Friday Photo - Worth It

They all said it to me when I was 9 months pregnant with swollen feet and hands, going to the bathroom every 5 minutes, and experiencing all sorts of pain and discomfort. They all said it to me when I was nervous and slightly scared to death of birthing a baby and worried about how difficult it was going to be. They all said it to me when that baby was four weeks old and waking me up every two and a half hours at night to eat, peeing and pooping and spitting up all over me, and resembling just a little blob of a human.

"It's all worth it," is what they all said to me over and over and over. And I must admit they were very right.....

 

Friday Photo - Making Friends

Every day we try to give Brock a little independent "play" time just so we aren't constantly in his face and so he can learn to entertain himself some. I'm hoping that this transfers over to his toddler years and that it will help him develop his imagination and sense of independence. Of course there's a selfish motivation too because I will want to be able to get things done when he's older and not have to always be his source of entertainment. So we're starting young with independent play. Usually it consists of about 10 or 15 minutes (he still doesn't stay awake for too much longer than this after he's eaten) in the pack'n'play or in his rocker seat with a mobile overhead.

This past week we noticed that Brock seems to have made friends with the little giraffes on the mobile over his pack'n'play. He can really focus on them now and he's started swatting at them with his hands. Every now and then I'll look over and he's just smiling away at Mr. Giraffe on the far left; that one is his favorite. Occasionally, toward the end of the playtime, his giraffe friends will hurt his feelings and he'll start crying so we know it's naptime then. While I couldn't catch him smiling or swatting, I was able to get some pictures of him gazing at the giraffes this week and thought I'd make these the Friday Photos. I love how huge his eyes get when he's trying to figure something out.

Baby Dedication?

This past Sunday, May 29, Blaine and I dedicated Brock at church. Since we are Baptists, we don't christen or baptize babies and the ceremony is on a much smaller scale and much less elaborate than other denominations may do it. In fact, I don't even know that I would call it a "ceremony" in our church because it basically just consisted of us walking on stage with several other families, announcing the baby's name, birthdate, and birth stats, and then the pastor praying for all of the families. It has always seemed to me to be a sweet little ritual that we do in the Baptist church and nothing that really holds any significant meaning or consequences for the baby since it isn't a salvation experience. Funny how so many things change after you have your own baby...

Our church, Brainerd Hills Baptist, offers the opportunity for baby dedication every fifth Sunday of the months that have one. Since there were five Sundays in May and Brock had been going to church for a few weeks now with no problems, I asked Blaine if I should sign us up for this month's baby dedication. Blaine, being of the same kind of mindset I described in the first paragraph and not a big fan of being the center of attention, was hesitant. Not that he was opposed to dedicating Brock, he just wasn't too enthused about the idea of doing it publicly and potentially forgetting, in front of everyone, important information like the baby's birth weight and looking like the worst father ever. After discussing it further though, we both decided it was something we should participate in. Reading through the Bible, there are so many examples of families dedicating their children to the Lord, committing to raise them according to God's laws and word. After searching it out for ourselves, this was an important public commitment that we wanted to make for our family as well.

Because we didn't want it to be just some event that we signed up for at church and didn't think too much about, we decided it would make it more meaningful to us to read a relevant passage of Scripture and pray over Brock before we left for church that Sunday morning. We read Psalm 139 because it talks about how God creates each of us and how he thinks of us:

O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it. Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, "Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night," even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day; for darkness is as light with you. For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I would count them, they are more than the sand. I awake, and I am still with you. Oh that you would slay the wicked, O God! O men of blood, depart from me! They speak against you with malicious intent; your enemies take your name in vain! Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? I hate them with complete hatred; I count them my enemies. Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!

I read this passage several times when I was pregnant with Brock. I also read it to console myself earlier last year when I had had a miscarriage. The thought that God knits together the intricacies of a human life inside a mother's womb and knows everything there is to know about that life, even the number of days it will live, is an awe-inspiring thought and a tremendous comfort to me. I thank God for the baby he took from us, and I thank him for the baby he allowed us to have. Like Hannah, I am able to say, "For this child I prayed, and the Lord has granted me my petition that I made to him" (1 Sam 1:27). With the understanding that Brock is a gift from God, Blaine and I want to raise him with a knowledge of who God is. We want him to one day desire the Lord for himself, not because we forced him to go to church or made him read his Bible front to back or memorize the Ten Commandments, but rather we want him to desire the Lord because the Lord is good and worth desiring.

So what does "baby dedication" mean to us? Psalm 78:5-8 says, "[God] established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers to teach their children, that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children, so that they should set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments; and that they should not be like their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation whose heart was not steadfast, whose spirit was not faithful to God." In dedicating Brock to God, we are saying that as parents we commit to teach Brock what it means to set his hope in God, to remain faithful to God. We want to model to our son morality, wisdom, goodness, self-control, love, and godliness. We do not want to be self-righteous or judgmental, legalistic or overzealous. We will be imperfect models and we will mess up more often than we succeed, I am sure, but my hope is that the overarching theme of our parenting will present to Brock and to all of our future children a glimpse of who God is and how he loves us. It is my prayer that Brock will grow up to be a godly, honorable, and good man who recognizes his sinfulness and decides for himself that he needs Christ to save him from that sin. I hope that he will one day pass on this knowledge to his own children and that our children's children's children will have had the opportunity to know the Lord.

Moses commanded the Israelites: "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise." (Deut 6:4-7) This, in essence, is what Blaine and I are committing to with the dedication of our firstborn son. May God help us in our endeavor.

Friday Photo - 1st Edition: Smile

 In the interest of being able to consistently add at least one post a week to my blog, and being inspired by some other blogs I regularly read, I decided to start doing a recurring "Friday Photo" post where I basically pick one (or maybe sometimes a few) of my favorite pictures that I'm able to get of Brock during that particular week.

This week's picture was easy to choose since it was the first time I was able to catch his big smile on camera. I got this right after he had eaten and had his diaper changed. Who wouldn't be this happy with a full belly and fresh bottom? I tried and tried to get another one of him looking directly at the camera, but he was over it quickly. Love that gummy grin.

Keeping it Real

After a particularly difficult day with the little one, I thought it would be as good a time as ever to write a post I've been meaning to write for a few weeks now. I titled it my "Keeping it Real" post because I want to make sure that I don't gloss over all the hairy details of the first two months with a newborn and make it seem like it has just been blissfully simple. It has not. Another blog I've been reading lately suggested the value of writing down the good and the bad with each child so that you aren't tempted to look back on those newborn stages with rose-colored glasses and think, "It is so much harder with this second (or third or fourth or whatever) child than it was with the first one" because we tend to forget or minimize the worst parts. So I narrowed it down to a list of the top five frustrations I've encountered during the newborn stage with Brock.

1. NO SLEEP: Ok, this one is no surprise. I knew I would be getting a lot less sleep with a newborn baby, but I didn't realize how much it would affect me. I'm a big lover of sleep. I could still do the teenager thing and sleep til noon on Saturdays if I didn't have anything else to do, and I can take a nap at any time of day. But for the past two months I've been running on generally no more than 2 to 4 hours of consecutive sleep at a time. I may have gotten 6 straight hours one or two nights and that was amazing, but for the most part it probably averages out to 3 hours at a time. When I'm tired, I'm more irritable, more emotional, and more impatient and none of those are helpful when dealing with a newborn. As a matter of fact, I'm betting that if I was able to get a full night's sleep every night, there would probably be a few less items on this gripe list. But I am so longing for the time when Brock starts sleeping through the night consistently because this 3 hour dining routine is a killer.
2. CONSTANT SELF-DOUBT: This one is probably the most frustrating for me. I am used to feeling confident about my decisions because I usually try to make well-informed ones. I generally don't question myself or worry that I'm doing the right thing... or at least I didn't until I had a baby. Maybe it's because there are a million and one parenting theories out there and one gives you a guideline that another theory will say is completely wrong. I let Brock cry it out and I worry that he's going to feel like I abandoned him or that there's something physically hurting him that I'm unaware of. I hold him or rock him to sleep and worry that I'm spoiling him or preventing him from becoming independent. See what I mean? I don't know who coined the term "mother's intuition" but I don't think I've developed it yet because I never feel certain that what I'm doing is the best thing. 
3. NO RESPONSES: I know one person who doesn't give me much input about whether I'm doing a good or bad job, and that would be the baby himself. Newborns just aren't very responsive. When Brock finally smiled for the first time I saw the light at the end of our newborn tunnel, but it's still a really long tunnel and we're still in it. It is hard work developing a relationship with someone who won't look at me, laugh at my hilarious jokes, hug me back, or give me even the slightest verbal or nonverbal affirmation that all my efforts are worth it. Is it so wrong of me to want a little more than the crying, eating, sleeping, pooping system we currently have in place? 
4. HYPER-SENSITIVITY: What I mean by this is that I have become keenly aware and very sensitive to criticism when it comes to the subject of my parenting skills. This probably relates to the constant self-doubt and my insecurity about whether I'm doing everything right, but I get really internally frustrated when people question what I'm doing. I'm learning that most women over the age of 65 don't like to see babies with bare feet even if it's 90 degrees outside and the baby is otherwise fully clothed. I'm learning that lots of people do not like to hear a baby make any noises when they're asleep because it must mean they're uncomfortable or in pain or need something. What I have yet to learn is that everyone is going to have something to say, and I will drive myself crazy if I personalize everything and assume they are all questioning my parenting ability.
5. LITTLE CONSISTENCY: I try to be as consistent as possible in my parenting techniques but my son does not return the favor. One day he eats on a clockwork schedule and I know exactly what to expect because he goes right along with the plan. The next day the schedule gets shot to pieces and Brock comes up with his own plan (today was one of those days). Some nights he goes right to sleep when we lay him down and others he decides to cry and fuss at us for an hour. A lot of days I feel like we take one step forward and then two steps back. There is just no certainty with a newborn, and as I should have remembered from our birth experience, nothing goes according to plan.

So I feel a little like a negative nancy after this post. I'm not trying to whine or complain because I am very grateful to have this little boy and I do love watching him grow and change every day. It can be a very rewarding experience in some ways, but I just have to be honest that the newborn stage is definitely not my favorite. The more he is growing out of this stage, the more excited and confident I become. Don't get me wrong, I love him more than anything else in the world, but I do not love the stage of newborn-ness. And I hope it's ok to admit that. Every day that he is able to focus on my face a little more or smile in response to my smile or give a little giggle, I feel a little happier inside and a little more certain that Brock is indeed a human being.

Let me just close by saying that a lot of this post has had a tongue-in-cheek tone to it, and I don't want anyone worrying that I'm suffering from postpartum depression and at my wits end. I am so happy with my little family and feel very blessed to have what I have. Brock really is a very good baby and Blaine is an incredibly helpful husband and I could have it so much worse, but it is a huge adjustment introducing a baby into your life. It is sometimes one of the scariest, most intimidating, most unrewarding, and most physically demanding things that I think I will ever experience. But as the cliche goes, I would (and will eventually) do it again in a heartbeat!

Two Months

The babe is two months old today. We survived two months, which is something to celebrate (I think I'll post another blog about how difficult it really is having a newborn just so I can remember with our subsequent children). Brock went to the doctor today for his checkup and immunizations (so sad). He now weighs 11 pounds, 10 ounces (about the 50th percentile), so he gained 2 lbs, 2 oz since last month. He is 22 1/4 inches long, up one inch from last month, but this is only about the 28th percentile so he's a little short for his age right now. He's going to be like his mom - growing horizontally instead of vertically ;)

Here are some of Brock's accomplishments and patterns this past month:

• He moved to the crib in his own room at 5 weeks and now takes all his naps there too.
• He smiled his first smile around 6 weeks, which was incredibly rewarding and finally made him seem like more of a real person to me and not as much of a blob.
• His first public outing was at 6 weeks when we went to the Cornbread Festival (you might be a redneck if your first public outing is to the Cornbread Festival), and he went to church for the first time the next day, on May 1.
• He can stay awake for longer periods of time now but usually no more than an hour or so. He loves watching the ceiling fan and occasionally he'll engage with us and watch our faces when we talk to him.
• He eats every 3 to 3.5 hours like clockwork during the day and generally goes 4 to 5 hours at night. Last night he actually slept from 11:00 to 6:00 which was very exciting for me!
• He outgrew his newborn clothes and diapers at about 5 weeks old. He's also starting to get too long for the boppy lounger which makes me kind of sad because we have gotten such good use out of that thing (see my favorite things post).
• He's gaining more control of his arms but still needs to be swaddled to sleep well. He also loves kicking and stretching his legs and isn't so squished up like he was the first month.
• He's still not a big fan of tummy time and pretty much yells at us after a few minutes of it, but he's gaining a lot more head control and can almost hold it up by himself when sitting. He likes sitting in the bumbo seat to get exercise.
• He can imitate some of our facial expressions like sticking out his tongue and raising his eyebrows and smiling.
• He got me flowers for Mother's Day. Blaine said Brock told him that's what he wanted to get me.
• He's a very content baby and pretty easygoing, and he loves to sleep.
• He's making fewer dirty diapers each day, which probably doesn't excite anyone but me.

Here is the side by side comparison of the 1st and 2nd month pictures. The two month picture was taken right after he'd eaten so his belly is a little swollen. I don't think it's always that fat.
And the bandaids are from his doctor's appointment today; poor baby.

A Picture's Worth...

Probably one of my favorite things about having a baby is being able to get some good use out of the $600 camera I bought for my birthday two years ago. During the fog of the first month I didn't get to take a lot of pictures myself, but for the past couple of weeks I've been experimenting with the camera and a photo editor. These are some of my favorites that I've gotten so far.

Brock doing what he does best... sleeping

I think little baby feet always make for good pictures.

 

Snuggled up in his swing.

The elusive smile, sort of caught on camera. Technically this is just his little half smile/smirk that he does sometimes. I haven't been able to capture the full-blown grin that we occasionally get. I'll catch it sooner or later though!

Chubby little hand. Looks like he's going to need his nails clipped again soon.

Again with the feet... I can't get enough of the tiny toes.

                                                 Sticking out the tongue. 

Anyway, just a few pictures of Mr. B at about 7 weeks old. I'm going to have to get some more storage space on my computer for this little guy. I'm definitely his biggest fan.