Introducing Nadia Elise - 5 months later

I've been hesitant to start blogging again, our daily life is rather chaotic these days and time to sit and write and post pictures is hard to come by. And yet I miss this place to jot down thoughts and the happenings of life and I'm going to attempt to start again.  Pick up where I left off and see how it goes.  A lot has happened since my last post, June 27th.  At that time I was pregnant and wondering if God was giving us a boy or a girl.

And now, we have a happy 5 month old daughter.  On July 11, 2013, we welcomed Nadia Elise into our home.  7lbs, 11 oz of joy.  And it was beautiful.  Although it was a scheduled c-section it was my first one that I entered the operating room at peace.  And thankful for doctors and hospitals.  C-sections my friends, are not so pleasant and has taken me years to accept.  I'm in a good place now and Drew and I made the most of it.  I spent a lot of my first weeks simply resting and holding my little girl.   My neighbors had been worried for me, over and over I heard "how are you going to do it, with a c-section and four kids?", and then they witnessed something that to them was rare.  For 8 weeks they saw people coming and going, dropping off meals and picking up kids for playdates.  My Mom was here every day for the first two weeks and after that we had a mothers helper come in two days a week and my Mom continued to pitch in on the off days. Mobility is something you lose after a c-section and its a huge deal when you can finally walk to the park with your children on your own!  Thankfully, our friends have a daughter who's in highschool and she was a huge help, walking kids to the park, chasing after them outside and helping with lifting laundry baskets and so much more.  The older kids pitched in and though it may not have been a summer of beaches and splash pads it was a summer that as a family we had to work together for mom and baby.  And it was beautiful.

And because of all this help I was able to recovery, with no complications.  And blessed to be reminded of what a wonderful family and church community we have, one I so often take for granted. My one neighbor said to me "you just don't see that anymore, that is how it used to be".  

And now here we are, 5 months later.  School is in full swing and we've just entered Christmas break, Kaylin is in to grade 1 and Jacob is off to Kindergarten a few days a week.  Baby number 4 is often plopped down in the middle of the chaos, happy and busy trying to add her own noise to the crowd.

And now I present you with some pictures of newborn Nadia (she is 5 months old at the time I post this! later this week I'll post updated pictures but for now, we enjoy the memories of a newborn caught on camera by my good friend Tamsen at  Creative Clicks Photography.  (Tamsen these pictures are beautiful and I'm so thankful for them!).

Back to Life

Hi friends!  I'm happy to say that we've hit the second part of pregnancy and life seems to be getting back together.  As I told hubby on Sunday, "I'm BAAACCCK".  He raised his eyebrows and gave me a we''ll see kinda look.  Life at home has been forced to hit a bit of  standstill the past 10 weeks, and in that time only the necessities of children-raising were being focused on, and the laundry.  And that not quite as effective as normal.  Meaning there was an awful lot of baskets that never even made it back into the drawers folded....

Now that the morning coffee has been brought back into my life and my breakfasts and lunches stay where they ought to, life can more ahead at full steam. I've come to appreciate how energy and food have such an impact on our lives.

The first thing to change was to set the kids right, our conversation yesterday morning went something like this.

Our alarm had yet to go off and I was in the midst of the "it canNOT be morning yet, I just fell asleep, poor me," stage and there were two kids standing beside me.  The third was not, simply because we have yet been brave enough to move that little girl to a big bed.  These days I'm all about confinement:) 

"I'm hungry, I want breakfast, NOW" they demanded.

I jumped out of bed, said "Absolutely NOT, Mommy is BACK and you guys go to your rooms, get dressed and wait patiently for me to call you.  And I will call you when Mommy is ready to have three hungry animals stampede into my kitchen...."

And they did, and it was a very beautiful moment when Drew looked at me and smiled.  He didn't have to say it, I knew....Mommy is back and life will go on as usual.

And the past 10 weeks of life standing-still, we're good with that.  In the big scheme of things its only a short time and it will happen again, post-baby.  The trick is knowing when it has come to and end and knowing when to gear back up and re-appear into this life of motherhood, full steam ahead.

I'll be back later this week, but for now I have a house (and kids and dog) that needs to be put back in order:) 

And now for two pictures, brought to you by iphone.  I'm in love....oh and we're renovating our basement, Drew has a very serious helper who is determined to start work in the near future.

Joy

The weather has been pretty good so we've been able to go to the park, get out of the house and just play.  These are the days when I sit back and watch them and find myself so thankful, so completely overwhelmed in blessings.  

I was at a Christmas social this morning for the women's bible study I attend, to sit and talk with other moms is wonderful.  To come into a home with your hands full of kids and coats, shoes and bags and not be the only one is a blessing.  I get such encouragement from our church, a place where family is such a focus, where children are such blessings.

Sometimes when I'm running my errands the reactions I get for having three close is wonderful.  The small words of encouragement usually come from older couples, ones whose children are long grown-up.  They pat me on the arm and say "I remember those days, cherish them".  Other times, I get looks that aren't so nice, comments of "you must be so busy, how do you cope, are they all yours? do they have the same Dad? (yes - that one came to me when Maddie was about one).

A friend encouraged me once to react to these comments with the words "yes, it can be very busy, but its such blessing".  Kids listen closely, and this response is a good one for them to overhear as well.  The reality is some shopping trips are huge successes, where we stop and count out the apples together or the kids look at the cheeses and tell me which one is the lowest price.  When we play "I spy" in the lineup while waiting.  When we look happy. The other reality is that is not going to always happen, having kids is never picture perfect. My last grocery shopping trip was of me running around, two kids squished in a cart (one crying) and one trailing behind while I grabbed everything I needed and rushed out as fast as I could.  I looked tired, overwhelmed and not so happy.  The kids were fighting and at one point when I was paying for my groceries they started yelling at each other, and I mean YELLING.

The next day was this day, when we ran to the park and I took pictures.  Jacob became a taxi driver and I sat in the play car as he explained the rules of his taxi and he drove me to wherever I wanted to go.  We drove to the zoo, to the ocean and to the mountains.  Kaylin and I were the passengers and I listened as she described what she saw.  And to sit there and listen to the imaginations of your children is a thing of beauty.

To watch them play together, to watch them grow together is sometimes hard to express. Joy, contentment, trust and love all rolled together.

Is life busy?  yes.  Do I get overwhelmed?  absolutely.  Would I change anything? never.

And those negative comments that I sometimes get when I'm out and about?  They are (finally) beginning to not bother me as much.  This is the life that I've been called to, and though outsiders looking in may wonder, I'm learning that its up to me to show them that yes, this task of mothering, of raising children to know Him, it is beautiful, it is a calling and there is joy.  So much joy.

The morning that started over 2x

At one point this morning, long before my coffee was even made, I threw up my hands and shouted "back to your rooms EVERYONE!".  In this house that means exactly that, we all head to our rooms, myself included.  Then quietly one door opens, usually Jacob first for Kaylin is much too cautious, and he says smiling "morning mommy".  Then Kaylin pokes her head out and seeing the coast is clear joins us. 

I've learned that bad days when you have little ones at home, and its raining outside, usually continue on that cycle until it breaks.  And in our case, its me who needs to intentionally get that cycle to stop.  And we start over.  Wipe the slate clean. Think yelling children badly in need of a Kleenex if you need a visual.

And as a Mom I need to be intentional about what I do.  No, not every moment is spent with me entertaining my children, I encourage lots of individual play time.  I like that the kids see me busy with other things, but there are days when my focus, my attention needs to be directed on them.  In our home its the day after a day-care day, after a school day.

And this morning, after start-over #2, it helped.  I made a big show of shutting down the computer and declared the much needed us day.  Which in our house means the stack of library books comes out, we play-doh and colour, we bake cookies.  No phone conversations or computer time and the morning is ours.  By carving out some intentional one on one time the mood is quick to shift.

Today we had two little friends join us and it was fun, loud and chaotic.  The sugar cookie dough was brought to the table and the kids happily stamped their hearts out.  And now they are napping, except Kaylin who is engaging Strawberry Shortcake and Lemon Meringue in a game.  And the computer can make its presence known as I'm in sore need of a break and there is no fighting for my attention.  Its exhausting this intentional mothering.

So, carpe diem, even if that simply means colouring and listening to Steve Green's Hide 'em in your Heart cd.

Time well Spent

I've been quiet over here.  It started with a conversation with a friend, who encouraged me to try doing a 10 things before 10 o'clock challenge (from a book I think?).  I'm a stay at home Mom.  I love it.  But I don't want to be just at home I want to be GOOD at being at home.  Use my time wisely.  Monitor my onscreen time and use the time to teach and train these little ones, show them what it means to glorify God in all that we do.  Accountability for time wasted is important.  I have been saddened lately at how often i go out with the kids, to the park or a library story time and see Moms so busy texting, missing these moments with their kids that are gone so quickly.

And I judge and then I realize that I do the same, not when i'm out with the kids but when i'm at home.  When I ignore them because i'm online looking for ideas for their bedrooms or I have my nose in a book and get disgruntled when I have to get up and parent.  I fear that it is easy to be at home in body.  Much harder to be home and parent.  And so by doing 10 things before 10 o'clock means that my house is tidy, the kids are feed and changed, beds are made and the floors are mopped (or whatever is on your list of 10). And then we have the whole day.  We paint or do a craft and then we have a snack.  We go for a walk, we read stories.  They have their own time to play and I have a bit of time to read or browse on the computer.  I am trying to be careful with my time and to use it wisely.  And my days have been busy.  Full.  

We have painted and I have used the nap times to work with Kaylin.  Together we are working on letters and numbers and I found some computer games online (Scholastic.com has some good educational ones for 4 year olds).  She thrives on the time that is spent together.  They all do.

And the nap time is quickly used up.  Jacob has developed a love of painting, he is a quantity over quality type of painter.  The more paper he fills the better.  Its hard to keep up with him.  The more I do with the kids the more I realize how much more I can be doing.

And just as the days started getting better, a good pattern to our day established, a routine doctors check-up for Maddie confirmed my suspicions of an ear infection.  And sleep has been sporadic.  And Jacob has decided to un-potty train himself.  And i have cleaned-up up 6 pairs of underwear full of something that no mom wants to clean-up in one day.  And this is day three of doing that.  And Maddie has decided that despite the sleepless nights the days are meant for destruction and she moves fast.

And I've learned that you just have to go with it.  And it is a blessing to be home and a blessing to have friends who encourage you to re-evaluate the time you spend.

And slowly we'll start to get back into the schedule that works so well for us.  

Now does anyone know how I can get this almost 3 year old to re-potty train himself???.......