Tag: Parenting

Grateful.

I took this picture in February and just couldn’t bear to put into words what I was feeling when I saw this scene. Everything in it means something to me.

I walked down the hallway one morning and saw this: shoes that hadn’t been put away, a goody bag from a birthday party from several days before, a trim-less wall (a reminder of just how unfinished our house really is), and some dirt that the picture caught that I couldn’t even see in person (a reminder of how I don’t clean as often as I would like.) This scene was not what I wanted to see first thing in the morning. I started to get upset, to put myself down for not picking up after myself and my family. But, suddenly my perspective changed, and I saw our mess differently.

The shoes in the floor didn’t annoy me anymore, but instead, made me feel so incredibly blessed. We had prayed so hard to have a baby; we struggled, we suffered. Those tiny shoes transformed into a symbol of a miracle, an answered prayer. The goody bag became a reminder of the amazing friends we get to share life with, and of how sweet it was that they invited my one year old to their five year old’s birthday party. The crack between the wall and the floor became a reminder of how hard my amazing husband has worked since we moved into this house. No, it’s not done yet, but it looks a lot different than it did when we started. And that dirt and dust – it reminded me that I had more important things to do than to keep my house spotless. I had a life to live and people to love.

The scene that began to cause me anxiety when I first came upon it, was now the best reminder of how amazing my life is, and how blessed I am. I’m grateful for my mess.

Mom life.

In honor of Mother’s Day today, I thought I’d share one of my mom life stories… I wrote this in February, but this kind of thing happens all. the. time.

“When you slice the rest of the apple your kid didn’t eat, get a big huge bowl of Nutella, wrap up the apple you just sliced, walk to the trash can, throw it away, walk back to your bowl of Nutella and wonder where your apple went… ugh 🤦‍♀️”

Yeah. I thought pregnancy brain was bad. Mom brain? Probably worse.

This weekend has been full of people we love. Baby girl and I got to go to a baby shower, where she got to play with her cousins. We went out to eat with friends that we should see way more often than we do. We spent today with aunts and grandmothers and my momma. I’m exhausted, but my heart is so full. My introverted self, however, is ready for leggings and quietness.

Mother’s Day

Everywhere you turn the second week of May, there is something about mothers. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s wonderful to celebrate mothers and all that they mean. However, for so many people, it’s merely a reminder of someone they’ve lost or a reminder of something they want but don’t have. Mother’s Day is a wonderful thing, but it can also be a painful time.

I feel like I have a special sensitivity to the complexity of Mother’s Day. I am so very blessed to still have my momma, and to be very close with her. My husband lost his mom when we were in high school. My best friend lost her mother shortly after she had her son several years ago. My husband and I struggled briefly with infertility, and then suffered a miscarriage a year before we had baby girl. Having these events take place in my life, and affect those around me, gives me such a deeper understanding of others’ potential grief.

Before I got pregnant with baby girl, after my miscarriage, I started following this girl on Facebook who was struggling with infertility. I had never followed a complete stranger’s blog before, and had almost looked down on people who needed “support groups.” But another woman on my friends list kept liking her posts, and I would see them and immediately feel her pain. Almost everything she posted made me burst into tears, because it felt like she was in my head. She knew the cry of my heart because she was there too. This was my first real connection to other people’s words. This was the beginning of this blog, I just didn’t know it at the time. She wrote a post yesterday that I literally could have written, except her journey so far has led her to adoption, and I have been blessed with baby girl. Does anyone else’s pastor recognize the mothers in the congregation by making them stand? Apparently both of ours do. She and I could both stand, we’re both mothers now. But, she says she’s going to stay seated, and I love her reasoning. Basically, she said it was because we are to mourn with those who mourn. She and I both have a unique perspective. We both understand sitting there while others stand, being recognized for the very thing we ache to be, longing to be able to stand and say, “yes, I am a mother.”

For as long as I can remember, I have always wanted to have a family, to be a wife and a mother. I can hear feminists everywhere screaming, but it’s true. Yes, I truly believed I could do anything growing up, but that’s what I wanted. I wanted to love a child, take care of a child, teach a child. I started babysitting at a pretty young age and never looked back. I started work at my neighbor’s daycare when I was 16, and worked there for eight years. When I left there, I was a nanny for a family for almost a year. Finally, after kids were no longer my “work” work, God told me I wasn’t done. I was asked to volunteer in the church nursery once a month, and loved it. Fast forward to now, and I’m in charge of said church nursery. Children have always been part of my life, and I am passionate about caring for them. Obviously, kids are my thing.

My point here (I kind of got away from it, sorry) is that we should take the advice of Elisha (link to her post in the comments- go read it, it’s so good!) We should rejoice with those who rejoice, yes, and celebrate mothers for sure. They are worth celebrating. However, we can’t neglect those who are mourning either. There are so many who no longer have their mothers. There are more than you think who are longing to become mothers, or who have lost a child. I’m not saying we have to walk on eggshells around all women, but we do need to think before we speak. That “harmless” question, “when are you and your husband going to have a baby?” can be so painful. I’ve laughed and shrugged my shoulders to that question so many times. “I don’t know” seems like the most honest answer when you’re trying, but there’s still no baby. Even now that I have a child, I hear all the time, “when are you having another one?” I cringe a little every time I hear it. And, again, it’s not that people are trying to be hurtful, they are genuinely curious or just making conversation. It’s just that after all we’ve been through, I’m not sure a) that I am ready for another one, at least not right now, and b) that if we try again, we will even get another baby. It wasn’t super easy last time. What if we struggle again? It’s so painful.

I think this is part of the reason for this blog: to share our pregnancy story, or lack thereof, depending on the year. Before I stumbled across Elisha’s blog, I felt really alone. The doctor told me that 1 in 4 pregnancies ended in miscarriage, and I honestly didn’t believe her. If that was true, why didn’t I know anybody that had experienced it? Why wasn’t there a plethora of support and shared stories for me to cling to? Nobody talks about it. After finally telling some of my family about our experience, I learned that my cousin had suffered a miscarriage before as well. Why does no one talk about this? I feel like just in the last year, spurred on mostly by celebrities, people have been more open about their infertility and child loss. I feel like it’s just now getting more exposure, and more women are talking about their experience. I want to be that support, to offer that solidarity. I want whoever is supposed to be reading this to know that you’re not alone. I’ve been through it. I’ve been the girl sitting in church, wanting to stand and be called a mother, but I don’t have a baby to show for my pregnancy that hardly anyone knew about in the first place. It’s terrible, it’s awful, it’s painful, it’s alienating, but it’s not just you, I promise.

Random.

My head is all over the place today. Bear with me. We went to see Avengers: Endgame today. Don’t worry, no spoilers here. But, the best way I can explain it is satisfying.

I didn’t have coffee this afternoon and I am FEELING IT. My sweet momma stayed with baby girl so we could go to the movies. I always feel so guilty when I get her out of her routine, but it inevitably happens very often. She loves playing with her granny, though, and I don’t think she minded at all. She does love her routines, however. Tonight we were putting her to bed, and she kept pointing to the shelf saying, “ball, ball.” Her ball was on her bookshelf, and she did not like it. We’re so organized (not), there are places for everything. The place for her ball is in the living room, in the pack and play. I literally had to take it with me after I laid her down and promise her I was going to put it away. It made me think of another time she was particular like this. I wrote it down then, because I wanted to always remember how difficult my child was. Who am I kidding? This will probably only get worse as she gets older.

I wrote this in February: “We’ve gotten into a bedtime routine with [baby girl]: once it’s time for bed, she goes to her daddy, we walk to the bathroom, and I brush her teeth. Then she turns out the light in the bathroom and we go to her room. She picks out her jammies, then lays down to get a diaper and put on her jammies. Then, where it’s so cold in her room, she has a sleep sack that she puts on. Daddy turns on her sound and gets the book while we settle into the chair. After we read Goodnight Moon, daddy turns off her light and we walk toward the bed. She gives her daddy hugs, and then waves to him and blows a kiss as he leaves. Finally, we do our hugs and kisses, and I lay her down, leave, and shut the door
She’s pretty good about going to bed usually, and most of the time is very ready to go to sleep.
Tonight was bath night, so we did that before her usual routine. As I was going to lay her down, she started to fuss and was reaching toward the hallway. I gave her a kiss, but she was being very fidgety and reaching still. I told her to get some rest and sang her Goodnight Someone, then laid her down. She starting crying and didn’t stop after ten minutes or so. I walked into the bathroom, and it hit me that we had forgotten to brush her teeth… we had ruined her routine, and she had been trying to tell us. After a couple more minutes, we went in to get her. We got her up and took her to the bathroom to brush her teeth. She seemed satisfied like that was exactly what she wanted. We went back and did book, hugs, and kisses again as well. After a couple of minutes of fussing, she finally went to sleep.
Don’t. Mess. With. The. Routine.”

My one year old, guys. She is totally my child – she does not deal well with change. If you don’t know me, you don’t know the dramatic extent to which I detest change, but it’s pretty bad. I’m sure I’ll share with you soon about my aversion to change. I could write a novel.

Big stuff.

Yesterday baby girl walked from the kitchen all the way down the hall to her bedroom. Today she has walked as much as she’s crawled. I guess we finally have an official toddler. She also mastered the climbing wall on her swing set. Where did my tiny squish of a baby go?

I keep thinking I want another baby, but then I realize what I really want is her to be that tiny again. The thought of having a toddler and a newborn is just ridiculously scary. How do people do it? I’m genuinely asking. Like, when the baby gets up every three hours in the middle of the night, does the other child wake up too? I can’t imagine wrangling baby girl while trying to breastfeed an infant. Good gracious, it sounds scary.