While carrying a baby in a baby carrier, it is immensely difficult to manage:
Blowing my nose.
The sudden onset of imminent poop.
The baby deciding to practice standing (on my thighs) while in the carrier as I sat on the toilet, handling that imminent poop.
None was easy to manage. All felt absurd in the moment and still seem so now. The last one was muscularly very difficult.
Thank you, God, for getting me successfully through another day of it all. Help me to find greater success and bonding and trust going forward, please. Thank you for my family. Please, make us well and keep us safe. Thank you for our home. Help me to manage it well. In your name, I pray. Amen.
My brother and his wife are expecting a baby in July. They already know what sex it is. My sister-in-law has been picking out colors and patterns for items that relate directly to the baby’s sex. And they are, of course, adorable, as she has good taste. And I have been helping her find items, too, that are both practical and adorable.
But they are really starting to get under my skin, in a way. I love the things we chose and received and purchased for our daughter. But I probably would have swapped just a few of them out for other colors or patterns had I known for sure that we were having a girl. But I didn’t know. And I did want to be prepared and not have to be purchasing necessary items in a hurry after the baby was born and we knew if it were a boy or a girl.
No, the colors ultimately don’t matter for the sex of the child. Not like the child cares, anyway. But there are certain things that just wrench the heart, they’re so sweet. Certain items in certain colors and patterns…
And my brother and sister-in-law get all of those.
For us, it would seem wasteful to get another set of something just for the color. Last night, we needed to order more pacifiers – left one very far away from home, and already suffering for it, because we use both every day. I ordered the blue standard ones because they were $3 cheaper than the cute pastel pink and purple ones. I was very sad about this tonight. My husband told me to go ahead and return the blue ones and get the purple and pink. He understood my goal of saving money, but also understood how much it was affecting me not being able to get the cute ones I really liked, and knew that $3 was worth the difference in this case.
Having my senses balanced out, I set to work on a few other items that have been on the list or were forgotten. The two that were on extra sale right now, I ordered. The third that is not on super sale, I left for later, whenever it might have a sale. (Fingers crossed on that one’s being soon!) While it stresses me to be spending more money right now, I agree with my husband’s point of getting the useful items we already need in the version that brings me great joy, so long as the price difference is minimal.
Now, we just need to figure out where God wants us working.
Dear Lord, please, show us clearly our next step in fulfilling your will in our lives. Help us be the people you call us to be. Grant that we may speak to each other always with your love. Heal our daughter’s digestive process, please – make her well and whole. Please, make us well and keep us safe. Thank you for our home and for this life and for this opportunity of humility. Thank you for my family. In your name, I pray. Amen.
I have been working the past few years on speaking up for myself. It is rarely not hard and scary, and it often creates stress. But it also often results in a positive for me, be it in the result I wanted or in confirmation that things won’t change, thereby still giving me relief that I did what I could and it happened a certain way despite my efforts, not due to a lack of them.
Tomorrow is an example of a complicated one. I gave my honest thoughts on the idea of my husband being gone for at least 12 hours straight – not in favor – and it seems to have upset my husband greatly. He didn’t speak up about it, and so the time was too late to change things by the time I found out he was pissed. But I realized that that truly was okay. It means a lot to me that he was willing to support me instead of taking the extra flight block in the morning. Also, mornings tend to be very hard for me – lots of breakdowns when I’m on my own with the baby in the morning. Usually also a lot of mess to clean up afterward, too. Things just don’t go very well when I’m flying solo in the mornings right now.
My mom pointed out that he needs to be flying every chance he gets. But I think it is also important that we not let me fall by the wayside in the process. That happened for a couple weeks, when my mom stopped staying with us and my husband was gone several days for big chunks of time, because he was taking every flight block they gave him. But I had to speak up then and say I can’t handle more than about three hours all on my own.
I can do more than that now. But mornings are still very hard for me. And doing a 12+-hour stint that starts at roughly 6:30 in the morning just makes me want to cry, it feels so daunting. Had we been home two hours plus sooner tonight, I could be more open to the idea. But I got ready for bed right away when we got home, and I took less time than usual getting ready for bed, but it is still already almost eleven. If we were two hours earlier right now, it would be a very different story. As it stands, tomorrow will be rough without my husband even with his not leaving until around ten instead of 6:30.
So, it’s scary to sit in this space of feeling like I should feel guilty, while also knowing that guilt has nothing to do with what works. It doesn’t work to leave me alone with the baby for too long period. It also doesn’t work to leave me alone with the baby for 12+ hours starting at 6:30 in the morning. Things are improving greatly for me, but we aren’t there yet. Not yet.
Thank you, God, for the strength and the clarity to share honestly my thoughts and needs. Brent me the grace to speak always with love, especially with my family. Thank you for my husband. Please, keep him safe and make him well. Heal our daughter’s digestion, please – make her stronger and healthier than I ever have been. Make us well as a family and physically, and keep us safe, please. Show us clearly your way. In your name, I pray. Amen.
My car showed me this when I got back in it after an hour and a half. It was sitting mostly in the shade.
Do we see that temperature? Welcome to the next season, Houston!
It was only actually in the 80s. But for my car to think it is that hot means that our seasons have truly changed. It was quite lovely for about a month here, really. The past two months have been quite good, even. But that is clearly all over at this point. Our last cold front seems to have passed, and the heat is beginning to attack…
Lord, make us well, please, and keep us safe. Help us to find your clear path for us financially. In your name, I pray. Amen.
I really wanted that milk punch. My husband got me two large ones today, and for free.
I definitely didn’t need that much. But I truly enjoyed every bit of them.
Thank you, God. Thank you, my husband. Thank you, rodeo, and goodbye!
We had a good end to the rodeo today. It was hot and humid and muggy and super Houston-y. My husband and I argued amidst the overwhelming carnival nonsense. We sorted it out and had a great time. I’m so glad we went and hung out at our team’s headquarters, both yesterday and today. I am grateful, especially, to my mom for being such a sport and for being so helpful even despite her having been so sick this past week and still being in recovery mode. The rodeo was very different for us three this year, my mom and my husband and me. But it was still good, and I am grateful for the good time had.
Thank you, Lord. Please, heal our family in all ways in this life. Make us well, please, and keep us safe, that we pursue and fulfill your will together and individually. Thank you for this family and for your love. In your name, I pray. Amen.
P.S. I looked trendy again today. But no one at all seemed to notice that I was wearing the same outfit as yesterday. My mom was clearly still recovering from having been sick, because she didn’t say a word, though she normally would have almost immediately upon seeing me. So, that was silly to realize only just now(!), but quite fun and satisfying. Thanks for that, too, Lord! Amen!
As I mentioned the other night, I have been really wishing I could be more trendy as a mom. I’m not mad about it, really, but I am a touch sad that it just doesn’t seem to be in the cards for me, at least so far.
Today, therefore, I made an effort to see if even one of my skirts might fit me for the rodeo today. Of course, when I opened the drawer to look at them all, I immediately recognized that they are all waist skirts, and so none would work for me right now (either because my waist is still too large or because I can’t stand pressure on my waist for long). But I opened the wrong drawer just before this, and discovered a dress I had bought, I believe, shortly before becoming pregnant the first time. It had been wintertime, and so I never really got the chance to wear the dress not-pregnant.
So, I went ahead and tried it on, once I’d seen how the skirts weren’t going to work out, and it actually fit okay.
I still wore tennis shoes, and I had shorts on underneath, so I could lift the dress completely to breastfeed. But it actually ended up being super cute. I put on a watch, and then wore my straw cowboy hat, since it was hot out today, yet again, and my ensemble actually looked quite trendy.
At one point, I was sitting in the tent headquarters of one of our committees, waiting for my mom to run an errand, and I suddenly realized how exactly I had created my own version of that trendy mom from the website. I was my own self-expression if “trendy mom”, sitting there, holding my napping baby. I was both relieved and content.
And so I took a photo to catalog it and to celebrate the look. I even sent the photo to the mom with whom I had had the original discussion. She loved it, too. It didn’t even matter that I had milk puke all over the front of the dress – it blended in! (Gross, I know. Haha)
One more effort tomorrow for the last day of the rodeo. I’m grateful we are going as a family one last time. And I am grateful that I even can go.
Thank you, God, for this progress in my healing. Please, make me and my baby and my husband and my mom well, and keep us safe. May your will be done with my grandma – grant her comfort, love, and ease in whatever ways you see truly fit. Help us to love well always. Thank you for this life and for my family. In your name, I pray. Amen.
My brother mentioned that they were discussing when to do a baby shower for him and his wife. My immediate reply was, “Around 30 weeks is typical. Mom-to-be is cute pregnant and feeling decent. Too long after that, and she starts feeling miserable and looking frumpy.”
Have I done actual research for this? No. Asked a single friend and looked at when friends of people I know had their showers? Yes. Have I judged people harshly but honestly? Absolutely. 😛
Dear Lord, thank you. Please, make us well and keep us safe. Heal our daughter’s digestive system by your hand, please. In your name, I pray. Amen.
A local mom with kids aged two and four was talking to me about a baby carrier. She sent me the link to it, and we were discussing all the good things about it.
And then I commented on the photos for the carrier on its website. I said that I want to be trendy like the mom in the photos. She laughed and replied, “I can confidently say I never looked that put together.” I told her how I quite truly feel that I often look rather homeless when I go out right now. Nothing fits right, including the maternity clothes I had been wearing while pregnant. Rather, the few things that do for right are a massive hassle for nursing. So, I’m typically in a baggy t-shirt and pajama shorts right now. And my hair is in a messy knot atop my head, adding to the disastrous ensemble.
The tentative plan is to put hidden zippers – you know, the hidden style, not that they’re actually hidden fully – in my Mexican dresses. I wore them through most of the pregnancy, and my mom already added pockets to all of them. Might as well soup them up a little more and make them last for even more of the journey of parenthood. And that would be much nicer than my current use of them: shorts underneath, and pulling the whole dress up when the baby needs to nurse. Yes, in public. 😛
Anyway… I have been making a real effort to help myself emotionally and mentally by putting myself more together each day, and especially so when we go out. But it has been especially hard due to the whole fit-feed combo for everything. The things that do fit aren’t good for nursing in public, and sometimes at all. And looking a disaster adds to feeling like a disaster. Looking fabulous helps to feel fabulous. I am fabulous. Now I just want to look it again and feel it again.
God, help me to love myself. Help me to heal myself and my baby and my husband. Grant us your love and ease within our family. Help us to be the family you call us to be, the best we can be. Make us well, please, and keep us safe, always. Thank you for my husband and this life and our home and our baby. Be always with us clearly. In your name, I pray. Amen.
The mom:
And another trendy look from the page (possibly the same mom… but a different kid???) :
My mom gave me a bag of outfits for our baby the other day. A couple of them were outfits I wore as a baby, the majority were new outfits – she needed short sleeved onesies, because the hand-me-downs came from summer-born babies, and their 0-3-month outfits are for cooler weather! – and one was an adorable cowgirl skirt. We tried to put the cowgirl skirt on her the day we picked up the bag from my grandma’s place. It wouldn’t even fit over the baby’s thighs; there was no way it would fit over her hips or head. It had me wondering, What was Mom thinking with this one?!
Turns out, she was giving it to us on the off-chance it might fit the baby. But she knew it wasn’t too likely, as this skirt was the matching skirt to one I had worn as a child, except that this was the one my doll had worn. So, no, no baby ever wore this skirt. Haha. No wonder(!).
However, when I went through the bag today to take off tags and get everything washed, I went ahead and just set the skirt on our sleeping baby, so we could get a sweet photo of her ‘in’ it. 😛 Notice how small that waist band is compared to her waist. Haha
Thank you, God, for the blessings that pour forth from my mom. She gives so openly and freely, it almost hurts, knowing how easily she sacrifices for our gain. Thank you for her love. Please, help us to be worthy of her blessings. Help us to love her as she deserves. Grant us your love in all parts of life, please, and help us to be truly loving with and to one another. Make us well, please, and keep us safe. Thank you for this life. Help us to grow well and to see clearly through our challenges. Thank you for our daughter. In your name, I pray. Amen.
hannah ananas 