community.

Many days I'm sitting at home with my kids and I feel like something is missing. I make my coffee, pick up toys, listen to them laugh & play... but I'm craving that heart to heart with other mamas and family.

When Noah was a little baby and Audrey too, we lived on my parents farm. We saw them everyday and I was luck enough to have my grandmother living there too. My grandma would come over each morning. We'd make coffee together and she would snuggle my babes. I'd listen to her stories over and over and soak in her wisdom. Even when her visits were minutes long I cherished feeling her warm smile over me and sharing a hot cup of coffee together.

I'm craving community. And kinship. You know those few women (or men!) that truly "get" you? Whom you can shed tears with and laugh and bare your soul in front of and it results in a filling of your soul. I'm missing my kinfolk. As the spring begins, we are thinking about a move at the end of the summer. I'm hoping and praying the move brings us to a place where we can enjoy renewed community with others.  After spending a weekend with family and friends and returning home (200 miles away from them), this is what it boils down to.

How do you cultivate community where you live? Do you feel connected to others on an almost daily basis? Who are your 'kinfolk'?

Independent Sleep

When you bring your baby into your bed, everyone tells you, "you're never gonna get them out of there", "that's the worst thing you can do", "you'll ruin your marriage", "you'll never get any sleep".

And while its not a bed of roses all the time, I can now say, You Are Wrong.

We decided to cosleep with Noah sort of unintentionally. I knew I wanted him near me during the first few months. The second night I was in the hospital the nurses took him for the night and I didn't sleep at all full of anxiety and agitation. Putting my baby in another room was like dragging nails across a chalkboard, it went against every single motherly instinct I had.

We slept cozily near each other with him in a cosleeper next to our bed for maybe a couple of weeks but soon I figured out how to nurse laying down and bringing him into our bed gave me a LOT more sleep and so we stayed.

Some nights, when the teething was in full swing or he was unusually hungry, I would think, maybe I should let him cry it out. Maybe I should I put him in a crib in another room. but then, when those stages passed, we slept peacefully again. The cuddles every night and morning made it completely worth it.

When we decided to night wean around 15 months (when I was working nights), co-sleeping made the transition much easier. He had a difficult time with me not being there but he had daddy right next to him and knew that he was safe in our bed.

When we found out we were pregnant, I started to dread trying to figure out how to move him to his own room. People automatically started asking the questions about when and where we were going to move him etc etc. I kind of ignored it and trusted that we would figure it out.

Things happened so naturally. He weaned himself at 20 months due to the pregnancy and I didn't have to pressure him towards that step. We moved our bed into another room and gave him his own. He knew it was his bed and although he didn't sleep in it, he knew it was his. I started rocking him to sleep in his room and letting him nap there. If he wanted to nap in our bed, I let him. Then we started putting him down in his bed at night and again, if he wanted to be in our bed, we let him.

Last night he slept all night in his toddler bed without waking up. No cry it out needed. I am so happy that I didn't go against my instincts and force him to sleep alone. If he asks to come into our bed from now on, I will let him knowing that sleep is developmental. Transitions to independence happen most smoothly from a healthy attached and trusting relationship.

I'm sure if he was a different child with a different personality, things would have happened differently. We may have been tandem nursing in a few months. He might have needed to sleep with us longer. He may have slept better in his own bed from the beginning. Regardless, I know that children ask for what they need. Their tears signal their needs. Trying to prevent them and work through them is not spoiling them, it's listening to them.

Taking the time to slow down enough and give our kids our attention and love isn't only what they deserve but what they actually NEED to grow emotionally.

For more info on safe cosleeping and sleep development see:
http://www.nd.edu/~jmckenn1/lab/safe.html
http://m0dernmama.blogspot.com/p/co-sleeping_15.html

Contentment

Do you crave direction or some sort of goal regardless if it creates/adds more stress to your life?

Maybe its a personality characteristic or something in all of us that creates this need to strive for more or have some sort of thing accomplished.

We get married, we have children, we buy a house, and then we need to have that next perfect job or next perfect car.... always something more.

Are we content to just "be"?

I have a feeling it could be generational. My grandparents have been just "being" for years now. They are content to live in the house they are in, content with the things they have, the relationships they maintain. They are happy, content people. I think their belief in God enables them to be that way...

When we depend so much on ourselves, we're never good enough. We need to lose weight, get smarter, spend more (or less)... we're always perfecting.

Can we be content to be who we are?

Personally, this is a huge struggle for me. If I'm not moving forward in some way, I feel like I'm failing. Obviously, some of this is healthy and good and we are meant to strive for things but taken to the extreme, we can make ourselves miserable.

Maybe when our focus is purely on ourselves is when this happens.

If we look at life as living to serve others and God, we will be happy.

That boring job becomes a way to show coworkers/clients/bosses kindness and love. The small cramped apartment becomes a home and not an place to be upgraded. The everyday daily annoyances of life reveal to us our weakness. When we look outside of ourselves, we see that there is much more room to strive towards things that will truly make a difference

All the days of the oppressed are wretched, but the cheerful heart has a continual feast. Proverbs 15:15

I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. Phil 4:11

 Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.

Mother Teresa


 


I think for all of us, especially mothers, this needs to start at HOME. 

Our closest relationships, our spouses and children, should be full of LOVE, gentleness, forgiveness and respect. By modeling this for our children, they will turn around and love those around them. That is TRULY making a difference.

If our homes are not respectful, loving places to be, how can we reflect love to others? How can we teach our children to be content and grateful for what they have without being content ourselves?