Month: April 2025

One would think that I might use effectively the time given to me while breastfeeding to accomplish any of the zillion things on my to-do lists that can be done on my phone… The baby’s eyes are closed and she is calm and stable for a bit. (And, if her eyes ever aren’t closed, which is rare, I give her my full attention immediately.) However, what do I typically do while she nurses with closed eyes? Watch her nurse. Gaze at her adoringly. And, equally often, stare at her in a daze of exhaustion. I don’t even take the time and the free arm to massage my sore neck. Instead, I hunch my shoulders and point my head downward to watch her, only increasing the neck and shoulder soreness. And my free hand typically ends up holding her feet in turns. Yes, they are adorable. But does it help my physical state much? Not at all.

Fortunately, I think it does all help with bonding between us now and down the line. However, it also feels wasteful of time when the baby is not needing both my hands and full attention. That’s the part that’s hard for me about it all. I have so little free time available to me to do even the necessary tasks to maintain the house – free time, meaning time I am free to do something other than tend to the baby directly – it feels like I just take advantage of every opportunity of being free. Though, I feel like sleeping would win out over phone stuff anyway, too…

Speaking of which… goodnight.

Post-a-day 2025

It is actually dumb how difficult it is to fight off or get over a cold while taking care of a newborn. One would think that two adults could handle recovering from a seemingly common nasal cold, which the baby also got and from which the baby recovered within a few short days.

But no, they cannot do this simple thing very easily. Why? The answer is sleep. When sick, we need sleep and water the most to recover efficiently. What do we not get enough of in the first place with a newborn? Oh, yes: sleep.

Between the two of us, we’ve been handing off care of the baby whenever one of us can’t manage anymore and absolutely needs to sleep. In that time of the one’s sleeping, the other’s health gains regress, and the trade must happen again. On a somewhat consistent cycle, we repeat. Ever so slowly, improvement happens. But never have I been so mildly ill for so terribly long.

Fortunately, I was able to start recovering before my husband ever started feeling ill, so my baseline these past couple weeks has been much higher than my husband’s. I’m still not fully well, but I’m sitting in the ‘fighting off something’ range. He got full-blown sick last week. After a couple days, I began getting worse. My mom was about to come pick up the baby and go in a granny adventure with her for the day so we both could just sleep. However, the baby was quick with her nursing sessions that night and morning, and went back to sleep quickly each time, so I actually had a decent night’s sleep, disturbed as it was. I was feeling back to my ‘fighting off something’ by the time I got up for real, late morning. (I almost wish I’d had her come anyway, so maybe I might have kicked this thing fully, once and for all…)

Nonetheless, I think that’s the only efficient way to kick the colds – have someone else step in to care for the baby for a day, so the parents can drink water and sleep all day to recover for real. I should not be mildly ill for weeks at a time. So it seems to go with breastfeeding a newborn at the end of winter. 😛

Thank you, God, for our daughter. Please, keep her and us safe and make us all well and together. Thank you for our home. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2025

Today, I measured my waist again, and it was not reassuring. My weight was down 70% of what I had gained for the pregnancy already a month ago. My waist today didn’t seem to be much, if at all, smaller than it was at that time.

So, I guess it is time for me to set up a true workout schedule with my husband. The chiropractor said the other day that I need to be getting back into it consistently, anyway, doing rigorous-esque activity again (aka true working out). And I’d like to be and to feel strong again. I miss that so much, it hurts to consider.

But I have to be careful to keep things balanced calorically. I can have my body shift its composition, but I can’t be in a caloric deficit. But I can and must exercise truly again. Which, I guess, means I’ll need to start eating even more food each day. Yikes.

God, guide me clearly always, please. Help us to be loving in our family in new and positive ways. Keep us safe and make us well, please. Thank you for our family and for our home. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2025

Sometimes, I wish I weren’t so picky. Because, then, I wouldn’t be up until 2:30 in the morning, working on a digital photo book and have it still be unfinished…

You know, like I’ve done tonight.

Ugh…

I need to sleep to recover my good heath and well-being, but I keep mostly getting just enough not to get worse.

Post-a-day 2025

Series of events:
I cross this video and send it to my husband:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DFYvJOVoiLM/

A couple days later, I cross this in the city’s kids resale group:

I send it to my husband, with the message, “We could have OUR very own giraffe, too! Haha”.
He replies, “Good Lord”.

Two days ago, he got a bad cold. Yesterday, he had an elevated temperature but was somewhat out of it and slept most of the day.
Last night, he asks me when I’m picking up the giraffe. I ask him what he means. He seems very upset that I wasn’t actually getting the giraffe, but merely showing him that one was available nearby. I wondered if he even would remember our conversation or feel the same about the giraffe once he isn’t sick anymore…

Today:

I got the giraffe.

Fortunately, he loves it. Where are we putting it? We had no clue. Presently, it is sitting at the front window in the dining room, looking to the outside world like a llama poking its head through the blinds to watch people waking by the house. I think that’s a good start. 😛

I love us. Thank you, Lord, for the beauties of this world and for your awesome creativity. Keep us safe, make us well, and keep us together and loving, please. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2025

What is it with my natural leaning towards wanting to be better than these other moms? I want to be fitter faster. I want my baby to progress better, to be overall better. I want my parenting to be better. Etc. Etc. Etc… And so on and so forth.*

Intermingle, though, I only seem to have such thoughts regarding those who are at a similar place as I am. A mom I know who has slightly older kids who are doing great? I strive to be like she is. I look up to her. There is no question of wanting to be better. I merely want to learn from her and grow to be like she is. But the moms who are at roughly the same point I am? Nope. Everything in my brain wants to do better than they do. Even the clothes I select when doing something with them stresses me out because I want to make sure I look good enough… that is, I want to look good enough that they can see how well I’m doing both emotionally and physically.

Ironically, I know I’m not doing better than they are emotionally. Not in-the-moment, anyway. They seem to have reasonably simple and straightforward routines with caring for their current babies. Not many struggles, especially in terms of mom breakdowns. Given my baby’s struggle with gas, I have had loads of struggle as a mom. My emotions have been torn apart these twelve weeks. Not to mention my postpartum emotional struggles in which I cry heavily at all sorts of things still.

And my vagina and pelvic floor still are not recovered. They didn’t deliver vaginally, and apparently have been having sex plenty already. I haven’t emotionally been able to consider it yet, not have I wanted it. Not really. The physical state of my vagina – you know, the bit st the back the doctor never sewed up – makes it a zero desire for me still. Let alone all the crud that is still pouring forth throughout the day.

So, while they seem to be doing better than I am on several fronts, the areas where I technically can be competitive with them, my brain just hard core aims to be. I prefer not to compare myself to others for success evaluation. And yet, here we are. Automatic competition.

Is it something in our evolutionary DNA? Got to be competitive and win in order to survive and thrive? Perhaps so. But it sounds stupid when it comes to recovery from very different events or to very different children developing natural skills as their own DNA sees fit.

Oh, well… ::big shrug

P.S, The thing is, if these women were friends of mine, I’m pretty sure I would make the effort to look cute, and then talk about how I made the effort for them and how I am to tell struggling most days and still look somewhat homeless most of the time. But I see that they are not friends in my brain, as I feel a sense of stress and competition toward them instead. Kind of weird to me, but that’s truly how it seems to be. Perhaps the competition is for non-friends and non-family. For the others. Huh…

P.P.S.*Please, tell me you got this reference. It is in my head all the time, yet I rarely use it in conversation with others – just with myself. Haha 😛

Post-a-day 2025

Facebook Messenger not only changed how they will be using our data in Marketplace, but also changed the color of their app icon. So, of course, I had to rearrange the whole page on my phone in order to make everything line up properly again.

And, if you don’t organize your phone icons by color, you’re missing out on a massive space of relaxation and ease for your brain. Not to mention that it’s fun keeping them all tidy. Even if you think I’m just nuts right now (and you’d be right to think that), it actually is true. Having the visual order actually helps the brain spend its time and effort elsewhere, instead of on ‘sorting through’ what it sees as a sort of ‘mess’. Considering how much time we spend a day looking at our phone screens, it makes all the more sense to have them tax our brains less, whenever possible.

It also seems absurd to keep phone app icons organized by anything other than type or use (my pages are by use, and each page by color, by the way), because it is. This bring a sense of hilarity to the task of keeping them arranged as they inevitably change color shades and, sometimes, full colors. (By the way, they change a lot.) Every time another one changes, you get to laugh at what you do next. And laughing is good for the soul and body.

For me, there is an extra layer to it all, too, in that I have OCD, so the order also makes me feel happy.

So, yes, I’m nuts. I also have a less-taxed and happy brain when it comes to looking at my phone. I highly recommend giving your brain the same opportunity(!).

Thank you, God, for your love and for this life. And thank you for my body’s ability to begin to forget the pain of labor and childbirth. Heal my baby and my husband, please, making us all well. Keep us safe and together, please. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2025

I was afraid to ask. I knew I wanted to be strong enough and comfortable enough within myself to ask. I asked.

It went really well. And I mean really well.

She even thanked me for speaking up and asking. She also acknowledged how what had happened must have shaken my sense of trust and made it very difficult to ask. It was a wonderfully reassuring conversation.

Thank you, God. Thank you. Guide us always clearly. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2025

I asked my mom this afternoon why the flags were at half-mast. She was surprised that I didn’t know – the pope had passed away early this morning, she informed me.

How shocking this news was. I had known that he was sick with pneumonia. It had not occurred to me that he might be in such a state as to be so taken down by that. I had no idea he was as old as he was. Truly. It was incredibly surprising for me, and so sad to learn, too.

And yet, perhaps it is all part of God’s will, in some unknown way. Pope Francis had a beautiful impact. Now, someone else will have the opportunity to serve beautifully God and His people.

Thank you, Lord, for these sorrows and how they bring us closer to you. Guide us always to be our best selves. Help us to love truly. Grant that your will also be our will. Make my husband and my daughter and me well, please, and keep us safe and together. Help us always to be loving with and to one another. Thank you for our home and for our family and friends and for our home. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2025

We did have a happy Easter today. There is a layer of stress still, to be sure, but it felt much better today than I have felt for most of the past week.

Thank you, God, for your sacrifice for and honoring of us. The k you for your love. Please, help us to love one another well. Guide my husband and my baby and me to be loving with one another, to be well, and to pray together. Please, keep us safe and together. Heal us. Thank you for the love today. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2025