DIY Toy Box for Little Man!

So this weekend I embarked on a project for me little man! I have been looking for a toy chest for all his little things that just end up all over the floor on the course of a day. We (my Grammy and I) have been searching all over for the past few weeks. Then we found it! 

But since we are not big "utah jazz" fans I did not think it was going to work! Then I got the idea to fix it up!! So I gathered all my supplies and started.... 

The finished product is more than I could have wanted! And to add a little extra fun we created an Sesame Street pillow to go on top (not pictured). 

 

Don't take my word for it though, Just look at the happy face of my little man enjoying his new "toy"! 

Confessions….Reasons I sometimes don’t feel like a good mommy:

1. I don’t always have the best patience. This normally happens right around meal times or just on a day where little man is being extra grumpy. We both get frustrated and mommy loses her patience.
2. I let me son watch cartoons in the morning and sometimes an afternoon Elmo pick me up. Though he may love his Elmo the tv times are definitely more for mommy than baby! 6:30 is early by anyone’s standards and that is when little man gets up every day. So, while mommy drinks her coffee and tries to feel “human” again. Little man watches Elmo and Curious George while he plays.
3. I let me son “cry it out”. Yep I did, and I would do it again if I had to. Let me explain, my son started sleeping through the night early (like 8 weeks). We moved from TX to Pa and he stopped. Getting up every 3 hours like he was a newborn again.  After about a month of this (when we thought he has adjusted in all other ways) my husband and I had to train him to sleep through the night again. And it was hard.
4. I cherish nap-time A LOT J When I think about this one, what mom does not like nap time? But, it can easily become something that I value to much on a grumpy day when he refuses to go down and then only naps for an hour!!!
5. Sometimes I want to run away. I am sure we have all felt this way but ugh it gets me. I need some mommy time everyday and without it I get bad. Enough said. 

Then I Remember: 

1. My morning Smiles and night time cuddles. Oh how I love these. My son sees me in the morning and gives me the biggest smiles. At night (when he is in a good mood of course) he will hold my hand let me rub his head.
2. The joy I have watching him learn. He took his first steps yesterday and it brought tears to me eyes. I love him and how when he learns something new he can’t wait to show us. He knows “so big” and just sits with his arms up waiting for us to go “how big is Noah”;“So BIG”
3. The jibber jabber.  The dadadadada J
4. All of his firsts.
5. How he reaches for me.  I waited for this for months and it’s the best feeling knowing he wants me!
6. I can comfort him. Does a mama’s heart good when he is inconsolable and I am the only one who can get him to calm down (it’s also very frustrating when I am trying to do something but hey give and take right?)
7. He Loves Me. Sometimes I struggle with this one. I am home with him all day so sometimes I feel like to him I am an “old hat”. Then he crawls over grabs my face and lays a BIG FAT SLOBBERY kiss on me.
8. I Love Him. More than he will ever know.
9. This will not last forever and one day I will miss this.  I think back to when he was first born this tiny little sweet monkey man. Now my Monkey Man has grown and changed and starting to walk. He will never be this small again I will miss this. (sometimes I need that reminder though)
10. On the rainiest and grumpiest of days he is my son, the one that God formed and fashioned in me.  

Because sometimes I am the Lost Son.

My Little Man, has caused me to once again stop and think about my life and change. The past 12 weeks have not exactly been uneventful. While all of these changes were welcomed events in our lives they are not without there difficulty. As adults we have learned to deal with change, sometimes better than others.We find ways to cope and handle it even though it looks different for every person. Ben and I knew everything was coming, before Noah was even born we knew that our time in Dallas was coming to a close. While it did not make leaving those we came to care deeply about and love, any easier we knew it was coming.

Noah, not so much. He has struggled, I feel for him. He left all he ever knew to a strange house, meeting lots of strange people. And top it off he was changing himself, starting to crawl everywhere and now pull himself up and move all over! All of this is a lot to take in.  It has honestly taken a long time for him to adjust but I think he is finally getting it. When all of this happened he stopped sleeping well, and started getting very clingy with me. I could not leave the room without him bursting into tears. Nights were so bad some nights he just cried for hours.

Change caused him to cling to the only people he knew to be a constant for him; me. That is how he coped, yes I have to admit it was annoying sometimes just walking into another room for a second and having him start screaming!As I sit here I am reminded of his dependence on me, and how that should mirror my dependence on God. Often it does not sadly enough. But  my son gives me a picture of how I should be.

I need to be clinging to my Savior more in times of turmoil.

Right now I carry a lot of anger with me. Though I see God's working hand, I am hurt. I have been pushing Him aside because I can't seem to understand why. I know he is waiting for me with open arms but some days I don't want those arms. I want to shove them aside and walk away.God is patient, loving, kind, and more than anyone understands my hurt. His patience is what I need daily to deal and cope. I am thankful that on the days that I come back crawling to God, He is waiting with open arms. Not judging me for my failures, not reminding me of what I have done, but lovingly calling me Child. Because like I said before... 

Because sometimes I am the lost son. 

^"22 “But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. ²³ Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate.²⁴ For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate."
 -Luke 15 22:24 

Things sometimes get hard.

Not sure if it is the dreariness outside this morning, the grumpy baby who refuses to take his nap, or the stress I can see all over my wonderful husband's face, but today is a hard day. These days happen normally I can shake them off. Take a nice long hot shower, drink some iced coffee and read a fun book, or do something mindless on the computer. But not today. Today is hard.

I have this ever daunting list of things that need to get done, a list that just seems to keep growing. I have a baby who can't decide if he wants to be happy or sad. I am preparing for what seems like a thousand things all at the same time and even if I get one thing done another thing seems to pop up in its place. Today is hard.

This is a different hard than I wrote about the other day. This is a hard, that is hard on your heart and soul. This is a hard that has been building up for what seems like days, weeks, and even months. I can't change this hard. I can only embrace it and move on.

Cast all my cares. 

Should be easy right? Well its not. Its painful, difficult, and daunting. Just when I think I have got it, my situation changes and I lose it again. We are heading into a land of uncertainty. We can make our plans, but that is just it, they are our plans. We are waiting on God.  He has to show us what He wants from us. While I know there are so many possibilities its hard being the strong one. That's how I feel sometimes. I know its not true but wow sometimes it just gets you! 

But here comes my blessing. I am not alone. I have a helper....

Yet I am poor and needy; may the Lord think of me. You are my help and deliverer; O my God, do not delay.  –Psalm 40:17

Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you; He will never let the righteous fall. –Psalm 55:22

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

-Matthew 6:34

So even on this hard day I am trying to take comfort in the truth of God's word but truthfully its a minute by minute struggle and at this minute not sure who's winning. 

Life Lessons

So the past week has been one of the hardest Mommy weeks I have had in a long time. I had several unexpected long days at work and less and less time at home with little man. Normally I work 3 days a week and they are normally short days. Last week I worked 2- 10/11 hour days, and 2- 7 hour days. Needless to say Mommy, Daddy, and Baby were ALL ready for this past week to be over. Though the last week was extremely hard I have gained a new respect for full time working mothers. I think of my two sisters-in-laws (whom I have the deepest adoration for) and wonder "wow how do they do it" they truly are AMAZING and have the patience of saints!

So here are a few things I was reminded of this past week :

• I am a sinner who gets tired, cranky, and impatient!! Ok so I knew all of these things before, but wow did they come to light!  There really is no time off; working a very long day then coming home to a cranky baby that misses you and needs you. I am so sad to admit but it felt like I was leaving one job and coming home to another.
• Patience is something that God still needs to constantly work on me with! On a normal day I am home with little man and we have a great time, its just him and I I can stay calm cool and collected, but not when I have been at work all day. It was hard for me to come home and enjoy my baby. I love him but I found I had a short fuse.
• Noah needs his Mommy, and his Mommy needs him. I found that while yes I could tell that Noah missed me it does a mommy's hear real well to hear her baby crying down the hall, walk in the door and have him light up in a smile after seeing me (not much for a tired daddy though).
• I have an Amazing, Wonderful,Godly husband who works hard to take care of Noah and I!! Once again I knew this but I was shown such compassion even when I was grumpy. I also think Ben learned a little bit about being a stay at home dad (something I don't think he enjoyed much).

All this to say: I love my boys. And at the end of the week we had a wonderful afternoon at the park full of smiles, giggles, and family time. Just a simple reminder of how Blessed I am.

A Year Ago Today!

Wow! That title says it all for me, what a year. A year ago today Ben and I found out we were having Noah. At the time he was our "LB" (Little Baby), and he remained under that name till I was 19 weeks along and we found out LB was in fact the little man we now call Noah.

I remember that week and day all to well, Valentines Day was a Monday last year, we had just gotten done with a long weekend with our teenagers at CBC attending Planet Wisdom. That week I had been feeling off but did not think much of it. Saturday the 12th I got my first does of morning sickness. THANKFULLY nausea is in the morning is something that I have had since I was a teen, no one not even myself thought much of it.

By Monday the 14th I knew something was going on. Ben and I were trying to get pregnant after talking with my doctor and evaluating some options for us. But I really did not think it could happen so fast. On a whim I decided to take a pregnancy test, thinking it could not do any harm and it would just confirm in my mind that the cramping I was feeling was just my period taking its lovely time to get here. But to my surprise I saw this....

Two lines. Two lines that forever changed our lives!!! I could not believe it. I walked calmly out to the kitchen where Ben was and said.... "Ummmm.... I decided to take a test and I think I am pregnant! We have to wait a few more mins to be sure cause I read the test early but I think I saw two lines...." We waited and then walked into the bathroom and saw it again! I was pregnant!! We hugged and Then exchanged Valentines Day gifts.

I gave Ben a bib I had found and wanted to show him as soon as we knew we were having a baby! Then we had to wait some long weeks before heading to the Dr. to do tests and confirm everything. I was so excited and so scared, from the moment we found out I had already grown fond of my LB everyday I prayed that he would be safe and keep growing. And he did...

Our LB grew into the wonderful Little Man I am so blessed to call my son!

He has brought so much joy our life. He has become a shining light in what sometimes seems like such a dark time. So a year ago today we found out we were having our biggest blessing yet. Valentines Day could not be any more special to me. 

Two of my favorite things

I have to admit that I have been waiting to write this post over a week now and just could not find the words to describe what I wanted to say. A form of writers block I guess. So here it goes, two of my favorite things...

1.) My Morning Smiles: what a great way to start any day. Noah is my social little man, the older he is getting the more and more he loves to talk. Yes he is only 3 1/2 months old but boy can this little man talk my ear off! Not like I really know what he is saying, but he happy to tell me all about his night and dreams. Its funny cause I think he has watched mommy and daddy talk in the morning while drinking our coffee and he wants to join in.. so he takes a sip or two of his milk unlatches smiles and starts talking, I respond and he repeats the process over and over for about 30 mins or so till he is done and then he just talks and smiles. I am so thankful I have a schedule that allows me to not rush but just sit and enjoy this time. It has truly become precious to me.

2.) My Nighttime Cuddles: I have posted before what a struggle nights can be for my little family, some nights Noah just wants to yell. But the other nights are the most precious to me. These night time cuddles normally happen right after I have gotten home from work (though sometimes he does them on nights I don't work). I come home and he has just gotten done tubby time with daddy and then moves onto feeding time with mommy. Noah and I get set up in our chair with the boppy, he is all swaddled for sleep and he starts eating. As soon as he is latched and going he starts reaching for my hand. At this point he links fingers with me and holds on tight to my thumb, just snuggles. It brings tears to my eyes just watching my little man slowly drift off to sleep as he holds on tight to his mommy. Nothing better than that. It reminds me of when he was so little and would fall asleep on his mommy or with his mommy all the time.

I am truly Blessed!

The Power of Communication

So tonight Noah went down to bed easier than he has in probably the past few weeks. THANK GOODNESS! But that victory does not come without many tears (sometimes I am not sure who is doing the crying Noah or I) over the past few weeks. I am not sure what gets into him, he does great all day and then right as we go to do that last night feeding before sleep he just screams and cries and often then he leaves me and him in tears.

That is just one of the many sad crying faces I seem to get from my son on a normal basis at night. Last night was one of those nights.; he had eaten a bunch that day and that should have been my first clue to what was going on. But it was not, Mommy is just not that smart sometimes. We get him ready for bed: Tubby (which he is all smiles for I think its his favorite part of the day!), lotion. diaper, pj's, and then feeding he starts eating and BAM it starts the screaming crying and full blown melt down. Now by this time I am used to what is going on, my little man is sometimes lazy at night and can not stand to work for food when he is tired at night. So being the "smart" mom I am I let him cry and then try to make him eat. This goes on for what seems like forever but probably was only 15 minutes of him screaming and screaming at me growing louder and louder as Mommy tries to get him to eat. In a final effort to get him to calm down (in my mind so he can eat some more) I give him his foofie.... and within minutes silence.... he has fallen asleep. I let him sit there on my lap for a few more minutes and then more him to his bed. He was so tired that he got to bed and didn't even want his foofie anymore. He wasn't hungry.

Those events brought me to tears and got me thinking, what kind of mom am I that can't even figure out what my little man is trying to tell me. Communication such an amazing and powerful thing when you think about it we rely so much on many different forms, yet often our intentions, actions, and words are often not understood. I as a mother should be able to understand what is going on with my child. I should be able to understand him yet often I am left confused, discouraged, and frustrated. I praise God that He is not like that with me. I think about all the times I am screaming, crying and fussing to him about some "major" crisis in my life, unlike this mommy, He as a father gets it. He gets me, He understands me, and unlike me he does not get confused, discouraged, or frustrated when I start to yell and complain.  As I finish up this post I am reminded of this passage:

"For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. " -Jeremiah 29:11-13

Oh how lucky we are!

...maybe lucky is not the right word, blessed sounds much better now that I think about this topic. My little family has been so blessed with a BIG caring family.  From the moment we found out we were expecting out little "jelly bean" or "LB" as we called Noah before we knew he was Noah, our families have been the most encouraging and loving family we could ever have asked for. Many of them taking time out of there busy scheduale to come along side of us (either close by or far away) and help us on our journey.

The blessing of family has never been so clear to me then over the past two months of my Little man's life (can you believe its been 2 months already! I can't!). It first started with Ben's mom and dad. Let me just say that I am sooooooo thankful for both of them and the support and love they have given us. And especially me, I joke with Ben's mom that she was my idol durring the 9 months Noah was inside of me. Countless phone calls were made about whats "normal" what to expect and what Noah was doing inside of me at that moment. But that does not even come close to the sacrifice they made to come to Texas and help Ben and I transition into parenthood; for that I am truly greatful! She walked with me for hours trying to get this little man to come out. She stayed for weeks just waiting with us, as I stated before our little man was a stubborn child! Then she was there and helped encourage me as I labored Noah into this world, and learned to take care of the little man all on our own. And Ben's dad sacrificailly let us keep her for all that time even though he was missing her! Thank you.

 

The past two weeks I have been reminded of how lucky we are to have family around with my Grammy flying in to spend the holidays with Noah, Ben, and I. What fun that was. I got to watch as Noah and Grammy got to know each other and it was so much fun. But more than that, she was a huge help and a releif, she loved and cared for Noah, and even let mommy and daddy go out on a date or two together! It was a great reminder of how much we need and want family around. We can not wait for that day!

     

There have been countless other family members that have helped in so many ways but these two women stick out the most in my mind this morning. I have had to watch both of them leave us and its been so hard. But I know soon enough we will be with them again and have the joy of seeing them with our little man. (Who I add misses them both teribly!!)

Thank you!

All good things must come to an end... For now.

I am writing this morning with a very heavy heart. Today I start work again, don't get me wrong I like my job, I work with some of the best people, my boss has been completely amazing during my pregnancy and also while I took some time to stay home with my little man. But that does not make this day any easier, I have been dreading this afternoon for weeks and crying at night for days. There is one thing I have to keep reminding myself of.....

I serve a Sovereign God, who knows my heart, sees my desire and loves my Little Man more than I ever could.

What more could a mommy ask for? I am leaving my baby is the best hands I know of... his 2 Fathers: God and Ben! How lucky could this boy be. I find comfort in knowing God has appointed this for us for just a short season. The end is in sight and I praise Him for that daily! 4 months.... 4 months till Ben graduates and we start the next phases in our lives. Lots to still be decided about what the after graduation lives will be. But there is a promise that soon I will be home with my little man teaching him, playing with him, snuggling him, and loving on him.

That is where my heart is, when I was in college I did not think I would ever get to that point but watching my little man discover new things has been so amazing. Who would have ever thought you could love someone so much in so short amount of time.

So pray for us today:

Pray for me: As I go back to work this afternoon and my heart is really not in it. I will miss my little man! He is being taken care of by his wonderful Daddy, but that does not help this Mommy miss him any less. Pray I can find joy in what I am doing.

Pray for Ben: As today as he has the challenge of taking care of Noah without us tag teaming. Pray he can stay patient and not become overwhelmed by all the needs this little man has. And also that this time with Noah would be a special time for the two of them to bond.

Pray for Noah: As he learns to adjust to all these changes (he does not like lots of changes). That he would have a good day today and not be to overwhelming for his daddy.