Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Six weeks!


My sweet little baby number six is six weeks old today! Oh, could I be any more in love?


I'm so glad someone told me many years ago, that those first six weeks are a blur and that it's hard to mess things up too badly. I was advised that at that point, it is more of a beginning time for starting good habits with the baby, and that the goal for the first six weeks is to just survive. That is a big relief to any new mother who is stressing about "doing things right".


I actually usually write off the first three months, myself. Until Janie, all of my babies have had pretty bad colic for the first three months. So, by this time, I have come to expect life to revolve around caring for a newborn for three months, and letting a lot of other seemingly important things slide. OK. I also let a lot of important things slide. I'll admit it.


Janie doesn't have colic. That's just a miracle that I'm still trying to even comprehend! So, I'm quite excited about being able to establish a new six-kid schedule sooner than I had anticipated. The kids are doing school again... at least about 80% of what I would like them to be doing. Yay for checkmarks on those daily schoolwork checklists! It's good to see those again. And since it's really the beginning of a new school year, they are MOSTLY excited and motivated to be studying again.

Besides schoolwork, I'm anxious to get 3 square meals a day going! In anticipation of a new baby, I bought a pantry full of things that the kids could fix for themselves. So, there's been a lot of spaghettios and macaroni and cheese eating going on around here. That's a far cry from our Maker's Diet days! Sydney did learn how to make healthy homemade mac'n cheese when we ran out of boxed. Kurt has been making his own extremely low-calorie meals since Janie was born, which is when he started his diet. We have benefited from some of his cooking, but he's on a different schedule than us, so many times he's offered us great healthy stuff but we had already eaten.

So, now that we have made it to the six week mark, and life is starting to feel a little more like normal, or at least our new normal, I am adding two more tasks to my days besides mothering a newborn. 1.) schoolwork and 2.) feeding my children vegetables. Any other moms out there have such high aspirations as me? Ha ha!

I actually have my own school work to do this year, too. So, I've got papers to write in all my "spare time"... good one, huh? I'm finishing up my degree, finally. Thankfully, I'm able to do almost all of it from home, and Kurt and the kids are very supportive, so they don't mind pitching in and helping with things so I can have some computer time.

Well, this post was supposed to be an encouragement to moms everywhere who have newborns. I know so many right now who have brand new babies in their homes! But instead it became more of an update of my life. Sorry! I really do want to encourage moms with tiny ones that even though it's a tiring and trying time, it is only temporary. Life moves so quickly, and it's alright to extend some grace to ourselves. This is a precious time, and it's quite alright to take things slowly, lower expectations for a little while, and drink in this moment that will someday be a memory...

5 comments:

  1. Speaking of vegetables, I'm making carrot juice once a week now. Kevin and Bob like it real well. I just drink it. I figured that was a small thing we could do to better our health.

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  2. Regardless of how much you think you aren't doing, you WOW me! AND finishing up school, with a newborn!? THAT I can't believe!

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  3. Carrot juice...now that's something I've never done. You go girl!

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  4. Don't give me the big-head Andrea! You are way too kind!

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  5. I've been making it on Monday's and I make enough for a couple of days. It's a big mess and you have to clean it up right away or it will stain but I believe it's very beneficial for our health. I add apples sometimes too.
    You can add any vegetables you want. Our horse comes running when she sees something orange in the container!

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