A Letter to my Two Month Old

Photo taken January 27, 2012.  9 days old.

Ella,

Today, you are 9 weeks and 2 days old.  Nine weeks seems like such a short period of time, and yet I feel like you have been a part of our family forever.

I remember the first time I saw you.  I was so absolutely ecstatic to meet you, but one of the most wonderful things was seeing the look on your daddy's face as he held you.  It was instant love.  That night, they took you to the nursery to sleep, and I remember waking up the morning and not being allowed to get out of bed, but wanting so badly to have you there with me.   Your daddy slept in, and so I couldn't ask him to go fetch you, but I just had this huge desire to have you close to me.  After all, you were mine.

Photo taken February 11, 2012.  3 weeks, 3 days old.

You have done so much growing since you were first born. You weighed in at 11 lb, 4 oz at the doctor's today.  This is a far cry from the 6 lb 10 oz that you were when you were born, or 6 lb 5 oz that you were when you left the hospital.  You have chubbed right out which I am happy about.  I am glad you are healthy.

I now know the answer to many of the questions I had in my last letter to you:

Photo taken February 3, 2012. 2 weeks, 2 days old.

You absolutely love the bath.  You have one every night before going to bed, and you start crying as soon as we take you out.  You haven't learned to splash yet, but I am sure the experience will be all the more enjoyable for you once you figure that out.  After your bath, we get you dressed in your pj's, and read you a Bible story.

You love to look at the pictures of the story when you are not too preoccupied being upset about getting out of the bath or it being bedtime.  After that, we swaddle you up so you are cozy and pray with you.  I think you have yet to not scream through a prayer, but I cherish that time tremendously anyways.  You go to sleep fairly fast after that though, which is nice!

Photo taken March 17, 2012.  8 weeks, 3 days old (1 day shy of 2 months!)

You also love church.  For the most part, you have slept through every service, but whenever you are fussy and we go and listen to your daddy practice with the worship team you always calm down.  You seem to love the music.

I hope you always know how beautiful you are.  Everywhere we go, people tell us how pretty you are.  And they are so right.  Your collection of small features (inherited equally from your father and I) make you absolutely stunning.  And I know you will just become more and more beautiful as you grow.

Photo taken March 9, 2012.  7 weeks, 2 days old.
Her headband is a Posie, they are so cute!

You are kind of sassy.  I never knew that a 2 month-old could have so much personality.  But yours bursts forth from you!

You love the mornings.  Lying beside you and smiling and having fun with you just after you wake up is my favourite part of the day.  I am going to miss this when you move into your own crib for the night.

Photo taken February 3, 2012. 2 weeks, 2 days old.

Before you were born, I wrote about how much your daddy loved you.  But at that time, I really didn't know how much he would love you.  You are the light of his life.  He comes home from work and asks to hold you immediately.  And I know you love him.  You look at him, and smile at him, and have so much fun with him.

Photo taken March 19, 2012. 8 weeks, 5 days old.

Ella, you need to know that I love you more and more every day despite believing that there is no way I could love you one bit more than I already do.  I don't think you will be able to comprehend how much we love you until you have your own little ones, but I hope that someday you do.

Photo taken March 19, 2012. 8 weeks, 5 days old.

I thank God daily that He lent you to us.  We love watching you grow, and cannot wait to see all the things you will accomplish with your life.

Love always,

Your mom.

Some Of My Favourite Pictures From Your First Two Months

Photo taken March 21, 2012. 9 weeks old.

Photo taken January 21, 2012. 3 days old.

Photo taken January 27, 2012. 9 days old.

Photo taken March 14, 2012. 8 weeks old.

Photo taken March 22, 2012. 9 weeks, 2 days old.

Photo taken January 27, 2012. 9 days old.

Love,

The 10 Best Things About Being A New Mother

To balance my last post on the 10 Hardest Things about Being a New Mother, I wrote this post.  Again, they are in no particular order.

Ella smiling at us.  Photo taken on February 22, 2012 (1 month, 4 days old)

1.  Having my daughter smile at me. (whether it is intentional or not).


2.  Seeing my husband interact with and love our daughter.

3.  Watching my daughter sleep beside me at night.

Ella trying hard to stay awake.  Photo taken on January 26, 2012 (8 days old)

4.  Kissing her precious little head.

5.  Feeling her breathe on me while she sleeps on my chest.

6.  Watching her learn new things every day.

Dave & Ella. Photo taken February 22, 2012 (1 month, 4 days old)

7.  Being needed by her.

8.  Listening to her make her wonderful little noises.

9.  Watching her grow bigger and bigger and develop more into her looks each day.

Ella & I.  Photo taken January 18, 2012 (1 1/2 hours old)

10.  The way it feels so right, her being a part of our family.  I wonder how we ever felt like our family was complete without her in it.

The 10 Hardest Things About Being A New Mother

Ella at four weeks old, February 15th, 2011

I have listed the 10 Hardest Things About Being a New Mother in no particular order.  Please know that I wouldn't give her up for anything though.  And you should stay tuned for my next post, the 10 Best Things About Being a New Mother!

1.  Breastfeeding - It hurt more than I thought it would at first, and it is frustrating being constantly tethered to her.

2.  Everything takes longer - There is no easy running to the grocery store anymore!  Everything takes time.  If we want to go out, we usually have to make sure she has eaten first, and then changed, and in her car seat, and then she is probably screaming, and we have to make sure we have everything we need in her diaper bag, and then I have to make sure I am presentable (as usually, I am not).

3.  Using the washroom and taking a shower is much harder - It isn't too bad when Dave is around, but when he isn't around it is ridiculously hard to use the washroom or take a shower!

4.  Being peed and pooped on, especially in the middle of the night - It is the most frustrating thing to be awake in the middle of the night and then be peed and pooped on while trying to change a diaper and have her gett pee and poop all over everything.  It makes me want to cry.

5.  Having Ella spit everything up after I just fed her - This kind of relates to number one.  This is especially frustrating in the middle of the night.  It means we have to start back at square one.

6.  Breastfeeding between 2 and 5 am - I can handle before 2, and after 6.  But between 2 and 5, I am literally exhausted and it is hard to stay awake.  This is obviously also related to #1.

7.  Not being as productive - I love holding my little baby girl.  But sometimes it is hard when I am holding her and all I can see is a room that looks like a tornado went through it, and I can't get up to clean it up.

8.  Feeling useless - I know in my head that taking care of a baby is useful.  But not doing other things for the world makes me feel useless.

9.  Loneliness - Staying at home all day is hard.  Especially with a child who can't talk to me.

10.  The Screaming - It breaks my heart.  And it also gives me headaches.

What about you?  Do you have children?  What did you find hardest about being a new mother or father?  If you don't have children, what do you think will be hardest for you if/when you do have kids?

The Future I Hope For

Note: I realize that I recently wrote a post entitled "Thinner Thursday...(or not)".  In that post I talked about a pregnancy woe about feeling negative about my body.  In this post, I will be talking about another pregnancy woe.  Please do not get me wrong, I am very excited to have this baby, I believe that God has blessed Dave and I with him/her.  Despite the excitement, however, there has been some anxiety and I will be talking about more of that in this post.  I already love our child though, and would not give him/her up for anything.

Lately I've been feeling pretty confused.  You see, I had big plans for my life.  Plans that involved having children and having a family, but a little later on.  As much as I would talk about how much I wanted to have a baby, I wanted to get my Masters degree and get into a career before moving onto the family step.  I wanted to be someone first.

I worked hard in University so I could get good grades so that I could (hopefully) get into good post-graduate programs.  I wanted to be employable, I wanted to be wanted, I wanted to be a changemaker, and to be honest - I wanted to be written about in someone's history book.  And I had worked hard in school and with volunteer opportunities to make sure that would happen.

Now, I am pregnant, live in a tiny little basement apartment with a husband who loves his job and has lots of lateral movement opportunities, but for the time being, doesn't make a lot of money.  And I am unemployed.  I feel like a big failure.

And I feel like I won't ever succeed at my dreams of being someone (it doesn't help that I don't really know what I truly am passionate about, or what field I want to be in for the rest of my life).  I know that being a mother is a great calling, and again, I feel I am so blessed to have the opportunity to have this child (I know there are many women who can only dream of having this opportunity), but part of me feels like this is it for me.  I am a 22 year old who feels like life has come to an end (employment wise at least).

I know that I can still get a job despite being a mother, and I could still do something with my life, I just don't know if I could be the mother I want to be, and the employee I would want to be at the same time.

So here's to trusting that the big man upstairs knows what he is doing with me.  I have mentioned it before but this passage has been of great comfort to me recently, and I turn to it again to give me hope that God hasn't called me to be a nobody.

I know what I'm doing.  I have it all planned out - plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for.