Reflections

Several of my friends on facebook are pregnant right now, and their status' remind me of my own pregnancies. I thought I'd write down a few of my memories here while they're being stirred up. Someone is due in about a month, and she made a comment about wanting to clean all the time. Nesting! Someone else commented that it means the time is close. It made me think of my own experience with nesting.

I was in so much sciatic nerve pain when I was pregnant with Callia that I could barely even get out of the car without help, much less do a lot of cleaning, and was living in a sparsely furnished apartment that would only be our home until she was a few months old, but I do recall being upset that I couldn't vacuum, and repeatedly asking Nathan to do it for me. He did, once. :)

Nesting for me was much more pronounced when I was pregnant with Thaddeus for several reasons. We lived in a house that we owned and had already lived in for a couple of years, and the house as it was then set up was hardly comfortable for the three of us. It certainly was not ready for another child to live there. We did a lot of work on it, including cleaning out all the junk in the attic with Maegen's help, and having Nathan's dad come help us drywall the attic to make it into a bedroom for Callia so we could give her old, smaller room to the baby. So I was busy, and stressed, and more and more frantic as the time for Thad to come came closer. I hardly had time to call it nesting because all of it was so obviously necessary. We didn't want our daughter to live in an uncarpeted room, so we had to get someone to come install the carpet, but first we had to finish the drywall, and finish the spackling, install the baseboards, and caulk, and paint. I can't even remember what order we actually did it all in. I do remember David Madison coming up from Richmond to help me cut and install the baseboards and clean out the tools the very morning of the day the carpet was to be installed. He was so much help! I was on the floor cutting boards along with him and nailing them in, trying to keep my pregnant belly out of the way. And I recall Aunt Lauri coming over to help paint it pink. We had such a nice time talking and painting together and making the room special and beautiful for princess Callia who was about to become a big sister. We finished just in time. 

As soon as Callia's new bedroom was done and she was moved up there, we went to work painting her old bedroom. We couldn't bring our son home to a purple bedroom, could we? So we painted it tan for him. I had plans to make a crib set and a quilt, and planned the color scheme of the room around the fabric I had bought for those projects, but I never ended up getting the sewing done and that fabric is still folded and tucked away with the rest of my "stash". I found a suitable set in a solid color that matched the same scheme at Ross, though, for a very low price, so it worked out beautifully which, for some reason probably related to nesting, matters to moms. ;) Here is a picture of me in his newly painted room two days before I went into labor. We cut it close. And yes, this is how big I was when I was down on the floor painting baseboards in both of the kids' bedrooms, and I was happy to do it. It's good, when you want to do something, to be able to. I was thinking, at this point, that I was very glad that he had not come early, and still felt that I hoped he would wait at least until his due date. I needed as much time as possible to get the rest of the house in order after all this remodeling. :)

The day before the due date, on my Gran'ma's birthday, I did as much work as I could and then started having contractions while I was cooking dinner. I didn't notice them at first because I guess I had been having them for a while and just thinking of them as "cramps" and "tightness" and blowing it off as something to be expected when you're so big and stretched. While I was cooking, though, these "little cramps" started feeling sharper and downright painful. I thought "maybe these are contractions" and looked at the clock when I had one. When I looked at the clock the next time exactly 10 minutes had passed, and the time after that, 10 minutes again, and again, and again, through dinner and onward. So here comes the crazy nesting part, knowing the time is near... I tried to go to bed after we had everything we needed for the hospital ready, the pain of the contractions decreased a little after sitting a tiny bit, and it it had gotten very late, but I couldn't sleep and felt too antsy to even stay in bed. So I got up and cleaned in the middle of the night while everyone else was sleeping. When I decided I was acting crazy and got back in bed to try sleeping again like a responsible person, my water broke immediately. In the bed. Bahh!!! So even though I had been busy and caught up in a huge to do list for the whole pregnancy to reflect on whether I was "nesting" or not, "nesting" had been strongest and, well, craziest while I was in early labor. Cleaning in the middle of the night? It seemed...natural.

He was born the next morning, on his due date, only 11 hours after I started counting contractions. :) Is that perfect or what? I was so thrilled with how smoothly labor went. A few hours after he was delivered, when I was on my way to the bathroom for that first time going after delivering (ouch, scary!), a nurse jokingly asked me if I was ready to have another baby yet. "YES!" I said, and her face was pricelessly shocked. I don't think I could ever feel more ready to have another baby than I did at that moment right after Thaddeus was born. Praise God, I had done it, it had been empowering, and it felt like such a miracle.

Sweet Little Conversations

I had the sweetest conversation with Callia tonight. Although I have a bad cough and my voice sounds like a low, gross rasp, I took a lot of time talking to her about the things we read in the chapter we were reading. It was the chapter in "Little House on the Prairie" where Mr. Edwards comes over to help Pa build the house, and stays for supper and for Pa's fiddle playing around the fire. We talked about poor Ma's ankle after the log fell on it, and how they must not have known that you should put cold on something like that rather than heat as they did. Then we talked about tobacco when she asked what "tobacco juice" is, which led to addiction, and cancer. She eats that kind of thing up and seems to have a lot of compassion for people, even when she recognizes poor choices. I love how she, so far, seems to be hesitant to judge. I think it really ministers to her when I take time to talk to her about the way things are and how I feel about them, rather than just going through the routine in a rush. I don't feel like I can always do that, but it's nice when I can.

I think that is why she prayed such a sincere prayer tonight, and had such a sweet little conversation with me afterward as we lay in the dark on her bed. I was touched by one particular thing she asked God for, which was for me to feel so much better tomorrow. She said it so sincerely. :)

She said to me "Mom, I wish everyone in the whole world could be healthy."
I thought about it for a moment, then said "In heaven there will be no sickness."
"Yeah...", she said with a smile in her voice. "God loves us."
"Yes, he does, and I love you, too."
"I know you love me," she said, "you always love me."
"Yes, I do."
"And I always love you."
"I know you do." I said, "You're my sweet girl."
"You're MY sweet girl, Mom."
"Thanks" :)
"You'll always be my sweet girl, and I'll always be your sweet girl."
"Yep."
And she went on to say a few more things. I wish I could remember what they were. I was even thinking "I should write this down to remember how sweet her little heart was when she was 7." I used to have conversations like this with her several times a day, where she is talking about love and God and relationships. Now they're more likely to be once every week or two. Sadly, my mood is more of a limiting factor than hers. She is to an age now where she knows it when I am in a bad mood and just humoring her. She only talks like this when I have ministered to her in some way, and am truly receptive to it. I pray that soon I can be fully free of my depression so that I can spend as much time talking to Callia like this as she wants, and equip her for life in Christ as I should be doing. Time seems so short, and she is so ready to be taught, and so beautifully trusting. What a little gem. She deserves my best.

Broken Creations

My poor daughter has such a hard time with legos. She builds something, then crushes it, then cries because it's broken. It just happened with an incredible forklift that she built. She showed to to me and I was very impressed. 30 seconds later she's in tears. It seems like she doesn't know how to be careful with things! This kind of thing happens all the time. She loves to make things, but they're never indestructible. I don't know how to handle it. It upsets me, too, and I feel bad for her.

Tough day to be a mom

Thaddeus threw the most hysterical fit today when I went to bible study and was about to drop him off in nursery because Callia would not "let him be the leader" as they walked in. When I addressed it it escalated instead of getting better, so much so that after probably 10 or 15 minutes and two trips to the bathroom to pop him for defiance, and a talk with Callia to tell her how he felt (although I let Callia know I didn't blame her at all for his behavior), her apologizing and saying she didn't mean to upset him, him apologizing to her for expecting her to do what he said, then him continuing to be defiant and thrashing around on the floor, I still had to just leave instead of putting him in the nursery, which prompted Callia to burst into tears as well. The other kids in the nursery and the girl watching them all seemed very concerned. We left with Callia carrying my bible and Thad's jacket so I could try to keep a hold on him and his shoes (which he had kicked off), while he thrashed as hard as he could and screamed at me for leaving his shoes behind, all the way out to the van. I was so frazzled and frustrated I can think in retrospect of a few ways I could have handled it better. I feel like a terrible mother. Just confessing. Also, I feel a little freaked out at the thought that something similar to this could happen again at some point because although he had time alone in his room to calm down when we got home and came out acting like an angel, I don't feel that any lesson was learned. This is one of those days when the title of this blog is hilariously sarcastic, which I knew it would sometimes be, but man, this is to the point where the sarcasm isn't even funny. Being a mother is insanely difficult. Hopefully I don't make any future mistakes that will blow this out of the water and this can go down in my book for my worst moments as a mother, right up there with the times that I forgot Callia's school field trip, and a friend's birthday party that she was looking forward to.

Appreciation

I found a semi-old facebook post today from October 20th, 2009. Thought I'd put it on here just for "keeps". :)

Callia came down the stairs wearing fairy wings and a crown. Thaddeus started flapping his arms with a big smile on his face and said "Shack, shack, shack! Shack a ming, why, why!" (Translation= Flap, flap, flap! Flap your wings, fly fly!) This happened right after he was talking to my mom on the phone and said "Mommy... beedet" which melted my heart :D (Translation=Mommy is a princess)

"I need bandaid in mine mouf"

Thad was super congested and kept sneezing out snot, poor baby! He had been taking it all in stride all morning, then said "Mommy, I need bandaid in mine mouf cuz I not feew good"

"That happens, Mommy"

It's 10:00pm and Thaddeus is still wide awake in his room. When I put him to bed at 8:30 (a little later than usual), he was talking to me about good dreams and bad dreams, and he told me his bad dreams have monsters and also told about a good dream he had where he and MeMaw and Grandaddy and Daddy and Callia "and even you Mommy!" were there, and he was wearing his swimsuit and we were all at the "big pool". I have a feeling he was talking about Jan's house at the 4th of July. He said that was his one good dream, and that he has had four bad dreams. He has said before that he has had four bad dreams and one good dream, but hadn't said anything about what they consisted of, other than once mentioning a bad dream about a "scary man". We talked about his dreams, prayed about dreams, and sang songs, then I said goodnight and came downstairs. Then I came down and worked on a scrapbook page a little.

He started yelling about something, talking as if we could hear what he was saying, and Nathan went up to investigate. When Nathan came back down Thad was crying, and Nathan said Thad wanted me to lay with him but he told him that Mommy was going to be downstairs and he needed to go to sleep.

But when he was still crying after five minutes or so, I went up to see if I could talk to him about how he was feeling. He said he wanted me to be with him, and when I go out of his room it makes him sad. "That happens, Mommy, sometimes it does!" The way he said it was so cute. So I laid down with him and we talked about how he was feeling and about how Mommy is not really gone, I am home, and Daddy and Callia are home and we are all together at home when Thaddeus goes to sleep in his room and Mommy goes downstairs. We talked about Jesus and how he is with us and keeps us safe, and for whatever reason Thad started talking about Jesus and Callia and MeMaw on the playground. Then I said "OK you go to sleep and I will lay here with you for a few minutes". But it seemed like he could not relax, and if I did anything such as stroke his hair when he opened his eyes, he would say "are you going now?" and look so worried. A couple of times I said "No, I am going to lay here with you for a couple more minutes and you go to sleep," but after a little while, I had to say "Don't worry, I am not going far, I'll still be home but I'm going to go and you go to sleep." So he said "OK" in a very worried tone, and as I've written this, which has been about 15 minutes, he has not called for me again. We'll see how he does.

I remember Callia having trouble with being scared and having bad dreams at this age, too. It seems like the problem tonight may have had a lot to do with the fact that it was dark when we put him to bed, since it has been light every time for a couple of months and we've had very little trouble. Tomorrow night I'll need to make sure to get him to bed on time, and in the fall when the days start getting a lot shorter, I guess I'll need to be prepared for more hassle at bed time. Hopefully not, though! It is so stressful to have to deal with such a drawn out process to get kids to sleep, during the time of day when I usually get to wind down and be a real person and feel like more than just "Mom", which often is synonymous with "servant".

In a way I've got to love it, though. Before long I'll be missing their littleness.