Lily in her first pair of jeans!

This is Lily playing in her exersaucer from Bethany B. She loves it!

It'll All Work Out!

The question I hear most when being asked about Lil is "does she sleep through the night yet?". I'm not really sure why this question is so important to people- I guess they assume that because Lil is sleeping through the night that I am too. Well, I wish that were the case. My days and nights are so messed up right now. Night seems to be the only time I can get anything done- cleaning, cooking, relax, etc.

It'll be interesting to see how I will get anything done when I go back to work at the end of the month and even more so when school starts in January. I'm already tired 100% of the time.

I know I am putting more pressure on myself than necessary. Yet, I wake up each morning feeling like a horrible mommy. I'm sure a lot of these feelings are stemming from the fact that I am seriously sleep-deprived and I'm sure in general many mom's worry about failing their childs and everyone elses expectations.

I have an amazing baby- she sleeps well, she is beautiful, she is generally happy and full of smiles, so why am I struggling so much to balance everything? Lil demands so little of me other than to be held and cuddled and fed and changed, so why is it so hard to get through most days?

This morning I was trying to make chili for dinner, so I put Lily in her highchair in the hallway outside the kitchen so she could watch me (in hopes that it would keep her calm), but of course in the middle of browning the meat, Lily decides she is tired of the highchair. She started fussing, so I put some toys on her tray to look at and talked and sang to her as the meat finished cooking. By the time I could pick her up she was quite upset. I held her and sang to her and cuddled her, but she was just too upset to respond. My heart felt like it was breaking, I felt so bad for her. I'm her mommy I should be able to keep her happy. Babies cry. I do know that. But I just feel that at 8 weeks she's too little to "cry it out", she needs reassurance that she is not alone. Eventually I will probably have to let her cry it out, but she's still so little and I know if she is crying there is a reason.

After 10 minutes or so of crying, she did calm down and cuddled some and then fell asleep in my arms, and even though I had other things to do, I could not put her down. Ryan says I spoil her by holding her so much, but I just want her to know that she isn't alone, that she can trust that I will do whatever I can to help her feel safe and loved.

I sometimes wish things were different. I feel guilty that I am not done with college yet because it means I will have even less time with Lily when I am at school. I feel guilty that we cannot provide Lily with a house. I feel guilty that I had to buy her nursery furniture used because we couldn't afford the latest and the greatest. I feel guilty that I will have to leave her to go to work in a month because we cannot afford for me to be home with her. I feel guilty that we can't give Lily everything she deserves and I just wish I would have used the years before Lily was here to accomplish more. Granted I am only 22 so there weren't all that many years to do much with, but I could have at least been almost done with college and we could have saved more money for a house rather than spend it on unnecessary things.

Yet, when I do start feeling guilty about these things, I look back at my childhood and remember it will all work out. It really will. My mom and dad had very little financially, but they provided us with a childhood I wouldn't trade for anything. We did have christmas' and birthdays in which we didn't have christmas presents, and we had weeks where mom didn't know where dinner was going to come from. But I don't really remember any of this, what I remember is making forts out of appliance boxes, going to church every sunday, family dinners every night, my mom and dad reading chapter books to us before bed and my mom and dad praying over us every night before bed. I remember family camping trips, and family devotions, I remember fun homeschool experiments with my cousins and playing baseball with the neighborhood kids. And I realize that it wasn't the physical objects that made my childhood, it was my parents physical/emotional/spiritual presence. And that is how I know it will all work out. Lily doesn't need the latest toys or the newest clothes, she needs her mommy and daddy to love her and raise her in a home that is filled with the love and goodness of her Heavenly Father- and I know Ryan and I can provide her that.

I want Lily to grow up knowing that life is more than what this world provides.

Of course, it will be good to one day get to a place where we can provide more financially for our family, but I just need to keep reminding myself that there are more important things in life than physical objects.