Showing posts with label motherhood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label motherhood. Show all posts
Dear Fox,
I am so very proud of you about so many things. You are such a joy to me and your Daddy. We love playing with you, comforting you when you’re sad or hurt, giggling and acting silly with you, and we adore watching you grow and learn. You are truly, without a doubt, the best thing that has ever happened to us.
But.
5am is not an acceptable wake-up time. Maybe once in awhile, like if we’re getting up early to go to the beach or Disney World. But on regular days, it just won’t do. I must insist at the very least that you extend your sleeping time until Daddy’s alarm clock goes off at 6:00. You were doing this for a few days, but 5:00 has suddenly become your hour of choice. Please don’t get me wrong - I am thrilled that you go to sleep at 7pm most nights without a fuss and sleep through the night. This is incredible, and please - don’t stop. But, baby, I am begging you - sleep until 6am.
Also, I’d like to ask that you talk to your friend Mr. Bird and ask him to kindly adopt a similar sleeping schedule and avoid 5am wake-up times. I know you two have a lot to chat about, and since there is no tree outside YOUR window, Mr. Bird feels compelled to camp outside MY window and twitter and tweet as loudly as possible so you can hear him. But, again, this just won’t do. I would gladly plant a tree outside your window so you and Mr. Bird could socialize at ungodly hours every morning, but sadly our HOA won’t let me. So could you please talk to him? I would appreciate it. You should also know that, if Mr. Bird suddenly stops showing up in the morning, Mommy has no idea what happened to him. He probably just packed up and moved South (or North, or to some other poor, sleep-deprived mom’s bedroom window). Or maybe he went to take a nap with the fishes, since he's been getting up so early every morning and probably needs a nap.
I would appreciate it if you would take these requests under consideration. I know you have a busy agenda and need to start early every morning in order to squeeze everything in, but an extra hour or two of sleep never hurt anyone. Just consider it.
With never-waning affection,
your sleepy and slightly exasperated Mom
P.S. Pleeeease nap!
I am so very proud of you about so many things. You are such a joy to me and your Daddy. We love playing with you, comforting you when you’re sad or hurt, giggling and acting silly with you, and we adore watching you grow and learn. You are truly, without a doubt, the best thing that has ever happened to us.
But.
5am is not an acceptable wake-up time. Maybe once in awhile, like if we’re getting up early to go to the beach or Disney World. But on regular days, it just won’t do. I must insist at the very least that you extend your sleeping time until Daddy’s alarm clock goes off at 6:00. You were doing this for a few days, but 5:00 has suddenly become your hour of choice. Please don’t get me wrong - I am thrilled that you go to sleep at 7pm most nights without a fuss and sleep through the night. This is incredible, and please - don’t stop. But, baby, I am begging you - sleep until 6am.
Also, I’d like to ask that you talk to your friend Mr. Bird and ask him to kindly adopt a similar sleeping schedule and avoid 5am wake-up times. I know you two have a lot to chat about, and since there is no tree outside YOUR window, Mr. Bird feels compelled to camp outside MY window and twitter and tweet as loudly as possible so you can hear him. But, again, this just won’t do. I would gladly plant a tree outside your window so you and Mr. Bird could socialize at ungodly hours every morning, but sadly our HOA won’t let me. So could you please talk to him? I would appreciate it. You should also know that, if Mr. Bird suddenly stops showing up in the morning, Mommy has no idea what happened to him. He probably just packed up and moved South (or North, or to some other poor, sleep-deprived mom’s bedroom window). Or maybe he went to take a nap with the fishes, since he's been getting up so early every morning and probably needs a nap.
I would appreciate it if you would take these requests under consideration. I know you have a busy agenda and need to start early every morning in order to squeeze everything in, but an extra hour or two of sleep never hurt anyone. Just consider it.
With never-waning affection,
your sleepy and slightly exasperated Mom
P.S. Pleeeease nap!
We are trying, quite hard actually, to get my sweet still-toothless boy to eat big people food. We’ve made a bit of progress in the last few weeks, and I thought I would report.
At the top of the list of “What Fox Wants for Dinner?” Goldfish. Lots and lots of goldfish. He wasn’t a bit interested in finger foods until we went to a playdate where the little boy of the house was eating goldfish. Now, all of a sudden, Fox can’t get enough of them. Literally. Heaven help me if I leave the house without remembering to pack a baggie of goldfish.
Since I can’t nourish my son exclusively with little fish-shaped cheese crackers, we are trying to branch out. Currently the list of foods that sometimes get swallowed (and about equally as often end up stuck to the back of his britches) includes:
Spaghetti-o’s
Cheerios
Avocados (okay, so apparently foods that end in “-o” are a hit)
Whole wheat toast with 100% fruit blueberry jam
Ravioli pieces
Lasagna
Yogurt
Shredded cheese
Bananas (sometimes)
Whole, peeled apples (he likes to suck on them)
Ice cream (so sue me)
Things that are currently on the “icky” list are:
Dark chocolate (hey, he begged for a piece!)
Cottage cheese
Everything else not on the list above
So, little by little, day by day, Fox is learning to eat like a grown-up. He loves to drink apple juice from his sippy cup. He is still hesitant about the whole silverware thing. Most days he still throws a fit if I try to introduce new foods. But we’re getting there.
Thank you, goldfish. Thank you.
At the top of the list of “What Fox Wants for Dinner?” Goldfish. Lots and lots of goldfish. He wasn’t a bit interested in finger foods until we went to a playdate where the little boy of the house was eating goldfish. Now, all of a sudden, Fox can’t get enough of them. Literally. Heaven help me if I leave the house without remembering to pack a baggie of goldfish.
Since I can’t nourish my son exclusively with little fish-shaped cheese crackers, we are trying to branch out. Currently the list of foods that sometimes get swallowed (and about equally as often end up stuck to the back of his britches) includes:
Spaghetti-o’s
Cheerios
Avocados (okay, so apparently foods that end in “-o” are a hit)
Whole wheat toast with 100% fruit blueberry jam
Ravioli pieces
Lasagna
Yogurt
Shredded cheese
Bananas (sometimes)
Whole, peeled apples (he likes to suck on them)
Ice cream (so sue me)
Things that are currently on the “icky” list are:
Dark chocolate (hey, he begged for a piece!)
Cottage cheese
Everything else not on the list above
So, little by little, day by day, Fox is learning to eat like a grown-up. He loves to drink apple juice from his sippy cup. He is still hesitant about the whole silverware thing. Most days he still throws a fit if I try to introduce new foods. But we’re getting there.
Thank you, goldfish. Thank you.
I know, I was supposed to make this post when I was pregnant. But at least I'm making it (barely) before Fox's first birthday! I cleaned the nursery the other day, and Fox was gracious enough to let me snap a few pictures before he rained down his usual destruction. Our theme started out as jungle animals, and then it grew to include Curious George when he was on sale at Target. There's also a bit of classic Pooh in there, and I'm sure you'll see some foxes and ducks here and there. I was super proud of the ducky bathroom, as I got the whole darn thing (Pottery Barn Kids no less) secondhand for $20. When I was like 200 months pregnant, I painted the monkey picture above the bookshelf and the giraffe picture above the rocking chair (although Michael tells me, truthfully, that the mommy giraffe looks more like a brontosaurus). The crib, which I love, is totally Ikea. Everything else is pretty mishmash. It's a happy room, and I'm glad I get to share it with you.
Things have been really challenging lately. Fox has been having a hard time for some reason. Of course, my first guess is that he’s teething, but it seems like I’ve blamed every challenge on teething from the time he was 3 months old and suddenly became a drool factory, and guess what? Here we are, 7.5 months later, and we still have no teeth. We started sleep training in December so that Fox would learn to sleep in his crib. That was hard, but it was starting to pay off, and for a few weeks we enjoyed regular naptimes, bedtimes, and sleeping through the night from about 6:30pm til 6:00am. Then things started deteriorating. In addition to the napping drama I described in an earlier post, he has started waking up at 4:00 EVERY morning, ready to go. I didn’t really think things could get worse, but the last few nights he has woken up crying 2 or 3 times during the night, and to top it off he still gets up between 4:00 and 5:00 for the day.
At church this Sunday, our pastor baptized a sweet three-month-old baby girl. He typically tells some personal information about the baby and family after the baptism, and he talked about how her parents had been blessed with another “easy” baby who only cries when she’s hungry and is already starting to sleep through the night. For a moment, I found myself feeling wistful and thinking, “Boy, wouldn’t that have been nice.” But I quickly chided myself for these thoughts and thanked God again that He gave Fox into our care exactly as he is. Mike apparently had similar thoughts during the service. Afterwards we were talking, and he observed that that baby’s parents were probably already godly, patient people who could handle being blessed with an easygoing baby (this is conjecture, of course, but work with me here). We, on the other hand, desperately needed Fox, difficulties and all, to expose our sins of selfishness and self-reliance and to help us grow into better, more godly people than we once were. This is a theme we’ve revisited many times over the past 10 months, and it constantly affirms God’s sovereign provision for us. God knew exactly what baby we, Mike and Laura, needed for our own sanctification, and He blessed us so richly by putting that child in our charge. I am so grateful for Fox.
And now for something completely different....
The census was a total bust. I thought there’d at least be more to it so I’d feel like I was filling out a survey or something. Nope. Just a few questions about who lives in my household and when they were born. That’s it. My income taxes were more interesting! Boo.
Fox just cannot decide whether he wants to embrace or reject his naps. Most days, he’ll settle in and fall asleep taking his bottle for his morning nap(which has been the norm for, oh, 4 months or so). During the last few weeks, he has decided to consistently reject his afternoon nap. He’ll fuss because he’s tired, and I’ll take him up to his room and give him a bottle. He’ll stretch out and close his eyes while he eats, and then, when I think he’s almost asleep, his little eyes will pop open, he’ll flip over on his belly, and he’ll flash me a huge smile. That’s when I know the nap is done for. The thing that puzzles me most is how he will alternate between rejecting his afternoon nap and his morning nap. Some mornings, such as today, he’ll pull his little flip-smile routine in the morning instead of the afternoon, which can be hard for me since I’m counting on that morning nap myself to catch up on the zzz’s I missed the night before thanks to my little munchkin. I’d be happy if we went down to only one nap, but the problem is he still seems to need two naps. Every day after his skipped nap he becomes exhausted and fussy, but he refuses to go to sleep. So I’m at a bit of a loss. I know some other dear mommy friends are going through something similar with their little ones right now, so it helps a bit to know I’m not alone.
But, oh, how I miss the days when he would sleep for a blissful hour or two twice a day.
But, oh, how I miss the days when he would sleep for a blissful hour or two twice a day.
Fox unpacks his diaper bag
On any given day, at any given moment, in any given corner of our house, this is a normal picture. Fox is currently fixated on "undoing" things, particularly unpacking purses, drawers, the pantry, etc. I cope by going around at the end of the day and swooping the miscellaneous items back into their corresponding bags, drawers, or Fox's laundry basket of toys (secured to the floor with a 20 lb dumbbell to prevent tipping). He has so much fun undoing things that a clean house starts to seem overrated.
What is this "Proof of Life" business? Read here.
There is something so wonderfully satisfying about kissing Fox’s chubby little baby cheeks. I love how my lips almost completely cover his round little cheek and how his cheek gets even chubbier as he breaks into a big grin because my kisses tickle him. I really could kiss those cheeks all day long.
I mean, look at them - couldn’t you?
I mean, look at them - couldn’t you?
I was never really an accident-prone kid. It's not that I was particularly clever or coordinated (I was neither), but I was sheltered. When I was a toddler I was watched like a hawk by my parents or grandparents at all times, and I was pretty much protected from calamity by their attentiveness. I think the only "major" injury I had at this age was when I pulled a coat rack down on top of myself when I was two. Of course I had a few injuries as I grew up, but honestly - I think I can count them on one hand! Skinned my knee (age 3), got hit in the eye with a plastic toy helicopter (age 4), fell off my bike and got gravel in my knee (with training wheels, age 8), fell off a horse 3 miles down a mountain trail (age 9), got hit in the shin with a softball (age 14). I won't count the three lung collapses (technically they weren't my fault!) or the time I sprained my ankle falling down the stairs at Michael's house a few years ago (since I was an adult then). But really, if you consider Michael's accident history (which is too lengthy to post!), I was doing pretty well for myself.
Fox is Michael's son, through and through.
My kid is determined to do anything in his power to get hurt. He's progressed so quickly from an immobile baby-blob to this on-the-go-ain't-goin-down-til-the-sun-comes-up rambunctious little boy. Most of the time he moves before he considers the consequences, and this has resulted in many a bumped noggin and crying fit. He stands up in the bathroom near the space heater; he falls down and hits his head on the space heater. He stands up near the bathtub while I'm taking a shower; he slips and bumps his head on the base of the toilet. He crawls too fast; he loses his momentum and faceplants. He leans too far over the makeshift baby gate (two ottomans placed side-by-side), he bumps his head on the linoleum in the kitchen. Today he was crawling and his hand got stuck underneath him, and he bonked his head on the leg of the wooden chair I was sitting in. He now has a nice big goose egg on the side of his head.
I'm not sure I'm mature enough to handle being the mom of an accident-prone baby boy. Every bump, bruise, and goose egg makes me want to cry right along with him and give him 4 million and 2 kisses to make sure it's all better. Michael told me to be prepared for this. I guess I'm just going to have to buck up and deal with each fall as it comes. And I'm sure they will come, as Fox is on the verge of walking.
I'll deal with it, but that won't make it hurt me any less each time he bumps his sweet little head.
I'm borrowing this ingenious idea from the blog of a woman I used to go to church with. She was inspired by the lyrics of a Caedmon's Call song, "Sacred," to start a blog series of photos that showcase interesting images she sees as the mother of five children - images that prove that there is now life where there once was none. I think this is a wonderful way to celebrate the joys and frustrations our little ones bring to us.
Incidentally, this song "Sacred" is something that has been on my heart and mind a lot since becoming a mother. I'll include the lyrics here:
This house is a good mess; it's the proof of life
No way would I trade jobs, but it don't pay overtime
I'll get to the laundry I don't know when
I'm saying a prayer tonight, 'cause tomorrow it starts again
Could it be that everything is sacred?
And all this time
Everything I've dreamed of has been right before my eyes?
The children are sleeping, but they're running through my mind
The sun makes them happy and the music makes them unwind
My cup runneth over, and I worry about the stain
Teach me to run to you like they run to me for every little thing
'Cause everything is sacred
And all this time
Everything I've dreamed of has been right before my eyes
When I forget to drink from you I can feel the banks harden
Lord make me like a stream to feed the garden
Wake up little sleeper
The Lord God Almighty
Made your mama keeper
So rise and shine, rise and shine, rise and shine
'Cause everything is sacred
And all this time
Everything I've dreamed of has been right before my eyes
No way would I trade jobs, but it don't pay overtime
I'll get to the laundry I don't know when
I'm saying a prayer tonight, 'cause tomorrow it starts again
Could it be that everything is sacred?
And all this time
Everything I've dreamed of has been right before my eyes?
The children are sleeping, but they're running through my mind
The sun makes them happy and the music makes them unwind
My cup runneth over, and I worry about the stain
Teach me to run to you like they run to me for every little thing
'Cause everything is sacred
And all this time
Everything I've dreamed of has been right before my eyes
When I forget to drink from you I can feel the banks harden
Lord make me like a stream to feed the garden
Wake up little sleeper
The Lord God Almighty
Made your mama keeper
So rise and shine, rise and shine, rise and shine
'Cause everything is sacred
And all this time
Everything I've dreamed of has been right before my eyes
I think this is such a poignant song, and it captures much of the busyness and blessing of being a mother. There have been so many times since Monkey Man's birth that I've been overcome with joy and heartache, sometimes at the same time. It is the hardest job I could imagine, and without a doubt it's also the best one.
So, thanks to Kelly, here is my first proof of life picture.
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