Five Minute Friday - Beyond Myself

Beyond

I look beyond myself. This tired, worn and failing soul. Look towards the chubby legs and reaching hands. Stretching out towards my face. Joy and smiles. Hope and wonder. Look beyond the darkness and the fear of not enough. See the life and hope growing in these little boys. Screams of joy and laughter split the air (and my head) but I will look beyond this momentary annoyance to the life it speaks of. Beautiful, wild and free. I want to be more like a child. Loving unreservedly. Unafraid of asking for what I need. Hope and fear. Unsteady feet running towards the one I love. Trust look beyond myself and towards the open arms ahead. Beyond myself and to the one who has loved beyond all borders and limitations. Unabashedly I lift my arms. With the trust and hope of a child. Hear my prayer take me beyond.

Stop

I typed this on my iPhone, normally I could write more then this in 5 minutes ;)

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This is my day

You're tired
Love
I try to have Grace
I'm tired too
Have pushed
Like labor
Through these lonely days
Lost patience
Lost sleep
Lost bits of my sanity
Pushed
Until you could grab the reins
Take the slack
Let me breathe

But you're tired

Oh I catch this breath
And pray for strength to let you rest
Pray my heart won't hate
That resentment fades
Into softest sigh
Grace

The sweet sound of babe's breath
Weight on my chest
Grounding and secure
These tears will wash me
Make my motives pure
Release control
Hope for more

Let you rest
Let me rest
Let my expectations rest

Oh that rage does not commence
To rob us of or dignity
So that Love can hold
Gently
Each choice and word spoken

But my tears scream
See ME!
Hear ME!
Know ME!

And heartbreak and selfishness collide
I will sort the mess
Chose not to place it
At your feet
But at the Cross
Let Mercy judge
And Grace decide
I will chose to love

Lonely and Mothering

I struggle with friendship. I don't make friends easily and I don't do well with casual relationships. I want to share my heart. I long to be seen. I delve deep and fall hard and love passionately. I am hesitant to reach out and slow to respond. The "normal" routes for creating relationship (mom groups, women's groups at church, even our small group) just leave me feeling awkward and wanting more. I was touched by this post by Emerging Mummy: In which I write a letter to Womens' Ministry. I want for, long for, a community of women to live and love with. 


I am lonely

We married young and moved a few times and most of the close friendships I have are now long-distance. Reaching out and calling and writing are not things I do well remembering. So life-giving conversations are few and far between. I am blessed to have married a man who has become my best friend. But there is only so much baggage and conversation a good man can manage. I've learned quickly that every though and every feeling does not need to be shared. We are happier when he is not my only friend.

I did not have a good model for making friends while growing up. My family was isolated, home schooled, counter-culture and my parents were introverts. Thinking back on it: our family friends decreased as I got older. I did not see my parents pursue and seek out friendships. They invested deeply in the few close ones they had and then slowly lost them.

Jugement and self-righteousness eat away at relationships. I struggle so mightily with these standards that seem "right" to me. I judge myself the hardest. And my lack of self-worth makes me put up a wall of my own negativity which effectively blocks those trying to reach out to me in friendship. I know I have failed to respond to some because I was too concerned by how well we might "fit" as friends and didn't open my heart to them.

I want to break through this wall of depression! I want to reach out to the image of myself that is reflected in Christ. I want to be the beauty that I know those few I hold dear see me as. I want to live like a person loved well because I AM. The darkness chokes me. Stifles life and hope. I rise up; willing myself to laugh and love and reach out. Then fall as those boney fingers of self-doubt and shear breathtaking tiredness drag me down.

I am a mother. I do not want to be a lonely one. I push and push and push. Trying to be enough and love enough and hide the darkness I feel in my soul because GOD I do not want to dampen these bright spirits with my own CRAP! I ask Jesus to hold me when I remember and I crash into this amazing Man who has held me through some of my darkest times. But it's not enough. I continue to return to the pigsty of depression. I know that this is not how I want to mother. I also know that I am doing a GREAT job. I am an incredible mom.

But it is taking everything that I have. Every ounce. I don't want to crash. Don't want to fail these little souls. I love these boys with everything that I am and I adore being their mother. They bring me joy in the darkness and they are a smile in the midst of my tears even today. I want to be more than this for them. I want to live fully. Not crippled and limping.

Knowledge is not enough. I see the patterns; know the triggers, am so damn self-aware! But that does not stop the flood of tears. It does not heal my heart. I know all the problems, see all the solutions, but I am paralyzed by fear.

I am afraid to hope. Afraid to fail. Desperately longing to be seen yet terrified of being found unappealing.

How do I move forward? How do you find the strength? I think I am, only to find myself here in the same cell of myself.


There is nothing contented about the state of my heart today. I feel more trepidation then anticipation.

My only prayer is this: Jesus hold me.


How do you fight isolation and loneliness as a mother? 

Guilty

Mommy Guilt How do we get away from it? Is it really just moms who experience this lead weight on thier lives?

( I deleted the original body of this post. It wasn't very good. It didn't feel like me. It felt like that shadow of me that lurks around and tries to suffocate life. So it's gone. If you liked it and read it, I'm sorry. You can say so in the comments. But I'd rather be ending in hope and I just kinda fizzled. So in summary..)

I must approach each day with Grace; for myself, my children and my husband. That is how I will avoid Mommy Guilt. 

How do you avoid being trapped in Mommy Guilt?

Burning Out - Extinguishing The Flames

I know that it happens to every mother at some point.

But I am just SO frustrated at myself!

This week has been hard. The tension in my shoulders and really in my entire body has started to build. I am getting strong visceral reactions to R saying "Read this one?" over and over again. I love to read to him. I adore that he loves to be read to. I want to encourage the love of books and stories and imagination as much as I can. It just feels like all I am doing is reading to him: When I sit down for my cup of coffee, I sit down to nurse J, when I finish eating, or start eating, when R finishes eating, when I wake up, before he goes to sleep. His beautiful face and sweet voice and a book greet me with this question "Read?".

Saying "no" doesn't work at all. Meltdowns ensue. Distracting with something else usually doesn't help unless it's his iPod (which I try to use very sparingly). You know I'm tired of reading when I offered to nurse him instead today (the other struggle I'm having: tandem nursing)... he finished nursing and picked the book back up to say: "Read?" *Sigh*

Postponing sometimes works. "Yes, we will read that book as soon as Mommy is done ______ (insert physically necessary thing for mom i.e.: peeing, eating etc)" But the reality over the past few days has been that I don't want to read anymore and that's what he really wants to do. How do we get to a happy place for both of us?

I've realized that I'm burnt out. Too many late nights over the past few weeks combined with J waking more than usual and generally needing more at night (think he's starting on a growth spurt and fighting off a cold). I've taken time for myself but I think it has been more about trying to take the time others expect me to need. I've also started that unhealthy checking out habit while with the kids (reading twitter or Facebook) which makes me that much more irritable when they need me.

I do not want to be a mother who resents her children. I want to enjoy them and enjoy myself as I enjoy them. I recently found a great post by the Leaky Boob about nurturing the nurture. Such a balance beam I need to walk on: meeting my children's needs and not neglecting mine. (so that I can continue to meet theirs) Where I am now: I am running and hiding. I am pushing them away because I'm so terribly tired and frustrated.

My Goals for the next few days: Go to Bikram's Yoga. Have coffee alone with a good book or journal. Shower. Drink more water. Eat. Pee when I need to.

I really don't want to keep slipping into this victim/martyr mentality. I become powerless and a slave to my children/circumstances. I saw my mother live there and it was not a happy place for her. I have choices that I make daily and I need to own them and be more creative about making sure everyone's needs are met. Including/Especially my own.

Right now I'm going to sleep. Because that is something I just don't get enough of...

He really does love his books...

Control

I'm a bit of a control freak.

Nothing has made me see this more than becoming a parent (I should have noticed after marriage but I think I was turning a very blind eye - pretty sure Dan figured it out quickly...).

Take right now; R is eating a sandwich - incorrectly - (GASP!) I am annoyed. I really shouldn't care how he eats a sandwich. But I have been influencing his sandwich eating preferences since I handing him his first PB&J. For a while he would yell when it fell apart. (Because I had spent so much time putting them back together to minimize messes) He would say "NO, NO, NO! Fall 'Part!" "Put 'gether!" Then I got annoyed at his incessant complaining about the frail state of sandwiches. He has now moved past that stage and has adopted his own preferences for eating his PB&J. Sometimes they include pulling them apart and eating all the jelly before putting it back together to eat the rest. Or just eating each slice of bread separately. The Nerve!

Some lessons I learn very slowly.

Sometimes I think it's the frustration of being raised with so few guidelines and direction (we were free range kids to the max and I have some real issues with self-discipline), which causes me to worry about how R learns. I so want him to be given the tools to succeed and to thrive. But for whatever reason; I really must learn to stop imposing every preference of mine onto his little life - we would have a lot less power struggles that way.

The responsibility of nurturing and raising children lays so heavy sometimes. I was talking to Dan about my sandwich issues and his response was "Stop ruining him!" (not helpful). But it's so easy to feel like that's all on me (on us) and despair since I am continually failing to meet my own standards (much less anyone else's). One of my biggest frustrations is my anger at my own failures continually getting in the way of parenting well.

I keep coming back to Grace

I need to parent with more Grace - both for my children and for my husband and sometimes especially for myself. And I must give up control; this tight jawed, shoulder raised, frowny-faced attitude that causes me so much frustration. Deep Breaths...

A great moment from today: Picnic with my boys

We Are A W.A.H. Family

At least part of the time.

And for the next few months at least.

My husband is a photographer (he's one of the best I know - check it out) and started his own business (our own business really - I do the paperwork mostly) in January of 2010. It was a crazy time to go out on his own; we had an eight month old and not much money. Thankfully he has also been working construction for the past 8 years during the slow season (read: winter) and has an incredibly flexible boss. So he worked two jobs essentially, 12 hour construction days only to come home and edit photos/meet with clients late into the evening. And he managed to be an incredible dad as well and took time to be my husband.

Needless to say last year had it's ups and downs. It's tough to make transitions. So we decided to make some more and have a baby in May this year! So glad to have J in our lives!

But this is the blessing in the "hard" parts of our lives:

Since May, Dan has been home most days. Granted, there are some where we don't see a lot of him; he keeps artist hours and will sometimes work all night or simply descend to the basement and disappear all day to work. But he's here. R loves to run down and interrupt Daddy's day. Dan will wear baby J in the Ergo while J naps and he edits or answers emails. And occasionally we get to grab a few minutes during the day while the boys are napping to be together; talk, shower, etc... you know.

A few months this summer have been slim. We aren't raking in the dough. But we're paying rent and buying food and clothes and even a nice dinner sometimes. Most importantly, my boys have a Daddy who gets to love on them everyday! I have support and encouragement from the most amazing man I know. We get to sit on the swing outside and enjoy 30 min of cuddles, all four of us. We have been incredibly blessed!

Too often I take for granted that Dan is around. I forget to love on the man who has been the biggest support in my life. I'm going to be shocked again when he starts construction this winter and is away all day and sometimes isn't home for bedtime. But right now I am just grateful for the hardworking husband I have; who prioritizes loving his sons and wife. I am grateful for the blessings we have received.

Today, I really am content.

My Tandem Adventure

I wasn't planning on tandem nursing. I carefully reduced nursing sessions with R as my pregnancy progressed... it seemed a confusing process for him. But I was sure I wasn't built to nurse them both, sure it would be too hard. Plus there was the social stigma, the feeling I had about how I would be perceived. People had been asking me for months "isn't it time he stop doing that?" And I was responding to R out of that attitude: being short, feeling frustrated that he wanted to nurse so often etc. But my frustrated response and the reduction of nursing times created urgency in him, he asked even more and was inconsolable at times when I refused.

He had already stopped nursing to sleep at 18 months, I don't know if it was because I encouraged it or if he simply didn't need it anymore (he still has his binky for bed). But the mornings, when he climbed into bed with us, he desperately needed that time of cuddles and nursing. He would often fall back asleep (a wonderful thing for me) or at least lay with me and rest. But it was a long nursing session and I was in the throes of pregnancy induced nursing heebie-jeebies, being irritable and starting to resent his cuddling and nursing times. So I weaned him at 22months.

He didn't melt down or fall completely apart. Dan started getting up with him as soon as he woke up, no more morning snuggles with mommy for a while. I appreciated the extra sleep and starting my mornings alone. But I felt guilty. R seemed confused and hurt, he still asked to nurse; walked up to me and put his little chubby hand on my chest looked in my eyes and said "nurse?" in that beautifully sweet voice of his. It broke my heart sometimes. I felt like I had hardened myself to my sweet boy. Like I had cut this tie of understanding and communication. We were both frustrated.

There was a wonderful up-side to the new arrangement. R got some great bonding time with Dan. I saw his love and devotion to his Daddy grow each day but felt a bit of wistfulness for the loss on my part. Because of Dan's schedule and my overprotectiveness when R was little Dan didn't get the bonding he may have wished for early on. So this new preference for Daddy was a sweetness to Dan and it was a blessing to see R's needs being met so wonderfully. My dear husband developed an understanding and level of communication with R that hadn't been there before.

So I got some space. I made room for our new baby. Took deep breaths and found new ways to cuddle and console my rapidly growing toddler. But he still asked to nurse now and then and I still saw a lack of understanding and a bit of hurt in his eyes when I said no.

J was born on May 12th 2011. I will post about his birth another time. It was amazing and enjoyable (I know, you don't believe me). He nursed before the cord was cut and looked into my eyes the whole time. He continued to nurse over the next four hours. Sleeping some, then waking to nurse, then looking for his thumb. He was beautiful and perfect. I fell in love for the third time.

We brought him home, we slept in our bed the three of us. R had been at his Nanna K's the previous night and wouldn't come home until late that afternoon. I missed him, wanted my big boy to see his new brother and I wanted to hold them both. I didn't feel like I was all taken up with J, I had an empty feeling without R to hold as well. I wasn't expecting to have anything left to give. When R was born he seemed to take up everything. But God gave me more, it wasn't a replacement of babies, it was an addition and with that addition came the grace of more to give. I was surprised.

There were too many people present when R came home. He was shocked and overstimulated. He climbed into my lap to look at J nursing and was interested. But quickly got distracted by the presents Nanna had brought for him so he jumped down. A while latter when the place settled he climbed back up and snuggled with me (which was apparently a call for everyone to come see and take pictures) I had to ask people to give us some space (which offended some I'm sure). R cuddled in and touched baby J's head and hands and laid his head on my chest. I can't remember if he asked to nurse that day or not. But he did in the following weeks.

I started looking into tandem nursing but didn't feel convinced it was the right path for us. Yet I wasn't feeling great about how I interacted with R. He was struggling with the transition, we all were really. I was tired and trying to learn J's cues and re-learn how to care for a newborn so I kept expecting too much of my 2 year old toddler. Dan took a much more active roll this time. I had more confidence in him and didn't try and control everything (as much). I tried to give R lots of snuggle time. J nursed like a newborn (read: all the time) so nursing time became story time. We had bought a large leather rocking recliner just before J was born and I lived there. Seriously.

It wasn't horrible. R wasn't being neglected and I don't think he felt unloved. But he still asked. He would come up to me when J was nursing (and sometimes when he wasn't) and say "my nurse too?" or "Ryan nurse?" and the longing in his eyes kinda broke my heart. The more I said "no" the more I wondered why? What was it that I was saying "no" to really? And why did I feel like I had to say it? Because there were times when it was my deep desire to give R that connection and comfort he was asking for. I couldn't come up with a good answer.

Dan and I talked about it a lot. We were concerned about being inconsistent and confusing him more by saying yes after saying no for so long. I was concerned I would start nursing him again and then realize I really didn't want to and I was afraid of feeling trapped, stuck (which in reality are some of my worst fears besides the fear of abandonment). Dan was supportive of whatever decision I made. But was clear that the decision was up to me (they were my breasts after all).

I researched breastfeeding toddlers and the benefits. Learned a lot. I joined the Facebook page The Leaky B@@b and found a bunch of support and encouragement there. I got up the nerve to ask post the question there, asking for experience and thoughts on the subject of re-introducing nursing to a weaned toddler. Most people stated that their toddlers who asked to nurse after a sibling was born only tried it once and then stopped asking. I got hopeful that perhaps that would be the case. So I nursed R before his nap when he asked.

He kept asking

I was a bit disappointed and a bit excited. I realized I had just made the decision for myself; as long as he was asking and I was willing there was no logical reason not to nurse him. The only thing holding me back was fear of peoples' opinions of me. So I took a deep breath and said "yes" again. R was 25 months and J 5weeks. I think the fact that J and I had established our nursing relationship, my oversupply issues had settled and we had all gotten used to being a family of 4 helped.

Fast forward two months:
We are here. R is asking as much if not more when he is home. But he leaves overnight at least once a week and will go a few days without nursing. At first he only nursed once a day and I thought he was done when he went a four day stretch without asking. But he got sick with a high fever and I was so happy I could give him the comfort and antibodies he needed to get better quickly. He bounced back in a day or so but since he had nursed so often while sick it seemed to have set a new pattern. He asks more often then I say "yes" and I'm still struggling with how to move forward; how to balance his needs and desires with mine. How to give cheerfully and when to respect my limits. I've been given much grace and I strive to pass it on to my sons.

But I am confident in this: we made the right decision. R is a toddler and will act like one regardless if he is nursing or not. But I feel the bond between us has healed some; he listens better, trust me more. The decision to tandem nurse is a daily, even hourly, one. I am grateful for the support and encouragement I get from my dear husband. I am grateful for posts like this where real people share their real struggles with breastfeeding and parenting.

I don't know if we'll be tandem nursing tomorrow or next week or next month or perhaps next year. But I do know that it will be because I think we're both ready to stop and not because of some cultural expectation when we do wean.

So I'm content in the unknowing and the process. I learn more about myself and my sons every day. This is an adventure, this is my life and I will enjoy it. I anticipate R weaning sometime this year (either because of his own desire or mine) but I will continually be reevaluating our nursing relationship. I read a quote the other day about nursing being circular not linear. I don't expect J to follow the same pattern as R. For one; I'm not the same mother. I'm growing, I'm changing and I'm hoping it's all for the better.

This was longer than I expected. And I still have more to say. But we'll save it for another day!

Rebecca