The art of losing myself

Well, I'm starting this post again now for about the 4th time.  I don't know if I'm quite cut out for this blogging thing.  Actually I know I'm not, but I'm doing it more for the sake of remembering.  So here I am and I don't really know what to write.  I don't feel like I have anything interesting to say that will speak to anyone's life, but as the title of my blog states, this is simply about my life.  And it is just that -- simple.  Lately it's been about grace and finding out in new and different ways that God is bigger than myself.  I think in these last few months there has been one remaining theme that keeps coming up.  The song 'From the Inside Out'  -- Joel Houston, has been coming to my mind frequently these days especially one particular line.

"The art of losing myself, in bringing you praise."

The last few months have been just that.  A lesson in the art of losing myself.  People always say that when you get married you have to learn about selflessness.  While that may be true, for me it has been children that have been the real lesson.  I thought that when Adalyn was born, but now that there are two I feel like I have to learn that lesson all over again.  I don't want this post to have a complaining or rant-filled nature, that's not my objective.  I just want to write it the way I see it right now, in this season of my life right now. 

I am learning a bit about living in the strength and grace of God (and coffee?!) in the past few months as we struggle with Rhone's night time sleeping.  He is still waking about every 2-3 hours at night, which means I haven't slept more than 2-3 hrs consecutively for the last 5 months.  There may have been one lucky 5 hr stretch in there, but this is most unusual.  It is a good day when I can have a nap too as Rhone and Adalyn's naps often fall at opposite times.  If anyone would have told me a while ago this is what I would be doing, I wouldn't have thought it possible for me who needs a lot of sleep so badly.  But it is!  With God's grace it is!  It has taught me about relying on Him for every tired moment of the day and night.   It's incredible how you can feel so much intense love for a child, but so much frustration and --forbid me to say it-- anger, at the same time!  I'm so glad love wins every time!

"The art of losing myself in bringing you praise. "

A break on the drive.

Excitement at the hotel

We went on a little trip in May for a family wedding.  This was an adventure for me.  Being a person who under normal circumstances gets stressed in a situation like this, and add to that being tired, this was a big deal.  The trip went SO well.  It was a 9 hr drive there, but we stopped for night 6 hrs in and stayed at a hotel.  It being a new place and having all the excitement and everyone sleeping in the same room Adalyn found it very difficult to get to sleep and so with everything combined none of us really got much sleep that night. 

The next day we packed up and went the rest of the 3 hr drive.  I thought for sure Adalyn would sleep on the way, but she didn't, and so she went napless that day.  Mark was the bestman in the wedding and Adalyn a flower girl, so we had the rehearsal supper and rehearsal a bit later and so it was another late night for the little girly.  I wasn't sure how we would make it through the next day--  wedding day-- where performance and happiness was expected and where I wouldn't have much help with the kiddos.  We were able to stay with friends of Mark's brother, which proved to be a HUGE blessing.  They gave us each our own room which was a million times better than being in a hotel for the night!  Abbie was a big help the morning of the wedding and I don't know what I would have done without her help.   Abbie if you are reading this, I hope you know what a blessing you guys were!

Again I barely slept that night.  Mark didn't either.  Having a coke right before bed wasn't a good idea apparently and Rhone didn't have a great night, so that means I hardly slept.  I wasn't sure how I would survive!  But I did!  It was a long day and I really didn't get to sit and enjoy the extremely yummy meal.  (I only ate about 1/3 of what I had one my plate, my coffee went cold before I even had one sip and my ice-cream cake almost melted before I could eat it), but we made it, and made good, fun memories!

Managed a family picture, though she was done with pictures by this time.

By the end of the evening Adalyn was rolling down the wheel chair ramp in her fancy flower girl dress and hiding under buffet tables.  At that point I didn't care as long as she was happy.  Maybe that's bad parenting, I'll let you be the judge.  :)

'The art of losing myself, in bringing you praise.'


 

















And amazingly some how in the last month, I have managed to read 2 books and am now half way through the 3rd one.  I haven't read a book for a very long time, but now it's become my way of escape.  I needed something that didn't require any energy, that I could do sitting in bed and that didn't involve looking at a screen, computer or tv.  So it may be kind of dumb, but I do believe I've lost some sleep over my books.  It's my 'me' time though and even though I want so desperately to sleep most of the time, I also can't put my book down.  Stupid.

And in the midst of it all, I enjoy my family.  I enjoy every day spent with them.  Though there are many rough moments, in the end I wouldn't have it any other way.  I enjoy losing myself, giving my time and my energy to love them.  They are God's gifts to me.  They are so cute, so funny.  Adalyn is helpful and brings perspective to me.  I love it when she sings the song Mark sings to her at bedtime.  It's a good reminder for me.  'He is able, He is able, I know He is able, I know my Lord is able to carry me through.'  She loves Rhone and Rhone loves her and it's so fun to see them interacting as sister and brother. 

Playing 'It's naptime.  Her idea not mine!

'And now let me read you a story...'

And then the power went out.

No one makes him giggle quite like she can.

First ride at the fair!

The guys are on a plane.  I love her imagination!

We celebrated Adalyn's 3rd birthday last month.  I really wanted to let her know how special and loved and appreciated she was as a person.  I made this sign for her room.  

I know she can't read it now, but some day she will, and I can keep adding to it as she grows and develops.  We had a fun birthday party with our families and she got a bit spoiled.  ooops.  

So yes, I think this art will take more than a lifetime to perfect.  This is what it looks like right now in my life and I know later it might look different, but the results are always the same.  'This is my story, this is my song, praising my Saviour all the day long...'

After trip mess.

Yup.  My house gets messy too.  Most of the time it's like this.  Only if you come over I do a whirlwind clean up.  haha

For the record

Just wanted to write this up for the record book.  A typical night these days. (It's been this way for the past month I might add...)
Between 9:30-11pm.  -- Rhone goes to sleep.  I go to sleep.  Yay!!
1:00 a.m. - Rhone wakes up.  I nurse him.  He falls asleep.
3:00 a.m. - Rhone wakes up.  I nurse him.  He falls asleep.  I fall asleep in the rocking chair.
3:45 a.m. - I wake up realizing I am in the rocking chair.  I put Rhone in his crib and go back to bed.
4:30 a.m. - Rhone wakes up.  I nurse him.  He falls asleep.
6:00 a.m. - Rhone wakes up.  I nurse him.  He falls asleep.
7:15 a.m. - Rhone wakes up.  I am upset.  It really is morning.  Adalyn will be up soon.  Oh dear.  In slight denial, I take Rhone to bed with me despite the fact it will disturb Mark who is still sleeping.  Maybe I can get a few more minutes of sleep myself before really being up for the day. 
And that's how it goes...  Will I ever sleep again?  It's only for a time.... Hopefully.  It feels like an eternity.

In keeping with the thankfulness theme, however, I must continue to remember things aren't all bad.  I am thankful that:
a)  I don't have any trouble falling asleep
b)  Rhone always goes back to sleep
c)  Adalyn sleeps perfect at night
d)  Mark is around to help me during the day

Sister's visit and a Rhone update

Ahhh... it's quiet and I am alone.  The birds are singing outside the window and the room that I am in is quite tidy, thanks to my marvelous husband!  The kitchen is clean, the dishes are done.  Doesn't seem that this happens very often anymore, and it feels SO good!!  Life in this house has felt like a bit of a chaotic mess lately.  Not that it is exactly, but 'feel' is the key word.  Adding Rhone to our family has seemed to add a bit of chaos that wasn't there before.  Not in a bad way, but there is not quite as much time to relax, and sometimes it means that I have about 5 things started and nothing done.  I hate that.  I love for things to be very orderly and organized and all to be done in their turn.  I have always said that I'm not the best at multi-tasking which apparently you have to be an expert at when doing anything with children.  It's been feeling like it takes a huge effort just to get supper on the table.  

It's not even that Rhone demands much attention.  In fact he is a very contented baby, who doesn't require a whole lot.  He even falls asleep for his naps on his own a lot of the time!  I can just wrap him up, pop in his soother, rock him a few minutes and set him down maybe with some music playing or the dishwasher humming and he'll go to sleep on his own.  If he doesn't settle quickly I nurse him to sleep (which I often end of doing sadly.  It's not really the best way to do it, but it's easy :) )  It's just that he's a baby and he needs things.  He's awake more and actually goes for naps now instead of just sleeping and eating all day.  That means I have to stop what I'm doing and get him ready to sleep.  He has to get dressed, have his diaper changed, ect.. He's a baby.   

Adalyn needs things too, most of all my attention.  She likes me to be involved in everything that she is doing.  I feel quite torn a lot of the time between caring for my family physically (providing good meals, a clean space to live and clean clothes) and caring for them emotionally (playing with them ect...)  I try to get Adalyn involved with some of the jobs I'm doing, and sometimes that is fun for her, but I believe that it's important for me to play her games too.  So I try.  And things get messy and left unfinished.  What I don't understand is why this seems so difficult when Mark has still been home!  Oh dear.  What will I do?  Sometimes I feel like an all around failure at everything I'm doing, cause I'm doing so many things at once and not able to give myself fully to one thing.  I'm trusting God will and is making something beautiful out of this unorderly, chaos of our home.  (or so I feel...  :) I'm pretty sure Mark would say otherwise...  this is my feeling at this time.  haha )  So anyway, this quiet and tidiness is so extremley nice!

Yup, so my dear sister has come and gone.  That month went by WAY too fast!  It's been so busy and this week is a bit of a down-to-earth kind of week as we get back into our regular life routine.  Adalyn was getting quite used to going out almost every day.  She was asking every day first thing in the morning, 'where are we going Mommy?'  I've noticed in the last 2 days that she is really starting to settle down again.  She was having a very hard time doing anything by herself and I think it had to do with being busy all the time.  Even children's church which she had no problem with before was a scary venture by herself.  Now that we've been home a few days in a row, she is feeling more secure.  Just this morning she asked me if we were going anywhere and I told her no.  Then I asked her if she wanted to go somewhere and she said 'No mommy.'  She's been quite happy to play with her toys.

We had such a good time with MB though!  At the beginning of her visit we spent a weekend as a family at our church's camp in ON.  It was so nice to be all together and spend some quality time together.  The weather was pretty nice too so we were able to spend some time outside.  

It was fun to be able to do just simple, everyday sort of things with MB while she was visiting.  Just being in the same space as her was a treat.  It was funny to see Adalyn's response to her when we met her at the airport.  It was a bit too bad she was pretty tired and in a bit of a bad mood.  She seemed to not know what to think of MB at first.  The last time MB was here Adalyn had just turned 1 so she doesn't really remember it at all. She's seen and talked to her lots on skype, but she didn't seem to recognize her and I think she was wondering what we were all so excited about.  MB gave her a little monkey keychain and she dropped it immediately like it burnt her hand with a very sour look on her face.  She quickly warmed up to her though!  

We also had a great visit from Mark's brother and his fiance in the last month too, one last visit before they are married in May!

4 months old!

A Rhone update:  It's hard to believe our little Rhone is already 4 months old!  He is such a smiley happy baby and we are enjoying getting to know him!  Lately his favorite thing is his jolly jumper and his baths.  He gets SO happy when we put him in the jolly jumper.  He loves to be upright, whether that's standing on our laps or sitting in his bumbo chair, he's not very content to lie on the floor anymore at least not for too long.  He has mastered the art of rolling over onto his tummy and does this soon after getting laid on his back.  He is ok for a little while like that, but starts to fuss if left for too long.  He's really become quite interested in toys and reaches for them if they're in front of him.  He has also been noticing his feet lately.  He LOVES to munch on his hands, they are his favorite toy right now.  It's quite wet and slobbery most of the time and I was starting to get a bit concerned when I saw how chapped his one finger was getting. 

Well, time is ticking and I should be getting to bed again.  Mark has gone off to play soccer in the city.  A late game -- I think it only starts at 10:30 or something so I won't be waiting up.  Rhone will be waking up hungry soon.  He's awake every 2-3 hrs at night.  Silly boy.  I always nurse him because it's the easiest quickest way to get him back to sleep and get me back to sleep.  I'm pretty sure he doesn't need it at this point.  We'll need to start working on that soon, it'd be nice to sleep a longer stretch again.  Naps for me aren't quite as available as they used to be, but they are still needed unfortunately. 

Family Pictures

 For the first time ever other than weddings we hired a photographer to take pictures of our family.  They turned out so nice!  Here are some of my favorites.  Compliments to June Derksen Photography! 

Rhone and our family of 4!

2 weeks before Rhone was born (38 weeks)

I've been meaning to write something for quite some time now, and now that I'm actually here I'm not sure where to begin!  I started writing a post on Rhone's birth a while ago, but that really seems like the distant past and so much has changed since then!  So I will just say Rhone Mark was born on December 29, 2013 at 8:12 pm after about 14 hrs of pre-labour (contractions 10 min apart or stopping) and 3 hrs of intense labour.  My experience all around was much better than the first, though I won't go into too many little details. I felt so much better physically which I believe contributed to my emotional state being positive as well.

We arrived at the hospital at 5:00 pm had the baby and were home the next morning by 11.  I ended up being moved from the birthing room to a regular room which was actually much more comfortable for sleeping.  There was no place for Mark to sleep so he had to go home for the first night, but that was ok for us.  Home was only 5 min from the hospital and at least one of us had a good sleep which was much better than both of us being exhausted right off the bat!  We had a lot of company again the first few days including our good friends from Ontario the day after he was born!  I feel a bit sad I didn't even get a picture with them!  My Mom and Dad kept Adalyn for a few nights after Rhone was born which gave us a much more relaxing transition into life with a newborn again. 

The first time Adalyn met Rhone!

Watching Adalyn meet Rhone for the first time was so special!  My Mom and Dad brought her over to see him and he was crying when she came.  She was quite shy at first and hung close to her daddy, but warmed up very quickly.  I had a lump in my throat introducing him to her.  He was crying and Adalyn ran to find one of her dolls and said her baby was crying too.  She put her baby up to her shoulder like I was holding Rhone and patted it, just like she saw me doing.  Then she handed her doll to me and made me put it up on my other shoulder like Rhone was doing. She has grown into her role as big sister so well.  The other day on our way home from church Rhone was crying and she chanted in a soft calming voice to him 'We're almost home Rhone, we're almost home!'  She seems quite sensitive to his needs most of the time (unless she is wanting attention for herself, which happens from time to time.... :) )  and always needs to give him a hug and kiss good-night when she goes to sleep.  She seems to have grown up a lot since he was born though maybe it is just my perspective. 

Adalyn changing her baby

Reading a book to Rhone

Our first family picture as a family of 4!

Blessed is the woman with a full lap.  :)

One thing we are both finding a little difficult at this stage in our lives is alone time together.  Rhone doesn't have a set bedtime yet and usually goes to bed around 10 or 11 which is when I want to be going to bed too.  Adalyn and Rhone don't necessarily nap at the same time in the afternoons either.  It seems as though whenever Rhone wakes up then Adalyn goes down for her nap.  I feel much more like a mother at all times and that I don't get much time just alone.  Some people spend too much time alone though and I think I would rather have the first one. 

 We haven't done too much this winter.  I ventured out a few times with Rhone and Adalyn, but Rhone hasn't seemed to enjoy being outside much.  He has a hard time breathing and has scared me a bit when he can't seem to catch his breath and has spit bubbles foaming out of his mouth.  Not sure if this is normal for a little baby in the cold?!  He also hates wearing his hat.  I'm excited for spring time and not having to bundle everyone up!  We did get to take Adalyn out skating for her first time.  She did pretty well considering she's only 2 1/2.  By the end of our time out on the ice she could make it a short distance without holding on to us.  We also managed to take in our towns little family day and took Adalyn and Rhone on a sleigh ride.  

All bundled up for a 1 minute walk down the driveway to get the mail.

Hanging out with cousins after the sleigh ride

Weather's slowly warming up!

 Another very exciting occasion was Auntie Mary Beth's visit!! We've been having lots of fun with her!  More on that to follow hopefully!