Here are five things I never knew before I became a mommy:
1. I never knew how much I'd love having a boy. Really. Since Caleb was our first, we really didn't care what we were having. We were just so happy to be pregnant! I truly didn't care, but if you held a gun to my head and said, "Surely you MUST have a preference! Tell us what it is!" I would have had to admit that it would have been a girl. I am a girl, and a very girly-girl at that. I was far used to spending time with my nieces, as opposed to my nephews, who were only two months old when I left home. Trucks? Planes? Trains? What do I know about those? Though Caleb isn't at that stage yet, my fears have vanished. I absolutely love being a mother to this dear little boy. I never knew just how he'd tug at my heartstrings the way he does. He's like my little boyfriend (and a handsome one at that!), and he melts my heart in a way that only he can.
2. I never knew how hard it would be to leave the house. Some people make it look easy, but I am not one for dragging my child everywhere and anywhere, especially if it interferes with his routine. Not that there are a myriad of places to go around here, but I have cut back on my outings significantly. Physically lugging a child around is exhausting enough, but trying to work with their nap schedule (or lack thereof) is another story. Since naps in the car mess with naps in the crib, it can be hard to get out when I have to do significant driving to get anywhere.
3. I never knew that my sleep would be forever altered. Of course, I knew that I'd be nursing Caleb through all hours in the early months, but I never gave much thought to the subsequent months. Though he sleeps through the night, he is usually up early (it can be very early- today it was just before 5!), he also can have awakenings here and there that keep me up. I keep the monitor on my night table beside me, so even if he is up for any reason, even if not crying, I hear him, and I can't sleep until I know he has settled himself back again. Last night, I lost over an hour of sleep while I waited for him to resettle. That doesn't always happen, but when it does, it is no fun. Regardless, the days of sleeping in until eight o'clock or even seven are a thing of the past (even six is a stretch!). Oh, how I miss those days!
4. I never knew how vulnerable I'd feel as a parent. I want to protect my little one with the best that is in me. I would walk on hot lava for him if I had to. There is an aching in my heart as the worries crowd their way in... this world is a scary place. Thank goodness for the Lord, to whom I can bring my worries and my fears. Thank goodness there is another world that we are aspiring to everyday. It is for that world that we live... this world is simply a means to an end.
5. I never knew that both the best and hardest job in the world would be combined into one. I've had many jobs, some very difficult jobs. This job is by far the most rewarding, but it is also the most challenging. There are no vacations. The hours are long. A mother is always on call, even in the middle of the night. However, it is also the most fulfilling job. I feel like I'm doing what I was always meant to do. Even when I was teaching at a Christian school, while that certainly was a worthwhile cause and something I enjoyed, I still felt like something was missing. In my heart of hearts, I always wanted to be a wife and mother, and no job, no matter how important, could satisfy that longing within me. While I LOVE being a mother, I had to say goodbye to another part of myself, the part of me that took care of my own needs first. Sometimes I look at myself and realize, "Gee, I haven't had a haircut since October." And then I say, "Who cares? No one is looking at me anyway when I have such a cute boy with me. They are all looking at him." Caleb is worth all the sleep-deprivation and baggy eyes.
Oh, and one thing that I DO know: is how fast it all goes. I am already lamenting the months gone by, and I know that in about five minutes, Caleb will be standing at the altar, waiting for his bride. Eighteen years may SEEM like a lot, but according to every parent out there, it is but a blink of an eye. This little boy is mine to enjoy, today. I won't take it for granted!
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Friday, March 14, 2014
Caleb: Ten Months
Dear Caleb,
Every parent wonders where the time goes, and I am no exception. You are growing so fast. In just the past two weeks, you've begun crawling, kneeling, and clapping. The latest development, which I love, is that you now crawl over to my lap and try to climb aboard. I can't get enough of that!
It's not easy being a mother of a baby. Taking you out, carrying you out the door with one arm, locking the door with the other, all while trying not to trip down the stairs or slip on ice, is a challenge. Putting you in your car seat with your winter gear is also a project. But you know what? I wouldn't trade it. All too soon, time will fly, and my little baby boy won't need me quite so much anymore.
I take plenty of pictures of you with my camera, but I try to do more than just that. There are moments I just watch you and marvel, and I try to record in my mind's eye what cameras cannot capture: the sweet softness of your skin, your contagious laugh, how it feels to wrap you in a towel after your bath and snuggle you close- to name a few.
You are a mama's boy, through and through. You definitely don't care for other people besides me and Daddy at this point, and you don't always like new situations. We've been cooped up during a long and cold winter, and I need to get you out as the weather warms up. I want you to start seeing there is more to the world than just our house, the grocery store, and church! The last two doctor's appointments that I had, though so close to home, were a meltdown for you! You simply don't like it when mama has to put you down so I can get checked out; it is the end of the world as you know it.
You are still such a big boy for your age! Your length is in the 99th percentile! I still maintain that I'll never understand why God gave this wimpy mama such a big baby! You are still a good eater, though I am only slowly giving you new things. You've choked once or twice, and I almost suffered a heart attack, so I figure there is no rush. Sleeping is a see-saw, but at present, you are doing reasonably well overnight, but your naps, I fear, will never be very good.
Just last week, you started getting two new teeth, and I believe two more are soon on the way! This adds to all the recent new developments, and my goodness, I can hardly keep up!
I spend my days following you as you crawl all over the floor- you are still too clumsy to be left to your own devices. I cannot, cannot get over how quickly the time goes. It seems like just yesterday all you did was sit in your blue bouncy chair, and now, you are all over the place. My heart breaks a little as you change so fast. Once a new stage comes and settles in, it is soon replaced for another. While I absolutely love watching you grow, this mother's heart cannot help but mourn the days that will never again return.
That said, my dear boy, I do try so much to enjoy you each day. I can't stop time, but I can enjoy the time God gives me with you, today.
I love you so much, my Caleb-Bear!
Love,
Your mama
Every parent wonders where the time goes, and I am no exception. You are growing so fast. In just the past two weeks, you've begun crawling, kneeling, and clapping. The latest development, which I love, is that you now crawl over to my lap and try to climb aboard. I can't get enough of that!
It's not easy being a mother of a baby. Taking you out, carrying you out the door with one arm, locking the door with the other, all while trying not to trip down the stairs or slip on ice, is a challenge. Putting you in your car seat with your winter gear is also a project. But you know what? I wouldn't trade it. All too soon, time will fly, and my little baby boy won't need me quite so much anymore.
I take plenty of pictures of you with my camera, but I try to do more than just that. There are moments I just watch you and marvel, and I try to record in my mind's eye what cameras cannot capture: the sweet softness of your skin, your contagious laugh, how it feels to wrap you in a towel after your bath and snuggle you close- to name a few.
You are a mama's boy, through and through. You definitely don't care for other people besides me and Daddy at this point, and you don't always like new situations. We've been cooped up during a long and cold winter, and I need to get you out as the weather warms up. I want you to start seeing there is more to the world than just our house, the grocery store, and church! The last two doctor's appointments that I had, though so close to home, were a meltdown for you! You simply don't like it when mama has to put you down so I can get checked out; it is the end of the world as you know it.
You are still such a big boy for your age! Your length is in the 99th percentile! I still maintain that I'll never understand why God gave this wimpy mama such a big baby! You are still a good eater, though I am only slowly giving you new things. You've choked once or twice, and I almost suffered a heart attack, so I figure there is no rush. Sleeping is a see-saw, but at present, you are doing reasonably well overnight, but your naps, I fear, will never be very good.
Just last week, you started getting two new teeth, and I believe two more are soon on the way! This adds to all the recent new developments, and my goodness, I can hardly keep up!
I spend my days following you as you crawl all over the floor- you are still too clumsy to be left to your own devices. I cannot, cannot get over how quickly the time goes. It seems like just yesterday all you did was sit in your blue bouncy chair, and now, you are all over the place. My heart breaks a little as you change so fast. Once a new stage comes and settles in, it is soon replaced for another. While I absolutely love watching you grow, this mother's heart cannot help but mourn the days that will never again return.
That said, my dear boy, I do try so much to enjoy you each day. I can't stop time, but I can enjoy the time God gives me with you, today.
I love you so much, my Caleb-Bear!
Love,
Your mama
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
This Too Shall Pass
Recently a lady at my church, whose been very helpful to me on a number of occasions, was encouraging me in regards to Caleb's sleep. Apparently, her oldest child (she had four) was a very poor napper. She was trying to tell me not to worry about it overly much. "It is such a brief time in his life," she said.
With Caleb, it seems, when you take one step forward, you take two back. I was starting to get him on a decent, albeit loose, schedule, sleeping two naps a day in the crib, but then he took a turn for the worst and decided the crib was, once again, no good.
Then, after he had been sleeping overnight very well for over a month, decided to cry it out last night, quite out of the blue, for over half an hour. It was a loud, ferocious, tantrum type of cry that was simply not pleasant to listen to. I hadn't heard a peep out of him when putting him down to sleep at night for quite some time, so I'm not sure why all of the sudden this was so distasteful to him. He woke up again at 3:30 in the morning and could not get back to sleep.
I can handle the naps being poor, to some degree, even though it is difficult. After all, you don't take naps your whole life long. Nighttime sleep, however, is a different story. I want him to be good at that, because if he can learn to sleep well now, chances are that he will be a good sleeper in the years to come.
It is hard right now. Many times I simply have to nurse Caleb to take a nap, and then I am unable to move while he is sleeping in my lap. I can't use the time to get things done around the house, but at least it is only for a half hour. That is the one time I am glad his naps are always brief, when they are taken in my lap!
I know all the rules. It's a bad habit I've created, allowing him to nurse-nap. Blah, blah, blah. I already know that. But sometimes, you just need your baby to get to sleep, and whatever it takes, you do it. Cry-it-out has not been successful for Caleb's naps. He is just one of those babies that is a poor napper, and when he does nap, it is always, always brief.
So right now, my house is messier than usual. I just don't have the time for cleaning that I'd like. My husband has been super-busy with work. This time of the year is quite difficult with multiple band things, the school musical, etc. I am with Caleb all the time, and I'm the person he sees the most, and some days, the only person he sees at all. Brian is working hard for us, and I am working hard here. I don't desire time away from Caleb, but I wish, just once, I could crawl into my bed and take a good, long nap.
Like my friend at church said, it is but a brief time. The blessings of having a child far outweigh the inconveniences. I love this dear boy and wouldn't trade him for the sun, the moon, or the stars. When I look back at this time years from now, it probably won't matter all that much that he was a poor napper, that my house was messy, that he cried as much has his little lungs would possibly allow, and that I was sleep-deprived myself. This too shall pass, and we will have moved on to new challenges.
That is what I am reminding myself for today.
With Caleb, it seems, when you take one step forward, you take two back. I was starting to get him on a decent, albeit loose, schedule, sleeping two naps a day in the crib, but then he took a turn for the worst and decided the crib was, once again, no good.
Then, after he had been sleeping overnight very well for over a month, decided to cry it out last night, quite out of the blue, for over half an hour. It was a loud, ferocious, tantrum type of cry that was simply not pleasant to listen to. I hadn't heard a peep out of him when putting him down to sleep at night for quite some time, so I'm not sure why all of the sudden this was so distasteful to him. He woke up again at 3:30 in the morning and could not get back to sleep.
I can handle the naps being poor, to some degree, even though it is difficult. After all, you don't take naps your whole life long. Nighttime sleep, however, is a different story. I want him to be good at that, because if he can learn to sleep well now, chances are that he will be a good sleeper in the years to come.
It is hard right now. Many times I simply have to nurse Caleb to take a nap, and then I am unable to move while he is sleeping in my lap. I can't use the time to get things done around the house, but at least it is only for a half hour. That is the one time I am glad his naps are always brief, when they are taken in my lap!
I know all the rules. It's a bad habit I've created, allowing him to nurse-nap. Blah, blah, blah. I already know that. But sometimes, you just need your baby to get to sleep, and whatever it takes, you do it. Cry-it-out has not been successful for Caleb's naps. He is just one of those babies that is a poor napper, and when he does nap, it is always, always brief.
So right now, my house is messier than usual. I just don't have the time for cleaning that I'd like. My husband has been super-busy with work. This time of the year is quite difficult with multiple band things, the school musical, etc. I am with Caleb all the time, and I'm the person he sees the most, and some days, the only person he sees at all. Brian is working hard for us, and I am working hard here. I don't desire time away from Caleb, but I wish, just once, I could crawl into my bed and take a good, long nap.
Like my friend at church said, it is but a brief time. The blessings of having a child far outweigh the inconveniences. I love this dear boy and wouldn't trade him for the sun, the moon, or the stars. When I look back at this time years from now, it probably won't matter all that much that he was a poor napper, that my house was messy, that he cried as much has his little lungs would possibly allow, and that I was sleep-deprived myself. This too shall pass, and we will have moved on to new challenges.
That is what I am reminding myself for today.
Monday, March 3, 2014
Behind The Name: Why We Named Our Son Caleb
Caleb is almost ten months old, but it is never too late to write a blog post about the reasons we chose his name, correct?
Good. Now we have we have that clear, I'll be moving on to the explanation.
As you may recall, Brian and I chose to be surprised on the gender of the child, just as we will if God should choose to bless us with child once again.
The girl's name was easy. In fact, it was something I had chosen years ago, not long before Brian came into my life, and he happily agreed that it was a good name. Together, we decided on a middle name and called it a day.
But the boy's name was another matter, and it took us months to officially decide. (This is Brian's fault, because I chose Caleb early on. Sorry, honey.) Let me explain the story.
It is tradition in Brian's family for the father's first name to be passed on as the son's middle name. Brian's middle name, David, is his father's name. So we knew that if we had a son, his middle name would be Brian. That was clear. The challenge was trying to find something that worked well with Brian. I guess, for me, I had heard Brian so often as a first name, and never as a middle, that I just wasn't sure what to pair with it. It seemed like so many first names did not work, more than the ones that did.
So the name tossing began, and it continued for months and months. "How about (insert name here) Brian?" one of us would ask out of the blue. I had thought Caleb Brian sounded nice together, and so I rallied for Caleb fairly early on in the pregnancy journey. However, at the time, Brian had a student, one student, named Caleb. How awkward to come in announcing the name of your son, only to make said student feel as though your child his is namesake?
Well, the plot thickens, because said student conveniently moved away around February of last year, thus creating an opening in the Caleb name department. (Though not-so-conveniently in other areas. I can't remember what instrument he played, but he was indeed a loss to the band.) Brian still wasn't sold yet. We went through male name after male name, and just nothing was clicking just right. There are other male names I like, but none that just went well with Brian. We considered Daniel, but realized that the other couple at church, due to give birth just after us and were having their first boy, would probably name their son Daniel after the father. (We were right, and we were glad we didn't pick that!)
One day, I was on the phone with my sister, who was asking me about the name progress. Brian and I were keeping names a secret, even from family, but it didn't stop her from tossing out names left and right. After she kept going through names, I kept putting them down for one reason or another. Then she said, "I'm so sick of the name Caleb. Everyone around here is naming their sons Caleb."
Silence.
"You're thinking of Caleb, aren't you?"
I explained, that yes, we were, and she went on to reexplain that she didn't dislike the name, but admitted that there were at least three Caleb boys at her small church and another expecting couple she knew were also getting ready to name their son Caleb. It seems that in my former stomping grounds, the name Caleb keeps popping up.
Thankful, for once, that I no longer lived there, I didn't feel thwarted in the least in naming my son Caleb. In the Poconos, it isn't as common, at least, not that we've seen.
We didn't actually officially decide until Mother's Day, two days before Caleb came into this world, and for the record, almost one week after my due date. When Caleb was born, and Brian announced that we had a son, I will never forget looking at him and calling him "Caleb" for the very first time.
Caleb means "faithful", "bold", and "brave". It also means "whole hearted" in Hebrew. We know the man of faith that the Caleb of the Bible was. We pray that Caleb will follow Jesus Christ whole heartedly of his own choosing one day, being the faithful and bold man that God has called him to be. What a blessing he is already, and we know he will be all his days!
So that's the story! The only downer? If we do get pregnant again, we will have to go through this name choosing all over again. At least the girl is picked out!
Good. Now we have we have that clear, I'll be moving on to the explanation.
As you may recall, Brian and I chose to be surprised on the gender of the child, just as we will if God should choose to bless us with child once again.
The girl's name was easy. In fact, it was something I had chosen years ago, not long before Brian came into my life, and he happily agreed that it was a good name. Together, we decided on a middle name and called it a day.
But the boy's name was another matter, and it took us months to officially decide. (This is Brian's fault, because I chose Caleb early on. Sorry, honey.) Let me explain the story.
It is tradition in Brian's family for the father's first name to be passed on as the son's middle name. Brian's middle name, David, is his father's name. So we knew that if we had a son, his middle name would be Brian. That was clear. The challenge was trying to find something that worked well with Brian. I guess, for me, I had heard Brian so often as a first name, and never as a middle, that I just wasn't sure what to pair with it. It seemed like so many first names did not work, more than the ones that did.
So the name tossing began, and it continued for months and months. "How about (insert name here) Brian?" one of us would ask out of the blue. I had thought Caleb Brian sounded nice together, and so I rallied for Caleb fairly early on in the pregnancy journey. However, at the time, Brian had a student, one student, named Caleb. How awkward to come in announcing the name of your son, only to make said student feel as though your child his is namesake?
Well, the plot thickens, because said student conveniently moved away around February of last year, thus creating an opening in the Caleb name department. (Though not-so-conveniently in other areas. I can't remember what instrument he played, but he was indeed a loss to the band.) Brian still wasn't sold yet. We went through male name after male name, and just nothing was clicking just right. There are other male names I like, but none that just went well with Brian. We considered Daniel, but realized that the other couple at church, due to give birth just after us and were having their first boy, would probably name their son Daniel after the father. (We were right, and we were glad we didn't pick that!)
One day, I was on the phone with my sister, who was asking me about the name progress. Brian and I were keeping names a secret, even from family, but it didn't stop her from tossing out names left and right. After she kept going through names, I kept putting them down for one reason or another. Then she said, "I'm so sick of the name Caleb. Everyone around here is naming their sons Caleb."
Silence.
"You're thinking of Caleb, aren't you?"
I explained, that yes, we were, and she went on to reexplain that she didn't dislike the name, but admitted that there were at least three Caleb boys at her small church and another expecting couple she knew were also getting ready to name their son Caleb. It seems that in my former stomping grounds, the name Caleb keeps popping up.
Thankful, for once, that I no longer lived there, I didn't feel thwarted in the least in naming my son Caleb. In the Poconos, it isn't as common, at least, not that we've seen.
We didn't actually officially decide until Mother's Day, two days before Caleb came into this world, and for the record, almost one week after my due date. When Caleb was born, and Brian announced that we had a son, I will never forget looking at him and calling him "Caleb" for the very first time.
Caleb means "faithful", "bold", and "brave". It also means "whole hearted" in Hebrew. We know the man of faith that the Caleb of the Bible was. We pray that Caleb will follow Jesus Christ whole heartedly of his own choosing one day, being the faithful and bold man that God has called him to be. What a blessing he is already, and we know he will be all his days!
So that's the story! The only downer? If we do get pregnant again, we will have to go through this name choosing all over again. At least the girl is picked out!
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