Tuesday, January 24, 2012

best of Christmas break - PA

 Best buds

 Ruth knit a lot of strawberry hats

 Family of 4

 Cousins!

 Photogenic Aunt & Niece 

 Going on a walk

 The whole group

Hanging out with Grandpa

best of Christmas break - MA

 Aunt Caren & Uncle Drew

 Napping with Beppe

Meeting 2nd cousin Abigail

Birthdays

 Auntie Laura


 Beautiful photos by Caren



Julie's day

Propped up, watching Mommy fold & hang laundry
Taking a letter to the post office
Studying herself in the mirror

Sunday, January 22, 2012

parenting

I want to continue to expound on thoughts from the PS of my last blog post.
"Being a mom to a baby is hard. It's hard physically. Being a mom to teens and adults is hard emotionally."
First, I really appreciated how my friend made her comment. She wasn't trying to belittle my current situation. She was sharing where she was, without trying to say "oh, my difficulties are so much worse than yours."

But it's continuing to make me think. So here's what I think.

First, being a new mom is hard physically. Especially for the first 3 weeks. Wow. That part isn't so bad now, at 3 months. To me (aside from lifting heavy strollers up stairs) the physical difficulty is being tired: being up late in the evening her wide awake when we're all ready for bed; getting up for her early morning feeding.

But it is hard emotionally too. I am learning to love a brand new person in a way I've never loved someone before. I'm learning to deal with a new level or worry that plagues me at an hour of the day or night. I'm learning to relate to my husband again, now as a mother and he a father. I'm learning to relate to other moms in a new --and wonderful-- way. And I've got to learn to re-relate to women who aren't moms. My identity is changing in becoming a mom more than any other life experience, and I'm still muddling through that. Not that I don't love it -- but it's hard!
But here's the hardest part: being a mom to a new baby is so hard because I'm learning in a whole new way what it means to serve and to put others first. I had not realized how much I had the opportunity to be selfish before. Getting married challenges it a little bit a first; having a child brings it to a whole new level.

And this dying-to-self is hard. It's not that I don't love Julie and love taking care of her. It's that I love myself a lot, and Jesus is working on me.

You see, the feeding, diapering, laundry, etc. isn't the hardest part -- the hardest part is not getting to do what I want. I love sitting andnursing my baby - love it ever so much. But I also love sitting in a clean house, and daily I have to sacrifice my wants over her present needs.

So what I'm saying is that for me what's hard is not getting to clean the house, bake cookies, write work emails... What I'm substituting my time for is completely wonderful and worth it. But I'm sinful, and so not getting to do what I want to do at any given moment is hard. And oh so good for me.

I just read this fabulous blog post: "To the Mother With Only One Child" by Simcha Fisher. She hit the nail on the head, and I needed to hear this so much. I strongly recommend following the link.

Friday, January 20, 2012

feeding


This blog is about whatever is going on in my life and on my mind. And lately, it's been nursing.

The first thing I must get out is that I had NO idea how feeding a newborn is all-consuming. It's so frequent, and takes so much time, that my life revolved completely around it for nearly 3 months, and still does to a degree.
It's like this. A newborn feeds every two hours, and sometimes more frequently. Now, in text it doesn't actually sound that overwhelming, but look at it this way. Julie's feeding took at least 40 minutes. Sometimes it'd take a hour, because she'd fall asleep, and I'd re-awaken her, and take some time for burping, and I didn't know if she was done, so I'd let her eat for a whole hour. Now you do the math: if we eat every 2 hours and she takes 1 hour to eat, I have 1 hour before it's time to eat again! {Plus that means half of my day is feeding.}

Basically, our day went like this:
  • breakfast
  • second breakfast
  • elevensies
  • lunch
  • tea
  • supper
  • dinner
  • late night snack

Usually that was about right. Sometimes there were 9 feedings...
When you consider that the hour between feedings, every other hour, has to include my meals, getting dressed (on a good day, showering), laundry, dishes, etc., it's a wonder a new mom could ever get to the grocery store. And if she did, think how well-timed & fast it has to be: in the hour before feeding, I'd need to make sure I was showered, dressed, packed, list made, etc. Directly after feeding, I'd have to diaper Babes and get her dressed and in the stroller. If that takes (optimistically) 10 minutes, and it takes only 15 minutes to get wherever I'm going, I have a whopping 20 minutes in the store! And I better not dream of popping in another store on my way home, or I'll be in danger of having a screaming, hungry baby on my hands.

I write this because I wish I could have read this in September...I hadno idea what it would actually be like to be at home alone all day with a newborn. [And I'm sure it's not everyone's experience. Some babies must be faster eaters; those bottle feeding can share the duty, etc. etc.] But just as I wish I could have read that and known I was not alone, I also needed to be told that -that particular difficult aspect of parenting*- does NOT last long. It doesn't feel like it could be true while you're in the middle of it, but now (at 3.5 mo) I see it was over in the blink of an eye. Since Christmas, we've usually had three hours between feedings, and it's like the day has been handed back to me. I'm not constantly wary of the clock, ticking toward feeding time. The sun is a bit shinier, my eyes a little less glazed, and here I have a moment, while Julie naps, to write about the thoughts swirling in my brain.
But I ought to close with this, lest I dwell on what's negative and seem complaining...I said it before, but it ought to be said again...This is the hardest job I've had, but it is the most wonderful.

* PS: I've recently been told about how parenting is hard. Sometimes, when they ask me how I am, and I tell them like it is, I get a condescending (or perhaps I imagine it), "It gets harder. When they're older, the troubles are bigger." And that isn't really all that kind or helpful. Perhaps they are right, or perhaps it is because the difficulties that are so present to me are faded in their memories. Either way, when I hear that I feel "shushed" or slighted.

This weekend, a dear friend said to me (in a thoughtful, carefully spoken way): "Being a mom to a baby is hard. It's hard physically. Being a mom to teens and adults is hard emotionally." That was so helpful: being affirmed that what I feel is hard really is hard, while getting to hear her older perspective.

Thursday, January 19, 2012

salt dough ornaments

I got this idea here (yet another pinterest inspiration!  and you can find the recipe at that link) and I made them with my friend Eliza, who has a 1 year old, just before Christmas break.  Julie's footprint is so darn cute, and I thought her grandparents might like it.

We stamped feet and then cut around them with cookie cutters.  I used a toothpick to write in her name & year.

But after they left, I had so much dough left, so I did a google-image search for other ways to decorate salt dough ornaments, and I saw this.

Out came all the cookie cutters and my stamp collection.  This was so fast and easy: very rewarding.

After they baked in the oven, I sprayed both sides with a polyurethane, so they should last.

I topped them off with red ribbon so they can hang on the tree.

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

more crafting

Over Christmas break I had the opportunity to try another craft inspired by pinterest.

A few days after arriving in the US, I visited a couple craft stores, and ooooh, that is a nice thing about America.  I got fun supplies, was inspired by lots of creative things to buy, and started a project.  Julie Anna was happily hanging out with grandparents, and I got to delve into a creative project; everyone is happy!

I made my mother a birthday board, inspired by this.  It includes the names & dates for the birthdays and anniversaries of children & grandchildren.  Each name & date is written on a little circle that has a hook & eye so it can hang under the correct month.  On the back of the circle I put the year of the birthday or wedding.  And I made more circles so more additions to the family (already one coming in June!] can be added.


Home Depot sells little bottles of paint for $1 each - samples of colors.  I dug through the big dusty bin to find a fun assortment.  Best of all, they come with a little brush in them, like rubber cement.  I painted each circle, drilled little holes of the hook & eyes.  I used alphabet stickers for the lettering, and pretty ribbon to decorate the board.  Sharpie has a "paint pen" - this was new to me.  It was a perfect way for me to write in the names, since I don't have a very steady hand.  Plus, I included the pen in the gift so my mom can write in more dates.  

Here's the final product! 

Friday, January 06, 2012

laughing

She has giggled, she has smiled, she has cooed. And we've enjoyed it, and even called it laughing for several months now.

But last night, for the first time, Julie Anna really laughed.  The kind you could write as "haha".  Her daddy was blowing raspberries in her face.  [We were reading together about what she might be able to do by now, being 3 months old, and what we might expect in the next month.  Making buzzing sounds is one of them.]

Her laugh was such a really laugh it made us laugh out load.  So contagious.  So delightful.

The first three months are super hard.  Some of the hardest of my life.  But they have been the most rewarding.

This morning, Julie seems pretty miserable.  We've all got colds, and she's had it too, but today seems worse somehow.  It feels that all she's done is whine, eat or sleep, and that is not like her!  But then suddenly she gives me a smile, and sucks contentedly on a few fingers and thumb.  And when she smiles, it makes my spit-up-y self who really wants a shower completely happy.