We Survived the First Year

We made it! Ellie turned ONE YEAR OLD this week!

A friend from the States called me the other evening on Ellie's birthday to congratulate me for surviving the first year, and I thought, "that's right! I should celebrate! We made it!" By God's grace, everyone is still alive and mostly thriving at the end of Ellie's first year of life. For this, we are extremely grateful.

Looking back on our first year of parenting, here are some thoughts and reflections (in no particular order):

• It actually does get easier! I know we still have many ups and down ahead of us, but I can also say that at the one year mark, life is so much more manageable than it was in the early days. I can finally understand why people manage to have more than one child. Ellie is much more content, easier to care for, more consistent with sleep and a "routine", and a ton of fun!
• Those first few months were the hardest, but they don't last forever. Ellie's first three months of life were really rough for me, both physically and emotionally. I landed back in the hospital for a week when she was 2 weeks old (long long story...) and the post-partum emotions were really difficult for me to manage for awhile. There was a long phase of her life where I was just trying to survive every day and it felt like that phase would last forever. But it didn't. God carried me through and now I understand better that no phase, no matter how difficult, will last forever. It brings new meaning to the phrase, "This too shall pass."
• Everyone's experiences and children are different. With the advent of social media, there are a myriad of ways and opportunities to compare your child to others', especially when you only see the "good stuff". There is so much danger in this and over time, I have learned to accept that every parent and child are different, and this leads to many different parenting decisions. Unless a decision is unbiblical, it is not wrong if it works for that family and that child. Now that I have experienced this firsthand, I am much slower to judge. And I am constantly reminding myself that every parent has difficult moments, no matter how angelic their children seem.
• Every child develops at a different pace! This is very obvious with Ellie and it's pretty
  
  hilarious to me, actually. Apparently, Ellie is following in my footsteps, because she is progressing at a snails' pace just like I did as a baby. At 12 months, she can barely move herself around, cannot crawl, cannot pull up to standing and has no teeth. But I continually remind myself (and am reminded by others) that as long as there are no major developmental concerns, she will be just fine and will get there eventually!
• Parenting is hard on a marriage. I knew this would be true going in, but experiencing it firsthand is something else entirely. Nate and I have really had to work hard to carve out quality time together, and this is difficult when you're so exhausted at the end of the day. Add on top of this increasing ministry responsibilities and living in a foreign culture, and this is quite challenging. It needs to involve a lot of grace, prayer, perseverance and forgiveness.
• Parenting is hard when you're far from family. I love living here and feel very at peace about the fact that God led us here... but I also wish my parents lived down the street. Too bad we can't have both! I know someday we will be able to get a babysitter when Ellie is awake (she's too clingy and just can't handle it yet), but sometimes I dream of a scenario where I could leave her with grandparents every once in awhile. 
• It's true: you do love your children more than anything in the world. Because Ellie's first few months of life were rough, it took me awhile to bond with her and really feel "in love" with her. But those feelings definitely came as I got to see her personality come through and spend real quality time with her. I would gladly give my life for her, and I definitely think she's the coolest, funniest, cutest kid I've ever seen. 
• It was a good idea to get a dog before having a baby. I'm so glad we got through potty training the dog before having a newborn! It was good preparation! And it has been so fun to watch Ellie and Mozzy enjoy each other more and more. I look forward to watching their relationship grow as they both get older.

I could probably keep going, because I'm always learning new things. But suffice to say, the first year was challenging, rewarding and everything in between. Though it wasn't always pretty, we can confidently say God gave us what we needed each day and parenthood has led us to depend on Him in new ways. We have so much to look forward to in year 2!

My First Mother's Day

My first mother's day didn't really turn out as I had envisioned. Nate did a great job by cooking me breakfast and getting me gourmet chocolate (he knows me well), but from there, it went downhill. Nate was sick and needed to rest in bed much of the day. Ellie was protesting taking naps and getting overtired, so I spent the day rocking her to sleep and walking around Vienna in the rain with her in the baby carrier (with a very large umbrella). I had to miss church and was disappointed. It was a day of frustration and tears, rather than laughter and fun celebrating with family.

It's days like today - the nitty gritty of parenthood - that people don't usually post to facebook. On social media, you see everyone's beautiful, happy families and joyful children. You see positive, happy status updates and assume that they have everything together. And the danger with this is the danger of comparison. When I have a difficult day like today, I compare myself to others and wrongfully assume I'm the only mother who is struggling. I assume that everyone else has happy, perfect children who never do anything wrong, and I'm the only one who can't figure out how to get her daughter to sleep.

All this is a lie and Satan uses it to divide and isolate us. We all have struggles in parenthood, like we have struggles in all areas of life. We don't always post them to facebook, but that doesn't mean they're not there. Social media is a great way to stay connected, but it's also a great way to always put your "best foot forward" and avoid being honest and vulnerable about where we are struggling. It's also a great tool to make us feel inferior, as we compare ourselves to the perfect images we see posted.

Mother's Day wasn't what I was hoping it would be, but God used it to remind me that I'm not alone. Everyday has its struggles, some days more than others, but God walks with me through them. And everyone has their struggles; no one is perfect. Perhaps rather than only showing the best parts of our lives, we can all pursue honesty, vulnerability and encouraging one another, sharing in each other's struggles.

"Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ." - Galatians 6:2

Photo credit: GaborfromHungary from morguefile.com

A Shadow of What's To Come

I knew that getting a puppy would be hard work. But what has been a bit of a surprise to me is how similar caring for a puppy is to having a baby. Here are a few similarities we've noticed...

• We get up at all hours of the night to clean up after the puppy when he goes to the bathroom (on his puppy potty) or take him outside
• We are attempting to train the puppy to go to the bathroom outside. This involves taking him out constantly and wondering whether or not he understands what is happening. Potty training is a big part of our life
• When Mozzy takes a nap, I wonder to myself, "hey, what can get done while he's sleeping?"
• We bought him a bunch of cute toys, but all he really wants to play with are paper towel rolls and milk cartons
• We plan our outings around the dog, since we can only be out for a certain amount of hours
• He goes through regular waking, eating and sleeping cycles throughout the day. When he's awake, he often needs attention and to be entertained
• When we take him for walks, we get stopped by many people oo-ing and ahhing about how cute he is
• We speak to him in the same voice we use for most small children
• He's absolutely adorable. But I suppose everyone thinks that of their own "children"

More than one person has commented on how having a puppy is good practice for us as we prepare for our baby girl to arrive in January. And yes, it's a bit like a warm up. But honestly, we know this stage is only a shadow of what's to come. We may be practicing now, but anyone with kids knows that you can't really know what it's like to have a baby until it happens to you. It is much more intense than anything we've experienced before. Mozzy is a wonderful part of our family, but we will love our child more deeply than we can now imagine. And we know that having a baby will be much more work and much less sleep.

This is perhaps a stretch, but thinking about this comparison led me to think about the difference between talking about eternity with God and actually experiencing it. During our physical life on earth, we catch glimpses of eternity - we experience God's grace and mercy, we reflect God's love in our actions towards others, and we read about eternity in scriptures. But we know that our experience here and the words we read are only a glimpse of the magnificence of what's to come. Our imagination cannot even fathom what God has planned for us. As it says in I Corinthians 13:12:

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

Our perspective of parenthood now is dim. But soon we will know fully. Our experience of eternity with God is dim, but soon we will know the blessing fully!