I’m dictating my thoughts on life to the mom-lady telepathically while I nurse.
THAT’S RIGHT. I AM THAT GIFTED!
This is how I usually look when I’m giving the mom-lady the 4-1-1 on this thing called living:
To the untrained eye, I look like any other sleeping baby, but really I am a ninja of the mind. This is just my disguise.
Incidentally, I’m also hungry all the time, which means mom-lady and I are basically attached to one another. This gives me ample amounts of time to let her know all about how life is rolling along as I see it.
This mom-lady is actually handy to have around because all I have to do is let out a short wail and she’s at my beck and call. It’s awesome. So far it’s the best thing about living on the outside.
Eight days ago, I was wrapped tight in a cocoon. It was quiet and safe. No one poked me or stuck thermometer in my rear end (that was…different), or expected me to sleep for hours on end without nourishment.
Life on earth is scary.
But mom-lady is nice. So’s the guy they call “dad.” I like how he smells, but he doesn’t give me food, so he’s not my number one favorite. I have a feeling, though, that someday he will be super fun to hang around.
There are also three other people in this house with us. And a dog, but the dog ignores me, which is fine by me because from my vantage point she is just a giant hairy monster waiting to eat my face off.
I think I’m going to like the other three people, too. They kiss on me a lot, which is nice. Everybody likes to be kissed, right?
So for the next 31 Days, I’m going to be sharing what life looks like from my viewpoint. And mom-lady will be sharing pictures, because from what I can deduce, one of her hands has a built in camera attached to it.
My mom might be a robot…
Join me in this 31 Day series as I survive the newborn haze of sleepless nights, endless nursing, and squeezing in life in twenty minute increments throughout the day. If you want to receive the posts directly in your email inbox, just leave your email address in the box on the sidebar, and subscribe so you don’t miss a post!
I’ll share photos every day, some of them good, and some of them mediocre, because baby leaves me little time to worry about taking and editing the perfect photos.
I’ll also be sharing my daughter’s thoughts, as dictated to me telepathically while she nurses, because she has informed me that she is a mind ninja, and I am merely her portal to the outside world.
Day Eighteen: No, I didn’t blog again today. I had to watch my brothers play soccer, then go to my sister’s gymnastics meet. Baby life is exhausting. WHO HAS TIME TO BLOG EVERY DAY???!!!
I’ve never been what one might call “patient.” I was the kid who snooped for Christmas presents (maybe even unwrapping and rewrapping the gifts a time or two. Sorry, Mom…) While I enjoy surprises, I don’t like knowing a surprise is coming then having to wait for it. That’s just mean.
When a big event is coming, I feel nearly tortured with the wait. A holiday, a big trip, a life event, you name it, and I’m most likely bouncing up and down in anticipation.
This means that the end of a pregnancy is just short of torture.
What makes these last few weeks even more torturous is that there is no real set time. I could go in to labor tomorrow, or in two weeks. I don’t know. THIS MAKES ME INSANE!
And by insane, I mean angry. Imagine the Incredible Hulk in the final stages of pregnancy.
HULK SMASH!
Now, logically, I know that I should cherish this time. Right now life is still easy. The kids are in school all day, and I have free time to accomplish things. We can still easily get from here to there, and I don’t have to worry about juggling feeding and nap schedules as long as she remains nestled snug in my womb.
I am working on a new book, and still trying to pitch my novel, and I have time to focus on both those endeavors right now. This is good! I know the logical arguments for why I should be cherishing this time.
So why am I so frustrated?
First, I blame hormones. I can already feel those wily little chemical imbalances toying with me, pushing me into tearful escapades over silly little nonsense.
Incidentally, NERF guns should be banned from planet earth when one is at the end of her pregnancy, because NERF guns with all their clicky loudness and insanity inducing bullet shooting are enough to turn ANY hormonal pregnant woman into the Incredible Hulk.
HULK SMASH!
Second, I’m just uncomfortable. My hands and feet are swollen. I can’t sleep. I see a million things that need to be done (that I have the time to do), but they’re hard because I have a 20 pound bowling ball protruding from my gut.
Finally, I’m just impatient. I want to meet her. I’m ready to move to the next phase in our family. I’m ready for the nighttime feedings and the crazy, because clearly I operate better under crazy than I do under being stalled.
Some days, I approach full on HULK SMASH mode, overflowing with frustration at all of the world. And it’s so silly, really, because I know – I KNOW – I should be grateful. This is the last time I’m going to do this pregnancy thing. I want to cherish it. I’m trying to cherish it.
So I’m working on channeling my inner Dory, which is so much more pleasant for everyone around me than my inner Incredible Hulk.
There’s no point to this blog post. None. No lesson to be gleaned. No wisdom to be imparted. I tried to think of a really cool way I could turn it around and offer you something deeply profound about motherhood and life, maybe even relating it to creativity.
But I’ve got nothin’.
All I can say is that as you and I head into our weekends, let’s just keep swimming. Swim right on through this crazy life with all of it’s joys and frustrations. Let’s channel our inner Zen, avoid the dreaded HULK SMASH, and swim the heck out of this life.
Aren’t you glad you stopped by this place for a visit today?
Several times in the last few weeks, this graphic has shown up in my Facebook feed.
The first time I saw this, my heart leapt. It fit perfectly into a piece of the message that my friend Wendy and I are sharing in the book we’re writing, so I filed it away as a potential quote to put in the book.
As the graphic continued to appear in my feed, I finally decided to look up this quote so that I could properly site where C.S. Lewis had written or said it. That’s when I hit a little snag.
I don’t think this quote came from C.S. Lewis.
I have searched every way I can think to come up with a credible source for the context in which one of the greatest authors in history might have offered this nugget of wisdom, and the best I can come up with are cutesy little printables like the one above on Pinterest and Etsy. What’s more, I’ve found the same quote written and attributed to another man, a Dr. John Trainer.
So who said this?
As much as I would love to say it came from C.S. Lewis, I really don’t think that it did. That quote, while beautiful, does not really fit the style of writing or speaking that you so often attribute to Lewis, and the fact that there is zero reference as to where the quote came from gives me reason enough to pause.
But well done Dr. Trainer for saying something so profound that it got pegged as a C.S. Lewis quote. If Dr. Trainer even said it at all…
It’s easy to get swept up in the pretty of the internet, particularly Pinterest and Etsy, but we have to be careful the messages we portray, and the false inspiration we attribute to past leaders and well-known figures. I think this quote by Abraham Lincoln says it best:
Happy Thursday, everyone! Here’s to the final few days leading into the weekend. May they be full of wisdom, free from distraction, and just funny enough to keep us sane.
As we close in on the due date, sleep is naturally elusive. Thanks to the heat, I am swollen and uncomfortable, and I am apparently carrying a tiny little radiator because I cannot cool off to save my life.
Incidentally, I also told my midwife yesterday that I think I might be carrying an octopus because I swear there are eight legs kicking me from every single angle in there. She was a new midwife. She doesn’t get my humor. She told me I probably wasn’t carrying an octopus.
If I birth a squid she will be sorry she didn’t believe me…
With sleepless nights come some unreasonable emotions. Being that this isn’t my first rodeo, I know what to expect, and I am offering myself a little bit of grace these days as I prepare to bring our baby girl (octopus?) home.
The other night, I woke up at 3:30. This is par for the course, but as I tossed and turned, a nagging worry began rolling through my heart. It bubbled soft at first, then quickly grew until I was in full blown panic.
Usually I wake up because the baby is playing Tetris in my ribs. This time, however, I noticed that I couldn’t feel her moving. She was very still, and that is unusual. Suddenly the silence of the night and the darkness that surrounded got the best of me, and I feared the very worst.
I never worried about losing a child in utero with my other three. Of course I knew it was a possibility, but I didn’t exercise a lot of mind power on thinking about it, because I didn’t really think it could happen to me. I also had never read a blog, nor been on Facebook the first three times I was pregnant.
I birthed my first three children in the dark ages. We were still using film (FILM!) when Sloan was born.
In the six and a half years since I last had a child, I’ve read countless heartbreaking stories of families losing children late in their pregnancies. It’s much more of a reality to me now and, naturally, more of a concern. I know I don’t need to worry, but again, darkness and fatigue are a wily combination.
I finally got up and drank a little orange juice, then pushed on my belly a little until I felt her shift. She’s not moving as much as she used to due to the fact that there is no more room in there. The Inn is full! It’s time to move on, little one.Thankfully, the shifting set my heart at ease long enough to let me go back to sleep. But the fear was waiting for me when I woke back up.
Having already walked with my older kids through a terminated adoption, I feel more emotion than I know how to communicate at the idea of them experiencing another loss. It nags in the back of my mind, and as I wake each morning I have to lay all those fears to rest. Already, before she’s even born, I’m relinquishing the control over her tiny little life. She is not mine, but merely a gift from God. I will trust Him, and I know I will continually have to lay down this fear throughout her entire life.
I know, because I have to do it with the other three.
I know, because I still pray for the little girl sitting in an orphanage in Russia who had a family ready to meet and love her.
Part of being a mother is dealing with the natural worry that comes with the territory, and with the onslaught of stories passed down through social media, we’re faced with the reality of those worries on a daily basis. So each day begins with a prayer for their safety, and with the relinquishing of control, because I am not in control.
I spent a little time in her nursery this morning. It’s peaceful in there. The colors are soothing, and the room is clean (for now), which makes it the only clean place in the house (for now). As I sat on her bed, I felt her shift and move again, and I was grateful for the reminder that all is well, and I am not in control.
God has been Gracious and Merciful to our family over the last three years. They have been hard years, but He has been faithful. I am trusting in His Grace and Mercy to bring this little girl (squid?) into our family safely (and soon! Oh please, soon!). So when the darkness closes in, and the world becomes still (too still), I will embrace the knowledge that He is Gracious, He is Merciful, and He is in Control.
And I will quit complaining when she jabs me in the ribs, because that feeling is evidence of the blessing.
I didn’t get to decorate a girly nursery for Tia. We never really expected to have a girl, what with the generational pattern of Stuart men only producing boys and all. And since we didn’t find out her gender ahead of time, I operated under the assumption that she would be a boy.
We had a boy name picked out, and I had washed all of our boy clothes and put them in the drawers, so certain that we were going to bring home another little man.
To say we were shocked in the delivery room is putting it mildly.
The best I could do after she was born was buy some girly bedding, but other than that, I didn’t attempt to girlify the nursery, because I knew we weren’t done having kids and I figured we wouldn’t strike the X-Chromosome gold twice.
Can I just tell you how much fun I’ve had putting this little girl’s nursery together?! The amount of cuteness that accompanies decorating a girl nursery is hard to put into words. And the funny things is, I don’t even like to decorate! It gives me hives. Thankfully, I have friends who like to decorate, and who aren’t intimidated by Pinterest. Those friends helped me pull together a nursery that I have come to love.
The aqua paired with the coral makes me ridiculously happy. In fact, I love it so much that I’ve decided next year I’m going to do Tia’s room in similar colors because every time she walks in, she lights up as well. What is it about these colors that makes our girl hearts swoon?!
One of my favorite touches in the room is the bird cage hanging in the corner. My friend Tiffany sent me a picture on Pinterest and all but ordered me to find and hang a bird cage. I mentioned that I don’t enjoy decorating, right? So the idea of hanging a bird cage was a bit intimidating. But when I saw this cage hanging in an antique shop last week, I couldn’t resist. I bought it.
My husband is utterly baffled by this choice in decorating. His exact words were, “Hanging a bird cage without a bird in it is like buying a car without an engine. It doesn’t make sense. You’ve gotten too liberal in your decorating.”
Given that this statement comes from the same man who doesn’t believe in buying clothes from Target, I took his comment with a grain of salt and moved forward with my liberal decorating.
One of my other favorite little touches was finally getting to hang these two drawings. Three years ago, right after we moved to Florida, I had the opportunity to travel to Hollywood for the Red Carpet showing of The Lion King in 3D. While on that trip, we got to meet two of the Disney illustrators, Mark Henn (Supervising Illustrator of most of the Disney Princesses, and of Simba from The Lion King) and Tony Bankroft (Pumbaa’s Supervising Illustrator). Each of the bloggers on that trip went home with unique sketches of Simba and Pumbaa drawn by these talented illustrators.
I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to hang them ever since!
The room is, at this point, completely done. I don’t know that I’m going to hang anything else on the walls except for one more sign that we will get after she’s born. I like having some open space because it makes the room feel bigger and brighter and cleaner.
I am fairly stocked up on diapers at this point, and the teeny little dresses hanging in the closet?
I die.
So at this point, the only thing we have left to add to this baby room is…
I could label it unpreparedness, or perhaps the scattered brain of a creative. I could call myself unorganized, or better yet – unfocused. I could blame it on pregnancy (I get to use that excuse for two more months), or I could simply call it confusion (kids kill brain cells? Can I say that? Is that even a scientifically verifiable fact?)
What it all boils down to is this: Most of the time, I don’t have things together. I’m betting you don’t, either.
From the outside looking in, it may seem I’ve got life in order. For the most part, my children are somewhat put together. My house isn’t a pit of horrors (not today, anyway), and 90% of the time we get to where we need to be on time.
And by “on time,” we all understand that I mean within 10 minutes of when we were supposed to be there.
But I’m not going to lie: I often feeling like I’m barely keeping my head above water. I’m treading fast, kicking against a current that wants to pull me down, and while I suck in deep breaths, forcing oxygen to my brain, I remind myself over and over to enjoy this. Enjoy the heck out of this life, cause it’s the only one you get.
It’s the whole “Seize the Day” mentality. I’m seizing.
I’ve got the flippin’ day by the tail, my friends. Tally-Ho!
But I get tired, and my metaphors start blending together, and I fall short. I snap at my kids, and I throw my hands in the air with exasperation over silly little things. I fight the urge to hole up in a corner with my phone and lose myself to the false reality of Instagram and Facebook, because I know that most of the pretty photos on those sites are filtered to make life look like sunshine and bunnies all the time.
Summer is coming to a close, and a part of me is so sad. 88% of the time I really do love having my kids around. They’re fun, and they make me laugh. They’re a lot of work, but as hectic as the days get, I wouldn’t want it any other way.
Part of me is doing back flips, though.It’s the subconscious part of me that’s not 52 months pregnant.
I’m overwhelmed with all the small people that filter through my house on a constant basis. They’re tired of one another, and they, too, end up exasperated over silly little things. The constant go-go-go of our days has me exhausted, but there’s no time to nap. No rest for this weary Mom.
So the scheduled days of school will be welcomed with both reluctance and jubilee…by everyone in our house.
Such is life, right?
There are pro’s and con’s to every season. Each phase leaves us excited and exhausted, ready to move forward and longing to stay where we are. Sometimes we even wish we could revisit the past, just for a few precious moments in time.
For those of you winding down your summer and preparing to step into the future with your kids, I share your pangs of sorrow and your whoops of joy. If your summer was anything like ours, it was packed full of fun, of time together, and of a hearty dose of relaxation. It truly was a summertime with an agenda packed full of awesome.
I raise my proverbial glass in a toast to you parents now. Let us tip back our drinks in celebration. Let us commiserate the passage of time. Here’s to another fabulous school year.
Join me in this 31 Day series as I survive the newborn haze of sleepless nights, endless nursing, and squeezing in life in twenty minute increments throughout the day. If you want to receive the posts directly in your email inbox, just leave your email address in the box on the sidebar, and subscribe so you don’t miss a post! 
