Nash gettin' chatty

~once upon a time i slept 8 hrs straight~

I have come out of the daze of those first few weeks of motherhood! Nash is asleep right now, alone, in his bassinette, something he HATED doing those first weeks when I thot I would never sleep again nor ever shower or brush my teeth, much less wash my hair. Praise God he's out of that newborn state of eating every 2 hours! (24 hrs in a day, divided by 2, equals 12 feedings!)

In one week exactly I return to work and that will bring about a new transition that I'm not looking forward to. But hey, I survived 12 hours of labor, 40 minutes of pushing, and those awful baby blues! I can do anything! One thing I've learned is to respect mommies more. Not that I didn't beforehand, but oh boy, it ain't just changing diapers let me tell you.

I have many good memories of the last 10weeks, as well as bad memories. But the good surpass the bad! I told Nash today that he's way more fun now than when he was a newborn. He smiled. Something he's been doing for a couple of weeks now and which melts my heart! When I wake up to feed him at 3am (his only night feeding by the way, yay!), and I'm stumbling across the house towards his hungry whimper to change his pee-pee diaper before I nurse, I really wish during those moments that MEN (a.k.a. my husband) could also nurse babies! But when I enter his room and I see him smiling at me, happy that I bring the early breakfast, there's no better feeling in the world! The next best feeling is when I put him back down 20 minutes later and I crawl back into my bed and I know I can sleep 3 more hours until the sun rises! He squirms around in his crib cuz he knows I laid him down, but oh joy, I've labeled those "sleepy noises", and he soothes himself back to sleep.

*interruption of the program*: my husband just came in the living room, saw me blogging, his jaw dropped and almost dropped his coffee, too.

One thing I've learned from being a new mom, is about God's love. I knew God would teach me something (MORE than ONE thing definitely) in this process, but one word keeps coming back to me: sacrifice. I don't like sacrifice. I used to think I was *sacrificial* in my living. But oh no. I wasn't. Several nights Rob would bring the crying baby to me, hungry, and I was so utterly exhausted from sleep deprivation that I would just stay in my bed crying thinking I had just laid down 20 mins before to try to sleep! Rob would say, "Ines, he's hungry! He's alive because of you!" My flesh did not want to get up. Can you believe me? I couldn't! I had these "romantic" thots of how fun, calm, and non-stressful it would be to nurse a child in the midst of recuperating from delivery and all that jazz, but it was nothing like I imagined. It was sacrificial. And many nights it broke me down and I fell apart at how hard it was. What Rob said resonated in my heart, "he's alive because of you".

I'm so glad God doesn't tire like I do and doesn't stress like I do!

Like a mother, I can come to him when....

I'm hungry, and HE will feed me.

I'm thirsty, and HE will give me living water.

I'm sad, and HE will hold me tight in His chest and rock me.

I'm crying, and HE wipes away my tears and consoles me.

I'm poopy, yes, pooped in my diaper (made a mess in my life), and will wipe me clean!

I'm happy, HE rejoices over me with singing!

What a wonderful Savior! What a wonderful Maker! What extravagant Love!

Nash just woke up from his nap.

~Ines