Thoughts on Choosing

It wasn't until after the magical home delivery of my 4th, sweet J, that I realized I needed to make a change.  In those hazy, lazy first days where time stood still and we lay together in bed making faces at one another, when my heart unlocked and love I didn't know I had in me poured all over him - that is when I realized something had to be different.  I had to be different, to choose differently.  I had seen first hand how quickly babies disappear into something else, those 3 boisterous crazy big kids downstairs were testimony of that.  Spring had sprung as we bonded in an upstairs room, falling in love and not noticing the world becoming new at the same time.

I had always thought I was a relaxed, attentive mother.  I snuggled all my babies, nursed them all, wore them all, loved them all.  It wasn't until J that I realized that I lost something early on in an unlikely way.  In my drive to regain my pre pregnancy self in both a physical and emotional sense, I neglected my rest and became a frantic mother during my waking hours.  I robbed myself of sleep to get up at the crack of dawn to exercise  and my babies and I both paid for it.  Perhaps not obviously, and certainly not to anyone else.  But after I spent this past year with J, choosing to be mother to my baby above all else, and a healthy one at that, I realize what I missed out on with my others. This may not be something that other mothers struggle with, but for me, rest is imperative to my well being.  My physical and mental rest pours over into my parenting.

This choice melted over into other areas.  I stopped knitting and crafting for awhile, preferring to hold and stroke my baby for as long as possible.  I can knit when he's big and doesn't want to snuggle me, I reasoned.  I spent an inordinate amount of time gazing at him and just drinking him up.

As we approach his first birthday, I may not be fitting into all my prepregnancy wear, but I have beautiful memories.  Memories of sleeping in with my baby, and then spending time snuggling and adoring him before we began our day.  I know that I gave him the best gift I could - a well rested and sane-as-possible mama who made him my first priority.  I'll never regret that choice.

I don't want life to "just happen" to me.  I know that the days of our lives are numbered, and I want to live as intentionally within those days as possible.

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Lots of parenting thoughts fluttering about in my head as I approach 3 big birthdays.  Time goes by too fast.