Author: Michele Minehart (Page 292 of 311)

(this was our first food day: avocado. he thinks cado is ok, but likes Nanacado much better.)

When i was pregnant with henry there were a few common phrases that drove me batty:
2. it’s going to change your life so much! it’s going to change everything! (to which my cousins smartly replied, “well i should hope so!”)
1. just you wait.

the reason i hated (and still dislike) “just you wait” is because, well, i WAS waiting. JJ and i didn’t haphazardly fall into parenting – we wanted this. we wanted a baby. and we had a pretty good handle, thanks to a lot of the experience around us, on the toll it would take on our social, emotional and slumbering lives. but we both knew it was well worth it.

and we still do.

lately, through henry’s “rough patch” i can see it’s more true than ever. there are difficult times. but that’s anything worth doing. marriage can be hard, but it’s so worth it to spend your life with someone. service to others can be difficult, like in those people-serving jobs (youth directing, teaching, social services, counseling – anything where you’re carrying the burden of loving people), but the privilage of sharing space and time with people brings so much gratification. parenting takes more of yourself than you sometimes think you have to give, but wow. they give you more joy than what you thought you could ever experience.

Jesus was constantly talking in backward terms – you have to lose your life to find it, you have to die to live, you have to give to receive. and i think being a mommy or a daddy is a way of God inviting you to live that on a daily basis. it’s always a choice to give of yourself – your sleep, your energy, your body (i never knew i could double as a jungle gym until lately). but oh my gosh! to have this little person want to climb you and then plant a big kiss (well, more of an open mouth suck) on your cheek????

so here’s what i have to offer: selfishness is pretty lonely.

i had to go with a quippy title because the general topic is emotional and frustrating.

it’s been six and a half months, and now, all of a sudden, breastfeeding is hard.

H has been going through a difficult patch. a week of flu and no eating. a week of eating 8x as much to make up for it. and it’s been about a week now that we’ve tried some solids. not to mention a tooth and a half (i haven’t checked yet today to see if #2 has popped through). all of this adds up to wanting to eat at least every 3 hours – day or night.

i love my baby, but i thought we’d moved through this. when he was first born i could work myself through the neediness because, well, he’s a baby. he needs me. but now he wants to eat all the time. he needs to eat – he’s not gaining weight like the doctor wants. he’s eating 5 oz. and wanting more. i’m pumping 3 or 4. needless to say, i think i might be the culprit to our little bad spell and it leads to an overwhelming list of emotions, topping the list: failure, disappointment, shame, and fear.

one thing that makes it all very difficult is the fact that i’m a hard core believer in breastfeeding. i think God designed an amazing system. so with that belief, one of 2 things is happening: a) the system isn’t as great as i thought or 2) i’m doing something wrong. i don’t like either of those.

and there’s a world of competitive moms out there that (i think) would love to see someone with my beliefs fail. which brings on the shame and fear. or maybe that’s my own insecurities speaking.

i’d really rather not have the “you can do it” comments. or the “awww, it’s ok” remarks. probably my pride speaking there, but i just don’t want to hear it.

i have further thoughts, but i also have a crying, hungry baby in my lap. so until then….

what a fantastic weekend. besides gorgeous weather and good eats alllll weekend long (i wish i had a dollar for every no bake cookie i consumed), it was wonderful company.

my son is fortunate enough to grow up not only with wonderful little friends in his town, but also a litter of cousins his age. henry spent the weekend 4 little boys (ages 2 and under) and a little girl (age 2 as well) – 2 of those boys are within a month in age of henry! while on a boatride dad started visualizing what life will be like in 7 or 8 years when these little fellas will want to tube all the live long day (we decided we’d have to start a shuttle out to the ski zone). i just know they’re going to have so much fun. i hope i get a dollar as well for every cut, bruise and bump they inflict on one another. it’ll make them tough 🙂

but just as valuable, i think, are the mommies and daddies of these kiddos. i think i spent about 8/10 of the weekend trying to figure out why henry has had such interrupted sleep lately (along with why he won’t poop and hasn’t gained weight). i asked. i probed. i interrupted. i evesdropped. i cornered them in the kitchen with a meat fork and threatened to take their big toe. and all the mommies freely gave of tidbits with both a loving smile and an empathetic heart.

it takes the right kind of women to put up with such a pesterer such as myself. they’re not insecure about their mommying choices, so they freely give advice. but they’re also not so quick to think they’ve done it perfectly or in the only correct manner so that it’s only advice. it’s a quiet, confident humility. and it’s beautiful.

all the babies who were at the lake this weekend have been raised differently (even if only for the 6 months or so they’ve been around). some get to have their mommies around all day, every day, or all day, some days. some get to stay with day care or amish friends during the day. some eat from boxes that say “organic” while some get cups that say “fun fruit flavors”. some sleep early and long, some sleep late or very little. but all of them have mommies and daddies that are making the best decisions they know how, providing loving homes and healthy lives.

it’s not everywhere where a new mom can talk freely about the struggles and decisions without either feeling defensive or inadaquate. i’m lucky enough to have both wonderful friends and a loving family with whom i can be honest about my journey into mommyhood. because one thing is for sure – i can’t do this alone. and i don’t think we’re ever meant to – for generations women have come together to join forces in child rearing. but something about the women of our generation seems to have made that difficult. i have a few theories (i always do). the ladies of today are more formally educated than ever before. we’re also more independant than ever before. i think there’s a little voice in us that says “you should know how to do this. you’re supposed to know how to do this. you can lead a boardroom, recruit an executive and solicit large dollar accounts, but you can’t feed a baby?”

according to CS Lewis, one of Satan’s biggest goals is to make us feel alone and make us feel like we’ll never get it right. hopelessness. and one of God’s biggest weapons lies in the people he puts around us. those lies are debunked as soon as you ask someone else and they can honestly say the 2nd most powerful 3 words in the english language: “yeah. me too.”