is worn thin. Cramps and a headache just seem worse when you are tired and have been chasing a toddler all day. You can’t really crawl into bed and binge Netflix like you could pre-pregnancy when you knew your period was about to come. Why? Because once you have a child, your life is not all about you, you, you anymore. And though I’d love to binge on Netflix, I wouldn’t trade the exhausting, what-the-heck-am-I-doing life with Palmer for anything.

  One thing I would trade is the sickness we both experienced the first year. I have always bragged about my immune system. I’ve only had the flu once and never get colds. Before I had Palmer, I couldn’t tell you the last time I threw up. Well… enter day care. When she was six months old, Palmer went to a Mother’s Morning Out program from 9 A.M. to noon twice a week. Once your child starts preschool or day care, the illnesses begin. Despite the amazing socialization and educational aspects of these places, they are germ factories and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it. When your child gets sick, it’s likely you will follow suit. Good times. I’ll never forget the first time Palmer got sick. File this under The Things They Don’t Warn You About. In the middle of the night, I heard a strange noise on the monitor. I woke up immediately and when I looked at the screen, I saw Palmer sitting straight up in her crib. When I got to her room and turned on the light, I saw it. The puke. Lots of it. All over the baby. All over the sheets. All over the crib. The most pitiful sight was poor P, sitting there trembling and confused as to why her body had regurgitated everything from the day before. It was 2 A.M. Jason had to be up at 5:30 A.M. for work, so I didn’t want to wake him. I lifted Palmer out of her crib, stripped her down and put her immediately into the tub. Have you ever smelled baby puke? It’s PUTRID. I was gagging. She was gagging. We were in this ordeal together. Once she was clean (after puking again in the bathtub) and redressed, I then started on the crib. You can’t just put a puke-filled sheet in the wa
shing machine. You have to get the chunks of throw-up off it beforehand. So sorry if this is TMI. But at least you can see why I started gagging again. Once I took the sheet off, I realized the puke had soaked through to the mattress, too. What the f***? How do I clean the damn mattress? And it was 3 A.M. Mamas, if you are currently pregnant, put a mattress protector on your registry NOW. You’ll thank me later. I put a towel down on the mattress and a fresh sheet on top of it so I could put Palmer back to bed. Needless to say, she wasn’t down for long before round two of puking commenced. (Counting the bath, I guess it was round three.)

  The following day, once the puke was all out of her system, I took the mattress to the dump. There was zero chance I could get the awful smell out of it. I went to Target and bought a new mattress and two waterproof mattress protectors. When I got home I put on one protector, put a sheet on top of that and then another mattress protector on top of that and another sheet on top of that. If this fiasco ever happened again, I was armed. I was ready.

  The second sickness to hit us was hand, foot and mouth disease. It sounds medieval, right? Hand, foot and mouth is like this generation’s chickenpox… but worse. The child basically breaks out in these awful sores that ooze and then scab over. And they are all over—you guessed it—their hands, feet and mouth. It’s accompanied by a high temperature that makes them miserable. It’s also VERY contagious. The doctor assured me it was extremely rare for adults to get it, so I shouldn’t worry. Well, I guess I was one of the lucky ones. When it hit me a week later, I literally thought I was dying. (So much for that immune system I used to boast about!) I couldn’t walk without being in terrible pain from the sores on my feet. And I couldn’t hold a fork because of the sores on my hands. I was bed-bound. I was pitiful. I was dramatic. I looked at Jason at one point and said, “That’s it. I’m taking her out of her Mother’s Morning Out program!” Another side effect of hand, foot and mouth is that once you are recovered, your fingernails and toenails can fall off. This happened to me, too. Oh, the joys of motherhood!

  One thing that really helped me that first year was meditation: the practice of becoming still and calm and clearing the mind of all active thoughts. It is the one tool I have in my arsenal besides sleep that seems to always help alleviate anxiety and stress. Of course, knowing HOW to meditate and actually doing it are two different things; you have to be disciplined. When I was growing up, my mother always meditated. This was something that was not commonplace in Anderson, South Carolina, but my mom was a bit of an outlier in our small town. She would go in her room, close the door and put a sign on it that said “Do Not Disturb, I’m Meditating.” As I grew older, I was more and more intrigued about what she was actually doing and eventually read a lot about meditation and started taking classes.

  A teacher I went to who was trained in Transcendental Meditation by the Maharishi himself once likened it to the ocean. He said, “Think of your mind like the sea. The surface of the ocean can be turbulent with rough water and waves, but as you dive deeper below the surface it starts to calm itself.” It wasn’t easy for me to learn how to sit still, but once I did, it was life-changing. Just knowing that I am able to get to that space if I need to is very liberating and greatly eases my anxiety. Labor itself is a type of meditation because it forces you to focus on nothing but the task at hand and your breathing, which makes it good practice for motherhood. When I have the time, I try to meditate—usually in the evening before bed—just to clear my mind for fifteen minutes. It gives me a little recharge for my day. Ideally I would do it every day, but that never happens.

  All in all, although it was messy and exhausting and full of lots of unknowns, I wouldn’t change a single minute of Palmer’s first year—well, maybe besides the puke—for anything.

  Chapter Eleven REGAINING YOUR SENSE OF SELF

  Nothing can really prepare you for the sheer overwhelming experience of what it means to become a mother. It is full of complex emotions of joy, exhaustion, love, and worry, all mixed together. Your fundamental identity changes overnight.

  —KATE MIDDLETON, MOTHER OF THREE

  Palmer and I had been home from the hospital for about six or seven weeks when I realized that I was tired of seeing myself in the mirror day after day: a tangled knot in my hair (though I finally understood the term “mom bun”) and no makeup, wearing Jason’s oversized, breast-milk-stained T-shirt and boxers. I would stare at my reflection and think, My God, who is this person? What happened to you? I also realized that I’d worn my husband’s underwear more than my own over the last ten days and that my armpits were on the verge of looking like a man’s. It was downright depressing. So I decided to do what I did before I had Palmer: look presentable! Imagine that. I made a point to shower every day and do my makeup and hair, even if I had no intention of leaving my house—and in the beginning I barely left the house, thanks to my oversupply of breast milk. This little thing helped me BIG-time. It seems silly, but when I think I look good, I feel good. And as you know by now, I’m a firm believer that a mother’s mental health is everything.

  As women, we tend to put our children—and often other people, too—above everything, so much so that we lose ourselves in the process. The key is to remember who you were BEFORE this little being rocked your world and to try to regain that sense of self slowly but surely. Unless you’re one of these rare women who want their life to be all about the baby (and if you are, God bless), regaining your sense of self is absolutely paramount to your happiness and well-being. In the beginning, if I went to a friend’s house for forty-five minutes or to grab a quick lunch with my Southern Charm costars, I felt a little bit guilty being out without my child. But I had to balance being a mother with still having my own life, because babies quickly become the boss and you become their personal assistant. Mamas out there, it’s so important to take care of YOU because the best and most important relationship you will ever have is the one with YOURSELF. And if that relationship is solid, you’ll have better relationships with everyone else. That in turn makes you a better person and a better mom. It is advice that sounds so simple and obvious, but it’s advice that’s not always easy to follow.

  For me, this emphasis on balance led to the question: should I work or not? My mom has always been my role model, and I can’t say enough good things about her and what she taught me. (I pray my daughter looks up to me the same way that I look up to my mother to this day.) Growing up, my mom was not your typical Southern woman. She had my sister and me in her thirties, which back then was a lot older than usual, and after she and my father got divorced, she worked full-time and let my sister and me fend for ourselves. We learned to do our own laundry by the time we could reach the buttons on the washing machine—around seven years old—and we were in charge of folding our clothes and putting them away. We made our own meals and learned how to entertain ourselves. (We lived on about four acres of land in the woods, so it was hard to ever get bored.) As a kid, it was kind of weird, but I’m so thankful because it made me super self-sufficient, something I really want to teach Palmer, too. Because my mother was not a cookie baker or costume maker—and we all know my talents are not in the kitchen or with a sewing machine, either—I always thought I’d follow suit and work full-time, even as a mom. But once Palmer actually arrived, it wasn’t as black and white as I assumed it would be.

  Growing up in South Carolina, you’re taught that you’re supposed to get married and pregnant in your twenties and have at least two kids. And if your husband makes a decent enough living to put food on the table, the goal is to stay at home with your children and not work outside the home. These are things that society ingrains in you. But I enjoy working and the freedom that comes along with that. I also don’t have a trust fund or “mailbox money,” which is passive income from investments, real estate, et cetera that comes to you while you’re sitting on the couch playing Nintendo. Since I didn’t have any of this, I had to earn my own income before marriage and kids. When I first had Palmer and talked abou
t going back to work, some people said, “Your husband’s a doctor. He can take care of you.” However true, I was also taught from a young age never to depend on a guy for money. If I learned anything from my parents’ divorce, it’s that nothing in life is certain. My husband could leave me next week or croak tomorrow, and that’s why I think it’s important to have your own source of income. Yes, if I didn’t work, we would still eat. But I actually like to work because I like to have my own money and I like to feel independent of my husband. We’ve been married for six years and we still don’t have a joint checking account. That’s just how I feel comfortable.

  There are definitely some women who are born and built to stay at home. They are great at it and that is what they revel in. Good for them! That’s just not me. Then there are other women who try to force themselves into that role because that’s what they think they are supposed to do. Again, not me. Like many women, I yearn for my own identity, but at first I felt bad about this. It took me time to realize that it’s not just okay to want your own identity, it’s GREAT. No guilt needed. If working makes you feel like yourself, then you need to do it.

  This is why Palmer started that Mother’s Morning Out program from 9 A.M. to noon twice a week when she was six months old. It gave me a much-needed break to film Southern Charm and do real estate work. Although I wasn’t asking anyone their opinions, several people said negative things about this: “She’s too young,” “She needs to be home” and “You’re exposing her to all those germs.” And I won’t lie: these comments made me pause for a second. But just a second. First of all, socializing babies from a young age is super important for their development. Exposing them to germs? The earlier you do it, the better it is for their immune systems. (Mind you, this was before the coronavirus.) I remember Palmer’s first ride through Walmart when she was about seven months old. She did it the same way her mama used to: no cart cover and no sanitation wipe, and let me tell you, she chewed that handlebar real good! #ProudMama