Enjoying it

So, I should have mentioned this earlier, but I'm actually not at The Hundred this weekend after all (in case that wasn't obvious from my Instagram photos). With my career change, things are a little tighter financially than they were a few months ago, and after adding everything up we realized it really wasn't practical for me to go right now. On top of that, a close family friend was getting married in Chicago this weekend (p.s. Hi Michelle from CT who I saw at the wedding!), so that sealed the deal and I sold my ticket. But I'm absolutely loving all the photos and posts from the event, and I definitely hope to go next year!

It's currently 2:45 am and you would think that the reason I'm writing in the middle of the night is because the baby woke me up, but actually, the baby has been sleeping innocently for the past three hours. I actually wish he would wake up so I would have an excuse to be awake and someone to hang out with. Instead I just have a random bout of insomnia (don't you love those??). So I lay in bed trying to fall asleep for a while, and finally gave up and decided to go blog.

I've been thinking lately a lot about motherhood lately (no duh, Tess, you're thinking). It's kind of a funny experience being a first-time mom while also being the oldest in a big family. On the one hand, I'm incredibly calm about things like letting people hold the baby and taking him to all kinds of events. That child has been to at least eight happy hours and he's barely three months old. But on the other hand, I totally do some classic new-mom things like checking to make sure he's breathing every two minutes. Before he was born, I swore up and down that I would be the most laid-back and calm first-time mom ever, but now I actually like being a little bit of a worrywart since I know all moms are that way with their first and it's fun to look back later on and laugh about how uptight you used to be.

Last week my grandma called me and asked how everything was going. After filling her in on all the latest Barber happenings, I paused to assess everything I'd just said. "Honestly, Grandma, I'm really happy," I said. "There isn't a single area of my life I would change." She laughed and said, "I think that's more a product of your temperament than your circumstances, because I don't think I've ever felt that there was nothing about my life I would change." I mean, yes, I am pretty easy to please, but I think the main reason I feel that way is because I'm finally doing what I've always wanted to do, and always felt called to do.

Whenever someone asks me (and they do a lot!), "So how do you like being a mom?" or "What's it like being a mom so far?", I always have the same answer: "I know this is my vocation. I feel called to being a mom, and I love it." It reminds me of when I worked as a book editor. That job was tough and I worked long hours and I often got tired of it, but I felt that I was doing what I was called to do, and I loved the job even when I didn't like it. I feel the same way about motherhood, but it's even more fulfilling than that job was, and I have a feeling it will only become more so as time goes on.

We were at a happy hour Friday night when one of my friends said, "Tess, you seem to really enjoy being a mom. You just seem so joyful about it." That meant so much to me because that's exactly how I feel. I really do enjoy it, even more than I thought I would. If there's one thing I want people to know about me and motherhood, it's that this vocation brings me so much joy. It's seriously the best.

The new mom secret

There's a book I recently finished that I just love. It's called The Girlfriends' Guide to Surviving the First Year of Motherhood. Frank picked it up for me at a garage sale when I was pregnant, along with its prequel, The Girlfriends' Guide to Pregnancy.

I thought the pregnancy one was a little over-the-top, but the First Year of Motherhood one was right on the money. In particular, I keep thinking about this excerpt from Chapter Five:

There are three types of new mothers:

1. The type who give birth and resume their lives with confidence, clear thinking and enthusiasm;
2. The kind who give birth and wish that a fairy godmother would make the baby disappear and restore them to their former life; and
3. The rest of us.

The author then goes on to say that most women have moments when they are in the first group and moments when they are in the second. After all, she says, "how can you experience a metamorphosis from personhood to motherhood without some ambivalence, apprehension or anxiety?"

This strikes me as incredibly wise, and I was so glad to read this because it made me feel normal during those first few weeks, when I found myself crying a lot and struggling to adjust to caring for a baby who seemed like a "bundle of needs." And this is me—the girl who dreamed about being a mother since she knew what a mother was! When I was in high school, we had a "career day" where we were supposed to dress like what we wanted to be when we grew up, and I carried around a baby doll to symbolize being a stay-at-home mom (I actually wasn't the only girl in the class who did that—which tells you a lot about my high school!). The point is, I wanted to be a mom more than anything, and yet I still had a rough adjustment. I think this "secret" is so important to talk about. Crying a lot, feeling overwhelmed, taking some time to even like being a mom—this is all NORMAL. Every new mom I've met has felt this way at some point. Many feel like they can't talk about it, because there is this idea that motherhood is just straight-up bliss, but that fourth trimester adjustment, the longest shortest time, is real. I think every new mom should know that she's not a weirdo for being an emotional mess at some point those first few weeks.

Now, that being said, there is a really important corollary to that. At some point, your hormones even out and being a mom just "clicks." At some point you begin to really love, and I mean LOVE, being a mom. It happens at a different point for every woman. For me, it happened when my baby was a month old and started to smile at me on purpose. Instead of screaming every time I changed his diaper, he started smiling and giggling, like he was saying, "Thanks, Mom!" It's so darn cute. Also, he can recognize his parents' voices now; these past few weeks, when he hears Frank's voice for the first time in the evenings, the little one will start laughing and kicking his little feet in excitement. Again, cutest thing you can imagine.

Trying to see what Dad is watching on the TV (probably baseball)

At 8 weeks in, I can honestly say I LOVE being a mom. It's even better than I imagined in all the years that I dreamed of being one. I could seriously go on and on about how much fun it is. Yes, FUN. Babies are absolutely hilarious, and I spend all day laughing at the adorable, funny things my little guy does, like making goofy faces when he's being burped or laughing in his sleep or trying to latch on with his eyes closed. Having a baby has also been amazing for our marriage; it has really bonded Frank and me closer together, as we both enjoy our little one so much and have fun together talking to him, playing with him and trying to make him laugh. I honestly wouldn't have believed the awesome effect a baby has on a relationship if I hadn't experienced it myself. Even the parts of being a mom that are stereotypically "hard" are actually awesome. For example, those 3 am feedings that keep you up at night? They are such a cozy, intimate time to snuggle with your baby, and I honestly enjoy them! I'll stop there, since I'm pretty sure no one wants to read a blog of just my gushing over my baby, but the point is that despite a rocky start, I find myself thinking at least 10 times a day, "I love being a mom."

So if there is anything I would tell a friend who is about to have a baby, it's this: don't be surprised if you don't love being a mom right away. Almost everyone feels that way. And don't worry—for most people, that feeling will go away sooner or later—and before you know it, being a mom will be even more awesome than you ever imagined.

Inch by inch, row by row

Frank loves gardening, and as this is his first summer without law classes to take or a bar exam to study for, he is taking advantage of his (relative) leisure time to grow a garden on our patio.

He has an herb garden, three kinds of lettuce, three kinds of tomato, three kinds of mint (I'd never even heard of chocolate mint before!), and two kinds of pepper plants. It's an impressive garden for our glorified fire escape of a patio! We're already reaping some of the results in fresh herbs and salad greens.

Unlike Frank, I have what some call a "brown thumb." Despite many attempts over the years, I've never managed to keep a plant alive, much less a whole garden. There is just something about patience and routine and building the habits necessary to grow plants that is a struggle for me.

Frank works on his gardens in the evenings after work, and often I carry Frankie out to the porch and we join Frank while he works. The baby is hungry more often then not, so I sit and nurse him while Frank plants and waters. Our evenings on the patio are some of our happiest times as a family.

Motherhood is all about patience, I'm beginning to find, especially when it comes to nursing. Frankie likes to eat for at least six hours a day, and it is HARD for this energetic extrovert to spend that much time sitting quietly in a chair (of course I have books and movies and my iPhone to distract me, but still!).

Last week I met with a family friend who is a lactation consultant, and she told me that breastfeeding is so difficult in our rushed modern world because it forces mothers to pause everything and simply be—simply rest, sit quietly, think, and cuddle the baby. I could relate to that! Each day of nursing him requires a little more patience with myself and all the tasks I can't do, a little more building of quiet and peaceful habits.

As I sat on the patio nursing Frankie the other night, it occurred to me that my work nursing the baby and Frank's work nurturing his garden are not that far off from each other. Both require patience and thoughtfulness and at least a little bit of effort every day—but both reap such wonderful rewards. He is growing food for us and I am growing a little person who always will be (already is!) our pride and joy.

I thought about a song we used to sing when we were children: "Inch by inch, row by row, gonna make this garden grow. All it takes is a rake and a hoe and a piece of fertile ground." That's gardening in a nutshell, but it's mothering too. Inch by inch, little by little, with progress that is barely visible day to day, you work to grow something beautiful.

Maybe there is hope for this brown-thumbed girl after all.

Raising a boy

In college I used to say that the highest compliment I could give a man was to call him a "gentleman," yet I think at the time I didn't even realize how much weight that word really carried.

Lately the news has been full of stories about the problems with men today. There seems to be this culture of violence and entitlement that contains terrible temptations at every turn.

Actually, it's not just lately. It seems like all my life I've read articles and seen books about how schools are failing boys, how television and video games are desensitizing boys to violence, how the internet brings poisonous websites just a click away.

I'd heard about all those things for years, but none of it really sank in until now, when I suddenly found myself with a little boy to raise—a sweet, innocent, incomprehensibly beautiful little boy, whose mind and soul and moral formation are under my protection for the next 18 or so years.

It feels a little overwhelming when I think about raising a son in today's world—although who am I kidding, it's never been easy to raise a child of either sex at any stage in world history. But something about the culture we live in now has me especially concerned about shepherding my boy's future.

When I think about him growing up, I realize that what I want my son to know is the importance of being gentle. Any jerk can bully his way through life, but it takes a good man to practice courtesy and empathy and compassion—to fight for the vulnerable and lend strength to the weak.

The world we live in makes it harder than ever for a man to be gentle. Yet against a host of cultural pressures, that is the goal his father and I have in view. We want to raise our son to be, literally, a gentleman—with all that word implies.

Nursing

Just a quick thought...

Nursing is going really well for us, in that I've been able to nurse Frankie since he was born and he's gaining weight well and that is his only source of nutrition, but MAN is it painful. It is incredible to me that the human species has survived thus far predicated on the notion that babies will survive their early months via just breastfeeding. No wonder wet nurses used to be so popular!! I'm holding out hope that it will magically stop hurting after a month, or six weeks, as so many more experienced moms have told me.

One thing comes to my mind every time he nurses. I've been trying to offer up the pain of each latch-on for some special intention (got an intention? Let me know!). Each time I think of Our Lord's words: "Take and eat. This is my body, given up for you." Those words take on a whole new meeting when you are a nursing mom! It hurts so much, but I'm grateful to be able to offer that gift to my baby. And I think this experience has helped me understand better what Christ meant with those words. Now every time we go to Mass, I tear up during the Consecration; there is just so much more meaning there.

If this all sounds like crazy ramblings to you... chalk it up to my sleep deprivation and overlook it, wouldya? Thanks.

:)

Velveteen mom

Parenting a newborn is so hard. Well, that's probably the understatement of the year!

I knew it wouldn't be easy, but these first few weeks have been even harder than I expected. People warn you about the sleepless nights, but there are so many other challenges that no one can prepare you for. Frankie, for example, screams his head off every time we change his diaper or his outfit, so Frank and I dread diaper changes way more than we should for a newborn, because we don't want to feel like we're torturing our son. Or there's the way this little one eats - constantly. I think there is a picture of Frankie next to the word "insatiable" in the dictionary. So I spend at least half my day with a little one glued to my chest, and I feel so very unproductive thinking of all the things I'm not getting done. On the plus side, I've learned how to do all kinds of impressive things while breastfeeding, like standing, walking and sitting at the table to eat dinner. Desperate times call for desperate measures!

I've concluded that being postpartum is like being constantly tipsy, in that everything seems to take way more mental effort than it should. It feels like such a huge accomplishment to do something as simple as showering and then tackling last night's dishes. Yesterday I managed to finish and order a photo book journal I'd been working on throughout the pregnancy, and I practically felt like I deserved a medal for having the mental energy and perseverance to get that done and ordered in one day! Meanwhile blogging seems so daunting, because stringing together words into a coherent thought (much less a whole post!) is not my strong suit right now.

But through it all, that kid is so darn cute and lovable. It is hard, really hard, to spend all your time caring for a little person who doesn't respond or acknowledge your efforts. Sometimes, when I'm tired and annoyed, I begin to think that he is just a bundle of needs and crying. But then he stops crying the second I snuggle him into my chest, and I remember that he knows my smell, and my voice, and heartbeat, and in his little world I am the safest place he knows. The privilege and honor of being that to someone is more than I can quite comprehend. It takes my breath away and makes me give thanks, again and again, for this tiny beautiful child God has blessed us with.

One particularly hard day, the first week Frankie was home, I broke down in tears when my mom was over. "How do women do this??" I sobbed. "I'm so tired of nursing all the time and not sleeping! How does anyone have a second child? Or more??" My mom, who raised seven of us, smiled at my dramatics and assured me it would get easier. Then she said, "you see, honey, in a way, all mothers are saints." I've thought a lot about that. Isn't it true? In being mothers, we find ourselves tapping into deep wells of selflessness and patience and sacrifice that we never knew we had. In doing so we burn away the self-centered parts of ourselves and, like the rabbit in the tale, become Real. The crazy part is that I'm thinking this after less than three weeks of motherhood - I can't imagine how much greater are the reserves of patience and fortitude that older mothers and mothers of more children have. I know I'm just on the first leg of this lifelong journey.

Well, my little needlet is hungry, so I'm off again. I'll try to write again sooner!

The policy of adaptive response

When Frank and I drove to New Jersey over the holidays to visit his family, we took advantage of our time in the car to talk over some big topics for the future. You guys know how much I love those introspective, life-lesson-filled conversations, and Frank is a good sport and puts up with it when I come along on road trips with lists like this one.

We talked over how we might handle things like childcare and discipline and our kids' education. To each of these topics, I found myself coming to a similar conclusion:

"Well, I guess we'll have to see what things are like when we get there, and decide on a child-by-child basis."

Finally Frank said, "So basically, our plan is to make it up as we go along?"

"No no," I said. "That sounds terrible. We can't say we're just going to make it up as we go along. What kind of parenting philosophy is that?"

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that's kind of what we plan to do. We are interested in a lot of parenting strategies, everything from Montessori education to using cloth diapers. But we can't say for sure that we're going to do any of those things until we get there, since we don't yet know our baby's personality or what twists and turns our lives might take.

"I have a better idea," I said after thinking it over. "We're going to practice a policy of adaptive response."

"A what?"

"We'll respond to each situation as it arises, and if something doesn't work, we'll change our response and try something else," I said.

Frank laughed. "Trust you to come up with a really fancy name for something so simple. Ok, we can do it. We can say our parenting policy is 'adaptive response.'"

I couldn't stop grinning. What a perfect way to describe "making it up as we go along."

So now Frank and I have our official, fancy-sounding plan. Do you (or your parents) have an official parenting philosophy? Would you say you follow the "adaptive response" strategy too?

7 Quick Takes: Favorite Parenting Articles

I forward articles to Frank almost constantly on parenting, families, education, and all those other topics I love. I thought it would be a good idea to round up a few of them here so I remember them for later!

At church on Christmas Eve. We have no clue what we are getting ourselves in for when this baby comes...

1. Design Mom rounded up some thought-provoking advice in a post called I wish someone had told me.... My favorite words of wisdom, especially given our coming addition:

"I wish I had known newborns aren’t newborns for a year. I wish someone had told me that period only lasts six weeks max. I wish I had gotten that through my head the first time round and just sat down, cuddled, and pressed my cheek to the top of their fuzzy heads more..."

2. I loved this recent article from the fabulous Kathryn called Applying to Catholic School? 10 Questions Every Parent Should Ask. The questions are so thoughtful, especially her emphasis on exposing kids to religious vocations!

3. Frank forwarded Your first 90 days as a father to me and it was great. Well done, Esquire! (Note: the sidebar on the Esquire website may contain inappropriate images. Click through with caution.)

4.  Anthony Esolen has done it again with a great piece called How Common Core devalues great literature.

5. I was thrilled to see that Auntie Leila is publishing a book on building a life of prayer in families. I can't wait to get my hands on a copy!

6. My new favorite parenting article is called How I made sure all 12 of my kids could pay for college themselves. This attitude stands in direct contrast to our modern culture of entitlement. I don't know that this method of child-rearing is exactly replicable, but it is fascinating.

7. Just for laughs... I'm obsessed with Why my kid is crying. Cracks me up every time.

What are your favorite articles on parenting?



And a bonus article on faith in families...

Jen linked to Hiding Eggs and Finding Faith this week and I loved it.


That's all for now, folks. Thank you Jen for hosting!