Mosaic Monday: Mommy & Me

I've yet to announce on my blog until today, I GOT A JOB! YAY!!! I start next Monday. I'm really excited to get back to work, however I know I will miss my baby girl! We've become quite the duo. 

I'm linking to Mosaic Monday. 

The Eyes Have It.

To say that life has been stressful the past few weeks would be an understatement. The past three days in particular, have been incredibly rough on me mentally. While I have a little bit before finding a job becomes crucial, I am ready to get back in the work force and know that the longer I'm without work, the harder it will be to find work.

Needing a short escape from my hermit ways, Audrey and I went over to my mom's house this evening to hang out. I watched Project Runway and Audrey....well....Audrey ate and fussed and finally fell asleep. Since she's been doing so great on her sleeping schedule, I thought she would fall back asleep easily when we got home (the car seat ride usually wakes her). Wrong. 

Although I've tried not to let it become a habit, Audrey has become accustomed to falling asleep with a bottle in her mouth. A pacifier is not a valid substitute either; she wants a bottle. So, the past few days/nights I've taken to propping a bottle up beside her on a rolled up blanket and she usually falls asleep shortly thereafter. Well, since I've been resting a lot lately, I decided tonight would be a good night to try and break that habit by getting her to fall asleep with either a pacifier or nothing at all. Wrong. 

She flared and flipped and flopped. Fussed and fidgeted. Twisted and squiggled and squirmed. We walked and rocked and soothed and spit up (her, not me). Finally, mommy gave in and made her a bottle.

While I was feeding her, holding her and the bottle with one arm and scrolling through my phone with the other, I came across an article that a friend had shared on Facebook. It was titled "Coping with Intensity in Children" and was talking about gifted children and how they are crazy intense about things. How they have more ups and downs with emotions and ask a lot of questions 24x7.  

As I'm scrolling and reading, I glance over at Audrey to see how the "feed to sleep" method is working. I look over to find her staring at me and I mean STARING at me....intensely. I guess it was the combo of my exhaustion + the look + the article.  I busted out laughing. So much so that I jostled her and the bottle right out of her mouth. She paused, frowned and then started to cry. For whatever reason (I guess it was the look on her face), this only caused me to laugh harder (mean mommy).  Now I'm crying from laughing so hard and she's crying from being startled. I finally start to calm down somewhat (still laughing though), put the bottle back in her mouth and tell her "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry." She's now looking at me intensely again, but she's smiling.....then she starts laughing. Then I start laughing. Then she's starts crying........HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Eventually we both stopped laughing and crying, she went to sleep without her bottle in her mouth, and I feel at least ten times better than I have in a long time. Laughter truly is the best medicine; good for what ails ya.

Happy Friday, peeps!

The eyes. 

This and That.

Life is a bit chaotic at the moment. My days are filled with job searching, telephone screenings and the like. I had an interview on Monday. It was the first one I've had. I've had several phone interviews/screenings, but none of them have turned into a solid interview. And boy, was it an interview!  Three and half hours with six people. Yes. Six people. Insane! I THINK it went really well, but you never know with those type of things. They didn't say when they would be making a decision by but my guess would be by the end of the week. Fingers, toes and eyes crossed that I get it. The company is amazing and I think it would be really great to work for; a place to retire at, actually.

On the baby front, Audrey is growing leaps and bounds. She turned 10 weeks old yesterday. Cannot believe it. She's really starting to come alive and has such a little personality. She laughed out loud for the first time today. She's laughed in her sleep before but never AT something/someone. This one was brought on by mommy singing and dancing with her to Disney songs.  She's also hitting milestones; holding her head more and with better control, holding herself up on her arms (not quite there yet, but almost), sleeping through the night (BIG ONE!) and eating like crazy. I will probably start adding some cereal to her formula in the next two weeks. We will see how that goes.

Well, that's all from this side of the world. Until next time, lovelies.

June Cleaver I'm Not.

For years I have thought that I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom. My mom was, as were my aunts and my grandmother.  It seemed easy enough. Wake up, feed a baby, change a diaper, lay a baby down for a nap, do some housework while watching a soap opera, feed a baby, change a baby, lay a baby down for the night, take a bath and go to bed. Easy peasy!!  However, this unplanned bout of unemployment along with my original maternity leave has left me feeling quite differently than before.

THERE IS NO WAY IN HADES THAT I COULD BE A STAY-AT-HOME MOM!!

At least not until this child is maybe 2 or 3. Oh.My.God. It is sooooooooo much more work than I ever thought possible. Things that theoretically should take 30 minutes take 3 hours. There is never a routine, even if you're IN a routine. Nothing goes the same way twice. It is insane!!!!  Many days I don't eat until after 4pm!! And as far as my house?? Well, see for yourself.....

 

(Yes, that's a diaper on the counter. We had to take a hasty bath and that's where it ended up.)

 

 

Granted, I'm a single stay-at-home mom and perhaps a spouse would make things easier to a degree, but in my mind I actually think it might make things harder. Tired husband comes home from work expecting dinner and clean house. Tired wife is expecting husband to take care of the baby for a little while so she can eat, shower etc.  You get where there is going. 

 

Either way, as much as I love my child, I was not cut out to stay with her 24x7.  Some may say that makes me a bad mother and yada, yada. But, I know I'm a good mother and that I love my baby. I also know that I'm a person who needs the structure and routine that an outside job provides. So as much as I'm going to hate to be away from Audrey, I am looking forward to going back to work.

 

To any of you who are stay-at-home moms, my hat is off to you. If you're a single stay-at-home mom....well, you're just Wonder Woman. And if you're a married stay-at-home mom, I hope your spouse appreciates you for all you do!!! You deserve it!!!

 

 

 

 



 

 



It's Not God, It's Life.

A few weeks ago my mother forwarded me a blog posting and asked if I had read it. I hadn't. She said she thought I would enjoy it.  The post was entitled "My husband is not my soul mate" and was written by a young woman who was celebrating her wedding anniversary. While the title may not seem to fit the occasion, I assure you, it did. If you get a chance to read the full blog, I highly suggest you do. It can be found here. But for this post I will be quoting one area in particular. 

The author is speaking about how, as a teenager she believed that God had someone for her to marry; that he had a "plan" for her life, which included a husband. She cited Jeremiah 29:11 which states, "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." Her father quickly dashed her dreams. 
"But then my theologian biblical scholar father shattered my dreams by informing me that God doesn’t have a husband for me, doesn’t have a plan for who I marry. NOT TRUE I scolded him, attacking him with the full force of Jeremiah 29:11 that God “knows the plans he has for me, plans to prosper me and not to harm me, plans to give me a hope and a future,” and obviously that means a hott Christian husband because God “delights in giving me the desires of my heart.” He slammed through my horrible (yet popular) biblical abuse by reminding me that the first verse applied to the people of Israel in regards to a specific time and just didn’t even dignify my horrible abuse of the second verse with a rebuttal. Nope, he said, a husband is not only not a biblical promise, it is also not a specific element of God’s “plan for my life.” God’s plan is for us to be made more holy, more like Christ… not marry a certain person. (This advice was also used when I asked what college God wanted me to go to, accompanied I think by, “God doesn’t want you to be an idiot, so go somewhere you will learn.” )"

I was awestruck and thrilled at the fact that someone (her father) FINALLY spoke out about biblical abuse. It's something that has been done for ages and probably always will be. Take the example above. I can't tell you how many sermons I've heard preached around Jeremiah 29:11; sermons that were guaranteeing that the scripture was directly FOR me, TO me and ABOUT me. However, it's not, it wasn't and it isn't. Many things in the Bible were written for a specific time, a specific place, and specific people. They were not intended to be bandwagons for everyone that followed to jump on, but rather were intimate promises made by a God to His people for that time and place. I could go further in depth about the topic, but that is not the point of this posting. Back to the topic at hand.

It has always struck me as odd how many things people equate to "God" in life.  For example, if they get a flat tire on the way to work, God was looking out for them by foreseeing an accident in their path, and thus allowed them to get a flat tire so they would avoid catastrophe.  In life there is something called cause and effect. It basically means, because this happened, this is the result. The reason said person got a flat tire is because said person ran over a nail; cause (nail) and effect (flat tire). This law of cause and effect is true in all facets of life and has been around since the beginning of time, along with other laws like the law of attraction ("you reap what you sow")  and the law of gravity.  Now, since God created these laws, in theory you could say that God caused the flat tire, but that's really reaching.

Since I lost my job, I've had several freak out moments; times when I've been very afraid of the future for myself and my little girl. I've had people tell me that this is part of God's plan and that God has a plan, but in reality, that's not true. Going back to the soul mate response, as stated by dear ole' dad,  "God’s plan is for us to be made more holy, more like Christ…"  God does not plan out our lives in full detail from the moment we're born until we leave this earth.  Most would come against that statement with Jeremiah 1:5, but again, a specific word for a specific prophet (read it again).  Instead what God gives us is....choices. He gives us free will and choices. What we do with those choices and how we work them into our spiritual lives is completely up to us, but it isn't preordained. It's on us; it's OUR responsibility and not the result of a "God, guide my life" prayer. He gave us a strong mind so that we are able to reason and think for ourselves and he expects us to use it. You can create a guideline for yourself so that you make sure every choice you make is aligned with the type of life you wish to lead, but you have to put in the effort.

For example, God does not have a plan for me when it comes to my career and its future. But with the mind that he gave me and the free will/choices that I have made previously, I now have a great resume with good experience and a great network of people who are on the hunt for me. I will get job offers and when that time comes, I will then sit down and weigh the options based on the things that I value and how I wish to live my life. There isn't going to be a "right" or "wrong" choice or path, just different ones. One job is not more "godly" than the other, they're just jobs.

In life many things will happen, good and bad, none of which are "God" things, they're just that...things. They're life; life happens. People get sick, people get well, people die, people live, people succeed and people fail. But what matters and what God does have planned for us, is to be Him to all those around us.  So, when you get a flat tire and find yourself trying to throw God into it somehow, instead take the time to show His love to the wrecker who is towing your car. You never know, he might just be your soul mate. ;)