A Word to Moms of Babes

     I saw you at the grocery store trying to calm your daughter while she screamed, and you looked so embarrassed.  I saw you at the Doctor's office looking exhausted and holding your sick baby, and I knew neither of you had slept in days.  I saw you at my bible study nursing your baby in one arm and taking notes from the video with the other.  I saw you at the ball field trying desperately to watch your older child while your youngest one climbed all over you and adorned your clothing with the snack you gave him for distraction.  Maybe you are just glad to know someone SAW you.  At this stage we tend to feel either invisible or way too visible.
    It has been on my heart all week to offer some encouragement to mothers of babies.  For my purposes I would define this stage as being from the literal moment of conception (because that's when the figurative crap hits the fan) until your baby turns two.  In the past 10.5 years I have spent exactly 11 months not in this phase with one child or another so I think that gives me some street cred here (Insert dorky mom gang sign-which might just be covering your mouth like you're yawning.)  It occurred to me this week that in 2 months I will be officially out of this stage (Did someone hear angels singing?).  The realization was both exciting and saddening at the same time, and I've been reflecting on some of the lessons I've learned (mostly through failures) during this precious, blessed, exhausting time of life.  So whether you are expecting your first child or are chasing your fifth toddler through the yard, here are some words of advice/encouragement for you that were learned the hard way.
     1.  Slow it down, Sister.  Life is a rollercoaster spiraling out of control these days.  Everyone, everywhere will demand your time, and many will pay no creed to the fact that you are growing/nursing/chasing a baby around.  Get really good at saying no to demands that will put a strain on your family and really good at choosing your "yeses" to be the ones that will bring life to your soul and to your family rather than bringing angst and stress.  It took me a long time to learn this one because I was born a "pleaser"(aka middle child), but if your "yes" is motivated only by guilt then you aren't doing anyone any favors.  When your "yes" is motivated by desire or the leading of the Spirit you will bless everyone involved. I would take back in a heartbeat a lot of the things that I agreed to do during these years that put strain on our family or on my marriage just because I didn't want to disappoint someone.  Your first responsibility is your family.  Period.  Don't feel badly about that.  Spend hours (I mean HOURS) just holding your baby, because there really is a finite amount of time until that baby will no longer need to be held.  Take naps without feeling guilty.  Sleep is a precious gift during these years and should be treated just as importantly as a clean house or a completed to-do list. Take it from the woman who has had shingles 3 times in the past few years due to just being too run down.  Take time to just enjoy being a mom.  When the days grow long and weary, stare at your amazing tiny gift and just marvel at God's goodness.  Life really is a miracle.  There is so much joy to be found in these years if you just let yourself breathe.
     2.  Expectations are your enemy.  We all enter this motherhood thing with a thousand ideas about how things will be - what our kids will look like, how our spouses will parent, how our bodies will "bounce back" just like Jennifer Aniston's did on Friends (because her "baby" was a pillow), how our labors will go smoothly (Ah, five page birth plan for my first child that got chunked.) and our pregnancies will be magical and fairy dust will surround us as we "glow" so radiantly, how our kids will NEVER act like THAT, how WE will NEVER parent like THAT, and how all of our kids will make straight A's and never sass us or tell us we are "ruining their life"(If your kids never say this you may indeed be ruining their life.)  I have learned that almost every time that I say "never" I eat those words.  Our ideas of how things will be can leave us dreadfully confused and disappointed when it just doesn't pan out that way.  I have been the queen of unrealistic expectations for most of my life.  I have placed them on the people I love the most, which is just sinful.  But more often I have placed them on myself.  "My house should be cleaner, my kids should be nicer, my cooking should be healthier, my jeans should be looser, I should be volunteering more, I should have finished that book", and on and on and on.  Nothing makes me feel more insecure than thinking that I am screwing up this parenting gig.  But guess what - I am screwing up this parenting gig, and so is every other flawed human being on this planet.  None of us are going to do this perfectly so grace must abound.  Grace.  It is the juice of life - grace with yourself, grace with your spouse, grace with your children, grace with your friends, grace with your family, grace with your enemies.  GRACE!  Expectations = Disappointment.  Grace = Jesus.  I choose the latter. 
     3.  Your deal is your deal. You have probably heard the phrase "comparison is the thief of joy".  In no arena is this more true than motherhood.  It starts with pregnancy.  If I had dollar for every time I was pregnant and wanted to cry when I saw a 5'9" woman who was pregnant and still had recognizable arms and could wear skinny jeans I would be rich.  When you are 5'1" you start showing as soon as sperm meets egg and every part of your body explodes with pregnancy.  I could be vomiting 10 times a day and still gaining weight (Thank you genetics.  You're the best.).  Then infancy came and I found myself thinking "Why does my baby cry all the time(seriously) and their baby is perfectly content?  I must be doing it wrong!"  And don't even get me started on the notion that one can "have it all".  You may know a woman who seems to juggle everything perfectly, but I assure you she does not.  This woman who is able to juggle work, kids, household, marriage, family, church, volunteer work, etc., etc., etc. without letting at least one area struggle is fictional.  Maybe your friend manages to hold down a full time job and be a great mom, but her husband has a flexible work schedule and her mom lives next door.  Her deal is her deal.  If your husband works 60 hours a week and your family lives 1000 miles away you may not be able to hold down even a part time job.  That is your deal.  If we spent less time wishing we had someone else's deal and more time praising God for all of the blessings we have in our own deal this world would be a much more beautiful place.
     4.   What you are doing is REALLY, REALLY important.  Pregnancy is hard.  Like really hard.  Now I know there are some of you who had magical pregnancies with a 25 pound weight gain and never a twinge of nausea, and I still love you (because Jesus says I have to), but for most of us it is really hard.  Your body has been taken over by an alien life form and you spend 9 months trying to appease that precious one.  Infancy is hard.  Really hard.  The baby needs you ALL.THE.TIME.  You are on 24 hour call for this tiny human and are completely responsible for his/her wellbeing.  Again, some of you brought your babies home from the hospital and they instantly slept through the night, nursed like champions, only cried when they were hungry, and played chess with you on the weekends.  And we are happy for you, REALLY.  But if you are one of the lucky ones finding it all a challenge, you are not alone.  Having a toddler is hard.  Really hard.  You can't so much as go to the bathroom without worrying that you are risking the life of your little darling who takes total advantage of the situation.  A quick phone conversation can have you cleaning marker off the wall for hours.  Everything on the planet suddenly looks like a choking hazard.  Keeping them safe is completely exhausting.  I remember praying with my third child that God would just keep him alive each day because I was certain that I couldn't do it.  This job of motherhood demands your very best.  It demands your undying devotion.  It demands a large portion of your life.  And it is so very, very, very worth it.   What you are doing may sometimes feel insignificant or mundane, but, Sister, this is God's work.  You may feel like you are lagging spiritually.  I remember last year when Brinley was still not sleeping through the night(it took 14 months), and I would open my bible study homework and just stare at it and think "I am too tired to even have a complete thought, and I have to lead the discussion on this tomorrow."  So I would just stare at it for a while and then do my best to pull something out of it.  It is okay that you don't have the mental capacity or energy to debate theology or read a commentary.  Every diaper you change, every cuddle you give is your spiritual act of worship to God.  You are loving His child.  You are furthering His Kingdom.  You are laying down your life.  That is what He asks of you.  Be very proud of the work you are doing.  And when someone asks "what you do all day" bite your tongue and show them some grace.  They just don't get it. 
      5.  The fog will clear.  You may feel like you will be living in a fog for the rest of your life, always exhausted and never quite the person you once were.  You won't.  Somewhere around when your baby turns 2 you will start to feel like you again.  You will have more energy and more clarity of mind.  Life won't feel so restrictive all the time and you will be able to do more things.  But, when that happens, get ready.  You just might start wanting another baby. :)

I've Let Myself Go

     At the encouragement of several(okay, maybe 2 or 3) people to start a blog for moms, I am taking up the keyboard and trying this out.  I've been reading the book For the Love by Jen Hatmaker (it is amazing) and she talks about how she always loved to write, but didn't think she could make it useful until she just decided to.  I have no aspirations or delusions that she and I are even in the same galaxy when it comes to writing.  However, I, myself, have always loved writing in any form.  I started writing poetry in the 4th grade and still have a hot pink pre-algebra folder filled with the archives of my young poetic life.  There is a poetic ode to almost every ex-boyfriend I accrued during adolescence.  It's a big notebook.  Maybe someday when I'm dead and gone they will publish my works as a memoir.   But I digress. :)  The point is that I love writing.  So I'm going to do it here.  There may only be one other human on earth who cares to read what I have to say, but nonetheless I will enjoy the writing.  And maybe someday my children can read these posts and learn just a bit about their insane loving mother.  So here goes my first post. I hope all three of you enjoy it.  
     It's official.  It has happened.  I have "let myself go".  It happened this week.  It was a sudden and unexpected turn of events, but here we are.  I haven't worn real clothes all week, and I have gone into public places with my children in pajamas and mismatched shoes.  Makeup has been a scarce reality and my hair hasn't been fixed properly once.  I have eaten ice cream, lots of ice cream.  I can't really blame it on one thing in particular.  There are a myriad of culprits, but let's just break down a few.
     1.Ragweed - This wonderful family farm that we have inhabited is a blessing beyond measure.  It is also a veritable factory of ragweed currently.  It's like the land is just taunting you and daring you to breathe in through your nose.  Consequently, I absolutely HAVE to take a shower before bed every night to wash the remnants of this evil weed out of my hair and off my skin.  If I don't I will wake up the next day and spend the entire day looking like a pot head with turret's syndrome.  So it has to happen.  Now, before I bore children my hair had one mode - straight.  I could go to bed with it wet and wake up with it - straight.  I could do virtually anything and it would remain - straight.  My poor mother wanted so badly to have a little curly headed girl and forced me to get perms.  Within a week, my hair was - straight.  This is no longer the case after the great hormonal shifts of childbearing.  After I sleep on my hair it can be classified as nothing other than funky.  So, knowing that I am indeed clean (and who has time for 2 showers a day?) I've just been tossing it into a ponytail and flipping it over once because I haven't found time to get a haircut this year.  Problem solved.  The evil weed also means that I basically cannot wear my contacts ever, so glasses have become my cool new normal.  Maybe this makes me more current with the hipster crowd.
     2.  Viral Illness - When you have 4 children and you go anywhere one of them inevitably will get sick.  Viruses chase your family like a rabid dog waiting to devour.  This past week my precious baby girl contracted my least favorite of the childhood illnesses, the dreaded hand, foot and mouth.  She was on me like white on rice for days and didn't sleep well for nights.  It's hard to get motivated to fix yourself up when you are basically being used as a barcalounger/human tissue.  So we took it easy.  Real clothes - optional.  Makeup - optional.  Cooking - optional.  Turning off the TV - optional.  Sleep - PLEASE!
     3.  Dieting Fatigue - I'm just gonna say it.  I'm tired of being on a diet.  Can I get an amen, Ladies?!  In the past 10 years I have spent 3 years pregnant/aka nauseous.  The other 7 years I have spent trying to lose the weight from the previous 9 months.  I have gained and lost about 160 pounds during that time(Don't do that math!), and I just want to be able to eat a piece of pumpkin bread and feel good about it.  Am I to my goal?  Nope.  Do I care?  Not this week.  Who wants to go to Tom and Chee with me?  I promise I'll put on clothes. 
     4.  Change of Scenery - I love our new(old) town.  I love that you can be yourself and people seem to love you anyway.  I love that it is more laidback and there seems to be less pressure to be this perfectly put together, well-performing human without flaws.  Life just seems more real out here, and I love that.  It also inspires me to be okay running errands in running shorts(I never run) or yoga pants(I do occasionally do yoga) and to wear less makeup because who am I hiding from really?  These people know me.
     All of this is fun and very true, but there's more to this "letting myself go".  I don't know if it's age, or the awesome teaching I've heard recently, or being a parent, or finally emerging from the fog of the "baby stage", or just a work of the Holy Spirit (probably all of these things), but I feel like Jesus is giving me the strength to let go of the expectations of this world.  I feel like He is giving me the freedom to just LIVE in His presence.  I feel Him giving me courage to follow His plans for me and not worry so much about what everyone else wants me to do or thinks I should do.  I feel release from my extroverted tendency to put all my stock in my earthly relationships and instead to see each one in the realm of my God-given purpose.  I'm not sure where all of this is leading, but I'm really excited to find out.  And I have more peace than I've had in years.  I just want to live each day being His hands to this world.  And so....I'm letting myself go.