Your {Grace} is Enough

Date: August 13, 2015

Weight: 12lbs 2oz

Length:

Clothing Size: Some 0-3 still fit but mostly in the 3 month stuff or 3-6 month stuff

Sleeping Patterns: Beginning of month -- Well, naps have become a little interesting. Trice refuses to let the poor baby sleep so she ends up getting over tired and fighting sleep. It's quite the cycle. I need a live-in nanny to pay attention to him long enough for me to help her fall asleep and then a mute button to help her stay asleep. Or I just need to give in and let the poor kid watch TV... ugh. If we get her to bed early enough, she goes right to sleep and sleeps great. If we miss the window of opportunity we endure 4 hours of non-stop screaming. End of month -- Umm. who is this baby and where did she come from? I feed her, change her diaper, swaddle her, kiss her and tell her "goodnight" and she lays there staring at her singing monkey and goes to sleep. This has made naptime and bedtime incredible. She goes down about 5:00 (yep, that early) and wakes up to eat once more before going down for the night. Sometimes she wakes up once in the night to eat and irght back to sleep. Other times she sleeps all night. The other morning she ate at 6 and went back to sleep until 10.

Eating Patterns: Eats every 2 hours pretty religiously, won't take a bottle (stinker!)

Likes: Being on her tummy, Taggie Blanket, Mirrors, Trice talking to her, Crinkly Lion Toy, Daddy coming home from work, Binky, Mommy singing lullabies (she stops whatever she's doing and stares at me and smiles GREAT big!), Monkey that lights up and plays music in her bed, facial hair

Dislikes: Her arms being completely swaddled, being kept up too late (like past 4:30pm), SNUGGLING (ugh.. I am finally just going to face reality - she doesn't like to snuggle. It's really so sad. She just wants to be put down to do her own thing and go to sleep.. who does that?!)

Milestones: Rollin', Rollin', Rollin! She's unstoppable. More Laughing. Starting to balance sitting up (What is this?!). Started wearing cloth diapers full-time (I feel like we are finally out of "survival mode" most days.. so it was time!), Really reaching out and grabbing lots anything and everything, holds toys in both hands, First pigtails!

But seriously... bah!

Exciting Events: Big brother's 3rd Birthday party, Family came to visit, First girl's day shopping trip with mommy!

Trice's Thoughts: He'd mostly be okay if she only lived with us 40% of the time. Some quotes from this past month:
"Mom, let's just get rid of her car seat." "Why?" "We can just leave her at home forever and she can cry, cry, cry."
"I actually don't really like her. I don't want her to be here anymore. Let's just sell her to another kid."
...as she just smiles lovingly back at him..

Eliana is just a genuinely happy little girl! We love her so very, very much. She is chill and fits perfectly into our family (unless you ask Trice!)

I'll admit that there are days I forget to be grateful .. well, a lot of days. I am human after all. This ungrateful attitude has been eating at me lately. This stay-at-home mom gig has been wearing me out,and I feel like I'm drowning more days than I'm swimming. I haven't quite mastered the art of this two kiddo thing just yet. My desire for perfection and the guilt of feeling like I can't fully meet the needs of two tiny humans has been stealing my joy. Sometimes the love I have in my heart is so overwhelming that I beat myself up for not fulfilling my vision of motherhood.

I knew this was happening when I started grumping at friends on Facebook. Those that were bragging about clean houses. Those that were posting pictures of their vacation to the ocean or a girls' day out. Those pictures of toddlers with new siblings and statuses about how in love they were. But then when I started complaining about a friend who had just had a baby and was sending her toddler son to daycare while she stayed home with the baby on maternity leave, I knew something had to give. I was being so judgmental and that's something I just really don't like being. Of course taking care of her new baby seemed like a breeze -- she didn't have a toddler demanding her attention, waking up the baby, screaming, biting.. you know.. Of course the toddler loved the baby, he was never around her. I was totally jealous that she had the opportunity to snuggle her sweet new baby every second of every day while I was just praying for a minute of uninterrupted nursing.

But that mom that I was grumping at? For the last two years while I was snuggling in bed with my sweet boy, she was dropping hers off at daycare. While I was attending library story time and mom's groups, she was managing meetings and appointments. She gets up every day and goes to work. She has 9 weeks left at home with this sweet babe and she can hardly stomach the end being that near. Her heart breaks every morning when she leaves her heart in the hands of another person. She cries when she misses an exciting milestone. She gets a lump her in her throat every time she asks about my day and I tell her about our walks and adventures. And here I am .. being ungrateful.

I'll admit that from time to time I envy my husband for getting to go to work. I mean he spends all day talking to humans his size. I can't even sputter out a real English word when I attempt to make conversation with the checker at Hy-Vee, and if I do I end up saying something embarrassing like how my child pooped 6 times that day (I wish I was making this up). He spends his lunch break disc golfing, enjoying the outdoors, chatting sports, doing whatever he wants .. EATING. I spend my lunch (break?) nursing a baby while trying not to burn myself cooking something that ends up burning because my toddler poops and needs help and once I finally get him to the table and think I can sit down the baby throws up and as I'm cleaning that up the toddler's milk glass spills flooding the entire kitchen (when I swore there was not even that much milk in there) and if I do get a chance to sit down again -- my food is definitely cold. Cold burnt soggy food. Yum.

Often I long for 5 minutes of complete solitude. No one touching me. No one talking to me. 5 minutes to go to the bathroom by myself. To shower without hearing phantom baby cries. Most nights and days run straight into each other. There's no beginning and ending. No moment of putting my feet up to relax. I keep talking about this bike ride I'm going to go on by myself after the kids go to bed. But by the time they are in bed, the only thing I want to see is the back of my eyelids. Sometimes I stay up really late just staring. I'm completely unproductive even though I know I SHOULD be doing something.. anything.. mostly sleeping.. I just stare knowing that all too soon it starts all over again.

There is just no reason to be ungrateful. Not a single reason. I am incredibly blessed that I wake up to their sweet faces. I love on them all day long. I get to teach them everything they know. I get to wipe every tear and kiss every boo boo. I clap for every first. I savor every last. Somewhere during our time, they might learn their ABCs or maybe even how to ride a bike. But most importantly, I'm teaching them what God's love is all about just by loving them as Jesus would. Some days I fall short.. more than I'd like to admit. And some days? Well some days I'm really, really good at it .. even if I don't give myself enough credit because I'll never reach that vision in my head.

All you mamas out there who get up every morning and go to work leaving your little ones with someone else you trust wishing desperately you could have stayed home.. I'm sorry for all my ungrateful days. I know you have bad days at work and I guess that means I can have bad days at home, too, but truly -- I think of you when I do. I think of how maybe your heart is breaking a little or maybe how you have no choice -- you're the only one bringing in an income or money is just tight. Or maybe you WANT to work and have a career - and that's awesome, too. I think you are amazing and I admire you and I pray for you.. I just don't have conversations with you because your vocabulary includes more words than "poop."

Sometimes it just takes a moment. Or a few tiny moments to bring me back. To remind me WHY I'm doing this. WHY I'm here. WHY this is God's plan for me. It's those moments that I freeze in my mind and in my heart. I pull them out on a rainy .. er .. challenging day.

This is my WHY. This is why I left my dream career for my bigger dream of being a mommy. This is why I emptied my closet yesterday and put 90% of my clothes in the "for sale" box to fun my new yoga pant collection. This is why we don't go on big vacations right now .. or have cable. This is my dream come true.

So today? Today I stared at them. I thought, "Wow. I did nothing to deserve them yet they are everything I always dreamt of and more. These two are truly the greatest blessings I could have ever prayed for. God is so very good."

Time for bed (after a few pictures of those blessings I speak of..)