Baby Benjamin is one day shy of three weeks old. Time has seemed to be going by rather quickly lately, and I credit that to the semblance of routine we have managed to identify. I am now officially taking care of the (little) boys by myself, which has been quite the adjustment! Judah requires entertainment and discipline at all times, and Benjamin requires cuddles, food, and sleep at all times. I could not have two more opposite children - at least at this stage of life.

My struggles are entirely different than they were when Judah was a baby. This time around, I know how to sneak in a shower at the most impossible times (but don't ask me to tell you how), I'm able to feed myself a satisfying amount of food, and some housework is even being accomplished from time to time. Last time around, accomplishing any one of those things felt like a victory. I took months to figure out how to be "normal" while caring for a little one. This time, even with two children to look after, I feel like I'm months ahead of myself.

What I can't seem to figure out is how to relate to Judah while I'm caring for Benjamin. The latter may be a rather content baby and a good eater, but he still needs a lot of one-to-one time. I feel rather immobilized while he's attached to me. Judah, on the other hand, is struggling to come to terms with the fact that sometimes I just can't give him attention. I feel my patience wearing thin at times.

I know that no one is expecting me to have all of this figured out right away. Being new parents - or at least the parents of a new baby - is something that almost everyone looks on with compassion. The things we were able to do before may have to be put on hold. I still haven't made it over to visit all of the staff at camp yet. The thought of packing up two boys and enduring the heat just to show my face is a little bit overwhelming, and feels rather unnecessary at this time. I love our friends very much, but right now adding that expectation to ourselves is not healthy.

 For now I will be content with working out a "schedule" for this new crazy life of ours. My boys deserve consistency and love. I can't give either if I am wearing myself thin. I can't give either without leaning heavily upon God's word and trusting in His grace upon grace.

sleep, little one

We tried a new thing today. For what seems like forever, the Cuteness has been having two naps a day. When he was really itty bitty and brand new (like in the above picture - I think he was about 5 days old there), nap times were kind of a hit and miss, do-whatever-works type of thing. Then, somewhere along the road, Annemarie (who I seem to mention often on this blog) lent me a book on sleep patterns and training for babies. It suggested using a 2-3-4 nap schedule. This is how it goes:

• Two hours after your baby gets up for the day (let's assume that's generally around 7:00 AM), put him down for his first nap - which would be 9:00. Do it even if he doesn't seem tired. More often than not, babies need sleep before they seem like they need it.
• Three hours after this nap ends, put him down for his second nap. Let's say he naps until 10:30. That would make the next nap time 1:30. 
• Four hours after this nap, put him down for the night. When Judah was on this schedule, he would often sleep from 1:30 to 3:00, which made for a perfect 7:00 bed time. 

Once I had established Judah's average wake-up time and nap length,  I made 9:30 & 1:30 his routine nap times and consistently put him to bed at 7:00, even if it did not perfectly match the 2-3-4 schedule. He's been following this schedule for at least 10 months.

Until a few days ago, that is. It had gotten to the point that I smugly thought, My baby will always nap two times a day. He just needs his sleep that much. And then began the excessively long periods of "falling asleep". We're talking (at most) two hours. He'd never get angry. He would just happily roll around in his crib while amusing himself by: kicking the wall, escaping his clothes (and occasionally his diapers), befriending Bannister the Bunny, and talking nonsense. Adorable nonsense, that is. Then he would fall asleep. It was the same for bedtime, which has never been an issue to establish prior to this.

He was still having two naps a day and we were still putting him to bed at 7:00, but the amount of time he was spending in his crib (albeit happily) was a bit outrageous. The kid's gotta have time to be a kid, right?!

Enter the death of a nap. With a bit of a mournful heart, we kept Judah up until 1:00 today (which was surprisingly easy to do). For the first time in a week, he went to sleep immediately after I had closed the door. It wasn't a very long nap, but I'm fairly certain it was of as much use as the dawdling, drawn-out ones he's been having this week. Then, when bedtime came, he again went to sleep without so much as a peep. At 7:00! 

Victory! 

Now I'm the one that will need time to adjust to this whole one-nap-a-day thing. For me that means I have less time to do stuff. I'm going to have to decide whether napping or housework is more necessary. 

*blinks*

I will most definitely be napping.

bedtime stories

Judah kind of made me break into tears last night. He is no longer my little baby and I'm struggling to come to terms with that fact. 

Up until now, bedtime has been this extremely parent-initiated thing: we take him from whatever he's doing, we set the bedtime tone, we put him down to sleep. A couple of nights ago I asked Judah if he wanted to go "na-night", and he obviously stopped to think about it, cocking his head slightly to the side as he did so. Then, without any further hesitation, he ran into the bedroom and grabbed the crib rails, trying to hoist himself in. After I had placed him in there, prayed, and tucked him in with his bunny (who is named Bannister), he chose to go directly to sleep. I didn't hear a single peep out of him.

I decided to try asking him the question again last night - Joey wasn't around to witness the first one. "Judah, do you want to go na-night?" He immediately ran to Daddy, puckered his lips, and said "Mmmmmmm", waiting for his obligatory good-night kiss. After doing this to both Joey and myself, he ran into his room. This time he waited under the window and pointed at it as if to say "That needs to be closed before we can proceed". Joey scooped him up, closed the blind, and put him to bed. 

Oh my goodness, friends, my boy is growing up. My heart is ever so full. I'm beginning to realize that he's ready to have a little sibling - and I'm ready to dote on a little baby once more. He's moved on from solely depending on me to learning about the world on his own, making his own conclusions. 

I love being a mother so very, very much. 

31 weeks...?!

We're into the 30's with no turning back now! As if that were possible... I was thinking that I would like post some updated baby belly photos, but I am sick to death of taking self portraits. Hopefully, after Judah's sound asleep in his crib tonight, the husby and I will get out with our camera and tripod and catch some gorgeous sunset rays. 

I'm constantly getting people saying to me, "you look fantastic for being in the third trimester!" I'm feeling pretty fantastic these days, too. I mean, I'm definitely a lot more tired, heartburn is vile, and my poor belly is all stretchy and itchy to match... but I just love being pregnant. A couple women from my church were talking about how they always envied those ladies that loved pregnancy and would say "I could be pregnant for the rest of my life". I kind of snickered a little bit and told them that I had definitely thought that, but I knew there were a few flaws to that philosophy. ;)

Oh, and I've been nesting! Glorious housework! How have I denied you all this time?!

My little boy has become quite the little man as of late. Wait, I say that all the time. Well, it definitely feels like his little character has grown so much in the last month. All of a sudden he's got ideas about things. The cat gets many earfuls that I can only guess are about these new ideas. And, now that he's bigger and more capable of getting into things he shouldn't, he does it all the time. Joey and I are working at being consistent in our warnings and punishments. Judah gets one warning, one gentle correction, and then a 2 minute time-out, if needed. I think the general rule is that a child should get one minute of time-out per year of age, but one minute is just kind of a waste of time with this kid. So, he's been upped to two, and it will probably stay that way until he's three. But don't quote me on that one.

My role of "mother" is in constant flux, I find. It changes as I change and mature in my faith and "mommy know-how". I truly do love it, though. I never dreamed I could love a little person as much as I do. It's such a privilege to have children!

I think I'm warming up to summer... finally.

Yesterday's little picture post simply does not do justice to the absolutely beautiful day we were blessed with yesterday, so I have consequently removed it and replaced it with this one. Joey was proactive in the morning and thought to pack us up a lunch we could eat in the park. I'm not sure if it was Judah's first ever picnic, but it was his first ever successful picnic. He sat, happily munching away on his bowl of fruit while Joey and I enjoyed some tasty bagel sandwiches. 

Before we left, the husby and the cuteness had a little game of "catch me, daddy!".

I'm not sure who had more fun - Judah in the air, Joey taking in his cute face, or me photographing them!

After our lunch was finished, we scooted over to the farm to visit family, including Judah's cousin Lucy.

Lucy had fun with her mama on the trampoline. You can learn more about this stellar duo at Annemarie's blog, Love, the Mama.

Judah was a bit too preoccupied with, um, rocks to fully appreciate the rest of the world. See?

He is proudly raising his rock to heaven.

I must apologize for the lack of self-portraits on this blog. I've gotten into a bad habit of always being the one holding the camera in order to avoid being in pictures. I realize that this is not a good example to set for my children - even if I do feel kind of blah about my body image. How am I ever going to teach them that they are beautiful and unique if I don't put forward some effort to show that I feel the same way about myself?

End mini-rant.

And have an excellent day!

mommy guilt

"If the baby doesn't come out on this push, I'm going to have to cut you", my midwife warned, carefully assessing the situation and the level to which I had already exerted myself. If she had meant that to motivate me, it most certainly did the trick. With all of the force I had in my weary body, I pushed - willing that my child come into the world, making it happen. A wave of relief shuddered through my body as my child came forth, and I heard the precious, garbled cry of my new son.

My son. In that awesome, excruciating moment, I had become a mother.

Before he was born, I had done much speculation on what it was to be a mother. I reasoned that I already was a mother at heart, which was somewhat true. I thought I knew how hard labour would be, and how infinitely harder the first weeks after would be. I thought motherhood would come to me naturally - isn't that how it works? Instinct kicks in, and you just know how to care for your child.

If I thought these things would be easy once I became a mother, I couldn't have been more wrong. Giving birth was much more difficult than even I could imagine it to be, and the exhaustion that followed was greater than anything I've ever known. I found that, although I loved my son dearly and definitely wanted to do the best thing for him, I didn't automatically know what that thing was. My instinct was to love, but I was so unsure of how to do it properly. An hour or so after he was born, when Joey and I were incapacitated from the hours of adrenaline that had just passed, my baby boy began whimpering in his plastic bassinet. I thought all he needed was comfort, but, being physically unable to lift myself from the bed to retrieve him, I resorted to simply resting my hand on his head and speaking soft words to him. In the morning (a mere two hours later) I was questioned as to why I had not fed him yet. In that moment I experienced the first blow of what would grow to be a long battle in mommy guilt. 

I fell asleep while nursing him again. His jaundice won't go away. I'm not producing enough milk for him. He's been losing weight and I didn't even notice. He's been hungry this whole time, and I did not feed him. I shouldn't have tried to feed him on a schedule. We have to start supplementing because my body is incapable of providing for him - what will people think? Everyone now thinks I'm feeding him too much. I yelled at him in a moment of desperation. I can't keep a house with a baby to look after. I am failing my husband.

I have thought all of these things - and more - on many, many occasions. Each one brings a wave of guilt that has the ability to completely beat me to the dust. After all, what am I worth if I can't fulfill one of the most basic functions of a woman?

Oh, friends, how destructive and deceitful is this line of thinking. How hurtful it is to believe that if a woman struggles in mothering a child and keeping a home, she is worthless. Let me be clear on this: the desire and passion to be a mother might be burning through your veins, but how to live out that role is not something that will come naturally. It has to be learned - learned through many mistakes and unexpected victories, often through trial and error. And, friends, it is best handled at the footstool of Christ.

How does one acquire knowledge? By reading books? observing others who have done it before? asking for advice? All of these things may lead you to some answers and solutions, but they are oftentimes only temporary fixes to your confidence as a mother. There's also the fact that all children are different. What may work wonders for one mother could possibly spell disaster for you and your child. There is, simply put, no perfect method of parenting. That is why I am encouraging you to look to the cross. Look to the amazing sacrifice of Christ and live your life in light of what He's done for you. Bring everything to the Lord in prayer and trust in His promise to work things together for good. Trust in His sovereignty. Immerse your mind in scripture daily. Live your life by the word of God. You may not get an answer to your question about your little one's digestion, but you can be sure to find strength to stand when that familiar chill of mommy guilt sets in - because it will try to sink it's teeth into you at every turn if you put your confidence in yourself.

As I contemplate how life will look like having a newborn and a toddler under two years of age, I have two options: either worry about how I'm going to cope with the physical, spiritual, and emotional turmoil that come with bearing a child and fret over my incompetency, OR trust that God will provide all of my needs and bow my knee before His almighty throne, knowing that in my weakness HE is strong.

Again, I do not write these things because I am a fully competent mother who's got everything worked out. I definitely do not have anything "worked out". I went to sleep last night completely wracked with fear for our baby-on-the-way and plagued with guilt in regards to our toddling son. It was a miserable place to be. I beat myself up almost daily for my failings in the home. But, deep within me, I know that I know that I know I am avoiding the One who has promised to take my cares and anxieties in exchange for the peace that passes all understanding. I am refusing to believe that my identity is found in Him and placing it in my feeble attempts to be something special. Friends, this is leading me down a road that only leads to destruction, as it will lead anyone who refuses God's grace.

To those who are preparing to welcome a baby into the family, I say that the only way to prepare yourself for the roller coaster called "motherhood" is to cultivate in yourself a heart after God. To those struggling with the all-surpassing mommy guilt that threatens to overrun, I say cast your cares upon the Lord. Allow Him to be the strength in your life. Bring everything before Him in prayer, and be covered by His grace.

in which I admit that this is hard

**I stumbled upon this entry in my journal this morning, and found that what I wrote still resonates with me.  It shows that I struggle.  Lots.  But it also reminds me that God is faithful.** 

November 4, 2010

I have a lot of apprehension about mothering two small children and keeping this house in order.  Somewhere along the way to adulthood I picked up this (untrue and unfair) belief that being a stay-at-home-mom was like taking the "easy way out" of life.  I suppose I thought that because I don't ever remember a time when my own mother didn't have a job.  Everything she did at home had to come from her exhausted evening self.  I reasoned that women who stay at home all day have all the time they need to "perfect" their dwellings.  In believing such things, I was truly naive.

I have discovered the difficulties of motivating myself to do things when I'm not getting paid for it, when my job security doesn't rest on whether or not I show up for work.  I don't have the choice.  My work continues 24/7.  I don't need to be awake, dressed, or even prepared for it.  It is thrust upon me at all times. I can't take sick days, and I definitely can't store up "holidays" for myself.  It's who I am rather than just what I do. 

This has been the biggest antithesis to my desire to excel in where God has placed me - this feeling of inescapable obligation.  I hate that I even use that word.  But, sad as it may seem, it is oftentimes true.  

This is precisely why I fear having two children: I am hopelessly flawed in mothering merely one child.  How can I expect to care for two?

I wonder if it is even right of me to compare "one baby vs. two".  Is it possible that a woman can't ever be prepared for motherhood, whether it is her first child or her fifth?  Does she become a mother anew with every single pregnancy, labour, and birth?  I hope to God that it is, because that would mean that I have no other option but to rest fully in His provision for our family, just as we did when Judah was born.

In a way, it's actually freeing to know that I will never have it all together, that I will never find it easy to live a SAHM life.  It will (and has already) endear other women who struggle with the same thing to my heart.  I won't be left trapped in my own fantasies that, one day, I will reach perfection.