I’m Back… Sort of

Musings on Life and Beauty

After giving myself a day to sit, hold my baby, ponder life and growth and so forth, I had to give myself a reality check.  So yesterday I attempted to take care of some of the “normal” responsibilities of a mother which I’ve ignored shamelessly for two weeks.

I put on a pair of jeans (non maternity) for the first time in about 4 months.

I got reacquainted with my laundry room.
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I actually did some laundry (which I forgot about and left sitting in the washer for about 6 hours)!  But hey, at least I did some, right?
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I put a frozen lasagna in the oven that was made by a friend while I was in the hospital… and decided to bake some homemade rolls for dinner, as that sounded easier than actually loading 4 little ones up and going to the store.

When I got to the part where you roll out the dough and make the rolls, my newborn started screaming.
I panicked, and made one pan of the ugliest rolls I’ve ever made.  I put the other three in bread pans as fast as I could.
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As soon as I had the dough off my fingers, she quit screaming.

I drove my daughter to soccer practice and intended to feed the baby while I waited.  Except it was so hot that I couldn’t wake her up!

I got home and the lasagna wasn’t done yet, and my husband had to leave for a meeting.  Oh well, I tried.  The lasagna was delicious, even if my poor husband wasn’t there to eat it.

Even if the rolls were ugly, they tasted good, especially with some of my homemade blackberry raspberry jam on them.
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I got on the phone and worked on organizing a carpool for my 5th child who started kindergarten this morning.
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So right now I have 4 piles of clean, unfolded laundry in my bedroom, a totally dirty kitchen, a clingy 20 month old, lots of ideas about things I’d like to do for our family to help organize us for this newly begun school year, and plenty of good intentions.  We won’t look at the piles of dirty laundry in all the bedrooms, and we won’t talk about how long it seems to take to do things when you’ve got a newborn.  We’re working on it!  I do have one positive declaration to make about yesterday:  I didn’t cry once!  (We won’t talk about how we’re doing on that one this morning)

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Time

Musings on Life and Beauty

My baby is two weeks old.
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I should be doing the dishes.  Instead, I’m sitting on my couch in my pajamas while my toddlers play upstairs and I hold my sleeping baby on my lap.  I sit here, basking in the sounds of a quiet house (more rare than you might think) and wondering at the passing of time.  One the one hand, I feel like celebrating that we’ve made it through the first two weeks of life!  In many ways that is no small accomplishment, although we may take it for granted.  On the other hand, I wonder how it’s gone so quickly and if there was more I should have noticed and appreciated.  It’s certainly been the busiest first two weeks of life that I’ve ever experienced.
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I remember the words of a Christmas carol:  “how do you write down a baby’s first cry?”

I’ve been pondering that these past two weeks as I’ve tried to drink in the wonders of my newborn.  More than once, as I’ve held her, my silent prayer has been  “Please, help me to never forget what this feels like!”  How DO you write it down?  How DOES a photo capture the feeling of having a tiny little body fill your whole vision?  How CAN you memorize the moment and hold it a little longer?
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Of course I think all these thoughts while I also learn to take care of the baby, myself, and the rest of my family.  Thank goodness for my Mom’s help in the first week, or we’d be in terrible shape.  We’ve had 5 soccer seasons start, and are trying to figure out a back to school routine that will work.  I’ve got a 7th grader, 5th grader, 3rd grader, 1st grader and kindergartener.  Some of those are really big years!   I don’t want to miss anything about them.  Neither do I want to miss the antics of my three year old or the light-speed growth of my 20 month old.
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I also don’t want miss the tiny fingers that curl around mine, the little lips that open so sweetly and remind me of a baby bird waiting for a worm, the feeling of a tiny bundle snuggled against my chest and the whisper of her sweet breath as she sleeps peacefully.  I don’t want to forget it, either.  I want to find some way to bottle it, to preserve it so I can experience it later when she’s grown and I want to turn back time.  If only there was some way to do that!
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I remember  reading the words of Neal A. Maxwell years ago.  He was writing about how we are always wanting to fast forward to the future or hold back the tide, neither of which is really possible.  He said, “We are not at home in time.  We belong to eternity.”
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Today I don’t feel at all at home in time, but I’m trying to appreciate what I have before me right now.  And I’m thankful, so thankful, that this little one is part of my eternity, even if we will all do a lot of changing along the way.

Jennifer

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Almost not the baby

Musings on Life and Beauty

I took these pictures the day before my 8th baby was born.
My 7th is only 20 months old.

I think she knew what was coming, and needed a day to be the baby.
I held her a lot, we snuggled, and she fell asleep in my arms at naptime.

It was good for both of us.
While she was sleeping, I snapped a few pictures of her, dirty face and all.
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I love her beautiful, dark eyelashes and sweet pink lips.
She is really still quite small.
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She still has pudgy little baby hands and sweet little feet.
Sure, the pitter patter of her run is much grown compared to the tiny footprint she came with.
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Her vocabulary grows daily, and she yearns to be part of everything the big kids do, but she is only around 20 pounds of sweet, cuddly, baby girl.
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Although she moves daily in the direction of a busy toddler, I had to pause and remember that if I wasn’t having another one, she would be such a baby to me.

The baby, and yet almost not the baby anymore.
The baby who would become a big sister the next day.
Moments like these are good for me as a mother.  They remind me how much love and tenderness all my children need, no matter how old they are, no matter how many younger brothers and sisters they have.
They remind me that love and tenderness are good for all of us, no matter how old we may get.
Thank goodness for babies!

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