Reflections

Motherhood = Exhaustion

2010-04-26T19:14:00.000-07:00

I am now the proud mom of two children. A 4 month old and a 2 1/2 year old. And I have been thinking about how to to be the best mom I can to my two children. I want to do everything I can to protect them, provide for them, etc. However, there is one little thing getting in my way. Being a mom is very very exhausting. If I could have boundless energy I could be such a great and wonderful mother. The exhaustion from lack of sleep to doing the same thing over and over again day after day was something I had never considered before I had children.

I have been potty training my two year old today. I put him in underwear for the first time. That is one thing that takes a lot of effort. Taking a little person potty several times a day. And as most people know, two year old boys are not that cooperative. Especially when learning to do a new skill that takes them away from their toys. I would have to say that he did a pretty good job. But the first time your child wears underwear you are a little on edge waiting for the accidents you know are coming.

By the end of the day I was sitting on the floor try to teach my son how to use the potty, and my 4 month old is learning to roll on the floor. Tonight for some reason the baby did lots of crying so I didn't get started on making the simplest meal until almost 6:30. My husband came downstairs to help me, and we were trying to figure out how to get Joel to stop crying. I burned the grilled cheese sandwiches in the meantime. Burned food, two year old in underwear, crying baby, piled up laundry to fold (some from the day of Ben learning to use the potty), dishes to do, baths to give, diapers to change. And I just want a few minutes to sit down to eat my dinner. A shower would also be nice. Welcome to motherhood. It was enough to make me want to just sit in the middle of the floor and start crying. But, I have realized that getting angry and or crying does not make the situation better. So I try to suck it up. And in my better moments, cry out to God for his wisdom and strength to keep going.

Christmas

2008-12-22T11:32:00.001-08:00

I have been trying very hard to remember the true reason for the season this year. I have been asking God to help me remember because it seems to get lost because of all the Santa Claus stuff and the Christmas songs that contain no reminders of baby Jesus. It makes me very sad to see that the real reason seems to be forgotten, and I as a Christian even need God's help to remember the true meaning of Christmas.

I grew up not celebrating that part of Christmas. If anyone has any useful advice on how to really focus on the true meaning of Christmas, I am all ears.

Stay at home mom

2008-05-06T07:48:00.000-07:00

Every day I have the opportunity to stay home with my son Benjamin. Because Rob and I were accustomed to living on two incomes I decided to try to earn some extra money and provide socialization for Ben by caring for another child. I now have 2 babies at my house every day. Fortunately they can be pretty easy going little boys, however they have their moments.

Right now I am listening to the sweet sound of silence because both of them are napping. However, I just got done trying to calm the storm just a short while ago. Both of them were very tired and wanting me to hold them and/or help them to get to sleep. They were quite upset. I had to take turns holding and comforting the two and fortunately it only lasted a few minutes, though it did feel like a lot longer. Fortunately that does not happen very often. Thank the Lord. The first day that I cared for them both I was walking on egg shells wondering when that would happen because I knew it was inevitable.

Most days they nap at the same time which gives me the opportunity to finish some of the chores around the house and clean up the messes we make with the toys.

Ben is now trying very hard to learn how to crawl. He gets up on his hands and knees and sometimes on his hands and feet with his bottom clear up in the air. He is going to figure this out very soon and probably give me a run for my money.

I am just so glad that I am able to work at home and be with my son every day and that he has a little play mate as well.

Gratefulness

2008-05-05T09:50:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago at church I was trying to listen to the message and of course my little son wanted to chime in some messages of his own during church. I took him to the mother's room and was sitting there by myself wondering why I bothered to come. (feeling sorry for myself) I could still hear what was going on, but it's no fun to sit there alone. Then Ben looked up at me and grinned, and I began thinking about last year and about how I feared (before I learned I was pregnant) that I would never have a chance to be a mother. I got over my feeling sorry for myself very quickly and thanked God for my son. This is such a short time that he will be a baby and I will never get it back again. I will cherish this time.

After awhile someone else came in and during prayer time I had someone to pray with after all.

Ben's first note

2008-04-25T17:55:00.000-07:00

Ben says:

M mkmfgfovsbfffff

og l vc vgb c l l,, flkf k

ik gik ik I n vb ynnk

b ik vju I vcsvws l c /

Tax Rebate

2008-02-17T18:52:00.000-08:00

It is an election year and Congress is giving us back our own money.

Are we being bribed?

My guess is they're trying to create goodwill so that we will vote for them in November.

My little disciple

2008-02-04T10:37:00.000-08:00

This past Friday night and Saturday there was a motherhood conference that I attended. I learned a lot of good information that I found to be very helpful.

At the beginning were some questions: "Am I valuable if all I do for the next 20 years is "mother" my small bunch of children? Am I going to have regrets? Is this project really worth my life?

Our first tendency is to pour our lives into other people besides our children. But we talked about how "Your own children will be your first and true disciples."

2Corinthians 3:2,3 "You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of human hearts."

Our children are to be our letter to this world. Our children watch everything we do and model the behavior of their parents. I was convicted, that I need to change my behavior to be more like Christ so that Benjamin has more to live up to than what I have so far.

We talked about how our mothering should be an outpouring of our relationship with Christ. And that or relationship with Christ should be what we want our children's relationship with Christ to be. However, none of us are perfect and we are all works in progress.

Hebrews 10:14 says "because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy."

I am so glad that we can have a close, personal, intimate relationship with Christ and that He cares more about or character than our comfort. Some of the times I have learned the most from Him have been difficult times. Don't get me wrong. I do not want difficult times. I avoid pain. I do everything I can to avoid it. But our Heavenly Father knows we need it in order to change our evil behavior. Just the same as our children do. I am glad God is in charge of shaping me, because I would not willingly put myself through difficult circumstances in order to get God's desired results.

I also have to love my son enough to give him the discipline that he needs to become more like Christ. This is going to be hard for me as well. I love that little boy and it will be hard and Rob and I are going to need God's help to train him in the way he should go.

It is going to be hard, but the Bible says that you reap what you sow. If you sow sparingly you will reap sparingly. I love my child and I really hope that I can learn to sow to the spirit, because he is learning by watching me. (and Rob)

It's cold and flu season

2008-01-24T09:56:00.000-08:00

Ben and I are going through his first cold together. This didn't sound like it would be too bad at first. He did some coughing and sneezing and seemed more tired than usual. However, what I didn't know is that for a baby a cold can turn nasty very quickly. I didn't think I would even need to go to the doctor for this, but I am glad that I did.

I took Ben to the doctor and they listened to him and heard some wheezing in his chest. So they gave me a hand held inhaler to give him albuterol. I took him home after he tried the inhaler a few times at the doc and thought that things would be fine. Well, for the rest of the evening he did not do very well, at least not to me. He kept waking up and looking at me as if he could not breath. He would try to cry out and he turned all red and would not take a breath until I picked him up and set him upright. It seemed to take forever for him to take a breath.

It just kept happening over and over again. We stood in the bathroom with the shower running hot steam, and used the meds we were given according to the instructions. I gave him as much to drink as he wanted. (when he could breath ok) After this happened about 4 times, I called Rob and said that I was taking Ben to the ER because I was too scared for him to keep struggling to breathe.

Well, when we got there his oxygen count was 99 percent which is great. They also told me he was no longer wheezing and that I must have done everything right. We figured that what was happening is that his nose would get so stuffed up that he would try to breathe out of it and instead of trying to breath through his mouth he would just hold his breath because he didn't think he could breathe. This was our best guess of what might be going on.

I took him home and continue giving him treatments of albuterol and ran the humidifier and used the nose aspirator constantly to relieve his congestion. He woke me up almost every hour on the hour that night completely clogged. And he HATES that nose aspirator. It is like wrestling with a little alligator trying to get stuff out of that nose.

There were some sweet moments though in the midst of all the craziness. I felt Ben and I bonding even more than ever. When I held him in the bathroom while we were breathing in steam, he would lean on me and play with my hair or massage my shoulder. I think he just likes being near me when he is sick. That made it easier for me to deal with everything that was going on. There has been a lot of cuddle time.

I noticed he was feeling better today. It was so great to hear him babble and coo with a big grin on his face today.

Mother's musings

2008-01-19T09:25:00.000-08:00

I never thought I would be the owner of a blog. But, I felt the need to write down some of the things that have been happening in my life over the last several months.

First of all, for the past 3 1/2 months I have been a mommy! This is something I have always wanted my whole life. This is also the hardest job I have ever had to do. It has stretched me physically to my maximum. And I am sure that I haven't been stretched as far as I will go yet. My son's name is Benjamin and I love him with all of my heart. He has been my constant partner since his birth.

Last week he had surgery. They took my baby and operated on him, and I sat in the waiting room and I swear every time the door opened for another parent to be called back I was on the edge of my seat ready to jump up and run back to get him. I think this was the longest I have been away from him since he was born.

The nurse came to get me and told me that he is ticked off! He wanted to eat. So I went to feed him, and here I am thinking that he is going to eat just fine after surgery. I was way wrong. He was screaming at the top of his lungs. He didn't want the pedialyte they had. So I made him a bottle. We sat and he ate some of it, then all of a sudden he began to throw up everything in his little tummy. Poor little guy.

Then for the rest of the afternoon in between his naps I had to listen to my baby whimper. He ended up being on morphine right after surgery. Then tylenol with codeine. (Thanks to God for a medicine to help him sleep.) He also had to take some gas drops, because that ended up being a major source of his pain as well.

He had to stay at the hospital and in the middle of the night I was told he had a temperature of over 101 degrees. The doctor came back the next morning and let me know we are staying another night. So I decided I may as well get comfortable as I know I will be here awhile with him. In the meantime, the poor little guy doesn't want to eat more than 1 or 2 ounces of formula and begins to do some vomiting. We thought at first it was just the yucky medicine taste.

That evening he was able to hold down 3 ounces of formula at about 3 a.m. Then the doctor came at about 6:40 a.m. to tell me that we could go home! Yay! That is what I was ready to hear.

We went home and Benjamin still could not keep fluids down. We would feed him and then he would get sick all over again. We called the hospital and they said to bring him back. We went to the hospital very discouraged. They took us to a treatment room and they said they might be putting an I.V. into him again. I was a nervous wreck. The last I.V. he had just had removed had been in his head!

Fortunately, the docs sent us back home after tummy xrays and told us to feed him small amounts more frequently. So the next several days were spent feeding and cleaning up after him when he got sick. And I had a little baby come on the day after he came home for me to take care of starting at 6:15 a.m. All of this started on a Tuesday. By Saturday night I was sitting on my couch holding Ben and I began sobbing from total frustration and exhaustion. I think God was trying to stretch me and build my character.

This is what I really wanted in my life. I didn't realize what being a mom was until I tried it.Wow, sometimes I think you need super powers. But, my husband reminded me today that God's grace is sufficient for me. His power is made perfect in my weakness. I usually could do most everything by myself outside of being a mommy. But for this, I realize my need for God! Very much, more than ever. I have literally been so tired that I have gotten down on my hands and knees and begged God to be filled with his spirit and to endure my trials. And this is only the beginning.