First impressions of the family of four bit were awesome. The honeymoon period was great. A was seriously (and still is) such an awesome baby. Great at nursing, great at sleeping, just awesome (until she gets a burp stuck but thankfully that's not too often).
B was awesome. He was (and still is) smitten with his sister and super loved getting presents and attention from all the visitors we had.
And then the presents stopped coming in and visitors stopped coming over and he realized mom was spending a lot of time feeding sis and dad was spending a lot of time doing everything else. He was crazing some mom time and attention and needed some outside of the house action. Things got hairy for awhile… And by hairy I mean we were in all out survival mode for a few weeks. He started struggling with sleep and behavior and pretty much everything else. It. was. rough.
And if I'm being completely honest. I was struggling too. The visitors stopped. (And the meals, ha.) The check ins stopped (because who wants to keep checking in on you if you're too crazy trying to survive to even reply?). I was feeling lonely and the hormones were crazy (as in a million times worse than after B). Not helping those hormones… I had to start back at work when A was just four weeks old.
And we were left in our little bubble to figure things out.
Did I mention it got rough? :|
Turning the corner took a combination of things but there were a couple key points that made the biggest difference….
-When B and I snuck out of the house for a mommy/B date. We went for a haircut (his), a dinner stop, and a pirate show at our church. He soaked up the mommy time and couldn't stop telling me how much fun he was having and how much he loved me. In the few short weeks since A had been born, I really had forgotten how much fun he is. Also, while we were there, I ran into a friend I hadn't talked to for awhile. I cried with her about all the things running wild in my head and she prayed over me. She helped me figure out a couple little (HUGE) things that have made a big difference. (Did I mention she has six kids?)
-When my mom came to stay. I had a super busy week at work and really just needed help keeping my sanity more than anything. We didn't have a super productive week but we felt supported and that was huge.
-When I started running again. I realized there would never be a good time to do it so on Mother's Day I decided that was all I wanted and I hit the pavement. And of course once you start, you don't stop. I hate running but it's so good for me because 1. It keeps me in touch with one of my besties. and 2. It gives me uninterrupted time to think/pray/admire God's beauty/or sing at the top of my lungs to the headphones if I want to (on the country roads only of course). The other night I was out running and starting the downward spiral of thoughts again when I saw an interesting chalk drawing….
By the time I realized it was there and slowed down enough to read it, I realized it said "Devil is not awesome." It appeared to be the drawing of a youngish kid and it really struck me as profound… that this kid artist (whomever it was) could blame the devil for the 'not awesome' but my downward spiraling thoughts were blaming everyone and everyone else for the 'not awesome.'
Tonight as I was running by, I purposefully slowed down enough to take a pic. I did get the 'devil is not awesome' part…
But what I had stepped over before realizing what it said (and snapping a pic) might have been even better……
"God is."
Kid, whomever you are- you're killin' it. Thanks for the inspo.
(Yep. Randomly ending this unedited post right here. Cause that's how I roll these days.) ;)
